A feeling of coming home

Question 1:

Devageet, it is one of the most fundamental experiences that you have pointed out in your question.

It certainly needs more courage to expose your joy, your blissfulness than it needs to describe your anxiety, your anguish. The difficulty is, of course, different in each case.

To expose one"s anguish, anxiety, misery, suffering, courage is needed because it is exposing yourself in your utter nudity: your wounds, your ugliness, your insanity - things which everybody wants to hide from the world. It goes against your ego, against your personality.

But to express your joy needs more courage for another reason. There are two reasons: one, it is difficult to find words - almost impossible - to describe your blissfulness, your silence, your serenity, because the experience of all these things is beyond the scope of the mind; hence it is naturally beyond language, beyond words, beyond explanations. Secondly, to say "I am joyful," to say "I am blissful," to say "I am discovering my own center," is dangerous because it creates envy and jealousy all around.

Everybody will believe your misery; nobody will believe your joy. Everybody will believe - even if you are lying - your anxiety, your suffering, because everybody knows what suffering is, what misery is; it is everybody"s experience. Nobody is going to believe your joy - it goes against their egos to accept that you are reaching closer to your discovery, closer to your center. It goes against their very ego that they are still far away from the goal and you have reached so close. It cannot be believed - you must be lying, you must be deceived.

If you go on insisting that you have achieved and if your life starts showing evidence of it, they will create all kinds of explanations to demolish your evidence. They may say you are a hypocrite, you are a pretender, that there is no joy in you - you are simply smiling to befool people. If you are still adamant, and you go on dancing and singing on your way without bothering what they are saying, their second step will be to say that you are mad.

To accept that somebody is coming closer to home is so difficult; it hurts so deeply and so many people, that they are always in the majority and you are alone. It is easier for them to declare you mad, because the only way to save their skin will be for them to be as joyous as you are, which is not a simple matter - they will have to go for a long pilgrimage. But it is easy to condemn you, to find reasons ... and if everything fails, you are insane - that is their last resort.

But even calling you insane will not satisfy them, because deep down they feel the jealousy, the envy; they would like to declare themselves also closer to the center, closer to the truth, closer to blissfulness. But they are in darkness, in utter misery, in anguish. They don't see any end to their night, and you are talking about a beautiful dawn ... that you have seen the first ray, the sun is rising, that you have heard the birds singing, that you have experienced the fragrance of the flowers that open in the early morning to welcome the sun, to begin the day.

If you don't listen and don't accept that you are mad ... The masses have crucified people like these:

Al-Hillaj Mansoor, or Jesus, or Socrates, or Sarmad. The masses have become bloodthirsty, and these people were absolutely harmless; they have not done anything, any harm to anybody. In fact they were the greatest blessings to humanity: they were pointing to your potential, your possibility, your future; they were pointing at your dawn - the night is not going to be forever. They were your very hope to get out of the darkness and the deathly life, where you have not found anything except misery.

But instead you demolished them, you destroyed them rather than rejoicing with them. Rejoicing with them needs tremendous intelligence, but to crucify them, any stupid, retarded majority of the masses is perfectly capable. That"s why I say you have made a very important observation: that it is more difficult to expose yourself and to declare to the world that you are feeling blissful, you are joyous.

But in this place, there is no need to be afraid. In this place the exposure of your anxiety will be accepted, the exposure of your blissfulness will be rejoiced - that"s the whole meaning of a religious communion - you will be encouraged. People will see their own future in your eyes, they will see their own crippledness gone in your dances. They will see that if you can reach, Devageet, then we are also not far away; perhaps we are not looking in the right direction, perhaps we are not moving in the right direction ....

I have heard about a man who was asking, on a crossroad outside New Delhi, "How far is New Delhi?" And the old man who was sitting under a tree said to the man, "Before I can answer, I would like you to move in the direction you are going. Unless I know in which direction you are moving, how can I say how far New Delhi is?"

The man thought, "This is a strange old man" - he had asked many people, many times, and everybody had simply answered. He said, "First, I would like to see."

So the man moved a few feet, and then he asked, "Now?"

The old man said, "Now Delhi is very far away, because you are going exactly in the opposite direction. You will have to go around the whole earth, then you will come back to Delhi; otherwise, you have left Delhi eight miles behind."

