15

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‌CHAPTER 15

4 September 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine and shubha means goodness – divine goodness. Human beings are good, but their goodness is also part of their policy. They say that honesty is the best policy. Even through goodness they want to earn something. It is a bargain. To be good is beneficial, hence they are good. Their goodness is not unconditional; it is conditional. They want you to be good to them, that’s why they are good to you. When I call it divine goodness, it means unconditional.

And let this become your very style of life. Be unconditionally good – not that because some person is good to you, you have to be good. Even if some person is bad towards you, you have to be good. That’s the meaning when Jesus says to love your enemy. It is very simple to love your friend; everybody loves their friend. That love cannot take you very far. When one starts loving the enemy also, one has wings. One can fly to the uttermost, to the ultimate.

So just be good, and don’t bother whether people are good to you or not. Make it your nature that you cannot be otherwise, and by and by you will start enjoying it tremendously. A good which is conditional is very poor; it has no richness in it. When you are simply good – even to those who are not good to you, even to those who are antagonistic, even to those who are indifferent to you – then you start feeling so rich, so fulfilled, that flowers start blooming.

[A visitor says: I don’t really understand what you’re doing here with sannyas. I don’t really know what it means. It seems a little bit meaningless to me.]

It is meaningless. But not in the sense that you understand it, but in the sense that life is meaningless, in the sense that flowers are meaningless, in the sense that stars are meaningless.

What is the meaning of the flower? There is no explanation. And what is the meaning of a star? There is no explanation. What is the meaning of love? If you love a person, can you say what the

meaning of the love is? Or will you wait for the meaning to be revealed to you, then you will fall in love? Will you say that first you have to decide the meaning, then you will love?

It is just falling in love with me. It is meaningless. It is a love affair. If you can enjoy it, it is beautiful. Meaning there is none. The very desire towards meaning is meaningless, because life is not going towards any end. It is simply there without any explanation, without any reason, without any why. It’s simply there.

Do you know the meaning of your life? – but you are here and alive, and you want to be alive. If somebody says, ‘If you don’t know the meaning of life, why don’t you commit suicide?’ you would like to say, ‘I would still like to live. Meaning there is none, but I love to be alive.’ It is meaningless.

In fact the whole of life is more like a flower than like a logical proposition. It is not a syllogism. It is not a scientific hypothesis. It is just poetic overflowing.

So sannyas is meaningless. It is only for those people who are ready to move into the dimension of the meaningless, the absurd, the paradoxical. Yes, it cannot be given and yet I give it to you. And yes, you cannot take it and yet you can take it. That is a paradoxical thing. But by and by if you enter into it, you will start delighting in it. Meaning there will be none, but there will be much dance and much celebration. I can promise there will be much joy – meaning there will be none.

So if you have the courage to move in a meaningless gesture, close your eyes!

... If something happens in your body, allow it, and don’t think about meaning. Let it happen. In this moment with me, be completely meaningless. Just feel me as if I am surrounding you like a warm bath, and you are just relaxing in it.…

Good! Come here. [Osho places the mala over her head] Just feel my energy. You are ready for a meaningless journey.

Never ask about meaning. Ask for joy, ask for delight. Asking for meaning is asking a wrong question. You will miss much. There are many people who, seeing a full moon, will ask, ‘What is the meaning of it?’ Once when Picasso was painting, a friend asked him, ‘What is the meaning of it?’

Picasso said, ‘I am simply puzzled. Nobody goes to the waterfall and asks, “What is the meaning of your noise?” Nobody goes to the rosebush and asks, “What is the meaning of your flowering?” Nobody goes to the ocean and asks the wild waves roaring and crashing against the shore. Why do only I have to answer it? Can’t I just paint? Can’t I be allowed the same freedom that is allowed a rosebush, the ocean, the river?’

Have that freedom. Meaning is a confinement. It is the greatest bondage. Once you start looking for meaning, you will start missing life, because everywhere the question will arise, ‘What is the meaning of it?’

All that is beautiful is meaningless. All that is great is meaningless because it comes from the beyond. All that is true is meaningless. You can only find meaning in human productions. A car is meaningful, a flower not, because the car has been made for a certain purpose. A train

is meaningful, but a cloud is not. Only human manufactured goods are meaningful; only economics has meaning. Life has none.

So if you start looking for meaning you will be searching in a wrong way, and by and by you will lose all that is significant. I don’t say it is meaningful – significant. A thing can be significant without having meaning. Now this mala I have given to you will have a significance, but no meaning. Meaning is something which is objective. Significance is something which is subjective.

A lover gives you a small handkerchief; it has significance – no meaning. If you go into the market they will say you can only get four annas for it. But you will not want to sell it at any price. It has a significance. That significance exists only for you; it is not in the handkerchief. It is in the love gesture. It is a gift from a loving heart. To sell it – even to think of selling it – is impossible, would be a betrayal. You would like to die with the handkerchief on your heart. You could lose everything, but you would like to save this handkerchief – sometimes even at the cost of life – because love is higher than life. But it only has significance.

Meaning is economical. Significance is poetic. Things have meaning. Persons don’t have meanings. And if a world is simply of meanings, it will be a dead world. It will be the most dead world that one can imagine. We are still a little happy because significance is Still not completely gone. Even people who live continuously in a logical world, in a logical framework, they also have some moments of significance.

You hold the hand of your beloved.What is the meaning of it? Significance is tremendous, but you

cannot prove it to anybody. They will say, ‘You are just holding hands. What is the point of it? – just two skins touching each other. It is so hot and you are perspiring. What is the point of it?’ But when you love a person, you know that there is something else which is ineffable, illusive, mysterious. It is not only hands touching each other. It is souls touching each other. Hands are just the vehicles of something invisible passing through, being transferred.

