17

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‌CHAPTER 17

17 June 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Prem means love, vatayana means now, the present moment – love now. And my whole emphasis is on this moment, because this moment contains all. Now is the only reality – all else is either memory or imagination. And even for the past to exist as memory, now is needed. It doesn’t exist as the past; it exists as a thought in the present. And so is the case with the future: the future does not exist as the future; it exists as imagination in the present moment. All that exists, exists in the now. Now is the only time there is, and to become more and more alert about now is to become aware of the presence of god.

We are very unalert. We think much of the past and we also think much of the future and our whole life is wasted in that thinking. Because of and between these two – the past and the future – the present is crushed, sandwiched, and has almost become negligible, it has become so small. The real has become small and the unreal has grown so big.

If you think of the past, it is long: your past, then the society’s past, then humanity’s past, then the past of life on earth and then the earth’s past, and then the sun and the moon and the stars; it is infinite. And so is the future infinite: it will go on and on. Compared to the past and future, the present seems almost nothing – it is just a small point, atomic – and between these two it is almost lost track of. And that is the only reality; everything else is unreal compared to it.

If you see a rose flower you see it now, in the now. If you smell it, you smell it in the now. If you feel and touch it, you touch it in the now. You cannot touch the rose flower in the future and you cannot smell the rose flower in the past. But if you start thinking of past and future, then the rose flower is there and yet is not there; it disappears.

Just meditate on this: you are facing a rose flower, a beautiful rose flower. It is there – the fragrance is released into your nostrils, you are delighted with it. Now bring the past in. Think of something

in the past: somebody insulted you yesterday or yesteryear, or think of a childhood incident, your mother was beating you. Bring it into memory and suddenly the mind is clouded. Now you will not feel the presence of the flower so much. It is still there, the same flower, but you are no more here; you are distracted, you have become foggy, clouded. A screen of memory has come between you and the rose flower.

Or think of the future – some plan, some fantasy, something that you want to do tomorrow – and the flower fades, bows out further and further. The more deep in thought you go, the farther the flower recedes. Come out of the thought and the sky is clear, the clouds have separated and again the sunshine and again the presence of the flower; you can again smell it. While you were thinking of the past and the future the smell was still knocking at the doors of your nose, but you were not available. The colour of the flower was still coming to your eyes but you were not there. It was as if you were looking through a dark glass; things became unclear, hazy, a mist surrounded you.

The whole work of meditation is nothing but this: how to become utterly present in the present, how to collect oneself in the now. Then everything is beautiful. Then walking is meditation, sitting is meditation, talking is meditation, listening is meditation, because whether you walk or sit, it is always now; whether you are silent or talking it is always now. There is only one time. Now is eternity. That is the meaning of vatayana – it means the utterly present.

Let this be the key. You have to work on it, you have to play around this idea more and more. In whatsoever you are doing, again and again pull yourself into the present. In the beginning the mind rebels, resists; old patterns are powerful, old habits go on dragging you here and there. But slowly slowly as the joy of the present becomes deepened, as you start becoming more and more saturated with it, as you see the contentment that arises out of it and the silence and the celebration, the old patterns are broken, the habits disappear.

And that day – when you start living in the present twenty-four hours a day – is the day of enlightenment. It does not mean that one will never think about the past but that one will be aware of the present. Even when a thought of the past is present in your mind, you will look at it as a present thought; you will not be dragged into the past. It will be just like a rose flower, there inside, blooming – a memory flower – but you will remember that this is the moment, the now moment. You remain centred in the now; then there is no problem.

Yes, the past can be used, and so too can the future. One has to plan – tomorrow one has to leave and the tickets have to be purchased, the journey has to be booked, but that is not the future either; that too is in the present. One remains in the present whatsoever one is doing – in memory or imagination. And once this penetrates deeply, even in dreams you will be present. You will see the dreams blooming there and you will know that this is a dream. And to know that a dream is a dream is a great experience. Then you have really come home – you are centred in your being.

[Devachitta. Deva means divine, chitta means consciousness]

Unconsciousness is undivine; consciousness is divine. To remain in an unconscious state is to be worldly; to become conscious is to enter into the world of religion. It is not a question of renouncing something, rather it is a question of gaining something. It is not that one has to renounce the world but, on the contrary, one has to achieve one’s own being.

