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‌CHAPTER 17

17 February 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine, ashad means joy, enjoyment, happiness; all kinds of joys are included in it, from the lowest to the highest. There are bodily joys, there are psychological and there are spiritual joys. Ashad takes them altogether, in one unity. It cannot be exactly translated into English because there are different joys. Somebody may enjoy eating but that’s a physical phenomenon. It is different from enjoying music, it is qualitatively different. The difference is not only of quantity: it is a totally different dimension of joy. What has music got to do with food? It is non-physical. And there is a joy in meditation which is again different from-the joy that one derives from music. Ashad means all kinds of joys, the very essential core of joy.

And that is my central teaching, that one has to enjoy on all levels of being. No level has to be starved, neither the body nor the mind nor the spirit. Man has to accept the totality of life. No distinction has to be made, and all these three dimensions have to be fulfilled.

[Osho gives sannyas to a woman, who eyes flow with tears.] If crying comes, tears come, allow them, don’t hold them.…

Deva means divine, mudita means joy – divine joy. And this crying has to be used as prayer. It is not it negative, it is very positive. People know only one aspect of tears, the negative aspect. They think that we cry only, weep only, when we are miserable, in pain, in suffering. That is half the story. The other half is that we also cry and weep when we are very thrilled, ecstatic, happy. Tears are not necessarily sad; sometimes they are of great joy.

You can use your tears very easily in prayer. So make it a point every night before you go to bed to sit in your bed and just feel overwhelmed. Allow crying, let tears flow from your eyes. That will come very naturally to you, it will not need any effort. And when something comes naturally it has a

beauty. Tears are very natural to a few people: they can use those tears as prayer, there is no need of any other prayer. And I see that possibility in you. So every night at least for ten minutes, simply fall into deep, crying – joyously, celebrate it. Let those tears be your offering to god, and without saying a word, you would have said all then.

And your prayer will be heard soon. Tears are the closest communication with the divine, and if they can be of joy, then they are a miracle.

[Osho gives sannyas to someone]

... The name is new but it is to remind you of something very ancient in you, something very old, something of your past life. And the reminding will be of great help. It may become a nucleus, and you will start collecting around it a new being.

Anand means bliss, anagami is a Buddhist term – it means: one who will not return any more, a non-returner. The possibility is there – if you work, you may not need to return to life again.

That is one of the goals of religion: not to fall back into the trap of life and death. And the name is to remind you that in your past life you have been a Buddhist monk, and something of that quality is still present in your consciousness. So you have to work through Buddhist meditations. They will fit you, they will simply trigger off a process in you. You will be surprised, because the result will be much more than the effort made, because all that you have done in a past life will again be new and will again start moving.

It happens many times that a man works on a certain path in a life and then starts moving on another path in another life; then the whole work of the past life is wasted, it is not used at all. This is one of the functions of the master: to put the disciple on the path where he has been working in the past. The real master does not impose anything on the disciple; he simply exposes the disciple to the disciple’s past, and naturally to the future. The master has to be a mirror. Right now you cannot see many things about yourself. I can see them. Without seeing them you will grope unnecessarily. There are thousands of possibilities and you can get caught in something which is not a continuity; then all that you have done before is lost.

It is as if a man starts learning German and then after six months he starts learning Chinese. The effort that he had put in learning German has gone down the drain. After six months he starts learning Japanese, and he goes on forgetting his German and his Chinese. This is how things are.

So let Buddhist meditations – Vipassana, Zazen – -be your work, and you will immediately feel that something which was missing is missing no more, the groping has stopped. And this is the possibility.: you can become a non-returner, Anagami. Just a little work and great is the possibility; don’t miss this occasion!

[The new sannyasin says he had been working in psychotherapy with his wife, but because of marital problems he had dropped it. Now he feels they could continue working together.]

My feeling is that it is always good to separate your work from your love, it is always good. They don’t go well together. Your work problems start affecting your love and your love problems start

affecting your work; things become multiplied. Love in itself is enough, it is a world. Don’t load it with anything else; it is already complicated. Keep them separate and your work will be easier, your love life will be smoother. You can both work in psychotherapy but work separately.

