Love is Madness with a Method
Prem means love, parijato is a flower, the name of a flower. Prem Parijato will mean a flower of love.
Man never blooms without love. Love is like spring: once you are in love, hidden possibilities start manifesting themselves, that which was latent before starts arising, surfacing. All the colours and all the fragrance that one contains are released. Love releases the potential. Without love a man is only a possibility; with love man becomes actual, real. Love is realization.
Prem means love, rupo means beauty. The full name will mean beautiful love... and love is beautiful.
Really the only beautiful thing in life is love. Without love a man remains ugly. With love everything is transformed.
To be a sannyasin means to become loving... and that makes one tremendously beautiful. Will it be easy to pronounce?...
Prem means love, and dipo means light. Love brings light and life; otherwise, all is dark. Without love there is only fear, because in darkness naturally one is afraid. With love all becomes light and fear disappears. And that disappearance of the fear is the greatest joy.
Deva means divine, ravi means the sun - divine sun. Let the sun become your meditation, and you will gain much from it. It will be very very deeply stirring for your being; it will make you awake. For a few people the sun can function as the great awakener; it depends on the type. For a few people the same sun can be very maddening. For you it will be a tremendously beautiful meditation, but you will have to find the right moments, because when the sun has risen too high in the sky you cannot look at it.
Early in the morning when the sun is just coming out - the baby sun; that's what we call the early morning sun in India, the baby sun - soft, and you can look at it for a few moments and absorb as much energy as possible. Just drink, literally drink... become open to it, be soaked by its energy.
And at sunset, when the sun is going down again, you can again look at it.
Slowly slowly you will be able to close your eyes any moment and see the sun; then you can meditate inwardly on the sun. But first begin from the outside; it is always good to begin from the outside, from the objective, and then slowly slowly move to the subjective. Once you have become capable of seeing the sun with closed eyes, once you have become capable of the visualization, then there is no need to meditate on the outer sun, then the inner sun will function. Because whatsoever is outside is also inside; there is an immense correspondence between the outer and the inner.
Man is a very small phenomenon, but man contains the whole universe; he is a miniature universe.
Inside also there is a sun. It has to be provoked, challenged. Once it starts functioning you will see your life changing of its own accord. You will see great energy arising in you, and you will see that something inexhaustible is there. You can do as much as you want and still you cannot exhaust it.
And once the inexhaustible source is contacted, life is rich. Then it knows no poverty. Inwardly it is rich. Then nothing matters from the outside; then all conditions are almost equal. In success, in failure, in poverty, in affluence, one remains tranquil, undistracted, because one knows 'My basic energy is within me.'
... One knows 'My basic treasure remains unaffected by outer circumstances.' Those outer circumstances are important only because we are not aware of the inner. Once we know the inner, the outer starts withering; its importance simply disappears. Then one can be a beggar and yet an emperor. One can fail in everything as far as the outer world is concerned, yet one has succeeded.
And there is no complaint, no scar left; one is utterly happy irrespective of the conditions. And that is something real.
That which depends on conditions is not real. It is contributed by the condition - it can be taken away any moment. People respect you, you feel good, but they can disrespect you any moment.
Your feeling of goodness, your well-being, is in their hands, and because it is in their hands you are a slave, and you will always remain afraid - they may change their opinion any day. You will have to fulfil their expectations, because nothing is without a cost. If you want their good opinion about you, you have to fulfil their expectations. You have to continuously consider them, and that consideration is a slavery. You cannot say what you want to say; you cannot be what you would like to be. You have to pretend, you have to be pseudo. You have to be smiling when really you want to cry. And you have to cry when tears are not coming.
This inauthentic existence becomes possible for only one single reason, and that is: we depend on others' opinions. They become important, they have power over us. And the power is given by you because you depend on their opinion, because you feel good when they feel good about you. So you have to keep them feeling good about you. You have to go on feeding, nourishing them, so they don't change their opinion. So you have to change yourself this way and that. You always have to look and see what they want - what your wife wants, what your children want, what your father wants, the mother, and the people and the government, and the society and the church. A thousand and one considerations have to be looked into. How can you be free? How can you be yourself?
