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‌CHAPTER 4

4 December 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Prem means love, and avibha means burning from all sides, kindled from all sides.

People are very miserly in loving and living, and that’s why they are miserable. A miser is bound to remain miserable. Life is only for the quick and the spendthrift. Life is only for the extravagant... for those who can overflow, for those who are caring yet careless. Life belongs to the runners, not the slow and lukewarm. The slow and lukewarm only live for the name’s sake. They don’t have the intensity, and without intensity there is no depth.

Love is a fire and one should burn in love so totally that there is no smoke left. When you burn miserly there is much smoke and no flame. When the flame is bigger, smoke is less, when the flame is total there is no smoke. And that life is beautiful which has no smoke, which is just pure flame.

That’s what enlightenment is: to be enkindled from all sides, a torch burning from both the ends. That is the meaning of avibha.Vibha means light, avibha means from all sides, from everywhere,

from every nook and corner of your being. It is not that a candle is burning you but that you are the candle.…

Just remember one thing, that the energy is more right than your mind, so wherever the energy leads, simply follow it.

The mind is very destructive; the mind is against energy. It always wants to control your energy. It is obsessed with control; it is the ancient-most manager. Because of its control it does not allow many things which are natural, which are needed. And if a person is to grow rightly all kinds of energy phenomena are needed, there should be no distinction; but the mind is a great condemner.

If your body starts shaking, the mind will say, ‘What are you doing? Are you going mad? Stop it! This is not like you.’ The mind will say, ’You have never done such a thing, and what will people think of

you? Are you a fool?’ These ideas are enough: immediately the freshly arisen energy disappears. It is very shy: if it is condemned it goes into the unconscious, it hides there. Energy is a woman; the mind is a man. And energy is far wiser than the mind because the mind is a very late-comer; energy has always been here.

My whole approach is to drop all inhibitions, all taboos, to drop all repressions and become again Adam and Eve. And the garden has not disappeared it is all around here. We are living in the garden the Bible talks about, the Garden of Eden. Man has never left it. It is only that Adam has fallen asleep and is dreaming, that’s all. He has eaten the fruit of knowledge and has fallen asleep. Knowledgeable people always fall asleep; they lose wisdom.

The garden is there, it has always been there. It cannot go anywhere else and man cannot go anywhere else because the whole existence is the Garden of Eden. But if you close your eyes and you start dreaming, thinking, then the mind creates a false, illusory world which in India we call maya. The mind creates a magical world of its own, a dream world, and then the real world is lost and the dream world becomes the only reality. Hence Jesus and Buddha and Lao Tzu all go on harping a single note again and again, ‘Awake!’

So here, for these two months, listen to the energy and try to vomit the apple that Adam ate, throw it out of your system. That’s what is creating the trouble – that is the mind. The tree of knowledge is nothing but where the apples of the mind arise. Once the apple is thrown out, once the mind is no more the master of your being, things start flowing again. Again there is joy and again there is dance; again there is love and life and eternity. This is what

Jesus means when he says,‘I would like to give you life abundant.’ We have the right to it. This small thing has to be done – that the mind has not to be listened to. It will persist, because nobody loses their control easily. And it is very very cunning, political; it creates strategies. Your energy is ready. If you don’t listen to the mind for these two months, you will be a totally different being.

[To a new sannyasin Osho says:]

And much is possible. So be expectant... not expecting but expectant, and those two things are very very different.

When you are expecting it is a mind thing. When you are expectant it is a total thing, as when a woman is expectant. The all is involved: your mind, your heart, your body. You are involved on all the levels, you are involved in your totality. So be expectant.

And the more one is expectant, the more is possible, because you get only that for which you wait. Nothing happens accidentally, nothing at all. All things are possible, millions of things are possible, but only one thing will happen to you for which you were ready, waiting, praying.

Only that for which you were looking intensely will you be able to see; otherwise things will come and go, but you will not become aware of them. When you are looking for something you become focused on it and in your focusing it happens; it cannot happen otherwise.

This is one of the problems for this twentieth century and the people who happen to be here in this century. They are not waiting for anything, hence nothing happens, nothing ever happens. Not that

things are not happening but they are not waiting, and without waiting you are not able to receive, because without waiting you never open your doors for things to enter. Without waiting, the guest will not come because you have not even invited him.

So when God does not happen people think God is not there; that is not so. God has been happening down the ages; suddenly he has disappeared in this century. And Nietzsche is very prophetic about this century when he says that God is dead. God is not dead; this century is dead to God. This century has become very very stubborn, closed, unexpectant, non-searching, non-exploring. And when you don’t invite, nothing is going to happen.

So be receptive, be available, open and something of immense value is going to happen. That’s what I’m here for – to help you to receive that which is knocking on your door.

Jesus says ‘Seek and you will find’ because if you don’t seek, how can you find? ‘Ask and it shall be given.’ If you don’t ask, how can it be given? – you have not asked in the first place. ‘Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you.’ If you don’t knock there is no possibility of the doors being opened unto you. In fact the doors are not closed; they are simply waiting for your knock. Just your very knock may open them. Maybe doors are not closed at all but when you knock at them you see that they are open. Maybe you are not missing the thing that you are seeking but unless you seek it you may not see it. It may be just in front of you.

