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‌CHAPTER 6

6 October 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Prem means love, jagran means awakening – the awakening of love. And that’s what god is. Once the heart has awakened in love, one has arrived home. Nothing else is missing – just the heart is fast asleep.

We have bypassed our hearts, we have entered into our heads directly without moving through the heart. We have chosen a shortcut. The heart has been neglected, ignored, for certain reasons – because the heart is a dangerous phenomenon. In the first place it is uncontrollable, and man is always afraid of anything that is uncontrollable. The head is controllable. It is within you, and in your hands; you can manage it. The heart is bigger than you; the head is in you. The same is not the case with the heart: you are in the heart. When the heart awakes, you will be surprised to know that you are a tiny spot in the heart. The heart is bigger than you, it is vast. And man is always afraid of being lost in something vast.

It is easy to manage with the head because the head has limitations, but the heart has none. It is easy to cope with the head because the head functions logically, and logic is the methodology of coping with reality. It is human. The heart is divine, it is utterly illogical. There is no way to figure it out. It always moves from one unknown into another unknown. The mind moves from one known to another known. The second – in which the mind moves – is not different from where the first moves. Their quality is the same, both are known. The only difference is: the first was well-known – the second was not so well-known; it was vague, foggy. The head makes it clear. The whole function of the head is to make vague things clear. But the quality remains the same.

The heart moves from one unknown into another unknown. The function of the heart is mysterious, and mystery naturally makes one apprehensive. Who knows what is going to happen? And how is one going to cope with it? One is never prepared as far as the heart is concerned; one is always

unprepared. With the heart, things happen unexpectedly. Strange are its ways, hence man has decided to bypass it, to just go directly to the head and have contact with reality through the head.

It is because of this that god has disappeared from the world, and poetry too, joy, bliss, truth – all that is significant – has disappeared. The world has become very mundane. There is nothing of the sacred in it. The sacred is revealed only through the heart. The world is full of god if you contact it through the heart. If you contact it through the head then there is no god.

It is just as if one is trying to listen through the eyes; then there is no sound. The eyes cannot contact sound, they are not made for it. Or as if somebody is trying to see through the ears; it is not possible. The ears will never know what light is, what colour is. And if you depend on the ears, they will say ‘There is no colour, there is no light, there is no rainbow – all this is nonsense. All that exists is sound.’ The head has a particular dimension of work: mathematical, logical, realistic, pragmatic, utilitarian. It is mundane. The sacred will not be revealed by it.

The heart reveals the sacred, and with the revelation of the sacred, you have come home. Because to live in the sacred world is to live – to live really, to live authentically. In my vision religion consists of nothing else than the awakening of love, a heart-fullness.

So let your heart start functioning more and more. Listen to the mysterious; don’t deny it. Don’t say offhandedly that it doesn’t exist. All the people who have walked on the earth in a conscious way agree about it – that the mysterious exists. You may call it god, you may call it enlightenment and nirvana, moksha or whatever, but the mysterious exists. The world is not finished at the visible. The invisible is there, and the invisible is far more significant because it is far deeper. The visible is only a wave in the invisible. The invisible is the ocean. So when something strange happens, don’t deny it and don’t close yourself to it. Open up, let it come in. And there are many many moments every day when the mysterious knocks at the door.

Suddenly a bird starts calling.… Listen to it, and listen through the heart. Don’t start analysing it, what it is. Don’t start talking inside about it. Become silent, let it penetrate you as deeply as possible. Don’t hinder it by your thought-waves. Allow it an absolute passage. Feel it – don’t think it. And when you are with the woman you love, feel her; don’t think about her. It is better to be silent. Hold her hand, just feel the presence.…

And when you see a flower, don’t label it; don’t call it a rose. Just see it without labelling it. Don’t call it beautiful – just feel it. Let the beauty overwhelm you rather than labelling it. Labelling is a way of avoiding. The moment you say ‘It is a rose’, you are saying ‘I already know, so there is nothing to know anymore.’ When you say ‘Yes, it is beautiful’, you are simply repeating a cliche that you have heard repeated again and again by others. Why not have a firsthand experience? Why not wait? Why not let the rose itself say something to you? Why say anything from your side? Why not allow the rose to have some impact?

