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‌CHAPTER 7

19 December 1975 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Rikta means emptiness, deva means divine – divine emptiness.

That is how you, by and by, have to imbibe the spirit of emptiness in you. Inside there is just emptiness, mm? That is how I feel your seed is. The more empty you feel, the more empty you can become. And you can feel it easily, it will not be difficult; it will just come naturally.

Emptiness has never been part of western religion, but in the East, emptiness has been the deepest- going meditation. In the West, emptiness is felt to be somehow negative, as if an empty mind is the devil’s workshop. It is not. In fact an empty mind is God’s workshop. If the mind is empty the devil cannot enter. The devil can enter only through thinking, through some occupation. If the mind is empty, then only can God enter.

Rikta means emptiness. So you try this: walking, just feel emptiness walking; when you are talking, just feel emptiness talking; loving, just feel emptiness loving. Continuously remember that inside there is nothing. And that is the nature of man, that nothingness. It is not an absence, it is a presence, it is fullness. When the emptiness is total, it is fullness.

So try it, and I will start working on you from this moment, mm?

[A sannyasin had earlier sent a letter to Osho, as she found it a little difficult to express herself in English, asking the following question, which Osho read out:

’This morning (at the morning discourse) I did not quite understand your saying that the fulfilled, enlightened spirit going back home doesn’t have to come back to earth for another life. This may be my western-trained mind, but what is happening to this fulfilled enlightenment, this attaining this evaporation? How do you explain having come if you will not be again?]

You come only if something is still missing, something is still imperfect. So the last life is the life of enlightenment.

I have come because something was still missing. But now it is not missing and I will not be coming again.

That doesn’t mean that you become non-existential, no. That simply means that you become so absolutely existential that the body cannot contain you. The body becomes small and you become so big for the body that you cannot be contained in it. You become so infinite that the finite mind cannot contain you. But one has to come again and again, even if something is missing, to learn it.

The world is a school, it is a learning, a discipline, a training. Once you have learnt, you are not sent back, because there is no need, no point.

So an enlightened person can help people only in his last life. Then after that the help is impossible, then he evaporates. So only for a few years the possibility remains open and available. If you are not enlightened, you cannot help people. If you are enlightened, you can help only for a few years, because this is going to be your last.…

[A sannyasin said that she was just beginning to feel that she had many things to work on and wondered if Osho could suggest something to help her.]

Everybody has much work to do because nobody comes perfect, and once you do become perfect, then you cannot come back. Much work has to be done and it is difficult, but not impossible. Sometimes you may feel it is so difficult that you begin feeling hopeless. Those are the moments to remember that the project is very difficult – Project Man is very difficult – but not impossible.

And it is good that it is difficult. If it were not, then it wouldn’t be worthwhile. If inner growth is easily available, cheap; if you don’t have to work for it, earn it, or become worthy of it, then it will be worthless. The more difficult it is, the more worth it has. The longer the journey, the deeper the rest. And when you reach the goal, the longer the waiting has been, the more fulfillment you will find.

That’s why all shortcuts are false – and dangerous. They can only delude you. There is no shortcut for inner growth because the very way, and the very difficulty of it, is part of the growth. If you avoid the difficulty, you avoid the growth also.

But many things are going to happen, mm? You just have to remain available. Start meditating, and while meditating bring your total energy to it. Don’t go on withholding anything, don’t be clever.

That is one of the troubles, because the mind is very clever. It always goes halfway and keeps one step ready to withdraw if things go beyond control and you cannot manipulate. But if you are ready to withdraw you cannot go in, because one has to go with both legs, not only with one; and one can go only totally, not partially.

So remember one thing: that meditation has to be done as totally as possible, and every day more and more totality will become available. You will find every day that more and more is coming up, and you will see that you are still holding – and by and by the ice melts. So go totally into it!

Many times one reaches near the goal and loses the track. Many times you are almost, almost there, and again you are very far away. These are the glimpses; these are the glimpses that in Japan they call satori. Just a small glimpse, but the glimpse gives you courage that yes, it exists, the truth exists; that you are not groping hopelessly. Hope is there. And sometimes thousands of satoris are possible, but each satori becomes more and more definite, more and more solid. And each satori brings you nearer and nearer the goal. And when suddenly you are there at the goal,’you are not, only the goal is. Then we call it samadhi. That is the goal of all human effort, the very peak of all consciousness. But one has to work hard – so start working!

