Darshan 7 November 1976

[To a sannyasin, recently-arrived from the West:] These groups are just processes to unburden you a little, because God is not very far away; you just need a weightlessness. All that is needed is wings. He is very close, but everybody is so burdened - rocks upon rocks, and we cherish those rocks as if they are treasures. And underneath those rocks our wings are becoming destroyed and we cannot fly.

Man's destiny is to fly, to ascend as high as possible. Man has not been given wings as far as the body is concerned, but as far as the soul is concerned, he has the greatest wings possible. Man is a spiritual world with great wings which can take him to the farthest end of existence itself.

But then unburdening is needed. And this unburdening has always been the most essential part of all religion. That's what Jesus means when he says, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.' Poor in spirit means those who are unburdened, completely unburdened.

The Eskimos have a very beautiful tradition that every year, every person has to give as a gift to somebody - friend, neighbour, anybody - the thing that he likes most. It is tremendously significant.

Every year, the first day of the year, the Eskimos give gifts to people - but you have to give only that which is your most cherished thing. We also give gifts, but we only give gifts which are useless, which we don't use any more, which are not of any utility. Or somebody may have given those gifts to you; now you don't know what to do with them so you give them to others. Gifts go on moving from one person to another. But Eskimos have a very spiritual tradition. If you know that you will have to give after the year anything that you love very much, you will not gather in the first place, because it is so futile and it is so painful. Eskimos live very unburdened.

And these groups are to take away things which you have forgotten and are cluttering your unconscious. Sometimes they are painful because sometimes the thing that is being taken away,

you may think is very important, very essential to you. It is as if you are losing something precious.

It may be just a coloured stone, but you think it is a kohinoor. It is painful. And by and by we become accustomed so much to things that it seems to lose them we are losing some part of our being.

Once a person has come to a point where nothing is cluttering his soul, then there is no barrier between him and God. Then he is on the wing - and that's all meditation is: to put you on the wing.

Much is going to happen - just cooperate with it, mm? Good!

[To a student from Turkey] .... And there is no need to believe. The only need is to be ready to experiment, that's all. I don't insist for any belief. Just a hypothetical, experimental trust is needed... that one wants to try. There is no need to believe that this is good, right, wrong or that this will help or not. Just see where it leads, what happens. And if you can move with an open mind, it is going to happen.

The old religions insist that first you have to believe, then only will things happen. If first you believe and then things happen, those things are not true. It is your belief that is creating them. If I give you a glass of water and say that it is very sweet, first believe, and then you will see the taste of it. If you really believe, you will create the taste of it - it will be sweet. And if it is not sweet, I can always say that you did not believe; the belief was missing. So it was a very good game - with the old religions it was a very good game. If something happens, good. If nothing happens, you were not a true believer. This is very tricky and cunning.

I have dropped all sorts of beliefs. One simply needs courage - no belief is required. One simply needs readiness to go into different spaces in which you have never been before. I know they are there, but that is my knowing. It has nothing to do with your knowledge or with your belief. You simply move and see. If the space happens, then believe, but then there is no need to say that you believe; the belief comes automatically. When you have known something, there is no need to say, 'believe'; the very knowledge becomes your faith.

So old religions say to believe first; experience comes later on. I say experience first and faith takes its own course. It comes on its own. So do the meditations and do these groups, mm? Good!

[To a sannyasin who had previously written to Osho about his relationship:] This happens in every relationship one day or other - and one has to go through it. When you love a person, unknowingly, unconsciously, you start clinging. Not that you do it; it happens. It is also natural. And when the other person seems to be getting interested in somebody else or something else, you start feeling hurt. And the problem becomes doubled because you know that this is not good. Otherwise there was no problem. You will feel hurt and you will take revenge on [your girlfriend] and you will fight and be nasty to her, and things will go that way. The problem is double, because you understand that this clinging is not good, that this effort to possess is ugly. So your pain is doubled. First the pain when you become afraid that she is taking too much freedom or she is so free. The fear is that she can be happy even without you, and you know you cannot be happy without her so you feel like a loser, left behind.

If only this were the case there would not be much trouble - it happens. Now the case is more complicated because you understand too - at least intellectually - that this is not good. Why should you possess, or why should you come in her way? In fact love should give freedom, and if she is happy you should be happy. If she feels like moving with people and feels happy being with people, good. You should feel very good because that's how a lover should feel. So a guilt arises. The pain is there and then the guilt Then you become very much burdened.