This happens every day. Now, from all over the world people are coming to me, and you can find neighbours living just by the side, and they have not come. I don’t exist for them, and I am just by their side, at the corner. If they are not seeking, then there is no possibility. A seeker may come from far-away Korea or from Israel or from California, and the man who lives next to me may never come!

Be expectant, seeking, groping, and something is just there by the corner. And remember, you have come home!

[A sannyasin says: For the first time in my life I feel I can surrender now to a woman... ]

Mm mm, it is always good. Surrender is always against so many odds. But in spite of all, it is possible... and surrender is surrender: whether you surrender to a woman or to a master or to God makes no difference. Surrender is the thing: surrender is surrender. And woman is the best place to learn how to surrender.

[A sannyasin says she feels in darkness, feels lost... ]

Leave it me; don’t be worried. Just relax into the darkness, mm? Just relax into the darkness, whatsoever it is, just be relaxed. I will see that it becomes light. If we can accept darkness, it becomes light. Acceptance is a miracle. If we can accept hell, hell becomes heaven. If we can accept suffering, suffering turns into a blessing; that’s the magic.

Simply accept and relax, don’t condemn it. Don’t think that something wrong is there. Darkness is beautiful, so soothing, so velvety, so serene, so infinite.

Light comes and goes, light is momentary; darkness is eternal. Relax into it and soon you will find the more you relax, the more it is dark, and then darkness starts turning into a new dawn. Because light and darkness are not two things: they are one energy. Relax and start working in the ashram. Good.

[A sannyasin couple are present. The woman says: I’m in love.]

That’s very good! To be in love is always good. with whom you are, that is irrelevant!...

[To the man] Good! Mm? she is really in love – don’t get scared! That always happens: when one person is really in love, the other can become scared. Because love is a dangerous phenomenon; it is like death. A woman in love is death! She wants to absorb you totally and that creates fear. It should not but it does. So this is a problem: great loves are always tragedies, small loves are comedies. And she is really in love for the first time. She is right: this is her first love. So you have to be alert and don’t get scared because. hen a woman really loves you she surrounds you from everywhere. She does not allow you any escape; she leaves no door or windows open.

When a woman really loves you, that simply means that she would like to be one with you and would like you to become one with her. And only women know how to love. Man is always amateurish and because he is amateurish in love he has become expert in many other things. That is just to complement, because he has been always feeling that in love the woman always defeats him. He has to prove himself somewhere else – in science, in technology, in this and that, expertise.

... And she looks like a sixteen-year-old child in love. If you don’t become afraid it will give you great blessings. If you start becoming afraid you will shrink. So go whole-heartedly into it; let it be a total affair. You will be enriched. And by total I am not meaning that you have to love her always or she has to love you always. That idea of always only comes out of a non-total mind. The total mind lives in this moment. This moment is all, so don’t think of tomorrows. If you think of tomorrows you will miss today, and tomorrows never come. Think as if this is the only time that you have. Love her totally and be loved by her totally.

And remember that too: loving is easy to a man, accepting love is very difficult, because a man is such an egoist that giving love goes perfectly okay with the ego: ‘I am the giver.’ But when it comes to receiving the love and to being surrounded by the woman, clouded by the woman, utterly effaced by the woman, and she goes on pouring, man starts feeling a little shaky as far as the ego is concerned. To give love is easier for a man; to receive is the most difficult thing.

So if you are alert about these things much is possible. This love will give you something which is divine... a glimpse of it. And that glimpse becomes the proof that God is. So if somebody comes to me and asks, ‘What is the proof of God?’ I say, ‘Love, and you will find the proof.’ Logic is not the proof; only love is the proof. But you are already looking afraid!

[To the woman] make him as afraid as you can, mm?

Don’t shrink seeing his fear. He will be afraid; every man is. Whenever a woman is really in love the man becomes afraid – it is too much. But because of that don’t shrink, otherwise you will not feel the totality of it. Pour your love as much as you can. And always remain in love. I repeat again – it doesn’t matter with whom but always remain in love! Good!

[A sannyasin says she is unhappy with her work in the ashram: I’ve been typing for a year and a half now and my heart isn’t in it and it never was, and I’ve been doing it because it needs to be done. I just feel I’d rather be doing some sort of work that I’d enjoy more.]

If everybody is going to enjoy, then who is going to do the work?... only I? It is perfectly good, enjoy, but then you don’t share any work with me. Everybody wants to just go into the garden; nobody wants to work anywhere. Then why should I? I can also go into the garden!

This idea arises because the commitment, the involvement is not there. You are working just for your own sake, not for my sake; otherwise there would be no trouble and no problem. Once that starts happening to you, that you are working for me, that it is not work; this is your way to help my work, this is your love towards me – then there is no problem. Otherwise do you think Laxmi would like to be in the office, Maneesha would like to do her work? Everybody will be in the garden except me! (chuckling) Then how am I going to do everything? I have been inviting thousands of people here and much work is going to happen and everybody wants to escape from the work.

Just change your attitude and see... For two months work for me, forget yourself. If that doesn’t work then I will change you from there. Then you can do whatsoever you feel like doing, mm? Good.

[A visitor says: The official reason that I’m here is because I came to visit my sister. But she said that you called me in some way, so I’m here.]

Mm mm... good! I have called you! And official reasons don’t matter; the real thing always happens unofficially. It happens indirectly, it happens in a subtle way. On the surface something goes on; deep in the heart something else starts happening.

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