25

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‌CHAPTER 25

9 January 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin says: I have difficulty accepting other people s looks of disapproval, particularly now that I’m wearing orange. I seem very sensitive to it. I was wondering if you could suggest something I could do.]

That’s the whole purpose of orange – so that you cannot hide yourself, and so that you stand out. You have to come to terms with every look that crosses your path.

Ordinarily we are hiding in conformity. When you conform with society you become part of the crowd, and nobody is looking at you in particular. You live an anonymous existence – that’s why people live in a crowd, in society, sects, groups, parties.

To stand alone, and to become a focus of others’ looks, is one of the most courageous acts. The basic thing to be understood is that you are to forget what others say. You have to ignore and become indifferent about them. It is none of their business. You become disturbed because you still pay attention to their attentions. It is not their opinion that is disturbing you; it is your expectation that they should be favourable to you, that their opinion should not go against you. Because this expectation is not being fulfilled, you are disturbed.

That’s the whole purpose of why I give you orange: to make you so separate that either you will go crazy, or you will have to drop the whole wrong expectation. Why should you expect that the other should approve of you? You are perfectly good as you are; nobody’s approval is needed. If you live on approval, then you live an inauthentic life. You never live your life; you only live a life that they will approve of. Then life becomes false, pseudo, and you become miserable, phoney. You feel frustrated, that life has no meaning. Life can have meaning only when it is real, and a real life means that you are not worried about what others say. You are simply working out what you can be, not what they expect or will approve of.

Simply forget others, as if you are alone. Move in the crowd, but never become part of it. Why should they be concerned about you? They are neurotic, and your being concerned about them is again a neurosis, a reflected neurosis. A healthy person is not worried about others; he has no judgement about them. If they want to be creative, good. If they want to be crazy, that too is good. That is their life, and finally they are responsible for it. So a healthy man never judges anybody, and never asks anybody’s opinion. The very asking shows that you are wavering inside, that you don’t have a hold on your being and you need props.

Just today I was reading an anecdote. A man enters a train which has written on it that it is going to London, but he asks a person in his carriage, ‘Is this train going to London?’ The person says that it is, but he is interested in reading his newspaper, so the answer sounds rather indifferent, not certain, so the man is not convinced. He asks again of the same person, ‘Sir, is it really going to London?’ The other man replies, ‘Yes, it is really going to London,’ but now he is angry because he has been disturbed.

Another person asks the questioner if he can read or not, because it is written everywhere that the train is going to London! Finally the questioner is convinced. Just then they stop at a station, and another passenger enters the compartment and asks the first man, ‘Is this train going to London?’ He replies, ‘My God, you have made me uncertain again!’

This is what you are doing with yourself, mm? Anybody can make you uncertain whether you are good or beautiful. This is not a true being; it is a false one that you have gathered from other people’s opinion.

The whole purpose of sannyas is to drop it, to be on your own; good, bad, or whatever, but to be on your own, to live a true life out of your own source. Soon you will see who you are, and once you do, by and by you forget what others say. It simply shows that they are approving or disapproving of you because they are living in the same approval/disapproval world.

Maybe, just looking at your orange, your difference, your nonconformity, they become afraid. Here is a man who can make them uncertain. You create a suspicion in people. They start thinking that perhaps there is another way of life; maybe they are not living and leading a right life. So to defend themselves they criticize you. You have brought a new window to their world. They don’t want to see from this window because they have investments in their way of life, have lived a certain life according to certain rules. Now you come with a different world, and different rules. That means there was an alternative, and the alternative may have been better. Maybe they have missed the real thing.…

They have been missing the real thing, that’s why the uncertainty. So they are simply trying to defend their own way of life. If they can make you miserable they will be happy, and again certain about themselves. Then they know the train is going to London!

But if you remain laughing and are not disturbed by their opinions, sooner or later they will start asking you what you have gained. If you persist in your way of life, they will start asking you how they should live their own lives; and that if you have found a way not to be miserable, then show them. First they will laugh and mock at you, criticize you, but if you persist, if you have the courage and the strength, by and by they will start following you.

But that is not the point – whether they criticize or follow. The point is, are you going to live your life, or are you going to follow others and their idea of what life is? And it is simple. There is nothing to be done, only an understanding is needed. Try, from this moment! Good!

[The music groupleader asks for a name for the group.]

I will give you a name... Nadam. It means the ultimate sound.

If every sound, every noise stops, then we start hearing the sound of that soundlessness, the sound of silence itself. That is nad.

