21

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‌CHAPTER 21

24 December 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Anand means bliss, malik means god, lord – god of bliss, lord of bliss. Malik is a sufi name for God. ‘Ya Malik’ means ‘oh, Lord’. Sufis have ninety-nine names for God and one wonders why not one hundred; the list seems to be incomplete. The hundredth is the real name which cannot be uttered. It has been left empty; that’s why there are ninty-nine. The hundredth is the real one, but it is not possible to utter it, so it is left nameless. And ninety-nine are the names for the nameless, for the hundredth. Malik is one of those ninety-nine names. All those names are beautiful... each name is a quality, an attribute of God. No name exhausts him; it simply shows one aspect, that he is lord. This is only one aspect of God, but one aspect is enough to reach him. That becomes the ladder.

One need not jump in the whole ocean; one can jump from anywhere, from any point, and will be in the ocean. Those ninety-nine aspects are ninety-nine ladders for people.

And the idea of being a god will help you immensely. Just start living that way. Walk like God, walk as you would if you were a god, and you will suddenly see many changes happening in your energy. Sit like a god, talk, behave, communicate, but always remember that you are a god and so is the other. Look at the tree as if you have created it. You are God and so is the tree. Soon you will see, once this climate becomes really there, is created by you, you will breathe differently, you will love differently, you will talk differently, you will relate differently; that climate will change everything around you.

There was one Indian mystic who went to the master and he said, ‘What should I do? How can I attain to God?’ The master said, ‘There is no need to attain. I make you a god, and from this moment I declare that you are a god; now behave like one!’ That transformed his whole being, because he could not do so many things that he used to do. It was not right because he had to always think whether this would fit: ‘If I am a god, will I do this?’ And he started doing many things that he had

never done because that’s what God was expected to do. When he came back to the master after one year, the master said, ‘Now there is no need to come here; it has happened.’

Sometimes small things, very small things, just a change of name, can become a triggering point, can trigger thousands of processes. So let it become a triggering point.

And this is a mantra also for you. So whenever you are sitting silently, simply repeat, ‘Ya Mallik, Ya Mallik, Ya Mallik.’ Pour your total passion into it ‘Ya Mallik...’ and it will give you great silence.

[A sannyas couple say they run a school in the West: We teach ‘psychic opening’. We teach people to perceive their energy and other persons’ energy, their auras; and we teach psychic reading.]

That’s good. If you are working on psychic energy it is always good to work as a couple. Man is half, woman is half. Energy is complete when you work as a couple. The circle is complete and more possibilities will be there. Alone, there will not be so many possibilities and alone you will soon start feeling exhausted. If man and woman are together they can go on working and they can go on creating as much energy as is needed. There will be no exertion, they will not be tired, because the woman goes on rejuvenating the man and the man goes on rejuvenating the woman. But man working alone is half and he is missing the source from where he can be rejuvenated.

He will feel tired, and psychic work is dangerous if you start feeling tired, are tired, because then rather than helping others, you may be harmed by others. A person who is working on the lines of psychic energy has to be so full of energy that nothing can come to him from the people with whom he is working. Otherwise in that moment you are vulnerable, so diseases can travel easily towards you, madness can travel easily towards you.

Then they become placeboes. People are still helped through just the belief now, not the energy. But that cannot last forever; sooner or later they are a failure. And the moment they fail, the moment they start feeling failure settling, then comes the shattering of their being. They die very badly. And so is the case with wrestlers: they die very badly because they exerted their body too much. They did something inhuman to their body: they strained the muscles to their very extreme; then one day or other you have to pay for it.

It is very good to work as a couple, and it will be even more helpful if two couples can work together. To work as a group is even more helpful, because then you have more and more energy. And much will happen out of sannyas, mm? – I will become part of your healing processes

[Osho gives sannyas to a westerner, who had previously been initiated by a traditional Hindu swami. Osho tells him to get into the idea of his sannyas, which is totally different to what he has been living up to date. The religion he has been involved in is traditional, repressive, life-negative, Osho continues. All paradoxes are implied in God. If he has given desire to you, you have to live desire. Desirelessness comes, certainly, but it comes only through desire.]