One can be oneself only when one drops all these considerations.
Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples 'The first fundamental to become a man and not a machine is to drop consideration.' And he is not saying to become rude to people; that is not the meaning. He is simply saying to let your happiness be your own. Find a source within, then you are independent.
And that is a real freedom. Political freedom is not real, economic freedom is not real; the real freedom has to be spiritual. And this is the meaning of spiritual freedom: when you remain unaffected. Somebody insults you and you remain as if nothing has happened. Somebody praises you and you remain as if nothing has happened.
[RAVI: Yes, like the state of high indifference.] Not indifference... not indifference.
[RAVI: High indifference? I mean, caring, but not caring about the outcome of this or that. I call it 'high indifference'.] No. The word 'indifference' is not good in any way, because that again keeps you out of yourself.
One can learn indifference, one can practise it, and one can remain unaffected... I am not saying 'Become indifferent'; I am saying 'Find the inner treasure.' Indifference is negative, it can be practised - and on the surface both may look alike - but the person who remains indifferent to what people say may not have inner richness at all. He has just protected himself, he has created an armour around himself so he remains unaffected. Because he has a certain armour that screens off things and does not allow anything to go in, he remains in a kind of protectedness, guardedness; and that's what indifference is. It is a pseudo phenomenon - it can be created easily. And always remember there is an absolute difference between what I am saying....
I am saying: you are so full of joy, you are so overflowing with joy, that nothing matters; because nothing adds to it, nothing takes anything out of it. It is not indifference; it is something immensely positive. And you will be very caring. Indifference is bound to become somehow uncaring.
... the quality and the intensity and the flavour of the groups here is totally different. It has to be different, because my concern is not with the psychological problems. Western psychotherapy in all its forms is concerned with how to solve your psychological problems. Problems are there and they have to be solved; that is the concern.
My concern is not your psychological problem but your spiritual health. And once you are spiritually healthy those problems simply disappear of their own accord.
The Western psychotherapy movement is like trying to fight with the darkness - pushing it, throwing it out, managing somehow. My effort is not to fight with darkness at all, because you cannot win over darkness. It is negative, and no negative thing can be destroyed directly. Rather, light a candle; forget about darkness; light a candle and the darkness disappears on its own.
And that is the difference between psychology and religion: psychology remains concerned about your problems what problems are there, they have to be solved. Religion says those problems are there because you are not aware of your inner reality. Those problems are only indicative, they are symptomatic. They are not really problems - they are only indications that deep down something is asleep. Bring it to a state of awareness, light the inner candle, and all problems disappear actually like darkness disappears when you light a candle.
One day or another Western psychology has to move to the positive polarity. Efforts have started - holistic psychology and the humanistic growth movement are slowly slowly groping for something positive - but still it is a groping. Meditation has still not become part of the psychological movement, it is still something alien. And unless meditation becomes the very core of psychology it will remain half-hearted. It will help people to solve a few problems, but you solve a few and a few more are coming on the way; you solve one and another arises, because no problem can be solved permanently if your inner awareness has not come to rule your life. You can push from one side, it starts popping up from another side, unless you are full of light within.
I am not saying that then problems will not arise - problems will arise, but your clarity will be such, your light will be such, that whenever you look at any problem, immediately you will know the solution.
The problem itself contains its solution for those who know how to see into it. And the question carries its answer if one has enough silence to listen.
[Osho asks, What is the meaning of the word 'amir'?
AMIR: In my language? The top branches of the tree.] Top branches of the tree? Very good! I will keep it. In India it means the rich. But that's exactly what the meaning is of the top branches of the tree (chuckling).
This will be your name: Swami Prem Amir - love richness or love, the top branches of the tree; both will do.
Love is the only richness, lovelessness is only poverty, and nothing else. A loveless person has not yet been born - he is only pretending to be alive. His whole life is bogus because the soul is missing; he is at the most just the body. And life does not mean that you are capable of breathing so you are alive. Just breathing is not life. Life is much more! Unless you start sharing your being with existence you are not alive. To live like a parasite is not life. And the people who don't know what love is live like parasites. They only exploit life and they don't give anything in return.