Let it penetrate you... let it stir something in you. Even if for a single moment you can be with the rose without labelling, you will be surprised. Your heart is beating faster, with a new passion, with a new thrill. You will be surprised – you have never felt this way before, because the head was always labelling things and there was no need for the heart to come in. Now, the heart has come in.

You may feel a difference the whole day because you encountered a rose flower in the early morning. You may feel totally different the whole day if you have seen the sun rising in the morning and were overwhelmed by it. You will feel an utterly new person if you have seen birds on the wing and you have been with them for a moment. Your life has started changing.

This is the way one becomes a sannyasin. One has to absorb the beauty of existence, the sheer joy of it, the overwhelming blessing of it. And then slowly slowly love arises in you, and that love is prayer.

In the beginning it is prayer – in the end it is god.

Deva means divine, archan means prayer – a divine prayer. Prayer is not what people are doing in the churches, in the temples, in the mosques. It is something totally different. What they are doing is just an empty gesture of prayer; they are performing a ritual, a formality. It is not prayer – they are simply acting it. It has not come out of their heart, it is coming out of their conditioned mind.

If a person is born in a Christian family he has been taught the Christian prayer. It has become part of his mind. Whenever he is in fear, he will repeat it. Whenever he is ill, he will remember god. Whenever he is in danger, he will suddenly become religious. Otherwise he will not bother about it at all. Or, on Sunday morning he is expected to go to the church – he will go, because it is a social lubricant. It keeps a good image of you in the eyes of the people you have to live with: they think you are religious. It keeps you respectable.

This has nothing to do with prayer at all. Prayer is like love. It is not acting. It is an authentic feeling. But people have done the same with love too. You hug a woman because she is your wife – not that you wanted to hug her, not that there was a passionate desire to hold her close to you, but just because it is expected. You are fulfilling a kind of duty. Then this is a boring experience. So prayer, love, anything that you have to do as a duty, becomes boredom. k loses all beauty. It is dead, it is a corpse: it stinks.

What then do I mean by prayer?

Prayer is a dialogue, a spontaneous dialogue between you and the existence. Passing by a tree suddenly you are possessed by a desire to hug the tree: that is prayer. The tree is so beautiful and so green and so alive, and dancing in the wind and the sun. If you are alive, you would like to have a little dialogue with the tree. She belongs to the earth as much as you do... she has come out of the earth as you have. She is one kind of expression, you are another kind of expression, but we come from the same source. It is good to say ‘Hello’ to the tree. It is just immensely nourishing to hug the tree. And if you start talking to the tree – anything that comes to you.There is no need to feel

embarrassed. If you become like a small child who is talking to the tree, or even talking to the sun, to the moon – then there is prayer. That quality of innocence – having a dialogue with existence – that is prayer.

It cannot be formulated because it will always be different. One day it will be with a tree, another day it may be with a dog. One day you were talking with the stars; another day you may be lying down on the earth, feeling the wet earth and the grass, and you may start singing a song of joy.

That man is dead who cannot feel the wet earth, who cannot feel this immense beauty that surrounds you, this eternal celebration that goes on and on forever. To be aware of this and to have a little dialogue with this existence, is prayer. It has nothing to do with God or the Bible or the Koran or the Gita. It has nothing to do with any idea of god – Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan. It is a direct, immediate experience of reality. One needs to have the courage to be a little mad, to be in prayer. One needs to be a poet to be in prayer. One needs to be a lover to be in prayer. And then anything is beautiful. Whatsoever happens out of that spontaneity is beautiful.

