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CHAPTER 18


18 February 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium


Prem means love, anakula means calm, quiet. Ordinarily love is hot, feverish, obsessive. Ordinarily, love is more like a disease than like health. It disturbs you... it distracts you from your centre. It helps you to become intoxicated, infatuated with the other – you forget yourself. In that very forgetfulness you miss the beauty of love.


The real love is not hot – certainly it is not cold, but it is not hot; it is cool. It is not feverish, it is very calm, as if there are not waves on the lake of consciousness... not even a ripple. It is very quiet, centred. It is not a distraction from your own being. You contact the other only when you are centred, otherwise who is going to make contact?


When two persons fall in the so-called love – which is just a name for lust – both become de-centred. Each is thinking of the other and both are absent. You are rushing toward the other and the other is rushing towards you – neither you nor the other are there, so the meeting cannot happen; it is impossible. Hence all love fails; the so-called love simply brings you more frustration, more misery.


Jean Paul Sartre has said, ‘The other is hell!’ He has an insight into it, but the other is hell because you are not; the other is not responsible for that. Not to be oneself is hell – that is true, more true. Love can become a tremendous benediction, but the lovers should be centred, then there is possibility of meeting. If you are there and I am here, then there is a possibility of a communion.


I am not here, you are not there – then we are running towards emptiness. We are running into empty spaces – we will never arrive anywhere. And one day or other, only dust remains in the hands.


So all ordinary love fails but real love brings you to god; it never fails. It cannot fail, because it is the way to god. So this is the condition for the real love – anakula. It means no fever, no heatedness... very calm and quiet, a self-possessed, self-centred, self-rooted state of compassion, care.

That’s the way to meet persons and that’s the way to meet nature and that’s the way to meet god. First start loving people; that’s just practice so that one day you can love god. Falling in love with a woman or a man, with a friend, with a lover, is simply a training – you are an apprentice.


Once you learn the technique of how to commune with a human being, you have known the secret key. Now you can commune with nature, and through nature with tao, with god, or whatsoever one calls it. But the quality of coolness has to be brought into the world of love.


Looked at from the outside they appear opposite. You can be cool but then there is no love. You can be loving but that coolness is lost. That’s the art to learn: to balance between these two.


Whenever two opposites meet a great synthesis is born. Synthesis simply means a thesis and antithesis meeting: two opposites meeting, two polarities falling into each other, merging into each other, becoming fused; then a higher synthesis arising. And this is the highest synthesis possible – passion and coolness meeting.


A human being is just a lab to work out this alchemical process. This is the way the lower metal is changed into the higher metal, gold.


I am giving you this name so that you can remember it, so that you can work slowly, carefully towards it. It is possible, and when it becomes possible one feels tremendously happy.


[A seeker asked Osho if she were not too old to take sannyas, adding that she had been ‘jumping in and out of things all my life’ – three husbands, seven children, connected to Gurdjieff movement.…


Osho gives her sannyas.]


.… Come here. This is your last! You will not be getting out of it! (laughter) This will be your name: ma deva nirmal.

Deva means divine, nirmal means purity... and you have a very innocent heart – that’s why you have been jumping in and out.


... Just simplicity – a very simple person – so the spur of the moment takes you completely. But everything has been good; nothing is wrong. One learns through so many ways. And to come to the right door one has to knock on many doors. Everything helps; whatsoever you have done has brought you here. If you had only one husband less you would not have been here! (laughter) Even a small thing would have changed the whole journey, so they were all needed.


When one looks back, everything seems to be perfectly okay – it was as it should be. Nothing is ever wrong... nothing can ever be wrong. Even if you try, you cannot succeed, you cannot do anything wrong – because if only god exists, how can anything be wrong?


And this is what I call religion: to accept, to affirm totally, absolutely, unconditionally, that everything is good. When you can affirm that everything is good, you have come to feel that god is. ‘Everything is good’ means god. If you say that something is not good, your god is not yet affirmed – then you have something still for the devil and your vision is divided, split.

[A sannyasin who had polio four years ago, had been curing himself with fasting etc., but was still on crutches. He said he became very angry when people asked him about it. He asks Osho for advice.]


