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‌CHAPTER 8

8 February 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[Osho gave a new sannyasin the name ‘deva sarvahara’ – saying that the meaning was ‘one who has lost all’.

Osho said that Jesus’ saying – ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ – meant that those who had nothing, who were nothing, were blessed. This did not imply that one should live an impoverished life; one should live beautifully, but one should not be possessed by one’s belongings.]

This name, ‘sarvahara’, is one of the most beautiful possible. It means one who has nothing, who knows nothing, who is nothing, one who has no claim. In that moment – when you don’t claim anything – you are; for the first time you are! And you are so abundantly, so infinitely, that right now you cannot conceive of what is possible. By becoming nothing, the impossible is possible.

It is said that a man called Nicodemus came one night to Jesus. He came in the night – midnight – when everybody had left and Jesus was alone and was just preparing to go to sleep. He was a very rich man and a professor also. He was on the board of the temple and he was very prestigious and respectable – hence he came in the night; he was afraid to come in the day. He did not want people to know that he associated with such dangerous people.

So he came alone, afraid in case someone should come to know, and he said, ‘I’m attracted to your teaching. I have heard you teaching, I have heard many rumours about you – that you teach that a man has to be reborn to be really alive. Give me the secret!’

So Jesus said, ‘You know the law – you are a learned man. You know the ten commandments.’

The man said, ‘Not only do I know them, I follow all the commandments. I follow to the very letter, but nothing has happened through that. I am a virtuous man, moral in every way – I follow the rules of the society, the law of the society – but nothing has happened.’

Jesus said, ‘Then there is only one thing left – renounce all. Go home and give up everything and come and follow me.’

Nicodemus said, ‘That is difficult.’

He follows all the commandments, he is a moral person, virtuous – that is easy. In fact, that too is a sort of possession – to be virtuous, to be moral, to be good. That too is a sort of subtle possessiveness, as if one is hoarding for the other life too. In this life money is needed, in that life virtue is needed; so virtue is the coin for the other life. But to renounce and to be nothing? Just to be nothing seems to be impossible, and that is the only key for transformation.

But I don’t say to renounce, because how can you renounce? – nothing belongs to you. My approach is even more subtle than Jesus’ approach. He says ‘Renounce’. There is a possibility that a man may renounce and then start hoarding this renunciation.

In India we know. Maybe in Jesus’ time in Israel people were not so aware, but in this country we are aware of how a person can become very egoistic by renunciation. In fact you cannot find more egoistic people anywhere else than those who have renounced. Now they have a very subtle, refined ego – a pious egoism: ‘I have renounced all! I don’t belong to this dirty world and I don’t have any dirty desires. Everybody is dirty, a sinner, and I am a saint.’

If Jesus had known he would not have said that, because in this country we have known for centuries – people have renounced and nothing has happened. You become virtuous, nothing happens; you become moral, nothing happens; you become a renunciate and nothing happens.

The happening is possible only when there is an inner understanding – that you don’t possess, that nothing belongs to you, that you are nothing. There is no need to go anywhere, there is no need to do a single act; this is not a question of action. This is the simple realisation, just a simple understanding – that you are nothing.

To live out of that nothing is to be a sannyasin.

To act out of that nothingness, out of that innocence – primordial innocence, primal innocence – to act out of that simplicity is to be a sannyasin.

And it is tremendously beautiful.…

The kingdom becomes yours right now. Not a single moment has to be lost – time is not needed for it. It has always been yours; you have not looked in the right direction.

So from this moment start thinking. and create a milieu around you of, ‘I am nothing.’ Let this be your mantra. Sitting silently, simply repeat – but let it not only be a repetition; with great understanding, with great insight. with great feeling, just let this resound inside you: ‘I am nothing.’

And whenever you see something arising that goes against it, remember again – relax and remember: ‘I am nothing.’ Somebody insults you – that is the moment to remember the mantra: ‘I am nothing.’ So how can he insult you? How can you insult a nothing? One day you will be

dead, and he will be insulting you but the insult will not reach you – so why not be a nothing this very moment? Then the insult passes through, comes and goes, and the arrow never touches you because there is nothing to block its way, it simply goes through you.

