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‌CHAPTER 6

18 February 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A visitor said that she had been practising Vipassana for some time, and had found it helpful. She said that she enjoyed the active meditations, enjoyed the dancing, but found that it did not go as deep for her as being silent.

Osho said that Vipassana was good, but that as one became more silent, one tended to become a little sad.]

Silence is good, but it must be positive – it must be bubbling with pleasure and happiness and joy. It should not become negative and escapist.

Vipassana goes very deep, but it is one-sided. One becomes more and more introvert. With one’s eyes closed so much, one forgets the world. That is half the journey. It is good as far as it goes, but one should come back to the marketplace. One should be able to dance and still be silent. One should be able to be in the world and still not be of it. My whole effort is to make you completely balanced. Doing Vipassana alone makes people sad, and by and by they become disinterested in life. If you become disinterested, many things will happen. Many pains will disappear – but pleasures also disappear. If you become disinterested, unconcerned, a deep renunciation happens and you will feel very calm and collected. But after a time you will begin to feel bored with that calmness and collectedness.

Only if that becomes ecstatic, only if you sing it and dance it, is it balancing. You move in, you move out, and you are free of the out and the in too. You are not confined to the outside or to the inside world. You are totally free to move in and out as you wish. Sometimes one wants to be silent – then be silent. Sometimes one wants to relate, to love, to dance – then relate, love, dance.

Vipassana is anti-love. If you go deeply into it, by and by you will see that love becomes impossible. You will start feeling that love becomes a disturbance. My whole effort is that life should not become

lop-sided. The East has suffered very much because of Vipassana-type meditations, because they are one-sided. They are good, and there is nothing wrong in them, but you can eat even too much of a good thing, and then the balance is lost.

So my suggestion is that you continue Vipassana, and at least one active meditation, whatsoever makes you feel good. I know you are not the active type – you are the inactive type – so it will be a little difficult for you. passana will fit you completely, but that is not the point. The point is to remain balanced, to remain on both feet. You can stand on one foot, but not for long. A bird needs two wings. With one wing, life loses all dynamism.

So, good, continue Vipassana, and do one course here – because here it is as I would like it to be. Then you tell me about your old experiences and the new experiences and you will be able to compare them too.

[She says that she has decided not to take sannyas.]

Then you wait, mm? But wait at your own risk. (in his ‘stern’ voice) Then when you tell me, I will decide whether I want to give you sannyas or not, because it is not a one-sided question.

Right now I am ready to give it to you, but if you think about it, you will have to be clever and calculating. I may refuseSo you think about it, mm?

[A sannyasin says he feels good now he has committed himself to Osho.] Commitment brings tremendous happiness – because it brings tremendous freedom.

People are completely unaware that only through commitment is there freedom. Because you don’t carry the burden on your head any more, suddenly you relax. People think commitment becomes a bondage – it is just the opposite. Uncommitted, you remain burdened, and each step has to be decided. Each moment becomes a tremendous anxiety – deciding to be or not to be, to do this or to do that; one moves in darkness.

In the East we have learned a great secret, and that secret is that if you can find a man who has attained then simply surrender to him, and suddenly all your anxieties and troubles disappear. A clarity arises in which you see things as they are. Suddenly you are unburdened.

[A sannyasin said that she was enjoying meditations, though nothing dramatic was happening.]

It is good that things should go very slowly. Dramatic changes never become permanent. They come like flashes, and when they are there, one feels on top of the world, but then suddenly one falls to the very bottom. A dramatic change is not something to be desired, because it is not going to remain with you.

Slow growth is good. It is hard and not very exciting, but it is good because it is going to stick. You are moving so slowly that everything that is happening is going to be absorbed by the system. I always feel good when someone is growing very very slowly.

People who have dramatic experiences are one day suddenly in heaven; another day they are suddenly in hell. When they are in heaven, they are really in heaven. When they are in hell, they are really in hell. Then they become very confused. They are going up and down so much that it becomes a disturbance. It looks as if an earthquake has happened within them, and everything goes into a chaos.

