Bombay

Content

• Osho moves to CCI Chambers, Bombay
• Osho begins Sannyas Initiations
• Neo-Sannyas International Movement
• Death of Nani, Osho’s grandmother
• Osho’s discourse series: Gita Darshan
• Osho moves to Woodlands Apartment
• Osho initiates Vivek, his long-time attendant
• Old and new friends
• Osho's writing and Mulla Nasruddin
• Osho's Library
• Osho takes the controversial name Bhagwan
• Kirtan Mandali
• Early search for a New Commune
• Osho continues to lead Meditation Camps
• Dynamic Meditation evolves
• Kirtan: devotional dance and song
• Laughing Meditation
• Tratak Meditation
• Gibberish Meditation
• Response to Meditations
• Osho’s Discourses
• Shaktipat Experiments
• Osho’s discourse series:
• Vigyan Bhairav Tantra
• Osho’s discourse series: Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega
• Osho answers Questions
• Questions about Meditation and Enlightenment
• Questions about Religion
• Questions about Esoterica
• People's problems
• Western seekers come to Osho
• Osho makes Predictions
• Osho Leaves Bombay for Poona

Osho moves to CCI Chambers, Bombay

On 27 June 1970, a send-off celebration is held for Osho in Jabalpur. On 1 July, Osho moves to Bombay, and stays in the residential part of CCI Chambers, a centre for businessmen. Osho gives regular evening discourses to about 50 people, on spiritual and esoteric matters, sometimes concluding with a meditation or kirtan and shaktipat. He gives interviews, including to Western seekers and press reporters. Osho travels only to fulfill outstanding speaking engagements, and by December these are completed.

I will slowly confine myself to a room: I will stop coming and going. Now I will work on those who are in my mind. I will prepare them and send them out. The moving from place to place, which I cannot do myself, I will be able to do by sending out ten thousand people.

For me, religion is also a scientific process, so I have in my mind a complete scientific technique for it. As people become ready, the scientific technique will be passed on to them. With the help of that technique, they will work upon thousands of people. My presence is not needed for that. I was required only to find such people who could carry out that purpose. Now I shall be able to give work to them.

It was necessary to evolve certain principles; that has been done by me. The work of the scientist is over. Now the work is for the technicians. A scientist completes the work, like Edison discovering electricity and inventing an electric lamp. Thereafter, it is the work of the electrician to fix the bulb. There is no difficulty in that.

Now I have an almost complete picture of the work to be done. Now, after giving people the concept and getting them to do the technique, I will send them out as soon as they become ready. All this is in my mind, but the potentialities are not seen by all. Most people see only the actualities. Seeing the potentialities is a different task, but I can see them.

The conditions that were existing in one small area of Bihar during the time of Mahavira and Buddha can come about very smoothly within the next few years on a global scale. But an absolutely new type of religious person will have to be prepared, a new type of sannyasin will have to be born, a new type of yoga and meditation system will have to be devised. All this is ready in my mind.

As I come across people they will be given these things, and they will further pass along the same to others. There is a grave risk, however, because if the opportunity is lost it will cause great harm. The opportunity must be utilized because such a valuable time as exists today can hardly come again. From every angle, the era is at its climax or peak....

I have a complete plan and a blueprint in my mind for this. In one sense, my work of finding the people I wanted is nearabout complete. Also, they do not know that I have found them. Now I have to give work to them by preparing them and sending them out to spread the message.

As long as it was my work, I knew what I had to do and I was doing it with comparative ease. But now I have to give work to others; now I cannot remain in that ease. I have to

hurry up. This is another reason for my hurry. I therefore want to make it clear to all friends that I am in a hurry, so they should also hurry up. If they keep on at the speed with which they are walking, they will not reach anywhere. If they see me in a hurry, then perhaps they will also pick up speed; otherwise not....

People become transformed only during emergencies. If one knows that one can transform tomorrow or even the day after, he will not do anything today; he will postpone it for tomorrow or the day after. But if he knows that there is no tomorrow, then that capacity for transformation comes into being.

In a way, when civilizations are on the verge of disintegration tomorrow becomes uncertain. One is not sure of the next day. Then the today has to be so compact that it can complete all that has to be done. If one has to enjoy, he has to do it today. If he has to surrender and renounce, that too he has to do today. Even if one has to destroy the ego or transform, that also must be done today.

So in Europe and America, a positive, decisive mentality has come into being that whatever one wants to do must be done today: "Forget the worries of tomorrow. If you want to drink, drink; if you want to enjoy, enjoy; if you want to steal, steal. Whatever you want to do, do it today." On the material plane, this has happened.

I want this to happen also on the spiritual plane. This can run parallel to what is happening on the material plane. I am in a great hurry for this idea to dawn. It is definite that this idea will come from the East. Only Eastern winds could carry it to the West, and the West will jump into it with full vigor....

With religion also, America can outshine and surpass the East. Once the seed of religion reaches there, America will outdo the East in its growth. But all the same, this will be imitation. The initiative, the first step in this matter, lies in the hands of the East.

That is why I am in a great hurry in planning to prepare people in the East who could be sent to the West. The spark will catch like wildfire in the West, but it has to come from the East. known04

Osho begins Sannyas Initiations

September 26th to October 5th, 1970, Osho holds a Meditation Camp in Manali, in the Himalayas. On September 26th He initiates His first group of disciples, now called neo- sannyasins.

I started initiating people into sannyas.

Sannyas was simply that they are now ready to listen me without any device. They are willing to open their heart. That much trust has grown in them. last404

On the day of the first initiations, Osho explains:

To me, sannyas does not mean renunciation; it means a journey to joy bliss. To me, sannyas is not any kind of negation; it is a positive attainment. But up to now, the world over, sannyas has been seen in a very negative sense, in the sense of giving up, of renouncing. I, for one, see sannyas as something positive and affirmative, something to be achieved, to be treasured.

It is true that when someone carrying base stones as his treasure comes upon a set of precious stones, he immediately drops the baser ones from his hands. He drops the baser stones only to make room for the newfound precious stones. It is not renunciation. It is just as you throw away the sweepings from your house to keep it neat and clean. And you don't call it renunciation, do you? You call it renunciation when you give up something you value, and you maintain an account of your renunciations. So far, sannyas has been seen in terms of such a reckoning of all that you give up--be it family or money or whatever.

I look at sannyas from an entirely different angle, the angle of positive achievement. Undoubtedly there is a fundamental difference between the two viewpoints. If sannyas, as I see it, is an acquisition, an achievement, then it cannot mean opposition to life, breaking away from life. In fact, sannyas is an attainment of the highest in life; it is life's finest fulfillment.

And if sannyas is a fulfillment, it cannot be sad and somber, it should be a thing of festivity and joy. Then sannyas cannot be a shrinking of life; rather, it should mean a life that is ever expanding and deepening, a life abundant. Up to now we have called him a sannyasin who withdraws from the world, from everything, who breaks away from life and encloses himself in a cocoon.

I, however, call him a sannyasin who does not run away from the world, who is not shrunken and enclosed, who relates with everything, who is open and expansive.

Sannyas has other implications too. A sannyas that withdraws from life turns into a bondage, into a prison; it cannot be freedom. And a sannyas that negates freedom is really not sannyas. Freedom, ultimate freedom is the very soul of sannyas.

For me, sannyas has no limitations, no inhibitions, no rules and regulations.

For me, sannyas does not accept any imposition, any regimentation, any discipline. For me, sannyas is the flowering of man's ultimate freedom, rooted in his intelligence, his wisdom.

I call him a sannyasin who has the courage to live in utter freedom, and who accepts no bondage, no organization, no discipline whatsoever.

This freedom, however, does not mean license; it does not mean that a sannyasin becomes licentious. The truth is that it is always a man in bondage, a slave, who turns licentious. One who is independent and free can never be licentious; there is no way for him to be so.

That is how I am going to separate the sannyas of the future from the sannyas of the past. And I think that the institution of sannyas, as it has been up to now, is on its deathbed; it is as good as dead. It has no future whatsoever. But sannyas in its essence, has to be preserved. It is such a precious attainment of mankind that we cannot afford to lose it.

Sannyas is that rarest of flowers that blooms once in a great while. But it is likely that it will wither away for want of proper caring. And it will certainly die if it remains tied to its old patterns.

Therefore, sannyas has to be invested with a new meaning, a new concept. Sannyas has to live; it is the most profound, the most precious treasure that mankind has. But how to save it, preserve it, is the question.

I would like to share with you my vision on this score.

Firstly, it is a long time that sannyas has remained isolated from the world, and consequently it has been doubly harmed. A sannyasin living completely cut off from the world, living in utter isolation from the world, becomes poor, and his poverty is very deep and subtle, because the wealth of all our life's experiences lies in the world, not outside. All our experiences of pain and pleasure, attachment and detachment, hate and love, enmity and friendship, war and peace, come from the world itself. So when a man breaks away from the world, he becomes a hothouse plant, he ceases to be a flower that blooms under the sun and the open sky. By now, sannyas has become a hothouse plant. And such a sannyas cannot live any longer.

Sannyas cannot be grown in hothouses. To grow and blossom, the plant of sannyas needs an open sky. It needs the light of day and the darkness of night; it needs rains, winds and storms. It needs everything there is between the earth and the sky. A sannyasin needs to go through the whole gamut of challenges and dangers. By isolating him from the world we have harmed the sannyasin enormously, because his inner richness has diminished so much.

It is amusing that those who are ordinarily called good people don't have that richness of life their opposites have; they lack the richness of experience. For this reason, novelists think it is difficult to write a story around the life of a good person, that his life is flat and almost eventless. Curiously enough, a bad person makes a good story; he is a must for a story, even for history. What more can we say of a good man than this, that he has been good from the cradle to the grave?

Isolating him from the world, we deprive the sannyasin of experience; he remains very poor in experience. Of course, isolation gives him a sort of security, but it makes him poor and lackluster.

I want to unite the sannyasin with the world. I want sannyasins who work on farms and in factories, in offices and shops right in the marketplace. I don't want sannyasins who escape from the world; I don't want them to be renegades from life. I want them to live as sannyasins in the very thick of the world, to live with the crowd amid its din and bustle.

Sannyas will have verve and vitality if the sannyasin remains a sannyasin in the very thick of the world.

In the past, if a woman wanted to be a sannyasin, she had to leave her husband, her children, her family; she had to run away from the life of the world. If a man wanted to take sannyas he had to leave his wife, his children, his family, his whole world, and escape to a monastery or a cave in the mountains.

For me, such a sannyas has no meaning whatsoever. I hold that after taking sannyas, a man or woman should not run away from the world, but should remain where he or she is and let sannyas flower right there.

You can ask how someone will manage his sannyas living in the world. What will he do as a husband, as a father, as a shopkeeper, as a master, as a servant? As a sannyasin how will he manage his thousand and one relationships in the world?--because life is a web of relationships. In the past he just ran away from the world, where he was called upon to shoulder any number of responsibilities, and this escape made everything so easy and convenient for him. Sitting in a cave or a monastery, he had no responsibilities. no worries; he led a secluded and shrunken life.

What kind of a sannyas will it be which is not required to renounce anything? Will sannyas without renunciation mean anything?

Recently an actor came to visit me. He is a new entrant into the film world. He asked for my autograph with a message for him. So I wrote in his book: "Act as if it is real life and live as if it is acting."

To me, the sannyasin is one who lives life like an actor. If someone wants to blossom in sannyas living in the thick of the world, he should cease to be a doer and become an actor, become a witness. He should live in the thick of life, play his role, and at the same time be a witness to it, but in no way should he be deeply involved in his role, be attached to it. He should cross the river in a way that his feet remain untouched by the water. It is, however, difficult to cross a river without letting the water touch your feet, but it is quite possible to live in the world without getting involved in it, without being tied to it.

In this connection it is necessary to understand what play acting is. The miracle is that the more your life becomes play acting, the more orderly, natural and carefree it becomes. If a woman, as a mother, learns a small truth, that although the child she is bringing up has been borne by her, yet he does not belong to her alone, that she has been no more than a passage for him to come into this world, that he really belongs to that unknown source from which he came, which will sustain him through his life and to which he will return

in the end, then that mother will cease to be a doer; she will really become a play actor and a witness.

Conduct an experiment sometime. Decide that for twenty four hours you are going to do everything as acting. If someone insults you, you will not really be angry, you will only act as if you are angry, And likewise, if someone praises you, you will not really be flattered, you will only act as though you are flattered. An experiment like this, just for twenty-four hours, will bring astonishing results for you; it will open new doors to life and living for you. You will then realize to your surprise that you have gone through any amount of unnecessary pain and misery in life by being a doer; they could have easily been avoided if you had been an actor instead. When you go to bed after this experiment in play acting, you will have a deep sleep such as you have never known. Once you cease to be a doer, all your tensions and anxieties will disappear. Your miseries will just evaporate, because all your miseries and agonies come from your being a doer in life.

I want to take sannyas to every hamlet and every home. Only then can sannyas survive. We need millions of sannyasins; just a handful won't do. And millions can take sannyas only if sannyas is positive and life affirmative. We cannot have many sannyasins if you cut sannyas off from the world. Who will feed them? Who will provide them with clothes and shelter? Sannyas of the old kind, which was a haven for idlers and recluses, cannot produce the millions of sannyasins that we need. Those days are gone when society bore the brunt of a vast army of recluses. Moreover, sannyasins of the old kind have to be dependent on society, and as a result they became extremely poor physically and spiritually. Consequently, they cannot be as effective and influential as they should be.

Sannyas on a massive scale is not possible if we cling to its old ways.

If sannyas has to be effective on a large scale throughout the world--which is so very necessary--and if sannyas has to be meaningful and blissful, then there is no choice but to allow a sannyas that will not be required to break away from society and grow in isolation. Now a sannyasin should remain wherever he is, acting his role in society and being a witness to it.

So I want to unite sannyas with the family, with the workshop and with the market. It will be a unique and beautiful world, if we can make one where a shopkeeper will be a sannyasin. Naturally, such a shopkeeper will find it difficult to resort to dishonest means in business. A shopkeeper who is just acting his role as shopkeeper, and who is also a witness to it, cannot afford to be dishonest. We will change the world radically if we have sannyasins as doctors, lawyers, clerks and office assistants.

A sannyasin living segregated from society is a poor sannyasin, and the society is poorer for him too, because he is one of its best products. When such a person leaves the society to become a sannyasin the society becomes lusterless.