When you see somebody blossoming, it is a sign that the spring has come. All the flowers don't blossom together; first one flower opens its petals, then a few more, then many more, then millions.

Spring comes step by step, slowly. When you see one flower blossoming it is an indication that your time is also close by.

In this communion there is no problem; you can expose yourself whatever your situation is. All these people are fellow travelers; they will try to help you come out of your darkness. They will help you if you have reached to the light in your celebration; they will help you in every possible way, in every possible situation.

The inmates of a mental institution were listening to modern jazz records. Finally one patient could contain himself no longer; he jumped up and started banging his head against the wall in time to the music.

The other inmates applauded and shouted, "Sane, man - sane!"

This place belongs to the people who are drunk with the divine, mad after the search for godliness.

They will enjoy your realizations: your realization is their realization too. It is a brotherhood - there is a deep connection - it is not an organization. It is a love that is overflowing from each heart, joining it with others.

Here, nobody is a stranger; here, everybody knows you. He may not know your name, he may not know your country, he may not know your religion, he may not know your race. He need not know any of these things but still he knows you, he knows that you are on the same path, in the same search. You are arrowed towards the same star; you are part of one journey, one pilgrimage. If even one of you reaches, that will be a confirmation that you have also reached; maybe a little time more, and the spring will come close to you.

So, never be worried and never be concerned - nobody is going to deny your experiences here.

Everybody is going to rejoice, celebrate, feel proud of you.

This is how it should be in the whole of humanity, but unfortunately ... what can be done? People should have rejoiced in the presence of Socrates, they should have loved the presence of Jesus, they should have joined their voices when Al-Hillaj Mansoor was shouting, "ANA"L HAQ!" - I am God. He was speaking for you too; for everybody, past, present or future. He was not speaking only for himself.

People have not been sane enough to understand the madness of those who are seekers after truth, after bliss, after godliness, after the ultimate meaning of life. But here, my people are all mad enough to celebrate with you; your blossoming is their blossoming.

Hence, Devageet, not only for you, but for all I am saying this: always expose yourself. If you don't expose yourself when you are in misery, it is okay, because everybody knows you are in misery; that is not a revelation. Whether you say it or not, it is taken for granted - where else can you be? But when it comes to the point of joy and bliss and benediction, you should not remain silent, because then you become evidence that all these people are not unnecessarily wandering in a desert. If your thirst is quenched, their thirst will also be quenched. If you have arrived home, they can also arrive.

So you can hide your anguish, your misery, your suffering - there is no problem about it. Anyway somebody else will be asking about those problems. But when it comes to your blissfulness, which is very rare, it is unforgivable to keep it a secret because it is going to become a proof for everybody of the goal they are searching.

Question 2:

Sahabsadev Hasan, truth is not an experience of the mind; hence no logic can prove it or disprove it. No argument can convince you about it or unconvince you about it. Truth is an experience beyond mind, so there is no objective criterion possible. That"s why science never talks about it, because science can only talk about things which can be objectively proved.

Truth is a subjective experience, just like love. What is the criterion of love? Can you prove when you fall in love? Can you prove that really you have fallen in love? Is there a way to prove it? Is there any argument, any logic that will support you - any eyewitnesses? All that you can say is, "I know for certain that my heart is beating differently" - but that is something inner to you. You can say, "I am feeling so blissful," but that is something subjective. You cannot bring some part of your blissfulness and show it to people as a criterion.

Love, or truth, or bliss, or God - they don't have any criterion; they are experiences of the inner.

Criteria are always of the outer. Don't impose outer criteria for the inner - that is the fallacy of the atheist.

Why does the atheist deny the existence of God, the existence of soul, the existence of truth, the existence of a life beyond life? For the simple reason that there is no criterion, and no proof, and no evidence. No atheist has ever been defeated by any theist in argumentation - still the atheist is wrong. He is wrong because he is asking for an objective criterion for a subjective experience.

It is just like somebody asks you - you have been listening to classical music, and somebody asks - "What was the taste of it?" or "What was the color of it?" or "How did it feel when you touched it?"

