Chapter title: Be a Pure Hedonist

‌Chapter title: Be a Pure Hedonist‌

18 November 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 7611185 ShortTitle: WHIP10 Audio:

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[To a sannyasin, newly arrived:]

Do a few groups here, mm? Join the music group and become part of the family here. Music melts people very easily. Otherwise something remains frozen and one is not even aware of it. So the first necessity of all growth is to be relaxed. Nobody can grow with a tense mind, and sometimes it happens very paradoxically that even the growth itself becomes a tension -- one has to grow. Then the very idea of growth becomes the barrier. So start with music.

And the dance is unstructured, it is just natural -- whatsoever comes to you, the way it comes to you -- it is not a performance. You are not dancing for anybody else, you are simply dancing for yourself or for God

-- which means the same. When I say 'or for God', I really mean it. And when I say 'it means the same', that too I really mean, because when you dance naturally it is God dancing -- you disappear. When you perform you come in, the ego enters in. God is no more there.

Whenever you are not, God is. Your absence is His presence.

And this is the basic arithmetic for any possible growth -- that you have to disappear. So for the first ten days you dance and sing, and after that you have to do two groups. First Tathata. Tathata means 'suchness'...

whatsoever is. The 'should' creates all the problems. Once you have an idea how things should be you are going to be in trouble. Then you go on proposing and God will go on disposing -- because your idea is your idea. It doesn't fit -- it doesn't fit with the whole. The whole is vast and you are very tiny. The tiny wants the whole to take a shape according to his ideas -- as if a leaf on the tree wants to have a certain destiny which is not possible, or a drop in the ocean wants to have a certain destiny which is not possible. The drop has to be just a part of the ocean so that whatsoever is the ocean's destiny is the drop's destiny; there is no 1/08/07

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'should' on the part of the drop. When there is no 'should' there is no boundary. When there is no 'should'

you can simply relax and melt.

So this will be your first group, Tathata. This word is very significant -- that's why I have chosen it. It is the essential word of Buddha. He says to live in the suchness of things. And by suchness he means that whatsoever happens, happens such is the case. Your wife leaves you, so Buddha says 'Such is the case -- she has left.' So accept it and live it. If she comes back, good -- such is the case. If she never comes, that too is good -- what can be done?

So to live in suchness is one of the most significant experiences. And if you can learn it, it is not only to be used in the group, it has to become your very life.

I am using these groups just to give you a glimpse of how things change. If you just change your attitude you see how things suddenly change, how things have always been beautiful but because of your attitude you were unable to see their beauty, you were missing them. Once you relax in the idea of suchness there is no anxiety, there is nothing to be done, you have no task to fulfill. Nothing is left except delight, except celebration.

And celebration, once it starts, never ends. It goes on accelerating. In fact the word acceleration comes from the same root as celebration; both have the same

root. Once you start celebrating, it accelerates, it goes on and on, deeper and deeper, and higher and higher -- there is no end to it.

So the first group, Tathata, Ist to 3rd December, and the second group is Tao, 6th to 10th. That is a further step of Tathata. Tao means the eternal law -- what in India we call the dhamma, or what the christian theologians call logos, the eternal law, the law of all things: the law according to which trees grow and flower, and the law according to which water flows and moves to the ocean, and the clouds float, and the sun rises, and the birds sing, and the man falls in love with a woman, and a child is born... the law of a thousand and one things; the law of the total. Once you start feeling the taste of suchness, you are very close to tao. Once you accept life as it is, suddenly you fall in line with tao, with the eternal law.

And this is what I mean by a religious person: a person who lives according to nature, not according to any philosophy; who simply trusts nature and its ways. They are mysterious, unpredictable, one never knows what is going to happen.

..but that is the beauty of it -- that one is constantly thrilled, surprised. Each moment brings a new, amazing experience, a new wonder. So first Tathata, then Tao, these two. Then there will be a camp, and I will tell you what else to do then, mm? Would you like to say something to me?

[A visitor says: I've come to see if I can get out of myself -- that's the easiest way I can say it. I'll be here three months or so and I hope that will happen.]

Mm mm. Hope is always dangerous. You want to get out of yourself, but who is hoping this? Now this is the dilemma. The hope comes from the same source that you want to get out of. So if your hope is fulfilled you will never get out of it, and if you get out of it you will feel frustrated because your hope will not be fulfilled -- these are the dilemmas that we create. And a dilemma is such a problem that whatsoever happens you will be frustrated, this way or that. So it is foreordained.

The first thing I would like to suggest to you is to abandon hope, drop hope, because the hope comes from you -- it comes from the old mind. It is a projection of the old mind into the future. You want to drop the old mind and the very idea is of the old mind. So you will fall into an absurdity, and then there will be no way out. You will be chasing your own tail like a dog. The dog sometimes sits in winter and enjoys the sun, and then goes on chasing its own

tail... jumps and then feels very frustrated, because the tail also jumps. It is his tail.

So the first thing is: be here without any hope. Just be here, for the first time in your life, without any projection about the future. Let us see what happens. Why should we project? Why should we, from the very beginning, start managing the future? Let it be open and then there is a possibility, otherwise there is no possibility.

The second thing: why do you want to get out of yourself?

[The visitor answers: I don't feel... good. I'm too much in the mind, too many thoughts, projections, I find it very hard to be calm, quiet, relaxed. Sometimes that's all right, but it's too much.]

That too has to be understood, because through this idea of getting out of yourself, you are creating a dichotomy, you are dividing yourself in two, you are becoming split.

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It is as if you want to get rid of the right hand. The left hand wants to get rid of the right hand, the right hand wants to get rid of the left hand, and nobody is thinking of the total body. The head is as much yours as your heart. And to be in the head is needed as much as it is needed to be in the heart. To be calm is good but if you are incapable of becoming disturbed, your calmness will be dead. So these are the actual facts to be understood: to be silent is good but sometimes to be disturbed is also good, otherwise the silence will be dead, there will be no life in it. Unless you can move to the polar opposite, you cannot be alive. Life lives by polarity, just like a pendulum of an old clock -- moving left, right, left, right. And because of the movement into polar opposites, the clock ticks. Hold the pendulum in the middle, make it quiet -- the clock stops.

