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‌CHAPTER 4

4 February 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin told Osho about a centre sannyasins were starting in Holland.

Osho encouraged Niketana to go back and help the centre in holland, saying that wherever people are doing his work, he is there]

It is the greatest creativity possible when you help people to grow. Nothing else is more creative – because you create consciousness. It is good to create a beautiful painting, good to create a beautiful song, but nothing compared to when you create consciousness, when you create awareness in people, when you create the possibility of joy, celebration. These are the greatest artists – who help people to be, to be authentically, to be in the true sense of the word ‘being’.

Ordinarily people are asleep. It doesn’t matter much whether they are or are not – they will live as if they are dead. They don’t make any difference in the universal consciousness; they don’t add anything to it. They come, they are here, and they go, and the universe has not been enriched by them.

Unless you enrich existence you are never rich. The moment you start enriching existence you start becoming rich.every day richer and richer.

A man is not rich because he has many things. That simply hides poverty, that does not make you rich. That’s a pretension of richness – having so many things. Having is not being. Having certainly gives a false sense of being – you have a big house, you have a big car; you feel you are important – but deep down you are just crawling on the dunghill in a way. Deep down you are immensely poor... deep down you are just empty. If your car and your house and your money is taken away, nothing is left.

When everything is taken away and nothing is taken away from you, you remain the same, then you have something. And that is a totally different thing. It is not having things – it is having being.

There are only two types of people: the first, the ordinary type who goes on collecting, having – have this, have that, have all that is possible: all the gadgets, shiny gadgets; have everything that is shiny, and surround yourself with shiny things.…

And then there is another type – a very rare type, the spiritual type – the religious man who is not interested in having things, who is interested in having himself. Then being is important, not having. Then a man may be a beggar and yet an emperor. But that type of kingdom, that kind of enrichment, comes only when you start enriching the world. And then you can sec the diametrical opposite: a person who wants to have, will make the world poor; he will exploit. He will not give – he will hoard. He will oppress; he will take away from people, only then can he have it!

So when in the dimension of having, a person becomes rich, many people become automatically poor; he makes the world poor. For one rockefeller to exist millions of people have to live half-starved lives. For one country to be rich many countries have to exist almost in a condition of famine. This is a very bloody type of richness.

The richness that comes through being is totally different. It comes only when you enrich the world, when you pour down your heart into others’ hearts... when you become love, when you share, when you give, when you start overflowing... when you start enjoying giving itself and you feel grateful to all those who allowed you to give, who allowed you to share, who were ready to receive, who didn’t reject you, who welcomed your energy.

When you enrich the world you become tremendously rich, really rich. You may be poor in the sense of having, but you will be rich in the sense of being. That is the meaning when Jesus says ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’. Now this is a very contradictory saying.…

The poor in spirit are those who are spiritually rich, but he uses the expression ‘poor in spirit’ because he wants to say ‘People who don’t have any ego are poor in spirit’. Ego comes from having things. A person without ego is a poor person in Jesus’ saying, but he is blessed because he shall inherit the kingdom of god. In fact he has already inherited the kingdom of god – he is the kingdom of god! He’s already a king... uncrowned. Maybe his kingdom is not visible to others – only visible to himself, or visible to others who are like himself.…

A spiritually rich person is poor in spirit because he has no ego, because he has nothing, because he possesses nothing. He knows nothing, he possesses nothing, he is nothing! In that sense he is poor, but because he is nothing he becomes capable of receiving god. Because he possesses nothing, he possesses all.And only that life is the life of beauty and beatitude.

So good! Go happily and help people to grow.

[Osho said that one’s growth can be helped indirectly through helping other people with their growth problems.

See ‘Be Realistic: Plan For A Miracle’ page one, where Osho talks at length about this.]