As you grow in consciousness the world itself starts changing. Nothing needs to be done directly; all the changes that happen are almost of their own accord. Only one thing that is needed is an effort to be more conscious. Start becoming more and more conscious of everything that you are doing. Walking, walk consciously; bring your total attention to walking. And there is a great difference between when you just walk without any consciousness and when you bring the quality of consciousness to walking. The change is radical. It may not be visible from the outside, but from the inside it is really moving into another dimension.

Try some small act: for example, moving this hand... [Osho moves his hand rapidly across his chest.]

... you can move it mechanically. Then move it with great consciousness, feeling the movement, slowly, slowly, looking from the inside at how you are moving it.

[Osho makes the same gesture a dance in slow motion. His hand moves step by step, his eyes following it with infinite awareness.]

Just in this small gesture you are on the threshold of god, because a miracle is happening. It is one of the greatest mysteries which science has not yet been able to fathom.

You decide that you should move the hand and the hand follows your decision. It is a miracle because it is consciousness contacting matter... not only that, but matter following consciousness. The bridge has not yet been found. It is magic. It is power of the mind over matter; that’s what magic is all about. You do it the whole day, but you have not done it consciously, otherwise in this simple gesture a great meditation will arise in you. This is the way god is moving the whole existence. In this small gesture is the whole history of existence.

The scriptures say god said ‘Let there be light’ and there was light. Now, it looks utter nonsense if you think about it logically. How can there be light just by saying ‘Let there be light’? But this is happening every day continuously. When you say ‘Let there be a movement in my hand’ and the hand moves, it is the same miracle. And if you can feel it from the inside, awareness grows.

So walking, sitting, listening, talking, remain alert. That is the meaning of Devachitta.

Deva means divine, paripurna means perfection – divine perfection. And if you ask the awakened, all is perfect as it is. This world and all that is contained in it is perfect. The whole idea of evolution is just speculation. Nothing is evolving because nothing is going anywhere. All is already as it should be. Just think of that, and immediately one feels a great silence descending. Just the idea of it – that all is perfect, that nothing is to be done to improve upon anything – then what is left except celebration? Then what is left except to be festive and thankful?

If one has to become perfect there is anxiety, tension, effort, struggle, competition, and all kinds of madness enter in. One is never at ease and never at peace and one can never be at home. One is always rushing, one is always in a hurry, because one has to reach and time is slipping out of the hands; death may happen any moment. So there is constant trembling inside as to whether you are going to make it or not. Are you going to miss? And as days pass by more and more hopelessness

settles in because it has not happened yet and the days are becoming fewer and fewer and death is coming closer and closer. Sooner or later one is on a downhill journey... and it has not happened yet. Hope starts disappearing.

People live only in hope and die in hope. And hope is an illusion, a dream. But the whole thing is based on the idea that man has to improve: he has to improve upon his character, he has to improve upon the world, he has to improve upon people. He has to go on improving each and everything. That’s what has driven the whole world neurotic.

My message is: there is nothing to be done. All is taken care of. Relax! A man who is after perfection cannot relax. How can he relax? – because relaxation means wasting of time. He cannot play, he cannot sing, he cannot dance. Continuously, out of the corner of his eye, he is waiting for that perfection which never comes, and he is wasting time dancing and swimming and listening to the stupid noise of the birds. It looks stupid if you are in a hurry. It looks silly to be sitting amongst trees and enjoying; it looks foolish. But if there is nothing to do and nowhere to go, then it is not silly – then it is all that has to be done – then one enjoys. Either one improves or one enjoys – and these are the only types of people in the world.

My world belongs to the second type – to the one who enjoys. And that is the meaning of your name: from this moment relax. All is good – god is good, and it is out of him, so how can things be imperfect? Then there is no struggle, no cut-throat competition with people, there is no enmity. Then you are yourself, I am myself, and everybody is the way he is. No comparison, no inferiority, no superiority – everyone is unique and perfect.

With this vision, god starts descending in you, great contentment arises.

Sambodhi means enlightenment, satyam means truth – the truth of enlightenment. And all else is untrue, or at the most relatively true... which is saying the same thing in other words. Unless truth is absolute, it is not truth. A relative truth is only a useful lie. An approximate truth is only called so politely; it is a lie, because something is either truth or untruth. ’There is no way in between.

So there is only one truth and that is the truth of enlightenment; when one becomes full of light inside, one knows what it is. One can know it, but one cannot reduce it to knowledge, hence it always remains individual. And that is beautiful, because whenever somebody discovers it, it is his own discovery again; it is never a repetition, it is always original. If Buddha was able to say it or Jesus was able to express it, then there would have been no original experience again.

