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‌CHAPTER 20

9 September 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[To a sannyasin, whose son had just been initiated into sannyas, Osho said that one should respect one’s child, and that now her son was a sannyasin, she should regard him as a brother...

A child is born to you, but he does not belong to you. Always remember that he has come through you. He has chosen you as a passage, but he has his own destiny.

So giving him sannyas does not mean that you have to structure him. You are not to force anything on him. Sannyas is freedom, so give him freedom to be himself, and be alert not to impose anything. Love him as much as you can, but don’t give your thoughts to him. When you meditate, just persuade him to be with you. Sometimes dance with him.

And children can go into meditation very easily – one just has to know how to help them towards it. They cannot be coerced; that’s impossible. Nobody can ever be coerced into meditation, because coercion is violence. How can one coerce meditation? It comes when it comes. But you can persuade.

You can just invite him with tremendous respect. Dance with him, sing with him, sit in silence with him. By and by he will start imbibing it. By and by he will start enjoying the play of it. It cannot be a work for him. It cannot be a serious thing for him – it should not be for anybody. It can only be a play. So help him to play meditation... Let it be a game. Make it a game with him, and by and by he will start loving it. He will start asking you ‘When are we going to play meditation?’ And once he starts learning some ways of silence, then meditation has started working on him, and one day you will see that he is deeper in meditation than you had ever expected. So you have to make a meditative atmosphere.

To make somebody a Christian is easy. You have just to impose a certain ideology, a catechism. You have to teach him that God is a trinity, and that Jesus is God’s son and things like that, which

can be learnt very easily, and which are very destructive, because the person will never be free to explore. These prejudices will always be there.

So when I give sannyas to a child, it is not that you have to impose an ideology on him. You have just to persuade him towards meditativeness. It has nothing to do with any ideology – christian, hindu, mohammedan; they are all irrelevant. It is more like love... it is a feeling. And if he can learn something of it, then it starts growing on its own. One day he will be grateful for it – that you helped him. Right now he cannot understand, so the whole responsibility is yours.

And this is my observation – that if grownups are a little more meditative, children imbibe the spirit very easily. They are so sensitive. They learn whatsoever is there in the atmosphere; they learn the vibe of it. They never bother about what you say. What you are – they always respect that. And they have a very deep perceptivity, a clarity, an intuitiveness. You may be smiling but they will immediately know that it is false, because your eyes will be saying something else – and even more than that, your whole body will be saying something else, your gesture will be saying something else – that you are angry, that you are just pretending, that it is just a policy.

They may not be able to formulate it in so many words, but they immediately feel it. So never be untrue with children because they will immediately know it. And once a child comes to know that his parents are untrue, his whole trust is lost. That is his first trust in life, his very base, and if that is lost he will become a sceptic. Then he cannot trust anybody. He cannot trust life, he cannot trust God, because those are very far away things. Even the father deceived, even the mother deceived; even they were not reliable, so what to say of anything else now?

Once a child learns... and every child is going to learn; it is impossible to deceive a child. There is no method discovered up to now on how to deceive a child. He simply knows where you are, who you are. It is intuitive – it has nothing to do with his intellect. In fact, the more intellectual he will become, the more he will lose this intuitiveness, and he will not be able to see things as they are. Right now a child is immediate. He simply looks through and through. He looks at you and you are transparent. So never be deceptive.

[Osho went on to reiterate what he had said to a sannyasin at a previous darshan (see Dance Your Way to God, August 29th, 1976) – that one should not pretend to be a god, but should express anger if that’s what one was feeling; even to hit if necessary, but to hit warmly.]

Love him and allow him to be a little meditative, and much is possible.

That’s why I say it is a great responsibility you have taken upon yourself. I cannot give him sannyas directly. It is through you, via you. So now you have to take care of two sannyasins – yourself and him.

