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‌CHAPTER 8

11 June 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

It means divine awareness. Deva means divine and bodhi means awareness. Only awareness is divine, and all awareness is divine. The moment you are not aware, you are in the world, unconscious, moving like a somnambulist in deep sleep, doing things with no awareness of why... as if you are being driven by the unconscious.

Once you become aware these unconscious forces start withering away and a centre arises in you. Then you can say that you are awake.

So this is going to be your work, your sadhana. Become more and more alert. Whatsoever you are doing – very ordinary things: eating, walking, sleeping bring one quality to them, the quality of awareness.

Don’t move like a somnambulist, not like a drunkard, but like somebody who is moving in tremendous danger, as if one is moving near a precipice and the danger is so much that you cannot afford to be unconscious. At each step you have to be aware because one mistake and you are gone forever.

So start moving in life as if every step can become a step towards death. And we are in danger. Death is all around. That is what surrounds you.

I am not against any activity. Do whatsoever you feel like doing. Just this one thing has to be added to it – and that is awareness. If you want to be angry, then be angry. I am not against anger – but plus awareness. Then whatsoever is beautiful in anger will be saved and whatsoever is ugly will be dropped on its own accord.

If you are in a love relationship, I am not against it – I am all for it – but bring the plus of awareness to it. Then whatsoever is ugly in love will disappear... and there is much that is ugly in love. Greed

is there, possessiveness is there, jealousy is there; even hatred is there. Only the purest gold will survive.

Awareness functions like a fire. Only that which has to be destroyed is destroyed, and that which has to be saved is saved.

You need not worry. Just go on becoming more and more aware. I don’t give you any other commandment. I don’t say, ‘Do this, don’t do that.’ That is not my way.

I allow you total freedom, with just this one quality – awareness.

With awareness, nobody has been ever able to do anything wrong, and without awareness, nobody has ever been able to do anything good.

People may think that they can do good without being aware, but the path of hell is paved with well- wishers. Their good wishes are not much help, because in the hands of unconsciousness every good wish is poisoned. So there are many good-doers all around the world – puritans, religious people, missionaries, servants of the public – and all destroying humanity.

So I don’t say anything else – that you do this or you don’t do that, because life cannot be structured. A fixed pattern cannot be given to life. Once a fixed pattern is given, you are already dying. Once the pattern settles you are dead. Either the pattern can live or you can live; both cannot live together.

I would like you to remain fluid, flowing, with no structure... with just an inner light burning. That inner flame I call bodhi – awareness.

Forget the old name as if it never belonged to you, as if it was a dream you had dreamed, something you had read about in a novel or seen at the movies. Disconnect yourself from the past so utterly that it cannot have any shadow on your future, because the past corrupts. It is a dead weight, and the very shadow of it corrupts your present and your future.

So from this moment, think of yourself as being reborn. Let this day now be your birthday and forget the whole of the past. Of course it will remain in the memory, but just as if you have dreamed about it.

And it was a dream, because unless one is aware, there is nothing else than the dream. Only awareness brings you to reality; otherwise we go on fantasising.

Deva means divine. The word divine comes from the same root ‘deva’. And Ritambhara means the ultimate law; what Taoists call Tao, or what Christians call God. But in the Vedas they have a more scientific word for God – that is Ritambhara. they call it the ultimate law, the cosmic law. It is not a person but a law; very impersonal.

To think about God as a person is a little childish, because He is the whole and cannot be somebody. If He is somebody then He cannot be everybody. And if He is all then He cannot have any form of His own. He cannot have any identity of His own. He is the whole.

So the word ‘ritambhara’ means the innermost consistency of the whole, the very thread that holds the whole. Everything seems to be so separate, individual – the trees, the animals, the birds, the man, the woman, millions of galaxies and stars – but something holds them all together as if like a garland. You may not see the thread running through the flowers but it is there. That thread is known as ritambhara.

[The new sannyasin says she is studying her doctor’s degree, and doesn’t know whether to finish it.]

It is better to finish it. It may not give much to you but still it can give you a background to understand many things. In itself it may not be worth anything, because in itself it is nothing but data and information, but information can be used in a very creative way. If you don’t become an addict to it, it can be used tremendously. But one should not think that information is knowledge. That has to be remembered.

Knowledge is something that happens to you. Information is something that you borrow. But nothing is wrong in it. We have a very limited expanse of life and millions of people have lived before. They were just like us and they have lived and experienced and known many things so it is good to be connected to them.

