12

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‌CHAPTER 12

12 March 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine, preeti means love. And one has to be constantly alert, only then does love flower. Much awareness is needed, otherwise int he name of love many other things go on. So if one is very alert then only can pure love flower, otherwise the name remains love but sometimes it is jealousy, sometimes it is domination, sometimes it is just pure animality, just sexuality; these things continue.

Love means a very pure quality of friendship where you don’t want anything from the other, where you are simply happy because the other is... when the very existence of the other, the very presence of the other gives you happiness. Not that he does something to you or that he is a support, financial, physical, or that he is in some way a means to some joy. No, his very presence is enough.

When you start rejoicing in the presence of a person there is love. You don’t want to use the person. The moment you start using the person, love has disappeared. Then it is just politics and very tricky at that. It is just exploitation: you go on talking about love and behind the facade of love you go on exploiting the person.

Unless one is very alert one misses love. Millions of people think they are loving each other and many times they get deceived. But the deception is not coming from the outside, the deception comes from inside you.

So ‘deva pritti’ means the purest... when love becomes divine. and then there is no other religion: if you have known love through one person, you have known love for all. The one becomes the door for all. Then there is no need to hanker, there is no need to go on changing your lover; the one is enough, more than enough. And in the one the heart is fulfilled and you can bless the whole existence.

It is the lowest quality of love that goes on seeking, changing, hankering, longing. The higher the love, the more centred it becomes.…

[A sannyasin who is leaving for the West says: I just feel happy and I’m looking forward to coming back.]

That’s good. Keep flowing into this happiness, don’t lose track of it. It is very difficult to get, it is very easy to lose. and it is a very delicate phenomenon: you can lose it in seconds and then it takes months to get back to the same space.

So while it is there pour all the energy into it. Water it so the roots go deeper and deeper and it becomes a strong tree and ordinary winds and ordinary storms of life cannot uproot it. Those winds are always there, and they are not enemies: they are simply challenges to your roots to go still deeper. they come, they shake you just to give you a challenge, so they are not enemies. But if roots are not deep any small thing can disturb everything.

Sometimes such trivia, meaningless things, can simply shatter your whole temple, as if the whole temple were just made of playing cards and a small breeze comes and all is gone. And then it is very hard to recapture it because in those moments of sadness and depression your self-confidence is also lost.

When a person is happy, flowing, he has tremendous self-confidence; he can do anything. This is the paradox of life, the predicament: when nothing is needed to be done you are full of energy and you can do anything, and when everything is needed to be done you are so deeply depressed, so unconfident that you cannot do anything... when everything is needed to be done! When there is a need to have confidence there is no confidence. When you are flowing and happy, when you know that you can do the impossible, nothing is impossible.

Once you lose track of happiness you are shaken. Then not only is happiness gone, all that the happiness was bringing as a by-product – the confidence, the flow, the energy, the vitality, the courage, the adventurousness – all is gone with it.

Have you sometimes seen on the TV or on the actual field, any hockey team or volleyball team which has lost its confidence? It is an ugly scene, it is a very ugly scene. and suddenly they start making all sorts of mistakes; they were not making them before. Once they feel that the failure is certain and now there is no way to win, they start making all sorts of mistakes, foolish mistakes, as if they are bent upon being defeated, the sooner the better. They lose all confidence, their faces are listless and they move like zombies, because deep-down they have accepted the defeat; now it is only a question of time.

And just a few moments before when they were winning they were totally different personalities – full of joy and happiness and confidence and life, bubbling. Now suddenly everything has disappeared. Now they are just there mechanically: they have to be there so they are there. And they start helping the other party, they start helping the other party to defeat them. This is how it happens in actual life also.…

When you are deeply depressed you start helping depression, you start helping sadness, you start helping hell to burst over you, and you start doing all sorts of things.

And you know, deep down you understand what you are doing: these things are not going to help, they will disturb even more, but somehow it seems that suicide is the only thing. In a depressed moment a person becomes suicidal and starts cutting his own roots; a person starts being self- destructive.

So while happiness is there one has to be very very cautious about it and to give it more and more roots in one’s being. When you are happy, do everything to express it, because if happiness is not expressed it will never gain roots. Laugh, dance, sing – express it, because whatsoever you express becomes deep-rooted, whatsoever you manifest starts flowing more.

When you are happy share it, give it to as many people as possible, as if you are lending money: when you are in need, it will come back. So when you have the money lend it to as many people as possible – to the familiar, to the unfamiliar, to the friend, to the foe; go on sharing it.

But unfortunately people do just the reverse: when they are miserable they manifest it. They talk too much about their misery, their illness, their failures, and they don’t express their songs. People are so efficient at expressing their misery that one is simply amazed. When it comes to a question of expressing misery, everybody is a poet!

