Miracles are bound to happen

Question 1:

Prem Amrito, it is exactly the definition of mysticism: the transformation of the dark night of the soul into a light night of the soul.

It is my work and it is your work, too. All these people who have gathered here are in search of light, life, love, laughter; and all these divine qualities have been destroyed by centuries of exploitation - by all kinds of priests, bureaucrats, politicians, by all those who have been in some kind of power.

But they have not been successful in destroying you. They have been successful only in suppressing you; they have not killed you, they have only poisoned you. And your poison can be taken out, and you can become alive again - which is your birthright.

You are saying, "All day, I have this melted sensation." This is the beginning of disappearing - disappearing into the whole. First, you will feel just as if you are melting, ice melting..."like something inside me dissolving in the glow of your love."

Something certainly is dissolving in everyone, more or less, except those few unfortunate ones who stand on the bank of a river and remain thirsty. But what is dissolving is not your reality; it is the unreal in which your reality has been repressed, covered. Once the unreal dissolves, the false disappears. Suddenly, you will have for the first time, an inner experience of sunrise - light all over the inner horizon of your sky.

"Discourse comes and it just expands." Spirituality is very contagious; if there are so many people around you in the same space, it helps tremendously. And if someone who has come back home is amongst you, his very presence starts giving you the direction, the dimension in which you have to expand, move, melt, merge.

"Discourse comes and it just expands to fill the silence." Perhaps this is the only place on the whole earth where so many people are sitting in immense silence - not only on the outside but inside too.

And silence gives space. Words, thoughts, are all disturbances.

Silence is an opening to the infinite.

You can expand to infinity - it all depends on your courage. And courage also comes as your experience grows, as you see that the more you expand, the more beautiful life becomes; the more you expand, the more love showers on you; the more you expand... everything takes on a new psychedelic dimension. It becomes more colorful, more alive, more dancing. The ordinary world suddenly starts changing into something extraordinary. The mundane becomes the sacred. And these are the most significant moments in life - when the mundane becomes sacred.

All the religions have been enemies of mankind for the simple reason that they have divided the mundane from the sacred. Rather than bridging them, they have been continuously conditioning the human mind that they are opposites, enemies, and you have to renounce one if you want to get the other.

If you want victory and success in the mundane world, you have to forget about the sacred completely. And to forget it, the best way is to deny it - it does not exist at all. Otherwise, how will you forget it? It will always remain somewhere in the corner, nagging you.

Just the other day, I was informed that in the Soviet Union - atheism is their religion - every child has to be conditioned from the very beginning in atheism. It is not different, it is the same: somewhere it is the Catholic religion, somewhere it is Protestant, somewhere it is Hindu, somewhere it is Buddhist.

In the Soviet Union, it is atheist. Somewhere it is God, somewhere it is no God. But the society never leaves you anywhere to search for yourself. It gives you ready-made answers. And in life, ready- made answers are not only futile, not only poisonous, but almost murderous.

The information was about many countries within the Soviet Union which are Mohammedan - used to be Mohammedan. Now, officially they are all atheists. But they have not forgotten; something of the sacred still lingers - even against the whole propaganda machine of the Soviet Union, which is one of the most efficient, dictatorial, which allows no criticism, no freedom of thinking.

Those Mohammedans have to pretend that they are atheists. But in Mohammedanism, five prayers are prescribed every day - from morning till you to go bed. It is very difficult in the Soviet Union to do five prayers. They have changed the name of the five prayers; they don't call it prayer, they call it physical exercise. Five times every day... it is good for the body and for the mind. They cannot mention the soul.

Sixty or seventy years of continuous propaganda, conditioning - but the sacred is just standing by.

And thousands of years of conditioning all over the world against the mundane, but the mundane has not disappeared. In India, they even reached to the extreme - they have been preaching for almost two thousand years that the mundane world does not exist; it is maya, it is illusion, it only appears.

