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‌CHAPTER 7

11 May 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Alima. It is a sufi name for God. It means: one who knows. Only God knows and unless we become one with God there is no knowing. All else that we think is knowledge is just trivia, rubbish – at the most information, but not knowledge. And the difference is great: to know means to know from the inside; information means to collect something from the outside.

If you ask a scientist about a flower, whatsoever he is going to say is information. Ask the lover or the poet or the painter. What he is going to say about the flower will be closer to knowing, will be something from inside.

They say in Japan that if you want to paint a bamboo, first you will have to become a bamboo. Otherwise how can you paint it? – you will not know the inside story. And that’s the difference between painting and photography. Photography is information, because the camera cannot go within. It remains an outsider, it is a spectator, it does not participate. A painting means that the painter entered into it, participated in its being, fell en rapport with it. There were moments when he was not, only the bamboo was there. He felt the bamboo in the morning sun, as the bamboo feels it. He felt the bamboo when the cuckoo comes and starts crying around it. He felt the bamboo on the full-moon night when a subtle breeze passes by and whispers something in the ear of the bamboo.

Sufis say that only God knows because God is the inside of all. God is not a person but just the inside of everything – inside me, inside you, inside the rock inside the flower... inside the whole existence.

Science studies existence from the outside, hence it remains information. Religion goes into it. Religion is not a detached observation, no; it is falling in love. That is the meaning of ‘Alima’: to know things from the inside.

[Worship beauty is the message in the name Jamil.]

Don’t think of God as truth, rather, think of God as beauty. Religion would have been totally different if God were thought of as beauty rather than as truth. I am not saying that He is not true – He is, but it makes a lot of difference for people in how they conceive of Him.

Because God has been conceived of as truth, people started thinking logically about Him. Truth creates logic in consciousness, it stirs logic. Truth seems like the conclusion of a syllogism. People started arguing about God, started proving, disproving. Because God was conceived of as truth, religion automatically became reduced to theology. Rather than becoming poetry, it became theology. Rather than becoming an aesthetic experience, it became logic-chopping. Rather than enhancing the earth, making it more beautiful, it went against life. Logic is always against life; it is murderous because it depends on analysis; analysis kills. Because God was thought of as truth, religious people became thinkers, not creative artists. Just that simple phenom-enon dominated the whole past of ten thousand years.

Sufis say that God is beautiful, ‘jamil.’ Think of Him as beauty, then it stirs creativity in you. Because beauty has to be created – in poetry, in sculpture, in painting; one has to give birth to it. If you think of God as beauty then you can do something about it. If God is truth then you can’t do anything about it, you have to discover it. Truth is there – you have just to uncover it.

But if God is beauty then you are not only to discover it, you have to create. Then the whole perspective changes and religion becomes life-affirmative. Then it enhances and affirms. It is not life-negative, it is not in the service of death. Then religion is not against love, because how can beauty be against love? Then religion is not against dance, it is not against celebration. How can beauty be against celebration? Then the earth is not a punishment but a holiday resort. We are here just to enjoy – it is a gift.

[A sannyasin, leaving, says: I see it as my last trip.]

Very good. You needed this trouble, so... but it is finished. Mm? you had some idea to go into business but now drop that idea forever. You have to go somewhere else.

Business is for those people who don’t want to go anywhere else, who want to remain occupied with the mundane, with the futile. And if one wants to remain with the futile one has to go on thinking that one is doing something great, something very valuable. That illusion is a must. Otherwise millions of people cannot go on just accumulating money and rushing from one place to another and then one day simply dying! The whole thing comes to nothing and their whole life has been just a wastage. Everybody sees this, that this is happening, but everybody continues to follow the routine. The illusion is great and it is supported by the collective hypnosis.

One who really wants to know what life is has to get out of the business mind. One has to create the mind of an explorer, an adventurer. Because life is not business and life is not bargaining. It is a risk, it is a gambling rather than a business.

So this time take six weeks if they are needed, but close everything so that you will be completely out of it.

[A sannyasin leaving, says she is afraid of change.]

Mm, nothing to be afraid of. I will keep following you. And the thing that has settled in you cannot be unsettled by the West now. The West cannot do anything any more. It will become even more settled by seeing the whole nonsense that goes on in the world. And if you want to see the real nonsense, you have to go to the West to see it. The East is very poor – it cannot afford that much nonsense. If you really want to see the whole neurosis of man, one has to be in the West.

This going will help. It will make you more settled, it will make you more certain of your being, it will give you more confidence in the direction you are moving. You will come back more grounded more centered. It will be a good contrast.

