19

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‌CHAPTER 19

8 September 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine, nirvesha means enjoyment, joy, bliss, happiness, divine joy.

And to me, all joy is divine. Joy as such is divine. If one can be joyful, one is in prayer. Then there is no need to do any other prayer. Then you are constantly offering yourself to God. We cannot offer anything else.

In misery we are cut off from God closed, separated, isolated. In joy we are overflowing, relinked, reconnected. In joy we are offering our being. So joy is divine. Not to be joyful is to be irreligious. So if you can do one thing, everything will follow. Just be ecstatically joyful, and for it, no condition is needed. You need not be rich to be joyful.

For instance, there are people who are very rich and absolutely joyless. And there are beggars who are full of joy. You need not be very famous to be joyful. In fact, you need nothing to be joyful. It is just a different attitude. No physical condition is needed for it. No social status is needed for it. Nobody else is needed for it. It is just your attitude, your decision, your commitment, that now you decide to be joyful. If you decide, you will be – because you become, finally, your decision.

So I give you the name to make it a constant remembrance. And start being joyful for no reason at aU. Even when you have no reason, just be joyful. Joyfulness should be like breathing. You go on breathing while walking, sitting, eating, sleeping; it does not depend on anything else. If you are alive you go on breathing. With joy, there is only one difference: even if you are dead, you can be joyful, though you cannot breathe. So they are absolutely similar, except for one thing. Breathing continues while you are alive. Ill, healthy, successful, a failure, frustrated, young, old, respected, condemned, breathing continues. Sinner or saint, breathing continues.

Joy is just like breathing. It goes a little deeper than breathing, because it continues even when you are dead. If you can learn how to remain joyful, you are learning something which is deathless. Or

let me say it this way – breathing is a must for the body, joy is a must for the soul. Breathing is the elan vital for the body, joy is the elan vital for your soul. When breathing stops, you say ‘This man is a corpse now.’ When joy stops this man has no soul. And that’s why you see so many corpses – joyless people, dry... not even an oasis but just deserts and deserts.

Our cities are full of dead people. The whole earth is full of dead people. Be a light among these dead. Be joyful among these people who are joyless – and don’t feel guilty. That is the problem: because so many people are joyless, one starts feeling guilty that one is so joyful... that one is having something that others are

missing.

This is something to be understood. Whenever people start feeling happy, they immediately start feeling guilt arising by the side, because how can they feel joyful when the whole world is so miserable? I’m not saying don’t consider others. I am saying that you have to be joyful even when the whole world is in misery. By being joyful you can help other people to come out of their misery. By being joyful you can become an example. The world needs a few joyful people, a few dancing energies, so that others can feel that there is a possibility. Death is not the only way to live. One can live tremendously alive also.

Hence I am creating these sannyasins. Hence I am giving you sannyas. This is just to make you a joyful example. So wherever you go, let this message be spread – that man need not be misera-ble, that joy is our birthright. If we don’t claim it, nobody else is responsible except ourselves. It has to be claimed. By creating sannyasins I am hoping to create a few dancing people. Through their dance, their festivity, their joy and their feasting, they will celebrate God on earth.

Enough of the church and enough of seriousness, of long faces. They have killed God. Theologians, missionaries, priests – these people with long faces – are the real criminals. They have all killed joy. They have made everybody guilty. They have postponed joy for the future life.They say ‘Joy is not possible here. You have to earn it. Be virtuous and joy will come about as a result.’

It is all nonsense, rot. Joy is a simple quality of life. You need not be virtuous. On the contrary, joy will make you virtuous, because I cannot see a person who is really happy doing anything wrong. Only miserable people do wrong things. Miserable people become destructive. They are angry people. They are in much frustration. They cannot respect life. What has life done to them? Why should they respect it? They live in such misery that they take revenge.

To be miserable is to sow the seeds of sin. To be joyful is to become virtuous. Joy is the only virtue.