You will say, "Are you mad?" Music is not an experience of the eyes, it is not an experience of the nose; music has no smell. It is not an experience of the tongue; it has no taste. It is not something tangible that you can touch. It is an experience of the ears - and for an experience of the ears, eyes cannot give any proof.

Neither is the opposite possible. For an experience of the eyes - for example, light or colors - ears cannot give any proof. And if you want proofs that are understandable by the ears, then there is no light; you have to deny it. Then there are no colors, no rainbows. You have to deny everything that belongs to the world of eyes, and almost eighty percent of your experience belongs to the eyes.

Eighty percent of your life will have to be denied if you insist for some criterion that belongs, not to the eyes, but to the ears, nose, mouth, hands ....

The same is the situation about truth. Truth is the space within you when there is no thought, no feeling, no emotion - when there is utter silence and a light which is eternal, which has no fuel ...

because all fuels are bound to be exhausted sooner or later.

At the innermost core of your being there is a light which is inexhaustible, which has always been there and will always be there, which is beyond time and beyond space ... a deep silence. Not the silence of the graveyard - not a negative silence, not a silence which means absence of noise - but a silence which means a positive, affirmative presence of peace, of coolness, of a soundless music ... a light that is eternal and a life that is eternal.

When you find these things in the innermost center of your being ... the whole experience of bliss, joy, the feeling of coming home, of finding yourself at last - all this is contained in the simple word "truth". You can experience it, but you cannot find any explanation for it. You can find a way to it, you can find a method to reach it, but nobody can tell you beforehand what it is.

Gautam Buddha used to say, "Buddhas only show the way; nobody can walk the way for you. You will have to walk and you will have to find ... and those who have found it have all become dumb."

It is almost like giving a dumb man delicious sweets .... It is not that he does not know the taste; he knows. He rejoices, but if you want to ask how it tastes, of course he cannot say anything; he is dumb.

All those who have known truth become dumb about truth. They can tell you how to reach it; they can show you the way. They can take you to the window, to the door, but you have to find it within yourself, following the path alone ... the ultimate experience.

Only one thing can be said from the outside:

The man of truth has no fear of death.

The man of truth is never miserable.

The man of truth is never a coward.

The man of truth is constantly in a state of celebration; the man of truth is an eternal dance.

These are the things which can be seen from the outside, but these are just faraway echoes; these are not the truth. These are the faraway echoes in the individuality of the person who has found the truth. These are the reflections - reflections of the stars in the lake. But don't jump into the lake to find the stars! You will not find anything there. Stars are far away; these are only reflections.

In the personality, in the presence, in the gestures, in the eyes of the man of truth you will find something, if you are not completely closed, completely prejudiced, if you have not already decided for or against.

If you are open and vulnerable you will recognize that there is something charismatic, something magnetic, something that invites you to come in ... something that invites you to be closer, something that creates suddenly a new dimension of search for you; something that starts silent bells suddenly ringing in your heart of which you have never been aware.

He has touched your heart. His very presence is creative, his very presence is converting, his very presence is the only criterion - but it is not logic, it is a love affair.

Remember: I repeat again, truth is not a question of logic, it is a search of a loving heart.

Question 3:

Indradhanu, there is no difference between self-respect and pride. There is a difference between the ego and self-respect or pride. Self-respect and pride are simply natural to your individuality. They are your dignity. They are your acceptance of yourself.

The ego is a comparison.

Self-respect and pride are noncomparative; that"s the basic difference.

In ego you are always comparing: I am superior to others, I am better than you, I am higher than you, I am holier than you - I am a saint and you are a sinner. Whatever the reason, you are comparing yourself as being superior and reducing the other to being inferior. This is the formation of the ego.

But pride is noncomparative. It does not say anything about anybody else. It simply says: I am respectful of myself, I love myself, I am proud just to be - just to be here in this beautiful existence. It does not say anything about anybody else. The moment you go into comparison, you start an ugly game.

My respect towards myself is not a hindrance for you to be respectful towards yourself. In fact I would love you to be respectful towards yourself because if you are not respectful towards yourself, who is going to be respectful towards you? If you are not proud of being a human being, the most evolved consciousness in existence, then who is going to be proud of you?