Have you not watched it? If you hit somebody and he becomes angry he becomes so expressive. The man ordinarily may stutter but when he is angry he doesn’t stutter; then words flow like bullets. In anger, in sadness, in boredom, in misery, people are so expressive – poets... all are poets: poets of misery, anger, depression, unhappiness, poets of hell. But when it comes to heaven, when they have moments of peace and silence and happiness, they are simply dumb, they will not say a thing, they will not express. Naturally that which you don’t express disappears.

So share, water it, enjoy it. Find new ways and new means to be in it. For example you are happy: go for a walk and see how you feel walking when you are happy; that will be a new combination. When you are happy go swimming; see how it feels when you are happy plus swimming! You have been swimming before but now swimming will have a different taste.

When you are happy go and look at the rose and see how different the colour is, how rosy the rose is. It has never been so before because your eyes were colourless. When you are happy dance a dance and see that your steps are those of a great dancer. When you are happy sing or play on an instrument or just run around. find new ways and means and let your happiness become joined to as many things as possible. These will be the roots in different directions. The tree will become more and more strong.

And then some day when happiness is disappearing you will know how to find it from many ways. Go swimming and remember the taste, go for a morning walk and again remember the taste, again have a dance and remember the step. Now you have many things to do to recall it.

So all these days while you are away, meditate, be happy, express your happiness and make it as much associated with as many things as possible, relevant, irrelevant, and you will be tremendously benefitted.

[A sannyasin says: Since I’ve been away in london I’ve got very into opium and opiates, and I fight it but I don’t stop it. I don’t know what to do either way.

It stopped me coming back many times because I kept spending my money on it.]

It is a very dangerous trip and a very vicious one. If you fight with the idea you will be defeated again and again, because if you start fighting – you have the attitude that you have not to take it, that this is bad, and it is not good for you – all these ideas will make you even more interested in it.

When you are strong you will repeat these things, but you cannot remain strong for twenty-four hours. Strength and weakness just change like day and night. When the weak moment comes you say,‘Once more; nothing is so wrong in it. So many people take it and what wrong has it done up to now? What is there in life? Even if something goes wrong, it goes wrong.’ And then you will find loopholes and somewhere you will slip in again.

Back in your strong moment again you will condemn. And this can become a vicious circle: you condemn it and by condemnation you feel very good and egoistic, that you are a great saint or something, and then the weak moment comes and the sinner takes possession. You fall victim again and enjoy telling yourself,‘I don’t bother a bit about these top – dogs – this spirituality and morality and that one should be pure and all that nonsense. I don’t bother a bit!’ – mm? You enjoy the sinner.

Then you are creating a split within you: the saint and the sinner, the upper and the lower. You will be split, you will become by and by two persons, and that is the greatest misery in the world: to become two persons.

The greatest bliss is to become one and the greatest misery is to become two. Hell is the space where you are two or many and heaven is the space where you are one or none.

So you have to understand the whole process. It is not a question of condemning. Don’t condemn, please, don’t condemn, otherwise opium will always follow you.

Don’t condemn; it is not a question of condemnation. Rather than condemning, meditate on why you take it. What does it give you? And I am not saying that this meditation is going to make you free. of it – because if the idea is there that you have to be free of it, you are fighting. It is only a question of a deep understanding: one has to understand what one is doing, why one goes into it.

And don’t carry any pre – judgement that it is bad, that you should not go into it. Nothing is bad, nothing is good. That should be the basis of all understanding, that is the basis of all understanding: nothing is good, nothing is bad.

So debar the split; from the very beginning close the door to the vicious circle. Otherwise if you say it is good, it is bad, you will be in trouble. It is nothing. Opium is opium; it is neither good nor bad. So now you have to see why you go into it, because there are a thousand and one other things – why don’t you go into them?... why do you go into opium?

So watch your mind, what you are doing, rather than condemning. Go into the deepest layers and ask why you hanker for it, what it gives you. Maybe it is giving something. Maybe it is good, maybe it is bad, but that is not the point to decide from the beginning. The decision should come when you have investigated the whole thing, not before. A decision from the very beginning means you are prejudiced.

I have heard about a magistrateWhen he had just become a magistrate, he finished thirty cases

in one day while other magistrates were finishing not more than three, four cases. So they were surprised; they asked,‘How could you finish thirty cases in one day? You have done almost one month’s work and we cannot finish three cases. How did it happen?’

He said,‘I do one thing: I only listen to the one side, then it finishes immediately. If you listen to both sides you become confused; then to decide becomes difficult. So I decide by listening to only one side.’