Somebody is bribing you, buttressing you – remember ‘I am nothing’. Relax.Let this be a subtle

chanting inside – ‘I am nothing’ – and you will gain tremendous insight through it.

By and by the door will start opening slightly – you will have glimpses of nothingness... just as if a little breeze comes in and you are refreshed by the breeze of nothingness. In that moment everything is so crystal-clear. When you are a nothing you are a mirror – when you are something you lose all qualities of the mirror; then you don’t reflect realityyou are closed.

So I am giving you this as a maxim, as a golden rule. If you can do this, nothing else is needed. So do the meditations, do groups, but let it become a continuous remembrance. You will be surprised at how this simple idea, ‘I am nothing,’ can relax you.

Ramana Maharshi used to give the mantra ‘Who am I?’ Generally I don’t insist upon it much.very

rarely, mm? because in that, again, the ego can assert itself. You ask ‘who am I?’, but that ‘I am-ness’ remains there – it can be dangerous; it cannot help everybody – very few people will be helped. But this mantra can become a universal mantra: ‘I am nothing.’

There is no need to ask ‘Who am I?’ – ‘I am simply nothing – nothingness is my nature.’ And this nothingness will be a death to you and a resurrection too.…

[A sannyasin says: Every time when I am with a man that I love very much, I become very tense, and except when I make love, I can’t relax.

Osho checks her energy.]

Do one thing: while making love – start it only while you make love, mm? – while making love start chanting ‘aum’ loudly. Just go crazy chanting ‘aum, aum, aum, aum.’

I would like this sound ‘aum’ to become associated with the moment of love. For a few days simply chant only when you make love, at least for two weeks. Never chant otherwise – never; for two weeks only chant when you make love. While making love, just go crazy. Chant loudly and let the whole body vibrate with the chant of ‘aum’.

Your lover can also be very helpful if he also chants. You will both enjoy it, and the orgasm will be deeper, very deep – not only physical, but what in tantra they call ‘the subtle’.not the gross, but

the subtle. Mm? it will enter into your inner vibration... it will pulsate deep down in your being. So chant, but only for two weeks and only while you make love.

Then after two weeks, whenever you feel this tension, chant – and the outcome will immediately be the same as in love. It is not good to make love too much, so some way has to be found which gives you the same feeling. This is a simple method of conditioned-reflex.

[Osho described the experiments of the Russian scientist, Pavlov, who discovered the theory of conditioned reflex. When he gave his dog food, he would ring a bell. After some days, when he rang the bell the dog began to salivate – even when there was no food.]

You have the key in your hand – the key is that while you make love, you become more flowing; the flow comes. When the flow comes, tension disappears. When you are not making love the tension comes again – you are not so flowing; you become blocked. And particularly this passage – from the navel to the throat – becomes tense; this is the passage where the mantra will resound and create pulsations. So you just. . . But first let it be deeply associated with love, so just the chanting of the mantra becomes the bell.

You can enjoy the chanting so deeply then – it will almost give you an orgasm. In fact that is the way to create a real mantra; there is no other way.

People go on chanting mantras, but unless it is deeply related to your biology it is not going to do anything. This will make it chemical – it will associate with your hormones, with your flow of energy, with your orgasm, with your love state. Then you will be surprised – you can simply sit and chant the mantra and you can move into the same space.

For two weeks while making love, and then for two weeks you try without it. Then after one month, tell me how you are feeling – it will be gone. Very good!

[The encounter group is present. The leader comments: In this group many people have an experience of feeling quite good, as if they’ve worked through something – and the following morning they slip back, fall down again.]

It can happen only when a person is really going very high – then the fall is natural. When suddenly somebody goes very high it is very difficult to stay there – the next day he will be in a low key. But nothing to be worried about. That simply shows that he has taken a sudden jump.

