Chapter title: None

‌Chapter title: None‌

10 September 1980 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 8009105 ShortTitle: ICEBRG10 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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up.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.]

Blissfulness is like a bud opening as a flower. In misery one closes up; in misery one starts dying, one starts withdrawing from life, one starts shrinking. In bliss one expands, one relates; one dances, sings, celebrates. And that is the only way to find truth, god, love and all the great values.

One has to drop all the stupid formality of civilization, one has to become more spontaneous, like primitive man; like a child. The child represents the primitive man, the child has yet to be civilized.

Psychologists are aware of the fact that we cannot remember anything before the age of four. One remembers things that happened only after one was four years of age; one has lived those four years without leaving a trace on the memory. The reason is that at the age of four or near about then, the child becomes part of civilization. His gestalt is changed by the parents, by education. He starts behaving as he should; he loses his spontaneity, he becomes false and plastic. And from that moment on he will remember everything because the continuum has been broken.

Only in deep hypnotic unconsciousness can we revive the memories of the years before the age of four.

Then one can even remember something of when one was a child in the womb. Not only that; one can go on digging deeper and one can remember something of the past life. And in the East we have tried to reach as deeply as possible into the unconscious realm and in doing this we became aware not of one life behind this 1/08/07

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life, but of many many lives. But consciously we only remember that which has been forced upon us by others.

To become blissful one has to drop all that has been forced upon one. One has to become primitive again, like a child, innocent, then there is spontaneity. And spontaneity is one of the most beautiful experiences in life. One does not act out of the mind, one responds as a total organism. Then life has totality, integrity. Then one is really an individual and one has intelligence. One is no more a parrot repeating others; one can hear one's own inner voice. And that is always blissful, that sound is always blissful.

And once you start hearing your own voice you are on the right track; you will go on opening. And when the flower of consciousness is totally open you know for the first time what a gift life is and what an ecstasy.

How long will you be here? "I don't know."

Then be here forever, because this is the tribe of the ancient Italians. I am reviving it!

To be solitary is negative, to be in solitude is positive. They are not synonymous. Solitude is sacred.

Solitariness is nothing but misery; one feels that one is missing others.

The person imprisoned in jail lives in solitariness, not in solitude. Sometimes

they punish prisoners with three weeks' solitary confinement. Then he is left in a dark cell with nobody to relate to, with nothing to see.

In those three weeks it seems as if three lives have passed; he loses all sense of time. And slowly, slowly he starts becoming crazy. After the second week he starts talking to himself - loudly!

If he is kept in this way for three months he will go really mad, maybe irrevocably mad. This is solitariness. He has been forced into a negative darkness.

Only a meditator can transform solitariness into solitude. Then when he is totally alone he is not lonely, not at all. He is full of his own being, overflowing; in fact more overflowing than ever, because when others are there they encroach on your space. In life it is really a continuous struggle to keep your space intact.

Everybody is treading on everybody else's space; nobody is respectful of anybody's space.

This is one of the greatest problems humanity is facing today, because the earth has become overcrowded and people are really suffering from an immense confinement. The crowd is coming closer and closer; you are in a crowd everywhere and everybody is interfering with your space. Your privacy is lost -

and when privacy is lost all is lost.

The people who have been studying animals have come to know that there is a territorial imperative. For example, if you see a monkey and you start moving slowly towards the monkey, up to a certain point he will not take any notice of you, but only up to a certain point. Beyond that he will immediately start getting angry -- maybe at ten feet, twenty feet. You will be surprised that every monkey behaves in the same way: they get angry always when you are at a certain distance. It is as if the monkey has a certain sense of territory and he wants nobody to come into his space.

In zoos animals go berserk, mad. Only in zoos do animals go mad, not in the woods -- never. Nobody has heard of any lion going mad in the jungle or any elephant going mad in the jungle. But in a circus they do, in a zoo they do because they are confined. If you go to the zoo you will see the lion continuously walking around the cage, confined, enraged, angry because his space has been

taken away -- and in the jungle he has a vast space. And all animals respect each other's spaces, none of them interfere in the others'

realms. The moment you enter their space you are in danger; if you don't enter their space there is no danger to you. The snake will not bite you if you don't enter his space.