[A seeker, not yet a sannyasin, said to Osho that he often talked about the significance of having a master, yet he had heard that Osho himself had attained without a master. How, he asked, was this possible, and did one who became enlightened without a master enter a higher level of enlightenment than one who had had a master?]

No, enlightenment has no higher or lower grades. How you enter does not make any difference: from the front door or the back, like a master or a thief, makes no difference. Once you enter, all differences are lost.

There is a possibility of entering enlightenment without a master, but then you should be ready for more struggle, more risk; have more patience and courage.

One day it is going to happen, even-if you are not taking anybody’s help. If you go on groping and groping and groping, though it may take many lives, one day you are going to find the door. That’s how many have’ found it. But once you have found it you can make it a little easier for others. It may have been difficult for you, but for others it can be made a little easier. You can give some indication, some keys, some hints. You can guide.

This has to be understood: that a master in fact does not lead you to truth. He simply helps you to avoid untruth. Truth cannot be indicated. It is not something existing out there. It is something that will come into existence through your effort. Your truth will have to be born in you. A master can help you to grope better so that many pitfalls can be avoided. He cannot indicate the truth but he can indicate what is not truth – and there are a thousand and one untrue doors. He can show you that these are untrue doors: avoid this, avoid that. That’s what they call in the Upanishads ‘neti-neti’ – this is not, that is not. The master goes on negating, and only that which is, is left.

That’s how a master can help. A few people struggle on their own but that is very rare. And you are not that type of person, because if you were, you would not have come to me. I never went to anybody even to ask this, because even this is taking help. Even if you go to that type of person to give him the truth, he will close his ears. He will say,‘l don’t want it. I will find it myself.’

This type may look in the beginning to be very egoistic, but he is not. That’s the way he is; he wants to seek his own truth, he does not want to borrow it from anybody. Not that he is arrogant; he is humble. And he is not afraid of wasting time. He is not afraid of waiting for lives. He is not in a hurry; his patience is infinite. But he may look like an arrogant person. It is not that he is incapable of surrendering, no. He is surrendered, but this is his way, this fits him.

Then there are people to whom it cannot suit at all. They need someone to whom to surrender;

they need someone to help them. Not that they are weak, remember; not that they are in some way inferior – they are not. It is just that natures differ, types differ, and these are the two types.

So this much I will say: that you are not the type who can work without a master, otherwise you would not have come. So don’t waste time. If you can find somebody with whom you feel attuned, then surrender, and allow him to help you. Think about it, mm? Good.

[A sannyasin said that her lover was very closed to her lately... becoming closer to Osho but more distant from her, and she felt excluded. She expressed confusion as to whether she wanted to continue the relationship or not.]

It always happens that when people are alone they become fed up with their aloneness. They are sad, but calm and quiet; not excited about life. So they seek somebody, some relationship, and then the excitement comes, but with it come many problems – anger, fight, jealousy, and a thousand and one other things. Sadness disappears, but anger comes because it is the same energy. Sadness is anger suppressed, because alone you have no one to express the anger to, so you carry it. And anger is sadness suppressed. These two cases have to be understood.

Unless you can be calm and quiet in love, love is not going to solve anything. It has to be understood that love in itself, or just by having a relationship with someone, is not going to give you happiness, unless you bring happiness with you. And if you don’t have happiness, it is better to be alone.

And this always happens: unhappy people seek a relationship, thinking they are unhappy because they are alone. That is not the real thing. They are unhappy – whether they are alone or in a relationship makes no difference. And when you are together your unhappiness will become more intense; it cannot disappear just by being together. You have to drop it.

Always remember that when someone is with you, he is with you to be happy. Everybody is seeking his own happiness. But whenever someone is in love, you start having the illusion that he is seeking your happiness. Why should he be?