So real understanding is never against anything. Real understanding is an

acceptance. It has nothing to do with getting out of anything or becoming something else, somebody else. Real understanding simply accepts the polarity that, yes, there are moments when you are low, and there are moments when you are high. This is how life is. It moves between the low and the high. Sometimes there are moments you are sad, and sometimes there are moments, beautiful moments of happiness. This is how life moves, between happiness, unhappiness. It is a constant movement between hell and heaven.

And life is the movement between the two. If you are stuck in hell, you are dead. If you are stuck in heaven, you are dead. To be stuck is to be dead. To be on the move, to be always moving, journeying, exploring, is the meaning of being alive. Then suddenly you have a silence which is not opposite to tensions, which is not opposite to worries. There is a great silence which comprehends worries too. Do you follow me? There is a very great silence which is not opposite to worries -- it comprehends worries too. And there is a bliss which is not against suffering -- it comprehends suffering too. It is so vast, it can contain contradictions.

My whole approach is to make you so aware of the reality of life that you become capable of accepting each and everything, whatsoever life brings. Not only accepting it, but welcoming; not only welcoming, but feeling grateful for it

-- even if sometimes it brings pain. And pain too is great. It too is a gift. It sharpens your consciousness; it is not useless.

So this split that you are carrying within you is your problem; not that one part is your problem and another part is your solution -- no! This very split -- that you say, 'I want to get out of myself' -- this very split is your problem. And my suggestion is: relax, and see both and accept both. Both these, both are your hands, your two wings, and with one wing you will not be able to fly. Pain is needed as much as pleasure, and death is needed as much as life. The devil is another wing just as God is. And both help each other.

Mm? you can see that God could not do without the devil -- He needed a Beelzebub, He could not run this whole business without him. It was a must -- He depends on him.

This I call the perfect understanding, the total understanding. And a total understanding need not do anything, it need not go anywhere, it need not drop anything, it need not change anything. A total understanding can be happy right

this moment. It is not an improvement -- it is a sudden illumination.

So abandon hope -- the first thing. And the second thing -- rather than getting out of yourself, start loving yourself as you are. And start loving all the aspects that you are carrying within yourself. Painful spaces too, are yours.

It is almost as when you eat delicious food. It is so tasty, it is so satisfying, but next day after twenty-four hours you have to throw it out of your system -- it is stinking. Now if somebody says, 'I want to get rid of the whole process of defecation -- it is ugly.' Just think about what he is saying. Then you will not be able to eat, you will have to leave food completely -- you will start dying.

It is the same process. That which starts on your tongue and after twenty-four hows you have to throw it out -- it is the same process. These are not two things. And in an alive body, both processes will be there: one will eat, and one will enjoy food, and then one will enjoy getting rid of it too. But the process itself cannot be cut in two. And that which you are throwing out of the system again becomes manure, again goes to the trees, rises high with the sap of a tree and becomes an apple again; again you ear it. This is a circle --

and everything is a circle.

So sometimes when you feel that something is too heavy on you, don't make any judgement in a hurried way -- it must be part of a big circle. Look at the whole thing, and then you will become more accepting.

Don't look only at the part. Abandon hope, simply be here with no idea of any improvement. I don't promise improvement because that is a very small promise

-- the idea of improvement. Even if you become improved, you will remain the same -- a little modified here and there, decorated, white-washed, but you will remain the same.

I don't promise any improvement, because as I see you, I see you as perfect. You are as you should be. I 1/08/07

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can promise something greater -- and that is a sudden illumination. But one cannot work for it. You have to work on other planes. It sometimes happens whenever The right moment comes -- and nobody knows when it comes.

So do a few groups, meditate, be here, and drop this constant anxiety to improve. That will not allow you to be in such a relaxed state where sudden illumination is possible. And take a jump into sannyas!

[the visitor nods and Osho gives him sannyas] Ready for the jump?...

Let this moment be a dropping of your split ideas.

This will be your new name -- so forget the old name, mm? Just by forgetting it, it will be easier for you to have a new identity, a new vision.

Anand means bliss and purnesh means the god of the perfection; god of perfection and bliss. I am giving you this name so that it reminds you continuously that you are perfect as you are. If this seed settles in your heart it will do many things. To accept oneself as one is, is the beginning of a journey that never ends.

The whole western mind is a little schizophrenic. Christianity is the cause of it -- too much condemnation. Now people have even forgotten Christianity. Now Christians are no more Christians; it is just a formality and even that is not true for the new generation.

Those ideas go on lingering in the unconscious. You may not condemn the body, but the condemnation becomes focused on something else -- you may start condemning being in the head, but condemnation continues. You may start condemning something else but condemnation continues.

This very moment you are whatsoever you can ever be. This very moment everything is ready as you need it to be -- just start enjoying it. So drop programmes of improvement and start delighting in the moment.

Forget Christianity for these three months. Be an epicurean, be a pure hedonist. No other religious person is going to say for you do to that, but I say to you to be absolutely hedonistic. Enjoy small things of life -- they are all gifts of God, and

through the happiness that they will bring, you will become more and more prayerful.

[An Indian sannyasin who works in the movie industry asks about his problems in being creative, and about expressing his anger and emotions.]

I think you do a few groups.

Mm. Good. And nothing to be worried about. These things come when you change your work. You were doing a certain work you had become perfectly efficient in it. Your whole identity was with that work.

You were efficient, you were capable, you knew where you were, what you were doing, you had a certainty, a confidence. Now suddenly at this age, you change the work. Now in the new work you cannot be so efficient. In the new work you will be an amateur, a beginner. Your identity will have to start from the very beginning as if you have just now come out of your school and are starting something new.

