17

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‌CHAPTER 17

20 June 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva Pritama. Deva means God; Pritama means beloved – God’s beloved. Yes, to be a sannyasin is to become a beloved of God.

Sannyas is not anything less than a love affair – more, certainly it is, but not less. It is mad, mad, mad love... and a madness that is absolutely incomprehensible, a madness that is not a pathology but the ultimate in health, in sanity, in being whole.

Love is mad and blind, but love’s madness is far more superior than the so-called sanity. The so-called sanity is mediocre, mundane, superficial, accidental. The madness that love brings is supra-mundane; it is sacred. It is not of this world; it is a penetration of the beyond. That’s why it looks mad, because it is not graspable by reason. It is not irrational really, it is super-rational, but super-rational or irrational to the reason both look alike. In being irrational you fall down from reason, in being super-rational you rise above, but in both the cases reason is no more your abode. And reason condemns both, and reason calls both abnormal; but it is not abnormal.

In fact the normal humanity is very abnormal because it is not attaining its potential. The potential can be attained only through love – love of the ultimate, love of truth, love of God. And just as love brings madness it also brings a kind of blindness, but a very strange kind of blindness, a very mysterious kind: a blindness that knows how to see, a blindness that can see the unseeable, a blindness that is capable of seeing in the dark, in the dark night of the soul – a blindness that is not really a blindness but real insight.

Love is mad, love is blind, but both are blessings. And if one is mad and blind enough, only then one attains to that high status of being a beloved of God.

Deva Rita. Deva means divine; Rita means a child of light. Your full name will mean a child of divine light. It is immensely significant because it is the truth. We come from eternal light; we are born out of it and we go back to it. It is the very stuff we are made of.

Physicists and mystics both agree about it – this is the only point they agree about – that existence is made of light. Physicists call it electricity; that is their name, technical name, for the same reality. Mystics call it divine light; that is their way, their poetry. But both indicate to the same thing: that light is the most fundamental principle of existence.

And we can reach to it in two ways... through science; but then you are outside, just a spectator. You will know much about light but you will not know anything about yourself, the knower. The other way is the way of the mystic: to go deep down into one’s own being and to know the light there – not as an object but as a subject, not something outside there as a scene, but as a seer.

And when one comes to know the inner light, then there is no death, no time, no misery. The doors of the paradise are opened, the paradise lost is regained.

Deva Connie. Deva means divine; Connie means constancy, perseverance.

Life looked from the outside is just a flux: everything goes on changing, nothing is constant. But looked from within nothing ever changes. The innermost core of your being is always constant; that is the unmoving center of the moving world.

Newton is reported to have said that “If I can find an unmoving center I can change the whole world.” But he could not find because he searched in the wrong direction; he searched in the without. There you cannot find – nothing ever remains the same even for two consecutive moments.

Change is the law. Even if you don’t see, things are changing. Not only rivers and oceans but even rocks and mountains are changing – slow change, invisible change, but the change is constantly going on. And because there is change there is death; change cannot happen without death. Change means something dies and something else is born; one thing dies, another is born. Change is the passage between death and birth.

But deep inside you, where Newton never looked, otherwise he would have found... because Buddha has found, Jesus has found, Lao Tzu has found, Zarathustra has found, why not Newton? But he never looked within. It can be found only in the world of the within. If you go deeper, you go farther and farther away from change. And there is a point, a single point – call it your self, soul, consciousness, your truth – from where you exist, from where you get all your life energies. It is constant, absolutely constant. It is simply the same, always the same.

That’s why a strange phenomenon is experienced almost by everybody: that if you close your eyes and look within you cannot decide how old you are. Young, old, you cannot decide; twenty years old or twenty-one or fifty or sixty or seventy, you cannot decide. If you look within you simply are... no age. You are the same as you were when you were a child. Now you maybe eighty years old.

In the innermost core of your being there is something that is always the same, unmoving. That is the center of existence, the center of the cyclone. Outside is the cyclone, inside is the center.

And once you have known it, you have known that there is no death, because the constant cannot experience death; it cannot experience birth either. It knows no birth, no death. It has been always.

There is a very strange statement of Jesus. Somebody asked him, “What do you say about our great father, Abraham?” And Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Now, there is a gap of at least three thousand years between Abraham and Jesus, but his statement is tremendously significant. He says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” He is indicating to the timeless, to the eternal, to the innermost, to the deathless.

That’s exactly the meaning of Connie, and that is the search. That’s why you are getting initiated into sannyas – to search for the center of the cyclone.

