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‌CHAPTER 13

13 April 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A couple with their child take sannyas. The mother asks about her relationship with the child: I get very emotionally involved around him – I find it hard to remain in my centre.]

Love is really going out of your centre. Love means getting involved, love means getting lost, love means losing yourself in the other. It doesn’t matter whether the other is your husband, your brother, your friend, your son – it doesn’t matter. Love means: forgetting yourself in the other, remembering the other so much that you are almost annihilated. So don’t try to create a contradiction in your being: don’t try to remain centred. Go deeply into love, be involved, and after deep involvement a centering arises. But they cannot both be done together at the same moment.

For example, you can work hard in the day, in the night you go to sleep. Sound sleep comes out of hard work. But you cannot do both things together: sleeping soundly and doing hard work. Out of sound sleep again tomorrow you will be rejuvenated and will be able to do hard work. And that’s how it will be happening: first go deep into love, utterly forget yourself in it, and then when you come back... and you will come back; there is a rhythm. You cannot remain lost forever, you will come back. And when you come back you will be surprised: that uncentering has helped you to go deeper into centering. And the deeper you are centered, the deeper you become capable of being involved in the other. They are polar opposites so they cannot be done together, at the same time. But they are complementaries so one can be done at one time and it helps the other, it emphasises the other, it creates the other. It is like in-breathing, out-breathing: if you exhale deeply you will be able to inhale deeply; if you inhale deeply you will be able to exhale deeply. Love is exhalation and meditation is inhalation. But if you try to do both together you will go mad.

That’s what is creating trouble: you are trying to do both together – you want to remain centered and yet loving. You will be creating such a great problem and anxiety for yourself that both will be lost in

it. Meditation will be lost and love will be lost. You will not gain anything out of it. What I am saying is try, and you will gain both.

Through my way you can have the cake and eat it too. But one has to be very very alert. There is no need to choose – you can have both with the right timing. Just keep it in mind and it will happen.

Prem means love, Nagara means a citizen – a citizen of the world of love.… And that is what is missing in the world. Citizens of the world of love are missing; hence there is a crowd but no humanity. There are scattered people but no harmony. Humanity has been an empty word Up to now, it has not existed yet. It has to be created. Only human beings are there.…

It is like this: a musician goes to listen to some music with a non-musician. Both listen to the same music but the non-musician only listens to the single notes, the individual notes. He listens to one note after another but he cannot listen to the melody. The musician listens to the melody, he does not listen to the individual notes. They are there but he listens to something else that is happening through them: he listens to the unity of them, the harmony of them all. For the musician those notes are not separate. They are bridged by something unknown, something mysterious – that is the melody. The non-musician is also listening to the same but he cannot connect. It is all noise.

The melody is invisible but those notes are physically there, tangibly there. You can hear the notes; that doesn’t mean that you will hear the music. Just good ears are not enough to hear the music. Something more than the ears – a deep understanding, a capacity to fall en rapport, a capacity to be absorbed, to be possessed, an openness – is needed. Then those single notes are no more separate; they start falling into a gestalt, they are together. Then it is not just a heap of flowers but a garland. A thread is running through them all but the thread is not visible.

Human beings are still just a heap, a crowd, because the thread that can join them, that can connect them, is missing. Love is missing... love is that thread. And unless love possesses human beings there is not going to be any humanity, there is not going to be really a civilisation. The civilisation that exists is just an empty word. It has not yet happened, it is still a dream.

To become a sannyasin means to be initiated into the citizenship of love... to become part of a melody that cannot be heard only by ears, that can be heard only through the heart. It is to become aware of a cosmos, of a whole, that holds everything together. That whole is called God. You can call it the melody of existence, the music of the spheres. Whenever two people are in love a little of that music is heard, just a little. When three people are in love, a little more. When more people are in love, God becomes more and more available.

So you are entering into a love community – that is the meaning of sannyas. From now onwards, you will be part of the orange people. Lose yourself in them, and that is the way to find yourself.…

Sat means being, the innermost core, the very ground of existence, bodha means awareness – awareness of one’s own ground, awareness of one’s own foundation, awareness of one’s own roots, source.

Become more and more alert about that which is most fundamental in you. Start disconnecting yourself from the accidental. We have become too absorbed with the accidental and the essential

is lost sight of. The essential is there but we remain concerned with the non-essential. We are too concerned with clothes and food and a house and a car and money. They are needed but they are non-essentials.

If one looks deep one finds only two essentials: love and meditation. Everything else is just on the periphery. Only these two things reach deep down into your being. Love reveals something of the ground and meditation reveals the whole of it. Love is partial meditation and meditation is total love.

So these two things have to be searched for deeply, sincerely, entirely. Searching in these two directions one day, you will stumble upon being. And that is not only your being, that is the being of all, because at the very centre we are all one. Our separation is only on the periphery, on the circumference.

[A sannyasin, leaving, says: being here has been blessed by hearing you, seeing you. And what that is, is simply the is-ness of Zen... and that for sure is enough for today!]

