Chapter title: None

‌Chapter title: None‌

23 November 1980 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 8011235 ShortTitle: ALLWAY23 Audio:

No Video:

[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up.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

MEDITATION: REALLY DIGGING YOURSELF

We are alive but we are unaware of the source of our life, from where it comes. And unless we know the source we remain unacquainted with ourselves. Then whatsoever we do is going to be wrong, inevitably wrong, because it comes out of self-ignorance. It is like a blind man groping: he will stumble here and fall there. And ordinarily that is our whole life -- stumbling, falling, getting up, stumbling, falling again. It is a tragedy, and the reason is simple: we are not aware of ourselves, we don't know who we are -- and it can be known, it is not far away.

The source is within us and the method to know the source is meditation. It is a method of digging a well within your being so that you can reach to the very centre of it, to where life juices are flowing. And once you are acquainted with your centre you are simultaneously acquainted with the centre of the whole --

because it is the same; we are separate only on the circumference, not at the centre. At the centre we are one, at the circumference we are many. To live on the circumference is to be worldly and to live through the centre, at the centre, is to be a sannyasin.

FOLLOWER OR FLOWER?

(Osho has talked on the folly of imitating anyone and on the real Christian being a lover. But he puts it slightly differently this time round.)

The only way to really be a Christian is to know the art of love. One does not become a Christian by becoming a follower of Christ, because the follower is an imitator; he remains false. You can only be yourself, you can never be anybody else. If you try to be your life will become schizophrenic. All followers are schizophrenic because they are one thing and they are trying to be somebody else. And existence never repeats -- that's one of the fundamental laws. There is no way to escape from that ultimate law.

A man like Jesus happens only once, and it is not so only with Jesus, it is so with everybody else; there 1/08/07

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has been no person like you before and there will never be another person like you again. Hence following is basically wrong, it is betraying yourself. And how can you be healthy and whole if you betray yourself?

One does not become a Christian by becoming a member of a church -- one becomes a Christian only by love. Jesus defines god as love, so all those who know what love is are Christians, but they are not followers of Christ. Christ was never a follower of anybody else; if he had been a follower the Jews would not have killed him -- he was authentically himself. Buddha was not a follower of anybody; he was authentically himself. Lao Tzu was not a follower of anybody.

If one wants to be really whole, sane, blissful, then one has to continuously remember not to fall into the trap of following.

My sannyasins are not my followers -- just my lovers, my friends. They are companions, fellow travellers, but not followers. You are not to imitate me -- that will make you pseudo. You are just to learn love.

Love is the secret of all the religions. It not only makes you a Christian, it also makes you a Mohammedan, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Jaina, a Jew. The moment you love,,you know that all these authentic people -- Moses and Jesus and Mohammed and Mahavira and Krishna -- were lovers, great lovers of existence, unconditional lovers.

Love is the essential core of religion. So I don't give you any dogma, any doctrine; I simply help you to discover your loving qualities. They are already there, they just have to be uncovered. They are like buds: they just have to open and become flowers. And then there is great fragrance and great joy and for the first time life becomes a dance, a celebration, a festivity.

HEART-MONIOUS

(Osho is talking to Cordelia.)

Cordelia is a beautiful name, one of the most significant names that one can have. It has two meanings; in Welsh it means poetry, in Latin it means warmth of the heart. Although the meanings come from different languages somehow they are related to each other.

Poetry is nothing but warmth of the heart. The cold heart cannot be poetic -- it is dead! And people are dead because their heart is cold; their head is hot and their heart is ice cold. It should be just the reverse --

things are upside-down: the heart should be warm and the head should be cool, because the function of the head is to calculate. and cold it will be more efficient because it will be in a more mathematical space. And because the head is a machine, the hotter it gets, the more errors it commits. It is a machine, it should remain cool.

The heart is not a machine at all; the heart is your very being, it is your love, it is your life. It has to be in a state of dancing, not frozen. When the heart is warm there is poetry in life. You may compose poetry, you may not -- that is irrelevant

-- but when the heart is warm, full of love, flowing, rejoicing, then there is a poetic sense, a poetic touch. Whatsoever you do, whatsoever you are, there is a certain subtle aura around you -- that of poetry, grace, beauty... an aesthetic sense.

