29

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‌CHAPTER 29

29 October 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine, smito means smile – a divine smile. Laughter is a little rough. It has something of anger in it, something of violence too. Laughter is aggressive. A smile is feminine, non-aggressive, non-violent; a smile is passive. It does not make noise – it comes very silently and it disappears silently.

Life should be like a smile. People make much noise. They strut too much, they make much fuss, and the reason is that only when they make much fuss are they paid attention to; and the ego feeds on attention, the ego lives on attention. How many people pay attention to you – that is the only concern of the ego. More and more people should pay attention to you; then you are somebody, then you are special, then you are not just a nobody.

The ways of the ego are noisy. In laughter something of the ego remains present. Life should be a smile – gentle, humble. Life should be lived as a nothingness, as if one is not, as if one is absent, and great joy arises out of that absence.

That absence is very pregnant. That nobody-ness is the source of the whole of life. When someone becomes nobody he becomes part of the very source, he becomes part of god. God is nobody – that’s why you cannot find him, you cannot locate, you cannot pinpoint him. He is not somebody – he is not a person. He is a kind of beautiful absence. That is his way of being; non-being is god’s way of being. And a sannyasin should learn the grammar of non-being, smile with the grammar of non-being.

One has not to make a mark on the world, one need not leave any trace; no footprints are needed to be left behind. One should live as birds fly in the sky – they don’t leave footprints; that is the way of a smile.

Veet means beyond; klesho has two meanings – one is impurity, another is misery – and they are both deeply related because it is impurity in the consciousness that creates misery. And the only thing that creates impurity in the consciousness is the idea of the ego. The ego is the only false thing in existence – it is utterly unreal, but we devote our whole life to its service. And when you worship something which is not, naturally you become miserable because your whole life becomes invested in something that exists not.

This is the only problem that every human being has to face... and there are only two ways to encounter it. One is to cooperate with it; that’s what the West has chosen. Strengthen it, make it more and more solid and crystallised. Mm, that’s why people become so ambitious and so much interested in success, money. These are ways to enforce the ego, these are the props that somehow keep it alive. It is a miracle that people somehow manage, because to manage something which is not for your whole life is not a small phenomenon. This is the greatest magical trick and the greatest magic trick.

The other is the way that East has chosen. Rather than helping it, rather than trying to create it, strengthen it, the East has looked deeply into it, because the primary concern is first to see whether it is there or not. Before we start on a great pilgrimage to fulfil something, the basic requirement is to see whether it exists at all. Those who have looked in have not found it. And the moment you see that there is no ego in you, all misery disappears.

The ego creates misery and the misery creates ego; there is a mutual conspiracy. The word ‘klesha’ means both – the impurity that is created by the ego and the misery that is produced by the ego. One has to go beyond both, but in going beyond one is going beyond both, because there are not two things but two aspects of the same phenomenon.

[To a new sannyasin Osho says:]

So now you need not be afraid! You have been unnecessarily afraid... but it is a good sign in a way. Your fear of entering into sannyas simply shows that this is going to be your life commitment – hence the fear... that you are taking it in a deep, intense, passionate way, that it is not just curiosity, that it is going to be your love affair, that this is not just momentary. It is going to transform you, it is going to become your very heart and your being, hence the fear. The fear comes only when the mind starts feeling that death is around. And this is a kind of death – dying to the past, dying to the old identity, dying to the old way, dying to all that you have been and entering into something which you know nothing of, entering into something which is utterly unfamiliar, entering into a foreign land. The territory is not known, maps are not available.

It is a death and a rebirth. So fear is natural. The real sannyasins always feel afraid before they take the jump, because it is risky and you are staking yourself for something for which no guarantee can be given. There is no possibility of any guarantee. You are moving from a secure world, coy, into an insecure world. Although more sun will be available and more wind and more rain, the walls will disappear, and the walls give a feeling of security.

Sannyas means living without walls. Then the sky is your only roof. It is utterly beautiful but utterly frightening too, because what better roof can one get than the sky full of stars? And what better life can one get than the open life of sun, rain and wind? The more you go into insecurity, the more

alive you become. Security is a slow way of suicide, but the suicide comes so slowly that one never becomes aware of it; it is slow poisoning.

So don’t feel guilty about your fear – that fear is a good indication. If you had escaped because of the fear then it would have been a mistake, then you may have missed the opportunity of a lifetime. But in spite of the fear, you have taken the jump. That is something beautiful!

That’s how one moves into the unknown: in spite of the fear. One does not listen to the fear. One listens to the call of the unknown. One tunes oneself with the call of the unknown and puts the fear aside. This courage is the basic quality of a religious person. And remember: courage does not mean that there is no fear. Courage means there is fear and yet in spite of the fear, one has taken the risk to go on the journey...

