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‌CHAPTER 3

3 March 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Krishna Venu. It means krishna’s flute.

Krishna is the only person in the whole history of human consciousness who is tremendously in love with life, with the poetry of life, with the music of life, with the dance of life. He is not at all life-negative, he is very affirmative. And he accepts life as it is; he does not put god and the world as opposites.

God is not separate from the world, god is in the world... god is the world! So the world has to be lived in and loved.

So venu, krishna’s flute, became the symbol of his philosophy – of his song, of his music, of his dance, of his love.

[A sannyas says: I had the experience of dissolving again. When I was a child I had the nightmare of dissolving, and now I have it again. It scared me.]

Your interpretation is wrong. It is not the experience but your interpretation of it that is scaring you. The experience is of tremendous value.

To come to a point where you can dissolve is the point from where god enters in you. The door of god and death is the same, but the guest who enters is different. So, sometimes the entry of the divine appears like death because it is the same door from where death and god enter. Something is similar, the door is similar, but if you misinterpret it then the whole experience becomes very scary... as if you are going to die, as if you are falling apart, melting and dissolving.

What is melting and dissolving on this side, is arriving on the other shore.

What is dying on this side, is life abundant on the other shore.

A seed has to die to become a tree and a man has to die to become god, but this death is simply a process of resurrection.

In the West the experience has never been rightly understood.

In the East we call it the shunya experience, the zero experience. One becomes so empty, so dissolved, that one is not, almost not. Just a flickering consciousness, that everything is gone, remains. But this consciousness remains so nothing is gone because your are this consciousness!

All that has gone, you were not. You may feel as if your body is no more there, you have become bodiless, but you were never the body. It was an illusion, an identity that you had made with your body... as if a car driver starts thinking that he is the car.

The mind is gone, thoughts disappear, and of course you become very much afraid because this is your subtlest identity. You have always thought of yourself as thought but that is a misunderstanding. You are not thought; when there is no thought, you still are. Between two thoughts, when there is a gap, a pause, you still are. You don’t disappear by the disappearance of the thought; in fact you are far more when the thought is not. In that silence you are tremendously present.

The thought is like a cloud on you... it shrouds you. When thought is not there you are in your purity, in your primordial innocence. Your interpretation is wrong.

So next time it happens, allow it, lie down and start dying. Welcome it, accept it, say ‘hello’! die to it and start disappearing.

That’s how it happened to Maharshi Ramana. When he was not more than seventeen years of age, one day he suddenly found that he was dying, but he accepted it! He made himself comfortable in the middle of the room.…

That is possible only in the East, because for centuries we have waited for this experience. It has been one of the greatest desires in the East – to come to a point where you are dissolved. Because you function like a screen; because of you the reality is obstructed.

So seeing that death was coming he became very happy. He was very young, seventeen years of age, but had had many lives of experiences and had been searching for many lives. He simply made himself comfortable, closed his eyes and started dying!

The body dissolved, the mind dissolved.… Yes, there were moments when he started to tremble a little: what was happening? But again, he said, ‘This is what I had been waiting for, so now the moment has come, the auspicious moment has come!’ He allowed it to happen.

Hours passed, all was gone, and then he started laughing because all was gone and he was still there! Then he opened his eyes, he looked at his body. The body was there but he was no more the body. For half a century he was alive, but never again did he become identified with the body. He knew that thoughts had disappeared but he was still there!

This ‘I am’ is your reality.

When Moses encountered god and when god sent him back to his people with a message, the ten commandments, he asked god, ‘But they will ask me who has given these ten commandments to me. What is your name, sir? They won’t believe me. They will ask, “What is the name of this god?”’

And god said, ‘Tell them, I am that which I am; this is my name. I am that which I am.’

That is the most significant sentence in the whole bible, the very gist of all religion: ‘I am not the body, I am not the mind. I am that which I am.’

It cannot be identified with anything else. You cannot say who you are because whatsoever you say will be wrong because you will have to bring in something else. If you say ‘I am a woman’, you will be wrong, because how can you be a woman? the womanhood is part of your physical body, your bio-chemistry, but not your consciousness. The consciousness has not ever known anything of the woman or of the man.

If you say ‘I am a young person’, again you are wrong because old age and youth belong to the body. The chronological age has nothing to do with consciousness – consciousness is ageless, timeless.