Now they have measured how much space every animal has for himself. But man has no sense of that; he has completely forgotten the language, he does not know it, he has lost the very sense. And that's why humanity is almost in a state of insanity. It needs methods to create space again.

Meditation is a method to create your own space. If it is not available on the outside then create it inside.

Perhaps it is no longer available on the outside, perhaps it will never be available on the outside again; on this earth it does not seem to be possible. Then find space within. That's the whole alchemy of meditation: finding space within. Then even in the crowd you remain in solitude because now you know how to create an inner space.

You remain centered. Nobody can interfere with your inner space. People can interfere with your outer space; the wife can interfere, the husband can interfere, the children can interfere -- everybody. And it is so crowded that they are not at fault. There is no more space left on the outside.

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Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

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Meditation becomes something of absolute value when the earth is so overcrowded. Meditation has never been of such importance before. Only a few very intelligent people -- a Buddha, a Jesus, a Zarathustra

-- had the sense to create some inner space. The other people lived outside. There was enough space outside; there was no reason to find it inside. But now,

everybody has to become a buddha in some way or other; otherwise life will not have any meaning. It will not have any salt, it will not have any taste at all.

So by becoming a sannyasin you will be working in the inner world to create a space there. And infinite space can be created there because you can throw out all the junk that is inside. You can throw out the thoughts, the desires, the memories, the past, the future, the dreams, the imagination. You can go on throwing out all this junk and you can create great space. That's what meditation is all about: throwing out all the contents that we are carrying inside so that the room is empty, so that you can feel yourself surrounded by infinite vastness. And that vastness is divine. That is solitude.

The outer solitude is nothing compared to the inner solitude, because the outer can always be taken by others. It is never absolutely yours, you have to depend on others for it; anybody can interfere with it. Hence the man who has no meditativeness is a dependent person, he has to depend on others. For love he is dependent, for space he is dependent; for everything he is just dependent.

The meditator becomes independent. Only the meditator knows what freedom is... the freedom of a bird on the wing in the infinite sky.

Meditation is an effort to attain inner emptiness, inner nothingness.

Nothingness means no-thing-ness. It does not mean that nothing is there, it simply means that all the things that were there have been thrown out. You are there and for the first time, because things are no more there, you have a vastness. It is really a miracle to create meditation, but once the miracle happens one is surprised that in this small body one is carrying the whole sky, the whole of eternity, an infinity. And that is our truth, that is the meaning of Hiltrud.

Hil means battle, trud means truth -- battle for truth. Meditation is a battle for truth -- your inner truth, your authenticity, your real being. But for that many things have to be dropped. To know the real, to know the true, all that is false has to be dropped.

It is a battle because the false has lived so long inside you that it is not going to leave you easily; it will make every effort to remain there. It is like a guest who has lived for so long in your house that you have forgotten he is a guest. He has also forgotten; in fact he is behaving like the host. He may have thrown the host outside because of course when the guest comes the host respects him, gives him

everything that is good in the house, the best place to lie down, and everything.

If the guest goes on remaining there it is bound to happen one day or other that he will feel that "I am the master and you are the slave, because, look, I live in the most beautiful space of the house, the best room, I eat the best food. Of course I am the master and you are just a slave." That's what has happened: the host has become a guest and the guest has become the host. Everything is upside-down.

Your consciousness is the host and your mind is just a guest. Thoughts come and go, you remain. Anger comes and goes, you remain. Greed comes and goes, you remain. The only thing that remains is your being.

All things come and go. How many things have come and gone? But when they are there they behave as if they are the master.

The meditator has to fight a real battle to make the mind understand what its place is, to put the mind in its place, to bring it to its senses and show it that it is just a guest, not a host; it is not the master. The meditator has to reclaim from the mind the territory which it has possessed for long, maybe for millions of lives. The battle is because the mind will not budge an inch unless you do all that you can doc If you are really intent, if you put all your energy into it, only then can you throw it away. Meditation has to be something very intensive, very passionate, total. The moment it is total the mind knows that it Is defeated. And once the mind knows it is defeated, it becomes a beautiful slave; otherwise it is an ugly master.

