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CHAPTER 23
23 April 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
[Osho explains the meaning of Swami Samma: one who comes to effortlessness through effort, one who comes to surrender through will.]
First you will have to go deep in effort, you will have to do all that can be done, all that is humanly possible. Only when you have done all that is humanly possible will you be able to drop it. God always happens as a gift. But there are two types of people in the world: the will-oriented, effort- oriented, active; and the other is passive, surrender-oriented, feminine.
You are the male type. You cannot surrender right now. Even if you want, it is not possible. You will have to run faster and faster, you will have to exhaust your male energy. When it is exhausted, you will simply collapse in a surrender and in that surrender God happens. But to reach that surrender a will-oriented person has to make all kinds of effort.
So here, meditate, do groups and put all your energy into things. The more energy you put in, the better, because the sooner it will be exhausted.
I can see a load of energy in your heart – it has to be dispersed. It is good energy but only when it has been evaporated by effort, will you relax, will you allow let-go. You cannot just relax, that is not possible for you. Trying that you will find impossible.
Prem means love, Mohani means one who attracts, one who is beautiful, one who has a kind of hypnotic centre within.
There are people who are naturally hypnotic, they have a kind of attraction. Not that they are doing anything; it is just that their energy vibrates in such a way that people feel pulled towards them. And there is the other type also: people feel repelled by them. So Mohani means a kind of gravitation, and
everybody can consciously create that. Very few people have it naturally but consciously everybody can create it, everybody has the potential. If one just starts becoming silent inside, becomes more open, more loving, starts caring about people, that quality of gravitation arises in one’s being. And it is a beautiful experience. One feels that one is worthy. The more you are loved by people, the more you feel you have some meaning, some significance. That’s why love enhances people’s beauty. And if many people love you, suddenly you start feeling a new kind of grace arising in you, a new elegance. That is Mohani.
[There is a long interaction between a sannyasin and Osho because she is having difficulty being in the community. Osho says, I am the community!]
[Another sannyasin has written that he does not enjoy his work in the office and feels to leave. Osho tells him to continue working in the office.]
That is for you to choose, mm? If you feel so strongly then decide yourself, never ask me again. Then you be on your own. Otherwise this commune cannot exist at all. If everybody decides on his own, then they should not be part of the commune; then they can decide about themselves. If you want to be part of the commune you have to listen to me. Otherwise it will fall apart, it will be impossible. How can it be managed? Just think: sooner or later there will be five thousand people and if everybody is deciding for himself it will be impossible to do anything. And I mean to do business. I mean to do something – something that you are not aware of, something that you may not even have dreamt about... something that is beyond your comprehension.
What you can decide about yourself will be very very trivial. You don’t understand your potential, you don’t understand the possibilities, you don’t understand in what situation the challenge will be there for you, what situation will bring you to a state where you will have to explode, what situation will make you integrated; you don’t know anything. But if somebody decides, then the simple thing is that he should not be part of the commune. He can decide for himself; then there is no problem in it.
But if you want to be part of the commune the whole decision goes to me. Then once I have decided, you simply go on doing it. And it may not always be easy, in fact it can’t be easy. When you decide you decide according to your mind, in favour of things which fit with your mind – they will be easy. When I decide, I decide through seeing something else, and that is a future phenomenon, that has not happened yet.
So that will have to be almost like going uphill. When you decide, you decide downhill. It is easy, convenient, you feel very good going down and having not to make any effort. But you are going downhill and I am going uphill – then you don’t fit with me.
I would like to make this uphill journey as easy as possible, but still an uphill journey is an uphill journey. And it will become easy if everybody else devotes his whole energies totally and everybody else holds up everybody else. It is difficult for one person to reach the top but it will be easy for five thousand people to reach. But if people start deciding on their own then the commune cannot exist.
And my concern is with the commune right now. Once I have created a commune, a Buddhafield, then things will become very very easy. But you cannot conceive of the whole thing. You can just see one thing – that this seems easier for you, this fits with you; that looks hard, that looks tiring.…
Once you become part of me you forget everything else; then my decision is your decision. Then just a small antagonism with that decision and you will be missing something. Even if in the night I say ‘This is day’ and you can say ‘Yes, this is day’ knowing perfectly well that this is night, if you can say ‘Yes, this is day’, immediately something will happen in you, immediately, then and there. It is not a question of day and night – I am not worried about whether it is day or night; that is just a device. If you don’t argue with me in any way, then in that non-argumentative mind something immediately arises which is not of the mind, which comes from the beyond.