If you say ‘I am beautiful, I am ugly’, again you are talking about the form – and the consciousness has no form at all. It is beyond all forms; it is simply empty of all forms. That is known in the East as the shunya experience, the experience of the void.

Allow it. It is a great blessing. Next time it comes make yourself comfortable, remember what I have told you about ramana, lie down, wait, accept, go into it... dissolve! And don’t be in a hurry t come back; let everything go! don’t cling and don’t clutch to anything! Let there be a total declutching: let everything go, root and all.

And when nothing is left to go you will find that a new light has spread on your soil; then laughter will arise out of your being. You have tasted life for the first time... but this is the only way. Life can be tasted only through death!

Jesus says, ‘Those who save their life, they will lose, and those who are ready to lose, they will save.’ This is the moment he is talking about.…

So don’t interpret it in a negative way: your interpretation is creating fear in you. You have missed a beautiful moment twice; now whenever it comes, don’t miss it! Wait with deep passion, longing, with hope that it comes again. Prepare yourself so that next time when it comes you will be able to rejoice and you will relax into it. it is a promise that you are going to gain tremendously out of it.

Only out fo the zero experience does the experience of the total arise. Only by annihilating yourself utterly do you become capable of receiving god. In that zero you become a womb and in that womb god can disappear.

Right now everybody is so full of himself or herself that there is no space inside; all rubbish, rotten furniture is there. Empty yourself!

And from this very moment start preparing yourself; it is going to come some day. You must have worked for it your past life, otherwise it doesn’t come that way; it is not available so easily – it becomes available after great effort. You must have worked knowingly, unknowingly; you must have earned it. So now when the moment to harvest has come, you are missing it.

I am with you. That is the whole meaning of sannyas: in life, in death, I am with you! I will take careNext time simply relax and go into it.

This is the very door we are seeking. This is the very door through which I am trying to bring as many people as possible. I am persuading as many people as possible to enter into this door.

It is natural to be afraid so I am not condemning; it is natural. Everybody becomes afraid for the first time but there is no need to be afraid. Though the fear is natural, it is unwanted – drop it!

Shunyadeva – it means god of the zero.

And shunya or zero is not a negative concept in the East; it is the most positive. In the western mind zero means nothing; to the eastern mind zero means all, because out of nothing is born all and to nothing it goes back again.

In the Upanishads there is a beautiful storyAn old father asked his son – the son had just come

back from the university – ‘Have they taught you the one which by learning one learns all? Have they taught you that one?’

The young boy was puzzled; he said, ‘What one are you talking about? Whatsoever was available there I have learned all, but what one are you talking about? They never talked about that one which by learning one learns all. I have never heard about it!’

So the father said, ‘Go out, look at the tree and bring a fruit from there’; it was an indian tree called ‘nayagrodha’. The boy went out and brought some fruit.

In one nayagrodha fruit there are thousands of seeds. The father said, ‘Break it,’ so he cut it. The father said, ‘What do you see there?’ He said, ‘I see thousands of seeds, and each seed can become one nayagrodha tree.’

The father said, ‘Take one seed and cut it.’ The son cut the seed and the father said, ‘What is there?’

He said, ‘Nothing.’ The father said, ‘Out of this nothing comes the tree. This nothing is that one which I am talking about,’ he said. ’By learning this, one learns all, so go back.

’All that you have learned is rubbish.all that you have learned is superficial; you have not learned

the substantial. All that you have learned is knowledge but you have not learned the real.you have

not known the real, you have not experienced it. Go back! before it is too late!’

The son went back to the master and he said, ‘My father is very angry! I went very happy that I had learned everything and my father said, “You have not learned anything – this is all nonsense! Go back and ask the teacher to teach you the one which by learning one learns all.”’

The teacher said, ‘Then you will have to go deep into the forest and meditate for years, because you will have to become a nothing, you will have to dissolve into a deep inner void; then you will know that one.’

I cannot teach it, nobody can teach it! No scripture exists to teach it, no expression is possible to indicate it. It is illusive, ineffable, inexpressible, indefinable. If you really are interested in learning it, go to the forest; remain there silently for years. Come back only when all thoughts have disappeared, when the whole arithmetic has disappeared and only zero remains.