Nad means the basic sound out of which everything is made. In yoga, it is an hypothesis that everything is made of sound, sound particles. In a way, both science and yoga agree, because science says that sound is made of electrical particles, and yoga says that electricity is nothing but a certain combination of sound particles. So they have come to the same reality. But because yoga came through silence, through dropping the thoughts and noise of the mind and heard the innermost silence, yoga says that everything is made of sound.

So I will call it Nadam Music Meditation Group, mm? Good!

[A sannyasin told Osho that she was living with the Tathata groupleader, and that the previous night she had assisted him in the group.

Osho felt this was not a good idea – to be together so much.]

Love is killed by too much togetherness, so I don’t suggest you help [your boyfriend]. You have your work to do, [your boyfriend] his. You can live together... but your being together should not become a twenty-four hour affair.

You will be a hindrance to [your boyfriend] too, in the Group, because the group needs a certain freedom, and lovers don’t give each other freedom. You will destroy [your boyfriend]’s group and his freedom – and you will finally destroy your love. But it is up to you.

It is always good to be separate for a few hours each day so that when you meet again, you are ready for each other. It is a simple law of life. It is just as when you eat, and then for six or eight hours you forget about eating. Then again you are hungry, you have an appetite. You will never have an appetite if you go on eating all day. So your working lives should not be together, because there is no possibility of escaping from each other. The freedom and the aloneness is lost, and everybody needs a space of his own.

[Her boyfriend tells Osho: I really felt a balance having her in the group.]

Every lover feels like that in the beginning; and that is the foolishness of all lovers. Every lover feels perfectly in tune, that you were made for each other. Just within a week, things start changing.

But if you want to try as an experiment, work together.…

Love should never become part of any technique. It should have a different world of its own, a shrine. It should not become part of the work-world, never. It should remain a poetry, and not be brought into the marketplace.

[The boyfriend says: I’m very excited to think that we can come to you with problems that come up between us. We are ready to do whatsoever you say]

Mm mm, you can always come, but you have to listen to me! If you listen to yourself it is useless. So this is the beginning of the listening: you have to work separately.

Use the energy, and more is always given to you. Life believes in affluence. The whole of life is tremendously luxurious. Flowers are not needed, and there is no particular need for butterflies, for birds and songs, for peacocks dancing and cuckoos singing. It all seems superfluous.

But in a thousand and one ways, existence goes on blooming. Life believes in being abundant, in overflowing, and those who want to move with life should remain overflowing, spendthrift. Never be miserly, be a spendthrift!

[The boyfriend adds: One more question. I was wondering if we could have a week off to go to Goa.] No need. Never go on a honeymoon, because that finishes everything!

In India we have the wisdom of ages. Divorce was not known, because there was a trick to marriage, and it was this: there was no honeymoon in the beginning, and no possibility of husband and wife being together in the day. People lived in joint families, and it was disrespectful for the husband and wife to be together in front of the elderly people.

There are cases of the husband not having seen the wife’s face for years, because in the night, only in the dark, they would meet, and that too like thieves. Their love always remained a stolen love, and it carried a thrill. Whenever love is stolen it has a tremendous beauty.

In the West, marriage has been destroyed because the joint family disappeared, and the husband and wife are left together. Nobody else to fight with, they start fighting with each other, and sooner or later they get fed up with each other. Once you know each other then everything becomes old, a repetition and routine. Then the mind starts moving to another woman, another man – because the mind is always seeking something new, something novel.

My understanding is that sooner or later, if love is to be saved,’the eastern wisdom has to be listened to again.

So leave it to me. Earn the honeymoon first, mm? When I see that you have earned it, I will send you. A honeymoon should not be the beginning of marriage, otherwise it becomes the end! It should be the climax of marriage, not the beginning. My feeling is that only old couples should be allowed to go on honeymoons, because they have earned it! Good!

[Another sannyasin says: I feel as though I am very old and set in my ways, and it is difficult to change.]

No, it is not difficult to change, but if you have the idea that it is, then it will become difficult. This idea can create trouble – nothing else. You can drop the old as easily as you drop your old clothes; nothing much is involved in it.

Nobody is set. Your being always remains free – because freedom is your inner nature, nothing can imprison you. This very moment you are totally free, because you are the doer, and you are greater than your doing, bigger than your act. Whatsoever you have been doing you are free, already free!

If you have been angry, when the anger has gone you are free. There is no need to bother that you have been angry, so how can you be free of it? – you are already free, the anger has gone. It was a momentary thing that you have passed, you have overcome. If you want to repeat it you can, but that will be a fresh decision to be angry. Don’t say that you are angry because you have been angry so many times before. You are not a machine. It is a fresh decision, a fresh commitment to be angry. You are always free to break with the past; nobody is holding you, nobody can ever hold you. Consciousness is absolute freedom. Once you understand this, you stop putting these wrong suggestions to yourself.