A worldwide campaign for positive sannyas has therefore become urgent. It is very necessary to have sannyasins in every home, in every field and factory across the earth. A sannyasin should be a father or a mother, a wife or a husband; he will remain where he is

as a sannyasin. Only his outlook on life will change; now life for him will be no more than a drama, a play. Life for him will be a celebration and not a task, a duty, a drag. And with celebration everything will change.

I have yet another kind of sannyas in my vision which I would like to share with you. It is the vision of short-term sannyas.

I don't want a person to take a vow of lifelong sannyas. In fact, any kind of vow or commitment for the future is dangerous, because we are not the masters of the future. It is utterly wrong to think we are. We have to allow the future to take its course, and we should be ready to accept whatever it brings to us. One who has become a witness cannot decide for the future; only a doer does so. One who thinks that he is a doer can vow that he will remain a sannyasin for his whole life, but a real witness will say, "I don't know what tomorrow is going to be. I will accept it as it comes and be a witness to it too. I cannot decide for tomorrow."

In the past, sannyas was much handicapped by the concept of lifelong sannyas: once a sannyasin, always a sannyasin. We closed the gate of society forever once one entered sannyas. Maybe a person takes sannyas in a particular state of mind, and after some time, when he finds himself in a different state of mind, wants to return to the world--but he cannot do so because the house of sannyas has only an entrance, it has no exit at all. You can enter sannyas, but once in it you cannot leave. And this single rule has turned sannyas into a prison. Even heaven will turn into hell if there is no exit.

You can say that sannyas has no hard and fast rule like this. That is true, but the fact that society looks down upon one who leaves sannyas is a stronger prohibition than any rule. We have an ingenious device to prevent a sannyasin from going back to the world again. When someone takes sannyas we make a big event of it, give him a farewell with great fanfare, with a band and flowers and eulogies. The poor sannyasin does not know that this is a clever way to say goodbye to him forever. He is not aware that if ever he returns to society he will be received by the same people with sticks instead of flowers.

This is a very dangerous convention. Because of it, any number of people are prevented from participating in the great bliss that sannyas can bring them. It becomes too difficult for them to make a decision for lifelong sannyas, which is indeed a very hard decision. Besides, we don't have the right to commit ourselves to anything for our whole lives.

In my vision, short-term sannyas is the right way. You can leave it any time you like, because it is you who take it. It is your decision, no one else can decide for you. Sannyas is entirely a personal, individual choice, others don't matter in any way. I am free to take sannyas today and leave it tomorrow, provided I don't expect any reward for it from others in the form of their praise and acclamation.

We have made sannyas a very serious affair, and that is why only serious people--who are really sick people--take to it. It is now necessary to turn sannyas into a non-serious thing, a play. It should be entirely for your joy that you enter sannyas for a while and then

leave it or remain in it forever. Others should have no say in the matter. If the vision of short-term sannyas becomes prevalent, if people are allowed to enter sannyas even for a few months from time to time, millions of people can enjoy this blessing. It will really be a great thing....

It would be a great experience if someone takes sannyas for a month or two every year and then returns to his householder's world. This experience will enrich his life in a great way; it will go with him for the rest of his life. And if a person, in his sixty or seventy years' life, takes short-term sannyas--say twenty times--he will not need to be a sannyasin again; he will be a sannyasin as he is. Therefore I think that every man and woman should have the opportunity of sannyas in his or her life.

A few things more and then you can put your questions.

Up to now every kind of sannyasin in the world has belonged to some religion, to this or that religion. And this has done immense harm to both sannyas and religion. It is utterly absurd that a sannyasin should belong to some sectarian religion; a sannyasin at least should belong to religion alone, and not to this or that religion. He should not be a Christian, or a Hindu, or a Jaina; he should be a sannyasin of "religion", with no adjective attached to it. He should be the one who, in the words of Krishna, gives up all religions and takes shelter in the only religion there is. Religion, like truth, is one; it cannot be many. And it will be great if we can give birth to a sannyas that belongs to religion and not to religions, not to communal and sectarian religions. The sannyasin of true religion can be a guest everywhere, whether it is in a temple or a church or a mosque, none will be alien to him.

Another thing to bear in mind is the role of the Master, the guru, in sannyas. Up to now sannyas has been tethered to a Master who initiates someone into it. But sannyas is not something which anyone can give you as a gift; it has to be received directly from the divine. Who else but God can initiate you into sannyas? When someone comes and asks me to initiate him into sannyas, I tell him, "How can I initiate you into sannyas? Only God can initiate you. I can only be a witness to your being initiated. Get initiated by the divine, the supreme being, and I will bear witness that I was present when you were initiated into sannyas. My function is confined to being a witness, nothing more." A sannyas tied to the Master is bound to become sectarian. It cannot liberate you; instead it will put you in bondage. Such a sannyas is worthless.

There are going to be three categories of sannyasins. One of them will consist of those who will take short-term sannyas, say tor two or three months. They will meditate and go through some kind of spiritual discipline at some secluded place and then return to their old lives.

The second category will be of those who will take sannyas, but remain wherever they are. They will continue to be in their occupations as before, but they will now be actors and not doers, and they will also be witnesses to life and living.

And the third category will consist of sannyasins who will go deep into the bliss and ecstasy of sannyas that the question of their return to their old world will not arise. They will bear no such responsibilities as will make it necessary for them to be tied to their families; nobody will depend on them and no one will be hurt by their withdrawal from society. The last category of sannyasins will live in meditation and carry the message of meditation to those who are thirsty for it.

It seems to me that never before was the world in such dire need of meditation as it is today. And if we fail to make a large portion of mankind deeply involved in meditation, there is little hope for man's survival on this earth any longer; he will simply disappear from the earth. There is already so much neurosis and insanity in the world, there is so much political madness all around, that the hope for mankind remaining alive grows dimmer and dimmer with the passing of each day. And the sands of time are running out fast. So it is urgent for millions of men and women all over the world to become meditative in the short time that we have; otherwise man, with all his civilization, is going to perish. Even if he survives physically, all that is good and great in him will perish.

Therefore a very large band of young men and young women who have yet no responsibilities on their shoulders is needed. And we will include in this band those old people who have laid down their responsibilities and are free. This band of young and old together will first learn meditation, and then they will carry the torch of meditation to every nook and corner of the earth.

The meditation that I teach is so simple, so scientific, that if a hundred people take to it, seventy of them are going to make it. There is no condition that you are qualified to do it; that you do it is all that is needed. Besides, you are not required to owe allegiance to any religion, any scripture, or to have faith and belief as a pre-condition to meditation. As you are right now, you can join it and do it and go deeply into it. It is such a simple and scientific technique that you are not required to have faith in it. All that is required of you is that you take it as a hypothetical experiment, as you do a scientific experiment, to see how it works. And I assure you it works; you will make it.

I feel that meditation can he spread throughout the world as a chain-reaction. If a person decides to learn meditation himself and then, within a week of his learning it, initiates another person into it, we will cover the whole earth with meditation within ten years. No greater effort is needed. Then all the lofty things of life that man is heir to, but has lost, call be restored to him in ten years. And then there is no reason why Krishna should not play his flute amongst us once again, why Christ should not come again and again, why Buddha should not get enlightened under the bo-tree over and over again. Not that the same old Krishna or Buddha will he born again, but that in us we have the potentialities of that meditation which can flower into a Krishna, a Buddha, a Christ over and over again.

It is for this reason that I have decided to be a witness to your being initiated into sannyas. I will be a witness for friends who are ready to join one of the three categories

of sannyasins that I have mentioned. I will not be their Master, but only a witness to their initiation into sannyas. In fact, sannyas will be a matter of a direct relationship between them and God.

There is going to be no ritual for initiation into sannyas, so that one does not have any difficulty in leaving it when he feels like it. And sannyas will not be a serious affair; so you need not be worried on this score. It should be such a simple and natural thing that if, one morning getting out of bed, a person feels like taking sannyas, he should not have to face any difficulty in the matter. There will be no difficulty, because it is not going to be a lifelong commitment. If the following morning he feels like quitting it, he can do so as easily. He is his sole judge and master; others have nothing to do with it.

I have explained to you how I envisage this neo-sannyas. Now you can ask a few questions that arise in your minds. krishn22

You ask: What would be the daily routine, the discipline of your sannyasin?

You ask what the daily routine of my sannyasin would be. It is not a question of my sannyasin. How can anyone be my sannyasin? He or she will be just a sannyasin. And what would be his routine, his schedule of daily life, his discipline?

If we try to impose a fixed daily routine on a sannyasin, it is bound to harm him instead of doing any good. Someone asked a Zen sage, "What is your everyday routine?"

The sage said, "When I am sleepy I sleep, and when I wake up I am awake. When I am hungry I eat and I don't eat when I am not hungry." And the sage is right. A sannyasin is one who does not impose something on himself, who takes life as it is and lives it very naturally, spontaneously, moment to moment.

We are a strange people. When we feel like sleeping we resist it, and when we cannot sleep we chant mantras and try to get to sleep somehow. We eat when we are not hungry, and we don't eat when we are hungry, because we have a fixed schedule of eating according to the clock. That is how we destroy the inner harmony of our body, and that is why we are in a mess.

A sannyasin will live in accord with the wisdom of the body. He will sleep when he feels sleepy, and he will wake up when his sleep is over. He will not wake up in what the Hindus call the brahmamuhurta, the divine hour, the hour before dawn. Whenever he wakes up will be his brahmamuhurta. He will say, "When God brings me out of sleep, I call it my brahmamuhurta." He will live naturally, easily, spontaneously.

That is why I cannot give you a routine, a discipline of living. You will be in trouble, you will suffer if I impose any discipline on you, because I will determine it the way it suits me, and my way of life can never be yours. If I tell you to wake up every morning at three o'clock, maybe waking up at three is blissful for me, but it will ruin your health.

Everybody's physical organism is unique and different, but we are not aware of it....

There can be no hard and fast rule for things like this. We cannot have set laws about what to wear, about what to eat and how much to eat, about when to sleep and how long to sleep. We can discuss these things in a general manner, but It would not be proper to set rules about them. Everyone should find his own discipline, his own way of living; it should be entirely an individual decision. And this much freedom you must have, that you decide your own way of living. Others don't do it, but a sannyasin should. He should insist on this freedom to be the way he is, and to live in the way that is joyful and blissful for him. In this respect he has also to bear in mind that he does not live in a way that impinges on the freedom and happiness of others. And this is enough.

I repeat that we can broadly discuss the question of a daily routine and a discipline for a sannyasin, but we cannot lay down strict rules about them.

There is a person who is addicted to smoking. The whole world is against him, and yet he goes on smoking. Physicians tell him that smoking will ruin his health, and he says he knows it, yet he cannot quit. What is the matter with this person? Is it that he lacks something necessary for him and smoking provides it? An investigation on smoking done recently in Mexico came to a very strange finding. It says that people who are mad about smoking are those whose bodies lack nicotine. These people are seeking nicotine through tobacco, tea and coffee. But smoking is being condemned as something immoral. But what is immoral in taking some smoke in and out? It is of course senseless, but it is never immoral. He is not harming anyone except himself. It is an innocent stupidity and nothing more. Maybe it is his need; maybe he lacks something which he is fulfilling through smoking. He would be better to discover and know his problem.

Our knowledge of the human body is very poor. It is poor in spite of so much development in medical science. We have yet to understand the body fully, its needs. its problems. And because of this the body has to tackle its problems on its own. If it lacks nicotine it makes you smoke. And once you take to smoking you are in the clutches of habit and you become helpless. It is not that everyone smokes for lack of nicotine, nine out of ten smokers simply take to smoking out of imitation, And then it becomes a mechanical habit, they become prisoners of a habit.

However, no routine, no discipline can be imposed from the outside. It is not possible, nor is it desirable to prescribe a general code for the daily life of sannyasins, as to when they should leave their beds and what they should eat. Of course, some broad guidelines can be given. What is essential is that whatever a sannyasin does, he does it with awareness; whatever he does, he does it keeping his own good and the good of others in view. And whatever he does is right if it promotes his health, his peace and his happiness. And if, on the other hand, it harms his health and happiness, he should shun it.

In the matter of food, he should take care that his food is fresh, light and health giving. He should avoid unnecessary violence in eating; he should not eat anything that is

obtained by killing and maiming living beings. In brief, health should be your prime consideration in the selection of food.

Another important thing in respect to food is to learn and develop a sense of taste in eating. And it depends more on the art of eating than on the food itself. On the basis of such broad hints about food one should draw up his menu in accord with his own individuality.

Others can't give you a discipline; it is just absurd. In fact, everybody is the architect of his own destiny. Being initiated into sannyas means that a man chooses to be his own master, that he will make his own decisions, that it is his right to conduct himself in his own way. You can say that a sannyasin is liable to err if he makes his own decisions. Let him err; he will suffer for his mistakes. Why should you worry about it? If he does things rightly he will be happy, and if he does them wrongly he will suffer. It is wrong to take undue interest in what others do and how they do it. It is really immoral to interfere in another's life. Who are you to come in his way? One should come in another's way only if his mistakes begin to harm others; otherwise, he should not be interfered with. He can make mistakes and learn from his mistakes.

A sannyasin is one who lives with discrimination, with wisdom, who is always investigating what it is that brings happiness and what it is that causes pain, and who, through his own experiences, learns what is good for him. He is on a journey to his bliss; you need not worry about him.

Sometimes I am amazed to see that others become more worried than a sannyasin himself that he does not err. It is just silly. These self-appointed judges are always prying into the lives of sannyasins--whether they wake up in brahmamuhurta or not, whether they sleep in the daytime or not. But who are they? Why should they be after others?

But it is not without reason they do so. These are the ways to persecute and torture others; it is so pleasurable to them. They often say that they respect the unerring sannyasin, which is another way of dominating him. If the sannyasin wants to have their respect, he will have to obey their rules and live in the way they would like him to live. There is yet another danger to the sannyasin from these self appointed judges. To earn their respect he will turn into a hypocrite; he will publicly show that he follows their rules of conduct while privately he will go on living outside those rules.

