19

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‌CHAPTER 19

19 February 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine, and vimarsha means reflection – divine reflection. And it has to be understood in a certain way. Ordinarily, reflection is understood as if it is just a synonym for thinking; it is not. A mirror reflects – there is no thinking. It simply says whatsoever is; there is no interpretation. It does not colour, it does not add, it does not delete. It simply shows and says whatsoever is the case.

When you think, it is not reflection. You do many things... mm? The fact becomes more fictitious. You shroud it, you colour it, you decorate it, you interpret it, you clothe it, and it is no more the same thing. It becomes something totally new – it becomes an invention.

Thinking is inventive; reflection is just a discovery. So when thinking stops there is reflection. Not only are thinking and reflection not synonymous, they are diametrically opposite. Reflection is possible only when a mind has totally become a mirror... not even a ripple of thought.

Now whatsoever you see, you simply see that which is, you don’t do anything to it; no doing is implied. You don’t think about it. The moment you think, you have gone astray – you have started creating, inventing, interpreting, and you are no more true. So thinking is a faculty of invention, and ‘vimarsha’. reflection, is the faculty of simply mirroring.

You see a rose flower – if you start thinking about it, you think about what type of rose it is, from which country it comes... whether from iran or from india, the colour, the size. You start comparing with other roses that you have seen before, you are no more concerned with the actual fact. A thousand and one other things have come in; it is not reflection.

Reflection is when the rose flower is there and you are there, and there is not a single ripple of thought between the two. The rose flower is there, you are there, and there is no thought linking you. There is simply a transparency, just a silence, a pause... nothing wavers.

You don’t even say that this is a rose flower, because even to use the word ‘rose’ is to go into interpretation. You have already said something of which the rose is not aware; the rose does not know its name. It is human; you have added something. So no verbalisation, no language, no conceptualisation, no abstraction – simply presence. Then there is reflection.

And that is what meditation is all about: to be in a meditative mood means just to become a mirror; then god is reflected, god is all around. Nothing else exists – only god exists – but we cannot see because we go on interpreting. We say, ‘This is a rose’ – god is missed; ‘this is a man’ – god is missed; ‘this is a stone’ – god is missed.

If you don’t say, ‘This is a rose,’ and ‘this is a stone,’ and ‘this is a man’ – you don’t verbalise – suddenly you will see that there is neither rose nor man nor stone, only different forms of one energy, and that energy is god. And all are its forms, manifestations.

It is the same song sung in different ways... it is the same thing said through different expressions. But that is possible only when you have become just a reflective mirror.

The western attitude has been leaning more towards thinking and the eastern attitude more towards reflection.…

[About the Feldenkreis group, Osho said.]

It is body-work discovered by Moshe Feldenkreis. It is soft energy work and it will fit with your name ‘anupa’. It will help you to feel how to flow more easily, how to flow and not to freeze. And once this knack is understood, life takes on a totally different colour, a different hue.

A frozen life is almost dead. A flowing life.… It is almost like when a river is frozen: even to call it a river is not right, because river means ‘rivering’; river means a process. This patch of ice is not a river. When it starts flowing, melting, it becomes a river. And the moment the river flows, it is reaching closer and closer to the ocean.

Energy flowing is always moving closer to god.

Energy not flowing is not moving towards anywhere. In that no-movement, in that stagnancy, one becomes dull, one loses the flavour, the glory, the fragrance.…

[A sannyasin leaving for the West says: I feel very empty, but it’s an emptiness like a desert. I just wonder if I’ve made a mistake somewhere or... ]

No, not at all. The first experience of emptiness is always desert-like... it has to be exactly that way.… When the mind starts disappearing there comes a gap, an interval. Before something beyond the mind descends, there is a gap. The old is gone and the new has not come, hence the desert like feeling.