Tomorrow morning when you get up, get up new, and start behaving as though you are new. Make a new decision that you will cancel all old ones, and you will start living afresh. There is no barrier. I tell you this from my own experience, and working with thousands of people – that nothing is a barrier.

People are deceptive, and go on deceiving themselves saying, ‘How can I drop it now? I have had this habit for thirty years; it will take thirty more years to drop it!’ Then they will say, ‘Now it has been sixty years, so how can I drop it right now? – it will take sixty years to drop’. Then they say one hundred and twenty years.…

They will never be able to drop it. Just think of the mathematics. Either you drop it right now, or you cannot drop it. It is your decision; nobody is forcing you. But remember, if you want to repeat a habit, then it is through your decision to, again and again. Any moment that you want to break the contract with the habit, you are free to do so. The habit is a dead thing – you are alive! How can a dead thing hold your aliveness? No, nothing can hold it.

Contemplate, mm? meditate on it.

[Another group member says: It was the most ecstatic thing that has ever happened to me in my life!]

Very good! You still look ecstatic! It has been good – now remember it, and make it a constant awareness;; otherwise one can go back into the cell.

[She says: The thing is, I think it’s dissolved because... ] No, it is dissolved.

[She adds: ... it is my imagination.]

Yes, it is your imagination. The problem is that as you imagined it was dissolved, you can also imagine it is there! So don’t forget.

I see many people many times coming to an insight, and then again they forget it. The sleepiness of the human mind is tremendous. Many times you can come to realise that you are out of it, and then you forget. So just for a few days, constantly remember that you are out. Nothing else needs to be done just remain ecstatic, mm? Whenever you feel that again you are losing the grip, give a jerk to your energy, and become alert and ecstatic again. Do it just for a few days so that it becomes a constant feeling, a constant flow, then one day you forget about it.

It has been very very beautiful.and I am always there!

[The sannyasin continues: I became aware in the group of how I’m putting up a wall.Then the

whole thing fell down, and I felt very afraid at the openness of life]

It has been good, mm? The first thing is, that if you have become aware that you have been keeping a wall around you, then drop that wall It is not only that it is there, you have to create it constantly – otherwise it disappears by itself. So, know that not only is the wall there, but that you are cooperating with it, creating it.

This is an imprisonment in which you are the prisoner, and you are also the gaoler – because only you are there! These divisions are just your game. So watch, and drop cooperating with the wall, and neither be a gaoler nor a prisoner. Then there is freedom. It is very easy to move from being a prisoner to being a gaoler; then one is very happy because it is an egoistic thing. But the wall remains, and you are still divided. Neither the prisoner nor the gaoler are needed – then the wall disappears by itself. So don’t divide yourself. Accept your totality, as you are.

Because of the first insight the second insight happened. People who live in closed walls, in imprisonments, always go on creating more and more mental securities because they don’t have a real life. They are always looking for a more peaceful life; a life of comfort and convenience mm? In fact they are asking for death, because life is troublesome, a struggle – and a beautiful struggle. It is a storm, but a beautiful one – wild.…

[Another sannyasin says: I stopped judging]

Yes, you stop judging and creating false securities around you, because they are all part of your imprisonment. Just live an open life!

Of course, I know there is fear with an open life. You live as if under an open sky. Nobody knows when the rains will come, and you have no umbrella, nothing with which to protect yourself. One lives always open to the hazards of the elemental forces. But that is what life is, and one grows through the storms.

By and by you don’t ask for a comfortable life, because you understand that even in the greatest storm, there is a point within you that remains absolutely untouched – the centre of the cyclone. Once you have realised that the storm is all around, and just in the middle of it is the centre, absolutely peaceful, then you have understood.

Then there is no problem, and no fear. Then there is no death – because your life has become so tremendously alive that death is dissolved in it. Now even death is beautiful. So don’t be afraid. Just a few steps and the fear will go by itself. Good

[Another sannyasin who had lead the group said he was feeling apprehensive about taking groups in the States.]

Always remember that you are a vehicle to me. So don’t be worried; simply allow me to function through you, and then things will happen of their own accord. Just allow.

If you take it as a burden on your own, you become self-conscious, and that creates a worry. One hesitates, and that hesitation always creates a bad vibration, mm? When you are leading a group, if you hesitate the whole group will hesitate. But it is natural – if you are carrying the whole burden on your shoulders. So just leave it to me!

Whenever you feel that there is some problem that you cannot solve, tell the group to be silent for a few minutes, close your eyes, and remember me. Then open your eyes and start working, and immediately you will feel a change of energy, mm? Good!

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