Chapter title: None

‌Chapter title: None‌

13 January 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 8101135 ShortTitle: POND13 Audio:

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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.]

Love has a very mysterious strength in its mysterious because it contains the fragileness of a flower and also the strength of a rock. It is paradoxical, but that's its beauty. Anything that is not paradoxical remains flat -- consistent, logical, but meaningless.

Meaning comes from the tension of the polar opposites. when the contradictories meet and merge and become one, then there is a great explosion; and love is one of the most explosive experiences.

It is strong, but not in the sense in which a sword is strong. It is not strong in destroying, it is strong just like the brush of a painter. It is strong in creating; and hence it can contain the fragileness of a flower in it. If it is just strong without being fragile then it will be dead. If it is just fragile without being strong then it cannot survive, then too it will be dead.

Many people are afraid of love because they are afraid of becoming fragile and vulnerable, but they 1/08/07

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don't know that behind that vulnerability there is a strength, infinite strength. You have to accept both and you have to live both.

The lover lives the life of a madman simply because he lives a life of paradox. Sannyas is a love affair.

With me you will have to be strong in the sense of being creative and fragile in the sense of being receptive, welcoming, open, available -- and at the same time strong, so strong that if the need arises one can even sacrifice life for love, one can gamble everything.

A sannyasin is basically a lover; a lover of existence, of all its beauty, of all its joy, of all its truth. But he lives in a very precarious balance, like a tightrope walker. He cannot move to one extreme, otherwise he will fall. Too strong and love dies, too vulnerable and love cannot survive. Both have to be together. In that togetherness the door opens to the ultimate mystery.

Love is the beginning, god is the end. Between love and god is the whole journey, the journey of sannyas.

Love is dangerous but life itself is dangerous. Death is very secure, safe. Once one is in the grave there is no danger; no disease can happen, no old age, no death even -- one is absolutely secure, safe. But life is just the polar opposite of the grave, it is insecurity. And love is the very core of life, the very centre of it; hence love is the most dangerous experience. But only those who know love know life. There is no other way, there is no shortcut. The danger is that you have to dissolve your ego; your ego is a kind of protection, a shelter. Your ego keeps you surrounded by a wall.

In a way it protects, in another way it kills. Prisoners are very safe, far more safe than the people walking on the road. Any accident can happen on the road. Some mad driver may run over you. Everything is possible on the road, but in a prison no accident happens. Those walls, on the one hand, destroy your freedom; on the other hand, they make you safe. That's exactly the purpose of the ego; it protects you, but in the bargain you have to lose your freedom. And really, losing your freedom is too much to pay for protection. It is not a good bargain at all you are

a loser.

The very safety of the ego destroys the whole opportunity for growth. A seed is safe. Once it sprouts then insecurity begins. Then everything is possible the cold, the heat, the rain, the snow, the wind, the sun --

everything is possible. Nothing is possible for the seed. The seed is surrounded by a thick layer that keeps it closed, windowless.

Millions of people live like seeds, out of fear. Sannyas is learning to live dangerously, getting out of fear and all that fear has created. Ego is a creation of fear. It is basically fear-oriented, a by-product of fear.

The ego has to be dissolved; then love starts growing in you. And love brings many flowers, many colours, many experiences which are inestimable. And the ultimate experience of love is nirvana, when the ego has gone totally -- not only in parts -- utterly. Not only have a few windows opened and you can see outside the windows to the sky and the stars, but the whole prison has disappeared; you are standing naked under the sun, under the stars, in the wind, in the rain. When there is no shelter left, no protection left, living in that intensity moment to moment is nirvana. And that is the ultimate experience of love, for only then do you live at the optimum; because you are not certain about the next moment you cannot postpone living.

You cannot say 'Tomorrow.' Now or never -- tomorrow never comes. So if one has to live now then one has to live totally, intensely, passionately. That intensity of life is love. In the beginning we call it love; in the end the same experience blossoms into nirvana. The ego is completely gone and you are merged with the whole.

Love is not prose, it is poetry. And there is a great difference between prose and poetry. They are worlds apart.

Prose is logic, grammar, language, arithmetic. We are brought up to live a life which is basically prose; hence there is arithmetic, calculation, cleverness, cunningness, diplomacy, politics -- but there is no joy. The bird of the heart is ignored, it remains undernourished. It has not enough energy to sing, and even if sometimes it sings there is nobody to listen. We are preoccupied with the head. That is the prose style of life, preoccupation with the head.