That’s what happens in science: if Newton or Albert Einstein has discovered something, it is finished – now you cannot rediscover it. It has been discovered once and for all. Nobody can claim again ‘I have discovered it!’

But in the inner world, the discovery is always unique because it is inexpressible, so it cannot be put into words. It cannot be theorised, no dogma can be made out of it. Those who know also know that it is inexpressible. Those who know are dumb about it. They say a thousand other things – they say how to achieve it, but they cannot say what it is.

So each individual when he discovers it, discovers it for the first time. Each individual when he comes to truth is a pioneer, original. That’s the beauty of it – it remains virgin. It is not corrupted

by anybody’s experience, it never becomes second-hand; it is utterly fresh. All other truths are only guesswork, beliefs, wish fulfillments, consolations, but not truth.

The only truth is that which you discover... and it is possible only when the inner world becomes absolutely luminous, when your light, your inner light, is totally there, and not even a nook or corner is left in darkness. Then you know it, and by knowing it, one becomes it, because in that moment of enlightenment the knower and the known are not separate.

[A sannyasin says: Sometimes when I see you in lecture I just feel angry against you.]

These things are natural. If you love me, you will sometimes be angry too. You cannot only love. When I accept your love I am also accepting your anger. You don’t have pure love, so how can you offer it to me? Your love is mixed with all kinds of ugly things. When I initiate you into sannyas, I initiate you with all these possibilities: that you will be angry, that you will hate me, that you will think against me, that you will do this and that – all possibilities.

To accept a disciple is not an easy task, because you are accepting a bundle of so many problems. A disciple is not all sweet. If he was all sweet, why should he be a disciple? He carries many bitternesses in him; he will impose and project those bitternesses on the master. The master will become a screen and you will project all kinds of things on him – good and bad both. Sometimes it will be a great experience and you will move into heights, and sometimes you will be falling into valleys of negativity. But this is natural; nothing to be condemned in it.

That time you went thinking to come back – this time you are going thinking not to come; both are perfect. Neither that remained forever nor is this going to remain forever. All passes. By the time you have reached home, you may start feeling love for me again. And this will happen many times – it is a wheel: many times you will come close and you will go far away, and come close and go far away. Slowly slowly you will see the whole absurdity of your mind; then one day you simply drop the whole mind. But that happens only later on.

When for the first time somebody becomes a sannyasin, he is enchanted he is enchanted by my presence. But he has forgotten his own personality. It is like falling in love with a man or a woman: when you fall in love you don’t think about your faults, your limitations. You simply see the beauty of the woman; you don’t think about yourself. But if you start living with the woman, all your faults and all your limitations and your anger and your hatred and jealousy and possessiveness are going to surface. Then you will be surprised – where has that love disappeared to? Where are those beautiful days of the honeymoon? They are all gone and there is only misery; and you had never thought about it.

When you fall in love with me, you are simply thinking of me; you have not thought about yourself. But sooner or later you will have to think about yourself. If you don’t, I will force you to think about yourself. I will have to throw you back to yourself, and when you see who you are, where you are, all these things are bound to arise and disturb.

But all is good – this too is perfectly good. So what? – this time you are going in a different mood. This time you are moving back in the night, that time you moved in the day. But the day is gone, so the night will go; the day will come again and the night will fall – unless you decide one day to

drop all kinds of moods and just be with me without any mood between me and you, neither love nor hate. Then the disciple has really come to the master, when there is neither love nor hate. That is total surrender. Love cannot be total surrender, because love has to imply the hate in itself. It is a double-bind; hate is always intrinsic in it. When one day you come and you surrender all moods... and remember, good moods also have to be surrendered.

What do people go on doing? They go on doing one thing: the positive is good, it is so sweet, so they want to have it, and the negative is bitter and they don’t want to have it. But this is the whole problem of life. It is not only with a master; it is everywhere: you choose only half. Then who is going to have the other half? – and it comes in the same package. It cannot be divided; you have to choose that too. If you choose at all, you have to choose both, otherwise don’t choose. Then they both disappear. Either they are both together or they both disappear, but you cannot divide.

Slowly slowly you will see the point: in the beginning a disciple comes through love and then one day the wheel turns and he hates, he is angry, he protests and he resists. Finally, the awareness happens that you cannot relate through love, otherwise hate is bound to be there. Then the disciple leaves both. Then there is nothing between the disciple and the master – not even love, because even love is a disturbance. The disciple is simply there in the presence, with no expectation, with no desire. It has a great beauty in it.