And I am adding Anand to your name. Anand means bliss. Bliss is the ultimate

experience of the dance that happens in the heart, of the poetry that happens through your heart when it is fully alive, totally alive.

And when your life is transformed into poetry you will know what bliss is, because that is the moment when you start synchronising with existence, you start having a deep rapport with existence. It is a synchronicity; you start melting and merging with the flowers and the clouds and the stars. Boundaries start disappearing; they become irrelevant, out of date. They wither away of their own accord. One functions as part of the whole -- then there is bliss.

Bliss is another name for a harmonious existence, but it is possible only through the heart, through warmth, through love, through being poetic.

My sannyasins have to be lovers, poets, dancers, musicians; they have to open up all aesthetic possibilities. I teach a religion of aesthetic sensibility and sensitivity. All the religions in the past have been anti-life, anti-love, anti- warmth, anti-poetry, because basically they taught that life has to be renounced, that there is something wrong in it -- it is sin and you have to get rid of it.

My approach is just the opposite: it is not a sin. Life is a gift, a great gift from god -- it has to be rejoiced in. Merge and melt with it. The more you disappear and the more you allow life to happen to you, the closer you will be to god, because life is nothing but god expressed, manifest. In other words god is life 1/08/07

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unmanifest,,invisible life; and life is visible god. RELIGION IS UNION IS YOU-AND-ME-ONE

(Osho speak, again on how the long for god is the impetus behind every love affair. He is addressing Viyogini.)

Viyogini means one who is separated from the ultimate lover, one who is separated from god. God is the ultimate lover, the beloved.

In all our love affairs we are seeking and searching for god -- and that's why all our love affairs fail, they fall short. They cannot fulfil our innermost longing. We are searching for god -- less than that cannot give us contentment.

Viyogini means the ultimate separation. We are all separated, alienated, and we are searching again in every possible way to reach to that union where we will not be separate. The search for the union with existence is religion. That's the meaning of the word 'yoga'; yoga means union. The word 'viyogini' also comes from 'yoga'; yoga means union, viyoga means separation. The feminine form of viyoga is viyogini.

So these are the only two states, the state of yoga, yogini -- one who is one with the beloved, with the ultimate truth, with existence -- and viyoga, viyogini -- one who is separate. Only very few people have attained to yoga, to the ultimate union, but it is everybody's potential. Everybody has the birth-right to attain to it but nobody tries. Just a little effort and the miracle can happen.

By becoming a sannyasin you are taking a step towards that little effort. It is really a little effort, not much. What we do is very small and what happens out of it is immense. It is just as if a particle of dust has fallen into your eye and you cannot open your eyes and the Himalayas, Everest, is just in front of you, but you cannot see it -- just because of the particle of dust. A small particle of dust has fallen in your eye, it is preventing your visions you cannot see the great Himalayas, its beauty. Remove the particle and the whole of the Himalayas is available to you, spreading for thousands of miles -- those virgin peaks and the sun shining on those snow covered mountains... and the beauty of it, inexpressible beauty of it. And just a particle of dust was creating the barrier.

The situation is exactly the same our inner vision is not clear. Just a few particles of dust have gathered there; they have to be removed. So the effort is very little but the gain is immense, immeasurable, incalculable.

THE SAP CALLED HAPPINESS

(Your juices only flow when you're free.)

Life is a discontentment because we are living it in a very wrong way. We have been taught some ugly things, we have been taught those ugly things because they help the establishment, the vested interests, the people who are in power. Nobody cares about the individuals, nobody cares about the greater humanity;

everybody is concerned with his own power, his investment -- and they go on poisoning people.

For example, the politicians don't want intelligence to grow in people because intelligence is always rebellious. But without intelligence life cannot find the source of contentment. A mediocre person remains superficial, shallow, but the politician is helped: he wants everybody to be mediocre. He can only remain the leader if people are mediocre, unintelligent, stupid And the situation is the same with the priests. They have been in power for centuries and they know the strategy to remain in power: don't allow people in any way to attain insight into things, don't allow them to be wise, give them beliefs instead. Beliefs are pseudo, like plastic flowers, lollipops. So people can go on sucking on lollipops, playing with toys; they can go on playing with those toys so they don't turn towards the real thing.

