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CHAPTER 28
My whole work is to push you into emptiness
28 January 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
[Osho gives sannyas to a seeker.]
This will be your name... and not only a name but a radical change – a one-hundred-and-eighty- degree turn. Less than that won’t do... Less than that never does anything. You can go on boiling water at ninety-nine degrees... you can go on boiling and boiling and it will never evaporate; it evaporates only at one hundred degrees.
And this is one of the human problems – that it is very difficult to know at what degree a person is going to evaporate. It is not so easy as with water because water has no personality. All water is alike – whether you boil it in India or in America it makes no difference – one hundred degrees and it evaporates; it is simple. Man is very complex – there are as many human natures as there are human beings.
In fact to use the word’human nature’ is not right. There is a certain thing like the nature of fire, the nature of water, but there is no such thing as human nature. There are as many human natures as there are human beings, so one never knows. That’s why religion can never become a science.
Man remains unpredictable. It is almost impossible to know beforehand what will be the right degree at which one will evaporate, so one has to go on working, go on working, until one evaporates. And sometimes it happens that it is just a degree away.
As the russian Christians used to say in the old days: God is just a prayer away. But one never knows what that prayer is, and in what moment it is going to happen... what the words in that prayer
are... whether it will be silent or verbal... what to say or whether to be quiet; one does not know. But god is one prayer away and that prayer has to be found by everyone. One has to seek and search in one’s own being.
So sometimes it happens that a person is just on the verge – one step more and the thing will happen. But he may not take that one step and the thing may not happen. Another problem is that today it may be at fifty degrees that you can evaporate, tomorrow it may be one hundred degrees; the day after tomorrow it may be something else.
There are as many human natures as there are human beings, and even one single human has not a single human nature – a multiplicity – because each single human being is so much like a crowd. One day something is possible; another day it may not be possible.
So never miss any opportunity. When it knocks on the door, never miss it. Don’t say, ‘Come tomorrow.’.… Don’t say it... don’t say it! Because it may never come again. So whenever any opportunity knocks at the door, be available and do whatsoever you can do. Never be satisfied unless the ego evaporates... unless you evaporate. Just a little more effort is needed that’s why I say a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn; less than that won’t do.
This will be your name: ma prem sangeeto.
Prem means love and sangeeto means music: love music. It is difficult to explain it, because love is difficult to explain and so is music. But only that which cannot be explained is valuable – that which can be explained is just ordinary. That which is within explanation is not of much worth. Only that which remains inexplicable becomes the bridge between you and the reality.… It is always mysterious.
Love is mysterious, so is music. They have a certain similarity, some affinity, as if they belong to the same family, but they are not related in a way things are ordinarily related. So this is the first thing to be understood.
There are two types of relationship. One is the cause-effect relationship. If poison is given to you, you will die – that caused your death; it is a causal relationship. Science functions in the causal world. There is another type of relationship which is not causal, which is non-causal, ‘acausal’, or what carl gustav jung has rightly called ‘a relationship of synchronicity’. That word is tremendously significant.
There are a few things which are not caused by each other but always go together in a certain mysterious way. For example if a person is deep in love, he starts hearing the music of existence. Not that it is caused by love, but if a person is deeply in love suddenly he becomes aware of some music all around that he was never aware of – the music of the spheres.
Ordinarily the same world has always surrounded him but there was no music, there was no magic, there was no poetry – everything was prosaic, ordinary, dusty, repetitive. When a person loves deeply, suddenly, as if a curtain has been removed, a screen has disappeared, he hears for the first time the wind blowing through the pines – and there is music. He hears for the first time the river rushing towards the ocean – and there is music. He sits silently... it is a dark night, and he hears. The silence itself has a music to it. Everything suddenly becomes available as music.
So when a person is deep in love, music happens, but it is not caused; it is not a causal relationship. The contrary is also true – if you are in a tremendous mood of music, harmony, you will feel loving. Suddenly you would like to bless the whole world. When you are deeply drinking in music, you lose many things: anger, hatred; they simply become irrelevant. Even if your enemy comes in front of you, you would like to hug him.
A musical moment allows love to happen. Still I will insist, it is not causal – not that the music is creating it; they go together. They are in some mysterious way – which is not that of cause and effect – related. These are the two worlds.
The world of cause and effect is the world of science, and the world of the non-causal is the world of religion, poetry, art. All that is really valuable is non-causal... you cannot produce it on order.
If somebody says ‘Love me’ you cannot produce it on order. If somebody says ‘Produce music’ you cannot produce it on order; at the most you can pretend. Maybe you can deceive but you know it cannot be produced on order. The musician is not in control of the music – the music has to flow through the musician. The musician cannot control it – it comes from the beyond... as does love.
Both are inexplicables... but still something can be hinted about them. Nothing can be said about them but still one has to say something.
