15

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‌CHAPTER 15

15 February 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A visitor said she was traveling in India because: it’s warm, and I like travelling very much and... of course there must be some other reasons too, but who knows?]

Mm, there are! (a pause) There are layers and layers of reasons in the mind, and we are aware only of the first layer. We go on rationalising the first layer. Sometimes we have to invent theories to explain, because the first layer does not explain anything, and the other layers are not available. My feeling is not that – that you are just travelling – that’s why I asked you. There must be a deeper urge to seek something... maybe not very conscious.…

Allow it... you may be avoiding it. When it overcomes you, be possessed by it – listen to its message, because that will reveal to you something of your own inner depth; it will make you more aware of your own self.

Sometimes it happens that we can go on doing things not exactly knowing why, and of course we are rational beings so we have to find some rationalisation.

Hypnotists have a certain method they call ‘post-hypnotic suggestion’. They hypnotise a person and then they say that tomorrow at twelve o’clock the person will go and open the window, a certain window.

Now, you can watch: after the person has come back from hypnosis, after twenty-four hours he will suddenly jump up and open the window. If you ask him why he will give you an explanation. He will say, ‘I was feeling suffocated’, and this and that – and that’s not the point at all, because you know he has been hypnotised. But that idea has gone deeper into unconscious; he cannot reach that idea.

Now just to say ‘I don’t know’ would look silly, so he has to invent something. He will say that he is feeling suffocated or it is getting too warm or outside is so beautiful, and look – the trees and the sun. But these are all bogus reasons; they are not true – because he didn’t open the window at eleven-thirty or at eleven forty five or at eleven-fifty, fifty-five, fifty-nine. At exactly twelve o’clock he jumped up!

If you don’t accept his rationalisation he will feel offended. This is just a post-hypnotic suggestion.

My feeling is... I feel like saying it to you – there is no need to be worried about it, just keep it in mind; some day you may be able to decode it – you have been in india in your past life. A certain master has given you a post-hypnotic suggestion that you will come back, that you will have to come back and you will start searching.

So that post-hypnotic suggestion is working. And sometimes in some weaker moments – weaker as far as the ego is concerned; stronger as far as your inner being is concerned – you will be overcome. But you will put it aside, mm? because the ego will assert itself again, and the ego never wants to allow or accept anything that is beyond it.

So you will say that there is nothing – you are just travelling, the country is warm, the country is beautiful, and you have always loved the east, and you have always fantasised about going to the east to visit; it is fabulous and so ancient – that’s all... but that is not all.

[The visitor asks: Do you think everybody has something like hypnotic suggestions?]

No... no. There are many people who have no spiritual urge but they come to India – they have certain other reasons. A few people are restless – they also find rationalisations. They will say that they are great travellers, wanderers, gypsies, this and that, but they are simply restless. They cannot stay in one place, they cannot stay in one work, they have to go on moving. Moving, they feel good: the energy is involved, engaged. Whenever they are sitting they become restless – the energy starts exploding. So they have to be on the move, vagabonds.

Out of one hundred persons who come to the east, only one percent has a spiritual urge – ninety- nine percent have other urges. But about you I can be absolutely certain, so you think over it. That will make things very clear and you will start moving with more sense of direction. And with less effort, more will be the result.

Do the camp here, and if you feel like doing, do a few groups. They will make you very clear, mm?

[Another visitor says: I feel, Osho, that I’d like sannyas... but I don’t feel any need for any external show of it.]

I feel the need. If you want to become a sannyasin, then these two things – the mala and the orange – you have to keep... just for my sake! Mm?...

Good. My insistence on the external is for a certain reason. I don’t divide the internal and the external... and there is no division. The external is the outermost part of the internal, and the internal is the internal-most part of the external. In fact there is no boundary line to decide where the external starts and the internal ends, or vice versa.

And the mind is very cunning – it always goes on finding ways. So I say to be a sannyasin externally and internally both. Otherwise the mind can go on playing tricks – it will say, ‘This is external.’

You have to begin from the external, because you stand outside yourself – you are not yet inside!

If you say this gate is just the outside, why bother to enter? you will never reach inside – because this gate has to be passed through. You are standing outside the gate, you are standing outside yourself. You don’t know what your inside is yet – at the most you know your outside.