The work of a psychotherapist is such that it is better for him not to be in it with his partner because the psychotherapist has his own problems. And when you are with your wife you can never feel free, your wife can never feel free. Sometimes the advice that you would have given if you were alone is not given because you have to think of the wife too. Sometimes she would have said something which she will not say because it may hurt you. So rather than considering the patient, there is an unconscious consideration of the partner. If you are too sincere to the patient you hurt your wife; if you are too considerate of your wife you are not sincere to the patient. Your mind is divided. It is good not to work together. And the work of a psychotherapist is such a maddening work that it is better not to load it more.

After the whole day’s work when you are tired, and you come home, it is good to have a new face to greet you rather than the same old colleague. Otherwise you come home together, you go together to the office; your wife is no more a relaxation. Don’t reduce your wife to a colleague. It is better to hope and wait that the day will be finished and you will be going home and you will see your wife. Let that world be separate so you have somewhere to escape from the work. Otherwise there is nowhere to escape to. You will be talking about the same problems at home also. You will carry the load from the office to the home. Then where will you have your holiday? If things are going well don’t disturb them. You can both work as psychotherapists but have separate offices; that’s my suggestion.

My feeling is that the husband and wife should not be together twenty-four hours a day; that too is hard on each other. We lose interest: the wife becomes taken for granted too much, you become taken for granted too much. You don’t have your space and she has no space of her own. You go on overlapping, you go on crowding each other, and sooner or later or later it is a stress.

Better to keep the sanctity of the person. Each person has to have his own inner space, then it is good to meet sometimes. Then there is joy in meeting, there is a longing and a passion in meeting. Otherwise there is no passion, no joy: you are together for twenty-four hours. One tends to forget the person who is too close twenty-four hours, the obvious tends to be forgotten. It is my suggestion that you work separately, and your closeness will grow, your intimacy will grow.

[A new sannyasin says: I don’t feel any emotion and I’m always in my head.]

Mm mm, that I can feel.The heart is almost asleep, snoring. You are in the head.

[The sannyasin adds: And I cannot breathe.]

That too is possible, because if the heart is very closed, breathing is never as it should be; it becomes shallow. But it will change.

Just do the camp and these three groups. We have a few breathing groups; if it is needed I will give some to you. Within six to eight weeks things will start flowing smoothly, because the heart is never dead, it is just that it has never been used. It is there: the key just has to be turned and the ignition

will be on. Sometimes, if you have not used it for long, it may have got rusted, so give it a few days for cleaning; it will be okay.

The heart is always there perfectly ready to function; it is just that our energy is not moving through the heart. You have found a shortcut from the navel to the head. These are the two possibilities: either the energy moves through the heart to the head; it goes to the head but it comes through the heart. Or the energy arises in the navel, then it moves to the heart and then to the head. This is one natural way. If energy moves through the heart, then the heart makes it soft, loving; it is no more aggressive, no more violent; it is feminine.

But there is a way to by-pass the heart: the energy can go directly from the navel to the head. Then it is masculine, then it is aggressive. It is thought and not feeling; it is mathematics and not poetry. It is clever, cunning, calculating, but never sharing. Through this energy which has by-passed the heart you will be very very successful in the world but very unsuccessful in life. You may become very famous, you may become a great scientist or a politician or a philosopher, but deep down you will remain empty and poor, and a beggar.

Our schools, colleges and universities, help the energy to by-pass the heart; they train the energy to go directly from the navel to the head. The whole educational system that exists in the world is anti-love, it is anti-heart, anti-feeling. It is very much afraid of love, because once love enters, logic disappears. If logic is to be there, love has to be debarred. But the heart is there. Just a little effort is needed and the energy will start moving through the heart. It is the same energy; it will go into the head, but will be refined by the heart and the feelings and the emotions. It will be soft, delicate.

Just cooperate with me and within six to eight weeks things will be different. Once you have tasted of it there is no problem. Your energy is moving through a diversion; many people are more or less in that situation. You are fortunate that you are aware; millions are in the same fix but not aware. If you are aware, things can be done, and sannyas will become the beginning of the transformation.

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