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‌CHAPTER 13

28 December 1975 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin artist from Berlin says: I think some new things are starting in me, but I have not started... ]

It is always difficult to start anything new, because the mind always tries to postpone. With the old, mind fits perfectly. With the new, there is a certain uneasiness. But don’t postpone.

If you feel that something new is coming, that you would like to do something new, do it – because only by doing it will it settle in your being. In fact only by doing do we know who we are, and doing reveals your being. By dancing you come to know that you 3re a dancer – there is no other way to know. If you never dance you will never come to know that you are a dancer; you will miss that dimension.

Doing is always lesser than the being. As far as being is concerned you are infinite, you are all. But as far as doing is concerned, there will be a limitation. You will have to choose to do something and choose not to do something else.

You are a born painter; that is your natural flow. So if something is coming up new and fresh, you may have some hesitation, because you are a well-known painter – your name, your identity, your past, the fixed routine – and that can become an obstacle.

Sometimes, to become famous is very dangerous, because then you cannot play with the new. You become afraid. To become famous means that now you have too much invested in the past. Always remain an amateur, never become an expert. Always go on playing with the new and let your life remain a fun, and not a serious thing. Serious people are dead before their death.

So start immediately and don’t waste time, whatever it is – because you cannot know unless you do.

It is just like a woman carrying a child in the womb. Unless the child is born she will never be able to know who the child is – whether a boy or a girl, beautiful or ugly.

There is no way to know. You can feel, a woman can feel, that something is in the womb, alive and kicking, but who is there nobody knows. Not even the mother can know.

Even an artist never knows what is going to be born. When it is born, only then you see. Then you recognise retrospectively that yes, you recognise the kick of it, a very vague feeling about it – but it was all in a deep mist.

So you start working, mm? I was waiting for it! As you start meditating, soon something will come up; it is surfacing.

[He answers: I am not sure if in Germany I can change my artist name. I will do it, I want to do it, but the galleries will say that I can’t.]

You have to!...

Mm, because that will give you a clean break with the past. You have to! You can say to them that that old man is dead! You can release to the newspapers that he is dead (a chuckle) and you start afresh, a new painter. You let those old paintings remain with the old man – nothing to do with you. If it is possible, change; if it is not then forget about it.

Start afresh, totally afresh. Dare! And daring always pays tremendously. It is going to happen, mm? Good!

[A sannyasin says he has lost his sense of balance: I feel like I’m falling over and then I catch my balance. Then I get back and everything that’s in me, that’s part of me, seems to be soaring up and down.]

Mm, I understand. Whenever you start changing, you pass through a chaos, because the old unsettles and the new has yet to be born. The old dies and the new is not yet born. There is an interval, and in that interval one feels very unbalanced, loses all identity, all sense of who one is; forgets completely where one stands. The earth beneath one’s feet disappears as if one is in an abyss, falling... falling... and there is no bottom to it. And one would like to cling to anything.

And that is natural – that idea to cling to anything. But if you cling, you only prolong the interval. If you don’t cling, the interval will disappear soon; it can disappear this very moment. It is not a question of time. It is a question of your trust.

If you trust me, don’t cling. Accept the imbalance, the insecurity. Accept the discomfort and the inconvenience. Accept it and immediately it will disappear. It is there because you go on thinking that you were better off before – at least things were settled.

It is just as when a child is going to be born. For nine months the child has lived in the mother’s womb, absolutely comfortable. Never again in his life will he be so comfortable. The whole of science cannot yet create such comfort as a mother’s womb can give to a child: no responsibility, no worry,

no struggle. Everything is supplied; even before the need arises, the supply is there. Not that you demand and then the supply is there. That law of economics does not apply there. Even before you demand, the supply is there. Everything is comfortable, it is paradise. And the child is completely asleep for twenty-four hours, deep in oblivion, in darkness, silent.

And then birth comes. The child cannot see what is going to happen. All that he can see is that everything is getting disturbed; he is being thrown out of his home – comfortable, heavenly.

In fact the biblical story of Adam’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden is nothing but a parable of the birth of man. The womb is the garden and the expulsion is just the birth of the child, the trauma. And the child is uncomfortable, tremendously uncomfortable, terribly uncomfortable; the whole thing is like a shock. Psychologists say that it is a trauma. Before death, never again will such a trauma happen. Only death can be a comparable shock, and even it is not much of a shock because life tires one, exhausts. In a way, one starts wishing to die before one actually starts dying. So even death is not going to be so terrible as birth is.

This is again a birth. Religion is nothing but a way to be reborn – in consciousness. So if you fight, if you try to cling, the interval will be prolonged. Simply relax. There is no going back now.

The situation is as if the head of the child has come out of the womb and the whole body is still inside; there is no going back. You can only come out. And if you cling you simply prolong the pain and the suffering – and it is unnecessary. Cooperate.

Only death is comfortable. Life has its discomforts and one grows through them – pain, suffering. Everything has its own meaning.

So as I can see, I bless you. Nothing is wrong; everything is perfectly as it should be. Just be a little more courageous, mm? It will disappear. Don’t waste time, and cooperate with the process. Accept it and move with it.