The zero is the beginning of arithmetic and zero is the end. Without zero the arithmetic cannot exist. The arithmetical zero is also an indian invention, and the whole game of arithmetics is just out of the zero. So in the beginning is zero the infinite, and in the end is zero the infinite, and in the middle is the whole world of categories, concepts, words, classifications, this and that.

And the same is the case with the arithmetic of life too: you come out of a zero and one day you will go back into it. Before that happens, if you can enter into it you will become spiritual. Then you will live a totally different kind of life: you will live in the world and yet you will not be of the world because continuously you will live in your inner void. You will be in the world but untouched by it, unspoiled by it. You will do everything that is needed and yet you will not be a doer. You will talk when needed but deep inside you will remain silent. You will carry a zero inside you always and always. This zero is what Christianity means by calling Mary a virgin. If a man carries a zero within his heart he is a virgin. Jesus is born out of that inner virginity. It has nothing to do with the biological – whether Mary has seen a man or not; that is not the point at all. That is beating at the non-essential and missing the essential. And christian theologicians have been discussing it for centuries.

But a virgin means a woman who has attained to the inner zero. And Christ-consciousness is born only out of zero, the Christ-child is born out of a zero consciousness.

Everybody has to become a Virgin Mary, and everybody has to give birth to a Christ-child. Only then have we really lived, otherwise we missed.

This sannyas is nothing but the preparation to make you a Virgin Mary so that you can mother the new child of your being, a new man, who is not born out of the body, not born out of the mind, but is born out of your innermost consciousness. And that innermost consciousness is of the nature of void... it is so pure.

So I will give you one meditation.Every night before going to bed, just sit in your bed, put the light

off. Close your eyes, relax your body and then just feel that the whole room is full of golden mist... as if gold mist is falling all around.

Mm? just visualise it for one minute with closed eyes – golden mist falling. And within a few days you will be able to see the whole room becoming luminous in your vision. Then inhale and feel that that golden mist is being inhaled deep in your heart. Your heart is just void, empty, and that golden mist goes into it, fills the heart.

Then exhale: again feel that that golden mist is going out and that your heart is again becoming empty, void, nothing inside. This gold mist filling the heart, your inner being, and then emptying it – just like exhalation, inhalation. With inhalation you fill it; with exhalation you empty it.

This you do for five, seven minutes, and then simply go to sleep. But when you go to sleep, always go to sleep when you are empty, not when you are full of the gold mist. Empty yourself and go to sleep. And you will have a very different quality of sleep – more of the void, more of nothingness, more of non-being. In the morning you will open your eyes feeling as if you have been in a totally different land... as if you have disappeared.

In the morning before you get out of bed, sit again: for five minutes repeat the same process. But when you get out of the bed, get out full of gold mist. Going to sleep, go when you are empty; getting out of the bed, be full of the mist.

Hold the gold mist inside and get out, and the whole day you will feel a subtle energy flowing in you, a very golden energy. In the night become empty, in the day become full: let the day be a day of fullness and the night a night of emptiness.

This is for now, and when you come next time, remind me – then the next step. I will tell you the next step so you can remember, but don’t try it now.…

The next step will be that you simply remain a watcher. The gold mist comes in; you are a watcher. Fill your heart – you are a watcher; emptying out of your heart – you are a watcher. You are neither: neither day nor night, neither emptiness nor fullness, just a witness. But that is a second step.

So this you continue, mm? It is going to make you a shunyadeva – a god of emptiness!

[The sannyasin says his father is dependent on him psychologically, which makes it difficult for him to visit Osho.]

So go there [to a nearby center] and meditate, but continue with your father, mm? continue. And just as you were going, continue going. Now start talking about meditations to him and give him this meditation to do. Even if he says no, he will try.

Meditations are such that even if a person says ‘No, I am not interested’, if you simply explain to them, they will try; one becomes curious and one tries. And he needs meditation now. He is seventy- five; now he needs a preparation for another life, so just help him with meditation... and nothing to be worried about.

It is natural. He is old, and as a person becomes old, particularly in the West, all meaning is lost. In the East that is not so because in the East a joint family exists. A man, howsoever old, always remains in the family, is never isolated. Sons are there, daughters are there, sons’ children are there, sons’ wives are there, and brothers and brothers’ children – so many people; one is never isolated.

