21

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‌CHAPTER 21

21 August 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[Osho and warns a new sannyasin that much is going to happen so not to be afraid!]

It is very natural that when something really starts happening one becomes frightened, because we have become so accustomed to a life where nothing happens, so when something starts happening one gets frightened. We want it to happen, but when it really starts happening we become afraid because we have become very much accustomed to a dull and dead routine life.

We have lived so superficially that we have lost all contact with our own depth, so when something starts happening you start feeling as if you are drowning. It is exactly like drowning: one drowns in one’s own depth and then one becomes afraid. What is going to happen? Are you dying.How will

you be able to come back? And that depth is abysmal, it has no bottom to it. One can go on falling into that, and falling and falling eternally

But in fact there is nothing to be afraid of. Buddha calls that bottomless abyss ‘nirvana’; it is endless nothingness. Once you have become courageous enough to go into it, by and by you disappear. And the disappearance of you is the greatest moment in life, because here you disappear and there god starts appearing.

This is the crucifixion and the resurrection. This is the meaning of the crucifixion, and everybody has to go through the cross. It is not only a question of christ being crucified: everybody has to carry his own cross. Now this orange is going to be your cross, this mala is going to be your cross, I am going to be your cross.…

All real meditation is death-like. One dies – but that is the only way to be born again, and to be born anew and to be born in god. Man has to die as man to be born as god, in god.

So fear will be there, I am telling you beforehand so you don’t get afraid, but the jump is going to happen. If you become afraid it will be only delayed a little longer, that’s all. It is going to happen so why delay it ? The sooner you go into it, the better.

You have come to the most dangerous man in your life. And I am not responsible – you have come yourself! Right?

Anand means bliss, nihar means a nebula, out of which the whole existence comes. It is a creative chaos, ‘nihar’. It is chaos: there is no order in it but order is pregnant in it. Order is going to happen but it is still not visible. It is a creative freedom: something is going to crystallise but all possibilities are still open. Nothing has happened yet... it is just on the way to happen. And it is just a chaos. Stars will be born out of it, the whole existence will arise out of it, and finally the whole existence will dissolve into it again. So it is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega...

And those who really want to be creative have to attain to this state of ‘nihar’, this state of creative chaos. All creativity is out of chaos Order is very antagonistic to creativity; it kills because it gives you a straightjacket. It allows you only this and does not allow you that, it allows you only to this extent and no further beyond. It gives you commandments, and because of those commandments the spirit loses all dignity; the spirit becomes a slave.

My whole work here is to release the chaos in you again. Slowly, slowly, one has to become capable of losing control, because control is the imprisonment. By and by one has to be capable of being utterly in no discipline because all discipline is bound to give you a certain fixed routine, a certain fixed style. And all discipline is born out of the past: through discipline the past tries to dominate, the future. Through discipline the dead tries to control the living... and that is one of the most ill state of affairs: the dead dominating the living.

If you make some discipline, from where are you going to make it? You will make it out of your past experiences; there is no other way. The discipline will come from the past, it will be the quintessence of all your past experience, and then it will dominate the future which you have not known yet. So that which is no more goes on dominating that which is going to be. This is the human slavery, the mind of slavery.

One has to learn how to live in chaos, how to live without discipline, how to live without order... and there is an order! That comes each moment, it arises out of the present, it does not come from the past. There is a discipline but that discipline is not managed by you; it is a response, a spontaneous response to the reality. Each moment it is there and each moment it is gone. When the situation is no more there the response is no more there. You are again empty, again a ‘nihar’, a chaos.

When you do something there arises an order naturally, you cannot do without an order, but that order arises out of the present moment and the need of the present moment. When you are not doing anything that order again disappears. It was temporary, it was momentary. It was meant only for the moment; it has no permanency in it. It does not become a fixed rule; it does not create a character.

So each moment order arises, each moment it disappears and you are again left in chaos. This is what I call freedom. This is what I call spiritual freedom, spiritual liberation – liberation from all kinds of disciplines, all kinds of commandments, all kinds of scriptures, all kinds of characters.

To live characterlessly is the only way to live. To live with character is to avoid living. And remember, the characterless man is not characterless in the way people use the word. Really, the characterless man is the only man who has character but his character is alive; it is always responsible – it is out of response. Immediacy is its nature. It does not cling in his mind, it does not persist. It has no continuity: it is atomic. Such a man remains unpredictable, because life is unpredictable. How can man be predictable? – one never knows what the next moment is going to bring. Then there is great thrill and adventure. And that I would like you to become – a nihar, a creative chaos. That’s how one attains dignity.

