11

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‌CHAPTER 11

13 December 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[Osho gives sannyas to a woman.]

Raise your hands, close your eyes and feel like a tree, become a treeIt is sunny and windy and

the tree is delighted. whatsoever the tree feels to do, allow: if the tree sways in the wind it is okay.… Let me give sannyas to the tree! Just look at me as if you are a tree.…

It is better to become a tree sometimes, to become an animal sometimes, to become a bird and sometimes even to become a rock in the sun, because we have passed all these stages and something of those stages still remains inside us, is part of our being.

Man is not an island, he is not separate from existence. Man is involved in existence, in all its dimensions. The rock contains the man; he is its future. Man contains the rock: it is man’s past. We are joined together. If you can start feeling like a rock you will have a totally different reality, a different vision, the way the rock looks at trees and the sun and the star. One can get into that kind of attunement. Let this be your meditation: sometimes become a tree and forget humanity. You will feel fresh, young and rejuvenated. You will have the silence of the tree, the joy of the tree, the earthliness of the tree. Sometimes become a bird. Close your eyes and go as far away in the sky as possible. Whisper with the clouds.…

All this is possible because we have been these things: it is our past, it is our inheritance. Deeper in you than man is the animal. Man is very superficial, just the last coating. Deeper than that is the animal, deeper than that is the tree, even deeper than that is the rock. The rock is our foundation, our very roots are there and we are spread all over existence on many levels, in many dimensions. Man is not so small as he looks. He is infinite, he contains all. So let this be your meditation, and

it will be possible for you: you can find that quality of attunement, of being en rapport, of empathy. You can get into the idea and the idea can become the reality.

Sometimes it happens to people when they are on a psychedelic trip. It happens easily because they can forget logic easily, but that is not the real happening; it is a chemical delusion. If it happens with full awareness, without any coercion of any kind, chemical or otherwise, then it is far more beautiful, far more enriching, and gives you freedom.

Why should one remain confined to man? Why not spread? Why not have as many possibilities of being as are available? That variety is real wealth – when you know how the bird feels on the wing, when you know how the tree feels in the spring. And it can be revived because it has been so once; you can again relive it. And because I see the possibility, let this become your meditation. Do other meditations, other groups, but this will be your special meditation.

[A new sannyasin says that he has a fear of total surrender as his life has been one of total control.]

Just drop the word total, you are demanding the impossible from yourself. Even a little bit of surrender is good. Do whatsoever you can do easily, without strain... and that will bring more surrender. Just a seed surrender is needed right now; total surrender will come in its own time.…

So just start loving me; that will do! And one day suddenly you will find that I am there. That’s my usual way: to enter people from the back door, because from the front door there is always conflict. Just wait; it will happen!

Yoga Deep. It means light of the Yoga. The word yoga means the science of meeting the divine, the science of communion with the divine... where you disappear and only God is left. The light of Yoga means: light of the science of the union with the divine.

[A sannyasin asks: Can you talk about my name?]

Mm mm... you don’t have any name and nobody has any name! Names are just useful, utilitarian. Deep down you remain nameless. Your reality remains always undefined; no name can contain it. So remember that: rather than paying too much attention to a name, pay much attention to the nameless reality behind it, and remain nameless.

It is good – people have the need. A name is needed to be called by, to be addressed by, but that’s where its function is fulfilled. When you are sitting alone in your room you don’t have any name; you have a name only when somebody is addressing you. If you are in the mountains, you don’t have any name.

[Osho recounts the story of the emperor who presented a great Zen master with a beautiful velvet robe. But the master lived alone in the forest with trees and birds as his only company. They will think me a fool, he said to the emperor. Please, save me this embarrassment: take the robe back! They don’t even know my name; they think I am just one of them!]

When you are with the trees you don’t have any name, when you are in the mountains you don’t have any name.

When you fall asleep you don’t have any name in your dreams. So the name is a social label, utilitarian. I would like you to remember this rather than the meaning of the name.

The meaning is beautiful – I always give beautiful names to people because why not be generous? It costs nothing!