Younger people than you will find faults with you. They will say, 'What have you done? This is just ordinary or nonsense, or change it, and do this and make it like this.' They are more experienced in their work. They may be younger than you, they may be just of your age, they may have great respect for you, but as far as the new work is concerned they are better than you. And new bosses, the same people who were your friends will become boss-like... and it hurts. And it is no easy thing to suddenly start a new work.

And not an ordinary work. To write a story needs a long training. a certain discipline of the mind -- writing is not so easy.

Just now I was telling Vivek an anecdote.

A man wanted to become a writer. He had some fancy that he would become famous as a writer, so he went to the novelist Somerset Maugham, and he said, 'I want to become a great writer but how do you start?

-- that's the problem.' So Maugham said, 'It is not difficult. I can tell you how I start. I simply sit on my chair, face the typewriter and just write the first word 'the', or type the word 'the', then I wait for inspiration to come. It comes and then off I go. In fact beginning is not the problem. The real pro-blem is how to end it.'

So the man said, 'It is so simple. Nobody told me.' He went home, fixed his place

-- he was very happy.

He took out the type-writer, the paper, and wrote 'the', and then he waited and waited and waited. The whole 1/08/07

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night was passing and nothing was coming -- no inspiration. In fact, his head was always full of thoughts and suddenly all thoughts disappeared. He was feeling empty. Finally he wrote, 'The hell with it.' (laughter) So it is not an easy thing. You are avoiding -- by eating, by drinking, by fighting, quarrelling with [your wife -- so you can find excuses as to why you are not doing your work. The pen is ready, the pencil is there, the paper there, but they are not going to write -- you are going to write! So you can always find excuses --

because your wife was not in a good mood and you were fighting so you could not write, and you had drunk too much so you could not write, you had eaten like a pig so you could not write. These are just tricks of the mind so that you car! find excuses. But this happens... this is natural.

It is very difficult to change your work at a later stage; it becomes more and more difficult. But it is courageous! To do it is very good! It is difficult, but if you can do it you will have a new lease of life. Once you get into the new work you will become younger again and you will again be enjoying life afresh. In fact a courageous man should go on changing, should never get settled into anything, should always remain a vagabond. Then he will remain very very fresh and young, and always learning, learning.

All the great things that have ever happened in the world, have happened through vagabonds who have been changing. A mathematician suddenly becomes a poet -- now he is a fool as far as poetry is concerned, but suddenly he becomes a poet. He is foolhardy and people will laugh, but he will bring something to poetry if he goes into it because all his knowledge will remain there somewhere in the unconscious. His poetry will have arithmetic in it. Even if it will not be so plain on the surface, it will have a different rhythm, a different

quality. If a poet becomes a mathematician, he will bring his poetry to it. So it is very good.

This is cross-breeding. And the child that comes out of cross-breeding is always better -- better than both the parents. I am all for cross-breeding. The whole world should be mixing in every way possible. A scientist, suddenly at the age when he has become famous and is settling, should change immediately because now he is dying. The moment he has got a nobel prize he should immediately change from it, should start painting. Now it is finished, now there is no more to it.

It is said about an american president, Coolidge, that when he was asked, 'Why are you not standing next time?' he said, 'There is no more progress there now. What is the point of becoming a president again? I have been a president -- finished! Now I would like to become somebody else -- even a farmer is better, because it is something new. What is the point of becoming the president again?'

His party bosses could not believe, because he is a fool! Everybody was ready to give him another chance and he was not ready. They tried to persuade but he wouldn't listen. He would say, 'What is the point? I have been a president and I have known it. Now the White House is not for me. There is no goal.

The end of the ladder has come.'

I believe this man is a beautiful man. He is not a politician and he is not dead either, he is very alive. He went to the farm, he started gardening. That's beautiful. That's something that shows mettle.

So I am happy you changed... but problems will be there, you will be in trouble for a few months. And the more you dissipate your energy in fighting and drinking and this and that, the longer will be the period.

So put your whole energy to the work. Now it is a gamble. Put your whole energy into it, and within six months you will be flowing in your new work as you were in your old work. And once you are flowing, you will bring something new to it that only you can bring because of your old experience.

The Shadow of the Whip

Chapter #11

Chapter title: Every Choice is a Limitation

19 November 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 7611195 ShortTitle: WHIP11 Audio:

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[A sannyasin asks: Is there anything you could say about what sort of path I should follow? I feel unsure of what direction I should be going in.]

Whenever you're unsure, it is better not to choose but rather float and let life decide itself, because whatsoever you choose will be against your natural unsureness. It will be trying to make sure something which is not. Never jump ahead. Go with life. If at this moment your consciousness is unsure, then that's what has to be -- remain unsure. Nothing is wrong in being unsure. It is a freedom.

When you are unsure.… To use the word unsure makes it look a little problematic; rather, use the word freedom. When you are unsure you are freer, more liquid, not solid. More is possible when you are unsure.

When you are sure, you have chosen -- and every choice is a limitation. Whenever you choose, you choose against something. Whenever you choose, you drop something. So every choice is a limitation.

If you choose the path of awareness, you drop love. If you choose the path of love, you drop awareness.

If you choose to be a Christian, you cannot be a Hindu and cannot be a Mohammedan. Whatsoever you choose, in that very moment your consciousness is narrowed down. You become like a tunnel: only a very small portion of the sky is available at the far end but the whole sky is lost. When you are unsure the whole sky is available.

So don't take unsureness as a problem, rather take it as a flowing, liquid, fluid state of being. And there is no need to be sure. If the sureness comes by itself, good -- then it is not your choice and it will not be a limitation.

This distinction has to be understood deeply: when you choose, it becomes a limitation. When life itself brings you to a certain thing, it is not a limitation on you -- not at all. You can move through a tunnel -- you have not chosen it, it is only temporary -- and you know the whole sky is available once you have passed.

