5

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‌CHAPTER 5

5 January 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[To a new sannyasin Osho says:]

This is not for the first time that you are becoming a sannyasin; many times before in many lives you have been attracted again and again and you have followed many paths... but it was never completed. You were never totally in it, so you have tried many times and you have failed many times. Remember this time not to fail. And only one thing helps you to succeed, and that is totality.

The search has to become your whole being. It should not be partial; you should put all that you have at stake. It is a gamble, that’s why clever people go on missing it. Sometimes fools reach and the so-called intelligent lag behind, because the basic quality of totality is more easily possible for the fool than for the so-called intelligent. He does not reach because of his foolishness; he reaches because of his whole-heartedness. I am not saying to become a fool; I am saying to become whole- hearted. To be whole-hearted is so significant that even a fool can reach. And to be partly involved is wastage of energy.

You have been on the path many times on and off and then you got disturbed again and again, because if you get involved only partially, then other parts which are not into it will start distracting you. That is natural. They feel suffocated; they don’t feel fulfillment. They start rebelling, they start taking revenge. Truth is only for the total heart; total heart is truth. I am just telling you this so that this time you can change things a little bit. If you are alert, things can be changed; if you are not alert, you can make the same mistake again; that is more possible.

In the east we have been working for thousands of years, searching into people’s past lives. Two great masters of the east, buddha and mahavir, both developed great techniques, devices to penetrate into past lives, only for this reason: so that a man can be made aware of how he has been missing up to now. Once you know that this is how you have been missing, you can avoid it. If

you are not aware of it there is more possibility that you will fall into the same ditch again, because it is a habitual pattern. So be alert.

This time let it be completed, because only completion knows fulfillment, fruitfulness, only completion brings joy. A tree is happy only when it flowers, and a man is happy only when the journey is complete, when he has arrived, when he starts feeling, ‘Now there is nowhere to go, now there is no goal’... when one starts feeling, ‘Now the future is not needed. If I die this moment, I will die perfectly happily, because there was nothing else to do; all else is done.’ And the situation is available; it can happen. Just watch out for the ditch!...

Prem means love, and dwarka is the name of the capital of krishna. Literally it means ‘many-gated city’. Dwar means gate, dwarka means many-gated: god’s many-gated city. And there are many gates to god’s city; many ways lead to him and all ways are true. Even opposite ways are true, because god is so infinite that he can contain contradictions. Only small minds cannot contain contradictions. The bigger your consciousness, the more contradictions you can contain and yet remain in harmony.

So from the east, from the west, from the south, from the north, there are many, many gates to god’s city, but one particular gate will be good for you; one has to choose. All gates lead, all gates are good, but still one has to choose one because one cannot enter from all the gates. If one tries to enter from all the gates one will go mad. One gate is enough to enter through and that gate is prem, love. That is for you; your gate will be love.

But always remember that love is not the only gate. There are many – even some which have nothing of love in them. For example, the gates of meditation, the buddha gate, has nothing of love in it; the mahavira gate, even less love in it; the patanjali gate, no love at all. They also reach, but they move through a desert of pure intelligence. Jesus moves through the gate of love, sufis move through the gate of love, bhaktas move through the gate of love. It moves through greenery, lakes and hills and trees and birds and song and dance and people. It is the gate of the heart, not of the dry intellect but of the green heart.

In India we have a city; Dwarka is its name. That is symbolic. Krishna, one of the greatest teachers of humanity, made that town; he created that capital, he lived there. He gave it the name Dwarka, just as a symbol to indicate that many are his doors; come from anywhere and you come to him. That is his message in the Geeta too – that all doors lead to him; come from anywhere, just come! Don’t be too bothered about by what path, what method. But still one has to choose because one has to follow one path.

So there are two fallacies to be avoided. One fallacy is: people who follow a path start feeling that their path is the only path. That is fallacious; that creates enmity, antagonism, conflict, and the whole history of humanity is full of blood because of that foolishness.

Then the Christian says, ‘Jesus is the only begotten son’; that is out of stupidity. Buddha is as much a son, so is Zarathustra, so is Mohammed. And many more will be coming; it has not ended. God goes on coming every day, in new garbs, in new manifestations. It will be a poor god if he is finished at Jesus. It will be a very poor -god if he has only one son. All belong to him.

The Mohammedans say, ‘Mohammed is the last prophet; now there will be no other prophet coming.’ Why? Has god become indifferent to humanity? Has god abandoned humanity? Is he no more interested? Is he fed up and tired? Has humanity arrived so that now there is no need for help? But the same stupidity, the same claim, make the Buddhists and the Hindus and the Jainas and everybody.

