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‌Chapter title: None‌

22 January 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 8101225 ShortTitle: POND22 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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up.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.]

Misery is a state of unconsciousness. We are miserable because we are not aware of what we are doing, of what we are thinking, of what we are feeling. So we are continuously contradicting ourselves each moment. Action goes in one direction, thinking goes in another, feeling is somewhere else. We go on falling apart, we become more and more fragmented; that's what misery is -- we lose integration, we lose unity. We become absolutely centreless, just a periphery. And naturally a life which is not harmonious is going to be miserable, tragic, a burden to be carried somehow, a suffering. At the most one can make this suffering less painful. And there are a thousand and one kinds of pain killers available.

It is not only drugs and alcohol: the so-called religion has also functioned as an opium. It drugs people.

And naturally all the religions are against drugs, because they themselves deal in the same market; they are against the competitors. If people take opium they may not be religious, there may be no need for them to be religious. They have found their opium, why should they bother about religion? And opium is cheaper, there is less involvement. If people are taking marijuana, LSD and more refined drugs, naturally, they are not going to be religious, because religion is a very primitive drug. Hence all the religions are against drugs.

The reason is not that they are really against the drug. The reason is, the drugs are competitors, and of course, if people can be debarred from using drugs, they are bound to fall into the traps of the priests, because then that is the only way left. That is a way of monopolising, so only their opium remains in the market and everything else becomes illegal.

People are living in suffering. There are only two ways out of it: either they can become meditators --

alert, aware, conscious... that's an arduous thing. It needs guts. The cheaper way is to find something can make you even more unconscious than you are so you cannot feel the misery. Find something that makes you utterly insensitive, some intoxicant, some pain-killer that makes you so unconscious that you can escape into that unconsciousness and forget all about your anxiety, anguish, meaninglessness.

The second way is not the true way. The second way only makes your suffering a little more comfortable, a little more tolerable, a little more convenient, but it does not help, it does not transform you.

The only transformation happens through meditation, because meditation is the only method that makes you aware. To me meditation is the only true religion. All else is hocus-pocus. And there are different brands of opium -- Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Jainism, Buddhism -- but they are just different brands.

The container is different but the content is the same: they all help you in some way to adjust to your suffering.

My effort here is to take you beyond suffering; there is no need to adjust to suffering. There is a possibility to be totally free of suffering; but then the path is a little arduous, then the path is a challenge.

You have to become aware of your body and what you are doing with it. 1/08/07

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One day Buddha was giving his morning discourse and the king had come to listen to him. He was sitting just in front of Buddha and he was continuously moving his big toe. Buddha stopped talking and looked at the king's toe. When Buddha looked at his toe, obviously, the king stopped moving it. Buddha started talking and again and again (laughter) he started moving his toe. Then Buddha asked him 'Why are you doing that?' The king said 'Only when you stopped speaking and looked at my toe did I become aware of what I was doing, otherwise I was not at all conscious.' Buddha said 'This is your toe and you are not conscious... Then you can even murder a person! And you may not be conscious.' And exactly int hat way people have been murdered and the murderer has not been conscious.

Many times in the courts murderers have absolutely denied that they have murdered. First it used to be thought that they were just deceiving, but the latest findings are that they are not deceiving; they did it in a very unconscious state. They were so enraged, they were so angry at that moment that they were possessed by their rage. And when you are enraged, your body secretes certain intoxicating poisons, your blood becomes intoxicated.

To be in a rage is to be in a temporary madness. And the person will completely forget about it, because he was not aware at all. And that's how people are falling in love, killing each other, committing suicide, doing all kinds of things.

The first step in awareness is to be very watchful of your body. Slowly slowly one becomes alert about each gesture, each movement. And as you become aware, a miracle starts happening: many things that you used to do before simply disappear, your body becomes more relaxed, your body becomes more attuned, a deep peace starts prevailing even in your body, a subtle music pulsates in your body.

Then start becoming aware of your thoughts; the same has to be done with the thoughts. They are more subtle than the body and of course, more dangerous too.

And when you become aware of your thoughts, you will be surprised at what goes on inside you. If you write down whatsoever is going on at any moment, you are in for a great surprise. You will not believe 'This is what is going on inside me.' Just for ten minutes go on writing. Close the doors, lock the doors

and the windows so nobody can come in, so you can be totally honest, and keep a fire so you can throw it in the fire! (laughter), so nobody will know except you. And then be truly honest, so on writing whatsoever is going on inside the mind. Don't interpret it, don't change it, don't edit it. Just put it on the paper as naked as it is, exactly as it is.

And after ten minutes you read it -- you will see a mad mind inside! We are not aware that this whole madness goes on running like an undercurrent. It affects everything that is significant in your life. It affects whatsoever you are doing; it affects whatsoever you are not doing, it affects everything. And the sum total of it is going to be your life! So this madman has to be changed. And the miracle of awareness is that you need not do anything except to become aware.