The lover is one who returns a thousandfold. Love is a magical process. The lover takes much from life but gives much more back. And it is such a process that the lover is capable of giving more and of taking more, because the lover feels he belongs to existence and the existence belongs to him. He is not an outsider. He has claims over existence and he knows existence has claims over him. He is committed. So in both ways he is capable of taking more. He is capable of taking more because he knows he is capable of giving more, much more.
The non-lover is afraid to take. He is afraid that if he takes too much he will have to give back. He cannot take a deep breath, he cannot inhale deeply, because he is afraid that if he inhales deeply he will have to exhale deeply. He is so miserly - his breathing is shallow, his living is shallow, his loving is shallow. And they are always proportionate: the deeper you inhale, the deeper you will have to exhale; and the deeper you exhale, the deeper the next inhalation will go... and there is no end to this process. Love makes one rich.
And the other meaning I also liked - the top branches of a tree - because love brings one's life to a peak, to the highest peak, to ecstasy. And it is the topmost branches of a tree that dance in the sun and whisper to the clouds and have a loving relationship with the stars. The desire of the roots is fulfilled in the highest branches of the tree. The seed has come to its total expression. That was the search of the seed: to become capable of dancing in the sun and in the wind, of dancing in the rains, of being in the company of the clouds. That was the desire, the longest, the deepest desire that the seed has carried. It is fulfilled.
And the deepest desire in the human heart is that of love. Love makes you capable of dancing in the sun and dancing in the wind and dancing in the rains. It helps you to bloom in all your colours...
it helps you to explode in all your songs. It is ecstasy..
Anand means bliss, hina means a perfume, a fragrance - a blissful fragrance.
Life passes through many phases - from the gross to the subtle, from the superficial to the profound, from the surface to the depth, from the circumference to the centre. Fragrance is the ultimate phenomenon because it is the subtlest. All that was gross has disappeared. The seed is very gross, the roots are gross, the tree is gross, even the flower - although not as gross as the seed, as the tree, as the foliage, it is still gross. Then out of the flower, the fragrance. That fragrance is utterly invisible. It is so weightless that it can rise upwards... it can ride on the winds. One can only feel it, one cannot see it.
Just like that a life also moves from the gross to the subtle. Prayer is the fragrance... or call it meditation. That is the ultimate transformation of life energies. Nobody can see it. Nobody has ever seen prayer. People have felt it. And it is not only that the person who prays feels it - the prayerful person is felt by others too.
If you come close to a prayerful person, like a great fragrance something surrounds you. You may not be able to understand what it actually is because you don't have any experience of it, but one thing is certain, that something mysterious, something of the silent, of the unknown is there, very solidly there. One becomes silent when one is with someone who is silent. One feels a kind of meditativeness arising of its own accord when one is in close affinity with someone who is in meditation.
And so it is with prayer, love, bliss. There is no way to grasp these things but there is a way, almost telepathic - the vibe is felt.
So become a blissful fragrance, a blissful prayer.
[A sannyasin says she's always very much afraid.... She's afraid to talk to Osho also.] Mm mm. There is a lighter side to this fear too.... People who are really afraid of coming closer to me are the people who can be immediately transformed if they come close to me. Hence the fear.
The mind is very very alert about its own death. It is not afraid if it sees that there is nothing which is going to happen. When its survival is at risk, only then is the mind afraid. And it is not only so with you - it is so with all the people who are really feeling me and feeling for me. All the people who are in deep love with me are afraid.
So don't just see the dark side of it. The dark side is there because fear is dark, but the dark cloud of fear has a really beautiful silver lining to it. Pay attention to that silver lining... and you will not feel ashamed of the fear; you will really rejoice in it. Now there is no way to go back. Fear or no fear, you have to come close. You have been chosen... hence the fear. At the most the fear can delay, that's all.
There are a few people who are not afraid to come close to me, but in fact they should be in misery - they are unfortunate. Because they are stubborn and closed they can come close to me; they know nothing is going to happen to them. They are stonelike - you are not! You are vulnerable.
[She says: Because of this I very often feel frozen.] That is possible, mm? because that fear can make you frozen, paralysed. So you have to come closer to me in spite of the fear. And the fear is not in you, it is only in the mechanism of the mind.