So this is going to be either/or. I am not going to accept half-hearted people and I am fast sorting them out, because once they enter in the commune it will be difficult to get rid of them. So within these three, four months I have to sort out people who can be totally with me, who can dissolve and become one energy. Then only can this orchestra be created. It has been created many times before but never on such a big scale, mm? Tiny spots of religiousness won’t help – some oceanic phenomenon is needed.
So your small conveniences, inconveniences are irrelevant. When you are going on such a long journey these small things have to be dropped. And once you drop that mind that decides, everything will become beautiful. It is just the mind. And avoid having people put ideas in your mind, because there are so many people – anybody can put any idea in your mind. Now [someone] comes and he says ‘You can become a healer.’ Now this appeals!...
In fact, the idea is in everybody. Just ask anybody: deep down he wants to become a healer or a therapist or a master or something like that.
That idea is in everybody, that is not... But how many healers will we need here mm? A few people will be needed to be healed too! I think you be the healed rather than the healer, mm? – otherwise [the ashram healer] will not get any clients! And tell him ‘Don’t make the healed, healers!’ He may have felt that you have good energy; that’s not the problem. The energy can be put to use in many ways. You can become a healer, you can become a therapist, you can use the energy in many ways. But if you want to be with me then you have to use it according to me.
If I want you to become just a wood-cutter, you have to be a woodcutter; then forget all about healing, etcetera. Chop wood and feel marvellous! But still if it persists, then you have to decide, mm? You can stay but you will have to stay outside the commune, you will not be part. You can go on doing whatsoever you feel like doing. You will be a sannyasin but you will not be part of the commune.
So this is to be decided. And this is not only for you, I am not only talking to you, I am talking to everybody. This is the way I talk to my whole commune. Mm? somebody becomes just the instrument, the excuse. Think about it! Good.
[A sannyasin returning to the West, asks if he should continue his MA studies in literature; there are so many things he wants to do: theatre, music... ]
You finish your studies first; make it a point that you have to finish. Otherwise you will move into theatre and within a few days you will start thinking to move into music or move into painting. That seems to be your mind’s way. It wants to drift, it does not want to put its energies into one thing. It becomes very easily bored, tired, and wants to get into some new sensation. But this is not the way. Whether it is literature or theatre or music or painting, they require your life’s devotion.
I have heard how Sarasate, the great Spanish violinist of the last century, was once called a genius by a famous critic. In reply to this he shook his head and bellowed: ‘Genius! For thirty-seven years, I’ve practised fifteen hours a day, and now they call me a genius!’
I can understand his annoyance. A genius means one who has not done anything, some gift from birth. Nothing is like that. Tendencies are there which we have from birth, but much work is required. Inspiration is not more than five percent, ninety-five percent is perspiration. And you are afraid of that perspiration!
No, you go into literature, just put your whole energy into it. And literature is beautiful. If you can understand literature then it will be easier for you to go into theatre too because theatre is literature!
Don’t avoid it. Make a decision and go into it. And it will be a good background. Then you can move, and the whole of life is there. And always remember: one cannot do many things, otherwise one will not be able to do anything at all. If you want to do something you will have to pinpoint your energies. Life is short and fleeting, energies are limited, desires are infinite and there are a thousand alternatives. Just don’t go on hopping from one alternative to another alternative, otherwise nothing will be the outcome. Put all your energy into one and then there may be a little satisfaction – that you did something, that you created something, that you enjoyed something.
And always remember: bliss happens only to creative people. Uncreative people find it very very difficult, almost impossible to be blissful. The uncreative people go on thinking that bliss is there, somewhere hidden like a treasure so you have to search for it. It is not like that. Bliss is a by-product of creativity. If you create something bliss arises, it is a by-product. What you create does not matter – painting, poetry, sculpture, architecture, it doesn’t matter. But if you can create something in life and you can feel joyous for its own sake, for no other end, for no other purpose – just for its sake you feel beautiful and happy that you have sung your song – there will be joy.
So put all your energies into it, mm? Then after fifteen months you can decide what to do. And these days will not be wasted. Literature is one of the beautiful dimensions to go into. You finish it.
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