So I teach joy. Be happy, and you will see many virtues arising that were not there before. You become more truthful, you become more honest. You become more loving. You become more intense in every thing you do. A passion arises. And whatsoever you touch with your joy becomes gold. You become alchemical. Not only does your life change from baser metals to higher ones, but whomsoever comes in contact with you immediately feels a thrill. So be thrilled and thrill others.

Becoming a sannyasin is a commitment for joy. Becoming a sannyasin is a discipline to be joyful. So, misery I call sin, and joy I call virtue. So I insist for joy. I don’t insist for virtue because virtue is an outcome, a natural by-product.

[To a new sannyasin.]

Much is going to happen – you are ready for many things. Just relax and surrender, because there are things which cannot be done by willpower. There are things which cannot be willed at all. The more you will them, the further away they are.

And these are the real things in life – love, beauty, truth, bliss, God. You have to give way... you have to just relax and allow. You have to become passive and receptive. They happen only in a feminine state of mind.

Whenever you are doing something, there is bound to be a tension, and that tension does not allow you to melt. When you are doing something, there is bound to be expectation, and that expectation does not allow you to relax. When you are doing something there is bound to be some conflict, a struggle with the whole, as if you have some private idea of your own. So here, just allow things to happen. Meditate – and that too has to be done in such a way that you don’t will it. Simply be there and let it happen.

Learn by and by how to allow things to happen. Don’t be aggressive – be receptive. Don’t try to grab anything – just wait for your time to come. And existence is very just; there is no injustice. You get whatsoever you deserve; it never happens otherwise. So one can make much fuss but nothing will happen. One can simply sit and wait – and everything is possible. For the right moment, for the right ripening, one has to wait. And one never knowsIt is unpredictable. God is absolutely

unpredictable. There is no way to know His ways. His ways are mysterious.

So one can simply trust. Just meditate, be here patiently, and more than listening, be, feel.

And your energy is really flowing. You are not frozen in any way – your energy is streaming. Things will come to you very easily. Your path is easy; it is not going to be hard. When people are very frozen, the path is very hard, because they are like rocks and the melting is very difficult. To melt a rock, a very high temperature is needed. But you are like a river – there is no problem. So just flow with me. Good.

[The Encounter group, present tonight.

A group member said: I had a lot of good experiences, especially with sex. But now I’m stuck.

Yesterday I felt a lot of negative energy, and a lot of hate and destructiveness. I feel that I want to destroy and I don’t allow myself to do it.]

Destructiveness is itself not bad. It can be used in a very creative way. In fact nobody can drop destructiveness. The only difference between a creative person and a destructive person is of emphasis.

The destructive person is only interested in destruction. Sometimes even if he creates something, he creates it to destroy it. If he makes a friendship, deep down he only makes it to destroy it. His pleasure is in destruction. Destruction is his goal. If he falls in love, he knows deep down that it is just to destroy something. How can you destroy love if it is not there? First you have to create it to destroy it.

The creative person has as much destructiveness as the destructive person, but the emphasis is around the other way. He destroys things to create. You have to demolish the old if you want to create the new. You have to destroy many things if you are really creative because there is no creativity without destruction. So a creative person is not without destructiveness. He uses destructiveness as a means towards creation, that is the only difference. Both have both the qualities.

So don’t think that destructiveness is something wrong. You have to learn how to use it. It is a beautiful thing. The greater the creativity, the greater will be the destructiveness, because how can you create the new if you don’t destroy the old? But you have to find ways how to use it in creative ways.

It is a great force. Channelized, it can become beautiful. Allow it to remain in chaos and it can become suicidal, because the ultimate result is to destroy oneself. How long can you go on destroying other things? One day the final result will come – you will destroy yourself. In fact you are getting ready for it. You destroy this and that – this relationship, that friendship, that person, this love – and one day you are simply fed up with all this. Now you want to destroy the final thing – yourself. That’s why people become suicidal.