If you both bring happiness, the relationship can be beautiful; otherwise it is going to be on the rocks any day. So whenever a relationship starts it is good, because both are deceiving each other unknowingly. Only the beautiful face is there, and only when things settle does the ugly face come up. Then reality erupts and things go wrong.

If you feel that you have to cathart, then close the room and cathart on a pillow. Why destroy a relationship for it? Everyone is seeking his own happiness and there is nothing wrong in it. That’s the only way to seek happiness. If you are together, help each other. If you feel it is harmful, separate. But remember, it is not only with this relationship; it is always going to be so. So face it, talk to him.

One should learn from every experience. Nothing is bad because everything can become a learning.

[The Arica programme is shortly to be introduced into the ashram for the first time. The eight sannyasins, who have all trained in the West in Arica, came to darshan tonight. Osho talked about Arica and suggested that the trainers bear in mind several things when taking the groups: ]

There are just two or three things I would like to say before you start your work.

One is: bring more love into it. The techniques are beautiful, but love is lacking. Whenever you just become technique-oriented, then by and by you forget that love is the greatest technique. All else is secondary – can be helpful, but cannot replace love.

So don’t be just technical, otherwise you will help a little but not enough, and you will not be able to help to the very end. Sooner or later a technique comes to an end, but love never does. Each technique should become a vehicle of love, so that when the technique ends, love takes over. And one never comes to the point where one can say that now the journey is finished and there is nothing left.

When you work on people, don’t work on them as if they are means. Each individual is an end. The technique exists for the individual – the sabbath is for man, not man for the sabbath. Always remember this, because the mind tends to forget. It is very technical and does not believe in love.

So help people, but remain alert to give them as much care and love as possible. You will see that the same methods used in the West – which work up to a certain limit and then stop – don’t stop anywhere; they go on and on. So make it a very loving process. You follow me?

And the second thing: always start with a prayer and always end with a prayer. In the beginning you pray with the idea of asking for help. In the end it is a thank you. Always ask for divine help, because man is helpless; and if you remember this, you will never condemn one who fails. Whenever you work with techniques, the fallacy is possible that you start thinking that man is enough. You forget God, you forget the Whole.

In Yoga they simply dropped the concept of God. Only once in Patanjali’s sutras is God mentioned – and that too as a technique: that if you surrender to God – not that God exists, no; He is just an excuse for surrender – it will be helpful. Yoga is completely godless. The word yoga means technique, and technique always feels that man is sufficient unto himself and that there is no need to ask for help from beyond.

So make it a point that you start with a prayer together, the teacher and the taught both. The teacher should never feel that he is special. He should always feel that both are part of an ongoing process of growth; that he is also going to learn much, not only teach. Don’t become teachers, just remain helpers, fellow travellers; don’t become ‘holier than thou’ – and then you will be very very deeply helpful. All Upanishads in India start by a prayer which is done by the teacher and the taught together. They pray that they should not go astray; they, the teacher and the taught, the master and the disciple, should not go astray.

And the third thing: always try to see that if some technique is not working on someone, then don’t go on forcing it, because all techniques are not for everybody. So give them a try, and if one is not working, then there is no need to create the feeling that the person is lacking; just say that this technique does not suit you, but there is nothing wrong in that.

Never create the feeling of failure, remember, because by and by the person can start becoming a failure. He begins to feel that nothing is going to happen; that this is not for him, it is only for very

special and rare people, and he is an ordinary person. Once this happens, a great rock has fallen on his being. And many of the teachers in the world go on doing that. Rather than helping people, they hinder. So don’t condemn anybody, otherwise you will be closing their whole possibility of growth.

If in your three days’ work you can give only this much to a person – that he comes out more confident: more confident about himself, more certain of his step, his growth, more confident that it is going to happen – you have given him something beautiful, a treasure; you have succeeded.

But always remember that if he leaves the group feeling he has been a failure, then you have betrayed that person, you have harmed him and put him back. These three things.…

[A sannyasin asked how she could use her experience here with Osho and through meditations, in her work of producing films.]

You can bring newness to your work only by you yourself being new, because the work is nothing but your outer expression. It is always lesser than you, it can never be more. whatsoever you are is reflected in it, and you cannot deceive. If you deceive, it means that you have a deceptive being that is reflected in your work.

