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‌CHAPTER 6

6 March 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Anand means blissful, sudheer means wisdom. And I make it a condition that wisdom is significant only when it is blissful, and blissfulness is meaningful only when it has wisdom in it. Both can exist separately but then they are not meaningful.

A person can be very happy and foolish – maybe happy because he is foolish, maybe happy because he cannot understand the complexity of life, because he is below understanding so he is not aware that misery is implied in life. He is happy because he is ignorant... just like children or like animals.

Idiots are happy; there is no worry, there is no problem because they don’t have yet the mind to worry. To worry one needs intelligence. Animals don’t worry and don’t go crazy and don’t need the psychiatrist’s help; for that intelligence is needed. So a fool can be happy but his happiness is not of much worth.

On the other polarity is a so-called wise man – very knowledgeable, very serious, very intellectual, even intelligent, but now happy. Then what is the point of being wise? The whole point misses! Then your wisdom is far worse than the foolishness; at least the foolish are happy! What can one gain out of knowledge if there is no bliss in it? And this is what happens almost always.

My whole approach is to create a synthesis: one should be wise and happy and blissful, wise and dancing, wise and singing, wise and celebrating. Only then does one arrive home and can on feel real life, the fragrance of life... one can detect the presence of god.

Two things – happiness and wisdom – are needed to detect the presence of god. These two things balance each other.

So by making you a sannyasin I am putting this in your consciousness: on one hand try to become more and more alert, aware, more intelligent, more sensitive, so wisdom arises; on the other hand

become more and more relaxed, more dancing, more playful, so blissfulness arises. And always keep balance.…

It is very easy for the mind to move in one extreme direction; the mind is an extremist. When the mind has to choose between two polarities it is very ready to choose one. Never choose one: either don’t choose or choose both together. And that is how one goes beyond the mind – because that is very difficult for the mind to manage; it cannot manage. In the very nature of things it is impossible for the mind to manage two extremes together.

So Buddha has given one of the greatest methods of meditation – what he calls ‘the middle way’. Always keep in the middle: whenever there are two extremes keep in the middle, keep balanced, and you will go beyond the mind, because the mind exists only in extremity.

This polarity – anand and wisdom, bliss and wisdom, anand and sudheer. And you have to be just in the middle, just the gap between the two, the empty space between the two. On one hand is blissfulness, on one hand is wisdom, and you have to be just in the middle.

In the beginning it will be difficult but soon you will have the taste of it... and even a glimpse is a tremendous insight. When you are wise in any moment and yet blissful, you will suddenly see the beauty of it.

[The sannyasin says he is a crazy psychiatrist]

Very good! Cannot be so crazy as me! I need all the psychiatrists... and they are coming. My greatest number of sannyasins are from the profession of psychology. They will be able to understand me more and they will be able to use me more also... for themselves and for others too.

[The sannyasin says that he has his own form of meditation: It works best for me if I think of some quality or something, something that I want to understand more.]

That’s my feeling...

So do one meditation...

Whenever you can find time – and at least once a day you have to find timeAny time will do,

but it is good to do it when the stomach is empty; the more energy is available when the stomach is empty. Not that one should be hungry – just that the stomach should not be too full; if you have eaten then after two, three hours. Just a cup of tea is good.a cup of tea is very helpful.

Buddhists have used tea for a long time. They have made almost a meditation of drinking tea. And it is helpful: it makes you a little alert, and good! So you can take a cup of tea but not anything else. Whenever you do it, early in the morning or in the night, the stomach should be empty.

The second thing: if you can take a bath before it that will be very helpful. Take a hot bath and a cold shower. First soak yourself in the hot bathtub and then just take a two minute cold shower, but end with a cold shower; that will prepare you perfectly.

Then take a cup of tea and sit; make yourself comfortable. If you can sit on the floor, you can have a pillow underneath, that will be good. If it feels difficult or the posture is difficult, you can sit on the chair.

Relax the whole body and just concentrate on the middle of your chest, just in the middle where the rib bones and the stomach starts. With closed eyes, imagine that a small buddha statue is there, just an outline of a buddha statue. You can have a picture of a small buddha statue so that you can figure it out. Just a two inch size buddha statue.