And the priests and the politicians are in deep conspiracy. They have made an unsigned contract that the politician will rule people in worldly affairs and the priest will rule people in other-worldly affairs and they will support each other because both have to depend on the same strategy: force people to remain slaves, believers, not seekers -- not intelligent, not rebellious. Reduce their freedom, cut their wings, paralyse them, because then they can be manipulated and used as means.

My work here is to undo all this that has been done to you, to everybody. Only when your intelligence rises to the optimum is there contentment, because that's when you start flowering, that's when spring comes 1/08/07

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to your life.

Your love has to be allowed absolute freedom, only then are your juices flowing. You are not sad, dry, desert-like, you become an oasis.

My sannyasins have to become gardens with birds singing and flowers spreading their fragrance. That's exactly the meaning of the word 'paradise'; paradise

literally means a walled garden. It comes from the Persian, 'firdaus'. I would like each of my sannyasins to be a paradise unto himself or herself.

SUNS AND LOVERS

(Osho tells us about the origin of sun worship.)

For centuries there have been worshippers of the sun. They have been very much misunderstood. The sun was only a symbol; they were really trying to find the ultimate source of light and this sun was only representative -- they were bowing down to this sun symbolically and literally. And then finally they found that this sun disappears in the night, so if you want to worship the sun in the night it will be difficult, hence fire worship started. Zarathustra was the greatest fire worshipper, and the followers of Zarathustra have carried on the fire that Zarathustra started. A three-thousand-year-old fire, still continues in their temples; they don't allow it to go out, they go on giving fuel to it. That too is a misunderstanding.

People always become addicted to symbols. They forget that a symbol is only a symbol; they start worshipping the symbol as if it is the real thing. The word 'god' is not god, the word 'fire' is not fire. The sun, fire, light -- they all represent a search for the ultimate source of light something that we are all missing because in our innermost being there is darkness.

The Christian mystics like Eckhart have called it the dark night of the soul; and we are all searching for the dawn. The orange colour that I have chosen for my sannyasins symbolises the dawn; it is the colour of the eastern horizon just before sunrise.

The search is for the inner, but we know only the outer so the outer has to become a symbol for the inner. The search is for the inner sun but the outer can be used beautifully like a mirror; you can look in the mirror. The mirror is outside but it can reflect your face, it can show you your form. In fact there is no other way to see your own face except through a mirror. All symbols are mirrors.

So this is going to be your search: the inner source of light has to be discovered. But the outer symbols of light are all beautiful; they should be loved, worshipped, so that they go on reminding you of the inner, so you don't forget about the inner -- mind tends to forget.

So watch the early morning sun rising. Look at it, absorb it, then close your eyes and try to search within. Look at the moon, watch, then close your eyes and search within. Or look at a small candle in the night, watch it for a few moments, then close your eyes and search within. Let the outer symbolise the inner, but don't forget the inner. Until you have found the inner use the outer as an indicator. The moment it is found the outer can be forgotten. It disappears naturally, one forgets all about it. When one has found the real, who cares about the symbolic?

PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

(Osho describes the three categories of the paths along which one can move towards god.) There are many ways to reach god. The most significant are threes through knowing, through loving and through action, service, compassion. All other paths belong to these three categories; these three are the main categories.

Remember: knowing is going to be your path. Knowing does not mean knowledge, it means understanding. One can be very knowledgeable yet without any understanding, and one can be tremendously wise and yet without any knowledgeability. So they are not synonymous, knowing and knowledge.

Knowledge is a cheap commodity, available in the schools, colleges,, universities, libraries; but knowing only comes through deep meditation. You have to go through a radical change, you have to attain a different kind of vision, you literally have to open a third eye in yourself.

So the path of knowing means the path of meditation. Put your total energy into meditativeness.

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(His path is love, Premyogi learns.)

Love is our deepest longing. Just as the body needs food the soul needs love -- it

is nourishment, spiritual nourishment. Without the food, air and water, the body will deteriorate; without love the soul starts shrinking. And everybody is living with a very small soul for the simple reason that they have not loved.

And why have they not loved? If you enquire into the question you will be surprised, because for the whole of their life everybody is trying to get love. But people are trying to get, not to give, and the law of love is that you get only when you give. Giving comes first, getting is only a consequence.