Anand Antonio. Anand means bliss; Antonio means priceless.

Bliss cannot be purchased; it is untransferrable. Nobody can give it to you, nor you can give it to anybody else. You can attain it, but it is not a commodity in the market; you cannot purchase it. It has to be attained within you. It is the kingdom within you.

And once you have attained it you will know, that “Why I was unnecessarily begging here and there, why I was suffering?” The whole thing seems to be a nightmare. You had the priceless within you, the inestimable within you, the immeasurable within you. You had all that is needed to be fulfilled, and still you were groping and asking and begging because you never looked within.

And the more you search outside, the farther away you go from it. Otherwise it is so close by; not even a single step is needed to be taken. If you can stop all desiring, all dreaming, all thinking, immediately in that space you would have attained the priceless... because in dream you take steps away from yourself, in desire you go farther away. And that’s what thinking is all about: going always somewhere else, remaining occupied somewhere else, with something else, never being alone with yourself. That’s what thinking is. The whole business of thinking is keeping you occupied so that you are never left alone with yourself.

If you can be alone, this very moment the kingdom is yours. And once it is attained it becomes really very unbelievable how many lives we remained as beggars – crying, weeping, knocking on others’ doors, and finding nothing except frustration. Once you have found it, it looks like a nightmare. And the deeper you go into it, it starts looking not even your own nightmare; it starts looking as if somebody has told you about his nightmare. The deeper you go, more and more unbelievable it becomes – your whole past existence. Finally it seems as if it is not only the second person who has told you, but maybe the thousandth. Farther and farther away becomes the reality of all the past; it is no more your reality. When your reality is experienced, the reality that mind has created out of desire starts evaporating.

It is because of this fact that in the East the mystics have called the world maya, illusory. Not that it is not, but once you attain to your inner kingdom, everything that you have lived, that you had desired, dreamed about, everything in toto becomes so irrelevant, so meaningless, so futile and so unreal, that it has to be called illusory.

Let sannyas be the beginning of your inner search. It is not a formality, it is a commitment: a commitment not towards me, but a commitment towards your own inner truth.

Anand Gandharva. Anand means bliss. Gandharva in Indian mythology are the musicians of God, those who play music for God – just like Chaitanya Hari! Your name will mean blissful, divine musician. And that has to become your lifestyle, that has to become your very consciousness.

Religion to me is creativity. And all creativity basically is musical. Only the medium differs: the poet creates music through words, and the sculptor creates music in stone, and the painter through colors but basically art is music. Music is the foundation of ail aesthetics and all creativity.

Lovers are in music, in a kind of harmony, not knowing how and why. But both have fallen in a certain tune, in a certain rhythm. If they know how, they will become meditators. Then their love will start reaching higher and higher. Then it will not be confined to individuals. Then it will not have any objective focus. Then it will not be a relationship but a state of consciousness One loves, it doesn’t matter to whom – to the trees, to the stars, to the rivers, to people; one simply loves.

It is significant that Jesus says: Love your enemies. I have always wondered... there has been some mistake. And Christians have made it a moral commandment: Love your enemies. But to me, Jesus must have meant something else. How can you do otherwise? If you love, you have to love your enemies. If you love, you love! It is absolutely irrelevant whether the other is a friend or an enemy. Love knows no distinctions and love makes no conditions. Love is a sheer joy for its own sake.

The painter is in love with colors, the poet is in love with words, and so on, so forth. All creativity is love and all creativity is music. Between these two words the whole world of creativity can be explained – love and music. Love for the music is creativity.

And my sannyasins have to be creators, not escapists. Create in whatsoever dimension you can, but act in such a way that each act becomes creative. Even if you have to destroy, only destroy to create.

Destruction is bad when it is for its own sake. When you start enjoying destroying then it is violence. But if you are destroying only to create, then it is non-violence. Certainly the sculptor has to destroy much. Chunks of the stone have to be taken out of the rock, only then a statue will be born, will be revealed. But it is not destruction. Destruction in the service of creation has a beauty. It should not be the master.

Create in all possible dimensions. And a person who is creative in one dimension becomes creative in many dimensions, because creativity has a flavor. Once you have tasted it, whatsoever you touch, your very touch imparts some creation to it, something new to it. All are inter-linked. If you have known one dimension of creativity, you have known all. Only the poet can understand the painter and the painter can understand the poet.

But music is pure creativity. Words have limitations; sounds have none. Words belong to particular languages – sound is universal. Even trees are affected by music, birds are affected, animals are affected. Sound is the cosmic language. If any prayer can reach to God, it can reach only through music, not through words. Or even if it reaches through words, it will reach not through the words in themselves but through the music that surrounds those words.