Visualise it as being made of light and that rays are spreading out from it. Get absorbed in it, and it will be work so you can go into it easily... rays spreading, filling your whole body.

If you can also sit in a buddha posture on the floor that will be very helpful, because that figure and your posture will fit together. The rays are spreading and the whole body becomes full of light. Then the rays start spreading outside the body – just a visualisation inside. The rays start touching the roof, the walls, and soon they are going outside the room; they go on spreading and they go on spreading.

Within fifteen minutes time let them cover the whole universe as far as you can conceive, and great peace will arise! Then remain in that state for at least for five to ten minutes: the whole universe full of rays and the centre of that is in your innermost heart.

Hold that state for ten minutes, go on contemplating it, go on feeling the rays; go on and on and on. The whole universe is full of those rays. Then start shrinking back, slowly; as slowly as you had gone before, slowly shrink back. Then come back to your inner buddha – again the two inch statue full of light.

Then suddenly let it disappear – abruptly; that is the point, the most significant point in the whole process. Abruptly let it disappear and there will be left a negative image. It is just as when you look into a window too long and then you close your eyes and you see the negative image of the window.

The buddha statue has been there, full of light; suddenly, abruptly, let it disappear. There will be a dark buddha statue, a negative statue, emptiness... the hole I have been talking about for these few days. Hold that for at least five to ten minutes – that hole, that emptiness.

In the first stage when the rays are spreading all over the universe, you will feel great peace like you may have never felt before and a great expansion... a feeling that you have become huge and that the whole universe is in you.

In the second stage, instead of peace you will feel blissfulness. When the buddha statue becomes negative and all light disappears and there is darkness and silence you will feel a great blissfulness... for no reason at all! A well-being arising in you – hold that.

So this whole process has to take not more than forty-five minutes, forty-five to sixty minutes. This will be very very helpful.

And if you can sometimes do the Dynamic also, both together will be of great importance, because the Dynamic is good for catharsis and this will be good for silence. If you do the Dynamic in the

morning, do this in the evening. If you cannot do two, then this one. And this one can be done in bed at night when you are going to sleep; that is the most perfect time. Do it and then just fall into sleep so the same state will continue vibrating the whole night.

Many times in your dreams that buddha statue will appear, many times in your dreams those rays will be felt. In the morning you will feel that your sleep has been of a totally different quality. It was not just sleep: something more positive than sleep has been there, some presence has been there. You will come out more rejuvenated, more alert, more full of reverence for life.

[A Sahaj group participant says: Something that shocked me very much was finding that I have a mask-like face. I couldn’t drop it!]

It will go. Once you become aware of it, by and by it becomes loosened. It is not so easy to drop the mask because from the very childhood we have been carrying it, wearing it; it has almost become the face.

So by and by you become aware, more and more aware that this is a mask. You remember again and again that this is pseudo, that you again did the trick: you were not happy but you smiled; you showed something which was not in the heart.

By and by, bit by bit, it will lose hold on you; then one day suddenly it will fall, and when it falls it is a great experience. Then for the first time you see your real face – the face that you had before you were born and the face that you will have again after you die.

Between birth and death we carry the mask, and not only one but many layers upon layers. Man has become so clever in wearing the mask and it is so automatic now.

It is not an ordinary mask, it changes. With each relation it changes, with each moment and new situation it changes; it is very adjustable. With the wife you have one, with the friend you have another, with the boss another, with the servant again another, in the house one, outside another. One mask functions almost like a thousand and one masks. It is very adjustable; it takes many forms and many shapes. But you will become aware.

It is shocking; when for the first time you come to know about it, it is shocking. But again and again you will start feeling on your face that it is there; you will feel the weight of it.

This is the beginning. One day it slips; suddenly falls on the floor and is broken beyond repair. It is going to happen one day... Good!

[A sannyasin who is pregnant says: I’m happy!]

Happiness needs a little awareness, otherwise one can always lose it very easily. It is difficult to get it; it is easy to lose it. It is very illusive: once lost, to catch hold of it again becomes difficult. So whenever you feel that something is entering in the mind which can disturb it, throw it immediately, because there is nothing else which is more valuable.

