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CHAPTER 13
13 November 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Deva means divine, sandip means a lamp – a divine lamp. The light is already there – it has not to be created; it is inborn, innate. But it has to be discovered. All that is needed is a deep penetration into one’s own being. One has to make an arrow of one’s consciousness so that the arrow can go to the very target of one’s heart, and there is the light of all lights. Once that light is known you are no more part of time, then you are part of eternity. Time exists in darkness and time is death.
You will be surprised – in Indian languages the word for time is ‘kal’. It is also the word for darkness, it is also the word for death; the same word with all three possible meanings, because time is darkness. Light is beyond time. And time is death, because within time one cannot exist forever. It is only a momentary phenomenon. Within time things are only reflections, not realities.
It is just as if you have seen the stars reflected in the lake, just a little wave comes and all those stars are gone; wind comes and the surface is disturbed and all those stars are simply no more there. So is the case with time. Time only reflects reality, it cannot give you the real; it can give you only dreams and fantasies about the real. It is very dark, everybody is groping in the dark, and those gropings we call desires; those gropings we call longing, ambitions.
But the point to go beyond is within. It is already there, so it is not a big problem to reach it; it is a simple process. Just as we go out, the same process has to be used for going in, only with one difference: the direction has to be changed, just the direction. Otherwise the process is the same, outgoing, ingoing. It is the same process, just your direction will be totally different, it will be diametrically opposite.
The change of direction is all that sannyas is: it is the beginning of an inward journey. It is the search for the light within.
You have the instrument for great music within you – and that is what love is.
Man is born with a great music, but we go on remaining occupied with the outside noise. And because of that occupation, the constant chattering mind and all kinds of stimulants outside provoking us, challenging us, slowly slowly we totally forget that something immensely beautiful was inside our being – the still, small voice. It is very delicate, it is very subtle. If one remains gross one cannot hear it. One has to tune in to it to hear it. Man is a musical instrument and one has to learn to play upon it.
Life should not be taken for granted. It is an art. One has to paint it like a painting, one has to sculpt it like a sculpture, one has to play upon it as one plays on a musical instrument, one has to make a song of it. It is multi-dimensional art, and the more you are available to different dimensions of being, the richer you become.
The old idea of a religious person was not that of multi-dimensionality; it was linear, one-dimensional. The old monk living in the monastery, just going through the same ritual every day, reading the same Bible, repeating the same prayers, worshipping.… It was almost mechanical. Day in, day out he would do it, for his whole life he would do that. It was very very poor.
My idea of a religious person is multi-dimensional. He should be creative. He should live in as many ways as possible and he should move into as many creative directions as possible. He should become explosive. The old idea of a religious person was implosive. They were closing themselves within themselves. They lived a closed life, windowless. My idea is of explosion... not like a bud with closed petals, that is implosion, but like a flower, with opening petals, and petals that go on opening, that go on opening, that go on opening. There is no end to that opening, it is an infinite opening.
So create music, create poetry, create dance and as many things as you can imagine, you can dream. Materialise them, realise them. The more you create, the richer you become. And only a rich soul can know god, only a very rich soul is worthy of knowing god. Otherwise what have we got to offer to him?
Become a great musical creativity, become a melody, a rhythmic dance of life energies, a celebration.
It is only love that makes a person creative. It is only in love that one starts overflowing into existence, because it is only in love that one has something to give and share. The person who has not known love can’t be creative; he can only be destructive. It is the same energy. Joined together with love it becomes creative; disconnected from love it becomes destructive. The world can be a totally different kind of place if people are allowed and not hindered from loving. If people are given a climate of love, a milieu of love in which they can easily grow into loving beings, the world can become the very paradise. World wars won’t stop unless and until we have released love energy.
Now only love energy can be the survival for humanity’s future. Only a love explosion can be the antidote to the atomic explosion; otherwise man is already coming closer and closer every day to a universal suicide.