Sannyas will have tremendous significance – and it will have more significance the deeper you go into it. But you are ready. This will be your name for this journey of meaningless significance: Ma Anand Samagra.

Anand means bliss and samagra means whole. In being whole is bliss, in being total is bliss. In being fragmented is misery, in being divided is hell. So become more and more one, integrated, whole – and sannyas will help you.

At least now one thing will exist in you which is beyond you. This moment something has entered in you which you cannot comprehend. You cannot figure out what it is. You are dumb before it. You will not be able to argue about it. If somebody asks you why you have taken sannyas, you will not have any way to argue. You can laugh. You can say something, but that won’t make sense logically, rationally. You will not even be able to say to yourself why you have taken sannyas.

So something now a little higher than you will exist there. Try to reach it. It will be like a horizon – the more you try to reach it, the further back it will recede. But by trying to reach it you will be, growing. This is how one surpasses oneself.

One has always to strive for something bigger than oneself, bigger than all that you can figure out, higher than your mind, greater than your knowledge... something which you feel that you know and yet you cannot reduce it to knowledge, you cannot reduce it to words, to theories, dogmas.

So I send you on this journey of meaningless. Enjoy it, and more and more significance will come out of it. It will transform you...

[A sannyasin says: I feel I can teach Hatha Yoga in a different way – a surren-dering way, a way of accepting your body and surrendering to what is. I feel that you’re against Hatha Yoga, so I don’t know whether I should drop it or not.]

No, I am not really against Hatha Yoga. If you can teach in a surrendering way, then there is nothing wrong in it. I am against any violent, aggressive methodology. So if you can develop this quality – like Aikido or T’ai Chi – that you go with the body energy rather than forcing it, rather than manipulating the bodyOne should listen to the body and one should allow the body to have its say, because

the body has its own wisdom.

Hatha Yoga has deteriorated very much down the centuries. It has become almost a mind over the body thing – manipulating, controlling, forcing. It has become a violent method. The very word ‘hath’ means resistance, stubbornness, fight. The attitude is as if the body has to be conquered, as if the body has to be made a slave. If you can drop that pattern, it will be tremendously beauti-ful to work. You can work, but you will have to imbibe a totally new spirit.

In fact, that is the real spirit of Hatha Yoga. It is a deep respect for the body, a deep love for the body. It is not really forcing anything on the body; it is persuading the body. It is a great art, but it has disappeared, because in the indian mind for centuries there has been a dualism between the body and the mind. They have been trying to overpower the body, and deep down there is a current that the body is the enemy. So this anti-body attitude has corrupted the whole indian thinking.

So if you can work on these lines of Aikido – relaxing, making the body more flexible, more liquid, and enjoying it and going with it.It is just as when a big storm comes, a big tree resists it. It does

not bend. It is ready to die, but it is not ready to bend. Then it is uprooted; it is thrown. The storm goes but the tree cannot come back – it is dead. It cannot stand again. But small bushes, grass, fall on the earth when a big storm comes, with no resistance at all. It has no idea of fight. It simply enjoys the game. The storm is gone, the grass is back – more alive, greener, fresher. The storm has taken only its dust, that’s all. It has not destroyed it.

Now the big tree is more powerful, but it is destroyed. Soft grass is just humble. You cannot find a more weak, a more meek thing, but it survives. The biggest storm cannot do anything to it. The way of the grass is the way of Aikido. Bring the same thing to Hatha Yoga and it will be a great contribution – but you will have to work hard at it.

So choose postures which are more in tune with surrender. Teach people not to force anything on the body, but to relax and let the body flow in that pattern. It should be more passive and less active, more feminine and less masculine. The indian Yoga was developed basically by man, so it is too masculine; the feminine element is missing from it. The feminine element is what I mean by Aikido, T’ai Chi. It is the passive element. Male is aggression, female is reception, welcome.

So you can start. It will be good for you; it will be good for other sannyasins to learn it. But remember, I am against all sorts of aggressive things. I am for the watercourse way. I am against the attitude of the rock. I am for the attitude of the water – and finally it wins. The soft always wins over the hard. The feminine always wins over the masculine. Blessed are the meek – they shall inherit the earth.

So start working on these lines. Think, plan... experiment. And whenever you need anything, you can just come to me and tell me.

[A visitor says: I’m just here to see you.]

But to see me is difficult! You will need different eyes to see me. These eyes won’t help. With these eyes you can see something, but not me. You will need eyes of love, of meditation, of surrender, trust, otherwise you will be deceived. You will think that you have seen.

In fact, to see me you will have to first see yourself. That is the only way. You can see only that much which has already happened in you.

For example, a small child cannot visualise sex. It has not happened to him. He can see two persons making love, but he cannot figure out what is happening. He will be simply puzzled and he will miss many things. He will be just seeing the outer periphery of the whole act. Even that he may not see, because we see only that which we can see. He may just pass by. He may think that these two people are fighting with each other or something. One day, when sex arises in his own being, then suddenly the meaning is revealed; then he knows what it was.

In the same way meditation also happens. Sex happens natur-ally. For meditation, one has to work hard. Sex is part of an evolutionary process. Meditation is a revolution. If you enter into it, you enter, otherwise you miss.

So if you really want to see me, I am ready – but you will need courage. You have asked a dangerous question! And remain avail-able to sannyas. Just think about it. Any day the madness will come to you – don’t resist it!

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