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‌CHAPTER 1

1 January 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[An ashram press office representative asks: Osho, what is your message to humanity on this new year’s day?]

My message is simple. My message is a new man, homo novus. The old concept of man was of either/or; materialist or spiritualist, moral or immoral, sinner or saint. It was based on division, split. It created a schizophrenic humanity. The whole past of humanity has been sick, unhealthy, insane. In three thousand years, five thousand wars have been fought. This is just utterly mad; it is unbelievable. It is stupid, unintelligent, inhuman.

Once you divide man in two, you create misery and hell for him. He can never be healthy and can never be whole, the other half that has been denied will go on taking revenge. It will go on finding ways and means to overcome the part that you have imposed upon yourself. You will become a battle-ground, a civil war. That’s what has been the case in the past.

In the past we were not able to create real human beings, but humanoids. A humanoid is one who looks like a human being but is utterly crippled, paralysed. He has not been allowed to bloom in his totality. He is half, and because he is half he is always in anguish and tension; he cannot celebrate. Only a whole man can celebrate. Celebration is the fragrance of being whole.

Only a tree that has lived wholly will flower. Man has not flowered yet.

The past has been very dark and dismal. It has been a dark night of the soul. And because it was repressive, it was bound to become aggressive. If something is repressed, man becomes aggressive, he loses all soft qualities. It was always so up to now. We have come to a point where the old has to be dropped and the new has to be heralded.

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The new man will not be either/or; he will be both/and. The new man will be earthy and divine, worldly and other-worldly. The new man will accept his totality and he will live it without any inner division, he will not be split. His god will not be opposed to the devil, his morality will not be opposed to immorality; he will know no opposition. He will transcend duality, he will not be schizophrenic. With the new man there will come a new world, because the new man will perceive in a qualitatively different way and he will live a totally different life which has not been lived yet. He will be a mystic, a poet, a scientist, all together. He w ill not choose: he will be choicelessly himself.

That’s what I teach: homo novus, a new man, not a humanoid. The humanoid is not a natural phenomenon. The humanoid is created by the society – by the priest, the politician, the pedagogue. The humanoid is created, it is manufactured. Each child comes as a human being: total, whole, alive, without any split. Immediately the society starts suffocating him, stifling him, cutting him into fragments, telling him what to do and what not to do, what to be and what not to be. His wholeness is soon lost. He becomes guilty about his whole being. He denies much that is natural, and in that very denial he becomes uncreative. Now he will be only a fragment, and a fragment cannot dance, a fragment cannot sing, and a fragment is always suicidal because the fragment cannot know what life is. The humanoid cannot will on his own. Others have been willing for him – his parents, the teachers, the leaders, the priests; they have taken all his willing. They will, they order; he simply follows. The humanoid is a slave.

I teach freedom. Now man has to destroy all kinds of bondages and he has to come out of all prisons – no more slavery. Man has to become individual. He has to become rebellious. And whenever a man has become rebellious.… Once in a while a few people have escaped from the tyranny of the past, but only once in a while – a Jesus here and there, a Buddha here and there. They are exceptions. And even these people, Buddha and Jesus, could not live totally. They tried, but the whole society was against it.

My concept of the new man is that he will be Zorba the Greek and he will also be Gautam the Buddha: the new man will be Zorba the Buddha. He will be sensuous and spiritual, physical, utterly physical, in the body, in the senses, enjoying the body and all that the body makes possible, and still a great consciousness, a great witnessing will be there. He will be Christ and Epicurus together.

The old man’s ideal was renunciation; the new man’s ideal will be rejoicing. And this new man is coming every day, he is arriving every day. People have not yet become aware of him. In fact he has already dawned. The old is dying, the old is on its death-bed. I don’t mourn for it and I say please don’t mourn for it. It is good that it dies, because out of its death the new will assert. The death of the old will be the beginning of the new. The new can come only when the old has died utterly.

Help the old to die and help the new to be born! And remember, the old has all the respectability, the whole past will be in his support; and the new will be a very strange phenomenon. The new will be so new that he will not be respected. Every effort will be made to destroy the new. The new cannot be respectable, but with the new is the future of the whole of humanity. The new has to be brought in.

My work consists in creating a Buddhafield, an energy-field, where the new can be born. I am only a midwife helping the new to come into a world which will not be accepting of it. The new will need much support from those who understand, from those who want some revolution to happen. And

the time is ripe, it has never been so ripe. The time is right, it has never been so right. The new can assert itself, the break-through has become possible.