That small portion of the sky that you can see far away you know belongs to the total sky -- it is not the whole sky because you have not chosen.

So if love happens by itself, awareness remains part of love. If awareness happens by itself, love remains part of it. If you choose, there is limitation. So let God choose. That is the meaning of Jesus' saying,

'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.' He's saying that he is not choosing now -

- God should choose --

because whatsoever he chooses is bound to be wrong. It cannot be right in the very nature of things. Your choice will be your choice -- hence wrong! Your choice will be the choice of the mind -- hence wrong!

Your choice will be the choice from the past -- hence wrong! God's choice is from the future, not from the past.

When you start feeling a certain sureness arising -- good, enjoy that too. If it again melts and things become unsure, enjoy that too. Move with life, with no prejudice, with no idea of your own. Give total freedom to life then life gives total freedom to you -- it is always in proportion. If you hanker for security,

certainty, sureness, it is coming out of fear. And fear kills freedom! Why does the mind hanker so much to be sure? -- because with sureness, certainty, there seems to be security. One knows where one is -- but does one really know? And what is the need to know? How can one ever know?

The moment you say, 'I am this,' you are no more this -- it is already passed. Each identity that you think has arisen is already gone, it is already dead -- you have moved from that. The moment you say, 'I love,' it has changed. Now it is not the same state and not the same space. You may be just declaring something which does not exist any more. It may be just a declaration of something dead -- a post-mortem declaration, a posthumous declaration.

The moment you make anything sure, you have moved from it because life is movement, a continuous flux, river-like; it knows no limitation. So one can never be really certain. And to live with this uncertainty is really to live. To live at all is to live with uncertainty, with openness -- vague, nebulous; in a certain way, in chaos. And it is beautiful to be in a chaos.

Order is always ugly because order is always petty. And order is always ugly because order is man-made, home-made. God is a chaos: stars disappearing, new stars being born... old people disappearing, new babies being born. It is a chaos! It is very un-economical. For seventy, eighty years, a person has learned, been educated, experienced life and then suddenly God dismantles him and brings a baby -- again unsure what he is going to be: a doctor, an engineer, or a vagabond; will be able to earn his bread or will become a thief; will be a murderer or a saint -- nobody knows.

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And the person who was getting settled, whom everybody knew, who had an identity card, is taken away. And God goes on sending chaotic babies -- screaming and crying and knowing nothing! They take the place of people who knew so many things -- were wise, learned, respected. He goes on toppling them, and brings babies and puts them on the throne -- very chaotic, uneconomical.

But that's how things are: big trees disappear and seeds sprout. The whole of life is a tremendous chaos

-- and it is good that it is so. If there were order there would have been ancient, old people, and no babies.

Everything would have been dead long ago. Nothing new would happen then, because the new can happen only out of chaos. Everything would have been so perfect, so efficient, so mechanical, that life would not have had any meaning. Life is significant because there is chaos. The new is possible -- that is the meaning of chaos. The old is not necessarily going to be repeated -- that is the meaning of being unsure.

So my whole teaching is to learn how to be happy with unsureness, and how to go on moving with an open mind and open being and let things come, let things happen. Never allow anything to become stagnant.

If you can remember this much -- that you should not become a stagnant pool -- you are bound to reach to the ocean; nothing can prevent you. And to reach to the ocean is to reach to God. A river is more orderly than the ocean. A canal is even more orderly than a river. The canal is man-made. The river is more orderly because it is limited by both the sides, by the banks. The ocean is absolutely chaotic. And to be oceanic is the goal.

So live in freedom, live in unsureness, live in uncertainty, and never hanker for anything against this river-like quality. Millions of things will happen to you and nothing will ever hold you. You will pass through many things but you will always pass beyond. Things come and go -- the movement remains. And when you are simply starting to love the movement and delighting in it with no goal at all, with no motivation -- when the movement is there and motivation is not -- that's what I call celebration, joy. Then nobody can make you miserable. Even if you are thrown in hell you will be dancing there, you will be able to enjoy hell -- it is a beautiful grace.

Otherwise your so-called saints -- certain, sure, dogmatic -- even if they go to heaven.… I suspect that they don't go because God won't allow such boring, monotonous company -- but if they ever go, by hook or by crook or in some way... they will be in hell there too. They cannot laugh.

A rock is certain, a flower is not so. If you go in the morning the rock is there,

the flower is there. If you go in the evening the rock is still there -- the flower is gone. But still, would you like to be a rock because a rock is very certain ? One should like to be a flower -- even if only for a moment, but it is worth it. To be a rock for millions of years and just to be a flower for a single hour, then too it is worth it to be a flower -- to play with the wind, to take the challenge of the sun, to spread fragrance, to live intensely, passionately, and then wither away and be gone with no regret.…

[A visitor asks: I lost a finger while dancing, and since then I began yoga -- I changed from dance to Yoga, and I've had chronic infections and very bad health.]

Sometimes it can happen through Yoga because anything that can be good can also be bad -- it depends.

Always remember it as a basic rule: anything that can be good can also be bad. And if there is something which can never be bad, then it can never be good either. So it depends on the person, the situation, his bodily structure, in fact there are many problems.

In the first place, Yoga has never been invented for women. So that is a foolishness really to teach Yoga to women. It was invented by man and for man. So the whole idea is for the man's physiology, not the woman's -- and their physiology is different, totally different, their chemistry is different. So the same posture may be good for man and may not be good for woman. And I have seen this happening many times.

Women become very fragile -- they are fragile! Yoga puts such pressure on their glands, their hormonal system, their chemistry. And it is so different -- it was basically meant for man so woman has never been considered. It can make them ill and sometimes many other things also happen.

