6

< Previous | Contents | Next >

‌CHAPTER 6

6 February 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Prem means love; leon is Latin, it means lion, or lionlike.

Love is the greatest courage, because it needs total sacrifice. It wants you to die so that you can be reborn. It is a death and the beginning of an eternal life; but death is first, hence the courage needed. One has to be really lionlike, ready to take the risk.

Millions of people live without love for the simple reason that they cannot gather themselves together to take the risk. It is safer to be unloving; secure. The moment you move into love you are moving into an uncharted sea, without any map. To love basically means to disappear as an ego.

For another reason also, love is lionlike, because if one wants to be loving, one has to drop out of the crowd psychology, the sheeplike mind, the imitative mind. One has to assert one’s individuality. It is not the same as one’s ego, it is just the opposite.

The ego can exist only in the crowd. The ego needs others to exist, it needs others as props; the ego cannot exist in aloneness. The ego is a social by-product. It will look very paradoxical, but the sheep has more of an ego than the lion, because the sheep lives in the crowd, as part of the crowd, inseparable from the crowd, and the lion lives alone, moves alone.

To be alone is to be egoless. To be alone is to be an individual, certainly; one has a tremendous, powerful, authentic, individuality. But when individuality is there, the ego is not needed, because the ego is a substitute for individuality; when individuality is not there, the ego is needed.

Love demands the sacrifice of the ego; only individuals can do it, only lions can do it. Once one has gathered courage enough to evaporate as an ego, a miracle happens: one disappears, and for the first time one is. That is-ness has tremendous beauty and benediction in it. That is-ness is god.

Deva means divine. Alberto is Teutonic; it means noble illustrious, brilliant, intelligent. It is a beautiful word. All the meanings are significant, and they are all joined together. they are: interlinked.

Intelligence is brilliance. brilliance is noble. But remember: intelligence is not intellectuality. Intellectuality is pseudo-intelligence. It pretends to be intelligence; it is not. Intellectuality is borrowed; it comes through education, culture, it comes through others. If one is capable of having a good memory one can become a good intellectual. That’s what the scholars in the universities are. They have good memories, but memory is not intelligence, memory is a mere mechanism. Any computer can have it.

Intelligence is a totally different thing – the spark of genius, the capacity to have new insights, the capacity to be creative. Intellectuality always remains repetitive. It can repeat beautifully, skilfully, accurately, but it can only repeat; It is a parrot.

Intelligence creates. It brings into the world something new which has never existed before. It makes the world richer, it makes it more beautiful, it brings a few more truths into existence. The ultimate act of intelligence is to create god.

God is not something there that you have to just uncover; god is not a thing or a commodity. God has to be created in the innermost being. The intelligence of a Buddha or a Jesus is needed. Unless one can be so creative, so totally creative, that one can give birth to god within oneself, one is not religious. And wherever there is intelligence, there is bound to be nobility.

So remember it: drop intellectuality and become more and more intelligent. It is in seeking the new and searching for the new that one becomes intelligent. It is in moving into the unknown that one becomes intelligent. It is in living dangerously that one becomes intelligent. Intelligence is sharpened when there are great challenges around you. And that’s what sannyas is all; bout.

I am not here to console you, I am here to create as many inner challenges as possible. That is the only way to awaken you: the deep sleep can be broken only by a great penetration of challenges.

But once you are awakened, the dark night of the soul is over. And to know the morning is to know god. To see the sun rising in the inner horizon is the beginning of enlightenment.

Deva means divine. Florian is Latin; it means flowering – divine flowering. Just as trees flower naturally, spontaneously, so can man flower. All that is needed is the right soil, the right nourishment: the seed is there at birth. It is really a miracle how we go on missing growth.

Man has done great harm to himself. The society makes a tremendous effort to create barriers, barriers so that people cannot flower. The society that has existed up to now is very afraid of flowering. It depends on immature persons, it requires immaturity – because only immature persons can be turned into slaves, only immature persons are ready to be dominated. Not only are they ready to be dominated; they seek their tyrants. They cannot live without tyrants, they feel very alone. They need to depend on someone, they need father-figures, they need authorities. If somebody authoritative is there they feel at ease. If there is nobody who is authoritative they become very hesitant; they don’t know what to do then. They always wait for orders and commandments.

Because of this, the society does not allow people to mature. The average mental age of human beings is not more than twelve years; it is very close to the time of sexual immaturity. By the time a boy is sexually mature the society kills all possibilities of more maturity in him, of other kinds of maturities – of intelligence, of love, of creativity, of freedom. That’s why you see so many people without any flowers and without any of the fragrance of life.