Slowly slowly you will find a deepening relationship happening. Then you are no more a stranger; you belong. And then you are not just accidental – you are part of this immense reality and something very essential to it. Without you it will miss something, it will lack something, it will not be perfect. You have something to contribute to it. You are not just a ‘useless passion’ as Sartre says. You have a destiny to fulfil.

Existence has put some great hopes on you. If those hopes are fulfilled, not only will you be happy: the whole existence will be happy with you. Whenever a man becomes a Buddha, becomes enlightened, the whole existence celebrates, because through that man a part of existence has become illumined. Through that man a part has reached to the highest peak of consciousness.

It is just as your hand reaches to a flower: it is not only the hand that will be happy; you are happy. And we are only hands, thousands and thousands of hands of existence. When one hand reaches the highest peak of consciousness, bliss and truth, the whole existence is thrilled – one part has become illumined. Existence is more illumined now than before. There is less darkness now than before, and more light.

Start moving in this prayerful way. Prayer has not to be learned – all learned prayers are false; prayer has to be imbibed. It is a knack. Start feeling life, existence, people. And start having little dialogues. In the beginning you will feel embarrassed; in the beginning you will be looking out of the corner of your eye to see whether somebody is watching or not, but only in the beginning. Don’t be worried about it, it’s okay. Soon you will see that all fear of public opinion has disappeared. And then really something great starts happening, something incredible, something which you cannot even imagine, something about which you have never dreamt.

Trees start speaking to you, and the rivers and the mountains. It is no more a monologue – it really becomes dialogue. It is not only that you speak; you are spoken to, too. Existence responds. But only when all your embarrassment has disappeared does the response start happening. And that response coming from reality is the voice of God.

God is not a person somewhere. God is spread all over existence. If you are deep in love with a tree, he will speak from that tree. If you are deep in love with the earth, the earth will start whispering mysteries in your ears.…

Anand means bliss. Jagruti means awareness – a blissful awareness.

The whole science of religion can be reduced to the single art of awakening. All the religions basically are nothing but methods of awakening. Methods are different because people are different, but the goal is the same – the goal is awareness. The goal is utter, absolute, consciousness. But all

the religions have gone astray because of the doctrines. Those doctrines are not important, those doctrines are nothing but props to the methods. They are arbitrary.

For example, Christians believe in only one life. That is a device to make man aware. You will be surprised, because ordinarily we think it is a principle. It is not a principle; it is just a device. If there is only one life there is more possibility for man to be aware, because you will not be given another chance. If you lose this, you lose all. If this life is the only life, then it is better not to lose it in unawareness; then it is better to become alert, it is better to see what you are doing, what you are being. Once lost, it is lost forever.

This is just a device to force the idea to hit home. It is a way of hammering: ‘Don’t lose time in unnecessary things. Don’t go on chasing after power, money, prestige, because you have only one life. Death is coming, and then there is no way. The time lost is time lost, you cannot recover it. So be alert, be watchful and see what you are doing. You have only a certain amount of time and energy, and it has to be put in such a way that when you leave this body, you leave fulfilled, so that you can answer to god that the mission is completed, that you have done whatsoever was expected of you, so that you can encounter your god, so that you need not be ashamed.’ This is a device; it is not a principle.

But that’s where things go wrong: Christians thought it was a principle, so they started making a great philosophy out of it. Then certainly it is against Hinduism because Hinduism says that there are many lives – a long chain of lives, zillions of lives. There is no end, one after another it goes on and on. Now there is a problem: if these are principles, then there is a conflict. Then only one can be right, not both. But I again say, that too is a device, a device for a different kind of people.

The East is very ancient; the West is very very modern. The history of the West is a very small history. By the time the Western history began, the East was already declining. It had seen its golden age, it had done all that the West is doing today. It has lived long, it has experienced much. It has a different psychology because it had lived in a different way, in a different climate, with a different vision, with different attitudesThe East has seen things for so long that it has come to

realize that things are repeated again and again like the seasons – again the rain comes, and after one year again it is there, and again it is there.

