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‌CHAPTER 22

26 May 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Shunya Wahido. Shunya means nothingness and Wahido is a sufi name for God – it means: the one. The one is achieved through being nothing. Unless we disappear, God cannot appear: the death of the ego is the birth of God. One has to efface oneself completely. Even if a little bit of the ego is left, that is enough – enough to remain a barrier between you and God. And the ego is like cancer. A single cancerous cell can multiply itself and spread all over the body. So is the case with the ego: just a little bit hiding somewhere in a corner is enough; it will fill you completely. It has to be uprooted, utterly destroyed.

That is nothingness – when one starts feeling as if one is nobody. One looks inside and finds nobody there. One cannot even answer the question ‘Who am I?’ All answers seem to be futile and superficial, pseudo and arbitrary. One simply knows not who one is. In that unknowing, knowledge descends. In that innocence, wisdom arrives. And when you cannot find anybody, you are ready for God, ready to receive Him. When you are nothing, your doors are open and the one comes.

Because you are, the one cannot exist. The very existence of you creates two, ‘I’ and ‘thou’. When the ‘I’ disappears, the ‘thou’ also disappears. There never happens a dialogue between man and God because a dialogue needs two. Yes, a communion happens, a disappearance happens, an annihilation happens... but no dialogue, no exchange, no communication. One simply knows – not as separate from God but as one with Him.

That is the meaning of ‘Wahido’: become nothing so that the one can arrive.

Prem Samo. Prem means love, Samo is a sufi name for God. It means ‘the all-hearing one’, the one who is listening to the prayers of the whole existence, who is all ears – who is listening to the birds and the trees and man and animals and mountains and rivers – who is attentively listening to the music of existence.

The Sufis think that God is a musician. He has the ear that can understand music. Because of that idea Sufis have gone deep into music themselves; because the best prayer can be through music. Music has no words in it – it is pure sound. Language is a hindrance; pure sound goes without any vehicle. And God cannot understand any other language than the language of pure sound. That’s why music can be understood by each and every one.

You can understand indian music without understanding any indian language. One can understand Beethoven without knowing what language he used to speak. Anybody can understand the sound of a cuckoo because really there is nothing to decode. It is an outburst of joy.

God has the musical earAnd I am giving you the name Prem Samo; it will mean ‘love, music’.

Love is the greatest music because it creates a harmony in your body, mind and soul. It bridges all your parts, it integrates, it gives you a centre. Without love a man is just fragmentary, a crowd – many selves but no Self with a capital ‘S’. The centre is missing. Without love a man is somehow holding himself together. With love there is no need to hold – a centre arises. And the whole being becomes a melody, a subtle music. That is real prayer. And God is always ready to hear the music of love.

So become love, become music. That’s what sannyas is all about. [A sannyasin is unsure whether to stay here or leave.]

Then you go, because whenever somebody is hesitant about staying it is better to go, it is always better to go. Because hesitant people are going to create trouble for me.…

No, if you don’t want to go at all then it is a different matter, but my feeling is that deep down somewhere you want to go.

Just be truthful because much will depend on it. If deep down you want to go but I tell you to stay and you do, then you are obliging me and you will take revenge. You will become negative and you will think that you have done something great by staying. Rather than feeling grateful and happy, you will feel that you are doing some great work – the ashram needs you, I need you. That will make your mind negative and you will miss the whole point.

Try to understand my problem: when somebody asks me, the whole point is that I have to look into his mind. To decide is a delicate matter. If I say ‘Don’t go, you can stay,’ you will stay but you will have missed something. Again and again the idea will come that you have sacrificed something: you could have gone and you could have visited the West. The desire and the fantasy will come and the idea that at least once it would have been good to goand the friends and the past and the

nostalgia.

Then slowly slowly you will be revengeful towards me because I have told you to be here, that’s why you are here. Then everything that is difficult here will look more difficult than it is. If it is hot, it will look more hot than it is because you are obliging, sacrificing; you are a martyr. And nobody seems to be grateful to you, nobody seems to be thankful to you. Deep down you will ask from everybody that they say that you have done some really great thing. Then you are missing the whole point – you are here and you are not here.