[A sannyasin said that she was concerned about her six-year-old daughter. The child said she was happy being here but she felt that she wasn’t; she said she felt she just couldn’t make her happy]

You seem to be too much concerned – too much concern can be dangerous. The idea to make somebody happy never succeedsnever! It is against the laws. When you want to make somebody

happy you make him or her unhappy. Because happiness is not something that can be given by somebody else. At the most you can create the situation where happiness may flower, may not flower; more cannot be done.

It seems that you are too worried about making her happy, and because you fail you become unhappy, and when you are unhappy, she will be unhappy. It is very easy to make somebody unhappy – it is impossible to make somebody else happy.

This has to be understood: it is very easy to make somebody unhappy. If you are unhappy that is enough to make anybody who is around you unhappy. But just by being happy you cannot make anybody happy. Happiness is something very positive – the person has to earn it himself. Unhappiness is very negative, unhappiness is very infectious – it is like a disease. If you are unhappy, all those who are connected with you, related with you, particularly children, will become very unhappy. Or, the person who loves you will become very unhappyAnd children are very

sensitive, very fragile.

You may not say that you are unhappy but that doesn’t make much difference – children are very intuitive; they have not yet lost their intuition. They yet have something deeper than the intellect, which feels things immediately.

Intellect takes time and intellect always wavers; it can never be certain. Even if you are unhappy and a person thinks about you, he can never be absolutely certain whether you are unhappy or you are just pretending; maybe this is just your habit or maybe your face is like that. Intellect can never come to a conclusion which is absolute. It is always divided.it is a guesswork – at the most a good

inference but there is nothing to be certain about.

But intuition is absolute, unconditional – it simply says what is the case. Children are intuitive and they are related in a very subtle, telepathic way. They don’t look at how you look – they immediately feel.…

Sometimes it happens that the mother may only feel a little later on, and the child has felt it before the mother herself. The mother may be unhappy but she is not yet aware. The child will first become aware that the mother is unhappy. The mother has not said so, she has not herself even become aware of it – it is still coming to her consciousness from the unconscious – but from the unconscious to the child there is a direct passage.

To reach to your conscious it will have to pass many layers of conditioning, many layers of experiences, intellect, this and that, and it will have to pass many censors. Those censors will change the message, interpret it in different ways, colour it, and by the time it reaches your conscious it may be absolutely something else to what it was in reality. But a child has immediate access.

Now they say that when a child is in the mother’s womb, even then when the mother is sad, the child becomes sad. The mother is angry and the child becomes angry; the mother is anxious and the child becomes anxious. Everything vibrates in the child.

So up to a certain age the children remain very much rooted in you and they know what is happening. Or if somebody loves you very deeply, then again he has a telepathic approach. He need not even ask you how you are and he knows. Sometimes you even say just the opposite – that you feel you are fine, you are good, and you pretend... you may be a good actress; that doesn’t matter – but the person who loves you, knows.

My feeling is that you are trying to be too much of a jewish mother – and jewish mothers are the most dangerous in the world, because they try hard to do whatsoever is right to bring all happiness to their children. Hence they are the most crippling mothers, they destroy happiness.

Too much love becomes suffocating, and when you see that the child is suffocated, you become even more concerned, so you suffocate more! So it is a vicious circle!

Just relax a little. Let her mix with other children here, let her play, and don’t talk about happiness, unhappiness. You cannot give any happiness to anybody – forget that illusion completely. Whatsoever you can do, do, and don’t talk about it.

Rather you be happy – that will help. Seeing you happy, she will feel happy. Play with her, hug her, but don’t show much concern about happiness. Happiness is not something that we have to seek directly: it is a by-product. Children are very much puzzled when you ask ‘Are you happy?’ In fact they don’t know how to answer it – and my feeling is that they are right! When you ask a child ‘Are you happy?’ he simply shrugs his shoulders... because what do you mean?

The child is happy only when he is not aware of it, the moment he becomes aware he is not. Nobody can be happy when they are aware. Happiness is something very subtle that happens only, exists only, when you are completely lost in something else.

The child is playing and he is happy, because the child does not know about himself at all in these moments – he is lost! Lost, he is happy.