When people grow slowly this never happens. There are two types of people, and sometimes it can happen that if there is a group where there are three, four people of that type, then many more will move in the same direction. In a group energies become joined. Even if one in the group is a good runner – as far as the inner world is concerned – many will start running.

The group moves as a whole – so one good flowing person can lead the whole group far away, and one dead-block can hold the whole group down. I think there was not somebody who was blocking – otherwise almost always there are both types of people, so they keep balance. Mm? they don’t allow you to go very high – you have to drag them. They are very weighty and they don’t move easily, so the whole group has to keep pace with them.

Sometimes if those load-stones are not there it will happen that the whole group will go to a very high peak, but the peak will be so sudden – in fact they have not earned it – so next day they have to fall. But good!... nothing wrong in it.

Start again, and by and by they will become more acquainted with the path, and then it will become more and more stable. Good... a really good energy group!

[Another group member says: I just feel so much resistance in myself.

The leader comments that her resistance seems to be on the surface; deep down there is a yes.]

But [the leader] may be right – the resistance may be just on the surface. Resistance can have two locations: either it can be very deep down – then on the surface you want to say yes, but the no comes from the deepest coreIt can be vice versa – at the deepest core yes comes, but just on

the surface you say no.

And he may be right – it may be just on the surface. That’s my feeling too – it is not very deep. If you decide to drop it, you can drop it very easily; it is a question of decision. If you want to maintain it, you can; if you don’t cooperate with it, it will disappear – it is not very deep-rooted. You may have learned it just as a protective armour; many people learn no.

There are reasons to learn it. Every child has to learn it, because only with the no does the child start becoming an individual. He feels he is separate when he says no. When he says yes, there is no separation – then he is engulfed by the other. If he says yes to the mother, he is just a part of the mother – his existence is not separate; he is not yet an individual. So children have to go through the no stage.

Every child has to learn how to say no. Sometimes when he does not want to say no, then too he says no, because only by no will he be separate – otherwise he will always remain a part. Nobody wants to be a part of somebody else. Maybe the mother is very loving, the father is very loving, but the child has to attain to his own individuality too – and the only way is the no. So sometimes a child wants to say yes, but cannot, because saying yes is very self-defeating.

So you have learned no-saying. That may have been the only way to attain to your individual existence; now it is just a habit. Deep down yes is there. If you just relax, you decide, the yes will come, and there will be no resistance. And when the yes comes it is really beautiful.it’s fantastic.

It is such a new space.

No is very ugly – it divides you from existence, from the whole. Yes connects you. The man who can say yes is the really religious man.and it needs great courage.

So this is the paradox of life: in the beginning the child needs to have enough courage to say no – that too is needed otherwise he will never have any backbone; he will be spineless. He has to say nohe has to gather guts and say no. Even sometimes against himself he has to say no.

Children do these tricks very much.The child is feeling he wants to go to the toilet but he will say

no to his body to feel that he is powerful. The mother puts him on the toilet but he says no. He wants to go – the bowels are ready to move – but he holds it. He has to say no, and he enjoys the power that comes through it; it is a great power – that he can control his body.

The bladder is full and the child wants to urinate but the child says no, and enjoys the power that comes through it, the thrill that he can control his body, he can do whatsoever he wants to do; he is not a slave. But this can become a very obsessive state. You may have learned it too much.And

it is only a question of becoming conscious of it.

For these two days just let the inner yes come – now that needs courage. First no needs courage – every child has to go through the nihilistic stages of saying no; that’s a part of growth – then when one has grown, that armour has to be dropped. Then again courage is needed to say yes. And in

a person who can say no when needed and can say yes when needed – when no and yes are not obsessive habits but one is free to say anything that is needed – spontaneity is born.

A person who cannot say yes is restricted by his no, and a person who cannot say no is also restricted. They both live half lives – and both suffer.

Freedom means the capability to say yes when yes is needed, to say no when no is needed, and sometimes to keep quiet when nothing is needed – to be silent, not to say anything. When a person has all these three dimensions available, he is a free person – he has freedom.