Because of that egoistic approach, religions have been fighting. Rather than helping humanity to grow towards god, they put their energy in fight. And because of their constant quarrelling they have made many people feel that religion is pathological, that something is basically wrong with religion. Many people have turned away from the churches and the temples because of these people. Not that they are no more interested in god, but seeing that the people who are interested in god always go on doing wrong, it seems that something basic is missing. That is the first fallacy to be avoided.

And the second fallacy is the extreme opposite of the first – that all ways-are right so you can go one way sometimes, another one another time, you can be doing all sorts of things... but then you will simply end in a mess. How can you reach any place if you go one mile on one path then come back and follow another path one mile and then another path? You will become more and more confused, because those methods are all different; all true but all different. They fit in a certain way; you cannot use them on any other way.

If you have learned a sufi technique you cannot use it on the Buddha’s way. If you use it, it will be like using a part from a bullock cart in a rolls royce. It was functioning perfectly in a bullock cart; it will destroy your car. It will not be useful at all. And not that it was not useful; in its own organic mechanism it was useful. You cannot place it anywhere else, you cannot concoct, you cannot synthesize. So the second fallacy to be avoided is the fallacy of synthesis – that one can take something from islam, something from christianity, something from hinduism, can take all the sweet things from them. You will have diabetes if you have all the sweet things from everybody; you will be in danger.

So I specifically indicate: love is your path. Be respectful towards every other path but follow love. Listen to the sufis, to the devotees, to the bhaktas; singing, chanting, dancing – that will help you. You are a heart person.

Deva means god, iksha means search – search for god. And that is there like a seed. A little help and it can grow and take possession of you. It is lying there in the heart; it has to be provoked, it has to be awakened. We go on searching for this and that because we don’t know what our real search is for. That’s why nothing ever satisfies. If you don’t get it you are frustrated; if you get it, again you are frustrated because you see that you have got it but nothing has happened through it.

The world creates continuous frustration; whether you succeed or fail makes no difference. If you fail, naturally you feel frustrated, but even if you succeed, you feel frustrated because the basic desire is for god; less than that cannot make man contented.

It is as if a child is hungry and you give him a toy. For a few moments, for a few minutes the child becomes engaged in the toy, forgets the hunger, but then he throws the toy. He starts crying and weeping again and asking for milk or food.

All our other engagements in life are just toy-like. Money, power, prestige, family, this and that – all are toys. For the time-being one becomes occupied, one forgets, but again and again sooner or later one starts feeling that this is not life; life should be something more. Life cannot be only this, this rut and the routine; life must be something more which you are missing. Sooner or later... And the sooner it is, the better, because then one can start seeking and searching in the right direction. The seed is there in the heart and now you have come tO the gardener! Cooperate, and great happenings are possible... and with a very little effort. Just the effort to provoke the desire, to make it a little more fiery, to intensify it is needed.

That is the meaning of iksha. It is a search, not an ordinary search but a search which has fire in it, a search which has passion in it, a search which has devotion in it, a search which is a commitment; which is not only out of curiosity but which requires utter involvement; a search which if needed one can dissolve oneself into, which one can sacrifice oneself for. Then it is iksha. It is not an ordinary desire; it is all desires put together into one flame. And when all desires are put together in one flame and they start searching for god, it happens, it has to happen. Nothing more is needed, nothing more is asked and required.

[The new sannysin says: Since I’ve been here I wish to leave, to run away.]

Mm mm! That idea is natural. The mind always becomes afraid. If something is going to happen which is beyond the mind’s control, the mind says, ‘Escape, go away from here. You may be getting into some trouble, you may be trapped. You may unknowingly land into something from where getting out may become difficult.’ The mind is always against the new, against the unfamiliar. That’s very natural, but it happens only when something is going to happen, otherwise it doesn’t happen, the mind doesn’t bother. If the mind feels that nothing is going to happen it says, ‘Okay, you can go on living here as long as you want.’

Once the feeling arises that something is on the verge, then the mind freaks out. You will have to be aware of that. Just doing a few groups will be helpful and will relax you.

[A sannyasin says: Before I took sannyas I was homosexual, and since then I have been able to open up and I’ve been with a woman through your help. Now we’re expecting a baby and I feel the homosexuality is manifesting again.… Should I just watch it and not give in? Sometimes I think it is repression...

Osho checks his energy.]

There is nothing like a problem and that homosexuality is just your old habit. Nothing is a problem; your energy is perfectly heterosexual. It is just an old habit. You just have to be indifferent to it and it will go. It will come again and again many times because no habit goes easily and this is a deep habit. But it is just a habit; your energy is perfectly heterosexual. If the energy is homosexual then it is very difficult to change, very very difficult, almost impossible. But with you there is not a problem, mm? Just be indifferent to it. Don’t in any way nourish it and it will die out of disuse, that’s all.