You take hold of a child and ask him ‘Are you happy?’ Now you have made him self-conscious, and self-consciousness is never happy. So maybe the child, just to make you happy, says ‘Yes, I am very happy’, but you are not convinced and the child also is telling a lie.

Happiness exists only when you are lost. When you come back, happiness disappears.

A dancer is happy when the dance is there and the dancer is lost. A singer is happy when the song is so overwhelmingly there that the singer is no more. A painter is happy when he is painting. A child is happy when he is playing – maybe a nonsense game, just collecting seashells on the seashore, meaningless, but he is completely absorbed.

Have you watched a child collecting seashells or collecting stones? Just watch the absorption... just see how deeply involved, how utterly lost. And that is the quality of ecstasy, the quality of wonder, the quality of all religious experience. All children are religious and all children are happy unless parents make them unhappy.

Just allow her to mix with people, let her dance here, and meet with children. Let her come to the music group, to the sufi dancing, and let her watch... and she will be happy!

Forget about happiness – don’t talk about it! Never ask a child ‘Are you happy?’ otherwise you will make him unhappy. Sometimes play with her, sometimes dance with her, and you will make her immensely happy!

But happiness is not to be sought directly. Do something else and happiness follows like a shadow – it is a consequence, not a result.

So don’t be worried. There is no need to send her anywhere.

[A sannyasin said that he did not feel connected here, and then referred to something Osho had said earlier to another sannyasin about service with people, as he had been working with children in a day-care centre.]

I was not talking to you... I was talking to somebody else! You can misunderstand it completely – I was not talking to you. You are not ready yet to be of any help to anybody. You can be dangerous if you help people, because you have not taken the first step – you have not helped yourself yet. So anything that you do will be a wastage, if nothing goes wrong; it will be just a wastage. If something goes wrong, which is more possible, it will be harmful. There are only two possibilities: either it will be wastage, the best possibility, or it will be harmful.

The first thing has to happen within you. Because you are not connected yourself, you are not feeling connected to me or to the ashram, or to herenow. You are not connected with yourself, so it is very difficult to feel connected with me, mm? because the first thing is missing – you are not there; you are fast asleep.

And the second thing: you are very clever and your cleverness is protecting you – this protection is against you. But you are very clever: you go only so far. You go with all calculations. You are not a gambler, you are a businessman – and the game I am playing here is for gamblers. So become a gambler, otherwise you will not feel connected. Take some risks! You don’t take any risk! You go in a very guarded way... watching, and whatsoever you do, you do when your reason is satisfied about doing it. So you don’t take any risk, and without risk nothing is going to happen. You can postpone for one month or one year – it won’t be of much use. Postponement or staying longer is not going to help; you have to understand this.

But now the right time has come. I was waiting for when you would ask me and then was going to tell you... because I always wait for the person to ask. If you tell a person when he has not asked he will not understand, because if the question has not arisen the answer won’t fit. First the question has to arise... first the person has to feel the question. Now you felt it – what are you doing here? Now it is an existential question, now the answer can be given.

I could have given you the answer the very first day you came but then it would have been useless. And it may have been even harmful, because the answer would have been there without the question and your intellect would have hoarded it. Because of that answer, this question that is arising now would not have arisen, and that would have been a very false situation. So I have to wait sometimes very long – for the person to come to his own realisation of what he is doing here.

You are very rational, you move through the head in a very calculative way. Nothing will happen, because love or meditation or prayer or god are all gamblings – very risky things. One has to go

headlong; knowing that one may be just a loser, knowing that all may be lost, knowing that this may be foolish, still one goes.

It is a very blind game – life is a blind game, and clever people miss it. Sometimes fools reach and the so-called wise just go on standing on the bank. They want to make everything sure about the other shore. They don’t want to move into the river. They are afraid to lose this shore, so they want everything to be certain about the other shore. But nothing can be made certain from here – you have to go there. And the other shore will become visible only when this shore is lost.

