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‌CHAPTER 4

4 January 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[Gyan anala: knowledge fire]

Knowing is fire. You can use knowledge. Knowledge is something dead in your hands; you can possess it, you can control it. But you cannot possess knowing; knowing is fire, it consumes you. In the knowing the knower disappears: in knowledge the knower remains in control.

When you are in the moment of knowing, you are not. You are watching the river flow by and you are in the moment of knowing. You are simply watching it, enjoying the flow, the joy of the river, the aliveness of it. Then you are not there. Once you see that you have known this river, you are acquainted with it, you know the name and the geography and everything, you have come back. In knowing, the ego dissolves; in knowledge it comes back.

Knowing is a fire that consumes the knower, and when there is no knower, there is great experiencing; when there is no knower all is revealed. Life allows its mysteries only to those who can come to it utterly empty. Then you become the host and life becomes the guest. But if you are there then life never enters you.

[The new sannyasin says: I find it very hard to open myself, to be open.]

You find it very hard to open? Mm mm, that will happen. That’s natural – nobody finds it easy to open because everybody has been conditioned to remain closed.…

[Society and the family help you to remain closed, Osho continues, so on one hand you are protected, on another hand your opportunities to live are destroyed. Each generation hands on its fears to the new generation, and in the first seven years of a child’s life fear becomes impregnated

in him. There is a certain boundary beyond which you will not go, says Osho; that is the boundary of your parents.]

You were open to your mother, to your father, to your family; that is your boundary – you will never open more than that. Once you reach that boundary you will automatically shut up; it is automatic. It is almost beyond your control as you are right now. You cannot do anything about it right now unless you become more conscious. With more consciousness you will be able to go a little further; otherwise it is automatic. As the boundary comes close your whole mechanism starts shutting off. It is like a thermostat: it keeps you within the boundary, and that boundary is the boundary of the love for your parents.

So a man never loves any woman more than he has loved his mother; a woman never loves any man more than she has loved her father. That limits, and that is not the limit to human potential; there is much more, much more beyond it. You are just living in a small house while the whole earth is waiting for you to come out and celebrate with the trees and the mountains and the moon and the sun. You are enclosed in a small dungeon, dark, but out of fear you don’t leave it.

Right now you cannot do anything about it; you can only be aware of it, and that will be helpful. Just see where the boundary is, just see how your automatic mind works, how mechanically it closes to a certain point and then you are simply off and you cannot do anything. You are almost helpless, a victim. lust watch it.

Do meditations, do a few groups, and go on reminding me after two, three groups, of how you are feeling. Once your consciousness cames a little higher than it is right now, you will immediately be able to have a breakthrough.

And if you can go only one step beyond the parental boundary, then there is no limit; you can go as far as you can. The basic problem is the first step. You have taken one step beyond the parental boundary, then there is no problem. You can take as many steps as you want, because the automatic mechanism functions no more for you; you have transcended it. In fact that is the meaning of transcending the past or transcending the mind or what I have called knowledge, transcending knowledge.

It will happen. I will create the fire – you wait!

Deva means divine, ama means togetherness – a divine togetherness, a divine unity, a divine oneness, divine integration.

Man integrates only when god becomes the centre; without god there is no centre, man is just a hodge-podge. Man is a crowd without god, so many voices. In fact, a man is so many men without god. There are so many directions and so many desires, so many small selves all clamouring to be listened to, all clamouring to take you somewhere, all trying to dominate There is a constant fight. Man is a marketplace with a great crowd and great noise. And that is the misery, the agony.

If you watch, you will find these fragments. They are in a great political turmoil because each fragment wants to be the master. The master is not in the house and the servants are pretending to be the master. When each servant can have his time or can have the keys of the house at least

for the moment, he believes himself to be the master. And it goes on revolving. In the evening you decide that tomorrow morning you will get up early, at five o’clock. At that moment you think that the decision is total, but at five o’clock somebody inside you says, ‘Forget all about it; it is just nonsense. What is the point? It is so cold today. Have a good rest.’ And in that moment you also feel that it is a total decision. You fall asleep and when you get up at seven o’clock you feel repentant... and again, you think this is total.

In fact, the case is that the fragment that had decided in the evening to get up at five was no more powerful at five; it was deposed. And the fragment that was powerful at five is no more in power by seven; it is another fragment. And so on it goes, like a wheel moving: one spoke comes up, then another, then another... and life remains a mess.

The search for truth or for god or for the real self, creates a centre, and slowly, slowly all the fragments start falling into the centre, with the centre. That is the whole work called sadhana – to create a centre and to manage that all the fragments become joined with the centre.

Once that integration takes place you become individual. Before that you are not an individual because you are divided. The word individual means ‘that which cannot be divided’. Very few persons are individuals. Once among thousands you will find an individual; otherwise only persons are there, and one person means many persons inside.