And right now when you are pregnant, nothing else should be allowed in the mind because these are the impressions which the child will carry for his whole life.

The child is not just a part of your body, it is part of your mind too. It is nourished by your body, it is nourished by your thoughts, it is nourished by your emotions, it is nourished by your inner vibe!

When the mother feels sad, the child feels sad. When the mother feels happy, the child feels happy, because the child has no independent existence yet: it simply vibrates with you.

So when a woman is pregnant she has great responsibility. It is not only a question of your being happy or not, because that is not such a big thing: you can be unhappy and come back. But the child is learning, absorbing, and that will be his whole life’s reality.

So just remain happy, and it is simple if you are a little alert, because when something enters that can disturb your happiness and peaceIt is not very big, it is maybe just a tiny thing, very meaningless;

when you think about it you will laugh about it.When it enters it is very seed-like, but if you allow it

to enter it becomes a big tree and then it is very difficult to uproot it. It clings, it gets rooted in your heart.

In the beginning anything is very small and to throw it is very simple. To wait is very dangerous; it gets roots. And when a tree has grown big, even if you throw it it will leave many seeds in the soil and many roots in the soil; and again and again it will come back.

Just watch... be on guard. When somebody is miserable he has nothing to be worried about – remember it! A miserable person has nothing to lose; he can be at ease. But when you are happy you have something valuable to lose. You cannot be at ease; you have to be on guard.

There is a famous Zen story.…

A great japanese emperor used to go round the town in the night. In the old days many kings used to do that to see how things were going. He was very much puzzled: whenever he went he would find one beggar always awake, standing under a tree and always watching here and there. He seemed to have nothing. What was he watching?

The king became curious. He might have some treasure or some gold or some diamonds orWhat

was the matter? Why was he always alert? The whole town slept and he was alert!

So one day the king went there and asked, ’I have become too curious. It is not good and I should not poke my nose in. It is your businesses; if you want to be awake the whole night, you can be, but if you can answerWhat have you got? Why do you go on being so alert? Even my guards on the

palace fall asleep but you are never asleep. What is the matter?’

The beggar laughed. He said, ‘You have nothing to lose! Your guards and you all can sleep; you have nothing to lose. I have something to lose. I have to watch, continuously watch. Sleep I cannot afford!’

And then the king looked at the face of the man. He had never seen such a beautiful face, such a happy face. Those eyes were so crystal-clear, silent and peaceful and the face was just radiant with some unknown energy and luminosity. The king fell at the beggar’s feet and he said, ‘Make me a disciple of yours. What you have got, I would also like to have!’

So when one is happy one should guard.

And these moments are valuable – for the child on one hand and for you on the other hand. Because when a child is born one other person is also born – the mother. It is a double-birth: on one hand the child is born, on the other hand, the mother. You will never be the same again once you are a mother. A woman is one thing, a mother totally another. Her consciousness, her responsibility, her love, is totally different. She cannot be frivolous any more.

And great changes happen – not only in the body but in the psyche. Your breasts will become full of nourishment for the child. Now from where and how does it happen? Even up to now biology has not been able to explain exactly how it happens – why the mother suddenly becomes full of milk. And this is the bodily change, the hormones in the body changing.…

Exactly parallel to it something in the psyche is changing. As your breasts will be full of nourishment for the child, your psyche will be full of love; that has never been so before.

It is one thing to love [your husband]; to love the child is totally different. There is a possibility of divorcing your husband but there is no possibility of divorcing your child. The husband is your choice; the child is god’s choice. The husband, only rarely in some moments, penetrates you and becomes one with you. The child has been nine months you... not with you, he has been you. Nobody else can be with you so much.

That’s why husbands don’t like the coming of the children very much. A deep resistance is there – because once the child is there [he] will feel jealous. He will see you loving the child and carrying the child and he will feel jealous; he will always feel the child is in between. And once a woman is a mother she has arrived home!

Man is interested in a woman as a wife and a woman is interested in man to become a mother. The man searches for the wife, the woman searches for the child. Because you cannot get the child without the man, you have to go via him, but the search is very different.