When I say to bring a new dimension to your work, I mean bring a new dimension to yourself. Unless it comes into your being, it can never come into the work that you are doing. Many people go on trying to bring something new into their work, but the whole process is frustrating if you just go on working on your work. A man can write poetry and can try to bring something new into it, but he almost always just goes on repeating himself. Maybe there is a new word, maybe the form is changed a little here and there, maybe a little modification, but nothing original.

When I say original, I don’t mean that you have to do something that nobody has ever done. I mean something that surprises you. Only when it is completed do you see that something new has happened. You become aware that you have given birth to something new.

When something new comes into your being, automatically, of its own accord, it starts flowing into your work. You say something which you have never said before; you sing something which is simply not you. This new element which has come into your being is going to be reflected, and every man has millions of dimensions and aspects to his being.

Man is not limited, but almost always he is focused. In one direction or another he becomes so efficient that he only flows through that direction, and he becomes afraid of other directions because they are new. He may not be so capable and so efficient in them – and that is the fear that destroys creativity.

A creative person has to overcome the fear of being in error, of being laughed at, of public opinion. One who wants to be creative has to be courageous enough to be a fool, because all daring in the beginning is foolish, and whatsoever you do in the beginning is always laughed at. By and by the recognition comes, but by that time, that dimension is already boring. By the time people start applauding, the creative person is no longer interested, because people only applaud when they see something they recognise. So it means it is already old, already repeated.

Now he has to start again, and he always has to start from A B C. That is why a creative person always remains like a child, fresh. A creative person is eternally amateurish; eternally, I say. The moment he feels that now he has become an expert, he becomes alert and has to change.

An expert is one who is already dead, whose being has a fixed mode. He has a character, a pattern, and is predictable. If you are creative you are always flowing; you have no mode, no fixed pattern, no character.

The richest man has no character. He is fluid, he goes on moving in different dimensions. He seeks and searches from every direction. he is always a child with wondering eyes; always in awe, always searching and running after butterflies and collecting pebbles. He never feels he has arrived, never. His whole life is one of arriving and departing, but he never comes to the point where he can say that now he has arrived. those who say that they have arrived are dead; they are corpses, carrying their tombs around with them.

So remember this, and bring something new into yourself. Meditations are going to help. Try to extend your visit a little longer. One months is not long enough at all. To be with me, even one life is not enough. but one month is certainly not enough!

[A sannyasin says that in the meditations she is aware of her body, and the two different sides feel very different... it gives her a feeling of being torn apart.]

Everyone’s body is different. Everyone’s left and right sides are different, because everyone has two brains, not one. Both the brains function separately, but a few people have a slightly bigger gap. Yours may have a slightly bigger gap, but there is nothing to worry about. Continue meditation and that gap will be bridged.

It will be good if you do some groups, particularly the Enlightenment Intensive. They will help you to bridge this gap. The gap is not in the body, it is in the brain. Sometimes it happens that the bridge can be cut, or sometimes somebody falls and the bridge is broken, and the person becomes two different people.

Then your left hand can do something and your right hand will not know. You can kill somebody with your left hand and your right hand cannot be a witness to it. So when your one mind is functioning, you can promise something, and then when the other brain is functioning, you completely forget you made a promise – you never knew that you had made it really. So it is not a question of the body, but the brain.

That’s why meditation can help, because it can bring the brain closer and closer. So don’t worry and don’t be afraid, mm?...

[A sannyasin asked Osho if it would be good for him to join the recently formed drama group.]

Acting can be very helpful if you remain both conscious and involved. That is the whole art of acting – that you remain yourself, and yet you become someone else. If you are playing a Judas, you remain yourself, you never become Judas, yet you pretend and Flay a lie. And you play the lie so beautifully and so sincerely that it appears like a truth.

That’s what a successful actor is. He plays the lie so beautifully that it looks like the truth, but deep down he is aware that he is just a watcher, totally separate.

If this realisation goes deep, then allow it to be continued in your ordinary life too, because there also a constant drama is going on. Somewhere you are a husband, somewhere a son or father, a friend or foe, beggar or king, rich or poor; these are all roles. The drama is so big, the stage vast and the players infinite, but still, it is a drama.

