8

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‌CHAPTER 8

12 May 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[Wahid – all is one.]

Multiplicity is false, it is only an appearance. Oneness is the truth of reality. We differ only superficially; deep down we are all one. On the circumference many, at the centre one.

So if you look at the circumference it is a chaos: everything seems to be accidental, unrelated to everything else. But if you look from the centre, all is one; then it is a cosmos. Everything is interdependent, all are related. God is the thread, the thread of unity that runs through all. This is the meaning of ‘Wahid.’ Don’t get lost in the many, remember the one.

Even if sometimes the many seems to be so factual, still persist in seeing the one. That’s the meaning when Jesus says ‘Love your enemy.’ He is saying that your enemy is you, he is not separate. To think of destroying the enemy is suicidal: you will be destroying yourself. So even if sometimes it is very difficult to see the one, persist; insist on seeing the one. And that becomes one of the doors towards reality.

Wahhab... another name for God. It means the one who always gives, the bestower of gifts, the giver.

All that we have is His gift, it is not our earning. We have not earned life – it is a sheer gift, for no reason at all. We don’t deserve it. The more you look at the benediction of life, the more the feeling arises: How can we deserve it? – the beauty of it, the joy of it, the utter splendour of it. We have not done anything to deserve it, it has been bestowed upon us. That is the meaning of the word.

God is overflowing. He gives because He cannot help but give, He gives because of His abundance. He gives like the sun gives light or the flower gives fragrance – it is simply His nature. Once this is

understood one can start moving towards God. This becomes the small path: you also become a giver – that’s the way to come close to Him.

Man is a hoarder; that’s where the antagonism exists between man and God. Man is a miser. Even if he gives sometimes, he gives only to get back and to get back more. He is always thinking in terms of profit. Giving is not his joy but a necessity. His giving is business – it is not love, it is not sharing. This is what is meant by the worldly man.

Who is the spiritual man? The man who knows the joy of giving and who gives for no reason at all, who gives without any discrimination, who does not say ‘I will give to you because you are good and I will not give to you because you are bad.’ If you discriminate, then again something of the business has entered. God simply goes on giving to the sinners and to the saints, to all alike. When His clouds shower, they don’t only shower on the virtuous. When His sun rises it does not rise only for the good: it rises for all.

Imbibe that spirit of sharing, let that become your very style of life. That I call prayer. That is the essential prayer: to be capable of giving without any idea of getting, to be capable of giving without any conditions attached to it, to be capable of giving just out of your abundance.

[A sannyasin, leaving, says she has difficulty dropping old habits of nervous tension, nail-biting.… Osho checks her energy.]

It is not really nervousness. You have been repressing your energy: it spills over and it feels like nervousness. From your very childhood you must have learned the trick to repress it. You must have been a very very energetic child. And this happens to an energetic child. Parents don’t like them, society does not like them, mm? because they are such a nuisance. The more energy the child has, the more of a nuisance he is around the house, in the school, everywhere. This society exists for the less energetic, it makes no provisions for the energetic. It exists at the minimum; it does not allow people to live at the maximum. Hence millions of people think that they are nervous; they are not really. It is just that there is too much energy and you don’t know what to do with it.

So one starts biting nails or one starts smoking cigarettes. It is the same – biting nails or smoking cigarettes. One starts doing anything just to remain engaged; otherwise the energy is there and it is too much to bear. When people condemn it – that this is nervousness – then more repression happens. You are not even free to bite your nails. The nails are yours and you are not even allowed to bite the nails. Then people find cunning ways – chewing gum, mm? Those are subtle ways: nobody will object too much. Smoking a cigarette, nobody will object too much.

Now, biting nails is less harmful, in fact not harmful at all. It is a harmless joy. It looks a little ugly, looks a little childish, that’s all. And you are trying not to do it. That’s what you say: ‘I am finding it difficult to change my old habits.’

No. You have not understood the cause and you are just trying to change the symptom. It can be forced but then you will start doing something else, because where will the energy go ? You have to learn to live more energetically, that’s all, and all these things will disappear. Dance more, sing more, swim more, go for long walks. Use your energy in creative ways. Move from the minimum to the maximum. Live life more intensely. If you are making love then make wild love... not just

lady-like, mm? – that means at the minimum. A ‘lady’ means a woman who lives at the minimum or does not really live but only pretends to. Be wild!

And now you are no more a child so you are allowed to be a nuisance in your own place. Jump and sing and jog. Just try this for a few weeks and you will be surprised: nail-biting disappears on its own. Now you have far more interesting things to do – who bothers about the nails ?

But always look at the cause, never be too concerned with the symptom.

[A sannyasin says: I feel lately that I can’t be total. I’m always up and down.]

Everybody is up and down. A problem arises only because people have impossible expectations of things: they want to always be up. Nobody can always be up. If you go up you will have to come do This is a wheel. You can go up again but you will have to come down. If you want to remain up forever you will be stuck there, you will hang as if on a cross. It won’t be a joy at all. The people who really want to remain in one state have to forget about both up and down; then one can remain always the same. That is the state of Buddhahood. But people think a buddha is always up. That is absolutely wrong. What will he do up there?