The moment you have reclaimed your territory, your space, your truth, your being, you are a king, a queen; otherwise one is a beggar.

My sannyasins have to attain the kingdom of god, they have to become kings and queens -- less than that won't do. I am not creating beggars, I am creating emperors.

My whole effort is to free you from religions and help you to become religious. I don't want you to be a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Buddhist -- these are religions. I want you to be a Christ, a 1/08/07

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Buddha, a Krishna, a Lao Tzu, a Mohammed -- these are religious people.

Never forget for a single moment that Buddha was not Buddhist and Jesus was not Christian. Hence those who are Christians have nothing to do with Jesus. They have not understood even the most fundamental thing, that he was not a Christian. To be a Christian is to go against Jesus.

Jesus was simply a loving human being, full of light, full of joy, full of awareness. He was religious, certainly, but his religion cannot be confined to any dogma. No church can confine his vastness; every church will become a falsification. No scripture can contain him; he is vast. No words can convey him, only silence can convey him.

The Sufis have a book -- they call it the book of the books -- which is utterly empty, nothing is written in it. I think that is the only religious scripture in the world. It is born of a great insight. You go on looking at the empty pages; there is nothing there, not a single word. They have carried that book for centuries; it has gone from master to the disciple, and they have been reading that scripture.

To read an empty book you need an empty mind. If you just go on looking at empty paper you will become empty. How long can you go on looking at it?

It is said that Bodhidharma looked at an empty wall for nine years; he sat and looked at the wall. Of course he became enlightened! What can you think? How long can you think, just looking at an empty wall?

Sooner or later the mind will become bored and the mind will say, "I'm going!"

The mind is bound to say

"Good bye sir! What are you doing? Are you mad? Nine years?"

That is the meaning of your name: go beyond all dogmas, all scriptures, all ideologies, and become centered in your own nothingness. And from there arises the truth -- a truth that liberates, a truth that is liberation.

One cannot attain the truth through any activity. Activity is needed to attain

things of the world. Of you want to attain the inner truth you have to learn the art of no action, of effortlessness. And meditation is nothing but effortlessness, it is inaction. It is sitting silently doing nothing. It is not a doing, remember.

If you are doing meditation you have missed the point. It is doing nothing, it is simply being, utterly restful, relaxed, as if there is nowhere to go, nothing to attain, nothing to do. If one can be in such a space for only a few minutes every day, that will do. That will help you to enter your source.

In those inactive moments you will be thrown into your own source because you will not have any other place to go. You will inevitably enter your own centre. If there is nothing to do then your consciousness is automatically withdrawn from its occupations. Meditation is a state of unoccupied consciousness. It is going beyond activity.

I am not against action; but the person who knows how to go beyond action can be active and yet remain inactive. He is doing all kinds of things but deep inside there is no doer. He will live in the world, he will carry the water from the well and chop the wood, and still there is no doer. He remains in his absolute inactivity; his inactivity is not disturbed by his activities. And that is the most significant thing about sannyas.

It is easy to be active and in the world, it is easy to be inactive and in the monastery, but my effort is that you should be inactive in the world, you should be inactive in action, only then do you have the highest peak possible, otherwise something will be missing. In the monastery you will miss everything that the world can give to you, and in the world you will miss all those values that only the monastery can give to you. And I would like you to be enriched by both, the inner and the outer.

I don't want to create any separation between the inner and the outer. I would like you to transcend both and come to a higher peak where the inner and outer are no more separate. And that is possible only through meditation.

So this has to be your work, to experience total inaction. And it can be experienced because it has been experienced. I have experienced it, I am continuously in it -- and that's what I want to share with my people.

A sannyasin is a person who lives in the world and is not of the world. He lives like a lotus leaf in the lake. The leaf is in the water but the water cannot touch it.

Even when dewdrops gather on the leaf in the night they don't touch it. They are there on the leaf and in the morning sun they look like pearls, but the leaf remains completely untouched by them. Just a breeze comes and they slip into the lake and the leaf is totally dry.