And people are asking the impossible; they want first: "Give me love." Everybody, in a thousand and one ways, is saying "Give me love", but love comes only when you give; you cannot demand it. Hence the whole world is suffering; everybody is full of love, the world can become a very loving place, but it is just the opposite of it -- full of hatred, anger, rage, violence, destruction, for the simple reason that everybody is full of love and nobody is giving. They are asking and demanding and trying to force and snatch away.

Now, love is not a thing that you can force, love is not a thing that you can possess, love is not a thing that can be snatched away in any way. It is beautiful only, alive only, when it is given without any demand on your part, when it comes of its own accord. And it comes on its own accord whenever you give; in fact it comes a thousandfold.

So give as much love as possible and you will get so much in return that you will not be able to believe it in the beginning. It is absolutely unbelievable that the whole existence starts pouring love towards you.

You just show the gesture of giving, with no strings attached to it, with no conditions, no expectations, let your joy be in the giving itself -- love for love's sake -- and you will be in for a great surprise: thousands of windows suddenly open and the sun and the wind and the rain and the whole existence starts flowing towards you. It floods you, and that flooded life is the life of a buddha, that life is the goal of a sannyasin.

(And Wolfgang receives the name Karmayogi to remind him that his way is the path of action.) The path of action is very paradoxical. The paradox is that you have to act and yet deep down you have to remain absolutely inactive; at the centre absolute stillness, no action, not even a wave, not even a ripple, and on the circumference much action.

The path of action is being in the world and yet not being of it, remaining in the world and yet surpassing it, transcending it. Krishna has called it action without action. Zen people in Japan call it effortless effort, actionless action. Doing is there but the doer is not there. One simply becomes the centre of the cyclone but the cyclone remains only one's circumference. One becomes more like an actor; action becomes more like acting. It is as if you are just playing a role: you are doing it as perfectly as possible but it is still a role, a game; you are not really involved in it. You are doing it perfectly well and yet you are not getting involved in it, so whatsoever the result, it is none of your business -- if you succeed, if you fail, it is all the same.

It is one of the most beautiful paths to follow. And my sannyasins have to understand it very deeply because I am not telling them to renounce the world, to escape to the mountains, to the deserts, to the monasteries. I am telling them to remain in the world. I am not taking them out of the world, because that is escapist and that is cowardly, and one cannot be religious through cowardliness.

My sannyasins have to accept all the challenges of life but with absolute unconcern, not being worried at all about the result, about the outcome, living moment to moment totally, doing whatsoever life gives you to do, and then moving on, not even looking back, not even through the rear-view mirror. There is no point, because in life there is no reverse gear, you cannot go back. God has completely forgotten about the reverse gear. He has been just like Henry Ford.

When he made his first car there was gear in it. Finding out that it is such a difficult thing when you want to come back home he added it only later on (laughter). Otherwise if you have gone a few feet ahead of your home you have to go around the whole city just to come back!

But god has not added the reverse gear yet and I don't think he is ever going to add the reverse gear (laughter)... because that will be travelling back in time. That is impossible. That will mean that the old man can become a young man, the young man can become a child and the child can go back into the womb --

and its mother may have died! (much laughter) It is impossible. Even if god wants to do it, it is not possible.

They say nothing is impossible for god (laughter) but I say there are many things impossible. This is one of the things he cannot do!

So there is no need to look back, need to think about the past, no need to think about the future. Live in the present but live in such a way -- silently, peacefully

-- that nothing disturbs your centre. It is just as the 1/08/07 Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994

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noise of this train passing by is there but at the very centre of your being there is no noise. In fact this noise of the train can enhance your inner silence, it can become a background, a backdrop for it.

I travelled for twenty years continuously in the trains all over India. And I know how beautiful it is and how silent it is. So whenever I was not travelling I used to miss my trains -- all the noise and all the hustle and bustle of the platforms... But if you know how to remain silent inside it all enhances, it becomes a contrast.

Life should be taken as a contrast -- and then nothing is wrong. A sannyasin has to remember only one thing, not to get disturbed at the centre; whatsoever happens on the circumference is okay. If that much is possible then you are free from all, you know the taste of freedom. And the taste of freedom is the taste of god too.

Going All the Way

Chapter #24

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