So nothing to be afraid of. Just go happily and see the whole circus that goes on there. And this time you will be able to see it. You can see the circus only when you are no more part of it. If you are part of it you cannot see it; to see, a little distance is needed. If you yourself are the circus, then who is there to see it? Something has settled in you – you will have that distance there, you will be able to see things more clearly. And you will be able to understand the whole ridiculousness of it. Fear is natural but there is no need to support it. Just go happily!

[A visitor says he wants to feel Osho’s presence. Osho checks his energy.]

The mind is too full of thoughts, a great traffic of thoughts in the mind is there almost like a thick wall. And to feel my presence, gaps of thoughtlessness are needed, because I can penetrate in you only through those intervals, pauses, periods. If the mind is occupied with thoughts, then there is no way to enter. And presence is a very delicate phenomenon; a single thought there is enough to prevent it.

You have been living in your head long enough – you have forgotten the language of the heart. You need to learn it again, because without learning the language of heart a man lives only on the surface of life. One can swim, but one cannot dive deep. Depth is not available to the mind, depth is possible only through the heart. But this is not something special that has happened to you; this is happening to the whole modern mind. The more modern a mind is, the more a mind a person is. There is nothing like a modern heart, the heart is very ancient. The mind is very modern. But the ancient heart knows something. Only the heart can feel the presence of somebody who is absent.

The mind can feel the presence of somebody who is very present. The mind can feel the impact of a personality – and personality and presence are two different worlds. A personality is just a facade, a synthetic phenomenon. Even a great personality is Just a great pretension, nothing else. The whole art of the personality is: pretend whatsoever you want to be and you will be. Go on pretending, go on pretending, and you will be. But a pretension is a pretension, howsoever long you have been repeating it. It never becomes truth. Truth is truth, repeated or not repeated; a lie is a lie a million times repeated. But that’s the art of the whole personality: go on repeating, pretending.

The mind can very easily feel the impact of personality. But I am not a personality. I am a nobody, I am just ordinariness. To feel me, you will have to learn the grammar of love. Next time you come stay a little longer. It is possible and it should be made possible, otherwise you will be missing something very valuable.

[A sannyasin couple are present. The woman says: Most of the time I feel like a child and it makes me feel so much fear, she says.

Osho checks her energy.]

Raise your hands towards me, close your eyes, and if something starts happening, allow it. Regress as far back as you can go. Become a small child and let things happen. Whatsoever happens, allow – if your body moves, you start singing like a child or you want to dance like a child, you stand up and you dance. Just be a child.

Go into that space and don’t be shy. Don’t feel that people are there – forget everybody. Only I and you are here.

Allow it. You are not allowing it, you are a little bit afraid of it. And it is natural, fear is natural. People will laugh and they will think you have gone crazy. But this is one of the most beautiful things that can happen to a person.

Two and a half must have been the age from where you started deviating from your natural path. That’s where you parted from your natural being and you started becoming unnatural. For boys it is around four, for girls it is around two and a half. Girls become self-conscious before boys. They become mature earlier than the boys. So it must have been at two and a half years when you started becoming self-conscious, when the ego had the first stir in you and you started pretending and behaving according to etiquette and all that. You started learning the ways of the society, parents, family. You started becoming false.

That’s why your meditation is taking you back to that point. From there you can start again, and that will be beautiful. That is the meaning of being born again; that is a rebirth. One has to go back to the point from where one started becoming false. and of course it is very crazy to be two and a half now and to start again from abc. But it will not take that long. Once you accept it, within weeks you will grow years. Within three of our months you will be back to this age but in a totally new space... and this courage has to be sown now.

Start behaving like a child, start playing with children. Go to the school too and play with children. And don’t pretend, just be a child again. Get into the whole idea of it. it will release such innocence in you and such grace.

Just be a child, mm? People will talk to you as if you are a grown-up – don’t bother about them. You can talk gibberish, in baby-language or anything that comes to you. For three, four months, just be a child again.

Good – I am happy; something valuable is on the way. Gather courage, mm?

(To the man) Don’t be worried if she becomes a little child.Be like a mother or a father or you can

also become a small child! And fall in love – have a little puppy love again! It will be good, mm? Whatsoever comes natural to you, allow, but don’t in any way prevent her from being a child. Help her and that will be a great experience for you too. And sooner or later you will also pass through it.

[The sannyasin says they plan to return to Germany.]

If you can stay it will be good, because in Germany it will be very difficult. They don’t allow even a two and a half year old to be a two and a half year old; how will they allow you? If you can stay a little longer this will be helpful...

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