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Chapter title: None

22 November 1980 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 8011225 ShortTitle: ALLWAY22 Audio:

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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.]

SERIOUSNESS IS SICKNESS

One has to be sincere but not serious. Ordinarily people think of them together. Seriousness is a disease, it is sickness; sincerity is health, sincerity has cheerfulness in it. The sincere person need not be serious at all. He has nothing to hide, he need not wear a mask; he can be as open as a child. And of course the child is bound to be playful, rejoicing.

In the past seriousness and sincerity became somehow associated and that destroyed the whole religious growth of humanity. My effort here is to separate them. Once they are separate it becomes a joy to be sincere. Then there is nothing like the idea of holier-than-thou in it. One does not become special and saintly, on the contrary one becomes more simple, humble, ordinary. One becomes a nobody -- and to be nobody is to be ready to receive god.

NOT PLANNING BUT UNDERSTANDING

Perfection is a goal; it is somewhere there far away in the future. Totality is an understanding; one can be total right now. You can listen to my words in totality, not holding anything back, as if the whole body has become ears and nothing

else, as if you are not listening only through the ears but through every pore of your being. Totality is not goal-oriented, it is immediate. If you understand it, it is right now. If you don't understand it then the idea of perfection arises; then it is always tomorrow, next life, in the other world, in heaven, only god is perfect.

To understand totality is to be herenow; to misunderstand it creates the idea of perfection. The idea of perfection is a misunderstanding of totality, but it is a very basic misunderstanding; it has destroyed the very roots of humanity.

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And Helga means holy.

Only the total person is holy, the whole person is holy. Holiness is not an ideal, it is just a way of living.

It has nothing to do with religion, it has everything to do with your whole life -- the way you sleep, the way you walk, the way you listen, the way you talk, the way you eat, the way you relate,,the way you sit. It permeates the twenty-four hours of your day. It has nothing to do with the churches and the temples and the mosques and with the so-called saints and mahatmas and the holy men -- it has nothing to do with that. They are all pseudo; that kind of spirituality is plastic.

My sannyasins have to be spontaneous, total, in whatsoever they are doing. It does not matter what they are doing, what matters is whether they are totally in it or not. If they are totally in it that action is holy, if they are only half-heartedly in it that action is unholy. And the miracle is that you can be wholly, totally into something only when it is good. If it is not good, whatsoever you do you cannot be totally in. So that is the criterion in fact, anything in which you cannot be total is sin, anything in which you can easily be total is virtue. So there is no need to look in the scriptures for what is sin and what is virtue; you can just go on experimenting with your own life.

You cannot be totally destructive, that is impossible, that is not in the very nature

of things; something in you will remain out of it. Destruction is unnatural, criminal, ugly, destruction is going against the very fundamental law of life; hence one cannot be totally in it. We are life, we are part of the eternal law -- how can we be totally in destruction? But in creation one can be total.

A painter painting can be totally in it, a dancer dancing can disappear in the dance. So I call the dancer who has disappeared into dance a holy man, but I cannot call Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin or Mao Tse Tung, holy men. What they are doing is destructive, so whatsoever they do is going to remain only half- hearted; somewhere deep down they themselves will feel that it is not right, it should not be done. Their very own centre will go on giving them signals, will go on whispering to them 'This is not right. There is still time -- stop it.'

I have never come across a criminal who is really happy with what he is going. He knows it is wrong; still, he is weak and he goes on doing it out of old habit. Maybe he has invested too much in it and now to withdraw is difficult. And maybe he does not know anything else, that's the only thing that he can do. That is his skill, his efficiency, his expertise; otherwise he is not happy.

Even Alexander the Great said to Diogenes 'If I am born again I will ask god not to make me Alexander again. I will ask him to make me a Diogenes.'

That is significant: Alexander the Great saying that: 'I would not ask to be Alexander again.' Somewhere deep down he also feels he has missed, whatsoever he has done was wrong, it was not the right way to live.

So to me holiness means the right way to live, the creative way to live, the loving way to live .