The problem arises when you think that now this is all. A Ph.D. is a good beginning but not the end. But I would like you to finish it; it will be helpful. The more you know, the more you become aware of your ignorance. Information helps in a way. It makes you aware of your ignorance; that is its creative part.

The negative part is if you are lost in it and you think that you have known; then it is very dangerous. Then one goes on living on borrowed information. It can never reveal anything to you. It can give you a very good respectability but it can also be very dangerous. You may miss aliveness. That happens to almost all learned people. By and by they become dead – just as dead as their knowledge.

It is dangerous to keep company with dead things because one tends to become like the company one keeps. But if you are alert, it can be used. And my feeling is always that there is nothing in life which cannot be used. So never condemn anything. Try to find out a way to use it. Your Ph.D. can be very helpful to understand meditation and to help people to understand meditation.

And in another way it is always good to finish things, otherwise they always hang on the mind. The mind has an intrinsic tendency to complete things. Any incompletion and the mind feels it continuously. That can become an inner burden. So if you are in something, do it. Leave it after doing it. Become a Ph.D. and forget all about it. That’s good.

But if you drop out, somewhere deep inside your mind you will carry the idea for the whole of your life that maybe it was good. Many times you will remember it again and again. There may be opportunities where you will feel that it would have been helpful now. There may be trouble, some crisis – financial or otherwise – and you will think about it again and again. It is better to finish it

My idea is never to renounce anything while you are in the middle of it, and never renounce anything when you are failing. Always renounce a thing when you are winning. Then you can drop it completely and it will never trouble you; it is finished. Otherwise one part of your mind will

continuously say, ‘Continue.’ If you take the decision with the major part of your mind, the minor part will remain there, always ready to take revenge.

Once you do a thing it is complete and finished. So do it, mm? and don’t get lost in books !

[A sannyasin says: I feel that everything I do is always done with a reluctance about it. It’s like a weight and it keeps me from fully being there in anything – in meditation, in work, in relationships.… I used to label it fear... ]

They are related things. Maybe a part is also fear. Just because you label emotions, they are not separate. They are all interrelated.

If you are reluctant to do something, a part of it may be fear because you are afraid to abandon yourself in anything completely. You are afraid to lose control. You are afraid to commit yourself. You only go to a certain extent and then you stop, because going further than that can be dangerous. You may not be able to come back again. It may be going beyond the point of no return. A part must be fear.

Fear is very very basic, just like love. These two are the very basic things – love and fear – and both are opposite polarities. If there is much fear, there will be less love. If you drop fear, then there will be more love. It is the same energy. When it is negative, it is fear. When it is positive, it is love.

If you love, you will abandon yourself; you will go to the furthest point possible. You don’t bother then about control or controlling. You are streaming, flowing. You are liquid and you can melt with the surroundings. You are not afraid to melt. You are not afraid of life, not afraid of death. You love. You love life, you love death. You love whatsoever happens and there is no reluctance.

It is not that you go only to a certain point. Now you go the whole way. You go so far that you disappear. And that’s how abundant life happens.

So there must be fear, otherwise why should one be reluctant? And if you are reluctant in one thing, you will be reluctant in all things. In fact if happiness comes, you will be reluctant to allow it. You will allow it only up to a certain point, just so far, and then you will stop and close yourself, because if happiness is too much, you are no more there. You will not allow laughter. You will not allow crying and weeping. You will not allow anything. You will remain lukewarm in everything that you do.

This can be very dangerous because this is losing contact with life. This is crippling yourself. It is a sort of paralysis so you cannot move, and you are not free to move. A certain inner mechanism clicks and you stop, you close.

Life happens only when you have forgotten how to control. Controlled people are dead people. They control everything – not only of the mind but of the body also.

You must not be breathing as totally as you should breathe, because there also the control comes in. So start by breathing. It is always good to start with the body. The work is easier because it is with the gross. The body is more visible and you can feel it easily. Then we will start working with the mind.

Whenever you remember, have a deep breath. Never start by inhaling; start by exhaling. Exhalation is going into the world. You breathe out... you pour yourself into the world. Then you breathe in; the world enters you. This is a beautiful dialogue with the world. Breathing is a miracle. The world comes into you continuously and you go into the world. It is a continuous love making with the world. The vitality flows in you and then you pour the vitality back into the world.