If you take a decision from the very beginning you have listened only to the one side. And naturally these saints have been very articulate. Mm? they have written all the books and they have given all the sermons; they have been very articulate. They have condemned tremendously. And the sinners have been the silent majority. Remember, sinners are the silent majority and the saints are the vocal minority. Mm? they have nothing much, their number is not much, but they are very vocal people, they can prove what they say.

So when you are beginning with the idea that it is bad, the saints are vocal in you; they are saying that this is wrong, this is bad. All the saints of all the religions of the whole world are with you and you feel very good, a super – ego feeling, but this won’t last because those sinners are dumb people. They don’t say much but when the moment comes they will do; they are the doers, they do things.

So please don’t carry a decision; simply remain open. Who knows? maybe it is good! If it is good, go into it; if it is not good, get out of it, but you have first to see the whole process. So watch, be an observer.

For three weeks simply observe and make notes of all moods – good, bad, saintly, sinnerly; make notes and just watch. That will give you an insight, and whatsoever comes out of that insight is good. I am not saying what will come. I am not a saint!

Whatsoever comes out of understanding is good. So just be a watchful person, aware, analyse everything, examine everything, see the deep – rooted causes, the motivation of it. And then after three weeks tell me how you feel.

For three weeks completely forget all conclusions, mm? Listen to both sides. And if you can listen to both sides without any prejudice, you will be surprised that when the conclusion arises out of your own insight there is no problem. If the conclusion that you have to stop arises, it is stopped already! Then there is no problem: it simply drops!

You smoke, you have a cigarette in your hand, and the conclusion arises: you simply drop the cigarette, that’s all – finished! You don’t look back on it again, no going back, not even the idea of it comes again; but it should come as an insight.

And my whole effort is how to bring insight to you. Whatsoever the cost, insight is the only valuable thing. So just do a few groups here, meditate, watch and see.

[A sannyasin says: I feel as if I’m two persons: sometimes I want to go back and sometimes I want to stay here.]

Then go back, because whenever there is any conflict between me and any other thing you have to choose the other because I don’t want you to be half – hearted. If you feel there is a conflict and you would like to go, go. That’s better. At least from there you will be remembering me. If you are here you will remember [your boyfriend] and you will be angry with me; that is pointless.

So it has to be made clear to every sannyasin really, that whenever there is a problem between me and anything, choose the other; there is no need to ask; Because in that way you will be growing far more smoothly than in any other way. Otherwise you will become dull and you will be sad and depressed and you will think that you are suffering for me, that you are becoming a martyr for me and you have sacrificed much, and there is nothing at all to sacrifice! But then you will create a mountain out of a molehill and you will think you have done so much and.…

You simply go, mm? And when you are finished there you can always come; whenever you feel like it, come, mm?...

I understand, I understand your difficulty, but if this is the problem, you have to go! You follow? My logic is simple: my logic is that if you are there you will be closer to me, you will think of me, you will think many times that it would have been better if you had stayed in poona; that is good. If you are here you will be miserable and thinking of [your boyfriend] that is not going to help in any way. You follow me? By being there with [your boyfriend you will be closer to me, that’s why I say to go, mm? And nothing to be worried about... nothing to be worried about.

And whenever it is a question between choosing the divine and the human, of choosing the higher and the lower, choose the lower, because without passing through the lower you will never reach the higher. And if you jump to the higher and the lower has not been finished, you will fall again.

So nothing to be worried! When is he going? [She answers: In a month.

In a month? So good! At least for one month you both be happy. I am here and he is here; after one month go, mm? And don’t make a problem out of it, it is very simple. And this type of problem – when one has to choose – will come many times in life; the path forks in two and one has to go one way. But this is far better. I had the idea that you would have to go, that’s why I told you not to go, so things become clear.

What I say is not always naturally what I mean (laughter), and what I mean is not always what I say! I knew that you would be going, hence I told you to stay, so things become clear, so you are in a bad space.

Drop this bad space; there is no problem, mm? Go, and come whenever you can come. Either you can come together or if you are not together come alone, but be finished with it.

This is something that everybody has to face and the problem is there every moment – to choose between this or that. My experience has been this – that if I tell people to be here they think of going; if I tell them to go they start thinking of being here. So don’t start thinking of being here because one month is a long time; otherwise you may again create the problem that you should not go and you should be here. Simply go, mm?

... Then we will see. If it is difficult, it is difficult. Then what to do? These are the only two possibilities: you cannot be half here and half there, mm? One has to choose.

So for one month keep this idea in mind that you have to go if things settle. And how will they settle? If you start feeling better than you are feeling right now, then it is good to go. If you start feeling worse than you are now we will think again. And if you cannot decide anything toss a coin or try the’i ching’, mm? But my feeling is that you will start feeling good, mm?

[She adds: Sometimes I feel as if there is nowhere else to go but here.]