What I call a poetry style of life is living in the heart. Initiation into sannyas means initiation into a poetic life; dropping from the prose style to a totally different gestalt, the gestalt of poetry, of song, of music, of art, of beauty, of love.

Certainly without these things there can be no celebration. Then life is just a mourning, a moaning, a 1/08/07

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grumbling, a complaint. You can see it on people's faces. It is very rare to find a face on which the complaint is not written in capital letters. It is writ large. Everybody is a walking poster with the whole list of complaints -- against life, against existence, against everything.

If you search within a man you will find him just a heap of noes; no, no no... You can go on digging and you will find more and more noes, bigger and bigger noes. It is very rare to find a yes somewhere; and even if you find it, it will be paralysed, crippled, because in the crowd of noes... noes are very nosey! (laughter) They are Jewish! A poor yes will be killed, will be in a stampede! Even if it survives in same nook and corner somewhere, it will be dying, not fully alive.

Life can become a total yes, but we have to change the whole pattern -- sannyas is the art of making your life a yes; transforming all your noes into yes. And all your noes can be melted and remoulded into yes. It is not so difficult as people think. Certainly it is not impossible. It has happened to many people -- to Buddha, to Zarathustra, to Jesus, to Pythagoras, to Dionysius, to Lao Tzu. Around the globe it has happened to many people; it can happen to you. It should happen to everyone. In fact we are here for it to happen.

And that's what I call the shift from a prose lifestyle to a poetry lifestyle, a shift from mathematics to music.

And then life is a song, a tremendous ecstasy.

I don't teach a religion of sadness. I am against all those sado-masochistic

religions. I teach a new kind of religiousness which is rooted in love, not in fear, which is rooted in the present, not in the future which is rooted in love and not in logic.

Mysticism has experienced a totally different kind of emptiness, a very positive kind of emptiness -- a zero which is not zero, a zero which is overflowing with the eternal.

In a way it is zero; it is empty of the world and all that the world contains. It is empty of desire, empty of thought, empty of memories, empty of imagination; it is empty of ego, jealousy, anger, greed. It is empty of the whole world of stupidity that we go on carrying along with us but it is not just empty, On the one hand it is empty of the world but on the other hand it is full of godliness.

In fact the more empty of the world one becomes the more full of god one becomes. When the whole world is thrown out you are full of god, overflowing with god.

Love is the key. Love can do both these things. It can help you to be emptied of all that is stupid, of all nonsense, and it can help you to be full of all that is significant, meaningful.

It will help you to be emptied of all kinds of lies and it will help you to discover your own truth. Hence shunyam, emptiness, nothingness or zero are not to be taken in a negative sense. They are absolutely positive. In fact there is nothing more positive than a zero. It has space, infinite space, unbounded space, and with that comes freedom. With that comes the whole universe within you. You disappear as a self. You become a no-self.

And the beauty of no-self is indescribable. The beauty of disappearing, as an ego is the greatest experience that can happen to any man. And that is the goal of sannyas to become just zeros -- empty of the world and full of god.

Man is being taught many kinds of virtues, moralities, but they are not true, they cannot be true. They are a kind of imposition from the outside. Others are conditioning you. For example, if you are born in a vegetarian family they will impose vegetarianism on you and you will be conditioned; and you may remain a vegetarian your whole life, thinking that you are doing something virtuous. It is not, because you have never chosen it out of your own consciousness.

A virtue, to be really a virtue, has to be out of choice, a free choice -- that is its first requirement. If you have not chosen it but others have, it may be a good quality, it may give you respectability, but it cannot help you to discover your innermost being; in fact it will hinder.

People are being taught all kinds of good things, but those good things, to be true, have to be by-products of a growing love and a growing consciousness in you. You cannot simply acquire them -- and that's what is being done everywhere people acquire a certain character. If it is acquired, cultivated, it remains superficial, painted, it is not your true face. Hidden behind it you are just the opposite. It creates only hypocrites, not virtuous people.

My emphasis is not on morality at all -- my emphasis is on love. If you are growing in love then all that is right is bound to happen through you of its own accord, because love cannot do anything wrong.

For example, if you are growing in love you will become a vegetarian. It is impossible for a lover to kill animals just for the sake of taste. It is so ridiculous, so stupid. I don't call it a sin, it is simply stupidity; 1/08/07

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because when you taste something it is just a small part of your tongue that gets the taste of it, just a few buds on the tongue. A little surgery can be done on your tongue and you will not taste anything. That actually happens when you have fever or a cold; those buds become insensitive, so you cannot taste anything.