Start by exhaling, because if you exhale deeply, the reluctance will go. If you exhale deeply, you will inhale deeply automatically; there is no problem in it. You create the situation: exhale so deeply that the whole is poured out. Then the body will suck deeply. So don’t start by inhalation.

If you inhale deeply that may not be a really deep inhalation because the air that is already inside may function as a barrier.

[Osho said that she should take care to breathe by the belly rather than the chest, and that she should be aware of her breathing throughout the day. She could make it a point at times during the day to exhale and then inhale deeply, and then to tell Osho after three weeks what was happening.]

And if subtle tremblings arise in the body, don’t be afraid. If a certain tingling sensation goes through the body, don’t be afraid. If by deep breathing suddenly you feel a great upsurge of sexuality, don’t be afraid. That will happen.

Deep down you have been suppressing. You have been trying to be tough, hard. You have learned a wrong lesson somewhere in your childhood – that the world is a deep struggle. It is in a way. Many people learn the lesson that it is a very hard struggle and that you have to be tough and you have to fight. So you have learned how to fight, but you have forgotten how to love. Even in your love, fight is more emphatic than love.

So start this breathing. And enjoy it. Just by sheer breathing you can come to a subtle orgasm in the whole body. The whole body can be infused with new energy. You can vibrate all over and you can see many parts of your body that you have denied. becoming alive again.

So enjoy that, because the more you enjoy it, the more the body will fall into a pattern. Many people, millions of people, are not totally in their bodies. Some have denied some parts, some others have denied some other parts. People are living partial lives.

When you feel that the body is really alive, then tell me after three weeks how you are feeling. Is your reluctance the same, or is there a change? Have you become more outgoing? Have you become more capable of uncontrolling yourself? Is the rigidity the same or less?

Then I will give you another exercise and for two or three months you will have to work with it. You will become perfectly alive. There is nothing to be worried about, mm? Good!

[A sannyasin says: I feel helpless. In the outer world I’m unable to earn a living and in the inner I’m stuck in complete darkness...

I had a book published about fantasy, dreams, imagination. I poured my whole madness into it.] You have a copy of the book with you? Find a copy for me.…

It will be helpful to understand you, because a book is never out of the blue. It grows out of a person. And each book, knowingly, unknowingly, is autobiographical. Whatsoever you write, whatsoever you sing, whatsoever you do, is going to be autobiographical. It comes out of you. It is you expressed.

So don’t be afraid. If it is mad there is nothing wrong in it. You enjoyed writing it?

[He answers: Very much. I have very good concentration and can work all day, but it is an ego investment.]

Don’t be worried about the ego, because that is not the way to drop the ego. In fact the work may be helpful for dropping the ego. Anything that you want to drop has to be brought to the surface. I think you should continue writing. Make it a living; it will be good.

And there is no need that one should be able to visualise, no need. There are different types of people and all writings are different. There are a few people who are capable of visualising. They write a certain type of book – more pictorial, more depictory, more imaginary. By reading their book you can almost see what they have written about. But that is not the only way.

There is a different type of person who cannot visualise. If you cannot visualise you can become tremendously efficient in language.

Visualisation is the language of childhood. It is not the language of the mature mind. It is a primitive language. That’s why in children’s books you have to put many pictures. You have many pictures, coloured pictures, and a few lines of text. He will only read the text to understand the picture, otherwise not.

So you may be able to write a very crystal-clear prose. It may not be poetry. It cannot be poetry if you cannot visualise, but there is nothing to be worried about.

[The sannyasin answers: I’m only interested in spirituality now, and I cannot write about it because I have had no experience about it.]

Start writing about it. Write that you have not had any experience but write about it. By and by you will start getting the experience also.

It happens that many times in talking to a person, suddenly you become aware that you are saying things that you have never said before; not only that, you have never thought of them before, And not only that; you were not even aware that you could make this type of statement ! Many times it happens that by writing something you will become aware that it was within you. It was lying there like a seed and now it has sprouted.

Writing is a good way to know many things about yourself. And if you really want to learn something, teach it. Don’t be bothered that you don’t know it. Teach it, and by teaching, you will learn.

Never does anybody learn anything unless one starts teaching it.

[The sannyasin replies: But it will be like philosophyBut it’s a dead end.]

Let it be ! If you start worrying about everything like that, you will never be able to find a living! So don’t be worried – let it be philosophy.

Start working and put your energy into some expressive way. And writing can be a good medium. Start and then we will see. And always remember that you don’t know your own potentiality. You are not even aware of a fragment of your being, and unless you do something you will never know what you can do. This is a paradox but this is how it is.

