17

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‌CHAPTER 17

17 August 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Jivan means life, harito means green – green life, fresh life, young life. and always remember that life is green, theories are grey. Avoid the theories and plunge into life. Theories are suicidal, poisonous; they destroy. Life is divine, life is eternity.

To get in tune with life is to enter into god, and to remain confined to the theories is to remain in the prison of the mind. So the whole dilemma, the human dilemma is: how to get out of the mind and into life. Our whole being is caught in the web of thoughts – and thoughts are impotent. they cannot give you anything: they can promise you everything but they cannot give you anything. It is only through life that something is possible.

So listen to life more, trust life more. Let life become synonymous with god. And wherever it leads, go with total trust: don’t hesitate and don’t defend. In defending against life one simply loses an opportunity. And strange are the ways of life to bring you back home. They are not very straight like super-highways, they are very zig-zag, so one tends to doubt. And the mind creates a thousand and one questions.

Once you start living a life without questions you have become religious. When one eats, sleeps, walks and goes on doing the ordinary things of life with immense joy, celebration, that’s enough; there is nothing more to it!

Then each small act becomes sacred and through each small act god starts approaching you... and the meeting happens almost every minute. One just has to get out of the mind. [Remember] again and again that life is god and there is no other god.…

And just enjoy; don’t strain. Don’t try to become an achiever. There is nothing to achieve: all is already given. Be thankful and dance and sing. Forget the ways of the adult mind, become more like a small child.And that is one of the most essential things in contacting life.

Up to the age of seven a child remains in immense contact with life; after seven he starts losing contact. As he becomes more and more articulate with language, mathematics, reasoning, he starts losing contact; he starts entering more and more into the mind. And that’s what our whole education is: it destroys contact with life. It creates the prison of the mind. Our whole education is how to disconnect a human being from real life and how to connect a human being with unreal thoughts. Never again will the child be in such immense rapport with life again unless he consciously, deliberately, chooses to become a child again.

That’s what sannyas is: a deliberate, conscious choice to be reborn again. So start counting your life from [the moment you take sannyas]. This is your birthday – forget the old birthday; that was nothing. From this moment start counting your life and start participating again in small things. They are wonderful if you look through the eyes of a child.…

Deva means divine, chintana means reflection. Thought can have two directions: when it goes outwards it is called thinking; it if turns upon itself it is called reflection. If you see something, it is thinking. If you start seeing the seer, then it is reflection... and reflection is the way to one’s own innermost core.

Just now I am saying something to you. You can listen to it; that will be thought. If you start feeling the listener inside you, that will become reflection. A slight change, a slight change in the gear, and suddenly you fall into yourself. You can go on looking at me; one moment it is thought. If you get completely absorbed in the object, whatsoever is outside, if you completely forget yourself and only the object remains, it is thought, it is contemplation. If you suddenly become aware of the subject – who this is inside you who is looking at somebody, who this is inside you – if you suddenly become aware of, alert about, this inner phenomenon, it is reflection, and reflection is the door to one’s soul.

‘Chintana’ means reflection, and I would like you to fall again and again back into yourself – hence the name. Looking at a tree, go on looking, looking, and then suddenly take a jump: close your eyes and start seeing the seer who was seeing the tree. Listening to music, go on listening, listening, and then suddenly take a jump and just listen to the listener.

This constant reference to oneself becomes a tremendous meditation, and again and again one moves out of the world.When you are in your innermost core, you are no more in the world; you have transcended it. So during the day, in twenty-four hours, many times one can have this glimpse: by and by it becomes so easy. Just as you come out of your door into the garden and you go back into the room – just like that it becomes so easy. Once you learn the knack of it you can go inside any moment... and inside is the treasure.

That’s why all beautiful words that denote anything significant, carry the word ‘in’. ‘Insight’, ‘inspiration’, ‘intuition’, ‘instinct’ all carry the word ‘in’ – not accidentally, because all that is really real is in one’s own being. The treasure is there, the kingdom of god is there.…

[The new sannyasin says: I’ve been a catholic nun for seventeen years.]

Mm mm, that’s good! You have come to the right person, now! Seventeen years ? – it is more than enough. You suffered a lot – that’s enough! But all past karmas are finished; enough punishment for all the wrongs that you have done ever in your past lives! But beware because sometimes such a

long training can go on lurking somewhere inside the mind. It is very easy to drop the monastery, the monkhood, the nunship, but seventeen years is a long time; habits get deep into the unconscious. Unless you uproot them from there they will go on poisoning your life.