SOMNAMBULIST OR SANNYASIN

(Osho is talking to Anand Cornelia.)

People ordinarily are asleep, fast asleep. If you listen carefully you can hear their souls snoring (laughter) ... and out of this sleepiness they go on doing all kinds of things. Those things cannot be right, they are done unconsciously. Out of unconsciousness they create misery for others and for themselves, out of unconsciousness only misery can result.

The moment one becomes aware one also becomes blissful. As awareness

grows, blissfulness grows; when one is absolutely aware one is absolutely blissful. They are two sides of the same coin; anand is bliss, cornelia is awareness. One has to work to be aware, then bliss comes as a consequence, as a by-product.

That's the whole meaning of sannyas: the effort to come out of sleep, the effort to wake up.

(Osho expands further on the nature of spiritual awakening.) Just as there is a physical sleep and physical waking, parallel to it there is spiritual sleep and spiritual awakening. Whatsoever exists on the physical plane also exists on the spiritual plane. In the day you are awake only physically and in the night you have to go to sleep -- that too, only physically. In the same way your inner being also needs awakening. It is fast asleep so much so that many people are not even aware of it. They will become aware of it only when it wakes up, otherwise they think there is no soul, no self. That's what all the atheists down the ages have believed; from Epicurus to Karl Marx they have all believed that there is no soul, no self, that man is only the body. And the only reason for their belief is that they are not at 1/08/07

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all awake spiritually.

Initiation into sannyas means a commitment, a decision to wake up spiritually. And all the methods are available here, all the possible methods that have been tried in the past and many new ones that have never been tried. It is a very rare opportunity. The whole past with all its experiments is available here and the whole future with all the possible experiments. Not only are the yesterdays available here but the tomorrows too. And you can work out which method suits you. It is only a question of trying. Nobody can predict which method will help you to become awakened, nobody can predict it. But one has to work it out just by the simple method of trial and error.

The commune of a master means that all doors are available -- you have to knock. Go on knocking, one door is certainly for you. And the moment you

knock, it will open for you. All those doors lead to the same inner shrine, to the same awakening. The difference is only of doors.

So do all the meditations, do all kinds of groups, in search of the right door for you. Once you have found the right door then all search is dropped, then you enter the journey. And always remember: unless you become spiritually aware of who you are the journey is not complete. When you can experience your inner being as full of light, exploding with light, overflowing with light, and all darkness has disappeared, then the night is over and the dawn has come.

Only on that day is sannyas fulfilled. MEDITATION- CONSCIOUSNESS CLEANSER.

(Osho tells Dhyan Karen that the three meanings of her name actually define the nature of meditation exactly.)

One has to be clean. We are so much full of dust, we go on gathering dust and junk. We are not alert about what we are doing, but to gather past memories is to gather dust, is to collect corpses. One becomes a cemetery, just a graveyard -- and those corpses are going to stink.

To be clear means to go on removing all the dust that naturally gathers. If you have lived for twenty-four hours then twenty-four hours experiences gather as dust on the mirror of your being -- clean them away. In fact there is no need to wait for twenty-four hours; each moment go on cleaning -- that is far easier. Just a little bit of dust and it can be cleaned.

In short, it can be said die each moment to the past so that you can be born anew each moment in the present. This is cleanliness, freshness. Out of this cleanliness comes a clarity because the mirror is clean, it can reflect, it can reflect things as they are. One can see things as they are; now the eyes are no more covered with prejudices. You are not trying to see things in a particular way; you are simply available to see whatsoever is the case. That is clarity.

And out of a clean mirror and a clear vision whatsoever you do is pure, your action becomes pure. It has a fragrance, it has something of the divine in it, it has something of the beyond in it. It is no more just your action but is as if god has started functioning through you, you have become just a vehicle, a passage, a medium. And that is the most beautiful experience in life, to become a vehicle

for the whole, to be in the service of god. OF SALESMEN AND SAILORS

Gautam the Buddha has said that there are two kinds of people in the world; hence when they become enlightened a little distinction also remains between those two categories. One he calls the bodhisattvas.

