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‌CHAPTER 4

8 May 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Basiro. It is a sufi name for God. It means ‘all-seeing.’ There is no way to hide from God but man goes on trying. Not that he succeeds, he cannot succeed in the very nature of things. But in the effort he wastes his life and becomes alienated from God, starts believing he has deceived God.

Start meditating on the all-seeing quality of God, on the fact that He is everywhere, that you are never alone, that you cannot be alone, that He sees inside you. You cannot escape from Him, there is nowhere to go. Wherever you are, He is. You are in Him, you are Him. He is not seeing you from the outside. If He were seeing you from the outside there may have been ways to avoid Him but He is seeing you through your own consciousness so it is impossible to get rid of Him.

Surrender and open up to God. Be nude before Him. This is the meaning of authenticity. And when a person is authentic, he is religious. This is the idea behind the sufi name: it is just a device to make you authentic.

[Osho gives sannyasin to a seeker who has been initiated by the Anand Marga movement.]

You have been on a path of shakti – of power, energy – and that’s a dangerous trip. Very few people reach through power. It is very appealing, magnifying, gratifying, but dangerous, because the ego can ride on it. One should never search for power. Power comes of its own accord but that’s another matter. One should search for peace. One’s goal should remain peace-oriented, then a power comes, a great power, but it is just a by-product; you don’t take much note of it.

Hence the ego can’t ride on it. It comes like a shadow, it is not the main thing. The main thing is peace and peace is against the ego. One is as peaceful as one is egoless. So the ego cannot absorb, exploit the peace that arises in one’s being, but it can exploit power very easily.

The people who seek power are more, because that is a natural instinct. We seek power through money, we seek power through politics, we seek power even through God. That’s why we say that God is omnipotent, all-powerful. But the search is basically wrong. The search should be for silence, for stillness, for utter annihilation. The search should be to cease... for nirvana, not for power but to become nothing. The ego cannot ride on nothingness, and that’s the beauty and grandeur of nothingness.

Power comes but then that power is never used by the ego. In fact that power is never used by you. It functions without your ever being concerned with it, it functions on its own. You remain blissfully unaware of it. It follows you just like a shadow. You don’t think about it, you need not be bothered about it. And the more humble you become, the more silent, the more the power grows, because all the energy that is involved in the ego becomes released; that’s your power.

So you have to take a drastic step. Forget all about a power search. And this is my observation, that the people who are in any way searching for spiritual power, sooner or later turn into politicians, become victims of politics. They start moving into politics because there is a logical relationship between the two. So be very conscious. Here with me you have to disappear. And then there is great benediction.

Amito Jalal. Amito can mean two things. One: immortality, and second: that which is immeasurable. And immortality is immeasurable, it cannot be measured. Only mortality can be measured because it has limits – birth and death. Immortality has no birth, no death, it is immeasurable. Immortality is another name for God. We are immortals but not as ‘we.’ We are immortals only when we are not. In our not-being is our real existence; in our being we go on missing.

To be is to be finite; not to be is to be infinite. To exist as a person is to exist in the limitations of birth and death – old age, illness, disease and all. Not to exist as a person means to start existing as a presence. Then there is no beginning and no end; you are co-terminal with existence itself. That is the meaning of ‘Amito.’

And the second name I give you is ‘Jalal.’ It is a sufi name for God – it means: the beautiful. All beauty is God’s. All ugliness is man-created. And wherever you see beauty, worship it. It is divine! The more you worship beauty – in the sunset, in a human face, in a bird on the wing, in the wind passing through the pine trees and in the river winding its way down the Himalayas... Wherever you see it, worship it, bow down to it, kneel down in deep prayer, because wherever beauty is, God is just around the corner. There is no need to go to the temple; if you can seek Him in beauty, then the whole existence is His temple.

The more you become aware and conscious and sensitive of beauty, the more you will be surprised to discover that the small things you had never taken any note of are of immense beauty – just a pebble on the shore, just the silence of the desert or these insects in the night or the darkness of the night itself! Once you start becoming aware of it, then slowly slowly each and everything becomes His ‘jalal’, his beauty!

And I am not saying to look for it only outside you; look in yourself too. Standing before a mirror, don’t think you are standing there: this too is God reflected in the mirror. Look in your own eyes reflected in the mirror, worship and bow down. Then a new love affair starts with existence. And that love affair will lead you slowly slowly towards the immortal, the immeasurable.…

Do the camp. Relax with my people, don’t remain tense. And don’t take sannyas seriously. Be playful about it, then much more will happen. Enjoy it! Don’t make it a holy trip, because all holy trips are ego trips. Just be a child with all my children here, and enjoy – sing and dance.

Don’t keep aloof and don’t think that you are doing anything serious; we are not doing serious things at all. A joke is far holier than your so-called holy books because it brings laughter, and laughter is the quality of God. The ancient Hebrews say that God created the world because He loves gossiping and He loves stories. And they also say that when a man dies and reaches God, God asks, ‘What’s new ?’

So be joyously here... and much is going to happen. It happens on its own, you need not force it.

[A sannyasin says she has discovered a sensitivity within herself, feels weaker, and wonders how she will be able to cope in the West. Osho tells her not to mistake vulnerability for weakness. They appear alike only, but vulnerability is greater than any strength. Osho talks of the seeming durability of the rock, the seeming impotence of water.

Osho says: This is my whole approach, tao is my way. I help you to become vulnerable. Through being vulnerable, one is victorious. And with the dropping of the defence armour, one drops fear and then love has access to one’s being. If you are trying to be strong, you can’t be true. Man is delicate; that is the truth. We are just dewdrops slipping off a grass leaf. So accept and welcome this vulnerability. Nothing is more valuable than this. This is the most precious treasure you are coming across.]

[A sannyasin says: I came here more or less out of a mental institution. I was afraid of going in one again but I think I’ve come to myself.]

You have come... and now nobody can drive you mad. If you have not been mad here, no place! Now you can go anywhere and live anywhere and you will not be mad.

[Osho checks the energy of a sannyasin who has been running a centre in the west.]

Much is going to happen just allow it to happen. It is not really a question of doing, it is more a question of allowing. If you can simply allow it, unafraid, if you can be receptive, you will be transformed. Just don’t resist.

There is a famous statement of Jesus: ‘Resist not evil’... but people resist even the good. What to say about evil? – that is out of the question. Even if God comes to you, you will resist. Sometimes it is easier to allow evil than it is to allow goodness because evil is below you, you remain higher than it. To allow the good is more dangerous. It is higher than you; you are drowned by it. God comes like a flood: one is utterly drowned. The problem is not that people don’t seek God; the problem is that God seeks people but they escape. They hide in a thousand and one ways.

You have come at a very very significant moment of your life – the energy is just on the threshold. If you can dare and open the door, something that you cannot imagine, cannot dream about is going to happen. If you remain cowardly and keep your doors closed, then you can go on doing a thousand and one things but nothing will happen.

For this one month that you are here just remain absolutely available to me, that’s all – no argument with me, no resistance towards me. Trust is the key for you. And once you have experienced a few moments of trust, it will be yours forever. The problem is just the first experience of trust. The next becomes easier and it goes on becoming easier and easier: the more you experience, the more you know that trust is the door. The first experience of trust is very difficult because a thousand and one doubts arise.

But you are in a good energy. If you miss, you will be responsible, your energy will not be responsible!

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