So I am not against destructiveness, but I am certainly for creativity. You have to harness all your destructiveness into some creative activity. You have many things which are needed to be destroyed. There is jealousy – destroy it. There is hatred – destroy it. There is aggression – destroy it. There is anger – destroy it. There is possessiveness – destroy it. These are all there. And you will become a Buddha if you destroy all these things.

You have enough to destroy. If the fire is there, use it; burn all these things. And out of each destruction, you will find a new release of energy... a tremendous upsurge of energy. If you can destroy jealousy, kill it, and you will see such beautiful energies arising in you. Love becomes so easy if you can destroy jealousy; otherwise jealousy destroys love. If you destroy hate, suddenly you have so much love that you become unconditional. You don’t bother about whether the person is worthy of love or not. Who bothers when you have too much to give? You simply give and you feel grateful that he accepted.

As I see, you have much responsibility to be creative. Maybe that is the reason that you are feeling so destructive. Use it before it drives you mad. And don’t be against it. Remember it is just energy.

The same fire which can bum the house, goes on cooking for you. The fire that becomes light and warmth, can kill you; it is the same fire. You have energy – you just need direction. And your sannyas is going to be creative, so don’t be worried.

[The group leader comments: She has been more contented when negative things are happening in the group. Sometimes she allows her energy to flow, but generally if things are positive she gets very uncomfortable.]

Mm, it is because she does not know how to live in a positive energy field. So help her to release the negativity. When she is enjoying the negativity, help her to release it. Take her to the very end of it, because that is the only way to change. One should go to the very end of it, then the pendulum swings back.

[to the participant] You cannot return from half way. If you do, there will be a hangover; you will feel very uncomfortable. You may have been feeling angry, and somehow you manage not to go into it. You may not express anger, but it will spread all over your being. It will circulate in your blood. It will move in your breathing. It will poison you and it will poison everything that you touch. It is better to go into it wholeheartedly, to finish it. Then it is finished sooner and you come out of it purer than before.

[to the leader] So just lead her deep into negativity. These two days, help her to go as far as she can; don’t try to bring her back. Push her to the very end, to the very extreme, to the very precipice, so she herself sees where she is going and what the outcome can be if she goes on moving. Then her own mind will recoil. When you see that she herself is moving back, then give her a positive experience. She will enjoy it.

In fact, she has been carrying negativity for many days and she wants to release it, so whenever there is a negative situation, she feels good. It fits her, and then she can also be negative. It happens .… If you are carrying some violence and you cannot do anything with it, just seeing a murder on the TV, something is released in you. That’s why people see so many murder films, read so many detective novels. It is their violence. They wanted to do such things but they have prevented themselves; they were too dangerous, too risky. So they identify with a movie or the TV or a story. Or moving in the road and two people are fighting, a crowd gathers. The crowd is not interested in any way in the people – the crowd is interested in violence. You may have seen that if somehow the fight subsides, then the crowd moves away very frustrated. They wanted to see something happen, and nothing did.

When you look at the newspaper in the morning, you are very eager to see whether something has happened or not, whether people have been killed or war has broken out. If nothing has happened, you feel a little frustrated – there is no news. Otherwise people feel thrilled.

So when there is negativity in the group, The participant must be feeling thrilled; she will feel very enhanced. She wanted to do these things and she has not been able. But don’t let her be a spectator; that is not going to help. She has been doing that for her whole life. Force her to be a participant.

[to the group member] And you remember it too. Participate. If you enjoy anger, participate in it. What is wrong in it? That is the whole point of the group – to bring out whatsoever is there. If you want to beat, then beat the pillow.

... Do something destructive. It can be done; there is no problem. Ways and means can be found. You can have a knife and kill the pillow – really kill it. Get into the passion of killing – it will help. That’s the whole process of Encounter – that whatsoever is there has to be brought out. Once something comes to the conscious mind, its poison will not affect you any more. Unconscious, it is dangerous. Conscious, the danger is over.