There will be a time when you will be just in the middle of the river and no shore will be seen, neither this nor that, and that is the point where a master is needed.

That is the meaning of surrender – that you trust something which you cannot see – and that is the meaning of your name ‘shraddhan’.

I have given it knowingly, because that is going to be your whole work – that you have to create trust... and you don’t have trust. So take a little adventurous turn, be a little more risky.

One thing that I can say to you is that you don’t have anything to lose – you are unnecessarily worried. A man has nothing to lose. There is all to gain and nothing to lose, because we don’t have anything!

And the same problem comes in your meditations, because you are the same – whether in relation to me or in relation to the ashram or in relation to anything else, or in relation to meditation. I have even been watching your love affair, there too you don’t take the risk; you just write a love letter.

Days of love letters are gone! One should be a little more risky. And my people here are dangerous people – they won’t listen to love letters. You have to go headlong... you have to hold somebody’s hand and say what you want to say, with all possibility of being rejected.

Those love letters are polite ways to feel whether you are going to be rejected or not. If you feel there is some possibility, some response, then one step more, one step more. Just listen and then think it over in the night. I am not saying to you to agree or disagree with it. If you agree with it, that will be a great thing. Disagreement I know will come immediately, because it may be that people are ready to listen about meditation but they are never ready to listen about their love, because they think at least that much they know!

And I say to you that you know neither meditation nor love, because if you know love you will know meditation too – they are almost the same; it is the same energy. After two, three days write me a letter; then you will have a more clear perspective about what I am saying.

You may not be aware of your own ways. That’s how ways persist – because we are not aware. And start taking more risks! Live a little more dangerously! In fact there is no other way to live: the only way to live is to live dangerously.

So think it over, mm? and after three days you write a letter to me. At least for once be absolutely true; don’t play any games! You are not to hide anything from me, because that is pointless – you cannot hide!

I sometimes even accept your pretension – sometimes I say ‘Good, Shraddhan’ – and I know that it is not true. But now the time has come, I will have to hit you on your head!

You are not to reply to me – I’m not asking for a reply; you are not to convince me about anything. You have just to listen to what I have told you and meditate over it, and then there will be a response, not a reply. And let the response be as it is – write it down. Don’t change it, don’t improve it, don’t drop anything, don’t add anything into it. Just let it be as it is, as if you are simply opening your heart to me. Then I will call you and tell you what is to be done. The first thing is that you have to look into your being, at what you have been doing.

There are many people who have been doing the same – not only you. In fact everybody does that in the beginning. There are many people who go on playing games. They think they are doing something very clever and they are simply missing the opportunity. But it is natural too, because whatsoever they have done for their whole life only that can they do. And in the ordinary world cleverness pays. Here, madness pays. And you are not mad – that’s your trouble. With me mad people grow very fast.

Clever people who can succeed.… You can succeed in the world very well, because this type of functioning is very in tune with the world, with the worldly – and that’s one of the problems.

A certain mind has come into existence – the american mind. This is something new in the history of humanity.

The american mind is, for the first time in the whole history of man, the most trained for the world. American society is the first society in human history which is dominated by the businessman – hence its success. No society has ever been dominated by the businessman. In india it was the scholar, the brahmin, the professor, the pundit, who dominated. In england it was the aristocrats... as it was in europe In japan it was the warriors, the samurai, who dominated. Never before has the businessman dominated anywhere else.

The american society and culture are based on the mind of the businessman. In fact it was said that if a German had to say to somebody, ‘I am a businessman,’ he felt a little awkward. A businessman? A German used to feel very good if he could say that he was a professor. Mm? maybe poor, but a professor in a big university. He may be very very rich, but a businessman? Then it is nothing... a businessman.

Now in America, to be a professor is nothing. Just a professor? – poor fellow! Professors are those who have failed... professors are those who cannot be anything else. When you cannot be anything else you become a professor, in america. But businessman is a prestigious word. If you are a businessman, that’s how one should be. The whole society is based on the businessman’s mind, hence its success. It is a tremendously successful society, because wherever the businessman enters, he brings success.