A bodhisattva is one who has attained to the ultimate truth and tries to share it with others. He is compassionate. The way of the bodhisattva is called mahayana; literally the word 'mahayana' means the great boat... because he is not willing to go alone to the other shore. His boat is ready, he can go alone, but he will linger on this shore as long as possible to persuade people, to seduce people, to tempt people to the other shore. He will collect as many as he can in the boat and only then will he leave. He will go to the other shore but he will take a community with him to the other shore, he will not go alone.

The other category of humanity, Buddha says, is a little bit different -- and that difference remains even when the ultimate truth is achieved. The other category he calls the arhatas. Their experience is the same as that of the bodhisattvas but the arhatas don't wait for anybody; when their boat comes they simply leave this 1/08/07

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shore, they don't linger on this shore. They are not interested in sharing. Their understanding is that truth cannot be shared so why bother? Everybody has to attain it through their own effort and it is pointless to tell people about it.

The path of the arhatas is called hinayana; hinayana means the small boat. It is enough for one person; it is not a ship, it is just a small boat. It cannot take even two to the other shore, only one.

My boat is mahayana. My whole work here is to create a commune of enlightened people and spread them all over the world like sheets, so that not only do they become ready to go to the other shore,,they also persuade people to

go. And the other shore is really so tempting that anybody can be seduced. One just has to learn the art of seduction -- that makes a master.

Arhatas are not masters. They are enlightened people but they are not masters. Only bodhisattvas are masters. They are not only masters, they are good salesmen too!

So remember that: you have to become one of my salesmen!

-- I will!

-- Good! How long will you be here?

-- As long as you want.

-- Good!

(Osho talks to Mamta about the need to go beyond attachment to taste love.) People go on thinking that attachment is love - it is not. It is a false coin. It appears to be love but it is just the opposite of love. It is full of anger, hatred, jealousy, possessiveness; it is not love.

And to live a life of attachment is very destructive because whomsoever you think you love you reduce to a thing. And you allow yourself also to be reduced to a thing. It is good to be a man, it is not good to be a husband. A husband is a thing and an ugly thing at that; the very word is ugly. It is good to be a woman but not good to be a wife. Being a wife means you are reduced to a very small relationship. The woman was vast; the wife is tethered, chained, imprisoned. And that's what love goes on doing. People do it to their children -- they possess them. Children are nobody's possession; they come through the parents but they don't belong to them. But people behave as if they are the owners: 'my child, my wife, my husband.' The very idea of putting your ego projection on the other is destructive of love. The word 'mamta' literally means mine -- literally. 'Mam' means my, mamta means mine.

The moment you say my, mine, you have projected the I, the ego has come into functioning and the ego is the enemy of love.

My sannyasins have to learn the ways of non-attachment, non-possessiveness, only then does love blossom. And the blossoming of love is religion, true

religion. When your heart is fragrant with love you know what god is.

The taste of love gives you the proof that god exists, there is no other proof; except for love there is no other proof for god. There has never been and there never will be; love is the only proof, the only proof. But people are destroying the very possibility of their knowing god by destroying love.

RELIGION: RECEIVING NOT BELIEVING

Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Mohammedanism -- these are only ideologies, dogmas, creeds, they are only cults. The true religion has no name, it cannot have any name. Buddha lived it, Jesus lived it, but remember, Jesus was not a Christian and Buddha was not a Buddhist; he had never heard of the word.

The truly religious people have been simply religious, they have not been dogmatic. And all the people you see around the world -- there are three hundred religions in the world... This is such an absurdity: if truth is one, how can there be three hundred religions? There is only one science and three hundred religions!

If the science that is concerned with the objective truth is one, then religion is also one because it is concerned with the subjective truth, the other side of the truth. But that religion cannot have any religion, any name, it cannot have any ideology. I teach only that religion. Hence if somebody asks you what my teaching is in short, you will not be able to say -- because I don't teach principles, ideologies, dogmas, doctrines. I teach you a religionless religion, I teach you the taste of it. I give you the method to become receptive to the divine. I don't say anything about the divine, I simply tell you 'This is the window -- open it 1/08/07

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-- and you will see the starry night.'