So the first thing I would like to say to you is: drop that guilt. Just be natural. If you feel that you are hurt, say so. If you feel like fighting, fight. Just be natural. That guilt is making you religious, and that guilt is creating trouble. And [your girlfriend] will enjoy it if you start fighting. In fact she may only be requesting you in this way to fight with her - provoking you. Her interest in other people may not be of much significance. It may be just that she wants to be possessed. Every woman wants to be possessed, and every woman fights and tries to be free. And every man wants to be possessed and tries to be free. Now this is one of the human dilemmas, human paradoxes.

Each woman wants to be possessed and then she feels good. If you don't try to possess her, she feels as if you are negligent or you don't care. If you are not possessive, she will feel you are not caring at all. You don't bother if she goes with somebody, is happy with somebody - you say, 'Okay, very good.' She cannot understand that [you have] become a sage. She will simply understand - a natural human understanding - that [you are] no longer interested. That will make her feel very hurt.

Now if you possess her, she will fight for her freedom and she will say, 'What type of love is this?

You are becoming possessive, and see what Osho goes on saying every day, "Don't be possessive."

'If you possess there is trouble, if you don't possess there is trouble. So when there is going to be trouble any way, be natural and let the trouble be (laughter).

From this very moment fight, and she will be very happy, because she will feel very very loved. Mm?

... It is good! Simply fight, and she will be very happy. When the man starts fighting a woman feels very happy that he wants to possess her totally.

... Just start fighting. And love needs a little fight - it is a natural ingredient. Otherwise love becomes very cool, and it is very difficult to understand a cool love... very difficult. People understand only hot love. Cool love is very rare, and very difficult to understand. If fight disappears completely and you are always good and not fighting, she will start feeling that a coolness is coming in. If you don't fight with her, you will start fighting with yourself; that will depress you. It is always good if there is a choice to fight with yourself or the other, to always fight with the other, because at least it is a good division of labour, mm? Doing both things - fighting with oneself, and... it is double work. Let it be shared. And if love is there it survives everything.

My feeling is that sometimes love dies if there arises a feeling of coldness, indifference, negligence, carelessness. Then love dies. Nobody has ever seen love dying out of fight. No, in fact fight functions like fuel: it warms up things... it brings a little spice.

So this is my feeling - I have been observing for many days, mm? what is going on I have been watching. Mm? [Your girlfriend] is a great witch! (laughter)

... She would like you to fight for her, and she will be very happy. So don't be very generous, and don't be a sage; just be human. I don't see that there is any problem. This is the problem, mm?

that you tend to become very wise. And no woman loves a very wise man, because a wise man understands so much; no woman loves a wise man. A woman wants somebody to fight with, to fool around with, to nag, to be nagged, to chase and to be chased; it is a game. A wise man is so wise that he stops chasing and stops being chased. He simply stands there like a spectator, he becomes a witness. So drop that.

For two months simply be human and natural - and no repression, no guilt. Just let things take their own shape. And everything will come... in tune. There is no problem in it. Good.

[The girlfriend now says: I never allow him to be angry with me. And if he does get angry with me, I become very cool, and I don't react.] Mm. But then look inside yourself. If you don't allow him to be very angry, by and by you will start feeling that he is cool. You will start feeling that he is cold. If you want his love to be warm enough, anger has to be allowed. And nothing is wrong in anger.; it is just a concept that anger is wrong. It solidifies many things; it functions like a cement If a couple has stopped fighting completely, you can be certain either they both have become Buddhas or the marriage has disappeared and love exists no more - and the second possibility is more possible.

When a couple stops fighting that simply means that now they are finished. They have dropped the hope - if you hope, you fight. And nothing is wrong in fight, except we have been taught that something is wrong. Nothing is wrong in fight. It is a game, and a very warming game. It burns many things inside you, otherwise they go on accumulating. If you don't fight, what will happen to your natural chemicals that are needed to be absorbed in fight; what will happen to them? You will accumulate them. They will poison your system and they will make you very sad and depressed.

You will start losing charm in life, and you will start feeling as if everything is flat. And that is bad.

Life should remain a mystery and one should remain flowing.

If your anger is stopped, your love is also stopped, because flow is one process. That is the whole effort here. Flow is one process: if your love is flowing, your anger is flowing, your hate is flowing.

It is not possible to freeze one emotion and allow other emotions to flow. They freeze together or they flow together. It is one river. It is not possible to freeze a few waves in the river and allow other waves to go on, because the temperature will fall together. If a few waves have become frozen, others will become frozen sooner or later. If you have a choice - 'I like these waves, and I don't like those waves' - then either the whole river will freeze, or you will have to accept an the waves. It is the same mind that waves in anger and waves in love.