Otherwise you are like a puppet being pulled by the strings of the unconscious. Bring these things to light. Then even the puppet starts laughing and seeing that it is ridiculous: ‘I have been under the influence, under the slavery of my own repressed emotions.’ Then enough is enough. So bring it totally to the conscious. It is going to go. You have come to me – you cannot remain destructive for long.

[A group member says: I feel like I have a huge collection of masks.

The group leader comments: When nobody’s looking at him, he melts a little, but as soon as he gets any attention, he fights. Whatsoever is said to him he sees as a judgement against him.

Osho checks the group member’s energy.]

There is not a very big problem. You don’t have many masks.

[to the leader] He has only one mask – that’s why he’s so protective. He has a very thin mask, so the moment you give attention to him, he holds on to it because he only has one. It is a poor man’s mask. If one has many masks, one does not bother – if one falls, another is there. Even if that goes, another is there. There are layers upon layers, so who bothers? But he has a very thin mask. If it is gone, it is gone, so he clings with it tremendously. But there is nothing to be worried about.

For these two days, put him in the centre and give him as much attention as possible. He has not got much attention in his childhood. He has not been loved. He has not felt warmth in the world. He has felt neglected, rejected. He has felt as if he is a burden. He has felt as if he has to make his own life and nobody is going to help him. He feels helpless, so he’s continuously afraid. If his face is gone, he will be nowhere. He will be just empty.

So just be more loving towards him and he will become so easily nude, he will drop it so easily that he will be surprised. But pay him attention and be more loving towards him. He needs attention, he needs warmth. And he will explode. Within these two days you will see a transformation happening in him.

[to the participant] You don’t have much to lose – that’s why you are so afraid. So don’t be worried. Just do these two days, mm?

[A sannyasin says: It’s just hard to crack open, to let go... to let anything out.

The leader comments: There seems to be a lot of softness inside. My guess is that he is really afraid of that softness.]

[The leader] may be right. The problem does not seem to be that you are hard inside – but you are clever; that’s why you are not cracking. You are not hard; [the leader] is right. You are soft inside, but you are very clever, so your cleverness is functioning as a hardness. It does not allow anything to enter. You rationalise. You are more of a thinker. The heart is very soft but nothing reaches it.

The soil is very soft but the seed has to reach it, otherwise it will not sprout. The cleverness simply does not allow it. It is working like a guard on the gate; it does not allow it to enter. You are very calculating, clever, intelligent – that is your problem. Hardness of the heart is not the problem.

So just do one thing – start doing a few foolish things. [to the leader] Give him a few foolish things to do... ridiculous things.

[The group member said: He’s already done that.]

But you must have been rationalising it. You need really foolish things; that will relax you. Your head needs to be forced into such foolishness that it stops cleverness. When it sees that there is no point in being clever, that this whole thing is just mad, then it will allow it.

But it will happen. The basic foolishness has already happened – that you have become a sannyasin [laughter]. Now it is just a question of time. Once the mind is not on guard, the thing will happen. It is only a question of it happening once.

Once you have a glimpse of your soft heart, you will never listen to the mind because then it is just unnecessarily wasting a precious life. All that is beautiful happens through the heart. The mind is a servant pretending to be the master. The heart is the master, but such a humble master that it never claims it... such a good master that even if he feels that the servant is sitting on the throne, he says ‘Okay – let him enjoy. There is nothing wrong in it.’ So the servant has become more and more confident. By and by it has usurped that throne. It does not bother about the real master. In fact, it had completely forgotten the real master. It thinks it is the master.

Once you can have a glimpse, the whole thing will change. Then the passage will be open. But I am here – don’t be worried. Whenever there is a moment of foolishness in these two days, try to get into it. In these two days, just get out of the categories of the mind. Do a few foolish things – anything that comes on the spur of the moment; anything, I am saying. If you suddenly feel like standing naked and dancing, do it and see what happens – just on the spur of the moment. Let people think that you have gone a little crazy.

If you can enjoy a little craziness, everything will be put right. A little craziness is medicinal for you. That’s my prescription for the time being. Then we will see! [laughter]

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