The old is so rotten that even with all support it cannot survive; it is doomed! We can delay, we can go on worshipping the old; that will be just delaying the process. The new has to come: at the most, we can help it to come sooner, or we can hinder it and delay its coming. It is good to help it. If it comes sooner, humanity can still have a future, and a great future: a future of freedom, a future of love, a future of joy.

I teach a new religion. This religion will not be Christianity and will not be Judaism and will not be Hinduism. This religion will not have any adjective to it. This religion will be purely a religious quality of being whole.

My sannyasins have to become the first rays of the sun that is going to come on the horizon. It is a tremendous task, it is an almost impossible task, but because it is impossible it is going to seduce all those who have any soul left in them. It is going to create a great longing in all those people who have some adventure hidden in their beings, who are courageous, brave, because it is really going to create a brave new world.

I talk of Buddha, I talk of Christ, I talk of Krishna, I talk of Zarathustra, so that all that is best and all that is good in the past can be preserved. But these are only a few exceptions. The whole humanity has lived in great slavery, chained, split, insane.

I say my message is simple, but it will be very hard, difficult, to make it happen. But the harder, the more impossible, it is, the greater is the challenge. And the time is right because religion has failed. science has failed. The time is right because the East has failed, the West has failed. Something of a higher synthesis is needed in which East and West can have a meeting, in which religion and science can have a meeting.

Religion failed because it was other-worldly and it neglected this world. And you cannot neglect this world; to neglect this world is to neglect your own roots. Science has failed because it neglected the other world, the inner, and you cannot neglect the flowers. Once you neglect the flowers, the innermost core of being, life loses all meaning. The tree needs roots, so man needs roots, and the roots can only be in the earth. The tree needs an open sky to grow, to come to a great foliage and to have thousands of flowers. Then only is the tree fulfilled, then only does the tree feel significance and meaning and life becomes relevant.

Man is a tree. Religion has failed because it is talking only of the flowers. Those flowers remain philosophical, abstract; they never materialise. They could not materialise because they were not supported by the earth. And science has failed because it cares only about the roots. The roots are ugly and there seems to be no flowering.

The West is suffering from too much science; the East has suffered from too much religion. Now we need a new humanity in which religion and science become two aspects of one man. And the bridge is going to be art. That’s why I say that the new man will be a mystic, a poet and a scientist.

Between science and religion only art can be the bridge – poetry, music, sculpture. Once we have brought this new man into existence, the earth can become for the first time what it is meant to become. It can become a paradise: this very body the Buddha, this very earth the paradise!

Suvira means courageous. Courage is the only bridge from darkness to light, from death to life. Courage is the only possible bridge that can take you to the unknown; and the unknown is god.

By courage I mean the courage to drop the familiar. That is the greatest courage. It is very tempting to remain clinging to the familiar: it is so protective, so cosy, so warm, and you have known it all along. You seem to belong to it, you are identified with it. To drop it means to go through a death; but death is the beginning of a new life. Courage is the greatest religious quality.

[The new sannyasin says: I’ve worked in theatre a lot and I have a conflict about the role of technique in dance and the performing arts.]

Take it very non-seriously and enjoy it. The whole of life is nothing but acting. The earth is a big stage and we are all players playing different roles. Never become serious about anything. Take it lightly and enjoy it! Everything helps growth if you can take it lightly.

Don’t become too obsessed with the technique, remain free. The technique is needed but technique is not all. The art is something far more than the technique. The art is like the fragrance that surrounds the flower: you cannot grasp it, it is elusive. Technique is material, gross.

To become a technician is one thing and to be an artist is another. What is the difference? Both have to use technique, but the artist remains aware that it is only a technique, and the technician becomes identified with the technique and forgets that he is separate. He loses himself in the technique, he loses his bigger being in a very small thing, a method.

Use the technique but don’t be used by it; remain alert, aware. And then your techniques will be helpful. They will become your meditations. And you have chosen a beautiful dimension; learn, go into it deeply, but still remain a witness, and then there will be no conflict. There is no conflict.

You will become able!

Deva means divine, premi means a lover. Love can be manifest in three dimensions: the physiological, the psychological, the spiritual.

The physiological is the lowest. Nothing is wrong about it, it is beautiful, but one should not get stuck in it. It has to become a stepping-stone: one has to go beyond it. By going beyond it, the animal disappears and the man is born.

When one becomes able to love psychologically then one is really a human being; because sex is part of animality, there is nothing special about it. Love is totally human, but even love has not to become the end, one has to go beyond it. By going beyond it the human being disappears and the divine is born. That is spiritual love. That love is known as prayer. From sex to love, from love to prayer: that has to be the inner growth.