I was staying with a shankaracharya, and he was discussing the illusoriness of the world. I told him, "There is no need to argue. You just pass through the wall. Don't go through the door. And it will be enough; I will be convinced and I will remain your devotee for my whole life."

He said, "Go through the wall? What kind of argument is this?"

I said, "It is not a question of argument. It will simply prove whether the wall is real or illusory."

You can condition the human mind, but the mundane is there. And even the person who preaches continually.... the first shankaracharya, Adi Shankaracharya, who created this theory of illusion and propounded it with great argumentation - he also needs food, he also needs water, he also needs clothes. And I am wondering why none of his followers ever objected, ever asked, "What is the need of these illusory things? And how can an illusory food become nourishment? And if it becomes nourishment, then to call it illusory is nonsense."

This was one side of the game: the people who wanted to emphasize spirituality had to deny the reality of the world which surrounds you everywhere. And there have been people who have been denying the spiritual, saying, "Man has no soul. He is just a robot created by nature, and when he dies, everything dies. So don't be bothered about the inner world; there is no inner. All that is real is outside, and all the talk about the inner is unreal, illusory."

On the surface, you may think these two parties are against each other. But my own understanding is different: they are using the same argument. They belong to the same category, to the same mind: choose one half - which half you choose is not the point, both are against the whole.

My effort is to make you aware that both are real, both are together in deep harmony. And the idea of their opposition destroys your life. Hence I say, the moments when you come to know that the sacred and the mundane are one - the sacred is the inside of the mundane, and the mundane is the outside of the sacred - then you have a total conception of reality.

"... leaving a breathing heart and a pair of ears hanging from nowhere." When you are absolutely silent and have become only a listening, naturally you will feel as if two ears are hanging from nowhere. This is the right way of listening, and "a breathing heart" deepens the silence; it does not disturb it.

Amrito, you are right when you say, "It feels like being an orgasm." It is. It is a love affair with the whole. It is a meeting with eternity, and it is an orgasm that can remain with you twenty-four hours - day in, day out.

An enlightened man remains orgasmic in every moment of his life. Orgasm is no longer an incident that happens and disappears; it becomes his natural way of being. His blissfulness is so much, and he is so deeply in tune with existence that orgasm is no longer an incident, it is his very life.

"Oh Osho, are you even turning the dark night of the soul into the light night of the soul?" That is the purpose for which we all have gathered here. This mystery school, or this university of alchemy, has only one purpose - to transform the baser metals into gold; to transform the dead into the living; to transform the dark into the light; to transform you from your mortality into the immortal.

Question 2:

Carina Anderson, the time when you were in Sweden, I was just in your imagination. You were feeling your heart opening, but there was nobody to enter into your heart. You were feeling a deep fulfillment of love and joy, but that was all made of the same stuff dreams are made of.

Now that you are here, things are totally different. Keeping your heart open will make you afraid, because it is easy to let me in, but it is very difficult to throw me out.

I come into you like a guest, and soon you start feeling you are a guest and I am a host - hence, the fear. Here, you are resisting my love, and you are saying, "This fills me with sorrow." It is natural that it will fill you with sorrow - you must have dreamt so much, imagined so much, hoped so much and things have not turned out the way you wanted them to be.

You are asking, "What should I do?" Go back to Sweden, Poona, anyway, is not a good place to stay. And at least your heart was opening there. Although there was no guest knocking on your doors, at least you were imagining love, joy; and here you are closed, full of fear, and feeling sad and wondering what has happened.

So if you are a coward, then the easiest way is simply to go back to Sweden - as you enter the plane, your heart will start opening again and you will start feeling love for me. But don't return - enjoy your dreams. If you cannot enjoy the reality, why unnecessarily feel sad and sorrowful? But if you are courageous, then Poona cannot do anything to you. Then let your heart be open and don't be afraid of love.

In life, the only thing that one should not be afraid of is love.