And your being proud is really nothing but a gratefulness for all that existence has given to you - it is tremendous. We are not worthy of it; we don't deserve it. We have not earned it, we can"t claim it. It is just out of the abundance of existence that it has given to us everything. We don't value what we have because we take it for granted.

I am reminded of a Sufi story .... A man was going to commit suicide because he was poor, uneducated, unemployed, and he hated to beg. Rather than begging, he thought it is better to commit suicide. He was going towards the river to jump from a high point and get drowned, but by coincidence, at the highest point from where he was thinking to jump, he found a Sufi mystic.

And the Sufi mystic said, "So you have come? Here people come only to commit suicide. I have chosen this place to meditate because very rarely do people come to commit suicide, so this is a very silent place."

The man said, "It is strange that I have not uttered a single word and you have said the right thing - I have come to commit suicide."

The Sufi said, "You can commit suicide. But I have one offer: how much would you like to have for both your eyes? The king needs two beautiful eyes and you have beautiful eyes. And the king knows that I always sit at Suicide Point" - that"s what the place was called. "People come here when they are going to commit suicide .... What are they going to do with those two eyes? They can give them to the king. So whatever you want for your eyes, you just say it; your offer will be accepted."

The man thought for a moment - how much should he ask? He could not think. Whatever he thought ... five hundred thousand rupees? He thought, "Five lakh rupees for both my eyes? - ten lakh? twenty lakh? ...." But nothing seemed to be the right price. Finally he said, "Ten million rupees."

The mystic said, "That is accepted. You come with me. First we will take your eyes ... and I will bring you back here; then you jump and commit suicide."

On the way the Sufi said, "But I have a few other customers too. How much would you like to take for your head, without eyes?"

He said, "You are a strange person. Who would like to have my head without eyes?"

The Sufi said, "I have a customer. He"s a magician and he needs a skull very desperately and he is not interested in eyes. Anyway he is going to take away all the skin, everything, and clean your skull completely."

The man said, "My God! Then how am I going to come back and ...?"

The Sufi said, "That I will manage."

The man said, "I have never thought about it. How much will be appropriate? What do you think?"

He said, "Any offer ... it will be accepted." So the man sold his skull for another ten million.

On the way the Sufi asked, "Would you like to sell the remaining body too? - because what is the point: you are already dead; your eyes are gone, your head is gone - what is left? There is no point in keeping the body ... and I have a customer. He is a scientist and he dissects bodies; he is always in need of bodies, fresh bodies. And he will be absolutely happy because he cannot get such a fresh body, that has only just died. The eyes have been taken, the head has been cut, but the body will still be warm - it is just like a flower torn from the tree while it is still alive; it will take two or three days to fade away."

The man said, "But ... suicide is finished!"

The mystic said, "There is no need of any suicide; everything is sold!"

The man asked, "But who will get all that money?"

The mystic said, "Of course, I will get it, because you will be gone. Who else can get it? You can think of it as my commission. If you want to take it with you, you can take it, but you will be gone, you won"t need it."

As they reached the palace he started thinking again: what is he going to do? He had never thought that his eyes have such value, that his skull has value, that his whole body has value ... that this man is going to earn thirty million rupees.

He said, "I don't want to do this business."

The Sufi said, "What about suicide?"

The man said, "I don't want to commit suicide either! For the first time I have realized that I am a rich man. Up to now I have always thought that I am a beggar. I was going to commit suicide because I was thinking I have nothing; now I realize how much I have got."

The mystic said, "It is up to you - I will have to go back and wait for somebody else - but think again; you won"t get such customers."

The man said, "Just leave me alone! You are a dangerous fellow. I used to think that you are a religious saint, always meditating on that hillock. You seem to be the most dangerous man - you were selling me piece by piece, and finally all the money would come to you! I don't know how many people you have sold, but I can understand why you go on sitting there; that is where your business comes. I will make the whole city aware: Don't go to that point, and beware of that man - he is dangerous, very dangerous."

The mystic said, "I was just trying to help you. You were going to destroy such precious things by drowning in the river. I have been trying to wake you up. Existence has given you such precious things and rather than being grateful, you are behaving in such an ugly way.