It is not yet that time, mm? That time will also come but that time is not yet. Even of the people who are here, many of them are just here and the time has not come, so they are here just so – so. That time will come but let it come, mm? When it really comes, that there is nowhere else to go, there will be no problem and no difficulty. Then you are simply here; this is your world and everything is secondary. That time will come! But you wait, mm? Right now think that you are going so another space will be created, then we will see. And one month is a long time.…

Just watch what space arises out of this idea, mm? Good!

[A sannyasin says: I find I’m very affected by whom I’m with or the situation I’m in and I can’t seem to find a sense of myself which is free of all this. So I keep losing myself; I feel very weak. There seems to be no centre.]

It comes. We have a false centre and a real centre. The false centre is what we call the ego and the real centre is the innermost self, but we live with the false centre. When you start moving into deeper experiences, deeper spaces, the false centre is lost, you start losing contact with it. That is the only centre you know about, so immediately you lose contact with the false you think you are lost.

But before you can enter into the real centre there will be a gap: the false will be lost and the real will not be there yet. You will have to travel from the false to the real. This interval always makes one feel as if one is lost but it is a beautiful interval. Don’t feel any worry about it, rather feel blessed: it is a beautiful space.

The false is disappearing or you are losing grip on the false, and that was all that you knew up to now so suddenly you feel as if you are lost. But how can you lose the real centre? Nobody can lose it, there is no way to lose it! At the most we can forget it; that’s what we have done: we have forgotten but the real is there.

We are always centred at the real. We may know or know not, may be aware or unaware, but we are centred. There is no possibility of getting off that centre, it cannot happen. It is our soul: how can we get out of it? How can you be other than whom you are?

At the most you can pretend, act, and you can pretend for so long that the action and the pretension become almost real... but remember – almost real, never real! So it is good.…

You will be lost for a few days. If you feel happy with this state it will disappear soon. If you become afraid it will take a longer time – sometimes months, sometimes years, it depends. Mm? if you

simply accept it, that it is good, if you are happy that it is happening, than soon you will be reaching the real centre, then soon things will start moving.

[A couple ask Osho about their relationship; the woman has a new lover and the man feels hurt.]

You have hurt [your boyfriend] badly. It was not a very loving act that you did to him. You have hurt him badly, you have betrayed him badly.

When things were going your way you were not worried about him – that he was hurt, feeling miserable, that he was silent but not saying anything to you but was feeling very shakey inside, crying; you were not worried. When things were going well you were enjoying the honeymoon trip with [your lover]; then you didn’t pay a single bit of attention to [your boyfriend], to what would happen to him. That is just very uncaring and unloving; it is full of violence!

When you love a person you have to care about how he will feel. It seems that when it is in your favour you don’t bother! Now you want to love him because [your lover] has renounced you, he is finished with the game, so you have to fall upon [boyfriend] again. So now you want to love. And if somebody starts flirting with you again one day, again you will go with him. So is [your boyfriend some sort of security or what? You use him as a means! When you love a person, you have to be very careful! Love is a great responsibility.

And what have you gained out of this affair with [your lover]? It was simply foolish! So make it a point in the future to remember that it was foolish, and not only was it foolish: it started many foolish things in the ashram. Because people are so foolish that if they see that some foolish thing goes on, they start imitating. people are so unconscious and unaware that if they can find that there is some way to be foolish they will not miss the opportunity.

So from that day I talked to [your lover during a darshan], couples have been coming to me. Everybody wants to have a love affair here and there and everybody wants to be flirting and to have licence.

Man’s animality is so deep that if you allow the animal.And I am not against the animal but with

the animal never be at peace.

And friendship and love can never grow through the animal because the animal does not know any friendship, any love. It knows only sexuality and the thrill that comes with a new body and a new person, a new man and a new woman.

So it was a good kick for [your lover] and for you! Neither did [your lover] bother about [his girlfriend] nor did you bother about [your boyfriend]. Then one day you made love and the love was finished! What type of love is this? People make love without having any love in their hearts; it is just animal instinct.

So make this incident a constant awareness. You have hurt [your boyfriend so you have to be more careful, more caring about it.

And I was simply amazed that every day couples started coming – all foolish peoplethey started

coming saying that they also want.… As if they were just waiting, just waiting for somebody to become foolish enough so they could also be!

They were just waiting to have a hint, and I gave the hint because I wanted to see how things go. Immediately the whole crowd started thinking in those terms. So you see how people are unaware, unconscious.

And what have you gained? That they will not see now, they will not see what [you have] gained out of the whole thing... just this misery of a betrayed person.…

It will take time now to put things right. It is very easy to break the heart; it is very difficult to put it right.

So put your head at his feet and feel deeply.…

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