So that may be the cause. If you stop him from being angry, by and by you will see that he has become frozen. Then he will lose warmth, he will lose interest He will become a spectator, not a lover. So why be afraid of anger? I would have thought otherwise - that [your boyfriend] would be afraid of anger. Why should [you] be afraid of anger? You can always win over him - he is a very simple, poor man! (laughter) If there is a fight, you are going to be victorious - he will not be able.

[She asks: But should I fight also?]

There is no question of should - whatsoever is natural. If you don't feel, there is no need. But you should not stop him! That is for you - if you don't feel like fighting, that is for you. But if he feels like being angry then you can enjoy it even better because you are not involved in it.

I don't think that you don't feel to. Your stopping him may be just a security measure so that he does not create anger in you. You may be afraid that if he is angry you cannot control yourself: sooner or later you will explode. So just to avoid that situation you prevent him from being angry. So if he is not angry, there is no question. You are avoiding the very cause. Mm? Let us watch. I don't see that you would not like to be angry. Anger is so beautiful and sometimes so enhancing... makes one fresh. But I understand that these words have become so much associated with wrong theologies, philosophies. Everybody thinks anger is bad.

Nothing can be bad that has been given to human beings, and there must be a creative use somewhere. I cannot accept that God is a fool, and He goes on giving things to people which mahatmas don't like. Gurdjieff used to say a very significant statement - that all your so-called saints are against God. It seems true - because God still goes on creating people who have natural capacities to be angry. There have been thousands of years of teaching that anger should be completely dropped, but God never listens to these preachers and prophets. It seems He never reads Bibles and Geetas and Vedas. He never reads all this. He goes on doing the same trip again and again.

Every child comes - again he comes with anger, tremendous anger. A child again comes - wild, uncivilised, primitive. God loves primitives, otherwise by this time He must have learned to produce cultured people. What is the point of producing?... and the society has to work so hard for twenty- five, thirty years, and even then you cannot be certain whether you have really made the man cultured, civilised.

Culture is man-made, so don't listen to culture too much. Listen more to nature. If he is angry and if he feels angry, he has to be allowed the space to be angry. Love allows everything. And if you feel angry, be angry. There is no need to be afraid of it. Otherwise you will start feeling bored with each other - you may say so, you may not - and when you start feeling bored, of course your interests will start moving somewhere else because one cannot remain in boredom. One has to find some interests somewhere.

So now he will be listening to me and not to you. He will be enraged sometimes. So it is for you to decide. If anger comes, allow it. Don't be afraid! What can you do in anger? At the most you can kill [him]! So nothing! - you will be helping me; there is no problem. And who has ever killed?

In fact the murderers are those people who go on repressing their anger; then one day it is too much - it explodes. If you go on living your anger, your love, your hate, all sorts of things every day, then you are finished; you never accumulate. Then anger is just a flare-up. If every day, just as you breathe, you love, you become angry, then you know not to accumulate. Somebody says something:

you become angry for a second and then it is gone, because you don't have much repression there so there is not much energy available. One remains like a child: in one moment angry, in another moment loving.

Rather than becoming sages, become children. Mm? And two months now... it is up to you. He is not going to listen to you - he will be natural. Mm? if you want to be natural, you also be natural.

Otherwise it is at your risk. For two months, try being natural, mm? Just be natural - and you will enjoy. It is a tremendous joy to be in such a trust where you can be angry too and nobody will condemn you and the other will not think that you are a rotten human being. One will simply know that this is how human nature is. So there are ups and downs, highs and lows, and one goes in all, and the journey is together.

Socrates, before his death, said at the conclusion of his Apology, 'And now as I leave you, care for my two sons - trouble them as I have troubled you.'

So many times I have to create trouble for you - because I know it is only possible to grow through troubles and turbulations. Growth is not easy. It is a great sacrifice and comes through much pain and much sorrow. So if you avoid sorrow and pain and trouble, you will become a hot-house plant good to look at but not really alive, not really juicy. So for these two months simply be natural, and after two months you both have to come and report to me. Mm?

[The Soma group is present. The group leader asks about the interaction between herself and one of the assistants. She says that the assistant does not give her the help she expects.] Mm. It will always be so, because there is always a conflict of personalities. When you need some helpers you have to adjust, because they cannot be exactly like you; they have their personalities.

So you have to watch their personalities and give them work that they can do, and then there will be harmony. So just find out the work that he can do and can do easily and can remain himself.