[A sannyasin says: It happens very often for long periods that my head is very blank, even in normal life. I should like to have it go on.I love it]

Mm mm, so it will go on and it will become bigger. That’s how it should be – it is perfectly beautiful. That’s what we are trying for, that this happens to everybody. Those blank periods are the periods when you are closest to god. Those are the periods when you are no more human, because you are no more. In those moments you are pure energy, undefined, uncategorised, without any adjective – man, woman, animal, vegetable... nothing; it is just pure energy, cosmic energy.

Enjoy these gaps. Those are the doors to god. They will become bigger, and soon you will start going deeper into them. The more you become in tune with those gaps, the further away they will take you, on far away journeys to the stars. They are the doors to the infinite. Feel very very grateful and thankful that things have started happening!

[A sannyasin says that while she was away in France she experienced a lot of fear: my life was very impotent and now it is of a different quality.]

It is a very positive kind of fear. Fear is not always negative, not necessarily negative, neither is courage always positive; things are very complicated. Sometimes courage is just foolishness, stupidity, ignorance. You just don’t know what you are doing, you just don’t know where you are going, so you have courage. You are blissfully unaware of the consequences so you have courage. That courage has no positive quality in it.

Fear is not necessarily negative; this fear is not. You have stumbled upon something inside you which is very significant – the feeling that you have not been living creatively, the feeling that you have lived an impotent life. This is a very positive fear because through it you will start becoming creative; through it a transformation will happen to you. It cannot happen without it. This fear is your friend; befriend it, feel totally one with it, don’t repress it. Don’t try to get rid of it, because if you succeed in getting rid of it you will again fall into the old pattern of life which was impotent!

Use this space that fear is creating in you to change yourself. Feel thankful towards the fear because it has made you aware of something which was missing. Now something can be done, and something can be done only when you have become aware. This fear has awakened you.

It happens many times that if you are having a sweet dream, your sleep is not disturbed; sweet dreams are more dangerous. But when you are having a nightmare there is every possibility of the sleep being disturbed. And when the nightmare really comes to a peak the sleep is going to be disturbed. That is something positive about the nightmare: it wakes you, and once you are awake, the nightmare is no more there. It was part of sleep.

So it happens that an ordinarily happy person remains shallow because he is having sweet dreams: succeeding in business, politics, making a little name and fame, making a little vibration around himself, getting somewhere, achieving something. He feels perfectly happy; what more is there? He is the happy-go lucky person, but he remains shallow. His life is a kind of merry-go-round, but it has no depth because he cannot awake. Happiness functions like a tranquilliser. It is alcoholic; one remains intoxicated.

But when you are having a real nightmare of a life, all is tumbling down, you are falling into pieces, suddenly you become aware that you have not lived, not at all, that all this has been just a sheer wastage, a wasteland, that you are hollow, that there is no depth, that you are dark, that there is no

light. Something drastic has to be done; something radical has to happen, otherwise life is slipping by.

When you are in such a painful state, feeling fear, anguish about what to do, what not to do, experiencing great anxiety... if these things awake you, they are positive, they are friends. They are more helpful than the so-called happiness and the sweet dreams. That’s how a curse sometimes becomes a blessing, and vice versa too.

So take it very positively – I see it very positively. Your face is positive, you have never been so positive. You have a strength, you have never been so strong. Things are perfectly good. And this is your home – be here. I will arrange it for you so you can start taking rebirthing, mm? Good!

[A sannyasin therapist says: You’re very important to me, and this creates much conflict for me because I want to go inside you and have you inside me... and I want to start now]

It is going to happen. Forget about it, because if you go on remembering it you will be obstructing its happening These things happen only when you are not aware; you cannot make them happen, you cannot force them to happen. These things are so fragile that they happen only when you have completely forgotten about them; then suddenly one day it has happened. They happen like miracles: when they happen you cannot even believe how it happened. You cannot believe whether it is true or you are just imagining things. You cannot believe that you were worthy enough... but they happen!

The longing is good because without the longing they will never happen, but then with the longing also they will never happen, so this is a complicated phenomenon. First you have to desire and then you have to stop desiring. If you don’t desire, they will never happen; if you go on desiring they will never happen. So one has to desire, and then at one point one has to drop desiring. Half the journey is through desire and half the journey is through desirelessness; then they happen.

Drop the desire; that journey is complete. Just start getting absorbed in the work. My work is me. One day suddenly you will find that I am inside you.