I am not going to allow a sannyasin to be a hypocrite. I hold hypocrisy as the worst sin ever. And the only way to save him from turning into a hypocrite is to abstain from imposing any discipline on him and to leave him free to live in the way that comes naturally to him; otherwise he is bound to be a hypocrite. This is how we have made hypocrites of all the old sannyasins the world over. And so they are in a mess. There is a class of monks in India who cannot take a bath, because people around them are always watching to see if they bathe themselves. They have thus forced them to remain covered with dirt and filth. In return they give them respect. So these monks have sacrificed cleanliness for the sake of respectability. But whenever they find an opportunity,

whenever they are away from the watchful eyes of their followers, they hurriedly dip their towels in water and sponge their bodies. And then they suffer guilt and self- condemnation.

Recently a gentleman came to me and said, "I have heard that a certain Jaina nun, who often visits you, uses toothpaste. Is it not deplorable?"

I told him, "Have you gone mad? Whether a nun uses toothpaste or not is none of your concern. Do you sell toothpaste? What have you to do with it?"

In reply he said, "The use of the toothbrush is prohibited in our community."

"Then don't use it if your community does not permit it," I told him. This gentleman himself uses a toothbrush and toothpaste with impunity, but a nun of his community cannot. This is the price she has to pay for the respect she receives from the community.

I will ask my sannyasin, who I think is a true sannyasin, not to expect respectability from the society, because this expectation will create bondage for him. There are dishonest people all around and they will immediately entrap you and make you their prisoner.

They will say, "Since we respect you, since we touch your feet, you will have to fulfill certain conditions of ours, you will have to obey our laws."

In fact, a sannyasin is one who says, "I don't care for your society, for your laws, for your conditions. Now I have started caring for myself, so you need not be concerned about me."

A sannyasin's own wisdom sheds light on his path. krishn22

You ask: Don't you think that initiation into sannyas will lead to the formation of a sect around you?

You think it will lead to the formation of a sect. No, it will not. To form a sect certain things are essential. To form a sect one needs a Master, a scripture, a doctrine and an adjective for the sect. Besides these, one also needs a blind, dogmatic belief that one's doctrine alone is right and everything else is utterly wrong. None of these things are here.

The sannyasin of my vision is not going to have any adjective like the rest of the sannyasins, who are either Hindus, Christians or Buddhists. And a sect cannot be formed without such an adjective; it is extremely difficult. I call a man a sannyasin who does not have a religion, who does not belong to any religion. And you cannot organize a sect without a religion. I call a man a sannyasin who has no scripture like the Geeta or the Bible, and who does not belong to a temple, church or gurudwara. And without them a sect becomes impossible,

It should be our great endeavor to see that no sect is born, because nothing has harmed religion as much as these sects have. Sects have done more harm to religion than

irreligion itself. In fact, a genuine coin is always harmed by its counterfeits; nothing else can harm it so much. Similarly, if ever true religion is harmed, it is harmed only by pseudo religions. And a tremendous awareness is needed to avoid this danger.

A sect is not going to emerge in the wake of our efforts, because no one is my disciple and I am no one's guru or Master. And if I am offering to be a witness to some people taking sannyas, it is because, right now, they cannot connect with God directly. And I ask them to be on their own and not to disturb me any longer when they become directly connected with the supreme. I don't want unnecessary troubles, I have no axe to grind. It is great if you can relate with existence on your own; nothing is greater than this. Then the question of someone being a witness does not arise. And it is of the highest. krishn22

You ask: What is the meaning of wearing orange clothes as a sannyasin?

It is true that wearing a particular kind of clothes does not make one a sannyasin, but it is also true that sannyasins do wear some particular kind of clothes. Clothes don't make for sannyas, but that does not mean that a sannyasin cannot have his own clothes. He can.

Clothes are not that important, but they are not that unimportant either.

What clothes you wear has meaning. And why you wear clothes has meaning too. Someone wears loose clothes and someone else prefers tight ones. There is not much of a difference between loose and tight clothes, but it does say something about the mental makeup of the people who wear them. Why does someone choose loose garments for himself while another chooses tight ones? If a person is quiet and peaceful he will go in for loose clothing, he won't like tight ones. On the other hand, tight clothing is preferred by one who is disturbed, hot-tempered and sexual. Loose clothes are not good for fighting. That is why soldiers all over the world have tight-fitting outfits; they cannot be given loose uniforms. The job of a soldier is such that he needs to be tight and smart. His clothes really should be so tight that he is always ready for action, that he feels he can jump out of his body whenever he is required to do so. But a monk, a meditator, a sannyasin, needs loose and light clothes.

Orange clothes have their own utility. Not that one cannot be a sannyasin without being in an ochre robe, but the ochre robe does have its due place in sannyas.

And those who discovered it, after long search and experiment, had a good many reasons to commend the ochre color for sannyas.

We will come to know the significance of different colors if we make some small experiments with them. Our difficulty is that we never make such experiments. Take seven glass bottles of different colors--there are seven colors in all--and fill them with water from the same river and leave them for a while under the sun. You will be amazed to find that the colors of the glass have affected the quality of the water, each in its own way. There are now seven kinds of water in those bottles. The water in the yellow bottle will deteriorate in no time, while the water in the red bottle will remain pure for a long time.

You can ask, "What does the color of a bottle do?" The color of the glass affects the rays of the sun in its own particular manner when they pass through it. While the yellow color accepts a particular kind of ray, the red one accepts another kind, and the water inside the bottles is affected by those rays in a big way. The rays of the sun serve as food and nourishment for the water....

Ochre is the color of the sunrise. When the sun is just emerging on the eastern horizon, when the first light of dawn begins to show itself, its color is exactly ochre. When you enter meditation, the first light that you see is ochre, and the ultimate light of meditation is blue. Meditation begins with ochre and ends with blue; it reaches its peak with blue. Ochre is the index of the beginning of meditation; a sannyasin encounters this color on entering meditation. So in the course of the whole day the color of his own clothes reminds him of meditation again and again. An association is established between the two, clothes and meditation. Ochre helps him in going into meditation, which is an integral part of the life of a sannyasin....

If, while he is walking, eating or taking a bath, his clothes repeatedly remind a sannyasin of the first color of the meditative experience, then the ochre color has served a great purpose. It is a kind of conditioning, a knot to remind him over and over again that meditation is his way. But this does not mean that one cannot be a sannyasin without the ochre robe. Sannyas is such a lofty thing that it cannot be confined to garments. But garments are not altogether useless; they are very meaningful.

I would like millions of people to be seen in ochre all over the world. krishn22

You ask: Is there a special significance in wearing a mala given by you?

You want to know about the mala and its meaning. Nothing in this universe is meaningless. It is different if something loses its meaning through long usage. Everything wears out and becomes dirty after being in currency for a long time. The same has happened with the mala. But it is meaningful.

There are one hundred and eight beads in a mala. Do you know what this number stands for? There are one hundred and eight techniques of meditation, ways of meditation, and this mala will be with you to remind you of the hundred and eight possible paths to meditation. And if you and I continue to be related I am going to acquaint you with all the different techniques of meditation. The hundred and eight beads of the mala represent all the techniques of meditation there are.

And when a witness like me gives this mala to an initiate into sannyas, he only tells him through this symbol that while he has explained only one path to the unknown to him, there are really many others, as many as one hundred and seven. So don't be in a hurry to say that people who are on paths other than yours are wrong. And always remember that there are countless paths, all of which lead to the divine.

At the bottom of the mala hangs a large bead* which says that whatever path you follow you will reach, because all paths lead to the one, to the ultimate one. So all the beads, including the large one, are symbolic and meaningful....

Whether it is a mala or a new name--there are many such things--they are very meaningful for the journey of sannyas. krishn22

*Note: The following year this large bead is replaced by a locket with Osho's photo.

You ask: Does the mala have healing powers?

No. For the sannyasins it can have thousands of meanings. For a non-sannyasin, no meaning, because it is a question of your love, your trust. Then anything can have healing power. If you trust me, then just a glass of water from my hand will have the healing power. It is not in the water, it is not in my hand. It is in your trust.

So to a sannyasin the mala is certainly of many meanings. In sickness he can have healing through it, just holding it. In fear, just holding it and he will feel courage. In a moment of loneliness, just holding it and he will not feel lonely, he will feel he is with me. But it all depends on his trust, it has nothing to do with the mala itself. The mala is only an excuse. last224

You ask: Is there a special significance in changing one's name?

Yes, it has significance, great significance. The change of name has great significance for a sannyasin. It is an index, a symbol. Everything in our life is symbolic. You have a name; you are identified with this name. This name has become your symbol; it is identified with your individuality. Your name has an association with everything that you have been before yesterday. Changing the name of a sannyasin means we disconnect him from his old identity, from his old associations. We say to him, now you are not the same as you were before yesterday. Now you are starting on a new journey with a new name, a new identity....

The change of name is helpful in breaking your old identity. With the changed name you suddenly come to know that you are not the same person now. Every time, while you are on the road, somebody calls you by your new name, not by the old one, you will be startled to learn that vou have ceased to have your old identity. Every day your identification with your old life will wither; every day a new man will come into being in his place. You will be reminded again and again that you are now on a new journey. The change of name is useful for this purpose. krishn22

You ask: Why do you call your male sannyasins 'Swami', and the women sannyasins 'Ma'?

The path of the masculine is that of awareness, and awareness brings you to a point where you become master of your own being. That is the meaning of swami. The

feminine path is that of love, and love brings you to an ultimate point where you can mother the whole existence. And that is the meaning of ma.

A woman in her ultimate flowering becomes a mothering energy...she can mother the whole existence. She feels blessed, and she can bless the whole existence. When a man arrives at the ultimate point he does not become a father, he does not become a mother, he simply becomes a master: master of his own being.

Love and awareness--these are two paths. And when I say masculine I don't mean that all males are masculine, and when I say feminine I don't mean that all females are feminine. There are women who will have to pass through the path of awareness--I would like to call them swamis too, but that would be a little more confusing. As it is, it is already too crazy...so I resist that temptation. But sometimes it comes to me that I see a woman taking sannyas and I feel like calling her swami not ma. And then sometimes a man comes, very effeminate, and looks more feminine than any woman. melo06

Later in 1985 Osho commented:

Slowly slowly I started sorting out my people, and just to sort them out I started initiating them into sannyas so that I could recognize them and know who my people are. I started giving them names so I could remember, because it is difficult for me to remember all kinds of strange names from around the world. The real reason was simply to have names that I could remember; otherwise it would be impossible for me. Now, there are people from almost all the countries, of all languages: it is impossible to remember their names.

But when I give you a name it is a totally different matter. When I give you a name, I give you a name for certain reasons, for certain qualities that I see in you, for certain possibilities that I see in you, for certain characteristics that are already there--and all these become associated.

The name that I give is known to me, its meaning is known to me. Its meaning and your lifestyle, pattern, potentiality, all become associated. It becomes easier for me to remember you; otherwise it is very difficult, almost impossible.

I have given you the red clothes for the simple reason so that I can recognize you; all other excuses are just hogwash. Just to give you good reasons--because people will be asking you and you will have to give good reasons to them--I have been trying to make a philosophy out of nothing. But the truth is simply this, nothing more than this. misery21

The day I started initiating, my only fear was, "Will I be able to someday change my followers into my friends?" The night before, I could not sleep. Again and again I thought, "How am I going to manage it? A follower is not supposed to be a friend." I said to myself that night in Kulu Manali in the Himalayas, "Don't be serious. You can manage anything, although you don't know the abc of managerial science."

I recall a book by Bern, The Managerial Revolution. I read it, not because the title contained the word 'revolution', but because the title contained the word 'managerial'. Although I loved the book, naturally I was disappointed because it was not what I was looking for. I was never able to manage anything. So that night in Kulu Manali I laughed. glimps23

My effort here is not to create disciples--that is just the preface--but to create masters, as many masters as possible. The world needs immensely, urgently, many people of awareness, of love, of freedom, of sincerity. Only these people can create a certain spiritual atmosphere that can prevent this world from being destroyed by the suicidal forces--which are very powerful, but not more powerful than love. books07

If you have a Master things are simple. He can hold your hand when you are losing all track of your being. He can become your support. If you love your Master that love will be the last link. Every link disappears but that link remains. It disappears only when you have attained your own perspective, your own clarity. It is just like an umbilical cord.

The child lives through the mother in the womb for nine months and if you cut the umbilical cord he will die He lives through it. That is the only link.

In exactly the same way, if you love the Master, a subtle silver cord arises between you and the Master--a very invisible phenomenon to others but very visible to the disciple. He can almost touch it. You become joined together with your Master from your navel. The Master is your mother, the Master is your womb. And this umbilical cord, this invisible silver cord, remains nursing you until you are ready and the pregnancy is ripe, until you are ready to be reborn and you can breathe on your own.

The Master is a must. If you can find one you are fortunate. Then he will interpret to you and the darkness will look like light, the illness will look like a new well-being; the curse he will transform into a blessing. In fact, it is a blessing but you interpret it as a curse. He is not doing anything, he is simply showing you what the case is. tao209

Old scriptures say that the master or the guru--the outer guru--can be helpful only in finding the inner guru. That is all. Once the outer guru has helped you to find the inner guru, the function of the outer guru is no more.

You cannot reach to the truth through a master; you can reach only to the inner master through a master--and then this inner master will lead you to the truth. The outer master is just a representative, a substitute. He has his inner guide and he can feel your inner guide also, because they both exist on the same wavelength--they both exist in the same tuning and the same dimension. If I have found my inner guide, I can look into you and feel your inner guide. And if I am really a guide to you, all my guidance will be to lead you to your inner guide.

Once you are in contact with the inner guide, I am no longer needed. Now you can move alone. So all that a guru can do is to push you down from your head to your navel, from your reasoning to your intuitive force, from your argumentative mind to your trusting

guide. And it is not like this only with human beings, it is so with animals, with birds, with trees, with everything. The inner guide exists, and many new phenomena have been discovered which are mysteries. vbt77

A great deal of research has been conducted in the fields of telepathy and clairvoyance, and they have yielded good results. Without the help of any technical aids, I can communicate with a person who is thousands of miles away from here, which means that astral communication, communication without the help of any physical instruments is possible. krishn15

The name of my first sannyasin is Ma Anand Madhu--a woman of course, because that's what I wanted. Nobody has initiated women into sannyas like me. Not only that, I wanted to initiate a woman as my first sannyasin, just to put things in balance and in order.

Buddha hesitated before giving sannyas to women...even Buddha! Only that thing in his life hurts me like a thorn, and nothing else. Buddha hesitating...why? He was afraid that women sannyasins would distract his followers. What nonsense! A buddha and afraid of business! Let those fools be distracted if they want to be!