No, it is not that they are creating any problems. You simply write a small sign: ‘I am crippled – please don’t ask me again! (laughter) And thank you.’


Write this much: ‘I am crippled – please don’t ask. Thank you’, and enjoy the whole trip! (laughter) Mm – because there is nothing to worry about. There is a very famous Taoist story.…

A man had a very beautiful horse, and the horse was so beautiful and so strong and so rare that even emperors had asked the man to sell the horse – whatsoever the price – but he would not sell it. Then one day in the morning he found that the horse had been stolen. The whole village gathered to sympathise, and they said, ‘How unfortunate! You could have got a fortune – people were offering so much. You were stubborn and you were stupid. Now the horse is stolen and you are broke; that was the only thing that you had.’


But the old man laughed; he said, ‘Don’t talk nonsense! Only say that the horse is no more in the stable. You don’t know what has happened. Let the future come, then we will see.’


But they say, ‘Now don’t philosophise and don’t try to console yourself. Nothing is going to happen – the horse has been stolen.’


But it happened that after fifteen days the horse came back, and not only alone, it brought. a dozen wild horses with it from the forest. The whole village gathered, and they said, ‘The old man was right – we were wrong! How fortunate he is. His horse is back and has brought twelve beautiful horses with him. Now he can earn as much money as he wants.’


They went to the old man and they said, ‘Sorry. We could not understand the future and the ways of god, but you are great! You knew something about it; you have some glimpse of the future.’


He said, ‘Nonsense! I don’t know anything about the future. All that I know now is that the horse has come back with twelve horses – that’s all! What is going to happen tomorrow, nobody knows! Whether it is a misfortune or a blessing nobody knows.’


But they said, ‘Now, don’t try to hide your happiness! We can see that you are very happy!’


But the next day it happened that the old man’s only son was trying to break in a new wild horse, and he fell. That was the old man’s only support in his old age, and his son’s legs were broken. The whole town gathered again and they said, ‘One never knows – you were right; this proved to be a curse. It would have been better that the horse had not come back with these twelve horses. Now your son will remain crippled for his whole life.’


The old man said, ‘Don’t conclude, don’t jump ahead! Just wait and see what happens – nobody knows! Only say this much – that my son has broken his legs, that’s all.’

But nobody would listen to him, and it happened after fifteen days that all the young men of the town were forcibly taken away by the government for military purposes because the country was going to war with a neighbouring country. Only this old man’s son was left because he was of no use.


Then they all gathered – they said, ‘Our sons are completely gone! At least you have your son! Maybe he is crippled, but he is! Our sons are totally gone, and we cannot hope that they will ever come back. The war is going to be great, big, and the enemy is far stronger than our country. They are all going to be murdered. In our old age we have nobody to look after us, but you at least have your son, and maybe he will be cured!’


But the old man said, ‘Say only this much – that your sons have been taken by the government. My son has been left, but there is no conclusion.’


Just state the fact! Don’t think of it as a curse or a blessing. Don’t interpret it, and suddenly you will see that everything is beautiful!


I am not saying that you have to explain to other people that you are more beautiful than them – that simply shows that you are feeling very much offended. No, no need... no need.


Learn the use of uselessness – that is the whole taoist approach.


[The sannyasin says: I hate people for it, and every time I feel this hate and this anger again, I watch it.]


You hate your situation. That’s why you hate other people: because through them you become aware of it. Just accept it and you will not hate them. Just use this sign for seven days, and see how miraculous the experience is. They will laugh and you laugh.


They simply ask because they love you, otherwise why should they ask? They are curious because they would like to help in some way. Nothing is the problem; accept it, and through your acceptance much is going to happen. But acceptance has to be total!


So even if you remain crippled for your whole life, perfectly good – nothing is wrong in it! What is wrong in it? Nothing is wrong. Trythis may be a great blessing. Through it you may learn to accept

life – days and nights, summers and winters, and all.


But completely relax and accept it. Don’t hide your things (looking at his crutches) and don’t pretend that you are perfectly okay. Whatsoever is the case is the case.


Accept it boldly, delightfully, and after seven days, tell me. And this sign you have to wear from tomorrow, mm? Good!


  

 

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