Deva means divine, tanmayo means lost – lost in the divine, absorbed in the divine. And you have lived separate enough; now drop your separation from existence. You have struggled enough – now drop all struggle; become part of the whole.

Fighting is ugly but everybody fights because we are taught to fight. And fighting is not only ugly – it is very harmful to you, because the whole does not suffer from our fight; we dissipate our energy. It is a small wave fighting with the whole ocean. It is utterly foolish. The same energy could have become a dance. The wave may have danced, may have tried to reach to the moon or the sun, may have lived the moment in utter joy and glory and splendour. But all that is lost because the whole energy is involved in fighting with the ocean... which is doomed. The wave cannot win against the ocean – man cannot win against the whole. So it doesn’t harm the whole – it harms us; it dissipates our energy. It simply allows life to slip by without being lived at all. It almost always happens that when a person is dying then he realises that he has not lived at all, but then it is too late.

There is a Russian parable: a man died and then he knew that he had never lived at all. But now, what can you do? It is good to become mindful of the phenomenon while one is alive.

Sannyas is nothing but an initiation into a new way of life, and the fundamental is no fight with existence; on the contrary, going with the wind, just like a dry leaf going with the wind, in utter let-go. And out of that let-go arises a great ecstasy. That ecstasy is ‘tanmaya’. Then one is lost, one is drunk – drunk with the joy of life.

[A sannyasin says: I’m a bit scared too!]

It is time now to drop it, mm? because that keeps an unnecessary distance between me and you... and there is no point. It has just become a habit. Drop it! It is destructive. You have carried it long enough. I have not told you yet to drop it, but now it is time. k is pointless, irrelevant; there is nothing to fear.

The fear only arises because somewhere deep down you still go on trying to keep your identity separate. And that is the fear – that if you come closer, that identity will disappear. But that identity is not going to give you anything. It can only go on keeping you attached to something illusory, and whenever the mind is attached to something illusory it remains miserable. At the most one can maintain a little bit of happiness on the surface but deep down the misery continues and it goes on polluting the surface happiness also once in a while.

Why not cut it from the very root? What is there to save? Death will come one day and destroy the whole identity. And I will do it in a far more gentle way. Death is very cruel – I am not that cruel, mm?

So start dropping it, mm? – otherwise here you will be but still you will keep the distance, and that will become a hindrance in your growth. People who have come long after you have grown very deeply. You have been unnecessarily struggling. That very struggle is going against you, against nobody else. Now be afraid of your habit rather than being afraid of me. At the most I can kill you. So what? Once that is accepted things become very simple.

I have killed so many people here – you can see corpses and corpses, and they are all happy corpses! In fact they have never been so happy. The life that they used to think was life, was death, and the death that they used to think is death has proved eternal life.

So this time, no half-hearted measures, mm? things have to be done in a total way. [Another sannyasin says: I’m very afraid of dying.]

It is going to happen – don’t be worried... So rather than making it a long procedure of dropping it, drop it instantly, this very moment, and be finished with it. Things are very simple if you do them fast. They become complicated if you postpone, saying ‘Tomorrow, slowly slowly, gradually I will do it.’

There are a few things which can only be done instantly. To drop any illusion no gradual process is needed. Yes, if you have to change some reality then a gradual process is needed, but these are just illusions. Nobody ever dies, so the fear of death is very illusory, it is absurd. Life is eternal. You were here even before you were, and you will be here even when you are gone.

That’s what Jesus means when somebody asked him ‘What do you say about Abraham?’ and he said ‘I am before Abraham was.’ There was at least three thousand years distance between him and Abraham and he says ‘I am before Abraham was.’ He is saying something really tremendously significant.

The birth is not your beginning; the birth is only an episode in your life. And so is death – death is not your end; again another episode in your life. You don’t begin with birth and you don’t end with death. These are just episodes in an eternal life. They have happened many times and they will happen many times. Unless you consciously die in a meditative state this will go on happening. Once you have died consciously – that’s what I mean when I say ‘die’: die consciously to time – then you have died to birth and to death both, and then suddenly the eternity opens its doors! Call it ‘god’ or ‘nirvana’; names don’t matter.

To be with me has only one meaning: I have to teach you how to die so that you can be reborn. And unless you die you cannot be reborn. So just drop it this very moment and forget all about it. It may come back sometimes into your memory but just don’t cooperate with it; just say ‘It is finished – get lost!’ Don’t make it a programme that you will do it; then you will never be able to do it. Do it right now and forget about it!

And get lost into the commune. The commune is only a situation where death will become easier, because you will see so many dead people and you will be able to gather courage – ‘People can die and still they are, so why not me?’

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