Mahavira said that nobody in a woman's body could attain to nirvana, the ultimate liberation. I have to repent for all these men. Mohammed never allowed any woman into the mosque. Even now women are not allowed into the mosque; even in the synagogue women sit in the gallery, not with the men....

I have to apologize for Mohammed, for Moses, for Mahavira, for Buddha, and for Jesus too, because he didn't choose a single woman as one of his twelve apostles. Yet when he died on the cross the twelve fools were not there at all. Only three women stayed-- Magdalena, Mary and Magdalena's sister. But even these three women had not been chosen by Jesus; they were not among the chosen few. The chosen few had escaped.

Great! They were trying to save their own lives. In the hour when there was danger, only women came.

I have to apologize to the future for all these people; and my first apology was to give sannyas to a woman. You will be amused to know the full story....

The husband of Anand Madhu, of course, wanted to be initiated first. It happened in the Himalayas; I was having a camp in Manali. I refused the husband saying, "You can only be second, not the first." He was so angry that he left the camp at that very moment. Not only that, he became my enemy and joined Morarji Desai.

Later on, when Morarji Desai was prime minister, this man tried in every way to persuade him to imprison me. Of course Morarji Desai does not have that kind of courage; one can't have if one drinks one's own urine. He is an utter idiot!

Anand Madhu is still a sannyasin. She lives in the Himalayas, silently, without speaking. Since then my effort has always been to bring women to the front as much as possible.

Sometimes I may even look unfair to men. I'm not, I am just putting things in order. After centuries of man's exploitation of women, it is not an easy task. glimps03

When my mother came to be initiated by me, I touched her feet because she proved to be a rare mother. To bow down to your own son is really arduous and hard. It is almost impossible to touch the feet of your own son--it needs great courage. It needs great risk to drop all your ego. I touched her feet not because she is my mother, I touched her feet because she dared! I touched her feet for the reason...I was immensely happy. It is rare, happens only once in a while. And I touched her feet also for another thing: because after that she would not be my mother and I would not be her son. The account has to be closed as beautifully as possible.

It was a drastic step. She had always thought about me as her son. Now, no more. Now she would be my disciple and I would be her Master. Up to then she had been giving advice to me, she had been directing me--"Do this and don't do that." Now all that is not possible. Now I will be directing her, I will be giving advice to her, I will be ordering her to do this or that. The whole situation is going to be radically changed.

She risked.

I respected her courage, I respected her egolessness. And the account has to be closed beautifully: this was the last time I would be a son to her; it will remain in her consciousness forever. Since that moment all the ties have been broken. It was the beginning of a new relationship. I touched her feet not only because she is my mother. I touched her feet because she dared, she dared a lot. She dropped her ego. sands08

To be a mother is nothing special. Every woman is doing it and all the animals are doing it. But to be a mother and yet to have courage enough to listen to one's own son is something special and rare and in that way my family is rare. My father was a disciple, my mother, my all brothers, my uncles--my whole family.

It needs guts. They have taken a great step. last502

But as I left the university and I initiated the movement of sannyas, a tremendous change happened. My initiation of the movement of sannyas created trouble. None of my colleagues--teachers who had been with me for years--would even come to see me. Some were Hindus, some were Mohammedans, some were Jainas--and I was a rebellious spirit. I belonged to nobody.

And the people who used to come to me--I was still teaching the same meditation--started spreading opposition to me, because now it was a question of their religion, their tradition, their church. They did not even come to understand that I am doing the same thing. Just because my people have started wearing red clothes does not mean that my teaching has changed. I just wanted to give an identity to my people so that they could be known all over the world and they could be recognized everywhere.

But they stopped coming--not only teachers but even students who had loved me. And then I saw that all our love and all our respect, all our friendship is so shallow that if our tradition, our convention, our old, ancient beliefs are in some way attacked, all our love, all our friendship disappears.

You will be surprised: even the friend who had given me his bungalow and had the marble temple made especially for me sent a message--he could not face me himself--he sent a message from his manager that because I did not belong to any ancient path, I should not use his place for my meditation school...as if anything old is bound to be gold. Most probably the older it is, the more rotten it is.

I sent him a message, "I will leave your house and the temple, and you can do whatsoever you want with it. But I am with the sunrise; I am not with the sunset. And I want the whole world to be with the new and not with the old."

Truth always moves with the fresh and the young and the innocent. It dies with the knowledgeable, the scholarly, the clever, the so-called wise--who are really otherwise. transm07

Sannyas is a decision, a resolution which brings results. It is beneficial. People ask me what is going to happen by switching to orange clothes. I say, "If you think nothing is going to happen, then wear them for three months."

They say, "People will laugh at us."

I say, "Certainly that will happen. And if you can tolerate their laughter for three months with a cool mind, much will happen to you. Don't bother about the laughing of others...and it triggers the beginning of many things."

People ask me, "What is going to happen by these external changes? Please show us how inner transformation can happen."

I tell them, "You do not have the courage for even transformation of the outer, and you dare to talk about inner transformation? You begin to die, as it were, when only your clothes have to be changed; it will be very difficult if I begin to change your skin. And you talk of the inner?" But we are clever at deceiving ourselves. And one who is deceiving himself can never become religious.

Remember, a person who deceives others may become religious, but one who deceives himself can never become religious because then there remains no way for transformation. finger15

Now in India particularly, where other religions have their sannyasins in the same color, in the same robe, they are finding it difficult. My sannyasins are moving hand in hand with their girlfriends, and Indians are shocked. Sannyasins?

One of my sannyasins who lives near Bombay and commutes every day to Bombay and back, took sannyas. After the second day or third day he came and told me, "You will have to give sannyas to my wife too."

I said, "Why?"

He said, "Why? People will kill me! Yesterday they caught hold of me on the railway station and a crowd gathered. And they said, `Whose wife is this? This sannyasin seems to be escaping with somebody else's wife'--because sannyasins are not supposed to have wives. I tried hard to explain to them that this is not the old sannyas. They said, `There is only one sannyas, there are not many sannyases. Don't try to deceive us. You have to come with us to the police station.'"

He said, "I had to go to the police station. Fortunately the inspector knew me, and he said,

`She is his wife, and this sannyas is absolutely non-serious. Don't be bothered about it.'"

So he said, "It would be good if you give her sannyas also so no problem arises, because anywhere we can be caught. It was good that I was caught at the station where I live, so the inspector knew me."

I gave sannyas to his wife. Two, three days afterwards, he was again there with his wife. He said, "Now give sannyas to my son, because yesterday in the train it became a trouble."

It is a well-known fact in India, and a certainty, that many people go on stealing children from other people. Then they cripple them, blind them, and make them beggars, and whatsoever they earn comes to the man who is doing this business. Beggary in India is now a very strange phenomenon. The blind man to whom you are giving money will not get it--he will get only food enough to live. All the money will go to the boss who is running the whole factory where he creates crippled people.

"So the crowd," he said, "caught us both and they said, `They are stealing somebody's child!' We tried hard to convince them that it is our own child.

"They said, `Your child? Sannyasins have to be celibate. We cannot believe it. In the first place, this is wrong, that you are moving with a woman sannyasin. Woman sannyasins have to move separately from man sannyasins. And not only are you moving with a woman, you are moving with a child. This child is not yours.'"

He said, "It was so difficult. Just because the child was not too small he said, `They are my father and mother and they are not stealing anybody!' Because he spoke we were saved. But please, give sannyas to him also, so there will be no problem left."

I wanted the old idea of seriousness, which has dominated sannyas for thousands of years, to be completely eradicated. And the meaning that has been given to sannyas has to be completely changed--from renouncing, it has to become rejoicing. dless25

A professor used to come to me--he was a professor in the same university as I was, and he said, "I would like to be a sannyasin"--he was immensely impressed--"but the only fear is that after becoming a sannyasin I cannot go to the pub, and you know that I am addicted to alcohol. Wearing the robe of the sannyasin it will look very weird and other drunks will start laughing."

I said, "There is no harm. Drink anyway. Become a sannyasin and give it a try."

He became a sannyasin and the second day he came--"You have put me in trouble. I was thinking there is only one trouble, the pub; there are many. My wife now touches my feet! She says, `You are so spiritual!' Now I cannot relate with her in any other way, except by giving her a blessing."

He was very angry, he said, "You! You must have known and still you did it to me--and I have been your friend for so long. Last night in the dark I sneaked towards the pub, hoping that everybody must have left by this time, but the bartender was there. He immediately fell on the ground, touched my feet and he said, `What a great transformation!' Now I feel like killing you!"

I said, "It is strange...You asked for sannyas. It certainly brings troubles, but if you can be a little patient it will also bring blessings, ecstasies, which are far more important than the wife or the pub or your friends."

He said, "I have to be patient because I cannot go backward; that would be very humiliating." livzen10

It happened once that a great political leader came to attend one of my camps in Mahabaleshwar. He was known in India as the father of the Indian parliament because he remained an MP for fifty years. The first day he watched. By the evening he came to me and he said "Everything is okay, but a few things offend me--I have seen four of your sannyasins playing cards. How can a sannyasin play cards? What kind of sannyas is this?"

He was really offended, and I can understand his discomfort, his uneasiness. Sannyasins are not expected to be playful; they have to be serious, they have to be long-faces. They are not expected to laugh, they are certainly not expected to play cards. And when I said, "But what is wrong in it? If they are enjoying playing cards, it is perfectly right, it is meditative", he immediately left the camp. He became so angry; he could not conceive of card-playing as meditation. And all meditation is nothing but card-playing. Meditation means playfulness, meditation is not a serious phenomenon. But he had come seriously-- he was getting very old, he was seventy-five and death was coming near, and he wanted to have some security beyond death. He had lived a very very successful life here, now he wanted to succeed in the other life; he could not afford to be playful. Time is short, and time is money; time is fleeting fast. He had come there to learn some way how to have a successful life in the other world. He could not understand that the other world is not a

separate world; the other world is intrinsic in this world. It becomes available to non- serious minds. sunris07

With me Krishnamurti is really cross, particularly because of my sannyasins. Wherever he goes, anywhere in the world, they are sitting in the front row. And the moment he sees their red clothes and the mala, he freaks out. Then he forgets on what subject he was going to speak. Then he starts speaking against me, against sannyas, against the rosary, against disciplehood and against Masters.

In Bombay I have many sannyasins and they used to ask me what to do. I said, "Just go and sit in front. There is nothing you have to do, just smile and enjoy it." And the more they enjoyed it, the more he would beat his head; he would just go out of his senses. He would forget all awareness. He would act just like a bull does when you wave a red handkerchief or a red umbrella or a red flag: the bull becomes mad. I think Krishnamurti must have been a bull in his last life. ignor27

Neo-Sannyas International Movement

Neo-Sannyas International is set up as world movement. Osho appoints presidents, vice presidents and secretaries for continents, countries, and for provinces in India.*

*Note: (see Sannyas Magazine January-February 1972, and a lecture given in August 1971 to NSI organisers (early11.doc), which are complex and too long to include here.)

A sannyasin is not a member of a group--it is not a Rotary Club! A sannyasin is directly in tune with me. It is a love affair--not even a marriage, just a love affair, very delicate. The organization that you see is just arbitrary, to make things easier for you. zzzz11

You ask: What you talk about can mean so much to so many people. Your message has to spread, it has to bring about a spiritual explosion. That seems to be the only hope there is for us today. How do you intend to let your ideas grow and spread and blossom, flower, into something more universal, more accepted, more usual?

That is a very difficult question. Difficult because, as I see it, the moment you begin to organize a thing, it begins to die. The moment you begin to propagate a thing, it becomes a dead dogma. The moment you say that everyone should try to live according to this principle or that, you become an enemy, despite your good intentions.

So as far as I am concerned, I just go on living the way I feel is right. I go on saying what I feel is right without any intention of turning the whole world on to my way. I have no plans to try to influence the whole world. In that respect, I am an anarchist. No religious person can be otherwise.

The moment a religious person is followed by a group to whom he can tell what to do and how to live, the whole thing becomes not only nonreligious but, ultimately, antireligious. This has always happened. Every religion has done this, but no religious person has ever intended it to happen. It is a necessary evil. Whenever there is someone who has something to say, something to show, this comes to our minds very easily: how people can be benefitted by it. And this is good; it is done with compassion. But the very nature of things is such that the moment you begin to organize, it becomes a mission. The thing that you were trying to do dies in the process. But this is the very nature of things. You cannot do anything about it.

As I see it, religious people will be needed in the future, not religious organizations. Unless we discard organizations altogether, the spiritual explosion that you are talking about will never come. It cannot be brought, it can only come by itself. But we can help it to come by not organizing according to ideologies. Every ideology is good when it begins, but by and by it has to compromise. To compromise for the sake of the organization.

Sooner or later, the means always become the end. You begin to organize for the sake of the ideology, but ultimately the ideology begins to exist just for the sake of the organization. The organization becomes more important. You have to compromise for the good of the organization. Ultimately, the idea dies and only a church remains.

There are so many churches that no new church is needed. I am against churches. Really, I am against the very spirit of a missionary. As I see it, if I begin to be too concerned with you changing, I have begun to be violent. If I am too concerned with making someone else good then I have begun to be violent. And the violence that happens with good intentions is more dangerous than ordinary violence. All your so-called mahatmas are very violent people. They will not allow you to be yourself.

So what am I to do? It is a problem. I feel that something can be done, I feel that much is needed to be done, but it must be done in such a way that, in doing it, the quality of the thing is not going to change. If the quality changes, then I am for the quality not for the doing.

So I will go on talking. My talking is more or less directed to the individual. If something has to be done, the organization to do it will just be functional, utilitarian. I have to behave not like a missionary but like a poet. A missionary is more concerned with you, with your changes. A poet is more concerned with himself, with his own expression. If something happens to you through it, that is not the point. I can only say what is right as I see it. If something happens to you through my words, it is okay. If nothing happens, it is also okay. I have said what I had to say as best as it was possible for me to say it. It is enough; I should not be concerned with the result.

To be too concerned with the result is what is known as a worldly mind. Why should I be concerned with the result? I have said what I felt, I have lived what I felt. If you feel I am saying is worth trying, you can choose to do it. the choice must be yours. It must not be

enforced in any way; it must not be manipulated in any way. Even you yourself should not be convinced about it. No conviction is good.