It is always good to go very slowly, so you can chew and digest every experience. Before another experience happens, it has become part of your being and your system. Very good.

[A sannyasins says she is feeling sad, to which Osho replies “Good!” and she answers: I knew you’d say that!]

I always say that (chuckling) – irrespective of what you say. You can depend on it! Because everything is good – it does not matter what it is.

One has to learn acceptance. If today you feel sad, you feel sad – accept it. Not only accept it, enjoy it. Sadness has its own qualities. It can give you gifts that nothing else can. Happiness never goes as deep as sadness. When you are sad, try to go deep into yourself, because sadness can take you deeper than anything else.

Happiness moves towards the heights. Sadness moves towards the depths. When you are happy, soar high, because nothing can take you as high as happiness. Then leave the earth completely, and take a jump towards the height – fly. Use happiness. Use happiness to touch the height of your consciousness.

And when sadness comes, dive deep. Use sadness to touch the very depth of your being. Then you will see that both are part of the same ladder. Because the height is yours, the depth is also yours.

A man who knows only his height and has not known his depth, will remain shallow. A man who has known only his depth and has not known his height, will remain sombre, sad, burdened. He will not be able to fly. He will have roots, but he will not have wings, and both are needed. A great tree goes high in the sky and its roots penetrate deep into the earth, into the dark earth. Sadness leads you there, and happiness leads you into the sky, into the sunlight.

So use everything that becomes available. Then there is no need to be sad when sadness is there. You can use it, and you can be happy because of sadness. And when there is happiness, there is no need to be excited. Use it, and you will not go crazy because of it. Once you know how to use all your moods, you have become a master. And that is what the whole of spiritual growth, of meditation, is all about – to use all methods, all windows of your being.

So accept it – it is perfectly good – and enjoy it. Once you understand your sadness, it disappears.

[A sannyasin said that through meditating she was beginning to notice more of the simpler things around her – the trees, and just simple things that happened.]

Life consists of little things, and all big things are false; they are ego trips. They occupy you and give you a sense of bigness, make you feel you are doing something very important. But real life is simple and does not give you any sense of bigness. It is not on an ego trip.

On the contrary, real life makes you humble, because by and by you realize that you are just like the trees, or just like the animals or the birds. They are doing the same things as you. About the big things, man is different. About the small things, man is just like animals. When you feel hungry, you eat – the birds are doing the same. When you feel tired, you sleep – the animals are doing the same. When you are in love, you love – the whole of nature is doing the same thing. One feels humble.

But of course no animal is a prime minister. No tree wants to become a president, or a king or a queen. They are not so stupid, and they will simply laugh if you propose the idea.

It happened once that the emperor of Japan went to see a zen master, who lived in a forest on a hilltop. He brought many presents with him, and a precious gown with many diamonds that was given only to the master of the king. The emperor gave it to the master who started laughing, saying, ‘I accept your love, but please take this gown back. If I use it here where I have only the trees and the animals as my friends, they will all laugh at me and say that I have become an old fool, and stupid! They will say that now at this age I have fallen a victim of foolish things!’

All special things are human, and all ordinary things are natural. The very urge to be extraordinary is insane. Just to be ordinary is sanity.

That is the trouble – you have been in many trips. I would like you to relax, and just to enjoy simple things. Again allow the taste of food to be experienced. Drink water at ease so you can feel the coolness that comes slowly to the body. Touch the tree, feel the earth, look at the stars, and just be ordinary and humble. There is nothing special to be done.

Be an animal if someday you want to become divine. Be natural if someday you want to transcend nature.

Anatta means no self, no ego, and prem means love – a loving no-self. It means become love, but don’t be a lover. Just be the quality of love. There is no centre of self who loves, mm? just love flows through you. One becomes a vehicle, a passage, a medium.

Anatta is a buddhist term. Buddha says that there is no soul – this no-soulness is your reality. This egolessness is your reality...

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