The christian mystics have the right name for it – they call it ‘the dark night of the soul’. One feels completely dried up, empty – and negatively empty. The emptiness has the quality of darkness, not of luminosity... no greenery anywhere, not even an oasis, not even on the faraway horizon. This desert has to be passed through.

Many people become afraid and they escape back into their world of illusions. This is a natural outcome, because all the greenery that has existed before was illusory, was just hallucinatory. You created it – it was not there.

Now the dreams have disappeared, and the empty screen.You have been sitting in a movie house,

and on the empty screen there have been many many things – beautiful flowers and mountains and rivers and the ocean and people and everything was populated – and suddenly the projector has stopped: the screen is empty.

It is empty because whatsoever you were seeing just a moment before was just illusoryit was

maya. Many people become afraid and they start the projector again – again they populate the world with their own fantasies.

This is the time when courage is needed. This is the time when a person really becomes a sannyasin. So let this desert be. You have to pass through it, and the deeper your acceptance, the sooner it will disappear. Sometimes it can disappear in a single moment, it depends on the intensity of the acceptance.

If you accept, you say, ‘It is okay. I will live with the empty screen but I am not going to create any illusion any more. All those love affairs, relationships, all those desires and greeds and all ambitions – I am not going to bring them again. If it is desert, so let it be; I am ready to live with this desert.’

Once you are totally ready, suddenly you will see that the desert is also disappearing. Just as the greenery has disappeared, the desert is also disappearing. The pictures disappeared, now the screen has disappeared, and then for the first time you become aware of the reality – which is tremendously beautiful. It is very colourful.it is luminous.

So these are the two things: first the movie has to start, then the screen has to disappear. Then you face the reality, the real world as it is. But to become capable of that, this is the price one has to pay.

Christian mystics have said that there are three stages of inner growth. The first they call ‘via purgativa’. One has to become completely pure, pure of all illusions – that is purgation.

The second stage they call ‘via illuminativa’. When one has become completely pure of illusions, the second stage will come – a great light will descend. Life will become glorious. One will feel very very fulfilled, very close to home.

And then the third stage they call ‘via unitiva’. One becomes one with the reality. Then there is no-one as the seer and nothing as the seen.

In the first stage there is no light and it is very painful – purgation. Many many cherished dreams are being broken. It is painful, it hurts, and one feels dried up, because all that one was thinking was juice was nothing but dream.

In the second stage one feels very happy but still something is missing. One is happy but one has not become happiness yet. One is luminous but one has not become luminosity yet. Yes, a light has come, but it is separate from you – duality still exists.

In the third stage, ‘via unitiva’, one becomes one with existence. Only then is the journey complete... the pilgrimage is over.

This is very good – you should be happy about it; feel blessed. It will be difficult but you will pass through the difficulties. Just feel blessed and go happily! Go singing through this desert!

[A sannyasin says: Some months ago you told me to move into brahmacharya. I was doing that, and it’s fine.

I get this great feeling to share myself and it’s nothing sexual, but there is some conflict with brahmacharya and this idea to share.]

So relax! For three months, forget about brahmacharya. Nothing to be worried about. Never create a conflict. When things go easy, they are good. You need some trouble, so forget about brahmacharya!

[The sannyasin replies: But it was never the idea to share sexually. It was only just to be with somebody... ]

But once you start sharing with a woman you cannot prevent it. It will be a constant barrier and you will not be able to share totally; you will be always holding back. When you want to share, then no strings attached to it – you should go totally. I’m not saying to share sexually, but you should not keep the idea that you have not to go into sex. If you feel not to go, don’t go, but there is no brahmacharya preventing you. You follow me? The idea has to be dropped.

For three months you are completely free. If you don’t go, that’s very good; but if you go, nothing is wrong. But if you have this idea in the mind – that you have to be friendly with a woman, loving, and not to share sexually – your sharing will be very conditional, and you will go only so far and then you will prevent yourself.

You will be afraid of everything, because who knows – the woman may become interested sexually. Then?