But people are more afraid of love than anything else, because love is a kind of death. Your ego has to die. Only then will your heart be spacious enough for love to come in. But I warn you: beware!

I come as a guest and soon I become the host. If you are ready to take the risk.... So many of the people here have taken the risk, and once they have taken the risk, they are grateful that this tremendous transformation became possible for them.

Whenever love comes in, it cannot be a guest, because it comes in and never goes. It becomes your very being, your very song, your very dance.

So either you can go right now back to Sweden and dream your dreams - but they are soap bubbles; you are simply wasting your time - or be here, take courage and accept the challenge: open your heart and let me in. Then I will be coming with you to Sweden - and on just one ticket, two persons!

I have been traveling all over the world this way.

The governments and parliaments think that they are preventing me, but they don't know my ways - that wherever one of my sannyasins enters, I also enter with him. They can prevent me, but they cannot prevent my millions of sannyasins.

And I have distributed my love to everyone, deserving or undeserving, because that is my way of thinking. Everyone deserves love, just as everyone deserves breathing. Everybody is worthy of love, just as everybody is worthy of living.

Love is the nourishment of your soul.

You can choose... but don't be saddened, in sorrow. If you want to just imagine things, then you can imagine anything. It is easy for millions of people in the world to pray to God because it is all imagination. If by chance it happens that they meet God, then there will be difficulty. Then immediately they will want to escape, and they will start finding a thousand and one complaints.

They will start laying many judgements upon God.

For example, if you meet God and he turns out to be Chinese, are you going to tolerate him - with five, six hairs in his beard, with long cheek bones? Or, who knows, maybe He is black. And maybe there is a possibility he is a woman... a black woman with a chinese face! You will run back to Sweden so fast. It was good in Sweden, God was your imagination. Whatever you wanted....

In India, the god Krishna, in his temples... there are beautiful temples of Krishna all over India, and he is one of the most colorful men. He has to be given food two times a day, just as every Indian eats. Every afternoon he takes a nap. In the night, when he goes to sleep, the doors are closed.

It is your imagination; whatever you want to do.... If you don't give him food, he cannot lodge a complaint in the Bund Garden Police Station. The poor fellow is imprisoned already in a temple, and nobody knows... and nobody has ever thought about a cup of tea in the morning.

Times have changed. If Krishna were alive, he would have learnt to drink tea - it is not such a sin.

But Hindus cannot offer tea to Krishna. They keep him in a swing, and the priest goes on pulling the rope of the swing so he is completely enjoying the swing. In rich temples, it is a golden swing, or a silver swing.

In one of the cities where I lived for a few months, there was a very famous temple of Krishna just in front of my house. So I used to go just to see what was happening there. I told the priest, "One thing you should remember: the whole day, keeping the poor fellow on the swing, and the rope is being pulled - the rope pullers go on changing but that poor fellow... the whole day - I think it will create nausea. You should be a little more compassionate."

He said, "But that's what the scriptures say."

I said, "You follow scriptures? Or do you have some intelligence, too? And if the scriptures say, 'Go on pulling the swing the whole day,' then at least take poor Krishna out for a morning walk outside in the garden - and go on pulling the swing as much as you want. Where are your scriptures? Is it written in them that Krishna has to be in the swing?"

He said, "That is not written."

I said, "Then it is your own idea - swing, do whatever you want. And this is idiotic: keeping the priests changing, now that electricity is available. Just plug the swing into the electricity and it will keep swinging - Krishna or no Krishna."

He said, "You should not say such things. It is irreligious."

I said, "I think that what you are doing is irreligious."

In every country, in every religion, people worship dead saints, because dead saints are very easy.

You tell them to lie down, they lie down. You tell them to sit up, they sit up. They are very obedient.

But a living saint, a living sage, is not going to be obedient to you. You will have to be surrendered to him. But the imaginary god is surrendered to you - that's the joy.