Buddha is neither up nor down. He has dropped the whole duality of up and down. He is not in a high state, so he is never low. He has forgotten that whole language of high and low. He is not always happy, remember, but when I say he is not always happy I don’t mean that he is sometimes unhappy; he is not unhappy either. He is never happy, never unhappy. He has simply dropped that whole nonsense. He does not care about happiness and unhappiness. Then one remains in one state. Then the wheel stops.

But that’s the problem: people want to remain up all the time. It is as if one wants to remain in sexual orgasm all the time. It can happen only for the moment and then you are thrown down into the valley. Then you have to go up again slowly, slowly.

The myth of Sisyphus is the myth of humanity, mm ? You take a big rock slowly, slowly up the hill, you drag it to the peak and then it slips; it rolls down and goes back into the valley. You have to come down again and take the rock back. It goes on again and again: whenever you reach the peak, the peak is so small that it cannot hold the rock.… This is the human dilemma. And the problem arises because we ask for the impossible, otherwise there is no problem. And it is the same with your totality.

Don’t ask inhuman things, just be ordinary and natural. Otherwise that will become a tension – that you are not total. And you have to be totally total, so that becomes an anxiety. Because of the anxiety you will not be even as total as you were before. The anxiety will take much of your energy, you become more and more worried, and all is lost in a mess.

Whatsoever is available, enjoy; don’t ask for perfection. Live a very very natural, ordinary life. Then there is no problem. Totality and everything will follow of their own accord. And if they don’t follow, so what? Who cares ?

Just relax a little bit. You are a perfectionist. Now you have started calling your perfection ‘totality’, that’s all. In some past ages you could have become a great catholic saint. Now you have fallen in

wrong company! And one thing is certain: I will not help you to become a saint. I am against saints and against sinners. Just simple human beings are good, really good. Saints are very monotonous.

Have you ever lived with any saint for twenty-four hours?... Otherwise you will commit suicide! They are so boring. Just forget about all these things Live naturally – when hungry, eat; when tired, sleep.…

[A sannyasin says he is restless and not very happy.]

When you feel restless, feel restless, and when you feel unhappy. feel unhappy! These things have to be absorbed. one has to learn to live with the negative parts of one’s being too; then only does one become whole.

We all want to live only with the positive part. When [you are] happy, you accept him; when [you are] unhappy you reject him. But you are both. When all things are flowing, you feel great; when everything has stopped and become stagnant, then you feel in hell. But both have to be accepted. This is how life is: life consists of hell and heaven together. The division of hell and heaven separately is a false division. There is no heaven up there and no hell down there; they are both here. One moment you are in heaven, another moment you are in hell.

One has to learn one’s negative aspect too and one has to relax with it. Then you will be surprised one day that the negative part adds to the taste of life. It is not unnecessary; it gives spice to life. Otherwise life would become dull, monotonous. Just think – happy and happy and happy; what will you do then? Those moments of unhappiness again bring zest, search, adventure. Again you regain appetite.

To be with me means that you have to be with your totality of being. All the aspects of good and bad have to be accepted. There is no way to get rid of anything. Nobody ever gets rid of anything but one learns slowly, slowly to accept all. Then there arises a harmony between the dark and the light, and it is beautiful. Because of the contrast, life becomes a harmony.

So try to live these moments too. Don’t make problems. Don’t start thinking ‘What should I do so I am no more restless?’ When restless, be restless. This is my message. When unhappy, be unhappy I And don’t make much fuss about it – just be unhappy; what else can you do ?

It is just like the climate: it is summer and hot so what can you do ? While it is hot, be hot and perspire, and when it is cold, shiver and enjoy it. Slowly slowly you will see the interrelationships of the polar opposites. And the day you understand that this polarity is you is a day of great understanding and revelation

For three months accept everything and then you report to me what happens, mm? Good!

[The leader of the alchemy group says: I was trying to do too much and I wasn’t really able to let you through. I wasn’t really able to let you do it.]

That I know. But that’s how one learns. In the beginning everybody does that. It is just the old habit; nothing to be worried about. And it is very tiring!

If you let me do it you will never be frustrated and you will never be tired. You will come out of each group fresher than before, more alive than before and with your vision clear. But if you try to do something you will come out of each group tired, weary, frustrated, because one always falls short of one’s ideals.

Ideals are imaginary – there is no way to fulfil them. Whatsoever you do, you will always fall short because you can always imagine better, that is the problem. Imagination has no limitation and action is limited. This is one of the basic problems of the human mind: imagination unlimited, action limited. Imagination gives you ideals – how things should be – and action is so limited that you can never fulfil that imagination, those ideals.

If you allow me, then there is no question of action, no question of inaction. You are just a vehicle. You enjoy the whole game, whatsoever happens is good. But that comes slowly. To each therapy leader this has been the problem in the beginning, but slowly slowlySo don’t be worried about it.

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