The very phenomenon of watching it, changes it. Slowly slowly the madman disappears, slowly slowly the thoughts start falling into a certain pattern: their chaos is no more, they become more of a cosmos; and then again, a deeper peace prevails. And when your body and your mind are at peace you will see that they are attuned to each other too, there is a bridge. Now they are not running in different directions, they are not riding on different horses. For the first time there is accord and that accord helps immensely to work on the third step -- that is, becoming aware of your feelings, emotions, moods. That is the subtlest layer and the most difficult, but if you can be aware of the thoughts then it is just one step more. A little more intense awareness is reeded as you start reflecting your moods, your emotions, your feelings.

Once you are aware of all these three, they all become joined into one phenomenon. And when all these three are one, functioning together, perfectly, humming; together, you can feel the music of all three -- they have become an orchestra. Then the fourth happens, which you cannot do -- it happens of its own accord. It is a gift from the whole. It is a reward, for those who have done these three.

And the fourth is the ultimate awareness that makes one awakened. One becomes aware of one's awareness -- that is the fourth. That makes one a Buddha, the awakened. And only in that awakening one comes to know what bliss is. The body knows pleasure, the mind knows happiness, the heart knows joy, the fourth knows bliss. Bliss is the goal of sannyas and awareness is the path towards it.

Man lives as if he is separate from existence; but it is only an 'as if'. One cannot really be separate -- that is impossible; but one can believe that one is separate. That is possible. One can have this notion of separation. That freedom is given to man, that is man's prerogative, his privilege. No animal has that privilege; hence animals have a certain beauty and a certain blissfulness, a certain innocence which man has 1/08/07

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lost. In fact that is the meaning of the biblical story that man has been turned out of the Garden of Eden.

Animals are still there, trees are still there; only man has been turned out. Man has chosen to get out.

Freedom is a very risky phenomenon. Freedom does not mean that you are free only to do right -- that will not be freedom. Freedom certainly means you are also free to do wrong only then there is freedom.

Henry Ford had made his first cars -- they were all black and when he showed them to people, the prospective customers, in his show room, he used to say 'You are free to choose any colour provided it is black.' But what kind of freedom is this 'provided it is black'? and there were only black cars!

Animals are doing right not because they have chosen to do it; it is programmed, it is built-in. They are doing simply whatsoever is the programme inside. They are following it, they don't have any choice.

Man has a speciality, a privilege. It is his glory that he is free to choose. He can decide about his own destiny. All other animals have a fixed destiny. They have a fate. Only man is fateless. Only man is born as a blank sheet of paper, a tabula rasa; he has to write on it, it is unprogrammed. That's a beautiful gift from existence! But it is dangerous also...

And there is every possibility that man will choose the wrong thing, because it is always the wrong thing that gives you the feeling of freedom. The right thing

does not give you the feeling of freedom. It is always the no that gives you feeling of freedom. It is never the yes. For that you need a greater maturity. When yes can give you the feeling of freedom, when doing right can give you the sense of freedom -- for that a greater maturity, a greater understanding, a greater awareness is needed.

Psychologists say that the child has to say not to his parents just to feel free, otherwise he will not feel free. The mother says 'Don't go out'; then he has to go. If he simply follows his mother's orders then he feels like a slave.

A little boy comes back from the river. He has been fishing. The mother aks -- she was angry -- 'Johnny, if you wanted to go fishing, why didn't you ask me?' And the little boy says 'Because I wanted to go!' Ask and it is always no.

The mother also enjoys saying no because that gives her power, that 'no' makes her feel powerful. The child also wants to say no because that also gives him power, freedom. Adam and Eve had to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, it was absolutely inevitable, because they had been prevented. Now there was only one possibility to feel free: to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, otherwise there was no sense of freedom.

So remember, each child has to go wrong. It is almost natural. So I am not against it, one just has to be alert that there is a time to go wrong and there is a time to go right. It is good for small children, immature children, to say no, to disobey, to go against everything that is told to them; but there comes a moment when you are mature enough that you should learn a higher quality of freedom that comes by saying yes, by surrendering.

The fundamental no that man says to existence is: 'I am separate.' That is the foundation of the ego, it creates the ego -- 'I am separate.' This is good as far as it goes. Each person needs a certain ego; only then is surrender possible -- otherwise what will you surrender? First you have to have it to surrender it.

So each child has to learn the way of the ego, he has to be separate; but if one lives his whole life in this separation, then one is miserable. Sannyas means that you are now moving away from saying no, towards yes, because it is only through yes that the union will happen. No separates, yes unites.

Saying yes to existence becomes the bridge. That's what trust is. And trust brings relaxation, a subtle calmness. You are no more fighting against the river, you are

no more pushing the river. You start floating with it, flowing with it. You are not even swimming, you are not going upcurrent; you are just going with the current wherever it is going -- joyously, dancingly, singing, going towards the ocean. That brings unions.

Sooner or later the river reaches and disappears into the ocean.