So in Sweden, you must have been doing things to me of which I am not aware. Here you cannot do those things to me - I am not your imagination. But your imagination is not going to give you a new life. And your imagination is not going to open your eyes to the ultimate truth.

I can help you to be authentic, to be joyous, to be ecstatic, but you will have to pay the price. And the price is not much - I just want your dreams.

Give me your dreams, and I can give you reality.

Reality is already with you; your dreams are like clouds, hiding it. Just give me your dreams. I ask nothing from my disciples except their dreams, their lies, their falsities.

And once they are without any falseness, they don't need anything from anybody. They have everything within themselves. They have brought it with their birth.

So you can decide. Either you can go alone to Sweden, or if you want me also to be with you, then you will have to wait a little more, gather courage. If so many people with open hearts have not died, if so many people are ready and available for my love, for my blessings, for my being, for my presence.... And no harm has happened to them, except that they have become a little crazy. They sing more, they dance more, they laugh more, they love more. They are more. So you can choose.

Carina Anderson, be very careful in choosing, because you may not find a man like me again.

Sweden will remain there. I am not going to be here always. And when you have come so far, just a little more, a little closer.... And you know perfectly well how to open the heart, because you were doing it in Sweden. You know perfectly well how to be loving and joyful. Give it a try here too.

Nobody is ever harmed by love, and nobody is ever harmed by opening the heart. Everybody has always become more enriched, more blessed.

But you can choose reality - or your dreams.

Question 3:

Prem Shunyo, life has so many aspects, that it is almost impossible to contain all those aspects in one statement. When I said that energy always moves downwards, like water, it was in a particular context. The context was the disciple touching the feet of the master.

If he wants to get the master's energy he has to be humble, and available to the downgoing energy.

Just as, in the East, for centuries the disciple has been touching the feet of the master, the master has been touching the head of the disciple with his hands. This way the disciple gets energy on his own accord, from the feet; and from the master's hands, compassion. And a circle starts happening.

If the disciple is not holding himself back, then he will feel what Amrito was calling "orgasm," energy showering on the disciple from the master; but it is energy coming from above, downwards. This was the context, when I said all energy moves downwards.

But your experience is absolutely true. When the master's energy showers on the disciple, and if the disciple is totally ready, the energy is so much that the disciple becomes aflame; the energy becomes fire. And like flames, the energy starts moving upwards. You all have felt it without understanding it.

Sometimes you feel your hands are moving upwards, in spite of yourself. You are not doing it. You are not the doer; your hands have become like a flame which wants to reach to the stars. This is the overflow of energy.

Ordinarily energy moves downwards; but if the disciple is able to attract the master's energy in such quantity that it starts flowing all around him, he cannot contain it - it is too much to contain. The very fact of abundance makes the energy move upwards.

And the feeling, Shunyo, is perfectly right. You say, "I have felt energy showering down, but I have also felt energy soaring upwards, like a flame." That is the second step. First, you have to be so humble - just like a valley - that from the mountains, rivers can descend into you. Once you have too much... you should remember that at a certain point, quantitative changes become qualitative changes.

For example, at one hundred degrees water suddenly starts evaporating, moving upwards.

Ordinarily water flows downwards, but at a hundred degrees of heat a qualitative change happens.

The whole direction changes; the water becomes a new phenomena: vapor. It is the same water - it starts moving upwards. Almost similar is the case if energy falling into you makes you so hot, so full... then you will feel a second step: the energy moving upwards like flames. So whatever you have experienced is not against reality.

What I was saying was only in a particular context. In Shunyo's context I can also be a witness. I have seen it, and many of you may have felt that whenever I come close to her, she starts moving her hands upwards - not only her hands upwards, but she starts saying things that... I don't think she understands what she is saying. The whole experience is just so much that it wants expression.

Slowly, slowly, it is going to happen to everyone. But only when it happens is it meaningful to talk to you about it. I don't say many things to you. I will wait for the right moment, when you have some experience, so that my words don't just go above your heads but go directly like arrows into your hearts.