... Settle it for once. There is nothing much to solve; settle it for once. And he will become more responsible once he knows what he has to do. And once he knows that he can be himself and you are not impinging on his personality, he will become more surrendered. Otherwise there is bound to be a deep resistance, and that resistance makes you annoyed, irritated, and creates anxiety in you, because in a group you need somebody who has no resistance to you. Different personalities is not the problem.

You can live with different personalities. In fact different personalities bring colour. And it is good - if he is exactly like you, you will not be able to tolerate him at all. It will be just like seeing your face in the mirror the whole day - it will not be possible; it will be too monotonous. It is not difficult to be with different types of personalities. In fact, it is easy to be with different people and different types of personalities.

Just one thing has to be made clear between you both. He is afraid that [you are] too powerful, too dominating, too demanding, and he feels that your demands are right - that is not the point. They are justified - whatsoever you want him to do is right; he should do it. But deep down he feels afraid that he will become a slave. And I can understand your problem. Your problem is that you would like him to cooperate on his own rather than being pulled and pushed, because when you have to pull and push every time it is irritating, because he knows the process now - he is there every month - so he must take more initiative and be a help. So you can forget completely that he is different, and he will simply cooperate. Your desire is that he should cooperate; if he does not cooperate you become too demanding, too enforcing. His fear is that if he cooperates too much, he will be devoured; he will be completely gone and [you] will make him a slave.

Now these fears, if known, can be dropped. (to the male assistant) [The leader] is not to devour you, she is not going to make you a slave, mm? You need not be afraid about that. (to the leader) Once that fear is gone, his cooperation will well up, it will be spontaneous, and then you will be happy. If he cooperates because he is coerced into cooperation, you cannot be happy, because you know that this is bad - that you have to coerce him. That's why you feel so tense. You don't feel tense because he is not working well - you feel tense because you have to force him. And in that very forcing you start thinking, 'Am I a masochist or what? Am I simply torturing him, destroying his personality? Am I violent?' That is creating the trouble.

So just sit together, say everything - whatsoever you feel about him and he should say everything he wants to say about you - and settle. (to the assistant) One thing: she is not going to dominate you. Let there be cooperation; there is no fear of domination. Start taking initiative. And that is my guarantee - that she is not going to make a slave of you, so drop that fear.

That fear is there, lurking in you continuously, so because of that fear you resist every move. Even if you do something, you do in such a way that she can feel that you are just doing it for doing's sake - as if you are obliging her or you are pulled out of your being, dragging. You would not like to do it on your own because you are set, so you feel you are doing okay. So she feels only outwardly you cooperate; inwardly you don't cooperate. And that's what you also meant, 'We don't fight' - but there is a fight. And the fight is natural. I'm not saying there is anything wrong in it - it is bound to happen. Whenever two types of persons work, it is bound to happen.

(to the leader) And of course you are more powerful, so he is in a minority, a minor group, like negroes in America. So he is afraid - and minorities are very afraid and very sensitive. They cannot cooperate easily because cooperation means domination. So they will not lose a single moment when they can rebel, and they can show you that they don't care a bit about you - who are you?

And your whole effort is different - it is not for domination. You simply want the group to run in a more harmonious way. So once things are dear there is no problem. (to the assistant) Cooperate and drop the fear of domination. (to the leader) And you simply show him once and forever that this is his work, and forget about it. And for three months let him do, and after three months tell me how things are going. Now these three months are his responsibility. He is not responsible to you - he is responsible to me. So after three months he has to report to me. But make it clear what is his work, and then it is finished; then he is a responsible man. And he is conscientious and he understands what is to be done.

Once the fear is gone that he will be dominated. he will start cooperating. Only a free person can cooperate. If the fear is there that one is not a free person, what is the point of cooperation? That is cooperating against yourself, cooperating with the enemy. So I don't think there will be a problem - by the next group it will be solved.

[A Indian visitor says: I'm a doctor by profession. Things happen as I want, but after the happenings again I want something more, and I am dissatisfied. So satisfaction is there and then again I want to do more. Again dissatisfaction comes.] Mm mm. It is natural. It is a rhythm between satisfaction and dissatisfaction. If you become completely satisfied what will you do tomorrow? There will be nothing left except to commit suicide.

This is the process of life: you feel hungry, you eat. There is satisfaction, a fulfillment, a well-being; then again hunger arises. That hunger is not against you. It is again creating a situation in which again satisfaction will become possible, so what is wrong in it? If you never feel hungry, if your appetite disappears, you will never feel satisfied with food, because that is part of hunger. You desire something - desire means hunger; then you start working to fulfill it. If you feel hungry you go to the restaurant or you go to the fridge or you manage somehow. You eat and then you feel good. Again hunger will come to give you this feeling of fulfillment and goodness again. So nothing is wrong in it!