My work here is to help you grow, to destroy all the barriers that hinder growth, to undo all that the society has done.

Once the barriers are removed, life energies start flowing of their own accord. Then nothing else has to be done: one has simply to trust one’s own nature, and one day flowers are bound to happen.

It is very unfortunate to die without flowering, because that means that one lived in vain. And to die with flowers is to die joyously, because with the flowers one has arrived home.

Anand means bliss. Roberto is Teutonic; it means bright or shining fame – which naturally happens to people who are bright. It is a by-product of brightness; their brightness makes them shiny, their brightness declares them to the world. They cannot remain hidden, it is impossible for them to hide.

Your full name will mean: blissful brightness that makes one shine. Misery needs no brightness, no intelligence. Any stupid person can be miserable; in fact only stupid people can be miserable. Unless one decides to remain stupid, there is no need to remain miserable. Misery is utter stupidity; you are doing something absolutely wrong with yourself.

Misery is only symptomatic: it is simply a signal that you are doing something wrong with yourself, that’s an. It is a cry from your innermost core, of ‘Stop! You are doing something wrong, you are going against your nature. You falling away from the harmony of existence.’

Misery is nothing but a cry to stop. It is not a disease, it is only a symptom; and it can be used in a very creative way. If one starts understanding one’s misery, one will start moving into the direction of bliss. That’s what intelligence is.

Nobody is born stupid, remember. People become stupid, people learn stupidity from others. Stupidity is something imbibed from the atmosphere, it is a learned phenomenon. Intelligence is inborn, stupidity is imposed. Hence stupidity can be dropped any moment, and can be dropped in its totality any time, whenever one takes a decision to drop it; there is no need to postpone it for tomorrow. The very moment of understanding that this in stupid is the beginning of a revolution; the very understanding is transformation. And the only proof of one’s being intelligent, bright, wise, is blissfulness; there is no other proof.

Unless you are as blissful as a Bud&a or a Krishna, remember, somewhere stupidity is lurking. Some shadows of foolishness are still within your being; in some deeper layer of unconsciousness, something still goes on being wrong. The moment all is put right, the moment all is in tune, the moment one is full of understanding from one end to another end, life becomes a shining star. You cannot hide it, it declares itself; it is self-evident.

Remember: one can be very skilful at creating machines, one can be very skilful at earning money, one can be very very efficient at becoming politically powerful, but none of these things prove that

one is intelligent. Only one thing proves it: if one is blissful. There is only one criterion of intelligence, that one is blissful – as blissful as the flowers, as blissful as the stars, as blissful as the streams and the mountains.

Unless that bliss happens, don’t rest: go on working, go on moving. Nothing less than that can ever fulfil you.

Deva means divine. Noeleen is Latin; it means Christmas, a song of joy. Your full name will mean: a divine song of joy.

Life is a constant search to become a song, to become a dance, to become a celebration, a Christmas. Every form of life is searching to become a song of joy – birds, animals, trees. It is not only man who is in search of bliss; the whole existence is moving in millions of forms towards the same goal. The goal of all life is bliss. When one bursts forth into millions of songs, one has arrived. One has achieved the goal, one has become one with god.

Unless that happens we will have to be born again and again and again, because the search cannot be terminated before its ultimate goal is achieved.

Hence the Eastern idea of rebirth is tremendously significant. Christianity, Judaism, Islam: all these three religions which were born outside India have missed the point of it. These three religions think there is only one life, this life, these seventy or eighty years. Then what about those who will not be able to attain in these seventy or eighty years? Are they doomed forever? They will not have another chance, another opportunity, another challenge? That will be too cruel; that will be very unfair. If they have failed in this life, they should be given another chance. Why not? This was their first life, so it is more relevant to give them more chances – because if one fails in the first attempt, that does not mean that one is incapable of succeeding. It may be because it was so new and there was no opportunity to learn.

The Eastern idea is significant, more scientific, more human, more compassionate – that we have been here millions of times, we have been searching for the same goal, and we have not yet arrived. But we can arrive any moment if we understand the whole process, if we become more aware in our search. Any moment – and this moment is as good as any other – it can happen. It can happen instantaneously. It needs no time, because it is not a gradual process, it is a quantum leap. But if one misses in this life, then one is back again. God gives infinite opportunities: God is compassion and love. This existence cannot be so cruel that because you missed once, you have missed forever and you will be condemned to hell for eternity.