That day real initiation happens, and after that day there is no change; one has come to the point of no return. That will also come if you can wait, if you can be patient. If you can’t wait, if you can’t be patient, you miss this opportunity. So don’t be worried.

And remember one thing more: never take any decision too early. Wait, just remember that this will pass, this will go away. The problem only arises when people take a decision when they are negative. Then they start thinking ‘Leave sannyas, forget all about it.’ If you take a decision when you are negative, then you miss the opportunity, you close the door. Then it will become very very difficult for you to come back. Your ego will feel hurt. Now what to say and how to go back? And it happens every day.… There are a few sannyasins who leave sannyas when they are angry – they will throw the mala into the sea – but then the mood passes and they start repenting. Then it becomes very difficult for them to come because they feel guilty, and even if they come, the guilt lingers on. To ask for sannyas again looks as if you are asking too much; you have misbehaved. And then they have to find explanations.

One sannyasin just wrote a few days beforeHe runs a centre and he called all the sannyasins of

the area for a meeting. Some sannyasins criticised him very much saying that his way of running the centre was wrong, that through the way he was doing things Osho’s presence was not felt in the centre at all.

He became very angry. He went to the sea, and he heard an inner voice ‘Throw the mala into the sea.’ So he threw the mala into the sea. Then he heard another voice ‘Now throw yourself!’ That he didn’t do. (laughter) Now he writes to me that he could not do that. But then he should not have done the first either! If you are not courageous enough to follow the inner voiceif it is really the

inner voice you should follow it. But to throw the mala is so easy – to throw yourself is risky. So now he is worried, feeling guilty. Now he wants to come and is afraid that he has done something wrong.

Wait. The negative moment comes – wait and watch and it will go. And finally one has to remain available for the ultimate, when both can be dropped. Then you are with me. Then it is no more a relationship and there is no possibility of its breaking because it is no more a relationship. It is communion – it is no more a communication.

[A sannyasin asks about insomnia.]

Do one thing: start glossolalia before you go to sleep – gibberish. Thirty minutes gibberish will do, mm? It will empty you so fast. It takes time in the ordinary way: you go on ruminating, ruminating, and the thoughts go on and on and on, and it takes the whole night. It can be done in half an hour!

Glossolalia is the best thing for you. Just sit in your bed, turn the lights off and start talking in tongues. Allow sounds; anything that comes, allow. You need not worry about language, you need not worry about grammar, you need not worry about what you are saying. You need not worry about the meaning; it has nothing to do with meaning. The more meaningless it is, the more helpful. It simply throws the rubbish of the mind out, the noise out. So anything – just start and go, but be very passionate in it, as if you are talking, as if your whole life is at stake. You are talking nonsense and there is nobody except you, but be passionate, be in a passionate dialogue. Just thirty minutes of it will do and you will have a good sleep the whole night.

It is just that the mind accumulates noise and when you want to go to sleep it continues. It has become a habit now: it does not know now how to go off, that’s all. The switch that turns it on and off is not working. This will help, mm? – this will simply allow it to release this energy, and then empty, you will fall asleep. That’s what happens in dreams and thoughts in the night: the mind is trying to empty itself for the next day; it has to get ready. You have forgotten how to put this process to an end, and the more you try, the more you become awake, so sleep becomes difficult.

So it is not a question of trying – don’t try anything. This is where you are failing: you try to let go. How can you try to let go? It happens; it is not something that you have to do. You can only create a situation in which it can happen easily, that’s all. Turn the light off, have a comfortable bed, a good pillow, be comfortably warm; that’s all that you can do. Then for half an hour get into a really passionate monologue, a nonsense monologue.

Sounds will come – utter them – and one sound will lead into another. Soon you will be speaking Chinese and Italian and French, languages that you don’t know. And it is really beautiful, because the language that you know can never help emptying. Because you know, you won’t allow things to have their full expression. You will be afraid of many things: What are you saying? Is it right to say it? Is it moral? You may start feeling guilty that you are saying such wrong things. But when you are speaking in sounds you don’t know what you are saying, but your gesture, your passion, will do the work.

[Osho asks him how long he will in the West. He answers: Well, if I’m lucky I’ll be back in half a year, but not more than one year.]

All my sannyasins are lucky people. When you relax with existence, that’s what luck is. When you allow the existence to take possession of you, that’s what luck is.

Unlucky people are those who fight; they are defeated by their own fight. Lucky people are those who simply ride on the waves; wherever the wave is going, they are going there. They have no destination in particular, so they can never go wrong, hence they are lucky. I create lucky people – don’t be worried!