It is beautiful to be in love with god but one need not deny life. In fact the only way one can love god is through life; there is no other way. Any kind of ideology that goes against life is basically against god, because it is god’s life; these people are god’s people.

So uproot it. These groups will help, these meditations will help. It shows something important – that you have been seeking and searching, otherwise why should one become a nun? And people are in such a deep search that they are ready to accept any kind of absurdity.

It is a good indication of their desire and thirst...

Now something is possible. And we can use even that; those seventeen years can be used in a positive way. This will be the positive way – that those seventeen years, whatsoever you lived, whatsoever you thought have been life-negative, so now start becoming more life affirmative, more loving. Get more into your body. The body is god’s body, it is his temple. Really it is the church, the body, and if we have to find jesus or god or whatsoever name we give, we have to find him through this body.

So be more alive in the body... because those seventeen years can dull the body; they can dull sensitivity. They are bound to do that because the whole game depends on that. But you must have been a very alive person, that’s why you escaped; otherwise it is very difficult. It is very easy to get out of a prison – it is very difficult to get out of a monastery, because it is self-imposed imprisonment.But good!

[The mother of a sannyasin is visiting and says she would like to find herself.] That’s possible!...

And to find oneself is possible, it is not difficult. One just has to be courageous. Nothing else is needed – just courage. Become a sannyasin!

Deva means divine and sandhya means twilight – divine twilight. And that’s exactly where you are – in a great moment of transition. Something is on the verge; any moment the jump is possible. So be full of enthusiasm and be ready to receive it. If you can put your energies into it your desire is going to be fulfilled: you will be able to know yourself...

[A visitor says that he’s tried on different occasions to work with colleagues, to cooperate and collaborate with them on projects, but after a few weeks or months it falls through and breaks up in competition

Nothing to be worried about.We have been brought up in such a way that we say that we want to

cooperate but deep down we want to compete. And we can cooperate only under some pressure: for example if you have a common enemy you can cooperate; then you will not compete. The enemy of your enemy will become your friend and you can cooperate – but it is under pressure because the

enemy is there. If you start competing you will become weaker than the enemy, and you would not like that.

Because you have to compete with the enemy you cooperate with the friend, but if the enemy is defeated what are you going to do? Then you will start competing with the friend. When the enemy is gone, the friend will become the enemy. The friend was only the friend because of the enemy.

This is how we have been brought up. This is a very poisonous situation but this is how it is. Every child has been brought up to compete, to struggle, to defeat others and not to be defeated by them. Every child has been taught that the whole society consists of enemies. If you are not on guard you will be nowhere, so be on guard, be cunning, be clever. Talk about love, go on smiling, keep a good face, and deep down go on planning how to defeat everybody, how to destroy everybody.

This is the whole teaching of all the schools, colleges, universities... and when you teach a child for twenty years to compete, it is very difficult for him to simply drop it; it goes into the blood.

You want to drop it because you see the ugliness of it, but it is not like your clothes that you can drop and be naked. It is like your skin now. It is going to be very painful.

My suggestion is: work indirectly; directly you will not succeed. Forget about cooperating. The first thing is to meditate rather than cooperate, because the competition is very deep inside the unconscious. You will have to transform the unconscious first; you will have to un-condition your mind first. You will fail with this mind again and again, and the more you fail, the more failure will become certain, because from the very beginning you will know that you are going to fail. You know: it has happened so many times. It is almost a certainty; you are hoping against hope. You know it is going to fail so your efforts will be self-defeating.

And each time one fails in a certain effort, one loses much self-confidence. You start feeling that you are just helpless, a victim. You cannot do anything, things happen by themselves. You become a fatalist; you start feeling impotent .

Don’t go directly.We have to be very very scientific about destroying this inner core of competition. In cooperation you will be working directly against it; that is not the right course. You will have to do something in which neither competition is involved at all nor cooperation is needed.

For example if you meditate you cannot cooperate, you cannot compete, because there is nothing. In meditating you are alone, in meditation you are alone: the moment you close your eyes you are alone. When you start going inwards there is nobody so you cannot cooperate and you cannot compete. The whole mechanism of competition and cooperation does not function; it is irrelevant. Now this can be the way, and if meditation starts growing you will be able to see where this competition comes from, and with a more meditative mind you will become more cooperative.