Then you will have to say ‘no’. Then what type of sharing will this be? Unless you find a brahmacharya woman... so both will be so uptight that there will be no sharing! (laughter)

For three months drop it. I’m not saying to go into sex – I am simply saying to drop the idea and then be free. For three months be free, and then you tell me. If you again feel like moving into brahmacharya, move.

[The sannyasin replies: I feel like that now; it’s only to be with somebody that’s a problem.]

Then you will be confused. That’s why you are confused – otherwise why should you ask me? You know from where the confusion is coming. You know that if you want to share, sharing shows no limits. Then you don’t know where sex begins and where it is not sexual and where it is sexual.

Is holding the hand of the woman sexual or not? Difficult to say, because sometimes you can hold the hand non-sexually and sometimes you can hold the hand sexually. Is looking at the woman sexual or not? It depends – even making love may have no sexuality in it.

That’s the whole methodology of tantra: there is no sex in it; it is just a meditation and one is completely passionless. There is no passion, no lust. As you are doing other meditations, a tantrika is doing the love meditation – then there is no sexuality in it.

You may be a brahmacharya, sitting silently, not a woman even for miles, and you may be thinking of women and you may be sexual – so that is not the question.

I am saying simply this – that your brahmacharya has been a good thing to you, it has settled you very deeply – but for three months drop the idea. If sex does not happen, very good; if it happens, there is no problem. For three months you go into freedom and then we will see. Don’t be afraid.

Otherwise forget about sharing! If you are afraid, forget about sharing, because sharing can only be total, otherwise it is of no use.

Mm? you think about it. What would you like to do?

... You think about it, and as you feel, you do. [The sannyasin answers: I don’t feel to have sex.]

Then good... I know... because you have attained so much through it. Mm? you are so settled and something beautiful is happening, so good!

[Another sannyasin says: I feel as though I’ve exiled myself from my own life and that I’ve destroyed myself totally. (a pause) I feel like dying.]

Mm, don’t be worried. Sometimes when these moments come, when one feels like dying, they can be transformed into moments of resurrection. One can really be born anew – a new man, a new being.

These are very significant moments... dangerous too, because one can really become destructive, but when you have come to me there is no trouble. These are the moments I wait for. When one is really on the verge of committing suicide, feeling that all is lost, only then does one go on the inner adventure, never before.

When people are comfortable, when people are going successful, when everything is going their way and they feel everything is right, almost right, they don’t change! They have a love affair going well, business going well, ambitions succeeding. Why should they change? What is the point of change?

These are the people really in danger – they will miss, because they will never change. They will always remain the same and will die. But when a person comes to a point where he is really broke, spiritually broke – as bankrupt as you are – then a great moment has come.

Now it is going to be very decisive – you have to change, otherwise you have to die! So do something or die – these are the two alternatives. And who wants to die when something can be done and you can become really new? Nothing is lost. You just have to attain to a new quality in your consciousness and everything will change.

In fact with the unconscioUs mind all success is failure. Failure is failure, that’s okay; success too is failure. With the unconscious mind love is bound to fail; even if it succeeds it is bound to fail. With unconsciousness nothing can succeed. It is a poison – how can anything flower? It is not your question – it is everybody’s question.

Unconsciously we destroy everything. We destroy the man we love, the woman we love, we kill the children we love... because we don’t know what we are doing!

Become conscious – and that’s what sannyas is all about: to become conscious. Now, change your whole gestalt. Become a flame of awareness and then live your life on new lines. You will find a soul mate, you will find everything. And this will be really something, because now it will not be destroyed.

Otherwise if you remain yourself, you can again find somebody and you will do the same again. That has nothing to do with you – that has something to do with the unconscious mind.

I can feel, mm? you have passed a very critical moment. But you have come in the right time... now I am here. Nothing to be worried about.

Have you done any groups before? Then do a few groups here. Everything will be put right, mm? Good.

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