Deva means divine and koorvita means skill – divine skill. And that’s how I see every human being – as having a deep skill to be divine. One may refine it or not: one may become a great artist in it, or one may leave it undeveloped and crude. It is like a rock, but a little work and it can become a beautiful statue. That skill is everybodys potentiality, but very few people develop it, and it cannot be developed on its own.

Everybody is born with it, but millions of people never use it, so the faculty goes on shrinking; it remains a seed and never sprouts. Just a little work towards it and much is the payoff, tremendous is the benefit. And there is no greater skill than that. One may be a poet, but then there are only a few seconds in the life of a poet which are beautiful, otherwise he crawls on the earth like everybody else. One can be a painter, but only a few moments are there – rare and far apart – where there are glimpses of the un-known. They come and go; they don’t last. The painter is back on the earth again – and more miserable than ever.

That is the misery of great artists, because they have something to compare. They have known a few moments when they were no more of this earth. They have known a few moments when they were part of the stars. They have known a few moments when there was depth and height and they were expansive... when everything was totally different, was a benediction. Then they are thrown back again and again. They don’t know what to do. Back on earth they are more miserable, and the darkness is far darker.

When you know a few moments of happiness, your unhappiness becomes very very penetrating; you can compare. So all great artists have a few moments of what I call the divine. They live in misery, they live in a nightmare; they are almost on the verge of becoming mad.

So all other talents are just partial talents. There is only one talent which is total and whole – and that is the talent to become divine. And if you develop it a little, it remains with you. Then whatsoever you do it is there, silently, like a shadow surrounding you, engulfing you... like a glow following you. It becomes your golden aura.

And I can see that you can develop it very easily. The effort is not going to be arduous. But daring and courage will be needed because it is like death. To be in the divine, one has to die – die to the past, die to all that you have been. Become as empty as possible, because only in emptiness is that benediction. Only when you are empty, suddenly you become full. On one side you are empty, on another side something is penetrating you and filling you. It is a death and a resurrection.

Much is possible, but one has to be an adventurer.

[A visitor says: The meditations are going very deep.]

Very good! You have been getting ready for many lives. This will be your nameForget the past

as if it were never there, and begin anew from ABC as if you are born today. It is a rebirth. You don’t have any history from now onwards. And count your life as from today. Next year you will be only one year. Move that way, and also feel like a small child. Soon you will start feeling a tremendous blessing.

Your energy is just vibrating, ready to explode. It can explode any moment, so get ready for it. When it explodes, for the first time you will know what life is. People ordinarily cannot even dream what life is. They cannot even imagine it, because they live in dead shells – windowless, dosed, monads.

When one starts living in innocenceand that’s what sannyas is – to live innocently, to live non-

cleverly, to live non-calculatingly, to live without mathematics, without logic. Sannyas means saying goodbye to Aristotleto live like a madman, and to live intensely and passionately. And the first

step is to drop out of the past.

People drop out of the society – that is not much of a help, because even if you drop out of the society, you carry your past which has been made, cultivated, conditioned by the society. You can go against the society but you are part of the society, sol don’t say drop out of the society – I say drop out of your past. That is the real dropping out of the society.

And the change of your name is just indicative that you disown your past – that now you are no more continuous with the past. Of course you cannot erase it. It is there, but more and more you will see that it belonged to somebody else, that it is as if you had dreamt about it or you had seen a movie or read a novel. But you are totally separate from it.

This new name will help – Swami Prem Shreyas.

Prem means love and shreyas means blessedness – blessedness that comes through love, the blessing that comes through love.

[Shreyas said he would be leaving for a time to undertake a course in Vipassana. Osho encouraged him to do the course – either here in the ashram or elsewhere as Shreyas had planned, saying it was a beautiful form of meditation.]

Doing Vipassana there, do it as totally as possible. Put your whole energy into it. Don’t do it lukewarm, because then it is meaningless; you are wasting time. Whatsoever you want to do, do it totally. If you don’t want to do it, or if you want to do it half-heartedly, never do it. It is better not to do a thing than to do it half-heartedly, because half-hearted, it is useless. One starts feeling that one has done it and one has not done it at all.