If a woman persists for many days, maybe illness will disappear, but then male traits will start appearing in her, a moustache will start growing. If you go to Shree Aurobindo's ashram and see the girls you will be surprised: out of all proportion they all are growing moustaches -- too many yoga exercises. Their breasts will start becoming smaller and it will be difficult for them to carry a pregnancy -- their womb becomes smaller and will become very tense. It needs to be very relaxed, really very elastic so the child can grow in it. The womb has

to be very elastic so it goes on expanding with the child. If it becomes very tight the child will be killed or will not be really grown, will be retarded, and then childbirth will be very very painful. So I 1/08/07

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have watched a thousand and one problems.

In the East women really have never tried so there was no problem. Now in the West whatsoever is available to men, women are also trying. In fact they are trying more than men. In the East you will not find many women trying Yoga -- rarely, very rarely. I have not come across any woman practising Yoga. But in the West now the old structure is gone, the social differences are gone. Woman is as free and everything is as available to woman as man -- now there are dangers.

A totally new technology of Yoga has to be developed for woman -- and that can be done only by women. This traditional Hatha Yoga won't do. It is really dangerous! So my first suggestion is drop it, completely stop it.

... Move to dancing. Dancing is perfectly suited to a woman's physiology and chemistry, dancing is meant for her. If a man dances he starts becoming feminine. Dance is the Yoga for women. It fits with their body, their curvature, their grace -- it fits with them perfectly well. So move to dancing. Join the dancing group, the music group -- simply dance. Dance will bring your health back. And forget Yoga forever -- it is not for you. The disease is simply created by your change, so there is no problem about it. Once you shift your energy into dance, within six months you will be perfectly well. This illness will disappear.

So while you are here, dance, sing, and do a few groups they will be very helpful. T'ai Chi you can continue -- back home also. T'ai Chi is very good.… Anything graceful, not drastic. Dancing, T'ai Chi are good but not Aikido or Karate -- no. Something in which you can flow naturally and there is no need to force your body. These yoga contortions are not good, mm? Good.

[A sannyasin asks: I always feel that I keep working and trying to make things happen in my life, with my job, with my relationships with people... I don't

believe that if I let go of those things that everything will be okay. I don't have that feeling, that trust ]

Mm mm. I can see.… The first thing: whatsoever comes naturally to you, is good. If this comes naturally to you -- striving, holding, making everything sure that it happens the way you wanted it to happen, managing, planning, if this comes naturally to you -- surrender to your nature. Why create this contrary opposite that you have to let go? This will be let-go -- what I am saying. Simply accept that this is your nature. This is the way that [you are] -- that [you] cannot trust that things will be okay if they are left to themselves.

You -- not the striving -- are creating the problem. You are creating the problem having an ideal against striving. On the one hand you strive, on the other hand you have an ideal of non-striving, so you create a polarity. Then you will be pulled apart. Now if you don't strive your nature will say nothing is going to be okay. If you strive your mind will say, 'Again you are striving and life happens only when one is in a let-go.'

So you are creating your own trouble.

My suggestion is: first, there is no need to create this new ideal, there is no need

-- relax in your nature. I am not saying that this is your nature. I am simply saying that whatsoever happens to be your nature right now -- that you strive and you like to strive and make certain and plan -- simply relax into it, and do whatsoever you want to do totally. Strive totally! You cannot trust? Then don't trust! Work hard on your own. For one month, drop the ideal and simply go with your nature. And in one month there will be much change.

By and by you will see that the striving is disappearing and the let-go is happening because it is a beginning of let-go! You follow me? If you surrender

to your nature -- whatsoever it is, XYZ -- you have started surrendering. If it is your nature, you will be happy. If it is not, by and by it will disappear and your real nature will come out.

And I don't think it is your nature. That's why the idea arises again and again to be in a let-go, to surrender, trust, and to let things happen in their own course, not to strive, not to push the river. That comes to your mind because deep down that is hidden -- your nature is that. But if you start striving for that, that will again be a striving -- you follow me? So I don't want you to strive for that. At

least strive for things you have been striving for in the past. Don't create a new goal -- old goals are enough. You just go with it and forget about let-go.

For one month do hard work, and after one month tell me how you feel. By and by you will see that after the third week a deep silence is arising. A let-go is happening without your doing anything about it.

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am not going to be a party in that game, mm? -- that will be your undoing. So this is always my approach --

that if somebody likes running I say 'Run, run as much as you can so you fall down!' I will go on pushing you, 'Run more! Run more!' and one day you will see that you cannot run any more and you sit down. Then that sitting will be something beautiful. Right now your whole energy is running -- and you want to sit down. Then it becomes an opposite goal, it creates a split -- and it is never good to create any split.

All splits are dangerous, they can lead to schizophrenia; they can create two personalities in you. So in the morning you are striving, by the evening you are surrendering; in the morning you are striving. Then you become two separate things -- this is very bad. Then it becomes very difficult to integrate them. So be one. Strive... strive hard. Push the river.

I know that one day you will be tired and the river will push you, but then you will not be able to do anything. You will be so tired, so dead tired that there will be no energy to fight with the river. You will have to float... and then a sudden experience of how beautiful it is to float with the river. When it becomes your own experience, existential, mm?... there is no problem. Then you will never strive again.

So for one month do everything as deliberately as possible. For one month don't forgive yourself for anything that you are not doing forcibly. Do forcibly, no rest for you for one month. Get dead tired, exhausted, then one crust will be broken.…

You will need to come and for a little longer time because there is much work to be done. And alone it will be difficult for you to do it there. Once your energy has started moving in the right direction there is no problem -- then you can go anywhere and it will be growing. But right now it will be difficult on your own.

But we will see, mm?

Just join the music group then you will be doing [a group], then see. And make every effort -- at least in the music group meditations and [group]. Put your total energy in it. If you can put total energy into it, maybe the breakthrough can happen here. Because the time is short so you have to make more effort, more intensely. Something is bound to happen, mm? Don't be worried!

[A therapist in the Alexander technique says: I find myself really getting into meditation through the work... and then when I walk out the head gets back in the way. If there's anything you can suggest ]

Just continue. Things are going very well, mm? And... you have changed a lot. You really love your work and so work changes the whole personality. If you love your work there is no need for any other meditation. Meditation really exists for people who have not been able to find a work that they could love.

