13

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‌CHAPTER 13

15 December 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[Osho tells an initiate to raise his hands in a gesture of receptivity, to feel that great energy is pouring on him, showering on him in torrents. Be utterly absorbed by the energy, Osho continues, with no resistance, no control. If the energy starts moving, be moved.]

You have been seeking for many lives, now don’t miss the opportunity. It has been a long search and now it can come to a fulfillment. You are very close... just somewhere around ninety-nine degrees. A little push, just one step more in the right direction and you can evaporate.

But one can remain stuck even at ninety-nine degrees or one can go on avoiding it, one can go on putting energies somewhere else just to remain occupied or one can go on moving in other directions which are nothing but distractions. So don’t be distracted! Now let your whole energy be poured. It is only a question of one step, but sometimes it happens that when one is very close there is more possibility than ever of missing because the mind starts feeling very frightened.

It is going to be death for the mind. Your rebirth is going to be the death of the mind. You can arrive only when the mind has disappeared, you can know only. when the mind functions no more. So the mind becomes apprehensive. It starts feeling that something dangerous is around the corner, it becomes panicky. Then it starts creating distractions. It has always been happening like that: people who come very close are in great danger of missing and one can remain stuck at this point for many many lives.

It is easier to move when one is very far away because the mind is not much worried; it gives you enough rope. It knows that you cannot reach one hundred degrees mm? You are at the one or two degree point. At the most you will reach ten degrees; nothing is the problem. You can enjoy your search, your spirituality, your meditation. But when things are really coming to a close, then the mind

cannot give you any rope any more. And that is where you are. In a way you have come in the right moment.…

Prem means love, abhinava means new – new love. And love is always new. It never becomes old because it is non-accumulative, non-hoarding.

It knows no past; it is always fresh, as fresh as the dewdrops. It lives moment to moment, it is atomic. It has no continuity, it knows no tradition. Each moment it dies and each moment it is born again. It is like breath: you breathe in, you breathe out; again you breathe in and you breathe out. You don’t hoard it inside.

If you hoard the breath you will die because it will become stale, it will become dead. It will lose that vitality, the quality of life. So is the case with love – it is breathing; each moment it renews itself. So whenever one gets stuck in love and stops breathing, life loses all significance. And that’s what is happening to people: the mind is so dominant that it even influences the heart and makes even the heart possessive! The heart knows no possessiveness but the mind contaminates it, poisons it.

So remember that: be in love with existence! And let love be like breathing. Breathe in, breathe out, but let it be love coming in, going out. By and by with each breath you have to create that magic of love. That will be your meditation: when you breathe out, just feel that you are pouring your love into existence; when you breathe in, existence is pouring its love into you. And soon you will see that the quality of your breath is changing, then it starts becoming something totally different to what you have ever known before. That’s why in India we call it ‘prana’, life not just breathing, it is not just oxygen. Something else is there, the very life, God himself. If we invite him, he will come in lingering with the breath.

So let this be your technique, your personal technique. You will be doing all the meditations here, groups here, but this will be your personal technique: sitting silently, breathing, breathe love. And you will be thrilled. You will start feeling a kind of inner dance.

[A sannyasin recently returned from the West says that it’s hard to change; he always remains in control and can’t get through it.

That idea to get through it is the same mind that wants to control, Osho replies. You cannot use the same mind to get out of the mind. When you recognise that nothing can be done, a great silence descends on you. You are the problem so there is no way for you. When you are not there, the way is. One has to learn through many frustrations that nothing can be changed. One has to fail in a thousand and one ways; then one day one comes to realise that one is chasing one’s own tail. But one only comes to know after many failures.…

Would you like to do a few groups and fail?]

[A sannyasin asks, on behalf of a friend, about automatic handwriting which has been happening to her: Is it dangerous to let this automatic writing go on?]

So when she comes... or you can convey my message to her that it is just the work of the unconscious. It is good but don’t start believing that you have become a medium of some great

master or this and that; all that is nonsense. It is good, because the unconscious is trying to throw a few things out. It is a kind of cleansing of the unconscious. It is perfectly good but don’t trust it. You cannot even trust your conscious; how can you trust your unconscious?

There are all kinds of things in the unconscious. It is a basement where we have been throwing things for many lives – all kinds of things: good and bad, ugly, beautiful. It is a junkyard. Now the junkyard is trying to empty itself. It is good that those things are being thrown out through automatic handwriting, it will be a great release, but if you start believing what the unconscious is saying you will be a victim. Then you will get into trouble, because the unconscious is simply a fool! It knows nothing; even your conscious knows nothing so what can the unconscious know?