That’s why you cannot even promise, because you don’t know who will be there to fulfill the promise. You cannot say, ‘I will love you tomorrow too.’ How can you say that? This fragment will be gone. It is like a river flowing: you cannot step in the same river twice. You will not meet this same fragment again, maybe for years. And about tomorrow morning, one never knows; you cannot promise. A promise is possible only when the centre has come into existence. Then you can trust yourself.

Gurdjieff used to say, ‘A man who can promise is a man who has arrived.’ To promise is a big phenomenon. That means there is some continuity that runs through and through. All your fragments have become beads and there is a thread running inside which keeps them altogether. That is the meaning of ‘ama’, togetherness... the thread running through all fragments and bringing a kind of unity within you.

[A sannyasin who is leaving says: I’m grateful that I’m enlightened.]

(chuckling) That’s very good! That’s very good! When were you not enlightened? [Sannyasin: Before the twenty-sixth of December.]

(chuckling) Mm, good! But now you must know that you were never unenlightened. [Sannyasin: I knew it before but I knew it again on the twenty-sixth of december.]

That’s good! When will you be coming back?

[Sannyasin: I don’t know when to go and so I don’t know when I will come back.]

Very good! Whenever it comes to happen, let it happen. And help other people there! Be a bodhisattva! You have to enlighten many people in Japan, mm?

[A sannyasin says she is undecided whether to living in Germany or in Poona: I might regret it one day. It might turn out to be a failure.]

It is so with every alternative. So one has to choose whatsoever gives you more possibilities, that’s all. And it is not only with you; with everybody the future is unknown. One has to move in the dark; it is like groping. And there is no other way; whatsoever you do will be a groping.

So it is not a question of whether to choose or not to choose; something has to be chosen. Even if you don’t choose, it will be chosen, so one has to weigh the alternatives. Remaining in Germany... You have remained there for so many years; what else do you think is possible there? You have lived that alternative. You can give a chance to this new alternative. And I am not saying that it is going to succeed; it may fail – because it depends on you, it doesn’t depend on me. It will fail for a few people, it will succeed for a few people; it will depend.

I can do whatsoever I can, but the basic thing, whether you will receive it or not, is always in your hands. But my feeling is that even to fail with me will be far better than to succeed in germany!

Sometimes failure is better than success. If you fail in search of god it is far better than if you search for money and succeed. That success is worthless. This failure is immensely valuable; at least you have the joy that you tried. Even if you fail, you were searching for god. You failed in finding god; that is not a small joy. A man may succeed in accumulating money after a whole life’s work, and all he can say is ‘I have succeeded in accumulating money.’

To fail with great things is far more beautiful than to succeed with small things, because in searching for small things, you become small; in searching for bigger things, you become big. Failure and success is not the point.

Whatsoever you seek and search for, you become by and by. And there is no other problem – just security, mm?

[The sannyasin answers: I depend so much on the opinion of my brother and I don’t understand that. I’d be very ashamed if I failed.]

But what does he want? He wants a certificate that you have succeeded? I can give you one in advance! (laughter) We are making a university: people who need certificates to show can have certificates! And we will give really beautiful certificates! (laughter) You can frame it in a golden frame and you can put...

There are a few people who are very-much impressed by certificates. We can give you a degree, a ph.d. in meditation or something! (laughter) We will make every arrangement; we will not allow you to fail so easily! Don’t be worried. These are childish things; nothing to be worried about.

[A sannyasin says she is experiencing a strong energy after the discourses: And I keep controlling. It took my body about three days to get over it.]

No. No, if you resist it will be disturbing; you create a contradiction in the energy. You have to go with it.

And it will subside when its work is done, so there is no need to be afraid. But you have to go into it and you have to go without any resistance – a little bit of resistance and the process will be prolonged. If you resist today, again tomorrow it will be there, again it will be there. If you resist too much, then you are dividing your energy into two parts and those two parts start fighting, mm? – one part wants to go and another part pulls it back. And that is very self-destructive, suicidal.

Drop all resistance. Within a week all, everything, will settle, but you have to go to the very end, then only will it settle. So just go on trusting it. It is your energy; it cannot take you anywhere wrong, no!...

Everybody controls... just because of the fear. One never knows where it will lead, where you will land, and the mind says, ‘There is still time: control! If it becomes too much you will go mad or something, and you will not be able to come back if you don’t control right now; then it may be beyond you. Right now you can do something, so do it!’

The mind is afraid of madness. But this is not ordinary madness; this is divine madness. And if you can go through it, you will go beyond mind and beyond madness too. Just allow it one week, mm? Good!

[Another sannyasin says: I’ve just been shaking for weeks and weeks and weeks, and crying.]

Nothing to worry about. Your Kundalini must be arising! (laughter) Great spiritual experiences are happening.

That’s how Indians are far better than Westerners: they always find something good in everything, mm? One is shaking and trembling and they say it is Kundalini; it makes people feel good! If you call it wavering and shaking it doesn’t feel so good; one feels as if one is nervous or something. Indians are far better: they say that this is a spiritual experience, your Kundalini is arising.

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