In one of his most famous books ludwig wittgenstein writes a very famous maxim – it is in his book’tractatus logico philosophicus’. He says,‘Whereof a man cannot speak, he should be silent. Whereof nothing can be said, one should keep silence.’ Looks very logical: if it cannot be said, why say it? His maxim looks very very rational but I would like to say, ‘Whereof one cannot speak, one should try to speak. Whereof one cannot speak, one must speak – knowing well that the effort is doomed to fail, knowing well it cannot be said, knowing well that one is going to fail. But the failure is never complete, and that is the only hope’
A Buddha spoke, a Lao Tzu spoke, Jesus spokeand they knew that they were saying something
which cannot be said, but they still said it. They tried hard their whole life to say it in so many ways. They used a thousand and one devices and they knew that they were going to fail.but still the
failure is never complete.
Yes, it cannot be said and yet something is being transferred. In the very effort of saying it, something is transferred.
I cannot say what love is, but my very concern – that I would like to relate to you – will show my love.
I cannot say what music is, but my very concern to convey it to you, will make you hear the music of my heart.
So I say, ‘Whereof nothing can be said, one must say it, knowing well that one is going to fail – but the failure is never complete.’ And that small gap is the only hopethe beyond peeks through that
hope.
And I give you this name to remember these two things: be more loving.and when I say be more
loving, I’m not saying practise love, no; it cannot be practised. I’m not saying cultivate it – it cannot
be cultivated. Just be available. When some opportunity knocks at your door, don’t close the door – that’s all one needs.
When somebody holds your hand, don’t shrug yourself away, don’t shrink – remain available, because in so many ways, it is always god who is approaching. It does not matter through whom he has approached you. He may sometimes approach through the eyes of a dog – don’t reject!
Sometimes he may approach through a tree – don’t say no! Remain always in a yes-saying mood, and more and more will become possible – it will be flowing. Only ‘no’ kills it – ‘yes’ helps it. ‘Yes’ means a cooperative mood.
And become more and more tuned to music – all sorts of music: natural, human... all sorts of music. Whenever there is some music, sit silently – let that be your meditation. Listen to it, and listen so deeply that you are thrilled, stirred. Listen through the sentiment, the emotion, the heart, and both will help each other. They are non-causal, but they go together.
Love will help you to become more and more capable of hearing the music and music will help you to be more and more loving.
[The new sannyasin said she was upset because she still had tremendous love for C – , her former guru.]
That is not a problem at all. My love is not a jealous love. Love more! If you love me, you become capable of loving more. Love as many people as you can love. So there is no conflict at all. I will help you to love him more – that’s not the problem. Because the goal is love – not whom you love.
When I say sometimes god can look at you through the eyes of a dog, then why not from the eyes of C – ?
.… Your thinking is of a very feminine and jealous type. You don’t understand my love (a chuckle). My love will make you able to love more – and that’s the real love: it makes you love more! If somewhere your love becomes a confinement exclusive, jealous, narrow avoid it like a plague; it is dangerous.
[The sannyasin then says: I didn’t want to take sannyas because it seemed like a closed-off, total commitment.]
No, no. Commitment is total but it is not closed – and a closed commitment cannot be total; they are contradictory terms. People use them together not knowing what they are saying. A closed commitment can never be total – it is ugly. There is fear... there is blindness. A total commitment is always an open commitment.
I am vast enough! You can include everybody in me and there is no trouble in it. Whomsoever you love, you will be loving me, so there is no problem in it.
You will understand by and by, mm? you will understand. Good!
Prem means love and prabhatri means a morning song. A special type of singing is done in india which is done only in the early morning when the sun is just rising. In indian villages, people go singing songs when the sun is rising, because the rising sun is the symbol of the inner rising consciousness. In india everything is symbolic, and each ordinary thing has become suffused with great significance. Down the centuries, for thousands of years, people have been searching for signs of god... and the early rising sun is one of the most beautiful.
In exactly the same way, one day in the inner consciousness, on the inner horizon, another sun rises – that’s what samadhi is... in exactly the same way. And then the inner darkness disappears. The outer sun helps the outer darkness to disappear – the inner light helps the inner darkness to disappear. The outer light cannot help the inner darkness to disappear, that’s true. But for those to whom the inner has not happened, the outer is the sign that there is a possibility, there is hope.
And any sign becomes tremendously significant when you start looking deeper into it. Now many things become clear about it. The morning sun rises – you cannot do anything about it. Your doing is not needed: it rises when it rises. It rises on its own – at the most we can sing. Not that by our singing it is going to rise, no. See the difference.…
In all other religions of the world it is thought that by prayer god comes closer – in india, not so. By singing in the morning, the sun does not rise. If you don’t sing, then too it will rise. By your singing you simply welcome the one that is already coming. You receive in gratitude that which was already coming. Then the sun becomes your guest.
In India prayer is not thought to be a means to god – no! There is no means, there is no method possible. All that can be created by any method will be mundane – cannot be of the infinite, of the immeasurable, of the ineffable; it is not possible.
God arises when he arises. One has to wait. But one can sing... he can be welcomed.