So do it totally. And your sannyas is going to help – half of the work is done already. Go into it headlong. Even if you feel very uncomfortable sometimesIt will be in the beginning, because our

minds have been conditioned not to relax. We have been trained to be tense. Our whole education is nothing but a training in tension. We have been cultivated to be sceptical, doubtful, suspicious – and all deep meditation needs trust. So just be trusting and go into it.

Don’t leave any stone unturned; put your whole energy into it. Don’t hold anything. The more energy you put, the more energy will be coming. Man is an infinite source of energy; you cannot exhaust it. You will be given as much energy as you need. Just give a challenge to your life and you will be given energy. It is not there already given. It comes only when you accept a challenge.

If you want to become a runner, you will have enough energy to run. You can become the greatest runner in the world, because the potentiality is there. You may never try it – that’s another thing. Whatsoever one wants to do, never think about it in terms of whether one has enough energy to do it or not; never bother about it. If you want to do it, your very passion will create energy.

Passion is creative; it creates energy. So man can do whatsoever he wants to do, is authentically passionate about. If you feel an urgency, the energy will be there and you will not be tired. You will not feel spent, bored. You will not feel ‘What am I doing here – sitting the whole day? Is it intelligent to do this or am I just a fool?’

Many times in Vipassana that idea comes to people, and thoughts rush around as they have never rushed before, and the mind becomes very muddled. All the dust of the ages is stirred. The more

you try to be silent, the more you feel you are distracted. The more effort you make to keep the mind silent, the more mad and crazier it seems to become – rushing in all directions. But don’t be worried; go on making your effort.

[Osho said, as he has said before to sannyasins doing Vipassana here, that after seven days the turmoil will pass. The second week will be beautiful, and in the third week problems will rise again because by now one will have become greedy for more]

So in the third week you have to remember not to ask, not to expect. Don’t carry the experience that has happened. Live through whatsoever happens, and then drop it. Don’t accumulate it.

Ordinarily the mind tends to accumulate. The mind is additive; it goes on adding and adding. Whatsoever comes, it goes on collecting, and then whatsoever is beautiful it wants again and again and again; it wants to repeat it. Remember that after the second week, you will want many things to be repeated. And the more you want them, the more distant they will be. The more you hanker, the more you will feel that you are in a wasteland; no sign of any oasis anywhere.

So don’t expect. Whatsoever has happened, enjoy it and then say goodbye. When it happens, good. When it is not happening, that too is good. When it happens, move with it, dance with it, delight in it. When it is not happening, don’t think about it. Don’t look back, don’t look ahead. Wait.wait without

hope, because whatsoever the mind can hope, is going to be wrong.’ And come back. I will be with you .…

[To a sannyasin who is leaving.]

Very good. This time has been beautiful. Now start working for me there. Now you are caught completely, catch others!

Jesus says to the fishermen, ‘What are you doing here? How Long are you going to catch fish? Come with me, follow me. I will make you catchers of man.’ And that’s exactly what I am trying to do. First I catch you and then I make you catchers of man. Now you have the net, so and throw it as wide as possible.

Italy needs much work. And people there are very sensitive – Italy is one of the most sensitive countries to me. So you have to work there.

This time your work will have a magic touch – just start working!

[The girlfriend of the above sannyasin, who is also leaving said she is too small to contain so much happiness.]

That’s right! I will make you big! I’m just afraid of [your boyfriend]. If you become too big, he will be crushed [laughter]. But good.very good.

In fact it is so. When happiness comes, it is so big – one cannot contain it. There is no way to contain it. It is always extravagant. It is so much it hurts. One cannot contain it – that’s why it becomes a celebration. One has to dance, otherwise one will die!

Happiness can be so much that it can kill. Love can be so much that it kills. And when it comes, it comes as a tidal wave. It is wild, and you cannot prevent it – it does not listen. You have simply to go with it. It takes you away from yourself. It uproots you from yourself. It is very shattering, but it is tremendously blissful also. It is destructive and creative. It destroys you and it creates you again.