Hence in the East the lotus has become the symbol of the sannyasin. We have made the lotus the highest flower not for any other reason except that the lotus is a sannyasin.

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Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

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Of course it is easier to start by being blissful because bliss is a natural longing. Enlightenment is not a natural longing. One wants to be blissful. Hence I don't want anybody to run after unnatural goals, Follow the natural because ultimately it leads you beyond nature.

So there is no need to rush for something that is beyond. First experience bliss and then enlightenment comes of its own accord. And everybody knows, deep down everybody is aware, that to be blissful or to be miserable is our choice. Next time you are miserable, try it -- choose not to be miserable, and you will be surprised, it can be done. And once you have done it you have found a key. Then it is up to you. If you want to be miserable, if you enjoy misery, then it is perfectly good; then it is bliss to you! But if you don't enjoy it you can simply drop out of it.

Each moment a person has to choose whether to be blissful or to be miserable. Misery is not some calamity that happens to you, it is your choice. But nobody has told you that it is your choice. Everybody goes on telling you why you are miserable and you also start thinking in the same way, that "There must be some causes, that's why I am miserable." I say to you that there is no cause at all, except that you have chosen misery; except that god has made you free, he has given you freedom to choose, and you are mis-using the freedom.

So make it a point from this moment, to always choose to be blissful. Whenever

old habits are in the way just tell them to shut up! And you will be surprised because sooner or later, one day, you will see that they do shut up! First they will not listen but one day it happens, and that day is a great revelation. It is such in ecstatic experience to say "Shut up!" and they shut up! You did not expect it to happen but one day it does.

So just go on trying and any day the right moment can come. In a right situation, in a right moment, you slip out of the misery and you start laughing at the whole ridiculousness of it.

So from this very moment, watch out! Right?,( Osho chuckled). Start!

Without love a person is blind. One can go on thinking forever and ever and one will not be able to see.

Love, and you will be able to see what is. It is only the loving heart that can touch the heart of existence.

The mind is shallow and superficial; it knows nothing of the heights and the depths. The mind is idiotic, it is always mediocre. It cannot give you any insight into reality. For that your heart needs to function -- and love is nothing but the humming of the heart.

Allow the heart to sing its song. Even if the mind condemns it, don't bother about the mind. The mind will condemn it, the mind will say "This is irrational. For example when the situation suggests that you be miserable and you start singing a song, the mind will say "This is not right, this is not how things should be, you have to be miserable -- that is logical."

Somebody has died and you dance... That's what we do here. We just wait for the opportunity! (much laughter) People go on thinking, "Now whose number is next? Whom are we going to celebrate next?" We don't miss any opportunity.

And once you allow the irrational heart to function, slowly slowly the mind loses its grip. It will take a time, a little time, because the mind has been in power so long; it will condemn you, it will create troubles for you. But listen to the heart and let the mind go on shouting.

In India we have a saying that the elephant does not care, it goes on although the dogs are continuously barking. The elephant takes no notice at all, he does not even look at the dogs -- they go on barking, Dogs are great politicians. The elephant is a mystic! (laughter) He goes on without taking any note of the dogs and sooner or later the dogs leave him, because what is the point of staying?

They may console themselves that "This animal looks dumb or deaf; he does not understand. It is very illogical: we are barking and he is not even looking at us, so what is the point of barking?" They become tired, exhausted.

The same has to be the way of a sannyasin: let your heart sing, dance, rejoice. The dogs from the head will go on barking saying, "This is irrational, that this, it is not expected, this is immoral. This is not gentlemanly, this is not nice. What will people say, what are you doing?" It will condemn all poetry inside you, it will condemn all love inside you. It will try every way to pull you out of the heart because its whole power is at risk. But don't listen to it; just go on singing, go on dancing and celebrating. And one day you will be surprised, the dogs are no more barking, they have been left far behind.

The day it happens is the day of great benediction. Then flowers start showering on you, then the whole existence starts pouring all kinds of joys upon you. You are connected with the whole, you have become a 1/08/07

Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

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seer. Love makes one a seer, it gives one eyes.

Just the Tip of the Iceberg

Chapter #11

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