So prabhatri is a welcome-song. It is disappearing in the big cities, but in the small towns it still exists. In a small town near about five o’clock, the villagers go singing all around the town, shouting joyfully, ‘Rise, the sun is rising! Why are you asleep? The sun is rising! Come out of your home and welcome it!’ And by and by the whole village gathers and everybody is awake and children are running and old people have come. The whole village is agog – the sun is rising! That is called prabhati.
So become a singing, welcome-song! Good!
Deva means divine, godly, and mahapatra means the great capacity; the great capacity to receive the divine – just like a great emptiness... Like a womb. Everybody is capable of receiving him, but people are not aware of their capacities.
The name is to remind you to be more feminine as far as the search for truth is concerned. It is not a male search. You cannot storm upon god, you cannot attack him – it is not an aggression. You have to receive him. All that we can do is to be in a let-go and let his energy flow.
If we don’t hinder him, he will be coming. He will be coming abundantly. He will be coming so much that you will not be able to absorb him. He will be showering all around you... he will start
overflowing. But there is no way to bring him in. That very effort is of the ego, and because of that ego, one goes on missing. So become a great receptivity, an empty vehicle, an empty vessel.
This is a taoist attitude, and my whole attitude is taoist. Lao tzu says that a room is not valuable because of the walls – no! The room is valuable because of the inner roominess, the emptiness inside. You live in the emptiness of the room – you don’t live in the walls. Walls are not really the room. And that is the meaning of the english word ‘room’: room means roominess, emptiness.
Ordinarily we think of the walls being the room – they are not. The room is inside the wallsthe
insideness of it. A vessel is important not because it is made of gold, or made of silver, or made of earth; that doesn’t matterA vessel is important because of the inner emptiness.
And Lao Tsu says a very important thing. He says that whether the vessel is made of gold or is made of mud, the emptiness remains the same. The emptiness never becomes golden.
And the emptiness has to be used. So when you become empty it does not matter whether you are a great scholar, whether you are a very virtuous man respectable, black, white, indian, american, chinese; it doesn’t matter, because these are only the walls. It does not matter whether you are rich or poor. It does not matter who you are, because the inner emptiness is the same.
The emptiness is the same in the king as it is in the beggar – and only that is emptiness which has to be used for god to come and to be received.
Mahapatra means a great emptiness, a great receptivity. Become that, mm?
[A sannyasin says: I had the experience of just blackness around without thought, and I felt to go into it, but I just got afraid – afraid of possible entities or something in that space. I don’t know – it’s completely unknown, so I don’t know how to behave there. I know that’s ridiculous, but.]
No, not ridiculous – it is meaningful. I am there – you need not be worried. Just go. It is natural that when one enters into an empty space one becomes very much afraid – because anything can enter, anything can happen and you are no more in control, so you cannot prevent it. If something goes, it goes; you are helpless. If one starts feeling like going crazy, one cannot stop it – so fear arises. But nothing to be worried about. That’s my whole work here, mm? to push you into that emptiness. Because one has to cross that barrier where fear is.
The barrier functions as the last thing – it throws you back again and again. One has to cross it. Once it is crossed, you will really laugh and you will say that it was ridiculous, because there was no fear, nothing. In fact all fear disappears once you cross that barrier.
That fear exists only on this side of the barrier. When there is emptiness there is no fear, but in the west, emptiness has never been understood rightly. They have always been thinking as if something evil can happen. They go on saying that the empty mind is the devil’s workshop.
[Osho said an active mind might be the devil’s workshop but never an empty mind, because it is only one’s thoughts that can lead one astray]
But one is coming home after such a long journey that one does not recognise... one has completely forgotten that it is one’s home. One becomes afraid. It is natural, but go on.
Everything is going perfectly well! Mm – the right space to be in! Just go ahead! It is crazy, mm? but it just looks crazy. Go in – don’t be worried. Good!
[Osho gives the meaning of the name for a centre.] This will be the name, karuna: dhyana taru.
Dhyana means meditation, and taru means a tree: a tree of meditation. And I call it ‘tree’ because it is a growing thing. It is not a ladder – a ladder is a dead thing. It is a tree – dynamic, always growing. It is not a ladder because the juice of life still flows in it. It is a tree with sap, juice. And fruits come out of it and flowers and fragrance... it blooms. Through a ladder you can reach somewhere, but nothing blooms.
Dhyana is like a tree... the innermost tree of your being. You climb on it, but it is no ordinary climbing – it is a constant growth. Everything is flowing and everything new is happening: the old leaves going and the new leaves coming, and soon there will be a blossoming.
In india we have always thought that the ultimate is like a flowering, hence we call the ultimate flowering ‘sahasrar’: a one-thousand-petalled lotus. Ordinarily it is a closed bud and hanging downwards – that’s a beautiful metaphor. The energy is moving downwards so the bud is hanging downwards. There is a pull in the energy.
In the ancient indian scriptures they say that man is a tree upside-down: the branches are in the earth, and the roots are in the sky – upside-down. So the whole energy is moving downwards. Man has to stand upright. When the juices start flowing upwards and when the energy comes like a rush, the bud moves upwards.… And it can open only when it moves upwards.…
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