If you can keep on watching, you will attain to the witnessing self; what we call in India ‘sakshi’, the one who only witnesses, the one who is never a doer.

All doing is acting, and beyond the acting is the watcher – that is your being. That is the whole point, mm? If you learn that, then drama is perfectly beautiful. Be in it! Good.

[A young American boy came to Osho’s feet next and began talking about himself and the feeling of confusion he was experiencing. He said he planned to go back to the West, yet he knew the West had nothing for him, and he was curious about what was happening here.]

I think leaving is not going to be of help right now. You can go after a month, because this month will settle many things in you, mm?

Right now you are just becoming something. Something in your consciousness is settling, and if you give it a little time you will become centred. Then you can go, and nothing can destroy you – not even the West. Because once you are centred, once you know a little of yourself, then nothing can deceive you, and worldly things cannot become the goal. You can have them, you can enjoy them, but you are never worried about them. If you have them, good. If you don’t have them, that too is good.

But right now you will be just escaping from an opportunity. It happens to many people. Whenever they start growing they have a certain restlessness, because it seems that if they remain a little longer they may change. And the mind is always afraid of change. It always wants the old, the convenient, the trodden path where you have always been moving. The new always makes it afraid, but the new is life, and through the new you reach to newer sources of life, new happiness.

I cannot say to you to be here, because you are still not a sannyasin. If you were a sannyasin then I would start ordering! When you are still an outsider I cannot. If you take sannyas first, then I will not suggest that you be here – I will simply tell you!

[A man says: It doesn’t matter... sannyas. I feel I am with you anyway, Osho.]

No, it matters; it matters because it is a gesture. You materialise your gesture into a certain thing.

For example, if you love somebody, you would like to hold their hand, to kiss or embrace them. Those are just the gestures to show something that you feel within. It cannot be shown in any other way.

Sannyas is nothing but a gesture that you have fallen in love with me. And then I can decide for you, mm? – because then I have a responsibility. Right now I can only suggest that it would be good if you were here for a month, and you can do a few groups.

Once you are settled I will send you back, because I am not in favour of renouncing anything. Everybody has to go back to the world, to his world, wherever it is, to work it out. But before you enter into the world you must be centred, otherwise the world is too much.

So if you can be here it will be good... and if you are ready, I can give you sannyas right now.… [He takes sannyas.]

Now I will be with you! Anand means bliss; murti, image – image of bliss... and become one!

[A sannyasin said to Osho that he became very sad when he saw that there was so much suffering around him. He said he was able to help people suffering from bodily pain by the laying on of his hands, but not pains from ‘inside’.

Osho told him that before touching people to help them, he should first pray and become just a vehicle for the divine to work through him. He gave him a box and said that it would be useful if he could not feel the energy. He should close his eyes, feel collected and open, and then start to work with the person in pain. Osho reassured him that he would be able to help with inner pain as well.…

]

[A sannyasin says: I really find it hard to talk whenever I see you at darshan.]

Your only problem is that you are not feeling any problem! Because you are not feeling depressed, unhappy, it becomes a problem, because one has always remained with those things, and now suddenly they have disappeared. One feels empty, lost, because the old pattern is disappearing. One loses one’s identity.

But that is what I am here for – to help you to lose your identity. So whatever is happening is perfectly beautiful. Be happy in it. If you cannot be unhappy, don’t become unhappy about it!

Just let it be so, mm? And soon the new will arise. The old has gone and the new is getting ready, and there is a gap. The gap is always like this: you cannot describe it, you cannot say what it is. You can feel, but that feeling is also vague, surrounded by mist – but it is beautiful.

You just remain happy, flowing, and don’t create any problem. This is the way – if you remain flowing – then you help me. If you remain flowing, whatsoever happens in that flow will-help my work, mm? This is the way my work is going to be helped. If everybody becomes flowing and happy, just enjoying the moment, then my work is done!

I don’t want to create missionaries. I just want real people, authentic people. They don’t carry any mission – they are the mission, they are the message themselves. So wherever they go, their very presence creates a climate. You will become... mm?

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