So use these days; these are very tremendous... of great importance for you, for the child. Be very very meditative, so the child has a taste of meditation and of happiness. When he enters the world, he enters not as a miserable being as almost ninety-nine percent of people enter.

[A sannyasin, an Indian film-star, asks a question in Hindi, Osho replies in English:]

The energy is moving perfectly well. Sometimes it can happen that when the energy is moving perfectly well and you want to think, you will not be able to, because thinking is possible only if the energy is not going well. Thinking is not a very high quality of intelligence. Non-thinking is a higher quality of intelligence. In the West the thinker seems to be the top-most person – in the East, no. We don’t call Buddha a thinker; he is a non-thinker.

Just today I was looking at a book – ‘The Great Thinkers of the World’ – and an idea came to me that somebody should write a book: ‘The Great Non-Thinkers of the World’ and that will be far more important. Because whom do you count as great thinkers? – Hume, Kant, Berkeley, Aristotle, Plato. They are nothing to be compared with Buddha, Bodhidharma, Lao-Tzu, Lien Chi, Nagarjuna, Shankara... nothing to be compared.

The highest peak of thinking and intelligence is non-thinking. When the energy moves rightly and you are very balanced it will be very difficult to think – very difficult to think. When the energy is low, thinking is very easy because there is no need to think really when the energy is going well.

When a person is blind he gropes in darkness. Thinking is like groping. When a person has eyes, why should he grope? – he walks without groping. But if a person has been blind for many years and has become very habituated to groping, he will feel a little disturbed about what is happening to him: he is no more groping.

Thinking is a groping; it is a disvalue. When energy goes well and the harmony is there you will not be able to think. So no need to force. And what is one going to gain out of thinking? – there is nothing to gain.

The second problem is also connected with it: when you are really happy it is difficult to relate. Unhappy people relate easily; they have a need to relate. In fact they cannot be alone. They have to rush to each other, somehow manage to get involved in each other; they relate very well.

Have you not watched people when they talk about their misery – they become very poetic, very articulate. Tell them to talk about happiness and they will be suddenly dumb! Their tongue will be stuck. About happiness what is there to say? But about misery there is much to say.

A miserable person relates very easily; he has a need to relate. The whole profession of psychoanalysis is based on the miserable person and his need to relate; he needs somebody who will listen.

Now in the West, nobody is ready, nobody has time to listen to anybody, so the professional listener has come into being. The psychoanalyst is nothing but a professional listener. He listens attentively – naturally, he has to listen attentively; you pay for it!

For one hour you have paid, and you pay really too much for listening. Thousands of dollars are paid and what do you do? You simply talk about your misery and he asks questions so that you can talk more about your misery. But it helps! If for one year you have talked about misery and related everything, you are unburdened.

Two happy men meeting will not find anything to relate to each other. Buddha and Mahavira stayed once in the same Dharmasala and didn’t go to see each other. For what... what would they do? They would look into each others eyes, just like two mirrors facing each other, reflecting each other, but it would be meaningless. Farid and Kabir met and never talked. For two days they sat there together and they couldn’t relate anything. What to relate?

If the world becomes happy there will be more silence... suddenly there will be silence. The whole noise is because of the unhappy people. They are going everywhere and relating and talking and going to the club and the society and the movie. Every place they are ready to relate, with anybody.

So don’t be worried about relating. If you suddenly feel that the energy is not there, don’t relate! What is one going to lose? What is one going to gain out of relating? Relate telegraphically and your words will become more powerful. Just say the minimum; there is no need to say more. When it can be said by only saying yes or no, why talk much? Say yes or no.

When you feel that something is flowing, good. When you feel nothing is flowing, no need to force. This is what I call relaxing into your being. You rest into your being, and your words will become more powerful.

It is not a question of quantity – how much you talk and how much you relate. If a silent person lovingly touches your hand, enough!.… He has said enough! You will feel his energy moving into your hands. A silent person can simply look into your eyes, and enough! Can smile and he has said something! There is no need to relate so much.

So don’t create a problem out of it; just relax. My whole approach is: whatsoever happens, relax into it, allow it. Drop fighting, drop struggle. Don’t move in life like a wood-chopper. Create the quality of a surfer.