You can choose. This choice will remain alive because, in choosing it, you remain yourself. It becomes part of your greater unity. It is bound to undergo a deep change in you, it will be a different flowering. If I force it upon you then it will just be an imitation. Then you will be a follower, not an authentic being. And followers are not good, not good at all. They are dangerous people!

So what can I do? I can do only one thing: I can communicate my knowing to you. If I am not concerned at all with converting you to my way, communication is easy communication is heart to heart. But if at any moment you feel that I am concerned with changing you, you will become defensive. Then I will have to fight. It is a fight, not a communion.

So I will not organize. The only spiritual explosion that can happen in the world will be through individuals, not through organizations. All organizations have failed: political religious, social. The world is the most ill it has ever been because of these organizations. Every organization was created around a very good idea, a very good, alive thing. It may have been around a Buddha or a Zarathustra or a Jesus--a very alive person with something revolutionary, something essential to give....

Whenever we organize, the whole mechanism of organization is such that a church results, not a religion. And once a church is there, it is always against religion. Any church is against religion, it cannot be otherwise, because religion means rebellion; religion means individuality; religion means freedom. The church cannot mean these things. The church means something else: a deep slavery, a spiritual slavery, a following; a dead dogma, a creed, a routine of ritual. The church can never mean freedom because it cannot survive freedom. But this has always been so.

Now I think, the human mind, human consciousness, has come to a point where we can begin to be individually religious. There is no need to be a Jew, no need to be a Hindu or a Christian. Being religious must be enough. That means, religion must be freed from all social phenomenon. It must become an individual existence.

If this is what I think, then what can I do? I can only go on communicating--not waiting for any results, not waiting for any continuity of my thoughts, not hoping, that what I'm saying will be preserved for centuries. It should not be; this is a very wrong conception.

A flower has flowered. By the evening, it must die. Just like this, any idea that has flowered must die. lt must not try to be permanent. lt must allow other flowers to flower; it must die so that the next day something else can flower. If I create an organization, then I am creating a hindrance of my own that will prevent something new from arising.

So I am not intending to create an organization at all. I have no plans for the future. This moment is enough. If I am able to communicate something to even one single individual,

it will be worth everything, in the world. A mass movement may happen around me, but it will have to happen as a chain reaction. We will have to be patient. A missionary is never patient, he can't be. Otherwise, he would never be a missionary. quest05

You ask: When I go back to my own country, what plan should I follow in trying to teach your methods to others?

Do not plan anything. Just go on digging within yourself. Things will take their own course.

Planning always presupposes frustration. When you plan, you create the seeds of frustration. Do not plan, just go on working. Let it come. It is always beautiful when it comes by itself. It is always fulfilling, never frustrating, because there has been no expectation. And when there is no expectation, you are never disappointed. The less you are disheartened, the more you can do. The more you are disheartened, the less you do.

So I say again: do not plan. Just go on. Let it come by itself. When we plan, we hinder the way of its coming. Because of the plans we make, life cannot work. Our plans come in the way.

I lead my life with no plans and I have never been frustrated. There is no question of frustration so I am always successful. I cannot be a failure because there is no plan against which I calculate.

No failure, no success is a success--only our conceptions and predetermined plans make them so. If you fail in your plan, you feel disappointed; the ego is hurt. If you succeed, the ego is strengthened and it will plan more, ceaselessly, causing perpetual strain and burden on the mind. The ego is always afraid of life. In life we never know what is going to happen so we make plans for our security. But life continually disturbs our plans because we are not the whole and sole of life. We are only a negligibly small part of the infinite existence.

The moment you start planning, you begin to compare and contrast. Doubts and fears catch hold of you: will I succeed? Is it possible? What will happen, what will people say? The moment you plan, the seeds of frustration take root. Now anxiety will follow. We make plans in order to be free from anxiety, but the plan itself creates anxiety. We become anxious because of our plans, our expectations

So do not plan. Just go on. You do not plan your breathing, you just go on breathing. Let it come to you easily. All that comes easily becomes divine and nothing that comes with effort can be divine. The divine comes effortless! It is, in fact, coming all the time. Let it come! Just let go of yourself and see. Things will begin to move. You will find yourself in the midst of movement, but there will be no anxiety. Then there will not be any trouble created for the mind. If something happens, it is all right. If nothing happens, then too it is all right. Everything is all right when a mind that does not plan, that accepts life as it is.

Only then can meditation happen, otherwise not. Meditation is not a business, it should not be made a business. If it is, you will not be able to help others toward meditation much less yourself Rather, you will be suicidal to your own meditation because it will be a burden to you.

If meditation has come to you, if something has flowered in you, the perfume will spread. It will work in its own way. Something has happened to you. You are calm and at ease, tranquility has been achieved. That will do the work; you will not have to work. What has happened to you will draw people to you. They will come by themselves; they will ask about what has happened to you.

Let others plan, and you just go and meditate. Things will begin to happen, they must happen. Only then do they have a beauty of their own, otherwise not.

Business is always tiring. It has no beauty, no joy. Meditation is not a business, but it has been converted into a business in India, a flourishing business. There are shops and there are factories. Do not take meditation in this way. You have experienced meditation, you have come to the door. You have seen something, you have felt something. Let it go on-- let God work.

When you leave here, go completely without planning. Do not even plan not to plan or it will be the same thing. Don't think at all about what you are going to do when you return home. Just be there. Your very presence will begin to work. Only then will it be my work. If you plan, then it will not be my work at all. You will merely be distracting yourself and others. You cannot help others to meditate if you yourself are tense. You cannot help! You will be helpful only if you proceed without plans.

Just go. Sit there, meditate and see what happens. Things are bound to take their own course. quest05

Death of Nani, Osho’s grandmother

October 7th 1970 Osho rushes to his Nani's deathbed. It is his last visit to Gadarwara*. Osho arranges to move his library from Jabalpur to Bombay.

*Note: Osho relates several stories about old village friends he met on this last visit to Gadarwara, some of which have been included elsewhere

My grandmother was right in saying I would not have friends...only to the point when I started initiating people into sannyas. She was alive for just a few days after I initiated the first group of sannyasins in the Himalayas. I had particularly chosen the most beautiful part of the Himalayas, Kulu Manali--"the valley of the gods" as it is called. And certainly it is a valley of gods. It is so beautiful that one cannot believe it, even when one is

standing in the valley itself. It is unbelievably true. I had chosen Kulu Manali for the first initiation of twenty-one sannyasins.

That was just a few days before my mother...my grandmother died. Excuse me again, because I go on again and again calling her "mother" and then correcting it. What can I do? I had known her as my mother. My whole life I have tried to correct it and not been able to....

I would have liked to initiate my grandmother, but she was in the village of Gadarwara. I even tried to contact her, but Kulu Manali is nearly two thousand miles from

Gadarwara. glimps23

My grandmother lived till eighty and she was fully healthy. Even then nobody thought she was going to die. I promised her one thing, that when she died I would come, and that would be my last visit to the family. She died in 1970. I had to fulfill my

promise. glimps02

This is the first time I have told anybody. My Nani was my first disciple. I taught her the way. My way is simple: to be silent, to experience in one's self that which is always the observer, and never the observed; to know the knower, and forget the known.

My way is simple, as simple as Lao Tzu's, Chuang Tzu's, Krishna's, Christ's, Moses', Zarathustra's. because only the names differ, the way is the same. Only pilgrims are

different; the pilgrimage is the same. And the truth, the process, is very simple.

I was fortunate to have had my own grandmother as my first disciple, because I have never found anybody else to be so simple. I have found many very simple people, very close to her simplicity, but the profoundness of her simplicity was such that nobody has ever been able to transcend it, not even my father. He was simple, utterly simple, and very profound, but not in comparison to her. I am sorry to say, he was far away, and my mother is very very far away; she is not even close to my father's simplicity.

You will be surprised to know--and I am declaring it for the first time--my Nani was not only my first disciple, she was my first enlightened disciple too, and she became enlightened long before I started initiating people into sannyas. She was never a sannyasin.

She died in 1970, the year when I started initiating people into sannyas. She was on her deathbed when she heard about my movement. Although I did not hear it myself, one of my brothers reported to me that these were her last words. "It was as if she were talking

to you," my brother told me. "She said, 'Raja, now you have started a movement of sannyas, but it is too late. I cannot be your sannyasin because by the time you reach here I will not be in this body, but let it be reported to you that I wanted to be your sannyasin.'"

She died before I reached her, exactly twelve hours before. It was a long journey from Bombay to that small village, but she had insisted that nobody should touch her body

until I arrived; then whatever I decided should be done. If I wanted her body to be buried, then it would be okay. If I wanted her body to be burned, that too would be okay. If I wanted something else to happen, then that too would be okay.

When I reached home I could not believe my eyes: she was eighty years of age and yet looked so young. She had died twelve hours before, but still there was no sign of deterioration. I said to her, "Nani, I have come. I know you will not be able to answer me this time. I'm just telling you so that you can hear. There is no need to answer." Suddenly, almost a miracle! Not only I was present, but my father too, and the whole family, were there. In fact the whole neighborhood had gathered. They all saw one thing: a tear rolled down from her left eye--after twelve hours!

Doctors had declared her dead. Now, dead men don't weep; even real men rarely do, what to say about dead men! But there was a tear rolling from her eye. I took it as an answer, and what more could be expected? I gave fire to her funeral, as was her wish. I did not do that even to my father's body.

In India it is almost an absolute law that the eldest son should begin the fire for his father's funeral pyre. I did not do it. As far as my father's body was concerned, I did not even go to his funeral. The last funeral I attended was my Nani's.

That day I told my father, "Listen, Dada, I will not be able to come to your funeral." He said, "What nonsense are you saying? I am still alive."

I said, "I know you are still alive, but for how long? Just the other day Nani was alive; tomorrow you may not be. I don't want to take any chances. I want to say right now that I have decided I will not attend any other funeral after my Nani's. So please forgive me, I will not be coming to your funeral. Of course you will not be there so I am asking your forgiveness today."

He understood and was a little shocked of course, but he said, "Okay, if this is your decision, but who then is going to give fire at my funeral?"

This is a very significant question in India. In that context it would normally be the eldest son. I said to him, "You already know I am a hobo, I don't possess anything."...

I could not go to my father's funeral, but I had asked his permission beforehand, a long time before, at my Nani's funeral. My Nani was not a sannyasin, but she was a sannyasin in other ways, in every other way except that I had not given her a name. She died in orange. Although I had not asked her to wear orange, but on the day she became enlightened she stopped wearing her white dress.

In India a widow has to wear white. And why only a widow? So that she does not look beautiful--a natural logic. And she has to shave her head! Look...what to call these bastards! Just to make a woman ugly they cut off her hair and don't allow her to use any

other color than white. They take all the colorfulness from her life. She cannot attend any celebration, not even the marriage of her own son or daughter! Celebration as such is prohibited for her.

The day my Nani became enlightened, I remember--I have noted it down, it will be somewhere--it was the sixteenth of January, 1967. I say without hesitation that she was my first sannyasin; and not only that, she was my first enlightened sannyasin. glimps16

I never saw a more beautiful woman than my Nani. I myself was in love with her, and loved her throughout her whole life. When she died at the age of eighty, I rushed home and found her lying there, dead. They were all just waiting for me because she had told them that they should not put her body on the funeral pyre until I arrived. She had insisted that I set light to her funeral pyre, so they were waiting for me. I went in, uncovered her face...and she was still beautiful! In fact, more beautiful than ever, because all was quiet; even the turmoil of her breathing, the turmoil of living was not there. She was just a presence.

To put the fire to her body was the most difficult task I have ever done in my life. It was as if I was putting fire to one of the most beautiful paintings of Leonardo or Vincent van Gogh. Of course to me she was more valuable than the Mona Lisa, more beautiful to me than Cleopatra. It is not an exaggeration.

All that is beautiful in my vision somehow comes through her. She helped me in every way to be the way I am. glimps06

Even in her death she was beautiful. I could not believe that she was dead. And suddenly all the statues of Khajuraho became alive to me. In her dead body I saw the whole philosophy of Khajuraho. The first thing I did after seeing her was to again go to Khajuraho. It was the only way to pay homage to her. Now Khajuraho was even more beautiful than before because I could see her everywhere, in each statue....

Khajuraho--the very name rings bells of joy in me, as if it had descended from heaven to earth. On a full-moon night, to see Khajuraho is to have seen all that is worth seeing. My grandmother was born there; no wonder she was a beautiful woman, courageous and dangerous too. Beauty is always so, courageous and dangerous. She dared. My mother does not resemble her, and I am sorry about that. You cannot find any proof of my grandmother in my mother. Nani was such a courageous woman, and she helped me to dare everything--I mean everything. Glimps04

Osho’s discourse series: Gita Darshan

For the first time Osho gives a series of commentaries on religious sutras, and which he will continue to do for the rest of his life. On November 29th 1971, in Ahmedabad, Osho begins his

• part series of commentaries on the most popular Hindu scripture Shrimad Bhagvadgita, which are published under the title: Gita Darshan, and are much loved throughout India*

*Note: earlier Osho had given single lectures on the teachings of certain mystics. Then in September 1969, in Kashmir, Osho gave a series of talks Mahavir: The Man and His Philosophy, and in September 1970, in Manali, He gave a series Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy, without commenting on their scriptures.

In India a person is called an acharya, a master, only if he has written a commentary on three things: first, the one hundred and eight Upanishads; second, Shrimad Bhagavadgita, Krishna's celestial songs; third, the most important of all, Badrayana's Brahman Sutras. I have never spoken about him. I was called acharya for many years, and people used to ask me if I had written all the commentaries--the Gita, the Upanishads and the Brahman Sutras. I laughed and said, "I only tell jokes, I don't write any commentaries whatsoever. My being called an acharya is a joke, don't take it

seriously." books05

Sutras are very small maxims, aphoristic. The reason why sutras were used in the past was that until writing came into existence, everything had to be memorized. You cannot memorize a big book, but you can memorize small sutras in the seed.

So all the ancient awakened ones have spoken in sutras, so that those sutras would reach the coming centuries just by memory. There was no other way of conveying to the future generations. Hence all old languages are very poetic, for the simple reason that poetry can be memorized more easily than prose. You can sing it....

When there was no way of writing, sutras came into existence; very small, aphoristic, two lines at the most--and that too written in a poetic form, so you can hum, recite, sing, and let them settle in your memory.