If I say to you to go, then too the same problem – then you are going, you are sacrificing; you don’t want to go. And the mind is always dual, so whatsoever I say the anti part is always there.

So my whole approach is that if you are a little bit hesitant about staying.Because staying is really

a great commitment.

Just a few days before, one sannyasin.was crying and saying that she did not want to go, and I

told her, ‘Okay, don’t go.’ And she was immensely happy, naturally, because that very night she had to leave. She was ecstatic. Now she is finding every kind of difficulty. And work that is given to her is not right.

You follow me?

Now the mind works like that: if now I say to her to go she will cry and weep; if I say ‘Okay, stay,’ then.…

Because staying is not just staying – you are getting involved in the life of the commune. And you have to disappear into the commune; only then can the commune exist. The commune is an effort to create a group soul, a Buddhafield, but then you have to disappear into it. Then it is no more a question of what work is given to you or of what happens. All is accepted in deep gratitude and one goes into it – because everything is a device here.

So just close your eyes, look inside and tell me, and I will do accordingly.

[The sannyasin says his answer is the same as before, if Osho wants him to go, he will.] You go, mm? Go and whenever you feel like coming back, come. But this time you go.

It will be helpful – it will make you clear and next time you come you will be more totally here.

Because I gave you another chance – you could have decided to stay. But you go on repeating ‘You told me!’ I just told you that you could decide afresh but you are still repeating ‘You told me to go.’ You are still trying to throw the responsibility on me... and that is not right. I want everybody to be responsible. You are to be here on your responsibility. It is your joy to be herenot because I have

said to be here. That can’t last long.

[A sannyasin says she has severe gastritis and is under the care of a doctor. Osho checks her energy and says that it is just the heat is disturbing her, as it is many people. The rains will come within a week and everything will settle, you prophesy. She then says she can’t relax; even in meditation she is making effort.]

In fact, many times people go on misunderstanding the word ‘relaxation’. Relaxation simply means: be as you areand then there is relaxation!

If you try to be somebody else, something else – for example, if you feel that you are not relaxed enough and you want to relax – you are creating a new tension. By being relaxed simply this much is meant: to be as you are. If you are tense, be tense; if you are in a hurry, be in a hurry. Whatsoever

you find yourself to be in, be in it and you will find relaxation following you. It will come of its own accord.

A relaxed state of mind simply means: ‘A’ is ‘A’ and is not worried about being ‘B’. Whenever ‘A’ is trying to become ‘B’ there is a problem. And that’s what you are doing. Just be yourself! It is perfectly good. Everybody has his own pace. It may look to somebody else that you are too tense; it may not be so.

Forget about relaxation too – just be whosoever you are. Never for a single moment make any ideals against yourself; don’t have a goal up there, otherwise you will be in trouble.

Do you have a box with you?.So whenever you forget this, just put the box on your heart and you

will see relaxation coming on its own. You are not to relax – remember! When one tries to relax, one cannot relax.

Have you heard about a book, a very famous american book? – the title is: ‘You Must Relax.’ Now the ‘must’ is anti-relaxation. When the ‘must’ comes in, tension comes. So don’t create any ‘must’ and ‘should’. And I don’t see any problem – you are perfectly as you should be. Start enjoying rather than improving.…

How can you enjoy if you are trying to improve? You are after yourselftrying to do this and that.

How can you enjoy? A person can enjoy only when he is without any ideals and goals. For one month simply enjoy. Whatsoever happens, be that, and after one month report to me.

[The sannyasin then says she is trying to forget a former lover, and doesn’t have any desire to be with a man.]

So no need to forget! Go on remembering!...

Again you are doing the same thing: you are trying to forget the man. Who can forget by trying? The more you try to forget, the more you remember, because even to forget you have to remember!

Don’t try to forget. Make it a meditation. Whenever you remember him, just close your eyes and remember him as deeply as you can and soon you will forget.

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