Cooperation can only be a by-product of a meditative mind, just as competition is a by-product of an achiever’s mind. That’s what we do: all our schooling is nothing but to create the achiever’s mind – how to achieve, how to have more, how to be first.…

Next time come for a longer period... so you can go through a few groups. And it is possible; it is not difficult at all. Difficulties are there only because we move in a wrong direction. It is almost like this:

if you start trying to go through the wall then it is difficult. I will show you the door: you can simply go through it and it will not be difficult. And almost always it happens that we choose the difficult one because there the ego feels good – something very difficult, challenging.We leave the door. The door is there and it is open but we don’t look at it; we look at the wall. The wall simply attracts, it has a magnetism. The ego feels good encountering a great problem. And in fact meditation is so simple and easy a thing that the ego is never interested in it.

[The counselling group is half way through the three-week training and the participants are here tonight. One of the leaders says that working with the other leader has been important, besides the group.]

Mm mm, good! No, the group is going well, and it is going to be different for different people; it depends on a thousand and one things. Everybody has a different receptivity, a different kind of mind, a different past, different ambitions, different reasons why he has joined the group and different interpretations. So it is going to be different; that is not the problem. It can’t be the same for everybody.

You should remember just one thing – that you have to put your all into it, that’s all – that you have to be totally in it. So if somebody needs to be benefited he will be benefited; if nobody needs to be benefited, you will be benefited... but you have to be total in it. You should not be just there formally, that’s all.

You should be there through the heart, through your whole being. Then you will never wonder whether anybody was benefited or not; that’s not the point at all.

You had opened your heart and you were available: if they wanted to partake of something it was for them to choose and decide. If they did not want, that too was their decision and they are free. But if you are not total in it – you are in it formally and half-heartedly in it – you will not be benefited; somebody else may be benefited, but you will not be.

And the groupleader has to be benefited otherwise the group will become by and by a boredom. The participants go on changing, the groupleader remains the same: sooner or later it becomes a stereotype thing. If you are not totally in it sooner or later the thrill will be gone: you will be doing the same thing again and again. But if you are totally in it, it is new every time and the benefit of the groupleader is immense.

When new people come and participate they will bring new energy and new things will happen. So let there be a very very liquid form, not a very rigid form: a very liquid form, almost no form. So whenever new people come they can adjust themselves and they can create new energy and new challenges.

A group is an opportunity to be responsible... an invocation from heart to heart, an invitation to open. So keep a very very liquid form just to begin with, that’s all, and then let things flow and let them take their own form.

When the group surprises even the groupleader, then it is a good group. When the groupleader knows what is going to happen it is meaningless: it is not going to be any spiritual experience for

the groupleader. It may be good for the participants but if it is not good for the leader, how can it be very good for the participants? It will not be very good... just so-so.

[A group member says she wants to stop seeking.]

It will come. Seek a little more! You are not yet tired! A little urge to seek is still there, a comer of your mind still wants to seek. Yes, one part says . stop, but one part says stop only because another part is saying ‘go on’ – otherwise why this idea to stop? If you are really finished with seeking, you are finished; there is nothing to stop.

If somebody comes and says to me, ‘Osho, help me so that I don’t start running’, what does it mean

? It simply means that a great desire to run is there! He wants to run, one part at least, and there is every possibility that the major part wants to run. The major part is not asking for my support to run. The minor part is asking my support because the minor is afraid that on its own, it may not be possible to stop running.

There is still some urge... and it is natural! Every-body seeks, everybody has to seek, but nobody finds by seeking. One day seeking has to be dropped, but when I say ‘has to be dropped’, I simply mean one has to go to the very end of it where it drops of its own accord. That moment is really of great bliss – when there is no seeking, no longing, no desire, nowhere to go, nothing to achieve. One has come home; one has attained relaxation. One is in immense rest... not even a ripple in the mind. In that very state god happens.

But that is going to come, mm? – don’t be in a hurry. Don’t manage it; it is going to come. Seek a little more, and if you want to finish it quickly run as fast as you can so it will be finished soon. If you go very slowly it can take much time, mm? Right now it will be premature to think to stop it. Let it ripen, and when the fruit is ripe it falls.

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