25 Truth\'s not a theory but a flower

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‌CHAPTER 25

Truth’s not a theory but a flower

28 October 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Anand means bliss, blissful, and sanjaya means right victory – blissful right victory. Victory becomes wrong when it is enforced, when it is through violence, through aggression. When the other has to be defeated then the victory is wrong; it is ugly. When you don’t enforce it and the other simply surrenders to you it is right victory. So right victory is through love and wrong victory is through violence.

Love makes one immensely victorious. Without defeating anybody it creates victory; that’s the miracle. If somebody is defeated something has already gone wrong. The magic of love is that nobody is defeated and everybody becomes victorious. Nobody is low and nobody is high. Both are drowned in one victory; they both participate in cine victory.

[A sannyasin says he keeps having in his mind the question ‘What is truth?’ ‘What is truth?’ He doesn’t know what kind of question that is.]

Truth is not a question and cannot be made into a question. It is a quest. It is a fire, a passion. It is not like a question that you can find an answer for. Your whole life will be at stake with it. You will not find the answer, but one day the question disappears... and that is the answer. If you go on searching... and the search is hard and arduous. The search is almost impossible because one knows not what one is searching for; one knows not what this truth is, after all. One knows not why there is this urge to know. Everything is almost in darkness.

But one cannot stop either. It possesses one; it drives one again and again into new explorations. One goes on asking and an answer never comes, but by this asking, through this continuous quest,

this passion, one changes. Slowly, slowly one is transformed. One day one becomes the truth; then suddenly the question disappears.

The disappearance of the question is not the finding of an answer. The disappearance of the question is simply an indication that you have arrived. Now there is no problem: one is at ease with oneself and with existence. There is great blessing.

One cannot say what it is. One cannot say while one is searching and one cannot say when one has arrived. There is no way of saying it. While searching the question is there, and that’s why you cannot say what the answer is or what the answer is going to be. When it has happened it is so much that you cannot put it into words.

Truth is a transformation of your being. It is not an answer that comes from somewhere. It grows in you. It is a blooming of your own being. That’s why in the East we always call it ‘the one-thousand- petalled lotus’. It blooms in your consciousness... you become it. The very passion for it, when it becomes absolutely intense, transforms you. The very intensity of it is the transfiguration. It is there, and it will give you much trouble, but one is fortunate to have it.

The really unfortunate people are those who don’t have any desire to know truth, who simply go on lingering for no reason at all. Whether they are alive or dead, it makes no difference to them. They have no passion in life. They are not searching for anything, and of course if you don’t search you will not find.

Those who search are going to be in continuous trouble and anguish and anxiety. The search can drive them mad... but it is worth it. Even if one goes mad for many lives then too the search cannot be stopped. It is worth any cost; at any cost it is not costly.

So go on meditating on it, go on brooding over it. Go on cherishing the idea, the desire, the passion. Water it, nourish it. It will take you into many troubles. It will not allow you a very comfortable life – no, not at all. It will never give you any security. It will not allow you to settle into any comfortable, worldly way, no. Wherever you are it will drive you into further search again and again. But this is good. All this turmoil and all this storm is good. After the storm is silence. So go happy, continue to meditate, and come back whenever you feel like it, mm? And wherever you are, work for me too! Good.

[A sannyasin says that while he was in the West he tried to introduce Osho to people there, but it was like talking to a wall... people seemed dead.]

That’s right! The alive people have come here and the dead people are left; that’s true.

It has been a good experience; this is how it is going to be. When I say to you to share me with people, I am sending you into this kind of experience that you went through. Firstly, you will not find it easy to say what you want; that’s a good experience. Try hard – from one side, then another side.… By and by you will become a little more inventive. It takes time; it needs polishing. In the beginning one feels simply stuck; one feels stuck at each word. There is so much to say, and suddenly you feel a blank arising in you. That has to be passed: one has to try.

Even if it is not perfect. even if it is not as good as you would like it to be, it is inadequate, let it be inadequate. Trying again and again you will find better ways. Of course they are never perfect and they can never be; they always remain inadequate. They will become better, but they will remain inadequate. Nobody has ever been able to share his experience... and the higher the experience, the more difficult. And these things are so intimate that to talk to somebody almost looks like profaneness, sacrilege. It is as if you are breaking an oath, mm? You are bringing something which is so private into the market-place.

And naturally the second thing will happen: you will find walls there. Just to be polite they may listen to you but you can see that they are not interested, that they don’t want to waste their time, that they can’t understand. Even if they can hear they can’t understand. That too has to be experienced.

But if you come across one hundred walls, you may find one wall listening. And the search is for that one. Ninety-nine are not the point. If out of one hundred you can make one person listen, that’s enough; that’s more than enough.

So in both ways, if you go on trying... and I would like every one of my sannyasins to go on trying to share so that you become more and more articulate. These experiences are such that they need articulation. They need a little experience, experimentation with words, language, gestures, silenceOne needs to create a situation so that that which cannot be said can be at least shown,

indicated at least.fingers pointing to the moon. If even that much can be done then it is more than

enough.

