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‌CHAPTER 21

21 June 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine, vismayo means wonder – divine wonder. And there is nothing more divine in life than wonder. Just as knowledge prevents one getting in tune with god, wonder bridges one. Wonder is the polar opposite of knowledge. Knowledge kills wonder. The more a man becomes knowledgeable, his capacity to wonder becomes less and less. Then he cannot wonder because he already knows – he knows everything, he becomes a knower. But in that very becoming, he has lost something infinitely valuable, that childlike quality of wondering.

It is through wonder that we know that life is a mystery. It is through wonder that we come across beauty. It is through wonder that one reaches ultimately to goo – not through knowledge, never.

And sannyas is entering into that capacity again. Unlearn knowledge and learn wonder. Start wondering again, and the moment you start wondering, you will be surprised at how knowledge was preventing you. Because of knowledge you were not looking at things directly.

Mm? The bird calls and you think ‘It is okay – I know.’ The tree blooms and you say ‘It is okay – I know.’ The moon rises and you say ‘It is okay – I know.’ Then how is one going to contact god? The door is closed. Knowledge becomes like a rock.

Put knowledge aside and let wonder flow again. Again wonder ‘What is this sound?’ And don’t depend on any answer from the memory, because all those answers are false, borrowed. Go directly into this call of the bird. Look directly into this rose. Forget all that you know about roses – it has nothing to do with this rose. This rose has never been before, this has come for the first time into existence. Penetrate thisness, penetrate the suchness of this rose. Look with wondering eyes and you will be surprised: the rose has many mysteries to deliver to you. Much fragrance, much of the unknown it can impart. It can become a master! The sound of the running water or the wind passing through the pine trees.…

Listen again as if you are born again, as if you have suddenly opened your eyes and for the first time you are here on the earth. That is wonder. When there is no past in your mind, wonder arises. Wonder is of the present; knowledge is of the past. Knowledge is dead; wonder is alive.

Join hands with something alive, because that will make you more and more lively. Never join hands with anything dead, because it will be a dead burden on you and sooner or later it will kill you; it will drown you in its own death.

Veet means beyond, chintano means thought, mind beyond thinking, beyond thought, beyond mind. And that is our reality, because beyond mind there is no possibility of any dreaming. Only the mind can dream... in fact the mind only dreams – sometimes verbally, sometimes pictorially. In the day it dreams in concepts and thoughts that we call thinking; in the night it dreams in pictures that we call dreams.

The mind only dreams, desires, guesses, speculates, but never comes to know the reality, because the reality is available only in a non-dreaming state. When consciousness is completely clear of thought, when there is not even a single ripple of thought, when the lake of consciousness is absolutely calm and quiet, nothing moves, then reality is reflected in it. One cannot think about god. One can know god but one cannot think about him. Thinking about and about is going round and round in a circle.

There is a reality which is not of the mind. And that which is of the mind is not really real – it only appears real; it is a pseudo reality. And the whole work of sannyas is to move from the pseudo to the real, from thought to no-thought, from mind to no-mind, from sleep, dreaming, to a state of wakefulness where one is simply awake and where there is no content. The mirror is absolutely empty of any content; then the mirror is pure. And that purity is meditation. So in short your name means meditation – what Zen people call ‘the state of no-mind’. One simply is.

The mind takes you into journeys sometimes backwards, sometimes forwards – but it never allows you to be herenow, and the real is herenow. The mind is a constant distraction. It is what old scriptures call the devil. There is no other devil except our mind. It distracts us from god, from the real. It is useful. It is needed for many things – to relate with people, to work in the world. It is needed, it is a beautiful mechanism, but slowly slowly the slave becomes the master because of the need. Because we need it so much, slowly slowly we forget that we are the master, and the mind becomes very dictatorial, it starts dictating its own terms.

That is the point where man falls; that is the original sin. Then consciousness is no more the master and the mind has become the master. This has to be turned upside-down again. When we turn it upside-down then the right side will be up. The mind has to be put back into its place. It is a good slave but a bad master. It needs to listen to you – you need not listen to it.

To attain to that sovereignty is sannyas, to be a master again. And it brings great joy – because slavery cannot be joyful, slavery cannot be a celebration. It is against our nature. How can we celebrate and how can we feel thankful to god?

That’s why I say ‘When thinking stops, thanking begins.’

Anand means bliss, sanatano means eternal, with no beginning and no end, that which is forever. And bliss is eternal. Misery is momentary, it comes and goes; bliss abides. Bliss is like the sky; misery is like the clouds. Yes, they gather once in a while, out of nowhere, and then they disappear again. And the sky remains uncontaminated – they don’t leave any trace on the sky. The sky remains unaffected; its virginity is not violated.

So is bliss, and that bliss is our nature. But we don’t look at our nature: we have become too concerned with the clouds. We have become too concerned with the dust that gathers on the mirror of consciousness. We have forgotten the mirror completely; we have become obsessed with the dust. We have become so obsessed that only the dust exists... because if you become too focussed on something, then only that thing exists; everything else disappears, as if it exists no more.