[Another sannyasin says: I’m so tired and so exhausted. Nothing has any taste. Sometimes I feel not here. When I’m going walking around this ashram, deep breathing arises and I get drunk. Tears come from nowhere, and I’m not happy about it.]

You need a few groups. Whenever you can manage, you just ask me for a few groups. And the second thing: you are not allowing those tears, you are holding them; that is making you tired. Allow them! And when the breathing changes you hold that too. You become a little panicky, you become afraid about what is happening so you start controlling it. Allow that breathing, let it go berserk. It feels like a delirium because it comes out of nowhere and you don’t see the point of why it is there.

The word ‘delirium’ is very good; it means ‘off the track’. So something which is not expected, which should not be there, is there. Allow it; that breathing will cleanse your being and all your tiredness will be gone.

And those tears are immensely valuable. There is nothing like tears, and nothing like tears which come out of nowhere. When tears come for some cause they are not so beautiful, they are not

so innocent; they are motivated. Somebody has died and you are crying; that is not much. Your girlfriend has left you and you are crying; that is not much, it is very ordinary, mundane. But when you are simply crying for no reason, you cannot find the reason, that means it is coming from the unconscious, it is coming from your very roots, guts. Allow it; it will cleanse your whole being, it will take much dust out of your vision.

So those tears and those sudden changes in breathing have both to be allowed. For a few days just go into them. If you feel they are coming, sit and cry to your heart’s content. Allow that breathing. See [a therapist] mm? She will help you with breathing. And things will be different.

[Another sannyasin says she started working in the mala shop and likes it but: I’m also feeling very lonely and having difficulty in relating to people. In my sexual life things are very strange also. I need it but when I am there it is as if I am not there; there is no more pleasure. Also I’m crying a lot.]

That’s good! That’s the good thing, mm? You cry! And get intoxicated... Cry as deeply as you can. And continue to work in the mala shop; those distractions will disappear.

You are in a transitory period. Something has broken inside you so you don’t know who you are. Before you used to know and again you will know, but you are in the middle of it. You have lost the old and the new has not arrived, so you are completely at a loss, that’s all. Let those tears come let these distractions come: you continue working. Let that working become your meditation; that will help you not to be distracted too much. Whenever you remember, come back, become present.

And those things are happening in your relationship too, because it is happening inside you. So it will happen in everything that you do – work, meditation, love; in whatsoever you do it will happen.

You are in a kind of nebulous state: the old is melting and the new is taking shape, and you are just in the middle, so it will remain so for the time being. But it is good, feel happy that it is there. But crying has not to be stopped, crying has to be continued. Enjoy crying. Tears have a beauty if you enjoy them; they have a poetry if you enjoy them and they give your spirit a bath. Just as you take a shower for the body, tears are a shower for the spirit...

But continue relating with people, don’t stop it. Whatsoever is the situation, you continue: making love, meeting people, creating new friendship. Just go on moving.

[Another sannyasin says: I feel my energy’s been going crazyI get very hot, and sometimes it

goes to my head.It’s in my hands now and my face gets very hot.

Osho checks her energy.]

Energy is there and good energy. Don’t create any antagonism between the energy and you; you have a subtle antagonism. You are not quite agreeing with it and this disagreement will be bad because it is your energy; if you disagree with it, you become divided. A total agreement is needed. This is your energy, and when your hands start feeling hot, enjoy the warmth; when your face starts feeling hot, enjoy the warmth. Help the energy to spread all over the body so that the warmth is spread proportionately from the toe to the head. It is not spread proportionately – a few parts are feeling, a few parts are not. That is because of you, because you are against it deep down. You are keeping a few territories in the body aloof.

You have to accept it, you have to be overwhelmed by it, and then it will disappear. Within three, four weeks, you will find instead of warmth, a great coolness arising. Because it is the same energy: warm or cool it is the same energy. If it spreads all over the body it will become very very cool. The harmony will feel like coolness. The disharmony is being felt as being hot. Disharmony is feverish; with harmony the fever will disappear.

So help it to spread, mm? Whenever it is there close your eyes and feel that it is spreading all over the body; it is moving in the legs, moving in the belly, spine, head, hands, it is going everywhere. Just feel it moving and it will start moving. It simply needs your cooperation; it is ready to move. Once it starts moving all over the body you will have a totally different concept of your being.

You are becoming alive, the deadness is disappearing. A few parts which are in your control are dead and a few parts which are not in your control have become alive, but the disparity is creating trouble for you. The disparity can be dropped in two ways: either stop these parts which are becoming alive – make them dead again, then you are one – or make the dead parts also alive. The first thing will not be good; the second thing will give you a new vision and a new dimension.

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