So there are sutra priests, and when writing came into existence, shastras, scriptures, were written. Now there was no need to write aphoristically, because in an aphoristic style there is the possibility of misinterpretation....

You will find in India a strange phenomenon which has not happened in any place outside India. Every sutra book has been interpreted in thousands of ways, because the sutra is so small, so condensed, so full of meaning, that you can take any viewpoint. It opens in all dimensions; you can interpret it in such a way that nobody has ever thought of.

So there are interpretations of sutras, but these interpretations are also sutras. So then there are interpretations of the interpretations. Sometimes it goes on until one sutra has

been interpreted, then the interpretation has been interpreted--twelve times, fifteen times, thirty times. I have come across one thousand interpretations of Shrimad Bhagavadgita.

Such a thing has never happened anywhere else in the world, because never were such condensed sutras given. Seeing the difficulty of sutras, that they can be interpreted in

millions of ways contradictory to each other and create many schools of thought. This

was not the purpose. There was a single meaning, but who knows which is the right meaning? When there are a thousand meanings available, how are you going to choose which was the original meaning?

Hence, shastras came into existence. `Shastras' mean prose scriptures. You don't have to interpret. Every detail is given; not just a condensed aphoristic form, but everything that the person wanted to say has been explained by himself. You don't need any interpreter....

The sutra priests exist for sutras; they are just biological computers carrying sutras. You ask them for sutras, they will give you sutras. And there are shastra priests; they don't know anything on their own authority, but they can give you the whole shastra with all the interpretations possible. But it is all games, gymnastics of intellect and

language. yaku02

Those who knew me for years, who knew that I had always been against God, were really puzzled, absolutely puzzled.

One of my teachers, whom I had tortured for three years continually in my high school because he was a very pious type of man: praying morning and evening, and continually keeping on his forehead the symbol of his religion. I was continually harassing him

about everything; he was incapable of answering any question....

This teacher met me almost twenty years afterwards in a discourse in Bombay. I was speaking on the most popular Hindu scripture, the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita. He could not believe it: thousands of people. and I was speaking on Bhagavad Gita! And not only

thousands of people but hundreds of sannyasins too. He came to the back and waited there for when I came out.

He said, "What has happened? You are transformed!"--and he touched my feet.

I said, "Don't touch them. I am not transformed, I am the same man. And I am very stubborn: I am going to remain the same man to the last breath. Don't touch my feet"--but he had already touched them.

He said, "You must be joking! If so many sannyasins. " That's why I had chosen the

orange robe, just to sabotage the whole idea of ancient sannyas. There was now no difference between my sannyasins and their sannyasins: it was difficult to figure out who was who. And my sannyasins were increasing every day, in every place all over the country. And when he said that so many sages were also sitting there, I said, "None of them is a sage! Keep your eyes open and close your ears. You should not come here--you are a simple person, this is not for you."

But he said, "I have heard you, the whole lecture, and I have been reading the Gita my whole life, and nobody has ever interpreted Krishna's words the way you have. I have

read many commentaries, but listening to you I found that all those were third rate." person14

Osho moves to Woodlands Apartment

December 8th 1970, Osho moves to Woodlands Apartment, where he lives until March 1974. Now that Osho is settled he is able to work more closely with disciples. He gives private interviews, and discourses which are often followed by ten minutes' kirtan and meditations.

In those days, at Woodlands in Bombay, I used to give sannyas to people alone in my room. glimps10

You say: My first meeting with you at Woodlands, ended with my getting up from sitting at your feet and walking, not out of the door, but into your closet!

It was not only you, it happened with many people, because in Woodlands, where I used to live, the door to my room and the door to my closet were exactly the same. For anybody who entered for the first time, it was natural--the chances were fifty-fifty, so almost fifty percent of the people used to go into the closet--and I enjoyed it very much! I used to have an electric remote control lock by my side for both doors. Once a person entered my closet, I would lock it....

It was really fun, because people would come out of the closet so embarrassed, so upset. The closet was big enough, so they would move around inside, and there were so

many robes. so they would go around the robes, and finally they would come out, very

shocked. What had happened?--they had entered by the same door, or so they thought.

Then as they came out, they became aware that there was another door just beside it, exactly the same, painted the same color.

There was also a third door, which led to my bathroom. Once in a while. somebody

would come out of the closet door in a hurry, and--as the mind is, it goes to extremes--he would miss the middle one and go to the third door, which would take him into the bathroom. Those who entered the bathroom would take longer to come out, because from my bathroom opened another door, which led to my sauna.

Coming out of all those doors, they would feel so embarrassed that they would ask, "What happened to the door by which I came in?" And I would say, "Always remember the golden mean, the middle one."

And it is not only true about those doors: in your life also, never go to the extremes. Always find the middle one, the golden mean. At the extremes, truth is always a half- truth; only in the middle is it complete, is it whole. spirit17

Whatsoever you do, if you love it, it will never be repetitive. If you love your doings, your acts, there will be no boredom. But you don't love.

I go on talking to you every day. I can go on ad infinitum. I love it. It is not repetitive for me. From eternity to eternity I can go on talking with you. Communication, to communicate with your heart, is love to me. It is not a repetitive act, otherwise I would get bored....

People come to me; sometimes very sympathetically some friends ask me, "The whole day you are sitting in one room, not even looking out of the window. Don't you get bored?" I am with myself, why should I get bored? They say, "Just sitting alone, don't you get bored?"

If I hate myself I will get bored, because you cannot live with a person you hate. You get bored with yourself; you cannot be alone. Even if you are alone for a few moments you get fidgety, you get uncomfortable, an uneasiness comes into your being. You long to meet someone, because you cannot remain with yourself. The company is so boring-- your own company. You cannot look at your own face. You cannot touch your hand lovingly; no--impossible.

They ask me--and their asking is relevant to their own reference, because they will get bored if they are alone--they ask me, "Don't you go out sometimes?" There is no need. Sometimes they ask me, "People come to you with the same problem again and again. Don't you get bored?"

Because everyone has the same problem You are so unoriginal you cannot even create

an original problem. Everyone has the same problem. Some are related with your love, with your sex, with your peace of mind, with your confusion, or something else--some psychology, some pathology, something--but man can be easily divided into seven categories, and there are the same questions, the seven basic questions, and people go on asking them. So friends ask me, "Don't you get bored?"

I never get bored, because each individual is unique to me, and because of the individual, the problem he brings is not a repetition because the context is different, the individual is different. You come with your love problem, another comes with his love problem: both look similar but they are not, because two individuals are so different--their difference changes the quality of the problem.

So if you categorize, you can categorize into seven categories--but I never categorize. Each individual is so unique that he cannot be put with anyone else. No category can be made. But then you have to have a very keen awareness to penetrate to the very root where the individual is unique. Otherwise, on the surface everyone is alike.

Just on the surface everyone is alike, with the same problems, but if you penetrate deep, if you are alert and ready to move with the person to the deeper core of his being, the deeper you go, the more original, individual and unique a phenomenon comes into being.

If you can see to the very center, this person before you is unrepeatable. He has never been before, he will never be again. He is just unique. And the mystery then overfills you--the mystery of the unique person.

Nothing is a repetition if you know how to penetrate, how to be loving and alert. Otherwise everything is repetitive. You are bored because you have a consciousness which creates boredom. Change the consciousness, and there will be no boredom. But you go on changing objects--that will not make any difference. vbt64

I have been talking to many types of gatherings. I have talked to crowds where each person is listening to me but there is no inter-relationship between the people. So it is as if I am talking to one person. There may be ten thousand people sitting there but I am talking to one person, because each person is one; there is no interlink. That gave me the idea that this wouldn't do.

Then I started creating a family. Now, when I talk to you, it is not that I am talking to one person; I am talking to a family. And I can see--it is so visible--that one person starts feeling high and suddenly the whole group feels the vibrations. One person starts smiling and suddenly the smile spreads; its ripples reach everybody. I can see that if there is someone sitting there who is not a sannyasin he becomes like an obstacle; the flow stops there. He is not part of the whole.

So this is going to be totally different. And these are the implications of sannyas, but one only becomes aware by and by. hammer11

Osho initiates Vivek, his long-time attendant

Vivek takes sannyas in April 1971, and is Osho's caretaker from 1973 onwards

I had a girlfriend when I was young. Then she died. But on her deathbed she promised me she would came back. And she has come back. The name of the girlfriend was Shashi. She died in '47. She was the daughter of a certain doctor in my village, Dr.

Sharma. He is also dead now. And now she has come as Vivek to take care of me. Vivek cannot remember it. I used to call Shashi Gudiya, and I started calling Vivek Gudiya also, just to give a continuity.

Life is a great drama, a great play--it goes on from one life to another to another. plove02

Yesterday, someone came to me in the morning, and I told her to take sannyas. She was bewildered. She said to give her time to think and decide, at least two days. I said to her, "Who knows about two days? So much you require...take it today, this moment." But she was not decisive, so I gave her two days. The next morning she came and took it. She has

not taken two days, only one day. I asked her, "Why? You have been given two days, why have you come so soon?" She said, "At three o'clock at night, suddenly I was awake, and something went deep within me telling me, 'Go take sannyas.'"

It is not a decision that she has made, but a decision that has been made by her very deep- rooted mind. But the moment she came in the room I knew her, I knew that mind which she came to know twenty hours later.

So when I say take sannyas, there are so many reasons with every person to whom I tell it. Either he has been a sannyasin in the last life, or somewhere in the long journey he has been a sannyasin.

I had given her another name yesterday, but today I had to change it because I gave her that name in her indecision. Now I am giving her a different name that will be a help to her. When she came this morning, she herself was decided. That other name was not needed at all. And I have given her the name Ma Yoga Vivek, because now the decision has come through her _vivek--_her awareness, her consciousness. gate02 (16 April 1971)

In 1986 Osho was to say:

Vivek has been for sixteen years with me. When she came she was only twenty years old; now she is thirty-six, almost twice the age. And all these sixteen years, day in, day out, she has been taking care of me with as much love as possible, with a deep

devotion. psycho24

Old and new friends

You ask: You address certain sannyasins by our original name, never using our sannyas name. Not only this, but you affix to our name "ji," "Babu," "Bhai"--a sign of respect shown to elders!--and I feel embarrassed.

Govind Siddharth, this is true. There are a few people who I have known long before the initiation into sannyas started. Even before sannyas they were sannyasins by their attitude, by their gratefulness. So when they took sannyas, as far as I was concerned, there was no change. They were already sannyasins to me. They were unaware of it, but to me there was no change. This was the reason that I continued their old names.

For example, I am addressing Govind Siddharth for the first time; otherwise I have always called him Lashkariji. Kakubhai...Falibhai... Jayantibhai...I have known them for so many years before sannyas, and there has been no drastic change. They smoothly moved into sannyas, so smoothly that I don't remember a few of their sannyas names. I don't know what is the name of Falibhai, and there is no need. Falibhai will become enlightened as Falibhai. He must know his sannyas name, but I have forgotten because I

have never used it. And that was the case with Lashkariji. Today I have used Govind Siddharth before you all, but from tomorrow--again Lashkariji!

Names don't matter.

I can understand your embarrassment that I am calling everybody else by the sannyas name and not calling you by the sannyas name--"Is there something missing?" No, there is not anything missing. Even before you became a sannyasin there was nothing missing. Your sannyas has not been a revolution but an evolution. You have simply grown; you have not taken any jump, there has not been any need.

And you should understand my trouble also: when I see you, I don't remember Govind Siddharth, I remember Lashkariji. So you should be compassionate towards me too; I have my troubles. Now when Kakubhai comes to see me, I don't know his sannyas name. But the important thing is sannyas, not the name. And it is something inner, not something outer. So don't feel that way.

I can see the point, that you respect me. And this has been the human tradition all over the world: that if you respect me then I cannot respect you--and that is absolutely wrong.

If you go to a Jaina monk and you put both your hands together with deep respect and bow down to him, he cannot do the same to you--because you are respecting him, you are putting him on a higher pedestal; now from that pedestal he can only bless you. Jaina scriptures, Hindu scriptures, Buddhist scriptures all prohibit it: sannyasins should not be respectful towards non-sannyasins. They should be compassionate--compassion keeps you above them.

But about everything, my approach is different. I respect all those who respect me. I love all those who love me.

The more you respect me, the more I respect you; it is a mutual phenomenon. There is no question of somebody being superior and somebody being inferior....

So as far as I am concerned, I am not one of your so-called holier-than-thou saints. I love you. I respect you. I am grateful, as you cannot conceive.

I am immensely thankful to every person who has come to me to share my joy, to share my being, to be part of my celebration. upan14

In 1985 Osho was to say:

One of my oldest sannyasins, Ma Yoga Laxmi, was the president of the Indian section of my sannyasins for almost ten years, and has been with me almost for twenty years....

false04

Mukta...as far as I am concerned, you are the only sannyasin amongst millions who has loved me from the very first day you entered into my room some twenty years ago.

Mukta is one of those unwavering people that have become very rare in the world. She had not come for me; she had come just to accompany another sannyasin. That other sannyasin has disappeared long ago....

But Mukta is made of a different metal. She had come with that sannyasin just to see India; she had no conscious intention even to meet me. She came to see me just accidentally because that woman was coming to see me. And miracles happen in the world: that woman is lost, and Mukta has never left me for a single moment--here, in America, going around the world. She has left her home, she has left her husband, she has left her children, she has left all the heritage that her old father has left for her. She never went there to get that heritage; her other sister has swallowed the whole thing.

She has never complained about anything. She has never differed in her mind for a single moment; she has passed from disciplehood to the state of devotee long ago.

So it may have been, Mukta, that "the other morning you looked so young in my eyes. I love you"--but I have been loving you for twenty years. I can remember the first day you entered into my room in Bombay. Sitting on the sofa, I had a very clear perception that you had not come with Pratima, that sannyasin, but that Pratima had come with you, my future sannyasin.

And the same day Mukta became a sannyasin.

Such unwavering trust and love is the only miracle worth calling a miracle. Jesus walking on water is not miracle. satyam27

Osho writes a letter to Mukta (1971):

Dear Mukta.

Love.

Yes, you were related to Yoga Vivek in one of your past lives.

Now many things will be remembered by you soon because the key is in your hands.

But do not think about them at all

otherwise your imagination will get mixed up with the memories and then it will be difficult to know

what is real and what is not.