Just for a few tiny buds on your tongue you are killing live animals, with no sensitivity, with no awareness, with no love. It seems impossible; how can a man who has known love be capable of doing such things? A man who loves his wife, who loves his children goes on eating meat? Impossible.

Either he does not love his wife, does not love his children or he is just living in a mechanical way, unconscious, not knowing what he is doing. If he is so violent, how can he be loving? Life cannot be divided into compartments -- 'I will be loving to my children and I will kill other animals' children.' It cannot be

divided, it cannot be compartmentalised.

My experience is, if you love one person, in that very love you have loved the whole existence. Your whole perspective changes. You cannot kill. And; then a totally different kind of virtue arises; then you don't brag about your vegetarianism, because there is nothing to brag about, it is a simple thing. You don't eat cow dung. (laughter) But you don't brag about it either, 'Look -- I don't eat cow dung!'

But there are stupid people... Mahatma Gandhi had a disciple, one of his chief disciples, a certain professor, Bhanshali. For months together he used to live only on cow dung... and that was thought to be a great virtue. Of course it is holy cow dung; it was no ordinary thing. He is living on holy food! (laughter) He was an utter fool! But he was thought to be a saint. Even Mahatma Gandhi used to respect him because even he himself was not able to do such a great work! (laughter) The disciple defeated the master!

And he was respected all over the country. That was his only quality! There was nothing else in that man --

just pure, holy cow dung!

But fools are fools and the world abounds with fools.

These things are possible only because we are not living intelligently. And we are not loving, and we are not sensitive and we are not conscious. So I don't want any discipline to be imposed on you from the outside by any agency. I want something to grow from your own heart, so that slowly slowly it comes from the centre and reaches to your very circumference. Then there is a unity, a harmony in you no dichotomy, no hypocrisy. Then you are on the outside exactly what you are on the inside. Then your inside and the outside are in deep accord.

Begin with love and all virtues will come following it as a shadow follows you.

Jesus says, 'First seek ye the kingdom of god, then all else shall be added unto you.' Now this is an old kind of expression -- understandably, because two thousand years have passed, the language is very old; just a little change and the language can become new. And I am always making, little changes, because I am not bound by any religion, by any church, by any dogma. I am absolutely free!

Even if I meet Jesus I am going to argue my case. And I am absolutely certain that he will have to agree with me.

I will say, 'First seek ye the kingdom of love, then all else shall be added unto you,' because 'god' has bow become an out-of-date word. And I am not a lover of junk (laughter). I am not a lover of antiques or vintage cars.

My Mukta (by Osho's side in darshan) is a lover of vintage cars. Just a few days before she has going to purchase a 1934 model Ford! (laughter) Now I said, Mukta, are you going mad?!' (more laughter) And I suggested that I know one Ford which the person is ready to give away free, without any money, but that is even better than yours -- a 1928 model. It has been standing in one place for many years. It is really antique.

In fact in the Old Testament it says 'god drove Adam and Eve out of heaven' -- he drove in this Ford!

(much much laughter) The word 'drove' certainly shows he must have used a Ford car! 'God' is also now very old and rotten. We should replace it with 'love'!

How long will you be here? (much laughter) Till I drive you out? (and much more laughter) Mm? If you want to be driven out, Mukta can bring that 1928 Ford! (more laughter) And exactly, I can drive you out!

(and more and more) I have not driven anybody till now but if you want me to... ( and more and more and more ) Otherwise, be here! Good!

Existence has many dimensions, it is multi-dimensional; but love is the highest dimension. There is a hierarchy of dimensions.

Sex is the lowest dimension, love is the highest dimension. It is transformation of biology into spirituality, it is moving from the body to the soul, it is surpassing matter and entering into the immaterial.

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My whole message is contained in the word 'love'. That single word is my whole scripture, the book of the books, the Bible.

The word is very small, but if you start living it you become every day vast and vast, till all boundaries disappear and you are synonymous with the whole existence. That synonymousness is what I call holiness.

To be one with the whole is to be holy. Less than that won't do, less than that is not enough. Less than that and you will always feel some discontent, something missing.

It is better to remember from the very beginning what is going to make you absolutely contented so all your efforts can move into that dimension. Our energies should not be scattered. They should not be in fragments. They should all pour into one direction, they should all become one-pointed and they should move like an arrow, straight towards the goal. Only then is there the possibility of fulfillment.

Life can become an immense ecstasy, but it becomes an ecstasy only when your arrow of being penetrates into the being of the whole and disappears into it, leaving no trace behind. That merger, that melting, I call love. The beginning is love and the end is love and the middle too! (laughter) The Old Pond ... Plop

Chapter #14

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