Now, that starry night is indefinable. Once you see it through the open window you will know it. Seeing is knowing and seeing should be being, there should be

no other belief.

So my whole effort is existential, not intellectual at all. And the true religion is existential. It has always happened to only a few people and then it disappears from the earth because the intellectuals immediately grab it and they start making beautiful ideologies out of it -- neat and clean, logical. And in that very effort they destroy its beauty. They create philosophies and religion disappears. The pundit, the scholar, the theologian, is the enemy of religion.

So here in becoming my sannyasins, remember it: you are not getting initiated into a certain religion; you are getting initiated into just a religiousness. It is vast, immense, unbounded -- it is like the whole sky.

Even the sky is not the limit.

So open your wings without any fear. This whole existence belongs to us, this is our temple, this is our scripture. Less than that is man-made, manufactured by man; where it is manufactured does not matter much.

Beware of man-manufactured religions so that you can know the true, which is not man-made. And it is available in the trees, in the mountains, in the rivers, in the stars, in you, in people that surround you -- it is available everywhere. Once you get rid of the man-made you will become aware of the god-made.

A TALL STOREY

(Osho speaks to Avinasho on man's immortality.)

Man is not confined between birth and death. Birth and death are both episodes in your eternal life; they have happened many times. You don't begin with birth and you don't end with death.

The search for the eternal core is the search of sannyas. The Zen people call it the original face; they say

'Try to find your original face, the face that you have before even your parents were born, or the face that you will still have even when your children are dead.'

The original face is not physical, it is not psychological, it is spiritual.

Man is like a three-storied building, and we remain on the ground floor our whole life. Only very few people in rare moments have a few glimpses beyond the ground floor, otherwise people remain concerned with the physical. Food and sex are their lives; these two are enough. And they go on round and round; they call it merry-go-round, it is a very sorry-go-round. But knowing nothing they just go on chasing their own tails on the ground floor. And of course they see that others also are doing the same so this must be the way it has to be done. Children learn from their parents and others, and everybody is chasing his own tail and going round and round... just crazy dogs -- all nuts! So small nuts learn from big nuts (laughter) ... and they start doing the same. And they will teach their small nuts the same story. And it goes on and on.

Only once in a while does a person go above the physiological and look into the psychological. That world is totally different. It consists of music, poetry, dance, art, creativity; it is multi-dimensional. Then the life of food and sex seems to be very gross compared to Beethoven and Leonardo. Whatsoever you can manage on the physiological will remain gross, but even the psychological is not the ultimate height, and those who remain on the psychological are still missing the original face. There is one higher plane where only a Buddha, a Lao Tzu, a Jesus

-- a few people -- have entered, and that is the world of the eternal, avinasho. And to know it is to know all.

Jesus calls it the kingdom of god, Buddha calls it nirvana; they are different names for the same phenomenon. Unless the third is known remember, you are falling short, something will go on being missed; you will not feel contented. And it is good that nobody can feel contented unless one knows the eternal otherwise we will become satisfied on a very low plane. But something deep inside remains restless, it goes on goading you, it goes on telling you 'This is not it, there must be something more in life -- search, seek.'

And remember, Jesus' statement is true: Seek and ye shall find; ask and it shall be given; knock and the doors shall be opened unto you.

Blessed is the seeker of truth -- and that's what you are becoming today. To be a sannyasin is to be a seeker of truth. And the truth is eternal, it has to be found. It is the very task of life, the challenge of life.

Life is nothing but an opportunity to find it. Don't waste it in small trivia, don't waste it in the mundane. Put as much energy as possible into the ultimate search,

into that search; do it intensely. And if your intention is 1/08/07 Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994

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there and you are really, authentically interested in seeking, then the doors are bound to open for you. They have always opened for the real seeker; it has never been otherwise.

Going All the Way

Chapter #23

  

 

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