The East has evolved a concept of time that is circular. In the West the time is linear: it moves in a single line. Only a very ancient culture can evolve the idea of a circle. Only an old man can think of life as a circle, not a child The child thinks that everything is going to be in a line, because he never sees anything repeated. Only when he is aged, one hundred years old, will he look back and see that it was repetition again and again and again. It was like a wheel. If life is a wheel, then after one life, another life, another life, another life.

But that too is a device, a principle, devised for a different kind of people who have known much, who have lived long, for thousands of years, and who have seen many changes and who have noted the fact that history repeats itself. But the goal is the same. It will look very strange but the goal is the same. The East says ‘You have been doing these things again and again and again for many many lives. When are you going to be awakened? When are you going to be aware? Are you going to continue this vicious circle, this boring repetition? How long? Already you have been here for a very very long time, doing the same stupid things again and again. Don’t you feel ashamed that life after life you go on doing the same things? It is time – become alert!’

The whole function of this theory is to make you feel utterly bored. Out of boredom you will jump out of the wheel. Just think... if one can think ‘For many many lives I have been chasing money, and this time also I am doing the same. What is the point? I have attained it many times, I have succeeded many times, and yet death comes and takes everything away. And this time too it is going to happen that way. When am I going to become a little wiser?’

The devices are very different, the methods are very different, but the goal is the same: become aware. Whether there is only one life or many does not matter. In an ancient culture it is better to say to people ‘You have done these things many times. Now enough is enough – beware!’ In a new, young, growing culture, it is good to say ‘This is the only life that you have got. Don’t miss, become aware.’ But the goal is the same.

It is just as there are different kind of sleepers, so different methods are needed to wake them up. For example, somebody wakes just when the sun rises and a shaft of light falls on his face and the retina in his eye is affected by the sunlight falling from the window. That’s enough – he opens his eyes... a light sleeper. But this will not do for everybody. The other person may take another turn, will cover his face with the blanket and forget all about the morning and the light, and will fall asleep again. He will need something more, just a soft light, a little warmth falling on his face won’t do. He will need some alarm, only then can he wake up. And the third person may be even more of a sleeper; the alarm may not be enough.

I have heard about people whose alarm clocks are connected to their electric blanket, so when the alarm goes off, the blanket gives them a shock. Then they can get up, otherwise nothing will help. Or the ancient method is to bring a bucket of ice-cold water and to throw it on the person – that too, is like electric shock. But the goal is the same: they have to be awakened.

Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism – all are methods, different devices pointing to the same goal. That goal is awareness, and only through awareness does bliss arrive. To live in unawareness, to live unconsciously like a robot, like a zombie – as millions of people are doing – is to live in misery. Ninety-nine point nine percent of people are living that way – a robotlike existence. Yes, they get up in the morning and they go to the office, and they do their things. They eat and they sleep and they make love, and they do all kinds of things. But all is being done like a machine, without any real awareness of what they are doing, without any real awareness of who they are, without any real awareness from where they are coming and to where they are going. These people remain in misery.

The moment one starts getting a little more aware about one’s acts, about one’s movements of the body, movements in the mind, thought processes, movements of the emotions and feelings, and slowly slowly aware of the inner self – of ‘Who am I?’ – then the first rays of bliss have entered and soon there will be great light inside you. That light is called samadhi, ecstasy.

[A sannyasin had, on separate occasions, asked Osho about writing a book on Tantra and leading groups. She now says that she is confused because Osho’s recent answer was different from his earlier one.]

I never go according to your expectations...

I have to undermine you... so that has to be understood. That’s the way I work. And I am unpredictable: what I said yesterday I completely forget the moment I have said it. (LAUGHTER) Today is today. And to be with me is to always be with a very unpredictable man.

If I am predictable then I cannot change you. If I fulfil your expectations then I cannot be of any help to you, because you are the problem. If I go on fulfilling your expectations you will remain, and your misery will remain. These are the ways to slowly slowly destroy your own patterns.