Meditation is a substitute. If you can love your work it is your meditation, a natural meditation -- there is no need to do any other meditation.

And don't be worried about these thoughts, don't pay too much attention to them. They are okay, nothing wrong in them. Just as the blood circulates in the body, so thoughts circulate in the mind. You are not worried about the blood circulating so why should we be worried about thoughts circulating? It's okay. The mechanism of the mind has to keep functioning and rehearsing to remain efficient. It is homework. When you are thinking something, it is homework, so that when there is some situation you can be ready for it.

When awareness becomes perfect then this work is not needed, this homework stops automatically, because then your awareness is so perfect you can be certain

that you can rely upon it. Whenever there is a situation there will be a response, and the response is going to be so true and so total that there is no need to prepare for it.

My understanding about thinking is that it is a rehearsal, mm? You are going to give an interview so you rehearse in the mind what the official will ask, what you will say, how you will go, how you will present yourself, how you will enter into the office; you have to be calm and quiet -- you are rehearsing. Many times you will go into the office in your mind and many times you will face the person who is going to interview you. Many times you will ask many questions and you will answer. This is a rehearsal because you cannot rely yet on your awareness. Your awareness is not yet reliable so you want to make sure that nothing goes amiss. When awareness is perfect nothing goes amiss, so what is the point?

By and by this rehearsing stops. One simply goes to the interview.… But that comes.

So it is not a question of how to stop thinking. The more basic question is how to become more and more aware. So while working, enjoy it, and become more and more aware. When thoughts are passing, then too just remain aware that thoughts are passing. There is no need to make any effort to stop them -- let them be there. When their need disappears, they will disappear. And in life you cannot make anything disappear unless its need disappears. So many people unnecessarily get into trouble. They want to make 1/08/07

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something disappear for which need still exists -- it cannot go, it is not possible. Howsoever you fight with it, it will not go -- it will go only when the need has gone.

Then even if you want it to be there, it cannot. The need functions like the roots, and these thoughts are just leaves on the tree. You can go on cutting; that is not going to help -- the roots are continuously feeding the tree and the sap is flowing and new leaves will be coming. And if you cut, one tree will come out of that same place and the bush will become even thicker and denser. No need to fight

with these leaves -- let them be, let them flutter in the wind -- good! Nothing wrong in it.

A little noise of the mechanism... and it is a big mechanism! It is the biggest thing in the world. Millions of millions of cells, and as many combinations are possible in one head as there are atoms in the whole existence; the same number of combinations is possible in the head. It is a big phenomenon, and if it makes a little noise it can be forgiven.

Man has not yet created anything more silent than the mind, and the work is so tremendous -- even the biggest computer is nothing compared to mind. And it never can be anything compared to the mind because it is created by the mind, and no computer can create a human mind. Unless a computer can create a human mind -- and that is not possible -- it will never be equal to the human mind.

So a little noise.… You are walking and your body is engaged and the mind is free -- it clicks, mm? It links a few things that have been hanging there... and before there was no time and you were engaged so much in work. Now there is no work and you are released from it, and the mind was waiting whenever there was space to work out a few things in the mind... it goes on. When you fall asleep the mind is completely freed, it can go dreaming, fantasizing. Many things are waiting on the list and it has to go into them and prepare. It is continuously preparing for you.

It disappears -- and I say disappears through my own experience; whatsoever I say is through my own experience. It disappears, but it disappears only when one day your awareness is so impeccable that now you don't require it. Then the mind says, 'Now there is no need for any homework.' Then you can simply go into any situation and face it! And a perfect response comes -- or whatsoever is a response is total and perfect and you never repent for it. Whatsoever happens -- good! You move ahead. You never repent for the past, for the gone, and you never prepare for that which is coming -- you simply move.

It will come. Things are going well. Just go on meditating more and more in your work.

The Shadow of the Whip

Chapter #12

Chapter title: We are Born at the Goal

20 November 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 7611205 ShortTitle: WHIP12 Audio:

No Video:

[A visitor, who is a group leader and author, says: I want to know where to go next I need to know where to go next.]

Mm. (a pause) Drop going...(the visitor laughs) and there is no next. The very idea of going is basically wrong. The very idea to go anywhere is the cause of all misery We are at the very point where we want to be. In fact we are born at the goal and all journey is futile. The more you try to reach to the goal, the more you are far away from it.

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So as it is you have done enough -- relax! The place that we are seeking is the place we are standing upon. The space that we are looking for is the space from which we are looking.

But the effort to improve, the effort to grow, to go somewhere, to be somewhere, has its own relevance

-- it is needed. It is needed only so that one day you can see the whole absurdity

of it. And in that vision it drops and suddenly you are at home. So there is no next.…

But the mind always creates the next -- beware of the mind because the mind cannot exist without the next. The mind exists in the future, it exists with some plan, it exists for something to do, something to be --

it cannot exist just herenow. The mind knows no present. It cannot know the present. Either it is in the past or in the future. Either it is somewhere where it was or it is somewhere where it would like to be -- but it is never where it is.

So this 'next' is always there in the mind, mm? It goes on and on And it is such

an effort that as you move towards it, another next is present like the horizon. Mm? you go slower and it goes on receding. So as I see, there is no next now.

... Just be... just be.… And everything is perfectly good. How long will you be here?

[Osho gives the visitor sannyas]

This will be your name now, so forget the old. It is always very difficult to drop the old name. It becomes part of the unconscious -- but that is the significance of giving a new name. As the new by and by enters into the unconscious, the old disappears. Then with the old name the whole past simply becomes discontinuous with you, and a very fresh beginning, very empty.…

This will be your new name: Swami Deva Amit Prem.

Deva means divine, and amit prem means eternal love; divine eternal love. And everything else dies only love lives. We go on changing, but love goes on living. We are almost like vehicles through which the eternal love goes on flowing, takes many forms as man and woman, as trees and animals.