So it is better to start from the outside. Go slowly, let the colour go deeper and deeper, by and by. It will reach to the centre one day, but the circumference is also yours. You are the centre of the cyclone but the cyclone is also you! Don’t create a division between the centre and the circumference, otherwise you will be in difficulty.

For example if you are hungry, the hunger is inside but the food is outside. Now if you are very logical you will say, ‘What is the need of eating the outside food – because the hunger is inside.’ Then don’t eat – but you will die! You eat the outside food, but just by eating, slowly, slowly it starts turning into the inside. You swallow it, you chew it, you digest it – by and by it starts turning into your life juice.

Nobody can exactly say when it becomes internal – in the mouth, in the throat, in the stomach; where exactly it becomes internal nobody can say. There is no way to say, because in fact the internal and the external are not two so there is no division. Soon it will be running in your bloodstream – it will become your bone. Not only that – it will become your brain-cells... it will become your consciousness!

The most interior phenomenon – consciousness – also depends on food, otherwise that will disappear. If for only eight minutes oxygen is not given to you, your brain starts disappearing, and then there is no way to recover it.

So in fact the outside and the inside are two aspects of one energy – never divide. When you love a woman, you hug her, you hold her hand; these are outside gestures, external. You don’t say, ‘What is the point of hugging you? Just the body hugging the body, what is the point? Let souls meet with souls. Why should I hold your hand? – this is external; let love be internal.’ You will see that your love is starved and dies. It needs the support of the external to exist, to be there.

You continuously breathe in and out: the outside is going in and the inside is coming out. Each moment it is happening; we are continuously exchanging in with the out, out with the in. So remember this unity and don’t divide it, and then you will come to a greater wholeness.

And my whole approach is wholistic. To be whole is to be holy and to be healthy. Otherwise things become difficult, and then there is no way to decide what is what; and one becomes more and more confused. And the outside is also beautiful – nothing wrong in it. That’s why I insist!

Satya means truth, and kama means passion – truth passion... a passion for truth, a great longing for truth, a great burning intensity to know what is true.

And remember, truth is not a theory. It is known not only by the intellect but by your whole existence afire with passion, afire with a longing to know. When the thirst becomes total, immediately you know. The thirst itself turns into knowing. When it is total, it turns into knowing. It is not something that you get from somewhere else – it is just inside you, but you have to be very alert to know that it is there. That alertness comes as you become more passionate about truth.

Truth is not in the books, in any dogma – it is your innermost core. To find truth you need only one thing – to start being true in your small way... be authentic! Drop as many masks as you can... don’t carry pretensions. Smile when you really feel like smiling and cry when you feel like crying, and don’t be bothered what others say. This is the price a man has to pay for truth – to be authentic.

If a man is authentic, truth comes. In your authenticity you become worthy of it, you earn it. Authenticity is the quality that is needed, that is a prerequisite for the truth to come into you, to descend in you or to flower in you.

So truth is the goal and authenticity is the method. Naturally one has to start in very small ways. One has to be alert, because we are very deceitful in very small ways – sometimes for no reason at all... just because of habit. Sometimes, just to be formal and polite, we go on deceiving.

Just become alert and start dropping. There is no hurry – start dropping one by one. Catch hold of yourself red-handed whenever you find that you are clinging to something false. Somebody comes and you start smiling, and you feel that smile is false – it is not coming from the heart; it is just painted on the lips – drop it then and there. Throw it away. It is rubbish... it is not meaningful. It is ugly, and it is very unfriendly to show a false face to somebody.

Just catch hold of yourself in small things, and by and by you will see that small things accumulated become great, and great energy arises when these falsities disappear.

This name is an indian mythological name. There is a very famous myth – a great parable... maybe it was really a historical fact; there are possibilities.

This is an Upanishadic parable – that there was a young man of the name Satyakama. He said to his mother, ‘Now the time has come and I would go to a master, so can you tell me to whom I should go? because I want to know what truth is. And you have given me this name ’satyakama’: it haunts me. It reminds me again and again that I have to create that passion for truth. Now I would like to go to a master.’

So the mother said, ‘I know only one man who is really enlightened. You go to him.’

So he was sent to a master. When Satyakama reached the old man, the old man enquired, ‘What is your father’s name and what is your caste?’ That was formal in old days in India – to enquire the name of the father and the caste.

