17

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‌CHAPTER 17

19 December 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[Osho gives a seeker sannyas:]

Come here. Close your eyes and feel as if you are dying. Lose control. Let me contact you at the moment of death, and whatsoever happens if death is coming, you have to allow it. If you fall to the floor, you fall to the.. whatsoever happens.

... Good! Come back! That’s the best way to come to me – after dying! Just look at me.…

Anand means bliss, ashubodha means one who is quick to learn. The full name will mean: one who is quick to learn bliss. And the potential is there: you can simply go into a blissful state. There is nothing much that is hindering you; there is no obstacle, no block, that I can see in your being. You are utterly ready. A single step may do the work, that’s why I give you the name Ashubodha.

And remember: learning is always quick; the delay happens when a person does not want to learn. The delay is a trick, it is postponing. One says,‘How can I do anything right now? I will have to learn, I will have to practise, I will have to do this and that and then it will happen’... but it is not so. This is a way of avoiding.

Learning is quick; if you want to learn all is available this very moment. Learning is not a process but a leap, a jump, a quantum leap. It is discontinuous from the past, with the past. You simply jump into something new.

Be quick of step. Life comes to those who are quick of step. Life comes to those who have intense passion to live and to learn and to love.

[The new sannyasin says: I’m a psychotherapist.]

That’s very good! So you will need much work... because a psychotherapist is more puzzled, in a way, than any psychotic. But things will happen fast, mm? Just lose control... and you can lose!

Here, don’t control yourself, don’t remain in control. Let things happen, let them be a kind of let-go. All that is beautiful, all that is valuable, is always a kind of happening. It is not something that you do, something that you can do. You can only receive it, it is a gift. And life is a strange bargain.

Life owes nothing to us and we owe everything to life. It goes on giving gifts and gifts and gifts. That’s why down the ages, in all the religious scriptures, suicide has been thought to be the greatest sin. The reason is that life is such a beautiful gift and you return it back to God, you don’t feel grateful. On the contrary, you are angry, in a rage. Such a valuable gift! – which we don’t deserve because we have not done anything to deserve it. It is sheer grace, and a man destroying it... That’s why suicide has been thought to be the greatest sin, greater than murder, because it simply means you are denying God, denying his gift. You are saying, ‘It is worthless, keep it, take it back; I am not interested in it.’ It is the most disrespectful act a man can commit. Just contrary to suicide is prayer. Suicide is the ultimate in ungratefulness and prayer is the ultimate in gratefulness. So just be open, feel grateful, flow, and much is going to happen.

Anand means bliss, ashava means wine, bliss wine. And bliss is intoxicating. It is the real wine; the other wine is just a substitute for it. That’s why all the religions have been against alcohol, because alcohol is a competitor, it is a pseudo alcohol, and if people get lost in the pseudo they will not search for the real. That is the reason, the basic reason that religions are against alcohol; they have nothing against alcohol itself. It is not a question of being puritanical. The basic reason is that if people become too addicted to the outer alcohol they will not search for the inner. And the inner is far deeper-going and the inner is eternal. Once you have partaken of it you will never be thirsty again.

That’s what Jesus says to the woman at the well. He asks for water and the woman says, ‘Do you know that I am not a Jew, that no Jew would like to have water from me?’ Jesus says, ‘Don’t be afraid. Give your water to me and I will give my water to you. My water is such that one who drinks of it never becomes thirsty again.’ He is talking about the inner alcohol.

He is a drunkard, as I am. And I would like you also to become a drunkard, drunk with God!

[A sannyasin who is leaving says: You suggested that I teach Sufi dancing when I go back to San Diego... and I just wondered if you had any suggestions about that.

Osho checks her energy.]

Good! Very good. You are ready – start! You are no more sane; you can do it.

A certain quality of madness is needed for Sufi dancing. It is a mad method; sane people cannot go into it. Sane people cannot go into any depth; their sanity keeps them on the surface. They are afraid of depth, because one never knows what will happen in the depth. You will cry, you will weep, you will dance; one never knows what will happen in the depth.

Only on the surface can we manipulate, manage. Only on the surface can we go on controlling; but once you start going deep then you start becoming a chaos. But that chaos is God and only

through the experience of that chaos does order arise in life which is not imposed by you, which is not brought by you, which has come on its own. And when order comes on its own it is beautiful, it has beauty; when you impose, it is ugly. You start, mm? And I will be with you!

[In reply to an invitation to take sannyas, a visitor says: I love all the colours, Osho, and I have seen my colour in another space.]

Mm mm. (a pause) That is just a strategy to escape! You can go on loving all colours but you have to wear orange! (laughter) You may have seen your colour in a certain space; I can see deeper and orange is the colour!

If you have some hesitation, then you can wait, mm? But don’t find rationalisations for it; it is better to simply say that you are not yet courageous enough. That is simple... that is simple and honest. And if you accept it then the courage will be coming, because even to say it is courageous. Even in saying that you are not courageous enough you have taken a step towards courage, because that’s how we are so cowardly: we cannot say that we are not courageous. We go on finding a thousand and one things and will not say the real thing.

But as far as I’m concerned, sannyas is going to happen – today or tomorrow, that is not the point. When I see my potential sannyasin I immediately recognise him!

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