And you can understand what I am saying more than others who are here, because you have been in that kind of trip long enough.

Accept life! Let sannyas be a celebration, not a renunciation. Accept life with all its joy and all its sadness and all its ecstasy and all its anguish. That is how one grows, through days and nights

and summers and winters... and that is all part of a great rhythm. Rather than trying to seek God somewhere else, start looking for him herenow in the people, in the marketplace. He is here, very alive and kicking. He is also in the Himalayas but very silent, relaxing. And if you cannot see him here you will not be able to see him in the Himalayas. To see him in the Himalayas, first you have to learn to see him in the world, because here he is really alive intensely alive... in so many forms.

The Himalaya is a kind of sleep; God is asleep there, that’s why it is so silent, no noise. But to know silence one has to know the ways of noise. If you have learned the ways of noise, if you have known what noise is, then you will have a different quality of experience with silence. Then your silence will be rich, vibrant, your silence will have a melody to it. If you have not known the noise you will not be able even to recognize what silence is.

That’s why I have not chosen the Himalayas. I love it but I have not chosen it, knowingly. It kind of dulls the human consciousness. It is too sleepy, it is a tranquillizer. And you have been in India for nine years, but today for the first time you have come to India, because I represent something which has been completely forgotten. I represent something which was basically there but which has got lost in the jungle of centuries and the Indian intellect. And Indians are intellectual. They go on spinning and weaving theories; they are really clever at that. Down the centuries they have done nothing else, mm? – they have become great logicians and scholars and they go on splitting hairs. But the real religiousness is completely forgotten.

My whole work here is to destroy all the garbage that has accumulated and to bring the crystal-clear water that used to flow once, in the days of the Upanishads or with Buddha or with Nagarjuna or with Shankara. But the pundits have been destructive.

[A visitor says that he thinks it would be fun to take sannyas; and he would enjoy wearing orange as a joke, but is concerned that other people in the West would take it too seriously.]

That is their business!

That is not your problem, that is their problem; you can enjoy. Let them take it seriously. In fact, a joke has to be taken seriously, otherwise it loses fun. So a real storyteller never laughs about his own joke; he has to remain serious about it. If he laughs then the whole point is lost. Let them take it seriously; it is fun!

And when I say it is fun, I don’t mean it is lower than seriousness; it is higher than seriousness. When I say it is play, it is higher than work. Don’t think that you cannot be dedicated to fun; in fact, how can you be dedicated to work? Work is ugly; how can you be dedicated to it? You can only be dedicated to fun. Religion is fun. And when I say that religion is fun I am not condemning religion; I am praising it like anything.

A dedication will come, and it will be playful, it will be non-serious, but non-serious does not mean non-sincere. Fun also has a sincerity to it. Have you not seen chess players playing so sincerely? – and the whole thing is fun... and they know it! But when you are in it you play it sincerely.

Don’t make it a burden on your head. If you can laugh, then there is no problem. You can go in orange and let people enjoy it. Enjoy it and laugh and let them laugh, mm?

And nobody there has heard of sannyas, and people who have started coming are coming not for sannyas; they don’t know anything about it. But some inner urge to search, maybe unconscious, is there. Life has lost meaning and there seems to be no reason to live. It seems so irrational to live, to go on living and to go on doing the same thing again and again.

Suicide is becoming very very meaningful; it seems the only thing worth doing. Sannyas is an alternative to suicide. The more people think of suicide, the more people will become sannyasins. It is an alternative. It is a dying without dying. It is committing suicide without killing the body. It is dropping the ego, and you can drop the ego more easily if you take it as fun. If you take it as serious then the ego cannot be dropped, because the ego thrives on seriousness.

So you are perfectly ready for sannyas! Just take the jump!