So remember it: the divine lover has to be searched for. It is there inside, still a seed somewhere, but at any moment it can start growing.

Deva means divine, asmita means I-am-ness, divine I-am-ness. And this has to become your meditation: sitting silently, just repeat inside ‘I am, I am’ and become very alert while you are

repeating it, ‘I am.’ This is your mantra. Walking, repeat it very silently, very slowly, deep down, but with great awareness that you are doing it, not mechanically, not just doing anything and repeating it too. Whenever you are repeating it nothing else has to be in your mind, only this one feeling of I-am- ness. And you will be surprised, slowly slowly the I will disappear and there will be only am-ness, just a feeling of being; that is meditation.

Gurdjieff used to call it self-remembering. To remember oneself is all; everything else is just a means to remember oneself. We are, but we are not aware that we are. That’s why we are not aware of who we are. the beginning has to be a deep remembrance that ‘I am.’ In the beginning don’t bother about ‘Who am I?’ First, one has to remember that one is.

Once you have started remembering that you are, that very penetration, that persistent remembrance, will answer the question which you have not even asked: ‘Who am I?’ The other quesstion is not needed, this question will do; and this is not really a question, just a remembrance.

It needs no belief to do it, because you are, you know you are; you are just not intensively aware of it, passionately aware of it. You have not poured your whole energy into the awareness of it, that’s all.

So let this become your constant meditation: whenever you have time – sitting, lying down on the bed, walking – go on silently remembering ‘I am.’ In the beginning what you are doing will look very mad, but soon you will be surprised that it brings such serenity and such joy which you had never known before, not even dreamt about.

Sakiya is a Sufi word; literally it means the cup-bearer. Sufis think that god is a cup-bearer. and that he brings great wine to us, he pours great wine into us. His love is like wine, it intoxicates; and at the same time it makes you more and more aware.

God is thought of as constantly bringing gifts: gifts of great intoxication and gifts of great awareness. Each moment he brings the cup but we are not aware of it. Each moment he is ready to fill our being but we are not aware of it. Each moment he knocks on the doors but we don’t hear the knock.

So sakiya means god; that is a Sufi metaphor for god. And these things have to be remembered: a kind of intoxication has to be grown; at the same time, awareness has not to be lost. This is the most difficult art in the world, but once this is achieved a man is part of the kingdom of god. Then he is poor no more; then he is fulfilled, utterly fulfilled.

Meditation has two sides. One side is intoxication: one should be utterly drowned; there should be a self-forgetfulness, one becomes a drunkard. And the other side of it: as one goes deeper into this intoxication, a subtle awareness arises in oneself – one starts becoming a witness too. These are the two polarities of meditation: drunkenness – awareness, forgetfulness – remembering.

It is easy to achieve one, but that is half. The devotees, the people who follow the path of love, attain that half. They become drunk with god, they are utterly lost. It is a beautiful space, but something is missing; it is still dark, the light has not yet entered. Then there are the people who follow the path of Yoga. They become very alert, very aware, very mindful, they are in a state of self-remembering, but again something is missing; they don’t have any juice flowing in their being, they are dry.

My effort here is to create a new kind of human being: one who is ready to be a drunkard and yet, deep down, in the very core of his being, a light of awareness goes on burning. So I am teaching both the path of love and the path of meditation, and the synthesis has to be achieved. That synthesis reveals god in his totality. People have known only parts of god. Even to know the part is much, but it is nothing compared to the whole.

Nil means sapphire, the blue diamond. It symbolises the third eye. When the third eye opens vou become full of blue light as if suddenly a sapphire has entered into your being, just exactly in the middle of the two eyes. The light is so intense that it fills the whole body and the experience is of tremendous tranquillity. The colour blue represents tranquillity; it is so precious and it is so luminous that it has been called the sapphire.

The third eye centre is the door to the ultimate. Beyond the third eye is the last centre, the seventh: sahasrar. Once the third eye opens you are available to move into the ultimate centre of your being. This is the most important centre for the seeker to work on.

You have to become aware of it. So whenever you are silently sitting, just close your eyes, feel the space in the middle of both eyes. In the beginning, visualise a blue diamond with great light radiating, a blue light radiating, almost a blue flame. In the beginning visualise, imagine; soon the imagination will disappear and it will be replaced by a reality. And the day it happens, you have to report to me.

