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‌CHAPTER 23

23 June 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[Prem Niradha – a cloud of love]

And the cloud represents freedom. It has no roots anywhere. It is utter freedom. It has no direction either, no destiny, because any kind of destiny is bound to become a slavery. Then it is fate, not freedom. If there is a direction, then the freedom is narrowed. Freedom can exist only in a directionless state.

And love and freedom are always together. Whenever freedom is missing, love is dead. When freedom is missing, then love is false. Only freedom can testify to the truth of love. It is there that the criterion exists. Freedom gives love: love gives freedom. When you are free, you become loving – only in freedom does love grow – and when you are loving, you give freedom, because that is the greatest gift that can be given.

So this is the meaning of your name: a loving freedom, like a cloud. Anand means bliss, and anito in sanskrit means amoral.

Bliss is amoral – it is neither moral nor immoral. It knows no division of good and bad; it simply is. Existence is amoral. You cannot call it good, you cannot call it bad. The category of good and bad is brought in by the mind. The mind divides, makes distinctions, labels things; it is a great labeller. And in dividing, it misses reality, because reality is indivisible. Life simply is – it is neither god nor devil; god and devil are mind creations.

And because people become too interested in good and bad, they remain divided. The sinners are divided because there is a great urge to become saints. And not only are the sinners divided, the saints are also divided, split, because there is a great urge to enjoy all that they call ‘sin’ Both have

repressed one part of their being – one has repressed the good part, the other has repressed the bad part. And we have divided the whole society, the whole of humanity, into sinners and saints. This is an ugly situation.

This division has to disappear, and it can disappear only when bliss descends. Then one is simply happy, in a kind of jubilation. And out of jubilation whatsoever happens is good, and whatsoever does not happen out of it is not good, but nothing is labelled.

In Sanskrit the word is of immense importance.

Prem means love, loving Christa... and love is the message of Christ. That is his very heart; all else is secondary.

He says to his disciples ‘The ancients have given you ten commandments – I give you the eleventh, and that is love!’ His last message was ‘Remember, as I have loved you, love others. The more you love, the more you will come closer to me. God is love.’

Love is the only alchemy that transforms people. It should be the only religion too. So become absolutely loving. Don’t allow any corner in your heart for anything else except love. When one is loveful, one is godful.

[A sannyasin says: I’ve had a lot of psychic experiences... And I would like to know if it is a hindrance for me in my growth. Osho studies her energy and says:]

They will not be a hindrance at all – they will be of immense help. Enjoy them and go into them as deep as possible. They are just a natural flowering in you.

Psychic powers become a hindrance when people force them, desire them, are ambitious for them; then they are ego trips. But this is something very spontaneous. yOu have not done anything for it. You are not even interested in them – if they disappear, they disappear; if they come, they come. Just welcome them – when they come, enjoy them. They will be of help. They will take you slowly slowly, deeper and deeper into your own being.

Never become obsessed with them; if they stop, perfectly right. Don’t hanker for them. That hankering is a hindrance. Don’t desire them, don’t ask for them. And don’t try to have any pride in them. Don’t think that something special is happening, because that creates the ego, a subtle ego, and that ego becomes a hindrance.

Always remember: anything that helps the ego becomes a hindrance, whatsoever it is. It may be money, it may be political power, it may be psychic power, it may be physical beauty, it may be intelligence – whatsoever it is, that is not the point. If it helps the ego, then it is a hindrance. Only the ego is the hindrance.

If it doesn’t strengthen the ego, then nothing is a hindrance. You can be as rich as is possible; you can be on the highest peak of your psychic energy – no problem. Just remember that it should not become an ego support, a prop for the ego.

And this is coming very naturally – allow it.

Anand means bliss and Bodhidharma is the name of the master who introduced Zen into China... one of the strangest masters ever, one of the most powerful too.

Read about Bodhidharma, meditate over his few sentences. He has not said much, but those few sentences contain all that a man will ever need on the path. The day he entered China, the emperor came to receive him. The emperor asked ‘I have done many meritorious deeds – made many temples, monasteries. Thousands of Buddhist monks get support from the treasury. I have helped translations of Buddha’s words into Chinese. What will be my merit in the other world?’

Bodhidharma said ‘Nothing, nothing whatsoever. And stop thinking about merit in the other world, otherwise you will fall into hell, because whenever something is done for some reward, it is no more religious. A religious act has to be spontaneous, for its own sake. Anything that you do for its own sake is religious. You may sing a song or you may dance a dance, but if it is done for its own sake, for no other reason at all, with no motivation, then it is religious.’

The king was offended because he was not expecting such a blunt reply. He was angry. In anger he said ‘Who are you’ he was saying ‘to talk in such a way with an emperor? Who are you?’

Bodhidharma laughed and said ‘I don’t know!’ This is one of the most profound replies possible. And all others – those who have said ‘I am soul’ and ‘I am this’ and ‘I am that’ look like pygmies. Bodhidharma says ‘I don’t know’, because the inner reality is so vast. How can you know it?