India has failed – poor, has lived in slavery, poverty. The brahmin never succeeds anywhere; the professor is bound to fail. Wherever intellectuals come into power the society is doomed, because they will argue and quarrel and do everything, but they will never do anything which is utilitarian. They will only miss that which is needed. They will talk about great things, and small things are what life consists of. The businessman looks to the small things, to the minutest detail; he is very earthly.

So I know that the very success of the american mind is a barrier in the inner world. In the inner world a different approach is needed – unearthly, more poetic, more romantic.

And that’s what the problem is deep down within your being. You have a mind trained in a certain logic, and here I am talking about a diametrically opposite logic, so you don’t feel connected with me. Whenever mad people come to me they are immediately connected with me.

But this can be changed. One should become very very fluid. I’m not saying to destroy this mind. The mind is good if you are working in the world, so let it be there intact; when needed use it. In the marketplace, use it. In the marketplace, whatsoever I am talking about and whatsoever I am sharing with you is of no use; never use it in the marketplace.

So one has to be very fluid. Use this mind in the marketplace but when you go to the inner temple put it aside. Use another kind of mind, which is there also, you have not used it, that’s all.

I have given this name ‘shraddhan’ – it means trust – to remind you... to remind you that it is there, alive; you just have to start using it. Of course a little courage will be needed. Whenever we change gears courage is needed, mm? because one has become so skilled in one thing, efficient... and then something new. For three days just think, and then write a letter. Something is going to happen.

[Osho had previously told a sannyasin psychotherapist to give counselling to people he would send to her. However he did not send anyone. She asked for something more challenging like training in groups.]

I had put you in a certain situation knowingly. I wanted you not to do anything in particular for a few days.

One comes up against oneself when one is not doing anything. All doing is a sort of escape – it gives you occupation. The challenge that you are talking about will be just an occupation. The real challenge I have given to you, and you have not been able to see that this is a challenge – just to sit in Vrindavan and not to do anything. This is really a challenge!

... This will make you aware of how much addicted you are to achieving... how much addicted to work you are. You cannot be without work, and that is the first condition to be fulfilled – that a person should be able not to do. If one becomes able to be in inactivity, then one’s activity will have something really meaningful. If you have to be active because you cannot be inactive, your activity is feverish, it is a sort of obsession. It is intoxicating; it helps you to avoid yourself, to forget yourself; it helps you to drown yourself. It helps you so that you don’t come across yourself, so that you don’t encounter yourself.

In the east we have always used inactivity as a basic groundwork A person has to sit not doing anything. Then all sorts of ideas come and all sorts of negativities and sadness arise. One feels completely lost, maddened.

If one is deprived of all activity, anybody will go mad within three weeks. This is the situation of your normal human being – within three weeks. Three weeks is the maximum limit, in fact after the first week things will start. A few will go mad within ten days, a few within fifteen days, but by the third

week, by the twenty-first day, all will go mad if all activity is dropped. But what type of mental health is this – that we cannot sit silently for only three weeks?

In the East, they, particularly the Taoists in China, have worked tremendously. They have made this the basic condition for a grown-up person – that he can be without doing anything; he can enjoy just being. Then action has a different quality – a luminous quality to it. It is not your hectic feverishness that you are throwing in. Action has a fragrance. Then it is not unhealthy – it is healthy, whole. Otherwise mad people are helping other mad people... and only a sane person can help.

So I had put you in this situation knowingly. I knew that this was going to happen – that sooner or later [you] was going to come and say, ‘I’m just sitting in Vrindavan and eating too much.’ Because that too is an activity. When you are sitting and you have nothing to do, drink coca-cola, or something else, eat something; at least this can be done.