You don’t know that you can be a runner in the Olympics unless you run. How is one to know that one can be a runner? There is only one way to know: to run and see. One can never know that one is a singer unless one sings. If you are making an effort to be completely certified before singing that you are a singer, then it is impossible. Who is going to certify you? Even the person who is going to certify you would ask you to sing. You would say, ‘I cannot sing before it is certain that I am a singer.’

By doing we come to know who we are. And the more you do, the more of your inner potentialities are actualised. So do millions of things so you can see who you are. There is no other way. That’s why, groping in the dark, you will find your medium, your element. Nobody can say who you are by reading your hand or your stars. You will have to find out. And it is good. It is not something very fixed.

Man is a very very fluid being. He is more like a process than a thing. So who knows? Try – write, sing, compose; go on doing things. Do whatsoever you feel like. You will come to feel through trial and error what suits you. You will come to feel what brings you to a harmony and inner joy. You will feel tremendously happy just by doing something. Not that it will be because of the result, not that it will give you respectability and you will become famous. That is irrelevant. Just by doing it, suddenly you will feel a deep harmony arising in you. You will feel simply delighted – just singing a song. Then you have found the element. Don’t be bothered then about what people say. That is none of your business. You go on doing your thing. If they like it, good. If they don’t like it, that’s for them to decide.

The way that you are thinking right now is suicidal. If you think like this you will never be able to move in anything. Even if you fail in something, just understand one thing – that this is not your way. You failed in this so this is not for you. One door is closed.

This too is a great benefit. Now you will never try this door. You will try another! And just by groping, one comes to find one’s door. If you sit and don’t grope and you say, ‘It is very dark, and who knows whether there is a door or not ? and which door is mine?’ if you simply sit and brood over it, this is philosophical and very suicidal.

Stand up, walk around. Even if you stumble against the wall sometimes, perfectly good, because that is the way one learns. Watch a small child when he starts walking for the first time. He gropes, stumbles, falls, cries and weeps and decides, ‘Never again will I walk! It is too dangerous!’ But again after half an hour he is trying once more.

If he is as philosophical as you are, then no man will ever walk. They will all sit silently in Zazen [laughter]. Nobody will do anything. But the child forgets again. The challenge comes to his mind

again and he ventures. It is difficult. For months together he will fail. He will bruise his knees and the blood will come out, but again and again he will try. And almost all succeed ! [laughter]

And that’s how it continues to be in the whole of life. You will grope like an author, writer, composer, musician. And who knows? The destiny is not written somewhere, and there is no way to know it beforehand.

Destiny is something we create by doing. In fact you create yourself by doing. A man is a constant process of self-creation. One perpetuates oneself continuously. So never stop. If you fall, nothing is wrong. Get up again and be moving. Sooner or later everybody finds, one has to find one’s destiny. Otherwise the whole life becomes meaningless.

People ask what the meaning of life is – as if there is some meaning and you have just to uncover it and the meaning is there. Or you have to find the right person to show you the path, or find the right book and the right map and you will find the meaning. Meaning is not a thing. You have to create it; it is not there. And each person has to create his own soul.

Gurdjieff used to say that man is not born with a soul, only with a possibility. If you create it, you will have it. And it is hazardous. It is the greatest courage and adventure there is to create oneself. And how to create oneself? – through work, through relationships, through love, through meditation.

Find as many ways as possible, because each dimension will reveal one aspect of your being, and the more dimensions you have to your life, the richer you will be. If you don’t create a meaning outside, inside you will also feel dark. That’s why you are feeling dark inside. If you create meaning outside, simultaneously, and parallel to it, inner integration happens.

A man who can sing well and can enjoy it, delight in it, will have something inside burning like a small lamp. The song will go outside and the lamp will be lighted. The more you do, the more you become. And when you find the right way – and only you can find it – in which you fit perfectly as if you have been made for it .… That’s what destiny is: to discover something about which you can feel, yes, this is for what you can live and dieThen immediately inside there is no darkness.

Suddenly a light is burning. The inner shrine is full of light. And these two go together.

So if you can find anything that you feel like trying, try. And only a creative person can be happy. People who are uncreative can never be happy. Only creativity brings happiness. I would like to say that happiness is a function of creativity. You create – just as God created the world and said, ‘So beautiful, so good,’ and He felt happy. Since then He has been happy.