Question 4:

Prem Arup, you are right. It is the formless responding to the formless. Just like Shunyo, this is your experience and may be the experience of a few other people.

There are moments when suddenly I stop for a second, just to give you a taste - the taste when everything stops: time, space, mind, everything stops. But it is possible only if you are totally in tune with me and you are moving with me. If you are partially with me, then the experience will not happen. If you are totally with me and moving with me and then suddenly I stop, I give you a moment which is certainly exquisite, a moment of ecstasy.

You are asking, "What are You doing to us?" I am trying to get you to come back home. You have gone far away, wandering after ephemeral things, wandering after dreams. And I want you to come back home - because that which can give you contentment, that which can give you fulfillment is not out there, it is in here; it is not in any other time, but now. And the feeling of a stop - a total stop - is nothing but an experience of herenow.

I can give you only the taste, and once you have got the taste, then you will be in search of it. Then there is no way to prevent you. The most fundamental thing is a taste. You have heard words, beautiful words, but they have not driven you into a mad search. I want to give not only words to you, but some content. And that is possible only by giving you some taste.

And the time is ripe. For so many of my sannyasins, the first flowers of spring have started showing.

More and more flowers will be blossoming. And you have to be very impatiently patient - with a deep longing, but without any demands. Because I cannot be here forever. And I have waited long enough; now it is time that I should start giving you the taste. Words I have given you many - that was a preparation. Seeds I have sown many, and now that the spring is very close, you have to be courageous, and total, and intensively with me - in my silence, in my joy.

It is time that the duality between you and me is dropped.

Those who are intelligent should drop it immediately. Those who are a little less intelligent will take a little time. I have a little time more to linger on your shore... but it cannot be very long.

Question 5:

Anand Prageet, I don't know anybody personally, but I know everybody essentially, I know everybody spiritually.

Personality is a false thing. It is a mask: your name, your address, your profession, your photograph - passport size - your identity cards. What is your personality made of? - just these kind of things.

Otherwise you come into the world without any name, without any address, without any religion, without any nation, without any race. You come as just a tabula rasa - so clean, so clear, crystal clear. That is your essentiality. But that is the essentiality of everyone, so it does not matter whether I know you personally or not. All personalities are false. And the essential being within you is the same.

The day I came to know myself, I came to know you too.

That's why everything is happening. I can understand your puzzlement, your problem: how is this possible? Because people think that unless you are known personally, how can I do anything for you? The reality is just the opposite: Unless I know you spiritually, I cannot do anything. And you don't know your own spirituality. You know your face, just the way the mirror shows it. Have you seen a house of mirrors, where there are different kinds of mirrors? In some mirrors you are so long, like a pillar; in some mirrors you are so small, like a pygmy; in some mirrors you even get afraid seeing your own face. But have you any guarantee that the mirror you have in your bathroom is the right mirror? And who decides what is the right mirror? But that is your only acquaintance with yourself.

There is a beautiful story about Mulla Nasruddin: He had gone for a pilgrimage to Kaaba, the Mohammedan holy land. And there were millions of pilgrims - because it is expected by the Mohammedan scriptures that every Mohammedan, at least once in his life, must go to Kaaba; otherwise he is not considered to be a real Mohammedan.

So even the poorest Mohammedans sell their houses, sell their ornaments, their land, everything, because at least once in their life they have to go to Kaaba. So every year there is a great gathering.

All caravanserais are full, all hotels are full.

Nowhere was there any vacancy, and Mulla was very tired. He clung to the feet of the manager of a hotel and he said, "Whatever you can do... but there must be some place in your big hotel, and I'm so tired - walking in the desert for miles. Just have mercy on me!"