Your name will remind you again and again that life has to be a music, and then it is religious.

[The new sannyasin tells Osho a joke about a doctor advising a depressed patient to see a famous clown to cheer himself up. It turns out the patient is the clown himself.]

It is not a joke.

It is a very very real phenomenon. Clowns are not happy people, that’s why they are clowns: they are trying to hide the reality from themselves. By making people laugh they try to forget their tears, their sadness. That’s a way of escaping from their reality.

Friedrich Nietzsche is reported to have said that, “I laugh, not because there is laughter in my heart but just to prevent my tears. If I don’t laugh I may start crying.”

Jokes are not jokes. Jokes have a very deep-going import, a tremendous significance, which has not yet been understood. Everybody is hiding behind masks: the clown is hiding behind a mask, and the psychiatrist too; he may be the most mentally ill person in the world. More psychologists commit suicide; the number is almost double. And more psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists go mad than any other profession; the number is again exactly the double. Why it is so? Maybe in the very first place they became interested in psychology because they were disturbed. They became psychoanalysts to help others, so that they can forget that they need help in the first place themselves.

The old dictum is very significant: Physician, heal thyself. But it is very difficult for the physician to heal himself, because he may be the physician only because he is ill. It is very difficult to find a physician who is not ill.

If you can find a person who has no tears in his being left, then he has a right to laugh. But his laughter is totally different: it is compassionate, it is loving. Otherwise people’s laughter is vulgar, violent. Their laughter is destructive. They are always laughing at others. It is egoistic.

When a man like Buddha laughs or tells a joke, it is totally different; the quality is different. It may be the same joke, but the quality is different. There is great compassion, understanding. And his laughter has nothing to hide; his laughter is just opening his heart.

It is a beautiful joke, but it is not a joke, remember: it is a truth. It is very ironical that jokes contain more truths than the Bibles. Read a joke almost as sacred scripture!

Ananddevi. Anand means bliss; devi means goddess. Bliss is the ultimate state of consciousness, of divinity, of godliness.

The mystics have defined the ultimate truth as satchitanand. Sat means truth, chit means consciousness, anand means bliss. When you enter into the world of reality, first you encounter truth, next you encounter consciousness. Truth melts into consciousness; it becomes your consciousness. It is no more separate from you; it is you. It is no more your truth; it is you. It becomes consciousness; it becomes subjective, subjectivity.

When you still go deeper, then the third and the ultimate layer is touched. Then consciousness is no more just consciousness. It is full of bliss, not only full but overflowing. Bliss is the ultimate experience of God.

But the religions down the ages have been doing such harm to people by telling them to be serious, sad somber. They have created a very very long-faced religion. Their saints are not able to laugh, not able to sing not able to dance. What kind of saints they have created? Zombies, dull and dead, crippled and paralyzed.

My sannyasins have to be dancers, lovers, celebrators.

[A sannyasin, leaving, says: I haven’t felt connected to the energy while I’ve been here this time. Osho checks his energy.]

It is not a question of not being connected with the energy. You were connected but you could not feel it because you were expecting too much. Your expectation came in the middle, became a wall, a very thick wall .

Expectations are in the head and the feelings are in the heart. And if the head is completely silent, unbuzzing, only then you can feel the connection. The connection is there. You could not feel it because you were too much in head and you were expecting more.

First time it was easy because there was no expectation. First time it is easy for everybody; next time it is difficult, third time it depends. If you are intelligent it will be very easy, if you are unintelligent it will become more difficult. But second time it is difficult for everybody. Third time it is up to you.

Drop next time when you come. Come with no expectation. Just enjoy being here! What is the need of being connected? Don’t make it a need, don’t make it a desire. If it happens, good; if it doesn’t happen, good! And then it certainly happens. And when you are not searching and seeking and desiring it, it comes. It always comes when you are not expecting; unexpectedly it comes.

It always comes as an uninvited guest, remember. If you invite it is very shy, it hides. If you seek and search, it is feminine; it escapes. One has to learn to wait in utter patience. And then suddenly, from nowhere, it is there. And when it is there, don’t start patting your back, otherwise you will lose again. When it is there, don’t start bragging inside yourself or outside, otherwise you will lose it again. When it is there, don’t make much fuss. Take it for granted, simply say to yourself, “So what!” and it will be coming more and more.

Next time be a little more careful, that’s all... but it happens to everybody.

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