There is no need to go out of yourself. You can remain centred in your being and from there a totally different kind of relation will evolve. It will be very telegraphic, at the minimum, will have more alive gestures in it.

And you may have to lose words a little; nothing to be worried about! All those lost words will give more qualities to your body, to your face, to your eyes, to your hands – and in your profession of acting that is tremendously valuable...

When we are in a certain thing, we are with so many people, we cannot dominate it. There are a thousand and one investments in it: somebody is financing the film, somebody is directing the film, somebody has written the story, somebody is doing the music, somebody is doing the singing... and the market and finally the consumer. They are all there; their needs have to be fulfilled.

The film is not made for you! The film is made for the third rate person who is going to see it! I’m not going to see your film! So you have to think about that third rate person who will go, and if you don’t move to his level, the film will be a flop!

The producer is not interested in your art; he is interested in producing a successful film. The financer is not interested in art, in anything new; he is interested in how to earn more money out of it. These are all the interests, so just be practical. This is how things are!

If you become too interested in these things you will start feeling a gap, but there is no point! Why should you be worried about it? You should also be interested in the small work that you have to do there and whatsoever you can bring to your work, bring it and forget about it... whatsoever small thing you can do in your work – that too, not interfering with anybody else’s work. These are the limitations; and one has to function in limitations. This is how the world is.

So see the limitations and don’t make unnecessary trouble for yourself, otherwise you will become anxious and anxiety will come, and rather than helping your art it will be a disturbance. All these things are there so you need not worry about it. Whatsoever part you get, whatsoever you can do in that small area without disturbing anybody – the financer, the producer, the director, the storywriter – whatsoever limited area.In that limited area you have a certain freedom; whatsoever you can

do there, do it!

Just the other day I was reading about a man, a Zen monk. By some mistake the police caught him; they thought he was a thief. He was such a good and simple man that when they asked him, he laughed. He had seen the thief going, rushing past him, escaping, and instead of the thief, the monk was caught because he was sitting under a tree and the thief went by the side.

But not to disturb the thief, the poor fellow, the monk said, ‘Okay, you think I am a thief, so I am a thief.’ He was sentenced to six months and was put in a small cell. He looked at the limitations and then he managed.

He started meditating, and by and by the guard became interested because the cell had never been so silent before. A small cell – eight by eight, dark and dingy – and this man had transformed the quality of the cell! It almost started looking like a temple.

The guard would sit there and would feel uneasy in moving. He had to move but that looked like disturbing this man, and the monk was sitting there, silent, so peaceful. The guard started asking him, ‘Teach me something!’ So the monk taught him. The guard became interested and said, ‘Why not teach other prisoners?’ So other prisoners became interested.

The news reached to the gaoler. He came one day; he was surprised! Five hundred prisoners were meditating, sitting silently on the veranda, and there was such a beautiful silence, so sacred, so holy, that he became interested.

The news reached to the judge who had imprisoned this man. He came one day, and he started feeling sorry and said, ‘This man cannot be a thief; something has gone wrong. This is a rare man... his presence is so valuable! He has changed the whole quality of the gaol!’

So the case was opened again. The police searched and the real thief was caught, and when the real thief heard that a monk had been imprisoned, he confessed. He said, ‘I am the real thief. Yes, that man was sitting under the tree when I was running away. He is innocent.’

The judge came, touched the feet of the monk and wanted to be forgiven but the monk said, I cannot go unless six months are complete because my work is only half done. I cannot leave this gaol! Now these people have just progressed a little! Please, let me be here for six months.’

But the judge said, ‘But you are not a thief. How can we keep you here?’

He said, ‘That’s not the point, but now I am not going out! And if you send me out I will have to do something to come back; that is the only way!’

He was thrown out, he stole, and was again sentenced... because he started loving this place! He said, ‘It is limited but very beautiful – so silent, so protected.’

Now the whole concept of a prison is changed by a man working under limitations.

This is how life is. So whatsoever small part you get, that is your cell, eight by eight. Whatsoever you can do in that small area, do; do and enjoy it, and don’t be worried.

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