You create something, whatsoever it is – a small painting, a small poem, or you just make a doll – but when your heart feels fulfilled and you can say ‘So beautiful, so good’, suddenly there is meaning in your life. Now life is not empty.

So do something, mm? And after one month, tell me. Start from tomorrow and do whatsoever you like but bring your energy to it.

[The Enlightenment Intensive group is present. The leader says: It was dynamite. Just very strong. But I wonder what you’re doing to me because it seems that my ego is just expanding.]

Let it expand. I am here, don’t be worried. I will take care of that. I can burst it any moment [laughter]. And the bigger it is, the easier it is to burst it !

[She continues: There are times when people could be pushed along, but I’m afraid that if I do that, they’ll get angry with me.]

No, no, you push them. And the more you push them, the more they will like you. The whole work of a groupleader is to push them. If you don’t push them they will not reach a breakthrough. If you go on pushing them and the breakthrough comes, they will like you tremendously ! That is the only way.

So if you love them and you want that they should love you, push them hard. Don’t be kind if you have any compassion.

[A group member said: I keep going into my childhood a lot, and I find it difficult sometimes to be spontaneous.]

So now you do Primal. Everyone’s childhood has almost in some way or other been wrong. It is rare to find a person whose childhood has been as it should be because the world is not as it should be; the parents are not as they should be. The parents were conditioned by their parents; they were conditioned by their parents. So dead people are controlling the living people. People who have died centuries ago are still controlling you through your parents. They will control your child also if you don’t ,change.

If you don’t come to an understanding of your own childhood, then you will just be transferring the same disease again and again. These diseases are traditional, transferred by one generation to another. But there is no point in complaining because they were also victims; they suffered much. They could not have any opportunity to change their childhood. They were never aware in fact. You are fortunate.

This century is in many ways fortunate because many things have become available to you that were not available to past generations. Now there are methods and ways that you can go back and reform your childhood. That’s what Primal Therapy is. First you go back, you regress and you come to that point where something went wrong and you undo it. Then you start growing again.

Once childhood is put right, you have a base. Otherwise you will always remain uprooted because in the childhood you have always missed your roots. Somehow you go on but you don’t grow. At the most you go on like a pile but not like a tree. The growth is not organic. You may be a structure like a building but not like a tree, not organic, not alive, because something went wrong in the childhood, something went dead. That deadness functions as a constant inhibitory force. It has to be reformed. The old has to be destroyed and the new begun.

Once you go back, once you can see with full awareness what the problem is, just the seeing becomes the reformation. Just the vision of it and it is released; you are freed by it. Awareness is liberating.

[A group member said: I found that I got very angry about being told what to do.]

You must have been controlled from the outside too much in your childhood so the resistance is still there. And you are not very sure of yourself, that’s why you don’t like being controlled. A person who is sure about himself is ready to play any game. This is just a game !

[The therapist] is not your enemy. She is not even your mother! [laughter] She has no grudge against you. It is just a game and you have agreed to play the game. That’s what it means to book for a group – that you are ready to be manipulated, controlled, dragged here and there, humiliated. You were playing a role and she was simply fulfilling her role.

But you must be unsure about yourself; you are not very confident. You are afraid that if somebody is allowed to control you,, somebody may really control you; that’s the fear. If you are not afraid of control, you are not reluctant. You say, ‘Okay, let the game be there. It is a question of two days; you control me,’ and you relax.

If you had relaxed, the same energy that became anger would have led you very deep inside yourself. It took a wrong turn – and you helped it to be wrong. I will suggest that you do the Intensive again, and this time [the therapist] has to be really hard! You have just to accept the game. Let it be a game! She has really to be hard. This time she was nothing because she herself was afraid [laughter]. But now I give her total freedom and you are going knowingly.

When you go knowingly there is no problem. This is not going to be your whole life’s pattern. She is not going to control you or manipulate you for always and always. This is just a game, a two or three days’ game. Allow her. If you allow her, much can happen. It will give you much insight into your being. It will make you almost new and will give you the capacity to trust. You don’t trust. that is the trouble. You were not trusting her.

If you trust then there is no point You don’t resist Watch a small child walking hand in hand with his father. The father may be afraid of the dark night and the unknown path but the child is perfectly happy. He knows the father is with him. He trusts. That’s how participants should be with the groupleader.

She may be afraid. She may not know where everything is going and what is going to happen and where you will land. That is her problem ! Don’t you be worried. Simply relax.

So immediately after the camp, you repeat it, mm? Good.

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