When happiness is there, God is around you. It is like an arrow which goes into the heart and penetrates deeper and deeper and deeper. It is painful, but that pain is sweet. So allow it – don’t try to escape from it. People are afraid of being happy, because of this – that it is so much and they cannot manage it, they cannot control it; it is uncontrollable. It is immeasurable; you cannot measure it. All measurements are of the mind – and it is not of the mind. All measurements are in time and space, and it is beyond time and space. Your body is in space, your mind is in time, and happiness is beyond both. That’s why you cannot contain it and you feel, ‘What to do? It is too much.’

Dance it, sing it... go mad with it! Mm? Good,

[A sannyasin, who had done the Hypnotherapy group which was present tonight, said she was feeling confused – one moment feeling very good, another feeling that she hadn’t opened up at all during the group.]

You may be expecting too much. Nothing is going to happen – that is my promise. Be certain about it [she laughs] and then everything will be good. Hope for the best and expect the worst. Nothing is going to happen, because why should anything happen? What is wrong with things as they are? It is perfectly good. There is no need for anything to happen at all. All that has to happen has happened. It is a perfect world – every moment of it. It is so tremendously perfect that there is no way to improve it. And as I see you all, you are just unnecessarily chasing your tails.

Enjoy rather than waiting for the result. The very process is beautiful – not the goal. The way is beautiful. Who bothers about the goal? The way is so lovelyLook at the trees by the side of the

road and the birds singing and the sunrays, and the hills and the rivers. The road is so beautiful who bothers about the result and the goal, and whether it comes or not? The journey is so beautiful that one would like it to be eternally so – journeying and journeying and journeying.

Because people are not daring, they start thinking about the goal. A goal means that they want to stop. That’s exactly what the goal means – that they want to stop. They are fed up with the journey. They want to sit somewhere in darkness – that’s what their goal is.

The process is beautiful. God is not a goal. God is the way, the very journey, the very process. God is not the creator – He is the creativity, the very process of it.

So remember this, otherwise you will be frustrated again and again. That’s what is happening. One moment you feel good, beautiful, flowing. Suddenly the mind comes in, the achiever’s mind that says, ‘Much more should happen – this is nothing.’ It immediately judges, condemns it, compares and says, ‘Much more should happen. You are not putting your whole heart into it. Go deeper, go higher. Do something. Much more is possible.’ Again frustration settles in. Sometimes you forget your achiever’s mind. You relax, and then you have moments of joy. Then again the mind jumps in and crushes the beauty of that moment.

The mind is poisonous. The mind is ambition. The mind is jealousy, envy, comparison. The mind is a constant source of misery. So whenever some flower is there, it jumps on it, crushes and destroys it. It tears apart the petals and starts analysing it. It says ‘This is nothing. A bigger flower was needed.’ It is all nonsense! A flower is a flower. Big or small, enjoy it. The bigger will come out of the enjoyment of the smaller – not by analysing it, destroying it. Then even the smaller will disappear.

The next moment is going to be born out of this moment. Live this moment as beautifully as possible, and then the next moment is going to be automatically more beautiful. It will be based on this moment. From where is it going to come? It is going to come out of this moment. The tomorrow will be born out of today. Today is going to parent tomorrow, so why bother about tomorrow?

But you must have a very deeply ambitious mind, an achiever’s mind, a result-oriented mind. You cannot love the process – you are always thinking about the result. While painting, you cannot enjoy the painting. You are thinking whether art critics are going to enjoy it or not, whether you are going to sell it at a high price or not, whether it is going to become famous like Picasso’s, Van Gogh’s, or not. While writing a poem you are not enjoying the process of it, the birth of it, the beauty of it, the benediction of it. You are thinking whether you are going to get a nobel prize or not. The result makes everything ugly.

Drop this and allow more and more moments where you simply enjoy the very process of life. It is a dynamic phenomenon, always flowing – always reaching but never arriving. That is the whole beauty of it.

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