The manager said, "I can understand your trouble, but all the rooms are full. Only one room can I manage to smuggle you into, because the man who is staying inside is snoring so loudly, he will not be able to know. You go silently and sleep. At least till morning that man is not going to wake up, and even if he wakes up, he will not find me. In the morning we will see - somehow we will persuade him."

Mulla went in; the room was a double bedroom. The man was snoring, so the manager left him there. And Mulla lay went on the bed with his shoes, with his cap, with his coat, everything - just as he was when he entered the hotel. Naturally it was very difficult to sleep with his shoes and his hat and his coat, and it was hot - Saudi Arabia is the hottest place - and on top of it all, the snoring man was by his side. He was snoring so loudly that even if you were at ease you could not sleep.

Mulla was tossing and turning - his tossing and turning woke up the man. And the man watched in the darkness of the room to see what was happening. Slowly, slowly he could see that Mulla had his shoes on, cap on, coat on... and it was so hot. He could not resist the temptation.

He said, "Listen, in the first place you have illegally entered my room. I have booked the whole room, for the simple reason that I snore so much that if somebody else is there he cannot sleep. And if he cannot sleep, then he creates trouble, and then I cannot sleep. But you kept silent for so long and suddenly you started tossing and turning. I opened my eyes; I said, 'My God, again another person!'

But forget all about it - it is midnight, where will you go? But why do you have your shoes and cap on?"

Mulla Nasruddin said, "There is a problem. The problem is that if I take off my shoes, and my cap, and my coat - and in fact I am accustomed to sleeping naked, and unless I am naked I cannot sleep - if I take off everything and go to sleep naked, you are also sleeping naked. That is the trouble."

"But what is the trouble? I am sleeping naked, you are sleeping naked."

Mulla said, "You don't understand. In the morning, how am I going to recognize who is who? Just to keep my identity, I was keeping my hat, my shoes, my coat. That way I will be certain that there is no problem: I am Mulla Nasruddin, this guy is somebody else. But both naked...."

The man said, "I will suggest one thing to you, because this way neither you can sleep nor I can sleep." And the man also thought that this was a strange type of man, who thinks that if he is naked he will lose his identity. He said, "Just before us, a family must have stayed in the room, and their child has left a doll. So what I will do is I will tie the doll to your feet, and then you can sleep perfectly well. In the morning you can see that the doll is on your feet, so you are Mulla Nasruddin."

Mulla said, "I'm so grateful to you." He dropped all his clothes, and the other man found that doll in a corner and tied it to the feet of Mulla. The man was laughing all the time inside, thinking "I have never come across such a man." And then he had an idea in the middle.... when Mulla was snoring, he changed the doll. He tied it to his own feet and went to sleep.

In the morning when Mulla looked at his feet, he jumped out of his bed, ran out of the room, naked, shouting, "One thing is certain: that man is Mulla Nasruddin. The problem is: who am I? Can anybody say? Can anybody recognize me? Where is the manager? He had seen me in the night, perhaps he can recognize me."

Your personalities are nothing but dolls tied to your feet. I don't have to know your personal life, your personality. I don't have to be acquainted with you personally; I know you essentially. By knowing myself, I have known you all. By dissolving my own problems I know your problems, and I know the key to how they can be dissolved.

The day I became aware of myself I came to know the sinner and the saint both. I have known those who are asleep, and those who have become awakened. So there is no problem in it. If you are here listening to me... and all that I am saying is: drop your personality, drop your ego. Be humble, and be open. Be silent, be alert and conscious, and miracles are bound to happen to you.

And remember: I will not be responsible for those miracles. You yourself will be responsible for your miracles. You need not even feel thankful towards me. Your gratitude has to go towards the whole existence. I was just a stranger who met you on the way, and we talked a little, gossiped a little - I don't have gospels, but only gossips - and then we parted, you on your own way, I on my own way.

There is no need for me to know you personally, nor is there any need for you to know me personally.

What is needed is an essential bridge between your being and my being. In silence that happens automatically.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.