Chandano means sandalwood. It is a metaphor of tremendous significance. On the sandalwood tree live poisonous snakes attracted by its tremendously powerful perfume. A forest of sandalwood trees is a dangerous place; on one tree you will find at least a dozen poisonous snakes. They cannot leave it, the perfume is such that they are almost hypnotised. Poisonous snakes live on the sandalwood tree, but the purity and the perfume of the sandalwood is not affected at all. Hence it became a beautiful metaphor for the man of awareness.

The man of awareness becomes like a sandalwood tree. All kinds of snakes are there: anger is there. greed is there, jealousy is there and envy is there; they are all there hanging on the tree, but the man of awareness is not affected at all. His perfume remains pure, he is not poisoned by them. On the contrary, those snakes become so hypnotised by the sandalwood tree that they forget all about their poison. It is as if they are snakes no more, dangerous no more.

Awareness arising in you is such a transformation that greed loses its poison, anger loses its poison. They are destructive no more: on the contrary, they start becoming creative. The poison is transformed into nectar.

Hiro means diamond. Life is precious, very precious; each moment of it is precious, but people go on wasting it and they don’t even know what to do with the time that has been given to them. They go on killing time, but to kill time means to kill yourself, it is suicidal: time and life are synonymous. People are playing cards and if you ask them ‘What are you doing?’ they say that they are killing time. They don’t know what they are saying. They are killing themselves! And each moment of time that is lost is lost forever; you will never be able to regain it, it cannot be recalled.

Initiation into sannyas means that now you will look at your life with different eyes, with a different perspective. Each moment is tremendously valuable. It has not to be killed but lived; it has not to

be destroyed but loved. And the more deeply you love the moment, the more deeply you go into it, the more is the possibility of having contact with eternity, because eternity penetrates time each moment; it is just behind the moment. If you go deeply into it, time disappears and eternity reveals itself.

If you go deeply into life god is revealed and life disappears, and with life, death disappears. Then you have immortal consciousness, something eternal; and only that something eternal can satisfy the longing of man. Nothing else can fulfil it. People go on rushing after money and power and prestige and even when they attain everything, they are as unfulfilled as ever. They have not known anything of god; in fact they have wasted all possibilities of knowing god in collecting junk.

Live your life totally, because god is hidden behind each moment. If you dive deep into the moment you will find god. Life is such a gift that there is no way to pay tor it; we don’t have anything to give to god in return. We are eternally obliged. The gratitude has to become your very foundation. But one feels gratitude only if one knows the value of life, otherwise how to feel gratitude?

Giving you the name hiro, diamond, I want you to remember again and again that life is a splendour, a god-given gift.

Satyama means the truth – not the concept of truth, not the idea of truth, but the truth, utterly naked of words, utterly bare of all speculation; the raw truth, uncontaminated by the human mind, non-conceptualised.

We think about truth, but whatsoever we think about truth is about, it is never the truth; it cannot be. ‘About’ means that we go round and round and we never penetrate the core of it.

One has to stop this going round and round. Thinking moves in a circle; and truth is at the centre of the circle, it is not the periphery. One has to learn how to jump from the periphery to the centre. It is not a process but a jump: a jump from mind to no-mind, a jump from thought to no-thought. Only then does one know the truth, and to know the truth is to be liberated. Jesus says: Truth liberates – not knowing about truth, but knowing truth itself.

You can call that truth god, nirvana, enlightenment, tao, or whatever you will; those are only different names tor the same unnamable phenomenon. And it is within you as it is within each and every one; it is our very core. We need not think about it. We have just to take a deep dive into our being.

The mind is our periphery. Dropping away from the mind into the being is the way to truth.

The veeno is an Indian musical instrument like the sitar. Life is a musical instrument, but very few people try to play upon their lives. Rarely does a person learn how to create music in his own life; and only that music can take you to god. One can keep the musical instrument for lives together without playing upon it. It contains great music, but that music has to be released.

Jesus is one who has released his music; so is Buddha. These are the people who touched the strings of their inner instrument, who played on their own hearts and created great melody. Echoes of it are heard even today. Centuries come and go but something still haunts the human consciousness; those melodies were so beautiful, they cannot be forgotten.

Every man has the instrument. It is simply unbelievable how we can go on living without music.

We never look into our own being, we never use the potential; we remain the seeds. The seeds contain millions of flowers, but it all depends on you.

Initiation into sannyas is initiation into this awareness of ‘I contain much more than I am aware of. Whatsoever I am is only the superficial part of whatsoever I can be.’ We are less than we can be. We are only parts of that whole which we can be.

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