To reduce it to knowledge is to destroy it. It can be lived but you cannot know it. Who is there to know it? The knower and the known are one there. To know something you have to be separate from it. It has to be an object outside you; then you can know it. But the knower is separate from the known, and there, inside, the knower and the known are one, so there is no possibility of knowledge ever.

Then Bodhidharma turned away and went into the mountains. For nine years he just lived there, facing a wall. He said ‘Unless and until the man for whom I am waiting comes, I will not look at any other face.’ After nine years the man came. The man cut off his hand, gave it to Bodhidharma and said ‘Turn towards me, otherwise I will cut off my head.’ Bodhidharma turned around and he said ‘I have been waiting for you. Unless you can give your head to me, my looking at you is useless... because this is only the path for those who are courageous enough – courageous enough to take the jump into death. Because only in death is resurrection. A disciple has to die in the master – only then does the new life arise, life that is eternal.’

So meditate over Bodhidharma. The word literally means... Bodhi means enlightenment and dharma means nature – enlightenment is your nature. One need not be enlightened from the outside. One is already enlightened. The master can only help you to remember it, that’s all. He can remind you of your reality.

Anand means bliss, bodhi means enlightenment, dhanna means treasure – blissful treasure of enlightenment. That is the real treasure there is; all else is just pseudo. The wealth that one thinks is wealth is nothing but illth. And all the power that one thinks is power is nothing but a cover for impotence.

The real treasure is hidden in you, as you, and there is no need to search anywhere else; one has to dig within. That treasure has the quality of light, so the more lightful you become, the closer you are to the treasure. And light in the inner world means awareness. Unconsciousness is dark, it is darkness; awareness is light.

Become more and more aware of whatsoever you are doing, thinking, feeling. Get as deep as possible into each thought – the layer behind the layer behind the layer. The mind is like an onion: peel it and you will find new layers and more new layers; and one day, suddenly, nothing is left in the hand. That nothing is the treasure... Buddha calls it nirvana, because it is almost empty of all that we have known before.

It is full of something for which we don’t even have a word, but it is empty of all that which we know. That emptiness is the real treasure. To be in it is to be in the ultimate.

Anand means bliss, bodhi means enlightenment, tara means a star – a star of blissful enlightenment.

The human heart is very dark – not even a star is there, not even a ray of light. It is not that it has to be so. It can be full of light, it can become a day instead of a night, but we have never taken any care of it; we have never nurtured it, nourished it. It has been neglected, ignored, for centuries. That’s why man is in misery, because unless the heart dances with joy, with light, there is no end to misery. Misery ends only when the heart comes to bloom. Bliss is its fragrance.

So let sannyas become a conscious effort to bring light to the heart; that’s what enlightenment is all about. Create a small star of light inside and slowly slowly the star will become bigger and bigger and bigger. One day you will find that you are simply light and nothing else. In the beginning it is just a drop of light, but that drop contains oceans. If you allow the drop, you have allowed the ocean.

[A sannyasin says: I’m having trouble accepting my husband’s decision not to take sannyas at this time... and I feel badly that I don’t accept this totally.]

No, you should not create any problem about it. It is his life – if he wants to remain a non-sannyasin, it’s perfectly okay. You should not insist that he become a sannyasin. If he becomes a sannyasin because you insist or because he feels that you will be miserable if he doesn’t take sannyas, then it will be something imposed on him. It will be against his freedom, and sannyas has to grow out of freedom; only then is it true.

When we love a person, we have to accept all that he is, whatsoever he is; love makes no conditions. And don’t make it an ego trip on your part. A sannyasin at least should not get into such trips. You brought him here, you introduced him to my world. Now it is his decision. If he has some problems to settle before he takes sannyas, if he has some fears to overcome before he takes the jump, if he has a few doubts to dissolve before he can trust and commit himself, that is for him to think about.

Never for a moment manipulate him, not even unconsciously. Even if you feel miserable, that is a manipulation, mm? He may think that you are feeling so miserable and he loves you, he may not want you to be miserable, and just because he does not want you to be miserable, he may take sannyas. But that is pointless – his sannyas will be false. And not only that it will be a false sannyas for him; it will be destructive to your sannyas, because you have imposed something which

is violence, which is a violation of the freedom of the other. The freedom is so sacred that it is an ultimate value – it can’t be sacrificed for anything whatsoever. And one has to respect freedom.

So go happily and don’t feel sad. Mm? Otherwise, women have that strategy: they can be sad, really sad. And you love him, that’s why you feel sad – I can understand you. But when the other is involved, his freedom has to be respected. I understand you: you would like to share sannyas with him. You have found a treasure and you would also like him to become rich, and you suffer because he is unnecessarily missing an opportunity.

Still, you have to avoid that ancient strategy of the feminine mind. That is a kind of nagging.

Forget about it! All that you could do, you have done, and all that you can do, go on doing. Be happy, be loving, be dancing – let him feel that you have attained something, that something has happened to you. Let him constantly be reminded not by words but by your being. Let him be reminded that you have become a transformed being, that you are now no more the same, that something valuable is there. Let him see it through your eyes, your love, your care. Let him feel your meditativeness, that’s all. And sooner or later he will come in, he will become an insider.

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