Satyakama said, ’Sir, that is very difficult. When I was coming I had enquired of my mother and said that it is bound to be asked – “They will ask who is my father and what is my caste. You have never told me who is my father and what is my caste, so now tell me!”

’So my mother said, “Listen!” She said, “Satyakama, when I was young I was working as a call-girl so I used to serve many people. I don’t know exactly who is your father. Your name is Satyakama, my name is Jabala. So you go and tell the teacher that your name is ‘Satyakama Jabala’, and tell him that neither you nor your mother know who was your father.”

The master looked at the young man and cried. Tears came to his eyes and he said, ‘Then you are a brahmin’ – the highest caste in India. ‘You are a brahmin, because only a brahmin can be so authentic, so true – you have not deceived. And I don’t see any guilt, any shame on your face, so you are accepted, my son.’

This is a parable, but there is a possibility that it may have been a historical fact.

I used to live in a city for fifteen years – the city is called Jabalpur. And it is said that this is the place where this Satyakama lived. From Satyakama Jabala has come the name ‘Jabalpur’. It is a very ancient story – almost five thousand years old.

The old master said, ’You are close to truth. There is not going to be much trouble, Satyakama, because you are authentic. To be authentic is the method to reach truth – half of the journey you have already completed. It is not going to be difficult to help you, because a man who is so authentic, so true, does not try to hideYou could have tried to hide, you could have invented a name, you

could have said anything; I was not going to enquire. But you have been true, so truth is not very far away.’

So let this be your message: try to be authentic. Let that be your meditation, and truth will happen one day. Wait with passion but wait with patience. Passionate, and yet tremendously patient – that is the quality of a seeker...

[A visitor, the mother of a sannyasin, said she was confused... she could not think.]

Mm? then how can you be confused? To be confused one has to be a great thinker! If you cannot think...

[Osho gives her sannyas.]

Prem means love, nityo means eternity – eternal love, timeless loveand you have that quality to

flower in timeless love. It will happen.

Man is meant to become divine, to become eternal – that’s the destiny. We can avoid it, but we cannot avoid it forever; one day or other, god takes over. We cannot escape for long, and we never go very far from the home.

I was reading about a small child who was threatening to leave the house again and again. So one day the mother said, ‘Okay, go.’ So he packed his small things – a little suitcase – but he took a very long time. He was waiting: maybe somebody would persuade him not to and he would never have to go, but nobody persuaded him so he had to go! (laughter)

So he took one round of the house, then he waited outside for somebody to come and get him but nobody came. He had to come in himself because he was feeling hungry. Then he waited for the mother to ask, ‘Where have you been? You have been gone so long’ – but nobody asked.

He was thinking that he had been very far and for very long – as if many years have passed, and they had passed for him! He waited for some opportunity to bring up the subject. Then the family dog came in and the little boy said to the mother, ‘How big the dog has grown since I left! Mum, is this the same dog or have you changed him since I left?’

Man also never goes very far and we are never very far from god – very close. And I feel you are very close... very, very closeGood.

[The husband of the above new sannyasin said he is even more confused than his wife, but very happy!]

Mm! Confusion exists only because we have some fixed ideas. When we have fixed ideas and life never meets with those ideas – -whenever our ideas are fixed and life is not harmonising with them – there is confusion. Once you drop the fixed ideas there is no confusion, because then whatsoever life brings it is okay; you have nothing to compare.

Confusion comes through comparison. If you have nothing to compare, whatsoever is, is, and whatsoever is not, is not, and there is no problem!

... So just drop the ideas and live life.

[The visitor said he understands all this, he feels all this, but he cannot yet live it. It’s very hard.]

Next time you come, be here for a little longer time. We can hammer them out – nothing to be worried about! This is my whole work here – we can hammer them out. You will need a little longer time. Next time you come be here for at least six weeks, and you will be much benefited. A few groups will be very helpful.

Some work is needed, because you have trained your mind in a certain way – the mind has to be untrained. Your understanding is very clear, just your habit of thinking is very long, deep-rooted; that’s why you can understand it and yet the problem remains.

Come next time for a longer time. Next time I will make a sannyasin out of you. Mm? half the work I have donenow she will be after you!

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