[The sannyasin asks: When you say to do nothing, do you really mean do nothing at all – not write, not dance, not sing, not... ]

No, no. I have not put you in that situation right now. Some day I may put you. Right now you are just not given any activity in particular. You can dance, you can go to the sufi meditation, you can meditate, but I have given you nothing in particular. Sometimes I will be sending a few persons; then you have to talk to them and help them, mm? Soon they will be coming more. I was not sending them because I wanted to listen to you, to what you would say.

But enjoy this inactivity; then I will give you activity too. But first get into it. Be happy. The day you are happy with your inactivity, that is the last day.

[Another sannyasin says: I’ve fallen in love with someone who does not love me. He rejects me and rejects me and rejects me. I tried to make relationships with someone else several times and every time it happens that there is no love, so I finish it. I don’t know what to do.]

You may be only in love with the man because he rejects you. There are a few people who only love people if they reject them. They think something great is there – it becomes a challenge. The more difficult the person is to get, the more the ego becomes interested, and then you create misery. The other persons who don’t reject you are ordinary. So now you are creating a problem; it is a created problem.

If you have been rejected by somebody it is finished, because love cannot exist on one side. If you extend your hands to hold my hand and I don’t give my hand, how long can you go on keeping your hand that way? It is foolish... it is meaningless!

When a person rejects you it simply means that he does not love you. So how can you go on loving a person who does not love you? Even if he concedes, there is not going to be happiness with him. So drop this idea.

You are still feeling hurt... you want to prove that you will get this man. This nonsense arises in everybody’s ego. Whatsoever you cannot achieve becomes very important, has to be achieved. Maybe it is meaningless and when you have achieved you may not find any significance in it, but

the very idea that you have been rejected.… How can you be rejected by anybody? That rejection is like a wound.

But this is foolish. Love can exist only when two persons are in love – it cannot exist when one person is in love and another is not.

There are many possibilities. One possibility is that two persons are in love with each other – which is very rare; I have never come across such a situation. So you need not feel very desperate about it. I never come across two persons being really loving. Two persons are never in love with each other.

It almost always happens that one is in love and the other, at the most, is polite... maybe is not so rude as to say no. My feeling is that it is better to say no than to be polite, because the person who says no allows you freedom to move with somebody else. The person who is polite and goes on keeping you hanging is very dangerous, is your enemy, because he will destroy all your possibilities.

Even when it appears sometimes that two persons are in love, one is more in love than the other – it is never equal. So that is again the same problem. One feels, ‘I love more and the other does not love so much.’ Then again it is not satisfying.

The other possibility is that both are not in love and are together. These are two polar opposites: two persons are in love and are together – which rarely happens, and when it does happen, then too, it is never equal, and frustration continues.

The other opposite is: both are not in love, and stay together. This happens almost always and is a better arrangement in a way, because when love is not there things go better, more smoothly. You are more down on the earth, not flying in the sky. Things are more practical. There is not much happiness, there is not much misery. This is the arrangement of ninety-nine percent of the world, and other possibilities are there in between the two.

My understanding and observation is this: if you love a person and he does not love you, immediately drop the idea. Even the opposite is better – that you don’t love a person and he loves you. To be with him is better than to be with a person you love but who does not love you. You follow me? – a person loves you and you don’t love him; that is a better combination. At least he loves you!...

When the other one comes, I will talk to him. You cannot take care of the whole world. If you can take care of yourself, that is enough.

[She answers: When I am with somebody I cannot love I feel a bit guilty when I cannot give him all my love.]

Nobody can give all their love... nobody can give. If we can give a little, that is already too much; don’t hanker for the impossible.

The modern youth has become very much addicted with impossible ideals – ‘total love’. Now, only a buddha can love totally; and a buddha never loves, because who will take on that anxiety?

Total love is possible only when you are total in your life – and that you are not. Only with total awareness is total love possible... only fragments are possible.

One feels that through this love one has to be tremendously happy, that too is nonsense. Ninety percent it is misery – ten percent is bliss. One has to be alert to suffer the ninety percent misery for the ten percent happiness that it brings, so one is really never happy. Have you ever seen lovers happy? Maybe in the books, in the movies – I’m not talking about that.