[A sannyasin returning to the West says: Lately I’ve got really sudden fits of paranoia just for a few seconds. Just now I did – my heart was beating so hard; I thought my mind was going to go crazy.]

Enjoy it! Don’t make a problem out of it. You have a good mind; enjoy it! These are the somersaults the mind sometimes tries. Beautiful gymnastics; nothing to be worried about. Don’t call it names – paranoia, schizophrenia, etcetera; don’t call names. Once you give names, you create trouble. Once you call it paranoia you have to go and visit a psychiatrist and then you are in trouble – just because you called it a name! People have enjoyed it for centuries and nobody has been troubled by it. This is just very recent – that people are troubled by things.

One should learn sometimes to enjoy even mad moments. They come and they bring great insights. They are not all pathological. In fact, pathology is a creation of the psychiatrists and the psychoanalysts. If they accept people as they are and if they accept that everything is beautiful, then their whole profession is gone. Psychoanalysis is a Jewish invention! (laughter) It is the greatest business around! (much laughter) Beware of the Jews! Wherever they go they make a beautiful business out of things.

Don’t label, mm? When it happens, just watch. And enjoy that moment too, that throbbing of the heart and the mind going crazy. Enjoy that moment too. Why not? Why be against it? When you call it paranoia you are already against it. You have created an enmity, you have condemned it. Don’t condemn it. It is just the mind playing a trick on you; enjoy it! And if you enjoy it, it will play tricks less and less, because once it sees that you are enjoying it the whole point is lost; it disappears.

[A sannyasin says: I’m causing myself a lot of pain and misery because my heart doesn’t open.] Is there any urgency for it to open?

There is no need! These are just mind trips; in the name of the heart, a mind trip. The heart is always open, it is never closed. It is just the mind that obstructs it, otherwise the heart is always open. The heart knows no closing; just the mind stands in the way. Now this very idea that the heart is not open will become the lock. And the more you try to open it, the more difficult it will be.

No effort is needed to open the heart. One has to forget about all these things. Start living rather than going in these trips – start loving. Do something rather than these great trips into thinking. A small act of love is far more valuable than all the philosophy of love.

And don’t create unnecessary misery for yourself. That’s what I go on teaching every day, morning, evening, day in, day out, the year round – not to create misery for yourself. But you are so clever that you can create even misery out of that: ‘I am creating misery for myself and I am not to’.Now

a new misery. How to stop? How not to create misery? And this way one goes on and on; it is an infinite regress.

Just see the point of it: as you are, it is perfectly good. It is just that your parents are not leaving you. They have put an idea in you that you have to become somebody special, extraordinary, that you have to be somebody with name and fame and this and that... all nonsense! So that lingers in you, that you have to become somebody, a perfect man or a saint or a Buddha or a Christ. You need not become anybody. Just as you are is so beautiful. Feel gratitude for what you are.

It is sacrilegious to try to improve yourself, it is against God. It is a sin to improve yourself because it is a complaint against God that he has not made you right; now you are trying to improve yourself. He has made an ugly thing and you are trying to beautify it; he has done a mess of a job and now you have to fix everything! This is a complaint, it is sacrilegious, it is a sin.

A really religious person knows nothing of improvement. He simply enjoys whatsoever is given to him... and so much is given! So much is given for no reason at all. You don’t deserve it, nobody deserves it. You have got such a beautiful life! What more is needed? Porridge for breakfast and a shelter for the night.God is happy in heaven and you are happy here; what else is needed?

Drop this constant goading. You are chasing yourself like a dog chases its own tail. And when you cannot catch hold of the tail you become miserable. No dog can catch his tail, because the more the dog jumps, the more the tail jumps. You will go crazy!

Just rest. Eat, sleep, walk, dance, love, swim. These are the things to do, and do them in utter benediction, prayerfully. Who knows? – tomorrow you may not be here and the river will be flowing and you will not be able to swim; the river will miss you! The birds will sing and the flowers bloom, and you will not be here to see them, to smell them. So do it while you are here! This earth is such a celebration and you are sitting there trying to improve yourself!

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