So simply live it easily, accept it. And that acceptance will give you a tremendous understanding - that this is how the wheel goes, the wheel moves: one spoke of hunger, another spoke of fulfillment; again another spoke of hunger, again it will be followed by fulfillment. This is the whole process of life. All that is needed is to become aware of it.

I am not in favour of you dropping out of your life, dropping out of your pleasures. There is no need, because if you start that, the mind will remain the same. If you drop, that dropping will again give you the satisfaction that you have done it. Now it is again a new fulfillment of a new desire. But then a desire will arise: now drop more. So the mind remains the same.

You have one thousand rupees; the desire arises to have two thousand rupees. You have two thousand; a little satisfaction - have three thousand. Then one day you have millions of rupees and you think it is just a wastage, so start renouncing: distribute the money. You give one thousand rupees; you feel very good. Now you think it is better to give two thousand; again the reverse process. Go on giving. There is no end to it.

Just become aware that this is how the wheel of life moves - in duality.

[The visitor asks: Then what is the meaning of it?] There is none! There is none! These are absurd ideas in the mind. Why should there be meaning in the first place? Who promised you meaning? Why should there be any meaning? A rose is there - what is the meaning? The moon is there - what is the meaning? Somebody is singing a song - what is the meaning? Meaning is absurd.

[The visitor then says: That means I have a desire in the morning, fulfilled by the night, and then next morning a new desire.] Why are you worried about tomorrow? Fulfill it today, then again it will be there. And it is good that tomorrow comes - otherwise commit suicide; then there will be no tomorrow.

What I am saying is that life consists of dualities. The day comes and the night comes, and again day, and again night What you need is to become aware of this duality. There is no question of choosing between this and that; there is no need to decide anything. Just become silently aware that this is how life is. Then there is great acceptance. You accept the hunger and you accept the satisfaction too. And then you know that each satisfaction is going to bring another hunger, but you know that each hunger will bring another satisfaction, so what is wrong? If you want to play, continue. If you don't want to play, simply jump out in the ocean, or in the river. But that is not going to end it because you die here, and there you are born. So again the wheel moves.

The wheel only stops for those who have become so fully aware of hunger and satisfaction, discontent and contentment... become so aware that both are almost the same to them; there is no difference. If hunger is there they know that satisfaction will be coming. If satisfaction is there they know hunger will be coming, and they know everything comes and goes. They know everything comes and goes and they remain abiding in their consciousness.

This is what in India they have called 'Kutastha' or 'sakshin' - pure consciousness, the very centre of consciousness, rooted consciousness. This is the witnessing, and this witnessing will make you aware that there is no meaning, yet life is tremendously beautiful. It is not meaningless. There is no meaning - no definite meaning that you can pinpoint - but it is not meaningless; it is not chaos. It is a tremendous, a beautiful harmony... harmony of the opposites.

Ordinarily the mind wants to have satisfaction forever. But that will be a dead state. Just think about.... You feel a sexual desire towards a woman. Then you make love to the woman and you remain hung-up in your orgasm forever, forever, forever.... What will happen? You will start seeking the police if you cannot escape from the woman. And if the orgasm remains and remains and remains - what you will do? It is beautiful that it disappears within seconds and you can go and rest and sleep. Again tomorrow the desire will arise.

I am not against desires and I am not against dissatisfaction, because I am not against life. And I don't impose any meaning on life - it has an intrinsic beauty. I don't call it meaning, because meaning is a dirty word. Meaning means it has some utility. It has no utility. Ends and means are the same, the way and the goal are the same - they are not separate. The way is meaningful because it leads to the goal, but what is the meaning of the goal? The goal cannot have any meaning. God cannot have any meaning. Meaning will mean that God has something else beyond Him. There is no meaning - that means there is nothing beyond this existence. It is all! And nothing is wrong - it is simply beautiful! Just enjoy this movement in the wheel. And enjoy it non-tensely - that's what I teach.

Other teachers teach you, 'Drop out of it because what is the point of getting satisfied. Dissatisfaction will be coming sooner. 'I tell you that it is coming, but still I say to enjoy it while you are satisfied.

And when hunger comes enjoy hunger too, because hunger is a friend. It brings satisfaction. Pain is also a friend because it brings pleasure. Separation is also good because it brings you close again.

Marriage and divorce - both are like in-breathing, out-breathing. So accept it, and enjoy it! And the only thing that is needed is to go on watching it - the whole game of it - choicelessly; don't choose.