But remember, we can go on missing for millions of lives. In fact if we don’t start becoming aware of our life, its processes, its inner mechanisms, there is every possibility that rather than reaching to the goal, in missing again and again we may learn the habit of missing. That danger is always there. And that has happened to many people: they have missed many lives, and now they have learned the trick of how to miss. They have become very very skilful and efficient in missing.

This is the problem that I have to face with every disciple, with every sannyasin: he has missed so many times that missing has become his second nature. Now to drag him out of that is really arduous work. But if the disciple cooperates, then it is simple. With his co-operation the miracle is possible.

Sannyas simply means that you are surrendering yourself for the transformation – that you are ready to go with me, that you will not hinder me, that you will co-operate; that you will not be constantly resisting me, but that slowly slowly you will grow more and more into trust, more and more into love. Only love and trust from your side will make you a real sannyasin; nothing else is needed.

Prem means love. Elisabeth is Hebrew, it comes from el; el means god. Prem Elisabeth will mean: love is god.

That is the most fundamental fact of all the religions that have existed, and of all the religions that will ever exist in the future. If they all agree on any one thing, that thing is the quality of love. They may not even agree on the existence of god. Buddhism does not believe in god, but Buddhism believes in love – more so: because there is no god, love takes absolute possession of the Buddhist mind. Jainism does not believe in god, but love becomes equivalent to religion.

Whether one believes in god or not does not matter; the only thing that matters is whether one believes in love or not. I call the person religious who believes in love, and the person irreligious who does not believe in love. That should be the only defining factor. Then you will see many religious people as irreligious, and you will see many irreligious people very religious. Then your total vision will change.

My approach towards life is that of love. All else is secondary, irrelevant, all else is nothing but ideology. Only love is truth. And those who live love, they attain to the ultimate. They can call it god, they can call it nirvana, they can call it enlightenment or whatever they wish; those are all names.

Love brings ultimate freedom, because love helps you to become one with the whole. It helps you to disappear as a separate part and to appear in the harmony of the totality of existence, as part of it; not apart, but as part of it, not as an island, not separate.

And once that happens, you start feeling as a wave in the ocean. Nothing more is needed. Then whatsoever you do will be right, and whatsoever you are will be good.

[A sannyasin says that the last time he was here and took sannyas, he became very afraid in the Centering group and fled back to the west. Then he realised that everything had changed for him and he wanted to spend more time here.]

It happens: sometimes when people escape in the middle, then this is bound to happen! When some process of change starts, it is better to be here and to finish it; then you will go with a new integrity. Otherwise the old identity is lost and the new has not arrived, and there will be simply dread and terror and nothing else. You will be lost in a no-man’s land.

But sometimes it happens. Nothing to be worried about. You are back home!... Do a few groups.

Start with Centering again, and don’t escape this time! If one escapes from Centering, then I don’t know what groups to give because that is the simplest, the least dangerous!

So start with Centering – there is no other way! The second group is Massage, the third group is Body Awareness and the fourth group is Satori. Then I will see.

But don’t be worried at all. Something really beautiful is going to happen. Some door is opening – but whenever a new door opens, fear arises; and whenever something important is going to happen, the mind becomes a coward, because the mind always wants to live in the known. That’s the obsession of the mind – with the unknown it starts trembling, because it does not know how to tackle the unknown; it has no know-how. With the known it is perfectly at ease, it knows what to do with it.

Even if it is very miserable, the mind is perfectly in control; it knows how to deal with the situation, how to encounter the misery. Even if something blissful is going to happen, but it is new, the mind says ‘Don’t go there, because then I am at a loss;l don’t know what to do.’

And the whole effort here is to drag you out of the known, somehow or other, into the unknown. All these therapy groups are nothing but strategies to pull you out of the trap of the known.

One glimpse of the unknown and you will be on the wing; then the mind can never trap you again. Once you have tasted the beauty of the unknown, the joy. the freedom, then it is impossible for the mind to have any attraction for you.

Prem means love, shunya means utter emptiness – but it has no negative connotation in it. In no Western language is there a positive word for emptiness. ‘Empty’ in Western languages means empty of something; and shunya means full of emptiness. It is just as when you remove furniture from the room, all the furniture from the room: there are two ways to express it. Somebody can say it is just empty, and somebody can say it is full of roominess now. The second is the meaning of shunya: full of room, full of sky, full of space. And only in that kind of fullness does love arise. When one is utterly full of emptiness love is born, because in the fullness of emptiness one becomes a womb.

That’s what sannyas is all about: to become a womb so that one can be pregnant with god and can give birth to god. Another name for god is love.

< Previous | Contents | Next >