So be always aware from now

that you are not to think about past lives:

let the memories come up by themselves. No conscious effort on your part is needed; on the contrary it will be a great hindrance. Let the unconscious do the work,

you be just a witness,

and as the meditation will go deeper many locked doors will be opened to you.

But always remember to wait for the mysteries to reveal themselves. The seed is broken--and much is to follow.

You need only wait and be a witness. teacup06

Here is Haridas. He is one of my oldest sannyasins. He is German and he heard Adolf Hitler's name for the first time from me! Can you believe it? But he was born after the second world war. fire03

In my childhood days I used to play the flute, and one of my friends--not really a friend, but an acquaintance--used to play on the tabla. We both came to know each other because we both loved swimming....

This boy, Hari was his name too. Hari is a very common name in India; it means "god." But it is a very strange name. I don't think any language has a name for God like Hari because it really means "the thief"--God the thief! Why should God be called a thief?

Because sooner or later he steals your heart. and the sooner the better. The boy's name

was Hari.

We were both trying to cross the river in full flood. It must have been almost a mile wide. He did not survive; he drowned somewhere on the way across. I searched and looked, but it was impossible: the river was flooding too fast. glimps27

When Haridas came to me I gave him the name Haridas in remembrance of him, because he looked almost like Haridas. And whenever I look at Haridas I always smile--I

remember him. He simply got lost into the river. We tried hard for two, three days; we could not find even his corpse. spcial02

I love the Italians. Just one thing I hesitate about, which is that they look a little greasy-- but I can tolerate that. And the second thing is their spaghetti. I don't know that it is something bad....

Just by coincidence an Italian woman who was one of my first sannyasins. She is a

professor, but I don't think she has ever taken a bath. On her face you can see layers and layers of powder. She stinks. and this was a bad fate for spaghetti. She prepared

spaghetti and brought it for me--and the spaghetti was also smelling and stinking the same! Since then I have become so afraid of spaghetti that I have never tried it. That one experience. I did not even taste it. I somehow managed that that woman should go away.

I said, "I will eat it"--and the moment she was gone I flushed it. Even after flushing it my whole bathroom was stinking! socrat24

Sheela had come first to me because her husband was suffering from cancer, and the doctors in America had said that he cannot live more than two years. She was desperately in search of someone who could help.

Her husband, Chinmaya, was a beautiful man. He remained with me, and it almost always happens, when you are facing death meditation is easy. You cannot postpone it, because tomorrow you may not be here to meditate.

So Chinmaya tried hard to meditate, and that helped him to live. All the medical experts were agreed. They could not believe what had happened to him, because two years was the maximum limit for his disease.

But he lived almost ten years, and lived happily in spite of cancer, and died happily. Just a few years more and he would have been enlightened. But he reached to the point that in the next life the remaining small part can be done. His next life will be the last life.

Sheela had to remain with him, so it was just accidental, her coming to me, her remaining with me. bond05

Osho's writing and Mulla Nasruddin

Osho continues to write many letters to friends until the end of 1971, when this ceases. Between 1970 and 1974 he writes a few series of jokes about Mulla Nasruddin, which are published as books. Thus Spake Mulla Nasruddin, dedicated to Vivek, is published in a facsimile of Osho's handwriting*

*Note: the quarterly magazine Jyoti Shikar (Awakening Light) continues in Hindi, along with new magazines dedicated to Osho's vision. Magazines and translations of Osho's books appear in Gujarati and Maharathi languages. In English a glossy magazine, Sannyas, is published every two months from January 1972 to 1979. Many new booklets and books of Osho's discourses are published; by 1973, 36 are advertised in English. Later, many of the booklets are compiled into full length books. Jivan Jagruti Kendra is the sole copyright holder and main publisher for Osho's words in Hindi and English.

The mother told her little boy, Nasrudin, that if he stayed home and behaved himself, she would bring him something from the store.

When she returned home, she asked him: "Well, were you a good little boy, Nasrudin?"

"Oh," said Nasrudin, "I was gooder than good. Why, I was so good I could hardly stand myself." thus

"I don't know why your father does not like me," she said to Mulla Nasrudin at their wedding reception.

"Neither do I," replied Nasrudin. "After all, money, brains and looks are not everything." mulla01

Mulla Nasrudin went to the psychiatrist and asked if the good doctor couldn't split his personality.

"Split your personality?" asked the doctor. "Why in heaven's name do you want me to do a thing like that?"

"Because," said Nasrudin, "I am so lonesome." jokes202

Mulla Nasruddin! He is not a fictitious figure, he was a Sufi and his grave still exists. But he was such a man that he could not resist even to joke from his grave. He made a will that his gravestone will be nothing but a door, locked, and the keys thrown away into the ocean.

Now this is strange! People go to see his grave: they can go round and round the door because there are no walls, there is just a door standing there, no walls at all!--and the door is locked. The man Mulla Nasruddin must be laughing in his grave.

I have loved no one as I have loved Nasruddin. He is one of the men who has brought religion and laughter together; otherwise they have always stood back to back. Nasruddin forced them to drop their old enmity and become friends, and when religion and laughter meet, when meditation laughs, and when laughter meditates, the miracle happens...the miracle of all miracles. books08

People behave differently, because they have been conditioned differently. I have been searching for a joke that is purely Indian, but I have not been able to find one, all jokes

are imported. It is good that there is no taxation on imported jokes; otherwise, in India there would be no jokes at all.

The Indians have been too serious about things, about God, about the ultimate. You cannot conceive of Gautam Buddha laughing, or Shankaracharya laughing, or Mahavira laughing--that is impossible. I have always wondered about it…. spirit10

So if you know life, you know that life is not serious at all. Religious people have made it serious because they are anti-life. But to me, that is not religion at all. That is just a metaphysics for suicide. To me, religion means a very non-serious attitude: very childlike, very innocent....

If I tell a joke, I create tension in you, expectation. curiosity. What is going to happen? How will it turn out? You become tense with expectation. You become serious, your mind begins to work. How is the joke going to end? if it ends just as you expected it to, you will not laugh because then there is no release. But if the end turns out to be completely unimagined, if it is a complete turnabout; if you never expected that this could be the end, then the tension that has been brought to a climax is released. You laugh. But the laughter is not innocent because it is just a release of tension. Every joke has to create a tension in you. Then, when you laugh, you feel released.

Innocent laughter is something very different. It is not a release mechanism, it is a way of living. It is just a way of living!

Take laughing as a way of living. Exist as laughter You will be absolutely nonserious. It may be that you will not be able to achieve anything, but what is the meaning of achievement? Even one who achieves--what does he achieve? Even when achieving, nothing is achieved....

This I call a religious mind: nonserious, playful, innocent--without any struggle. quest07

Osho's Library

Osho's extensive library is brought from Jabalpur to Woodlands Apartment. Friends continue sending books for him, and now he receives the latest publications from the West on religion, mysticism, sciences, sociology, psychiatry, therapy, humour, etc. During discourses Osho often comments on books he is reading:

When you look, you are throwing a certain amount of energy. Wait, be silent, allow that energy to come back. And you will be surprised. If you can allow the energy to come back, you will never feel exhausted. Do it. Tomorrow morning, try it. Be silent, look at a thing. Be silent, don't think about it, and wait patiently for a single moment--the energy will come back; in fact, you may be revitalized.

People continuously ask me I go on reading continuously so they ask me, "Why are

your eyes still okay? You must have needed specs long ago."

You can read, but if you are reading silently with no thought, the energy comes back. It is never wasted. You never feel tired. My whole life I have been reading twelve hours a day, sometimes even eighteen hours a day, but I have never felt any tiredness. In my eyes I have never felt anything, never any tiredness. Without thought the energy comes back; there is no barrier.

And if you are there you reabsorb it, and this reabsorption is rejuvenating. Rather than your eyes being tired they feel more relaxed, more vital, filled with more energy. vbt51

Just now, a few days ago, I was reading a book. The book is written by a psychoanalyst. doctrn12

I have been reading the memoirs of Wilhelm Reich's wife. doctrn15

I was reading about some of the experiments that A. S. Neill tried at his school, Summerhill. He experimented with a new type of school where there was total freedom. He was the headmaster, but there was no discipline. eso05

I was recently reading the life-story of a Sufi fakir--a wonderful Sufi. way115

I was reading one Sufi mystic. bt49

I was reading about a Hassid, a Jewish Master, Baal Shem yoga102

I was reading Bertrand Russell. He says, "Intellectually, I conceive of Buddha as being greater than Jesus. But deep down in my heart, that is impossible: Jesus is greater than Buddha. bt24

I was reading a very funny book. The title is Three Christs. bt75

I was reading Castaneda's book. His master, Don Juan, gives him a beautiful experiment to do. It is one of the oldest experiments. bt77

I was reading a viceroy's journal, Lord Wavell's journal. bt80

I was reading a memoir written by Popov. Popov was a seeker, and an ardent seeker. She was practicing spiritual disciplines with Piotr Dimitrovich Ouspensky. finger01

Just a few days before I was reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions. This is a rare book. It is really the first book in world literature in which someone bares himself, totally naked. bt15

I was reading Voltaire's life. edant14

I was reading about one poet, a German poet, and he relates one incident of his childhood. vbt25

I was just looking at a Peanuts joke-book. Charlie Brown says there, "I love mankind; it is people that I can't stand." "I love mankind; it is people that I can't stand."... vedant03

Osho takes the controversial name Bhagwan

1

2

In May 1971 Osho*P P changes his name from Acharya Shree Rajneesh to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and for the first time publicly acknowledges the fact that he is enlightened*P P.

1

*P PNote: In 1989 Osho changed his name to Osho, and asked that he be known by this name thereafter.

2

*P PNote: On 22 November 1972, for the first time Osho confirms details of his enlightenment. Osho's cousin Ma Yoga Kranti, with whom he lived when he became enlightened, asks him about this event. Osho suggests she remember it for herself, which she does: that it happened on 21 March 1953 at 2am under the Maulashree tree in Bhanvartal Garden. See Sannyas Magazine Jan-Feb 1973

Many people have asked me why I kept silent about the fact I became enlightened in 1953. For almost twenty years I never said anything about it to anybody, unless somebody suspected it himself, unless somebody said to me on his own, "We feel that something has happened to you. We don't know what it is, but one thing is certain: that something has happened and you are no more the same as we are--and you are hiding it."

In those twenty years not more than ten people asked me, and even then I avoided them as much as I could unless I felt that their desire was genuine. And I told them only when they had promised to keep it a secret. And they all fulfilled it. Now they are all sannyasins, but they all fulfilled it, they kept it a secret. I said, "You wait. Wait for the right moment. Only then will I declare it."

I have learned much from the past buddhas. If Jesus had kept a little quieter about being the Son of God it would have been far more beneficial to humanity. I had made it a point that until I stopped traveling in the country I was not going to declare it; otherwise I would have been killed--you would not be here.

Once I had finished with traveling, mixing with the masses, moving from one town to another. For twenty years continuously I was moving, and there was not a single

bodyguard....

If I had declared it I would have been killed very easily. There would have been no problem in it; it would have been so simple. But for twenty years I kept absolutely silent about it. I declared it only when I saw that now I had gathered enough people who could

understand it. I had gathered enough people who were mine, who belonged to me. I declared it only when I knew that now I could create my own small world and I was no more concerned with the crowds and the masses and the stupid mob. dh1102

In Christianity you cannot be a saint on your own account. The word saint comes from sanction. You have to be sanctioned by the church that you are a saint; it is a certificate. It is such an ugly idea that the church can give you a certificate that you are a saint. Even a man like Francis of Assisi, a beautiful man, was summoned by the pope: "People have started worshipping you like a saint, and you don't have any certificate."

And that's where I feel Francis missed the point. He should have refused, but he knelt just like a Christian and asked the pope, "Give me the certificate." Otherwise he was a nice man, a beautiful man, but I don't mention his name because he acted in a very stupid way. This is not the way of a saint.

I don't need anybody's certificate for my enlightenment or for my buddhahood. I declare it! I don't need anybody's certificate. Who can give me the certificate? Even Gautam Buddha cannot give me the certificate. Who gave him a certificate?

But the idea of `saint' in English is very wrong. It comes from sanctus,

sanctioned. gdead02

You ask me: Why do you call yourself Bhagwan? Why do you call yourself God?

Because I am--and because you are. And because only god is. There is no other way, there is no other way to be. You may know it, you may not know it. The only choice is between ignorance and knowledge. The choice is not between whether to be a god or not to be a god; the choice is whether to recognize it or not. You can choose not to call, but you cannot choose not to be. But it has to be understood, because it is one of the most radical standpoints about life.

Life is made of one stuff. Call it god, call it matter, call it electricity. One thing is certain-

-that life consists of only one stuff. At the deepest, life is one unity. You can call it whatsoever you like. Scientists used to call it matter, now they have decided to call it electricity. Religious people decided to call it god, non-religious people decided to call it the world. But one thing is certain--that there exists only one thing....

There are only two ways to give a label to life. One is the way of the realist--he calls it matter. The other is the way of the poet, the dreamer--he calls it god.

I am an unashamed poet. I'm not a realist. I call myself god, I call you god, I call rocks god, I call trees god, and the clouds god. The whole consists of only one stuff and I

have chosen to call it god, because with god you can grow, with god you can ride on great tidal waves; you can go to the other shore. God is just a glimpse of your destiny. You give personality to existence.

Then between you and the tree it is not emptiness. Then between you and your beloved it is not emptiness--god is bridging everything. He surrounds you, he is your surround. He is within and he is without.

When I call myself god, I mean to provoke you, to challenge you. I am simply calling myself god so that you can also gather courage to recognize it. If you can recognize it in me, you have taken the first step to recognizing it in yourself.

It will be very difficult for you to recognize it in yourself, because you have always been taught to condemn yourself. You have always been taught that you are a sinner. Here I am to take all that nonsense away. My insistence is that it is only one thing that is missing in you--the courage to recognize who you are.

I call myself god to help you, to give you courage. If this man can be a god, why not you? I'm just like you. By calling myself god, I am not bringing god down, I am bringing you up. I am taking you for a high journey. I'm simply opening a door towards the Himalayan peaks....

The Indian term for god, Bhagwan, is even better than god. That word is tremendously meaningful. It simply means 'the blessed one' nothing else. Bhagwan means 'the blessed one'--one who is fortunate enough to recognize his own being.