B. F. Skinner has written a book, ‘Beyond Freedom and Dignity’. And it is the right title for his philosophy because he does not believe in the inner man, he does not believe in the inner. He says that the behaviour is the man; there is no inner man. You are what you do; there is no soul in you. He believes only in the character: all that you have done is what you are. The accumulated actions define you; you don’t have any other being, any other selfhood.

If he is right then there is no dignity for man. Man is a machine and there is no freedom, because if there is no inner man who is going to be free? Then man simply reacts. There is no real action, it is only reaction. Then there is no difference between man and animals, no difference between man and trees and no difference between man and the rock. All the differences are there only in the mechanism. Man has a superior mechanism, that’s all – a more complex mechanism, that’s all. The rats also have the mechanism but they have a simpler mechanism: But by studying rats we can know about man; he is nothing but quantitatively more complex, that’s all. By understanding a simple organism, we can understand the complex organism; there is no qualitative difference.

To me, the dignity and the freedom consist in being chaotic. Chaos is the very soul of man. Man is capable of transcending all his actions and man is capable of doing things which cannot be predicted by studying his past. A saint can commit something which could not have been predicted; a saint can become a sinner. A sinner can become a saint; a man who has been a sinner up to this moment can take a quantum jump. His whole past will not be binding on him – he can simply slip out of it. Hc can simply say, ‘Enough is enough, and I am not going to repeat any more of my past. I am going to start a new future.’ That’s the dignity and the freedom.

With Skinner, of course, there is no dignity and no freedom; with behaviourists there is no dignity and no freedom. That is the only difference between a spiritual approach about man and the materialistic approach about man. Spirituality believes that man has some transcendence. He can always do something which nobody could have predicted; he can always do something which even surprises himself.

For example, this sannyas is a quantum jump. You could not have predicted it, you had never dreamt about it. You have never thought about it, it was never an alternative in your life, but it is happening.

Let this be the beginning of many more happenings. Become more and more loose, fluid. That is the meaning of nihar.

[Osho gives a meditation to a new sannyasin.]

You can cry and weep! Sound can touch you very deeply and it can be very helpful. It can become a key for your meditations.

Make it a point every day for at least fifteen minutes to just close your ears, but close them in such a way that just in the middle of the palm some small hole remains. Cover the ears completely so the sound is created and listen to it with closed eyes. It will go very deep: it will shake your whole body. You will start trembling, you will start crying; allow it. Do this every day for fifteen minutes, mm? And it will be of tremendous help. Next time when you see me, tell me what happened, mm?

Nirvan means enlightenment, and turyna means swift, sudden, fast – sudden enlightenment. It is possible, but a little more crying will have to be done! It can be stopped, but then a rock-like thing will remain in your heart.

You have always been stopping it; that’s why it is there, otherwise it would have gone. It has to be released. It is not much. Once you allow it totally... Don’t be half-hearted in it. Even if you do allow it, you go on repressing it: only a part, the tip of the iceberg comes up but the whole iceberg comes inside. It will come again and it will come again.…

It is better to finish it. It is better to go into it as deeply as possible so you can come out of it. Yes, it will disappear, but it will disappear only by going through it.

[The new sannyasin says she has a shop in the West.]

So make it a place for me too! People can gather there. Make a centre also, a small corner in your shop for me, so books can be available there and people can start getting interested. That will be good. Help people to meditate a little.…

Make a small comer in it for me, mm?... and convert your customers!

Deva means divine, paritosh means contentment – and let that be your fundamental attitude: all is good. Feel satisfied with everything, drop the complaining mind and let a new mind arise – the mind for gratitude, of gratitude.

Feel thankful for small things. Feel thankful for life itself, because we have not earned it. It is a gift, and we are not even thankful. We have not done anything to be here, to be alive, to be given this opportunity, yet we don’t feel thankful and we go on complaining and complaining. The mind only complains.

I have heard about a great supermarket that was celebrating its jubilee. They had decided that to whomsoever enters the store, to whoever is the first customer, they are going to give ten thousand dollars. It was a secret, it was not declared; it was just in the mind of the boss.

A woman entered. They received her with garlands and a music band and gave her a cheque for ten thousand dollars. They said that this was decided – that whosoever entered would receive this gift. Then the boss asked, ‘Where were you going?’ and she said, ‘I was going to the complaint department.’

And she still went! Even after getting this gift of ten thousand dollars for nothing, she still went to the complaint department, because she was going there!

This is the stupid, human mind. We have been given so many gifts, they are showering on us every moment, but because we don’t have any gratitude, we don’t enjoy them, we don’t celebrate.

Paritosh means utter contentment with life as it is, no desire that it should be otherwise.

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