In Indian mythology we have a very beautiful story. Hindus avoid telling it even because it looks a little dangerous. And at least Christians will not be able to understand and they will immediately misinterpret it.

The story is that God, Brahma, created the world. Then He created the cow -- Hindus love the cow very much so He created the cow -- but He fell in love with her so He became a bull and He chased the cow.

Mm? Just to escape from the bull, the cow goes on taking other forms -- she becomes a peacock, and the bull becomes a male peacock, and this is how it goes on and on. She becomes a woman and the bull becomes a man, and this is how it goes on. And the whole creation is created only by female energy escaping and the male energy chasing.

But the story is tremendously beautiful. It simply says: all are just forms -- only love continues. Maybe it is a cow, maybe it is a tree, maybe it is a peacock, maybe it is a man or woman -- these are just forms...

God chasing His own creation. God has fallen in love with His own creation.

So everything comes and goes, only love remains. You will be gone, I will be gone, but the love that we lived will continue. It will enter into other beings, into other forms, into other vehicles, but it continues.

Amit Prem means the eternal love -- and amit has many other meanings also. It also means immeasurable -- that which cannot be measured. And in the eastern mind, the measurable is matter. In fact the word matter comes from a root which means that which can be measured. And that which cannot be measured is immaterial, that which cannot be measured is unlimited, has no form. So from this moment, think yourself more as formless love -- neither male nor female... not measurable. And that's what to me is to be in prayer.

If you can remind yourself again and again about the formless, the immeasurable, the eternal, in those moments when you forget your form, your limitation -- in those insights the infinite opens, you are transported, transfigured. And by and by those insights settle and they become almost part of you. It is not that they happen and go -- they are simply there... they become natural. They start following you like your climate.

So I know your old name has associations, an identity. It will be difficult but then it will be more paying too... to drop it completely as if the old man has died. Bernie is no more now, and you enter into a fresh world... with no past; again you are a child. And this is your birthday. From now onwards this will be your birthday and count your age from this day. Next year you will be one year old!

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have to say. But there are going to be some who are not open. And my function in the past has been to open doors. I would like to serve in that way.]

You will have to! You have to do much more! You have to become an ambassador-at-large for me. You have to open many people's doors, and all the people with whom you have been in contact in your past, you have to bring them to me... you have to share me with them, so you do whatsoever you can. And much has to be done, because in the name of spirituality so much hocus-pocus is going on in America, and fools from the East are almost worshipped as sages. Mm? just anybody who comes from the East.

Prem means love and aneeta means amoral, beyond morality; love that is beyond morality. And because of too much emphasis on character, love has been sacrificed. Love is a flowing energy and character is a dead structure. Love is neither moral nor immoral -- it is amoral. Aneeta means amoral. And that's what I teach: don't be moral and don't be immoral. There are people who are moral -- then they are in a strait jacket

-- and there are people who are immoral; they move to the opposite polarity.

When you move opposite to a lie, you again become a victim of another lie. Just somewhere in the middle is the truth.

So love in itself is enough -- it needs no character. Character always comes from the past and love is always of the present, it is always here now. If you are a wife to somebody, that is a past relation. If you are a husband to somebody, it is a past relationship. Love has to be lived moment to moment. One never knows

-- the life of love is a very insecure life, but tremendously beautiful. Dangerous, adventurous, but the only way to live is to live in danger, and to live in adventure.

So never allow any character to accumulate around you and become an armour. Each moment the past goes on growing and the armour goes on becoming bigger

and bigger, more solid and concrete -- and the soul is crippled, paralysed in it. The imprisonment goes on becoming bigger and bigger and the freedom is less every day: a child is more free, a young man less, the old man has almost no freedom at all.

To remain absolutely free is what a true and authentic life is. So never gather any character -- remain characterless. And that's what I mean when I say a man is religious. A religious man is characterless, unreliable, unpredictable but very alive, very spontaneous, very creative.

[The leader of the Soma group, who had come to darshan some nights ago about her relationship with her assistants (see 'God Is Not For Sale', Sunday, November 7th), returned to darshan tonight. She had asked one assistant to leave and said to Osho that in doing so she felt she had 'missed'.

She wondered if there was anything she needed to do or if she needed to change ]

Your problem is that deep inside you are very soft, but on the outside you have gathered a very hard crust -- and it happens for certain reasons.

When one is very soft inside, just to protect oneself one creates a crust around oneself of hardness, of steel. And it works in life but it won't work with me. In life there is a struggle; with me there is surrender. In life you need to be hard, otherwise you will be nowhere. There is a constant fight to survive and a soft person will be destroyed, will be crushed.

So soft people become very hard -- harder than the hard people. They compensate too much and they lose contact with their softness. Then there are many problems. Deep down you feel that you are soft, but whatsoever you do to people is hard and you don't understand it because that hardness is only on the outer periphery. So people come to know it because they are in contact with the outer periphery of your being, and you are in contact with your inner so inside you feel you are very soft and loving. So there is always a problem.

In all your relationships that problem has been there, and it reflects in any relationship. On the outside you are hard, a perfectionist, trying to drive people. So people around you start feeling that you are crushing them, destroying their freedom, turning them into slaves. And you don't understand it because this is just your outer crust -- but you have to look into relationships; relationships are

mirrors.

And here there is no question of survival, there is no fight going on, there is no competition, nothing.

You are not part of a society any more -- you are part of a family, and everybody is together here. So all that you have developed in your past hangs around you -- that has to be dropped, but one drops it only when there is some problem, otherwise one never becomes aware.

I was watching it: in every group all the assistants by and by leave, and nobody feels at ease with you.

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People feel you are heavy, too dominating -- and they are true. You are also true when you say that you are loving and not heavy, and you don't try to crush anybody's freedom; you simply want the work to be done; you care for the work. So you are also right, but you have to deliberately drop this hard crust. It is just a crust so it can be dropped very easily. And it has given you enough pain. You cannot succeed in any love relationship either because of this.