[Another group member said she had been very high and very low. When she felt high it was almost psychedelic. At the same time she lied about some of the lower aspects of herself. So now she has a problem.

Osho said that peaks cannot exist without valleys – and vice versa. The two points are not against but complementary to each other, so one should not regard low moments as spaces to be avoided

Osho said that it was better to call those low periods ‘rest’, for rest does not have a negative connotation. By changing the word, the label, one’s mood is already changed.]

Second thing: it happens sometimes when you are at the peak that you may lie about some aspects of your low state – that comes naturally; it is not that you are lying.

In fact in that high state those low aspects don’t exist; they are irrelevant. To talk about them will not be true, will not be true to the moment. So you have not lied really. It appears as if you lied when you come back ro the lower state and you see those aspects. Then you start feeling guilty – ‘I was hiding’ – but you were not hiding, because they were not there.

For example, in the valley there is darkness and when you are on the peak there is no darkness. The sun is showering – darkness is not there at all. So if somebody talks about darkness you will laugh – you will say it doesn’t exist. But when you are back in the valley you will start feeling have you lied or what? ... deceived or what? You have not deceived at all. It was true to that moment of height – now this is true in this moment of depth, this rest period.

What is true in the day may be untrue in the night, and what is true in the night may be untrue in the day. What is true this moment may be untrue in the next moment, but it happens that we go on judging, comparing one moment with the other. Never do that.

A true man can never be consistent. A true man can never be consistent – it is impossible – because a true man has to be true to the moment, and the next moment... who knows what the next moment is going to bring? The next moment will have its own truth.

So if you ask me, there are truths and truths and there is no truth. Each moment has its own truth – and a true man is true to the moment. Only untrue people can be consistent; only false, pseudo people can be consistent Only a mediocre mind can be consistent. A really intelligent mind cannot be consistent – how? It is impossible. If you are devoted to truth you cannot be devoted to consistency. If you are devoted to consistency you cannot be devoted to truth, because what will you do when truth changes?

The truth of the peak is the truth of the peak and the truth of the valley is the truth of the valley – don’t compare; it is impossible to compare. The peak cannot be brought to the valley and the valley cannot be brought to the peak, so how will you compare? Whenever you compare you will be unjust to one; your comparison will be fictitious.

When you are in the valley your peak is fiction; it is not present. When you are in the peak, your valley is a fiction, a dream you have dreamt. Now, never compare one factual thing with something of memory, imagination, because that is not fair. Unless two things are actually true, present, don’t compare, and then you will be surprised – there is nothing left to compare. Otherwise you will again and again feel guilty. Again and again you will start feeling that you are doing something wrong – and you have not done anything wrong.

It happens in everyday life – you love a woman and you say to the woman ‘I will love you forever and forever and forever’! After a few months the love has disappeared – now you feel guilty that you had promised that you would love forever. Now you want to depart – now it is impossible to be together. So you start feeling as if you were Lying at that moment. No – that was the truth in that moment. When love is there, one feels that way. That’s the feeling of love – that you would like to live together with the person forever.

And it is not untrue – it is absolutely true. But it is the truth of the love moment. When the love moment has gone, it has taken its truth too. Now there is no love, so there is no question. And you are not breaking any promises. In fact, a true man cannot promise. And the more you understand, the more you will be less and less ready to promise, because how can you promise? Tomorrow will bring its own truth – how can you promise?

There are moments in which promises come very naturally, but then there is no need to feel guilty. Just understand it and don’t compare notes.

One thing to be remembered: wherever you are, let it have total possession – that moment has to be total. I call it lying if you are not total in that moment. When you love, love totally. When love disappears, let it disappear totally.

When you are on the peak, be totally there; when you are in the valley, be totally there. Don’t let your peak interfere with the valley and don’t let your valley interfere with your peak. Just be true moment to moment... Live atomically. Each moment is an atom, and only one moment is given at one time, so why bother about the moments that are gone or about the moments that are to come?

Just let this moment be all in all. Then there is great spontaneity, great beauty, great richness.…

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