The moment you fall in love with a woman then all other women simply disappear. Then that is the only woman; that woman represents all women. You have become narrowed down. You only think of her. Even if you see some other woman, she reminds you of your woman. Anything can remind you – the moon in the sky. It has nothing to do with your woman, no similarity at all, but the beauty of the moon is enough to vibrate a chord in your heart, and you are suddenly full of the fragrance of your woman. Anything – relevant, irrelevant, that is not the point – but your mind is narrowed down to one point, so everything reminds you of it.

That’s what has happened: we have become too obsessed with those negative clouds that come around. They are utterly insignificant. Compared to the sky that is given to us, they are nothing. If we look at the sky we will forget all about them; whether they existed or not makes no difference.

This is the change that has to happen through sannyas. This is the gestalt that has to be changed. We have become focussed on the outside and the inner has disappeared. Now we have to change the gestalt and allow the inner to take possession. It is vast! Then one simply laughs:‘How was it possible?.lt looks almost impossible. How did I get lost in dust, small particles of dust? How could I lose such eternities of joy?’

These clouds go on gathering, even when you know; even when you have become one with the inner sky, these clouds sometimes come... but they are far away, distant from you. Their coming or going makes no difference at all.

This is sannyas – this utter freedom from the negative – and that is the meaning of your name. I teach eternal bliss; that is my message to the world.

The old religions became too concerned with misery and because of their concern they have not helped man to become less miserable; on the contrary, they have helped to make him more miserable. They talked about heaven and paradise but all that they have done is to create guilt and the fear of hell. Their wishes notwithstanding, the total result is just the opposite.

Now an absolutely different religion needs to be introduced into human consciousness – a religion of pure bliss. Hell has to be simply denied; there is no hell and all is paradise. And there are no conditions for paradise. It is not that only saints can enter – everybody has already entered! Everybody is in it, because only paradise exists. This is paradise. There is no other paradise anywhere else.

So those who are courageous enough to celebrate can celebrate right now. Cowards will postpone. [Osho gives a sannyasin a name for the centre she is going to start in the West.]

This will be the name for the centre: Sandhya. It means ‘the evening’. The sun rises in the evening.

Help people to see the paradox of life, because that is all that is needed for understanding to happen. If one can understand the paradox of life, one has transcended it. The evening is hidden in the morning and the morning is hidden in the evening. That’s why it can be said ‘the sun rises in the evening’, because the evening is nothing but the beginning of a new morn. The birth is the beginning of a death, and the death the beginning of another birth.

Once we see this paradox – that life exists in paradox – we stop choosing; then there is no point in choosing. If you choose the morning, you have already chosen the evening; if you choose the evening, you have already chosen the morning, so what is the point? They are not against each other, they are joined with each other – two aspects of the same coin. You cannot have one, you can only have both. You cannot have love against hate. If love is there, hate persists; it remains surrounding you, ready to jump upon you. To see this is to become choiceless. Then there is nothing to choose. One has to move into life with a choiceless awareness. That is freedom, nirvana, that is enlightenment.

Help people to see the paradox of life and help people to be so courageous that they stop choosing. Choose, and you have chosen a bondage. Choose not, and you are free. So whatsoever happens, live it, but don’t choose. Take it as a gift. When birth is there, good; when death is there, good. Don’t be prejudiced, don’t have likes and dislikes. Don’t say ‘I love life and I hate death.’ Let life be there when it is and let death be there when it is. Simply pass unaffected, untouched by it all.

That freedom brings one home... and in that freedom is great benediction. That freedom is paradise. [Osho gives a sannyasin energy darshan and says:]

Everything is perfectly good – you unnecessarily get into trouble (chuckling). Come out of these clouds again. If the outer sky is cloudy you need not be cloudy inside, mm? – the inside sun can go on. Just remember a little more. These are old patterns and old habits which take possession of you again and again. Everything goes well and then one day suddenly you find yourself in a negative mood. Come out of it, or even if it remains, don’t be identified with it. Just go on reminding yourself ‘I am not this’, and soon it will go. All that is needed is a mindfulness that you are not this – and you are not!

Bliss is you, misery you are not. Misery is alien, foreign. That’s why nobody can settle in misery; it is so alien that one has to get out of it. It is something overpowering us from the outside, hence, naturally we shrink and naturally we struggle against it; but struggle is not going to help. All that is needed is witnessing, not struggling, because in the struggling you have already accepted, you have become afraid, and in the fear is the defeat. Just go on laughing at it – the misery is standing there and you laugh; then see what happens. Go on being happy and blissful and dancing and singing and soon you will see that the cloud has dispersed of its own accord, because without your help, it cannot exist.

There are two ways to help it. One is to get identified with it, the other is to start fighting with it. In both ways you help it, because in both ways your attention starts pouring energy into it, and attention is food. Never attend to anything miserable – by-pass it, neglect it, ignore it. Ignoring it is a sure poison for it. It dies. Otherwise everything is okay, everything is never otherwise. It is always okay. We go on forgetting.…

I cannot make you blissful – I can only remind you that you are bliss. You keep going well for weeks together and then suddenly you start feeling bored with bliss. What happens? You start thinking of your past and the nostalgia for those beautiful miserable days! And one wants to have a little taste again.

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