This expectation comes from your old mind, hence the old mind is feeling confused, because the old mind was expecting to be supported, strengthened. I cannot support it, because I am not your enemy. I have to destroy it and I have to be really hard on it. Only then is there a possibility of your being reborn.

This is the way to get involved with me: what I say, do. This is the way to come close to me and get involved with me. It is not a question of working in the ashram or doing what you want. That is not getting involved with me, that is remaining involved with yourself. That is just a trick of the old mind.

If I say to somebody ‘Go to the West’, and if he goes without any hesitation, and I say ‘Remain there for one year and don’t come back until I call you’ and he surrenders, he will be as close to me as anybody can be, although he will be far away. But he listened, he followed. His surrender was total. Then there will be no confusion at all. The confusion comes because your mind and my working are different. Now, there are only two ways to remain unconfused. One is: I should support your mind, and then you will remain unconfused, but then you will remain the same. The other way is that you follow me and what I say. In the beginning it will be confusing, but if you persist, if you remain patient enough, soon the old mind will be gone and there will be nobody to be confused with. Then everything is clear, very clear, transparent.

And this is not only about this particular thing. This has to be a multi-dimensional understanding.

For example, you wrote from the West that you have met some Tantra experts, and they have said something to you and you are feeling confused. You have to understand many things. Those Tantra experts are all bookish. They have read about Tantra, they have read Tantra scriptures, but Tantra is not in the scriptures. It is a secret, esoteric teaching. Whatsoever is written in the books is a camouflage – it is just to distract foolish people; it is not the truth. The truth is always delivered in an intimate, immediate contact between the master and the disciple. It is a transfer beyond scriptures, a transmission – direct.

Yes, scriptures are there, many scriptures, and great philosophy, but all rubbish! That is just to let the foolish people get occupied, that is not for the real seeker. It is for the student, but not for the disciple.

So those experts that you meet in the West, or even in the East, if they have been only reading books and gathering information about Tantra, they will never agree with me, because I am not doing things according to the books. I am doing things according to my experience. I function on my authority. It has nothing to do with any scripture.

To be with me is to be with something alive. Those experts will not agree with me. It is not only that they will not agree with me – they will absolutely disagree with me. In fact, they will be offended by my presence – they are offended, because I’m taking away the very ground underneath their feet.

Tantra has always been thought to be antitraditional. That is not true. Tantra is also a tradition, as much as the tradition it contradicts. It is not antitraditional; it is a tradition that is against tradition. Whatsoever you find in those scriptures is a tradition; and don’t be deceived by the fact that it talks against the other tradition. The other tradition is right-handed, and Tantra is a left-handed tradition. But both are ancient and both are traditional.

What I am saying is absolutely alive, new, fresh, young. It is not traditional at all. Hence I call my Tantra, Neo-Tantra. It is a totally different phenomenon... it has to be. Because some scripture was written three thousand years ago; it was meant for the people for whom it was written. That psychology no more functions in the world. I am responding to you. Those scriptures responded to their people. Those scriptures were not written for [you]. There is a gap of three thousand, four thousand, five thousand years between you and those scriptures. They are utterly irrelevant. It is as absurd as somebody going to study physics, stopping at Newton and never coming to Albert Einstein. To stop at Shiva and never come to me, is like that. That is just the beginning, that is only the abc.

And certainly every master has to speak to the people who are available. That’s why many people are surprised – those who understand both English and Hindi are surprised – because in Hindi I say one thing and in English I say something else, because my people are different. In English I am speaking to a different kind of psychology. It is not only a question of language. When I am speaking Hindi, I am speaking to a different psychology. I am not speaking to walls, I am speaking to people; I am responding.

And sometimes I change myself so much, because my message has to be personal. When I am talking to you, I am talking to you; I have forgotten the whole world. Now, whatsoever I am saying to you, I am saying only to you. It may be relevant to other people, it may not be. This is a personal message. But scriptures can’t function that way: they can’t grow.