Good! It is enough, it is more than enough. It is overflowing, it is more than enough. Enough is not the right word for it. That’s why it is inexhaustible. It goes on overflowing and is never exhausted. You can enjoy existence as much as you can and it remains infinitely enjoyable. There is no end to benediction.

The ancient Upanishads say ‘You can take the perfect out of the perfect. Still the perfect remains untouched.’ It is infinitely there. This is-ness is God and to live it is to be religious – to live it utterly, with no wavering. Because wavering means the past or the future has come in. When there is no past and no future there is no wavering. You simply go straight.

Jesus says ‘Straight is my way, but narrow.’ It is so narrow because it consists only of the now; it can’t be very wide. In fact, two persons cannot pass through it together. That’s why nobody can take anybody else into enlightenment. Everybody has to go alone... absolutely, utterly alone.

Go on enjoying it, and the more you enjoy, the more you will become capable of enjoying it. And whenever it happens, come back. Good!

[An encounter group participant says: Since I finished the group I’m feeling so empty and a bit helpless, as if I lost so much in it.

Osho checks her energy.]

It is true – you have lost much in it. But it was only illness that you lost. It is not a loss, it is a gain. But that kind of negativity has remained in you for so long, it had become part of your being, so you are missing it. It almost always happens: if a person has lived with anger for his whole life and then one day suddenly anger disappears, he will feel almost dead. Because that was the only life that he knew. Now suddenly that energy is no more there. That is the only energy that he is acquainted with. He knows only that form, he is familiar with that, he knows no other form. He will feel as if something has died. He will feel limp, lustless, helpless.

If somebody has lived his whole life obsessed with sex and then one day sex disappears, just think of the man: he will not see what the point of living is at all. All meaning is lost. That was his meaning,

that was what he was living for. You have lost much negativity. It is a gain! But you will have to wait a little. Just rest.

Swim in the water or just rest in your room. You just need a good rest and you will see energy coming back in new forms, in positive forms. If anger is gone then compassion is bound to come. If sex disappears love is bound to come. If greed disappears sharing is bound to happen. But there is always a gap. It takes a little time for the energy to transform itself.

For the time being life becomes helpless, becomes vacant, empty. In those moments one has simply to rest and enjoy rest, and relax. Mm? just a week’s rest and you will come back with a new vigour and something beautiful. Ugliness has been dropped. If you don’t rest there is every possibility you may again start having those things back, because how long can one remain empty? One would rather live in hell than be empty. At least there is something to cling to. Even if it hurts, so what? – but at least something is there. Now you are standing in a vacuum: nothing is there to cling to, all the supports have been taken away. That’s why you are feeling helpless. But that’ a beautiful situation, a good space to be in.

The group succeeded – you really went into the process. This has to happen to everybody if he really goes into it.

[A sannyasin says he’s weighed down with worry and seriousness. Osho explains to him how ambitious he is to improve himself; he can’t help comparing himself to his ideal and that he can’t change himself, life will change him. He should watch very carefully and much of the load will drop. Life can be a bed of roses, you declare, but it has become a bed of neuroses!]

[Another sannyasin says that her pride got hit very hard in the group. Now she feels very insecure and finds it very difficult to relate to people. Osho checks her energy.]

It has happened, the pride has got hurt. Now, either you can use it as depression or you can use it as a great experience of non-ego; it depends on you. It is just raw. You can make it a negative phenomenon, you can make it a positive phenomenon. You are making it negative, that’s why you are feeling depressed. If you look at it positively, you will be very elated.

The ego has to go – it is not worth preserving. It is the root cause of our misery and it is good that it is wounded. Help it to die! Once it is gone for the first time you will be able to relate with people. How can you relate with the ego there? It only pretends. When two persons are meeting there are really four persons meeting. Between these two persons meeting there are two egos standing; you are standing behind your ego and the other is standing behind his ego. How can there be a meeting? Even while making love in bed there are always four persons. It is always a group phenomenon! Many more can be there but four are necessarily there.

The ego has to go... say goodbye to it! Let it bleed to death. Meantime you will be very puzzled as to what to do, how to relate. You will feel insecure because the old pattern is dying and the new pattern will take a little time to come up. And the new can come up only when the old has completely gone. So if you cling to the old, the new will not be coming. The new comes only on the death of the old. So it can be a great creative experience.

Right this moment, thinking to go is just ridiculous. This is the time to be here! And I will give you a few more hits. I will tell my people to really destroy it. Once it is gone you will bloom like a flower, you will have fragrance. The ego stinks. Only when the ego is not there does a person really become alive, loving.

Make it a challenge! I will give you new ground – let the old go. You have lived with the old; what have you gained? People say ‘Don’t cry over spilt milk’... and it is not even milk. It was just water – you are crying over spilt water; it was nothing. And dirty water too!

Do Alchemy and after Anatta remind me again.

This is the time to come closer to me. When the ego is wounded, you need my presence to heal you. Let me be your healing!

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