[A sannyasin asks about some experiences: I felt like energy moved through me and I wasn’t moving my hands, my body; I was just being led or moved. I got a little bit scared.]

Mm, don’t get scared...

You have to let it happen, mm? It is beneficial. But fear comes – that fear has to be dropped. It is very beneficial, and if you allow it, much more will come. That is going to transform your whole chemistry, your whole energy system, but you have to allow it and you have to go into the dark unknown. Because it is new it looks unknown and unfamiliar, and fear arises.

[The sannyasin adds: It feels as if I’m going crazy or something.]

Yes, it looks crazy! But you have to allow it, mm? And once you have allowed it, soon all will disappear. You will be left totally changed and the energy will have changed, but before that change it will come. It is like a flood coming: you have to allow yourself to be taken over by it.

[Another sannyasin says she is afraid, scared of going mad, of her mind.]

There is no problem – just a few things that have always been in the unconscious have been stirred by meditations, so they are surfacing in the mind, that’s all. But it is good – they will be released. If you keep them repressed, then one day you can go crazy. It is never by expression that anybody goes crazy – it is always by repression. And you have been repressing many things for your whole life, so they have become accumulated in the stomach. Meditations have broken a few paths into your Unconscious. Things are coming up. But when they come, one can become afraid; one can feel that it may become too unmanageable.

But nothing to be worried about – they will simply go. All that you need is: continue at least one meditation every day. Pour all that comes into it. Shake and tremble with energy and let the whole thing be shaken up, and pour it out. Dynamic meditation will do, Kundalini, or dance, Nataraj, will do, but you have to be really totally in the act. Do this for one hour every day and there will be no problem, no craziness, nothing. In fact, slowly slowly you will become sane for the first time.

[A sannyasin has been feeling very negative and weepy. Osho gives her an ‘energy darshan’.] Things are perfect... they have never been otherwise.

It is just that sometimes you cannot allow things to remain perfect; then you create some kind of negativity. That’s your creation, and you seem to be one of the expert people around here who can create negativity. But it is a created thing – bogus.

It is nothing true it is just that you enjoy creating it. You get into it... but you get into it. It is not that the negativity comes to you; you invite it. When everything is going well you start feeling a little

uneasy: ‘How can things be so good?’ – you can’t trust. And when things are going well you are not in control; you want to remain in control and you can be in control only when things are negative. That’s your expertise. And I know it is very difficult to drop one’s expertise. Mm, one depends on it – one’s whole existence depends on it. And it gives a little change too. After suffering for a few days, getting out of it feels very good, that too!

But you are the creator of it – that you have to remember. So next time when you create it.If you

want to create it, create it, but with full awareness that you are creating it; it is your game. So play it if you enjoy it – nothing is wrong in it – but don’t get lost in it. Enjoy as much as you want, and when it becomes too much, get out of it. It is your creation.

But many people do it and they think that it is not their creation, they think they are victims. Nobody is a victim in the world: all are creators. A few create hell, a few create heaven, but they are all creators. And with the same energy you can create heaven.

So from this moment remember only one thing – that if you want to create, just decide that for twenty-four hours you will create hell and you will live in hell. Declare it to [your boyfriend] also, that for twenty-four hours you are going to live in hell, so he also knows and respects your hell and does not disturb you.

But then after twenty-four hours, exactly to the minute, get out of it. And you will be surprised: you can go in, you can come out.just like that! But for whatsoever time you decide, you have to remain

in it, and then at the exact time you have to come out of it. That will give you the experience that it is your creation.

Otherwise everything is beautiful – your energy is perfectly good. Now it is up to you: if you want to laugh, you can laugh; if you want to cry, you can cry. That is human freedom.

[A sannyasin asks about solitude and relating to people. Osho talks of how people get stuck at one polarity – like the traditional monks stuck in their solitude. Solitude is like the roots of the tree and relationship is like flowering.]

Roots don’t relate; they remain underground. Flowers relate – with the birds, with the butterflies, with the wind, with the sun. But they depend on the roots, and the roots depend on them, otherwise they will never get the sun energy. They are complementary.

So are love and solitude. In this way one becomes richer and richer. Then the polar opposites meet and give you a transcendence. Then the third thing arises which is neither solitude nor relationship... and that is what is called god, samadhi, enlightenment. But that is the third angle of the triangle, the other third of the trinity. And the third arises when the two have been lived fully.…

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