And the third thing: by and by you will be able to see from the very beginning, from the very aura of the person, whether he is going to become a wall or will give ears to you. But it is possible only when you talk to many people. By and by you become alert that there are certain people who are walls and there are certain people who are not walls. They all look alike from the surface. Once you have known who is not a wall, then you can immediately catch hold of it – there is no need to waste time – but that will take time and long practice.

And that too is true – that you will find many people almost dead. They are! But don’t be angry with them: have compassion.…

Mm, they have to be touched so that maybe something starts happening to them. Maybe they can come back to life again. They have to be called forth as jesus called lazarus, ‘Come forth! Come out of your grave!’

But good that you tried; continue trying. Mm?

[A sannyasin couple are present. The man says the woman has another lover and they all three live together. He doesn’t feel comfortable with this.]

Mm mm, in fact it is very good. If you can go into it a little deeper, it will help you to get rid of jealousy. It is a good situation.

Use all situations. Just don’t try to escape from situations, mm? It is creating jealousy in you – it is good, the situation is good. It is bringing up something. It is an on-going groupthat’s great!

Nothing is wrong in it. Before somebody escapes from the trinity, use it!

[The man says: I feel like escaping now though.]

That’s not good!.But you will be carrying your jealousy with you. This situation can help it to drop.

And it is just a mind thing; it is nothing much. It is just because we have been brought up in that way; we have been conditioned for jealousy. From the very childhood we have been given the idea of jealousy; otherwise it is nothing! What is wrong in there being three persons instead of two?

Three are always better than two. Give it a try!

[The woman says she would like to go deeper with this partner, but is afraid to get trapped into an exclusive relationship.]

Exclusive relationships are traps. It is very difficult to remain in an exclusive relationship and yet remain free. It needs great intelligence and great awareness to do that; otherwise you will be trapped. That’s what he is trying to do and that is why you are also desiring it. You would not like to lose him, so he is threatening that he will go. And once he starts going you will start following him, so the second thing worked.

I am not saying to live in that relationship forever – nothing is forever – but while it is there why not use it? Once you have completely settled in it and there is no problem left, no jealousy, no problem, you can go. Then it is perfectly good; say good-bye to [the other person]. Then there is no problem. I am not saying don’t leave it – you can – but don’t escape; don’t run away. Go gracefully. Let it do whatsoever it can do to you, and when the work is finished and you are completely okay – if you want to remain in it for your whole life you can; there is no problem – then say good-bye. Then it has nothing more to give you. It has enriched you and you will feel grateful to [him] forever, because never again will the jealousy come into your life like this.

My approach is always: never be an escapist. And what wrong can it do? It cannot do any wrong! Give it a chance! At least for one month let it be a play, a drama, a theatre, but let it be. And enjoy as much as you can. Find new ways to enjoy it, because sooner or later it will finish, mm? Even to live with somebody, even for two persons to live together is so difficult. To live with three is very very difficult; it cannot be forever. Somebody or other is bound to escape. If you don’t escape then [the other man] may get out of it. Before he gets out of it, use it!

But if you feel it is too much and you don’t want to go into it, it is perfectly okay; drop out of it. But you will be missing an opportunity. It is always good to see the ugly sides of the mind and they come only in such situations. Otherwise the ugly side remains hiding; it remains in the dark. You never know about it; you only know about your beautiful face. The ugly side comes in front only in certain situations; those situations are immensely valuable.

That is the whole work of encounter and groups like that: to bring all your ugly sides to the front... sides which you never come across, aspects of your being which you never encounter. People can go on living with one aspect and they think this is their whole being, and it is not! To know oneself, one has to know one’s whole being, all the aspects: good, bad, beautiful, ugly.

This is good! I think for a few days you should be intensively in it. Take it as an encounter group! And when you are finished, and when you see that now there is no problem in it – you can remain in the same bed, all the three, forever – then say good-bye. Then the group is over!

But it is for you to decide. If you feel it is too much and you don’t want to go into it, then it is up to you, mm?

[Osho suggests groups to them.]

By that time if you feel like enjoying and being enriched by the relationship, good. Otherwise there is no problem; just get out of it! Don’t make much fuss about it, mm? Good... good!

[A sannyasin says she has finished her schooling and could have gone to university but there was nothing she wanted to study. Osho invites her to the new communeAnd we are going to make

an anti-university there so you can be un-educated, no problem!]

[A sannyasin says: I did the Encounter group and in it I saw that I was very defensive towards people. Very often I feel so defensive against you too.]

Mm mm, nothing; that is natural. And the mind is always defensive. Otherwise if mind is not defensive you will immediately become enlightened! It defends you against enlightenment, that’s all! But it is going.it will go! It will go down the drain – don’t be worried; it is already slipping.

Chunks, big chunks of it have disappeared. Mm? there are holes in your defence wall. That’s why you are becoming aware of the defence – because of those holes that have happened. So you can compare and you can see the difference, and you can visualise what the blessing will be if the whole wall disappears.

People who are completely closed don’t feel that they are defending. How can they? They have never known any other thing; they have never known anything other than defence. Now you have known a few moments. They are there every day. Just for a moment you forget defending and there is great joy and silence; then again the mind comes in and starts creating its wall. That’s why you are becoming more and more worried about it, because you are becoming more conscious about it. It is a good indication.

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