"There is no customer; it was all fiction. What will the king do with your eyes, dead eyes? And the magician can get as many skulls as he needs from the graveyard. And every day people die in the hospital and fresh bodies are available to the scientist. So there is no customer at all. It was just to make you aware that you have so many precious things given to you by nature and you are not feeling grateful, you are not feeling prayerful. Don't you have any gratitude, any thankfulness? Is suicide your thankfulness?"

Self-respect is respect without comparison. Pride is dignity, a feeling of dignity that existence wants you, that existence has created you, that existence needs you. You are welcome in existence, you are not an unwanted child, an orphan. Moment to moment, existence is giving you nourishment, life, light, everything that you need.

Indradhanu, pride is not equivalent to ego; neither is self-respect equivalent to ego. Ego is comparative, and because it is comparative it is ugly, it is sick. The very idea that "I am superior to you" - for any reason - is inhuman.

But being proud of oneself does not make anybody inferior. In fact it shows the other also the way to be proud of himself, to be respectful of himself.

I am against the ego, but not against pride, not against self-respect. Those are the most important human qualities.

Question 4:

Dhyan Om, as far as I am concerned, I cannot be other than compassionate; I am just helpless. It has nothing to do with you, it is just the only possibility for me.

The day I came to know myself, I lost many things and I gained a few things. Of the things that I have gained, the most important of them is compassion. So it is irrespective of who is the receiver:

a coconut tree or Dhyan Om, it does not matter. I can only look with compassion. My eyes don't have anything else and my heart doesn"t have anything else.

As far as existence is concerned ... you are part of existence, you are an extension of existence.

Existence also doesn"t make any discrimination between a coconut tree and Dhyan Om. It gives to the coconut tree what it needs; it gives to Dhyan Om what he needs. Existence is compassionate to everything, because everything belongs to it. Existence is flowing in everything without any discrimination.

The only problem is Latifa. That surprises me too, why she is compassionate to you. A few jokes perhaps may help you to understand the compassion of Latifa.

In Ireland an old woman went to mass on Sunday, as usual. A new young priest was preaching about marriage. After mass the old woman remarked to her friend, "I wish to God I knew as little about it as he does."

Do you get it? - No!

Mrs. Cohen was at the movies watching "Superman." Suddenly, a man approached her and asked, "Pardon me madam, but do you mind if I occupy that empty seat next to you?"

"Not at all," replied Mrs. Cohen. "I expected it to be taken when I bought the tickets, but all my friends are at my husband"s funeral."

"I don't know why you married me!" cried Mrs. Cohen.

"Because," Mr. Cohen said, "you defied the law of gravity."

"What are you talking about?" said his wife.

"Well," said Cohen, "you were easier to pick up than to drop!"

It is a mystery why Latifa has picked you up. Only her compassion has to be considered as a mystery. She knows perfectly well that you are a nut. You think you are a coconut, but she knows - and everybody else knows - you are only a nut! You are unnecessarily making a fuss about being a coconut - just decorating yourself, making a big name. A simple nut does not appeal ... a coconut, a coconut from Goa, a Goa-returned coconut. Latifa is certainly compassionate!

As far as I am concerned and existence is concerned, we are helpless. Be grateful to Latifa; she goes through hell, but still she goes on being compassionate. She suffers badly. Whenever I look at her, I immediately know whether the coconut is here or somewhere else.

For five weeks she was just a beauty to look at, always smiling and happy and surrounded by an aura. And the moment she received your message that you are coming back ... just the message was enough. You took seven days to come, but those seven days ... whenever I looked at her I thought, "This is strange: Om is coming from Goa and this Latifa seems to be coming from hell itself!"

Since then, because I have talked about it, whenever I look at her she tries to smile. But a smile which is made by effort is one thing, and a smile that comes on its own is a totally different phenomenon.

Dhyan Om, you continue to be what you are. This is at least going to help Latifa to become enlightened. This is her austerity, her discipline, her sacrifice, and the whole credit goes to you.

When she becomes enlightened you will be praised, because it has rarely happened this way.

Women have made men enlightened - that is an old story. Men have never made a single woman enlightened. You are doing such a pioneer work. Your name will resound in the corridors of history!

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.