And the eldest person of the family, the oldest person, is respected very deeply in the East so he feels very significant and very happy. Psychologically he is as happy as he ever has been before; in fact never was he so happy! Everybody is respectful and everybody is loving. Everybody takes care of him and everybody listens to his advice.

And naturally the grandchildren become deeply connected with him because children and old people have a certain affinity. The circle is becoming completed – coming to the very point from where a

person starts his life. An old person becomes like a child in the end, so that’s why the dependence; nothing is wrong in it.

A child is dependent. You are never angry with a child because he is dependent; you know that he is a child. An old person is again a child; it is a second childhood. And my feeling is that the old person is more dependent than a child because the child has no knowledge of what dependence is, what independence is. The old person has, and now he feels it; it hurts.

In the West, old people are really suffering much. The western society seems to be just for the young people. That is ugly because each young person will become old. The society should be able to adjust to all, from children to the old; then the society is complete. Then it has a real, comprehensive span.

Now the western society seems only for the young people – but each young person is going to become old! Sooner or later you will be thrown in the dust bin and then you will suffer it also, in the same way. So there is no need to be hard. Just have love, have compassion. He needs; nothing is wrong in it. He is dependent because he is old. And now, no work; no work relationships, no family, so by and by one becomes very isolated. Sitting the whole day and waiting only for death; it is hard.

And in the West you have a conception of only one life; that makes it very hard. In the East, nobody is worried. If you are going to die you will be born again. In fact, one is happy: this old body will be gone and you will have a new body.

Just as you change a new model car – you drop the old and you sell the old model and you purchase a new model every year – in the East life is a question of renewal. An old person has an old body; he is happy dropping it. Soon he will get another body – better, younger; he will live his life again.

In the western countries you have the concept of only one life, no rebirth; that makes it very ugly. I am not saying what is right and what is wrong. I am simply saying it makes it unnecessarily ugly: a person just waiting for death and nothing else. What has he left to think about? the life is gone, all is past and in front only death and darkness and no light!

Christianity has become such a dull and boring religion that even people who pay lip-service to it don’t trust it. So even when a person prays he knows it is nonsense. The whole life he thought it was nonsense. Now how can he suddenly pray?

The whole life he laughed about the idea, thought that it was childish, fictitious, primitive. The whole life he had the idea that he was very intellectual, intelligent, sceptical, this and that. Now in the old age when death starts knocking on the door, he starts praying... but that prayer remains phoney; there is no heart in it.

Talk about meditation... tell him what is happening here. Tell him about yourself, what you were doing here. Take a few books, put them there, play a few tapes. And don’t bother about whether he is interested or not; that is not the point. Let him listen – he will become interested; leave the books – he will read. He will ask things and some day, just meditate there in front of him sitting there silently. That can be the best help a son can give to his father.

If you can introduce him to meditation, you have served him.

[A sannyasin says: I’ve done many groups and people always tell me I’m like a machine or a robot and that I don’t feel and I’m insensitive... ]

But I don’t think they are right. They may have convinced you because they are dangerous people and they go on hammering the same ideas again and again, but they are not right.

How can you be a robot and a machine? Nobody can be. You can pretend, and if you are convinced by their idea you will start pretending, but you are not. How can you confuse a robot, tell me? You cannot! I can confuse you; that simply means you are not a robot! You are perfectly okay.

Prove them wrong! Start living a life of feeling, mm? Prove them wrong. Nothing is a problem. They have given you a challenge! Don’t accept the idea; take it as a challenge. They have challenged you – that you are a robot; now it is up to you to prove you are not. There is no need to agree with them; prove that you are not! So from this moment start living through feeling, mm?

Sometimes go to [one of the group leaders] and jump on him and hug him and do things until he says, ‘Yes, you are no more a robot’... these... people are trying to prove you a robot, mm? You have to disprove it!

From tomorrow morning start living a life of feeling. There is no problem. These are just fixations. If you get the idea you become; it is purely your decision.

Man has become a machine because man is not a machine. A machine cannot become a machine because a machine cannot become anything; it is simply a machine. A man can become a machine, can become a man, can become a god! It depends: whatsoever you choose, you become. So take the challenge!

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