[A seeker has been using Osho’s meditations in her work leading groups, but is unsure about taking sannyas because of the religious aspect – she feels attracted but not moved.]

That will do... movement will come later on! And there is no problem, all problems are just tricks of the mind. There cannot be any religious problem because you are becoming religious for the first time! And my religion includes all – Jesus and Krishna and Lao Tzu and all!...

But you think... if you want to think, think, but you will miss by thinking! For the few days you are here, think. If you want to remain in trouble, remain in trouble. Otherwise I can relieve you of your problem: I can make you a sannyasin and then the problem is finished! (laughter) You will have better sleep after it!

[Another seeker, who has done several groups in the West, says: I want to become more open. I feel I am very closed.]

Mm mm, do a few groups... and the opening will happen, mm? Just do a few groups and meditation. Opening is not a difficult thing: if you want to open there is no problem. If you don’t want to open, then there is no way. The really blind are those who don’t want to open their eyes. Then you can go on doing this and that, but deep down if you don’t want to open, then nothing can be of any help. And if you want to open, then any small thing can be of great help. So that is where you have to watch, otherwise, on one hand you will go on doing this and that and on another hand you will go on destroying it.

You really want to open? And be true, because from that we will start working. I will accept: if you say that you want to open, I will accept that, but you have to be true: do you really want to open?

[He replies: Sometimes I feel I don’t want to.]

Mm, that’s what my feeling is, mm? – you are vague about it, ambiguous. A part of you wants to remain closed and that part is strong. Only a part of your being wants to become open, and that part is not so strong, that is the trouble. The weaker part wants to open and the stronger part does not want to open.

But once you become alert about this the situation can be changed. Do one thing for one month: forget about being open and this and that. Forget about it, don’t bring this problem into the mind. Just be here for one month, meditating, doing groups... with no motive, mm? That motive is from

the weaker mind, and once you drop that motive from the weaker mind, the stronger mind will not fight, because there is no point in fighting when the motive is dropped.

For one month just be here as you are, with no motive. Just enjoy dance, sing, meet people, enjoy and do a few groups. And that too for no reason really, just for the very joy of it. When you have a motive from the very beginning, that motive becomes a hindrance, mm?you are continuously looking for when the opening is going to happen. And when you are looking for the opening, the stronger mind is looking for ways to destroy it.

The opening will happen in an indirect way and you are looking for it very directly; that’s where you are wrong. There are a few things which don’t happen directly – happiness, love, opening, growth; they don’t happen directly. If you simply go searching for happiness all around the world you will become more and more miserable and you will never come across happiness anywhere. Forget about happiness and then sometimes you are happy.

The more you are in a state of forgetfulness, the more happy; then the secret key is in your hands. Get lost in things whatsoever you are doing, get lost into it and happiness comes dancing, following you. You need not search for it, it comes like a shadow. So is the case with opening, with love, with growth. All that is beautiful comes indirectly; you cannot grab it, you cannot be greedy about it.

So for one month try my idea, one month with no motive, mm? – just for the sheer joy of doing things: dancing, meditating. And it is going to happen, one day you will report that it has happened. And think of sannyas... for the sheer joy of it, with no motive!

[Another seeker replies to Osho’s invitation to sannyas: I tried so many trips and all illusions died after a few.]

That’s good! Trying all the trips is very good. By and by illusions will be less and less, less and less, and one day all illusions disappear... because all trips are illusions. There is no trip that goes to truth. Truth is where you are, no trip is needed for it. But trips are helpful because they destroy illusions. And one day when all illusions are gone, suddenly you are home; then there is nowhere to go.

But think of it, mm? Germans have to think (much laughter)... and the reason is because they can’t think very well, so they have to think slowly, slowly. But think!

[The vipassana group are present. One member said that after the group he has created a permanent centre in his hara, but he has lost his joy in life and has physical tensions. However, he likes to be in his hara all the time.]

No, you need not be there all the time, otherwise it will drain you and it will destroy all joy and love and all... and you will become a Buddhist monk! Don’t become that! (chuckling)

So don’t go there too much. Just give two hours to it one in the morning, one in the evening, that’s all; otherwise forget about it. Even one hour will do, you can be there for just one hour, that’s more than enough. If you are conscious of it for twenty-four hours it will destroy all life: it is life-negative. It is good to be there sometimes but not all the time. You should keep a certain balance, mm?

otherwise introversion becomes a moribund state, a morbid state. That’s how it has happened to millions of Buddhist monks.

Just give it one hour. It is beautiful to be there sometimes, mm? It is your own space, it is beyond the world, so sometimes go into it and be there, rest there. But it is only a resting place, you should not make it a dwelling. Then come back, move in the world, love, dance, sing.

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