Anand means bliss, salam means peace. And these two things you have to be mindful of: keep yourself as cheerful, as blissful, as possible, because much happens when you are cheerful; you are open. Life happens only when you are cheerful because you have hope and you are expectant. You look for something to happen; you are available and you are not closed. To sad people nothing happens, and when nothing happens they become more sad. When they become more sad, it becomes even more difficult for anything to happen to them; it is a vicious circle. Break that vicious circle. Be more cheerful and then you will see many things coming on your way.

Each small act attracts new things. If you laugh, you will attract a few people who can laugh. If you weep, you will attract a few people who are in search of sympathising with someone, who enjoy sympathising. They will be the wrong people. They would like you to remain sad so they can go on sympathising. There is investment in your sadness; they enjoy the trip. If you laugh, you will attract people who are finding a way to laugh, not sympathisers; you will find friends, not missionaries. If you laugh, you will find sooner or later that the whole existence laughs with you.

The first thing: bliss, cheerfulness; and the second thing: peace, silence. To live outside, to relate, one should remain cheerful, and to go inside, to relate with oneself, one should become peaceful. Peace is to the inner journey as cheerfulness is to the outer journey. And these two things have to be remembered together so that balance is not lost. Otherwise there are people who are cheerful but shallow because they never go in; they are just extroverts. Mm? you will find them in the clubs and the moviehouses and in the hotels. They are always laughing and cheerful but their laughter has no depth, it is always phony. They are always chattering but their chattering has no significance because there is no silence; their words are empty. And there are people who are silent but closed; they don’t relate. They become monks, they move to the monasteries. Or even if they live in the world they live in a closed way, windowless.

Both are lopsided. A real life arises only when both are balanced. These are the two wheels of life’s cart.…

[A visitor says she has a problem in her relationship of two years. Although they love each other, she is unhappy living with her boyfriend because they have different lifestyles and he lives in a city she does not like.]

Mm mm. One thing to be understood: if you love him then all sacrifice is worthwhile. And it is not possible to find a person with whom there will be no sacrifice. Sacrifice has to be there, because

two persons are two persons. When they come together both have to do a few things which they would not like to do, and they will have to stop doing a few things that they have always liked to do; otherwise they will not fit with each other. To fit with each other, a few things have to be dropped and a few things have to be done. The only thing to remember is: if you love, then all sacrifice is worthwhile.

I think you should try, mm? – you have the idea, otherwise man can handle everything. It is just the idea. Once you have got into the idea that you cannot handle this... In fact, from the very beginning you have been trying to change him and he is trying to change you; that is a wrong beginning. If you love a person... but that’s happening in the West to almost every couple, because every couple wants to have his way or her way, so the conflict. No Western couple is at ease, cannot be at ease.

The way to be at ease is, when you meet a person and you fall in love you should start thinking,‘How should I change to make things move smoothly with the other?’ That has always been the way in the East. You will find thousands of couples living together beautifully, and they have nothing to be happy about. Life is not good, money is not there, facilities are not there. They are poor but they are happy, because in India the basic thing is that when a person falls in love he starts thinking, ‘What should I do so that the other need not change too much?’ And the same is thought by the other; that has been the basic philosophy of life here. Things settle sooner or later because both are trying so that the other need not change too much, so the pressure is not too much on the other. And then there is great joy because you love the person, so if the person goes to hell, you go to hell. What of New York? If you love the person you go to hell! If I am going to hell all my sannyasins would like to go with me! (laughter)

So about that you have to decide – if you love or not. Other things are not important. If you don’t love, then to suffer even for a single moment is unnecessary, because then it is destructive, it is a compromise... and for no reason! Then it is ugly, it is a kind of prostitution. If there is no love, then why? – why suffer even for a single moment? To live in such a relationship is going to destroy your soul and it will destroy him too.

If you can’t love then at least you can be compassionate: you can get out of the whole thing. He will be free, you will be free. So the basic thing revolves on one point: whether you love or not. If you love then all sacrifice is okay; if you don’t love then not even a small sacrifice is needed. Simply get out of his life and find another life. There is no need to suffer.

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