We have forgotten how to love and we have created so many destructive weapons that it is almost impossible to survive unless the miracle of love happens on the earth. The situation is like this: in a
CHAPTER 13.
room there are all kinds of ammunition and you have given a child a matchbox to play with there. You are just hoping that nothing wrong will happen but there is every possibility, because the matchbox is there, the child is there, the child’s curiosity is there. He will open the matchbox; he cannot resist. He will try to do something with the matchbox, he cannot resist. And the explosive ammunition is all around the room. It is almost impossible to avoid the accident. This is the situation: man is almost retarded as far as the heart is concerned, and he has great powers released by science. Unless in the same proportion we can release man’s love – his poetry, his capacity to enjoy, live, celebrate – it is impossible to survive.
But this is one of the fundamentals, that whenever you find a destructive person, don’t be angry with him; feel pity for him. Even people like Adolf Hitler need to be pitied; they need compassion. Their energies have turned sour and bitter and poisonous because somehow they missed what love is. And the society is such that it creates hate and prevents love. It creates competitiveness and preVents camaraderie. It teaches you how to fight, it never teaches you how to befriend.
My whole effort here with you people is to do just the opposite: to release your love sources, to ignite your love flame. And once that is there then it takes care; then your life will become creative on its own accord.
[A sannyasin who is leaving for the west asks if she should stay at home and look after her husband and children, or work – she used to be a group leader.]
So it is not a financial question at all?... It is just for your growth?...
I think there is no need to work, but you can help the centre there. Devote your time to the centre, whatsoever time you can give. And if they need it sometimes, you can lead groups there.
But don’t make it a whole time thing... so the family is not neglected.The family should not be
neglected.because once children are neglected they will become accustomed to it, but they will
become hard and for the whole of their lives they will suffer from the lack. If they have not been cared for they will not be able to care for others.
This is a great problem that is facing the modern society, particularly in the West. If the father goes to work and the mother also goes to work then the children are almost orphans. And the presence of the mother in the home cannot be substituted by anybody else. It is not only a question of physical caring; it is a question of spiritual nourishment.
So you cannot give the work to somebody else who is paid for it. Then it is totally different, its quality is different; there is no love involved in it. So, on the surface everything will be taken care of but deep down something will be missed. And the children may not ever become aware that they have missed something. but the whole of their lives will show it. That’s what is happening on the psychiatrists’ couches and in the mental hospitals. Out of four persons, three persons are mentally disturbed and the fourth is also suspicious.
And love is the greatest therapy. So you will be running therapy groups for the children of some other mothers who have not loved them. And then some day your children will need therapy groups
from somebody else! No need to work – take care of them. But you can devoteFor your own
growth it will be good, you can devote some time to the centre.
[A sannyasin had previously written to Osho to ask whether he should stay or return to his wife and child in Thailand and start a centre.]
You start a centre there – that will be good for your growth, too. Rather than encountering your own problems, it will be better for you to help others to encounter their problems. And side by side, your problems will be solved. Because problems are the same. There are not many problems in the world. I have listened to thousands of people and their problems can be counted only on the fingers of one hand; there are not many problems. They say there are only three jokes in the world and all other jokes are just a little bit changed here and there; so is the case with problems.
But it will be good for you. Start the centre, start helping people. Helping them you will become aware of the ridiculousness of your problems, of the sheer meaninglessness of your doubts. Doubts can be meaningful if you have anything to lose, but you have nothing to lose – that’s why they are ridiculous. It is like a naked man who will not take a bath because, if his clothes become wet, where is he going to dry them? He is naked, he has no clothes in the first place, but he is very much afraid.
Man has nothing to lose at all, so why be unnecessarily distrustful? If you have something to lose, it’s okay; somebody may cheat you. The irony is that those who have something are very trustful, because when they have it they know it cannot be taken away. Those who don’t have are very distrustful because they are afraid it may be taken away. In fact, they don’t have. They may be exposed, and then the inner misery and the emptiness... and it frightens. Those who have, can trust, because they know you cannot take it away from them. It is their intrinsic core, it cannot be separated from them. Their richness is in their very being, it is not something that they have; it is what they are. Nobody can cheat them, nobody can take it away.
This is a very ridiculous situation, but everybody is more or less in it. We are unnecessarily worried. Death will come and everything will be gone, so what does it matter? If somebody cheats and steals something from you, what does it matter? It is not yours. You came empty-handed and empty-handed you will go. So meanwhile, if somebody unburdens you, feel thankful that you will be travelling light!
But my feeling is also this, that you learn a few groups, a few techniques and start a centre.
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