Every evening I have to talk to lovers, and they are always unhappy. Very rarely are they happy – and whenever it happens, that shows that they are not too much interested in love; they are more interested in happiness. Their interest is more in a well-balanced life, more sensitive, compassionate, kind. They are not hankering for honeymoon heights, they have settled for the earthly dwelling. They are no more in dreams.

Then sometimes you may find lovers happy – but they are not happy because of love, remember. They are happy for other considerations. They have understood that if you want to be happy you have to settle for many things, you have to make many compromises. Life is a compromise, a continuous compromise. If you have one thing, you have to lose the other. You cannot have the cake and eat it too – it is always a compromise.

So if you sometimes find a couple happy always know that it is not because of love. Nobody is happy only because of love. Love is a sort of feverish state, a sort of neurosis, a madness. It drives one crazy and makes one hope for things which are not possible. When they are not possible and when they never happen, great frustrations set in. Because love gives hope, it gives frustration.

Happy couples are those who are not romantic in that way... but to come to that point one has to pass through many painful experiences. And you are young enough, so pass through a few more, and then by and by understanding arises – that a relationship cannot be based only on love. It is a risk – that one is trying to live just on love and nothing else; you will die!

Love is good, and it is food too, but one cannot live on love alone. Jesus says that man cannot live by bread alone, and I say to you that man cannot live by love alone either.

But each new generation is always fantastically in love with love, and it almost always happens that by the time one becomes a little older and becomes a little more understanding of life, by the time one can be happy, life is lost. Mm? by the time a person becomes a little wiser, understanding, energies are gone, life is finished. When one has life and energy and can go into the stormy world, one is not wise.

So forget about that! Move into some relationship and enjoy. Don’t be worried that they have to go on forever. Whatsoever time a relationship lasts, it is good.

Moving through these relationships you will become more and more understanding – and that understanding will help you to find the partner with whom you can stay longer, be more happy. That relationship will not be the foolish relationship of love. Love will be an ingredient in it, but the relationship will be more of understanding.

Love is good as chutney, mm? (laughter) Don’t make it the whole food. It adds to flavour and taste, but that’s all...

[The Sahaj group is present. A member says she found it easier to give than to take.]

It is always so. It is very difficult to take – it is very easy to give, because the ego can give easily but cannot take easily. It is very easy for the ego to have the upper hand, it always enjoys to have the upper hand. When you give, you have the upper hand – you are the giver – you have obliged the other. Now the other has to be thankful to you: you are so great.

[Osho said all the old scriptures say one needs to learn to be able to take. He said that to give or receive makes no difference to a real man – he is grateful either way.

Osho said she should begin to receive things – just small things]

A woman who was having a hard time with her husband, a very hard time, came to the Himalayas with me. She had come to me just to understand what to do.

On the first day we went into the hills. She was coming down and the rock was big, so I offered my hand. She refused, she said ‘I am young enough. Why should I take your hand?’ I knew in that moment everything that was wrong in the relationship with the husband. She could not even take my hand!

Then I said, ‘This is the whole problem. I have not talked to you, I have not listened to your story, but in that moment you showed me everything.’

She was a very rich woman. She felt offended that I had given my hand to her! She could not receive it. I told her that this was the only thing, and that I didn’t think she needed to waste much time here with me – this was the key.

When the husband heard this, he said, ‘This is a miracle! How did you know it? For twenty years I have been with this woman and she has not allowed me, even once, to give her anything – that is impossible. She has to always give and I have to take, so the relationship becomes lopsided.’

It is good to give – it is better to take. It is bad not to givebecause there are hoarders who won’t

give, who can only take. That too is bad. But to be fluid, balanced, giving and taking should be easy; both should be easy. One should remain grateful whatsoever the situation – whether you have given or you have taken; but this will come.

Good, that you became aware. If this can be broken, many things will change in your life.

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