That’s why in the old days many masters insisted that their sayings should not be written, so that they can go on growing. Then the master would give his message to the disciple, and the disciple would live in a different world. The master would be gone and the disciple would be teaching something to other people in his own right. He would make many changes because the people have changed, situations have changed, circumstances are no more the same. Then he would deliver the message to his disciple, and so on, so forth. Now, this will be a living, growing phenomenon. That’s why they insisted on not writing, because once you write a book it becomes fixed; it becomes frozen. Now nobody can change it. If somebody does then the followers of the book will be very angry.

Now, if I try to change something in the Bible, Christians will not ever forgive me. They will say ‘How dare you?’ But just think: if the teaching of Jesus was given orally and there was no book available, do you think the teaching would have remained the same as it is in the New Testament? In two thousand years it must have passed through at least three hundred masters or more. They would have been giving their own touches here and there – a few things would have been dropped, a few things added. It would have remained alive, throbbing. But it would not have been the same. That is the difficulty with oral teaching – it cannot remain the same. It cannot be authentic to the original thinker, but it will be alive. k will be more useful to the people but it will be less historical. When it is written it becomes historical, but the moment it becomes historical it becomes out of date.

All those Tantra books are out of date. I am here reliving it, and I am trying to help my people to

relive it, I am provoking my people to relive it. And certainly, we have to live it in our own way – the way this century needs it to be lived. So I will drop all kinds of ritualism in Tantra; there is no more need. People have grown up, they are no more childish. Children like rituals very much.

If you watch children you will be surprised: they are very ritualistic. If a child goes to sleep every day with a blanket in his hand, then he will go to sleep every day with the blanket in his hand. Otherwise he will not be able to fall asleep.

If the child is told stories in the night before he falls asleep, he will ask, he will insist ‘Tell me a story’. It doesn’t matter if you tell the same story. In fact he will love it more. Older people get a little puzzled. When you tell a story to a child, the child will say ‘Say it again!’ And when you have said it again, he says ‘Say it again!’ and he becomes so excited! You cannot see the point because you have said it twice, now it looks boring, but the child is excited; he says ‘Say it again!’ He is ritualistic, he is repetitive. The more he listens to it, the more he understands it. He makes it a ritual. When children learn to speak for the first time, they go on speaking the same words again and again. That’s the way they are training themselves.

All ancient religious – Tantra or others – are ritualistic. Now man has become a grown-up, man has come of age. Those days of childhood are no more there; Those rituals look stupid. We have to free Tantra from all ritualistic patterns. We have to make it more poetic, more spontaneous, less patterned, less structured.

That’s what I am doing. And once the new commune is ready, I am going to release many things to my people to make it a really alive experience. It has to become your very style of life. But it is better to call it Neo-Tantra, otherwise those experts will confuse you again and again, and those experts know nothing. But they can confuse you because they have the expertise. They can quote scriptures. And as far as scriptures are concerned what they are saying is true; whatsoever they are saying is taken from the scriptures.

But I am not a man of scriptures. I don’t care a bit! What I say, I say on my authority. If it goes against all the scriptures, so far, so good – nothing to be worried about. Then those scriptures are out of date, that’s all. If somehow what I say agrees with some scripture, that scripture is fortunate. But I am not going to change myself in any way; that will be falsifying.

So simply surrender and leave it to me. You do what I want you to do. That’s the only way for you to flower. And I will see that whatsoever is your need – not your like and dislike, but your need – will be done to you. If you have to be beaten on the head, that will be done to you...

[Another sannyasin says: Every time a question arises that I could ask you, immediately there is an answer which satisfies me.]

That’s perfectly good.

That has to happen to every sannyasin sooner or later. If you really ask a question in deep silence, you will receive the answer. There is no need to ask me, because I am inside you as much as outside you. All depends on you.

Let it happen – you are on the right track!

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