You will have to learn to separate yourself from the mechanism.
We become so identified with the mechanism that we have completely forgotten the distance. It is just the mind, and the mind is nothing but all the conditionings that have been given to you by others.
Just start observing a little bit. For example, you see a rose flower and immediately you say 'It is beautiful.' Scrutinize it, observe: whose words are you repeating? Is this your experience right herenow, this moment, this assertion that the flower is beautiful? Is it really your experience right now or are you just repeating somebody's words that you heard in your childhood or you read in a book? - a teacher, a parent, a friend. Just remember and you will be surprised to find: if you look deep you will be able to find 'Yes, it was some particular person who said for the first time "Look, what a beautiful rose flower."' That has become part of your programme, and since then you have been repeating it; and the more you have repeated it, the more engrained it has become. Now it is almost like a gramophone record: you see the flower, the stimulus is there, and immediately the reaction from the gramophone record. The tape starts moving. It says 'It is beautiful.' It is not you who are saying that it is beautiful. You have not even been allowed to see the flower because the programming is there.
This fear is not coming from your being either. Watch it, analyse it, go into it, and you will be surprised to discover who has taught you: it is somebody in your childhood who has made you afraid of love, afraid of strangers, afraid of the unknown - hence those voices. And you will be able to find whose voices they are: your mother's, your father's.... And I am not saying that they were wrong. At the time they were made they were relevant, but now they are irrelevant. You have grown up; now those programmes don't fit. Those programmes are just hangovers from the past, but they continue because the mind knows no way of erasing them, unless you become very aware and erase them consciously. The mind cannot erase automatically. The mind only knows how to be programmed; it has no capacity to deprogramme itself.
That is one of the most fundamental problems to be encountered. And that's what my work consists of: helping you to become aware of the programming so that you can become capable first of separating yourself and seeing that you are not the programme, and secondly you will be able, when the distance is enough, to erase many programmes which have become simply out of date, which make no sense any more. But they are carried and they will be carried to your death if you don't separate yourself.
My own observation is that somewhere near the age of five a child becomes identified with his programmed mind. And that is the last time.... Only up to that time was the child alive because he was not yet programmed. After that he was just a mechanism.
From the age of five all real learning stops. One goes on repeating the programme in better and better ways, more skilful, more efficient but the same programme, till death... unless by chance you come across a situation, an energy field, where you can be made aware, almost forced against yourself to become aware of this whole nonsense that your mind is doing to you.
You want to come close... you in your essential being are longing to be close. Your mind says 'Wait!
This is very strange - you have never done it before.' The mind says 'Whatsoever you have not done before, don't do it; it is risky. Who knows what the outcome will be?' The mind is always orthodox because it lives through programmes. It says 'Only do that which you have been doing because you are efficient in doing it, clever, it is safer, you know how to do it. Now moving with this strange man - who knows? He may be mad! Who knows if what he is saying is right or not right? Who knows?
- he may be just deceiving! So beware!' The mind says 'Follow the old programme - just live the way you have lived up to now. Go on moving in the same routine and there will be less possibility of error.'
The mind wants to avoid errors and life does not want to avoid errors. It wants to go through them so that much more can be learned, because we learn only by trial and error. If we stop making errors we stop learning too. And my experience is that people who stop learning become neurotic; neurosis is a kind of non-learning. One has become afraid of learning any more, so one goes on revolving in the same rut. One is tired, bored, but one still goes on revolving in the same rut because one has become accustomed to it; it is familiar, it is known. This is very unknown.
To be with me is to be with a tremendous abyss. To come close to me is to come close to your own death - it is suicidal. At least as far as the mind is concerned it is suicidal. The mind will have to die, and only then will your being have its freedom. And that's what enlightenment is: to be free from all programmes.
So don't be worried. It is simply indicative that something is going against the programme that you had been carrying up to now. You have come into a situation where you will have to start learning again. That means you will have to drop your neurosis. That means that whatsoever you have done from your childhood up to now, from the age of five up to now, has to be slowly slowly erased and dropped... so you become a child again and you start from where the learning process stopped - you start again. It is going to happen, and it will be possible more and more.