Finally, that which looked like insecurity in the beginning, you will find is the only security. And that which looked like discomfort in the beginning, you will soon find is the only happiness there is. But you will have to move into it, mm? Don’t be afraid!

[A woman says she has been to India many times, and this time she is here as a spiritual seeker. She says: But this time i’ve come back here because i’ve lost my path in England, and I hope that I find it here again.]

You will, you will find it. Mm, good. Just the very search is very very beautiful – whether one finds or not, that is secondary. One is seeking, and that is the significant thing because finally it is your very seeking that becomes the path.

There exists no path apart from your seeking. The very intensity of your search becomes your path. In fact the very idea of a path is fallacious. It gives you the idea that the path already exists there somewhere for you to follow, and you just have to walk on it. That is not true.…

[She asks: There isn’t one set path?]

No, no, really there is no ready-made path. As vou walk you create your path, and each individual passes along his own path. There is no public path, no super-highways.…

There are no central highways. When you go wrong that simply means that you become unconscious. When you become aware, you are right. Awareness is right, and unawareness is wrong. Whenever in your life you become a little sleepy, clouded, and the clarity is lost; whenever you don’t know what you are doing or why, and why you are existing in the first place – then you have gone wrong, that’s all.

If you regain your clarity and your vision and you can again see through and through, you have regained the path. In fact, it is not a question of anything outside you. It is something inside you, an inner focusing of energy. The very search is enough.

There is a saying of Jesus,‘Ask and it shall be given, knock and the doors will be opened unto you, seek and you will find.’ In fact the doors are not dosed. They are already open, only you have not knocked. The answer is already there, only you have not asked. And that which you are seeking is already present in you, only you have not looked.

So an intense search, a sincere search, becomes the path. And unless you come to know this you will again and again lose your path, mm? because that path that you think you have found is not the real path. A real path cannot be lost. That which can be found and lost was not found in the first place.

And for the real path you need not go anywhere. You only need to be inside, to go inwards. That is the real India – your inner being.

India is not a geography, and if you go to see India you are wasting your time. India is an inner space; it is just a symbolic word for inner space. When you start travelling withinwards then you are moving towards India. So whomsoever reaches to himself becomes an Indian. Just by being born in India one does not become an Indian.

[A sannyasin said that lately when meditating at home she feels a choking sensation in her throat. She said that all the energy goes to that point and breathing becomes difficult. She wondered what she should do if this sensation happened again.]

You feel like dying?

[She answers: Absolutely!]

Nothing to worry about. You are just on the verge where one comes to face death.

One has to face it one day or other, and anything that goes deeply will bring you to death. If you love somebody very deeply, someday or other, love will bring you to face death. That is the fear of love. So people go on playing with love but never delve deeply into it. If you pray, one day or other, death will be there. So people go on imitating; they don’t pray. If you meditate the same will happen. Wherever you move deep you will have to pass the point of death, because only beyond death is life; that barrier has to be crossed.

So next time it happens to you just die I Don’t try to stop it, and don’t try to bring yourself out of it. Don’t start fighting with it. Relax and just repeat inside that you are willing to die. Welcome it and be receptive. Not even a slight effort, mm? And once you allow it to happen, suddenly you will see that death has gone and the choking has disappeared; the energy is flowing and you have come to contact a new source of energy.

And this handkerchief, (he passes her one of his handkerchiefs) you have to put around your neck where you feel.…

This is to remind you that I am there, don’t be afraid, mm? And it will go, don’t be worried. It has to be faced; death has to be faced to know life. Looks paradoxical, but that’s how life is.

Darkness has to be faced to know the morning, and the darker the night, the closer the morning. So pass through it, mm? Good.

[A sannyasin tells Osho she feels afraid. He shines a torch on her.]

Mm, good. Nothing to worry, mm? It is natural. Something new is growing, something new is happening – so you feel afraid. With the unfamiliar there is always fear; with the strange, with the unknown, there is fear.

Only with the known is there no fear, but the known just means the repetitive, the routine. Something unknown is entering. Allow it and don’t feel embarrassed by it. You are suppressing, trying to hold it in so that nobody knows what is happening to you. You are trying not only to hide it from others, but from yourself as well. That won’t help.

Drop all hide-and-seek, all games. Be true and sincere. Whatsoever is happening, allow, mm? And from tomorrow your meditation will go very deep. It is just that you are holding, and that’s why you are afraid. Whenever you hold something, you are afraid in coming to me, because I will not be deceived. You have been a thief... that’s why there is fear. (chuckle)

Don’t try to hide anything. We are here to become absolutely true, authentic, nude and naked – that is the only way to become pure and innocent again, mm?

What meditations have you been doing?

[She answers: I haven’t done many because I’ve been sick.]

Now you are perfectly okay? That illness may also have been a trick of the mind Sometimes mind creates illnesses so that you can hide. You can say,‘I am ill, what can I do?’ So you can escape from meditation. (a chuckle) Don’t be worried. You start from tomorrow working hard!

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