And there is a vicious circle. When you feel that you are failing in your love relationship, or in any relationship, you start being more dominating so that it should not fail -- and it is failing be-cause of your domination. When you see that again the same thing is happening and somebody is going away from you, you try to pull him too hard -- and he is escaping because you are too much. Simply drop this. And in a group many things have to be learned.…

A groupleader is not only a leader -- a groupleader has to be a father, has to be a mother, a lover, a beloved, a child, a brother, a sister. A groupleader has to be so many things together, otherwise a groupleader is not really a groupleader. If you. are just a leader you know the technological aspect of it, but that won't help much. You have to be many more things. You have to be all aspects of humanity.

They all will be needed. Sometimes the group will need you as a mother -- then be a mother. And you will have to be very flexible so you can fit into any role.

You should not have a very fixed attitude -- be flowing. And the assistants particularly have to be taken care of. Mm? there is a problem: when somebody assists, he feels humiliated just by the very fact that he is an assistant. Just the very idea that he is simply an assistant is humiliating. So the leader has to look after this -- that the person should not feel humiliated. A respect, deep respect should be given to him, and then you can take as much work from your assistants as you want and they will never feel hurt. They will be happy to do work. In fact the more you require, the more you demand, the more they will feel happy -- but a deep respect is needed so they don't just feel as if they are being used as means.

The groupleader has one thing -- he is the leader, so automatically he is in the centre; the assistant is in the shadow. A good groupleader will help the assistant to be more and more in the light so his humiliation is not there and by and by he can drop it and forget about it. So more and more the assistant becomes a co- leader, not an assistant. A co-leadership should develop in our groups, otherwise this problem is bound to arise again and again. And it will happen: in the beginning you will find a new person; he will be happy.

After a few months when he has learned all the techniques, he will want to participate in the leadership.

That desire is human and natural. And if you don't allow, he will start reacting, rebelling, will start resisting you, will not like to work or will work just anyhow, doing it as a duty; he will lose interest in it. So you have to remember this.

You always bring new people and for a few days you feel very good with them and they feel very good with you. After two, three groups when they have become alert and aware, they start creating trouble. And this is bad because again you have to teach new people, so your energy is wasted. Those who become ready leave, and again you bring new people, again teach them -- and you know it is going to happen. After two, three months they will leave because the same problem will arise again. So my feeling is that you have to be a little deliberate about it. Your crust has become almost unconscious, you are not aware of it.

So whenever you feel that somebody is feeling hurt, become more aware, become more loving... care more. A little care goes very deep and helps tremendously. Give the idea to the assistants that they are co-leaders: they co- operate with you, they don't assist you. Just a change of words sometimes can be of tremendous significance.

A little change is needed -- nothing is the problem. Your work is going well... everything is going well.

Your group is growing very beautifully, many people are being benefited, and you are growing -- but this is just an old crust. Particularly in the West, and for women more so, it is happening. Women have a very soft core, and now in the West they are fighting with men so they are becoming as hard as men. They are trying to be as hard competitors as men are, they are trying to be aggressive. In fact they don't want to be feminine any more, they feel hurt by their very softness. It is very dangerous -- a woman has to be soft -- and this competition with man and imitation of man is very destructive. It is suicidal -- but it is happening.

You have been moving in that direction in your past... and this is some coincidence that many lib women are coming to me. All have the same problem, mm? They have grown a hard crust, and when you become too hard you lose your softness, your femininity -- you lose love. And then it becomes difficult. So you drop this, mm? Just for two, three months you have to be very conscious about it. And if you have dropped Chidananda, okay, nothing to be worried about. But don't make the same mistake with new people otherwise the same will happen after a few days. So try new people, but this time from the very beginning 1/08/07

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remain alert, mm? And it will be okay. Nothing to be worried about.

[A sannyasin says: I feel very much some sort of power coming up, and I feel I like to dominate people and just to nag them, talk to them and I feel that they get hurt. But at that moment I still enjoy it -- that they get hurt -- but then the

consequence is that I hurt myself. It is -- you are hurting yourself.

[The sannyasin replies: I haven't got to the roots of it yet. I don't see it. It takes me over.]

I think you can do [Soma] group and [the group leader] will dominate and show you. Do Soma. You try to dominate her and she will try to dominate you (laughter).

It comes to everybody, mm? because we have been brought up in that way. Deep down we have been conditioned that if you don't dominate others, others will dominate you -- so before others dominate you, it is better to dominate them. We have been brought up in a climate where there are only two possibilities: either you become a master or you become a slave. If you don't become a master, then woe to you -- you will be a slave. And it is better to be a master than to be a slave, so everybody tries: before anybody else dominates you, dominate! But whenever you dominate anybody, you hurt him, because nobody wants to be dominated. And when you hurt somebody you are basically hurting yourself because he is just like you! We are not separate! We are not like islands -- we are connected, members of each other, we are like a continent

-- so when I hurt you, I hurt myself.

It is as if you are angry with your leg and you throw a rock at the leg. Sometimes people do that! They are angry at the wall and they will beat the wall and then their hand hurts.

Trying to dominate somebody simply shows that you are afraid of being dominated. So it is fear -- and this is no way to go beyond it. If you try to dominate others, others will try to dominate you. Maybe you can hurt them; then somebody else will come and hurt you. And this trying to be on top is such a tension that you will never be relaxed. And there is an alternative: there is no need to be either dominated or a dominator. There is a third alternative: one can simply be free of it -- neither dominated nor a dominator.

That's what I call a sannyasin -- one whose will is not ready to dominate anybody and will not allow anybody to dominate him. He simply does not speak that language of aggression, he's simply not part of it --

he simply laughs at the foolishness of it. You do Soma, mm? Then we will see. It will go.…

The Shadow of the Whip

Chapter #13

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