Sannyas is the beginning of surrender, of saying yes; and then one day, the river of sannyas takes you to the ocean, to the ultimate, to the whole. and only when the part has again become one with the whole, consciously, there arises great bliss. A thousand and one blessings start showering on you.

Religion has lived without laughter -- that has been one of the greatest calamities

-- and I am trying to introduce laughter into religion! Religious people tend to be serious, sad, sombre, long faced. That has been thought for centuries to be something holy: the saint has to be sad, serious, the saint is not supposed to laugh. Laughter seems to be mundane, something ordinary. It is not so.

Laughter is the most extraordinary phenomenon. Laughter is the most religious experience. And only man is capable of laughter. Donkeys and buffalos and crocodiles (laughter), they are all saints -- they don't 1/08/07

Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

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laugh at all! And our so-called saints have fallen; they have not risen towards higher peaks. They have become donkeys, buffalos, crocodiles...

Religion is dead without laughter. It becomes alive only when one can have a total laugh, a passionate, intense laughter, so that it dances in all your cells, it vibrates in your whole being, it becomes something bigger than you, so that you are just a small thing in it, it surrounds you like an aura and you disappear into it. And that's exactly what happens in laughter: your ego disappears. It may not disappear in your prayer --

your prayer may even strengthen it. The prayerful becomes holier-than-thou. It will not go away because of your austerities and asceticism -- it becomes even

more solid and concrete. But when you have a really good laugh the ego is no more there. For a moment a window opens, for a moment the ego is not there. And when the ego is not there, you are. When the ego is there, you are not.

Ego is a phony phenomenon. It is a poor substitute for your real, authentic being. Because we don't know our real being we have substituted for it with the ego.

Laughter is symbolic. I use it as a symbol, a symbol that represents egolessness. And laughter is also playful. It brings you back to your lost childhood. Children laugh truly. Their laughter has no politics in it; but soon we start learning political ways in everything. Even in laughter we become political.

I have heard about a very rich man who used to tell the same jokes, almost the same jokes, every day to his manager and secretaries and typists, and they all used to laugh as if they had never heard those jokes.

But one day one typist didn't laugh. The boss was offended; he said 'What is the matter with you? You have always been laughing so loudly -- why are you not laughing today?' She said 'Tomorrow I am leaving (laughter) so I need not laugh. These people still have to be here.'

Even laughter becomes political, economical, a subtle strategy; then it loses its beauty, its spirituality.

Laughter becomes ugly when you laugh only at others. When you start laughing at yourself too, then it starts having a new dimension. Then the whole of life is taken non-seriously -- sincerely but non-seriously.

One respects life but one knows that it is full of cheer, full of joy, full of playfulness.

We have called it in the East, leela; leela means playfulness. It is one of the greatest contributions to the world. Ordinarily all the religions have said that god created the world, and when they say it they say it very seriously, 'God is doing something very great'; but only the eastern mystics had the courage to say that god was just playful -- it is not a serious creation -- just his playfulness, the way you sometimes, sitting in the sand by the bank of a river, start playing, making houses of the sand. You know that it is just play. Or making boats of paper and letting them go with the river... you know that it is play.

According to the eastern mystics, god created the world just as playfulness. That is why the eastern attitude and approach towards god is totally different. In the western idea of god, particularly the Judaic, Christian and Mohammedan idea -- these are the three religions which are born out of India -- god is very serious, so serious that after six days of work he became tired (laughter); hence Sunday, the holiday.

Just the other day I was, reading: a man asked a friend 'When were you born? On what day? ' And the man said 'On Sunday.' The man was a little puzzled and said 'On Sunday? But that is a holiday. On a holiday nothing; should happen. Even god rested on that day!'

It must have been a serious affair for six days; and what happened to god since then? -- nothing has been heard. As far as we know, after Sunday comes Monday, but for god Monday never came. He became so deadly tired that after he created the woman, he stopped creating everything! He had done his last!

But the eastern god is more a creativity than a creator. It is still going on, the creativity; he is still painting the flowers and the peacock's feathers and the people. He is still at risk, and there is no holiday, because every day is a holiday if it is playful. If it is not work then every day is a holiday.

But the western idea of god is that of a workaholic: six days of strenuous world and then on the seventh day rest. We have taken life as a beautiful play. And the moment you start taking life as a play, you start becoming; cheerful for no reason at all. Then everything brings cheer to you: the stars and the trees and the mountains and the people and the animals... It is such a beautiful existence, so mysterious, so paradoxical that one can do only one thing: one can have a hearty laugh at the whole thing. It is so ridiculous too, so absurd.

Mystery can always be thought of only as absurdity, because you cannot make any sense out of it. In a way it is nonsense. What sense is there in flowers, in creating so many trees and so many animals? What sense is there in creating the existence itself?' In fact there is no sense or logic, there is mystery, tremendous mystery.

It is creation for creation's sake; and once you start approaching life in this way, all seriousness 1/08/07

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disappears. And my sannyasins have to be laughing ones. They have to be known in the world as the laughing ones!

The Old Pond ... Plop

Chapter #23

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