It has no Christian associations. When you say 'god', it seems as if I have created the world. I deny all responsibility! I have not created this world. I am not that much a fool. The Christian idea of god is one who has created the world. Bhagwan is totally different. It has nothing to do with creating the world. It simply says one who has recognized himself as divine. In that recognition is benediction. In that recognition is blessing. He has become the blessed one.

You can also become. If I can become, why not you? Nothing is lacking--just a courage to penetrate your own soul, just a courage to enter yourself. You have been taught to be sinners--condemned crushed, crawling on the earth. Your wings have been cut and destroyed.

Calling myself Bhagwan, I would like simply to say to you to gather courage, reclaim your wings. the whole sky is yours. But without wings it is not yours. Reclaim your

wings and don't allow anybody to condemn you. Respect yourself! If you cannot respect yourself, you cannot respect anybody else.

When you respect yourself, a great respect arises. Then you respect the tree, the rock, the man, the woman, the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars. But those ripples of respect arise only when you have started respecting yourself.

I call myself Bhagwan because I respect myself. I am tremendously fulfilled as I am. I am the blessed one. I have no discontent. That is the meaning of Bhagwan--when you have

no discontent, when each moment of your life is a fulfillment...when you don't desire anything in the future; your present is so full, overflowing...when there is no hankering.

That's why we call Buddha Bhagwan. He has denied god in his cosmology. He says there is no god, no creator. Christians become very puzzled when Buddha says there is no god, no creator. Then why do Buddhists call him Bhagwan?

Our meaning of Bhagwan is totally different. We call him Buddha, Bhagwan, because he has now no more desires. He is contented. He is happy and at home. He has come home-- that is his blessedness. Now there is no conflict between him and existence. He has fallen in accord, in harmonia. Now he and the whole are not two separate things. They vibrate in the same way. He has become part of the orchestra of the whole. And by becoming a part of this great orchestra of stars and trees and flowers and winds and clouds and seas and sands, he has become blessed--we call him Bhagwan....

If you exist without a god, you are a tree without flowers, a rosebush without roses. And what is a rosebush without roses? Just thorns....

When I call myself Bhagwan, I am simply saying to you, 'Look at me--the roses have bloomed. And what has happened to me can happen to you. So don't feel desperate and don't feel depressed. Look at me and your hope will come back, and you will not feel hopeless.

'Allow me to enter you. At least allow my fragrance to enter your nostrils. Let me get to your heart. Let me stir your heart a little so that your own flowers start growing, your own buds start opening their petals.'

Calling myself Bhagwan is just a device. I can drop it any day. The moment I see it has started working, the chain has started. The moment I see that now it is no more needed. a

few people have become a flame; then they will be enough proof. There will be no need to call myself Bhagwan. They will be enough proof. If a few of my sannyasins start blooming, I will drop calling myself Bhagwan. The device will have worked.

A few years back, one day I called Yoga Chinmaya and told him to find a new word for me because I was going to function in a new way. I was known all over the country as the acharya. The acharya means a master, a teacher, and I was a teacher, and I was teaching and travelling. That was just the introductory part of my work; that was to invite people.

Once the invitation reached, I stopped travelling. Now those who want, they should come to me. I have gone to their home, knocked on their doors. I have told them that I am here and any day the desire arises in them, they can come. I will wait. I have shown them the path towards me. And then one day I called Yoga Chinmaya and I told him, 'Now find a new word for me because the word "teacher" will not be enough.'

He brought many names for the new function that I was going to take. He said, 'Maharishi, great seer.' I said, 'That is comparative--seer and great seer, rishi and

maharishi. No, that is not good. And everybody cannot be a seer. It is a talent. A few people can become seers, everybody cannot become a seer.'

Then he said, 'Paramahansa, the great swan?' Again it is comparative. And it is a symbol of hierarchy. In certain old sannyasin orders, Paramahansa is the last stage. Just as in buddhist terminology, Arhat is the peak, one has arrived. In Hindu terminology, Paramahansa is the peak--but it shows graduation, step by step. It is mathematical, calculative.

He said, 'Then what about Avadhuta? That too is another comparative term, belonging to another sect of sannyasins. It is again parallel to Arhat and Paramahansa, and belongs to the Tantrikas. Avadhuta is their last stage. But it shows achievement.

I said, 'Find something which is universal. Find something which is not relative.' And then he found 'Bhagwan'.

It is a non-comparative term. You cannot be godlier than god; godder than god you cannot be. It is a non-comparative term. And it does not show any achievement; it simply shows your nature. Not that one has to become god; one is god, one has simply to recognize

It does not show any talent. There is somebody who is a great poet, somebody who is a great seer, a great visionary; somebody a great painter, somebody a great musician, somebody a great dancer--these are all talents. All cannot be great dancers; you cannot all be Nijinskys. And all cannot be great painters; you cannot all be Van Goghs. And you all cannot be great poets; you cannot all be Tagores and Pablo Nerudas.

But Bhagwan you all are. It does not show an achievement; it simply shows your universality, your very nature. Already you are god.

I loved the term. I said, 'That will do. At least for a few years it will do; then we can drop it.'

I have chosen it for a specific purpose and it has been serving well, because people who used to come to me to gather knowledge, they stopped. The day I called myself Bhagwan, they stopped. It was too much for them, it was too much for their egos. Somebody calling himself Bhagwan?...it hurts the ego.

They stopped. They were coming to me to gather knowledge. Now I've changed my function absolutely. I started working on a different level, in a different dimension. Now I give you being, not knowledge. I was an acharya and they were students; they were learning. Now I am no more a teacher and you are not here as students.

If you are here as students, sooner or later you will have to leave, because you will find yourself in a wrong place; you will not fit here. Only if you are a disciple, then you can

fit with me. Because now I am to give something more. If you are here for knowledge, then sooner or later you will see--you have to go somewhere else.

I am here to impart being. I am here to make you awake. I am not going to give you knowledge, I am going to give you knowing--and that is a totally different dimension.

Calling myself Bhagwan was simply symbolic--that now I have taken a different dimension to work. And it has been tremendously useful. All wrong people automatically disappeared and a totally different quality of people started arriving.

It worked well. Chinmaya's choice was good. It sorted out well. Only those who are ready to dissolve with me remained, all others escaped. They created space around me. Otherwise they were crowding too much, and it was very difficult for the real seekers to come closer to me. The crowds disappeared. The word 'Bhagwan' functioned like an atomic explosion. It did well. I am happy that I chose it.

Now people who come to me are no more argumentative. Now people who come to me come to drink me, to eat me, to digest me. Now people who come to me are great adventurers of the soul. And they are ready to risk--to risk any and everything.

Calling myself Bhagwan is a device. Sooner or later, when you have grown up and you have understood the point, and when your presence here has created a different quality of vibrations, I will stop calling myself Bhagwan. Then there will be no need. Then the whole atmosphere will be throbbing with godliness. Then people who will come, it will shower on them. It will penetrate into their hearts. There will be no need to call me anything--you will know. But in the beginning it was needed, and it has been of tremendous help.

The last thing about it. I am not a philosopher. Always remember me as a poet. My approach towards life is that of poetry, is that of romance. It is romantic, it is imaginative. I would like you all to be gods and goddesses. I would like you to reveal your true being.

Calling myself god is a challenge. It is a subtle challenge. There are only two ways to settle with it. One is, you say, 'This man is not god', and go away, because then what are you doing here? If this man is not god, then why waste your time? You go away. Or, you accept that this man is god, and then you start being with me, and your own godliness starts flowering.

One day you will also be a god, a goddess. Accepting me as god is in fact deep down accepting the possibility that you can also be a god, that's all. The very acceptance that this man can be a god, stirs something that has been fast asleep within you. Then you cannot remain as you are; something has to be done. Something has to be transformed, something has to be known....

If you decide to go with me, you will become more and more watchful. And the more watchful you will become, the more you will be able to understand me, the more you will

be able to understand what has happened, what has transpired within my soul. You will become more and more a participant in this happening, in this dance, in this singing.

And by and by you will see--the master is coming. And it is not coming from the outside, it is coming from your innermost core, it is arising from your depths...

I looked in and I found him there. My message is simple--that I have found the god within me. My whole effort is to persuade you--look within...

The only question is of becoming a watcher on the hills. Become a witness--alert, observing--and you will be fulfilled. trans204

The journalists are always playing a vicious game. They started calling me godman, I have never called myself godman. And then they ask me, "Why do you call yourself godman?"

There is no species in the world which can be called godman. Just to be man is enough-- there is no God. At least I cannot call myself a 'godman', because I don't accept any existence of a god who created the world....

The hypothesis of God does not help. I don't have any hypothesis of God. To me life is divine. To me existence is godliness, not God. To use the word `godman' for me is simply stupid. But journalists started calling me that, and then started asking me, "Why do you call yourself godman?"

Strange! They started calling me the guru of the rich and then they started asking me, "Why do you call yourself the guru of the rich?" They started calling me the sex guru, and then they started asking me, "Why do you call yourself the sex guru?"

I have never called myself godman. Yes, the people who love me have called me Bhagwan, but Bhagwan does not mean God. We have called Gautam Buddha 'Bhagwan'-

-and he does not believe in any god. We have called Mahavira 'Bhagwan'--and he does not believe in any God.

So 'Bhagwan' cannot be synonymous with God. 'Bhagwan' simply means the blessed one,--one who has attained the ultimate bliss, the peace, the joy of his own being. And I say unto you that I am the blessed one, but I am not the godman. I am simply a man fulfilled. last612

Kirtan Mandali

In October 1971 Osho starts the Kirtan Mandali groups of Indian and Western sannyasins, who travel around India giving talks on His teachings, leading meditations, playing music, singing and dancing.

You want to know what kirtan...can do to enhance devotion. It can do a lot if we do it rightly. The way we are doing the second stage of Dynamic Meditation can be used for singing or dancing as well. It has been used in the past by those who knew its real meaning. Those who don't know the real meaning just dance and shout--which is a waste of time. If kirtan can be done in the way of the second stage of the Dynamic Meditation, it can be of tremendous help.

If you can dance with abandon, you will begin to see yourself and your body as separate from each other. Soon you will cease to be a dancer; instead you will become a watcher, a witness. When your body will be dancing totally, a moment will come when you will suddenly find that you are completely separate from the dance.

In the past many devices were designed to bring about this separation between a seeker and his body, and singing and dancing was one such device. You can dance in such a way and with such abandon that a moment comes when you break away from dancing and clearly see yourself standing separate from the dance. Although your body will continue to dance, you will be quite separate from it as a spectator watching the dance. It will seem as if the axle has separated itself from the wheel which continues to keep moving--as if the axle has come to know that it is an axle and that which is moving is the wheel, although separate from it.

Dancing can be seen in the same way as a wheel. If the wheel moves with speed, a moment comes when it is seen distinctly separate from the axle. It is interesting that when the wheel is unmoving you cannot see it as separate from the axle, but when it moves you can clearly see them as two separate entities. You can know by contrast which is moving and which is not.

Let someone dance and let him bring all his energy to it, and soon he will find there is someone inside him who is not dancing, who is utterly steady and still. That is his axle, his center. That which is dancing is his circumference, his body, and he himself is the center. If one can be a witness in this great moment then kirtan has great significance. But if he continues to dance without witnessing it, he will only waste his time and energy.

Techniques and devices come into being and then they are lost. And they are lost for the simple reason that man as he is tends to forget the essential and hold on to the non- essential, the shadow. The truth is that while the essential remains hidden and invisible like the roots of a tree, the non-essential, the trunk of the tree is visible. The non-essential is like our clothes, and the essential is like our soul. And we are liable to forget that which is subtle and invisible and remember the gross, the visible. It is for this reason when someone comes to me to know if kirtan can be useful, I emphatically deny it and ask him not to indulge in it. I know that now it is a dead tradition, a corpse without soul, as if the axle has disappeared and only the wheel remains....

There are two ways to come to the axle, the center, the supreme. One of the ways lies in your being so steady and still--just at a standstill--that there is not a trace of trembling in you and you arrive at the center. The other way is just the contrary: you get into such

terrific motion that the wheel runs at top speed and the axle becomes visible and knowable. And this second way is easier than the first.

It is easy to know the axle if the wheel is in motion. While Mahavira comes to know it through stillness, through meditation, Krishna knows it through dancing. And Chaitanya surpasses even Krishna in dancing; his dance is magnificent, incomparable. Perhaps no other person on this earth danced as much as Chaitanya. In this connection it is good to bear in mind that man has both a circumference and a center, and while his circumference--the body--is always moving and changing, his center--his soul--is still and quiet, it is eternal. And the question of questions is how to come to this unchanging, eternal center. krishn13

Early search for a New Commune

When Osho lives in Bombay there are four experimental Communes, while a search continues for a property where thousands of people can meditate and live together. Overseas, several new meditation centres are set up, some of which are residential ashrams.

The ashram is an Eastern concept, there is no word to express it in English. "Monastery" is not a good word; ashram is totally different. You have to understand the concept. A monastery is where monks live. There are Christian monasteries--there is no need for an enlightened person to be there; abbots are there, administrators are there. The monastery is like a training school. The abbot need not be enlightened, but he will train you, because they have a curriculum, a course. Christian priests are prepared that way....

A monastery is a training school; an ashram is not a school, an ashram is a family. And an ashram doesn't exist as an institution, cannot exist as an institution. The ashram exists around an enlightened person, that is a basic must. If the enlightened person is not there the ashram disappears; it is the person around whom the ashram can come into being.

When the person is dead the ashram has to disappear. If you continue the ashram it becomes a monastery....

The person is important, not the institute--institutions are dead. So remember this: a live phenomenon, a master, just by his presence creates a milieu--that milieu is the ashram. And when you move in that milieu you are moving in a family, not in an institute. The master will take care of you in every way, and you will be there in intimate, close proximity.

Eastern ashrams are disappearing, they are becoming monasteries, institutes. The Western mind is so obsessed with institutes that everything is turned into an institute. I was just reading a book on marriage. It begins by saying that marriage is the greatest

institute, the greatest institution--but who wants to live in an institute? The ashram is more intimate, more personal.

So every ashram will differ from others, every ashram is going to be unique, because it will depend on the person around whom it has been created. All monasteries will be similar but no two ashrams can be similar, because every ashram has to be individual, unique; it depends on the personality of the master. If you go to a Sufi ashram it will be totally different--much dancing and singing will be there; if you go to a Buddhist ashram, no dancing, no singing, much sitting silently will be there. And both are doing the same, they are leading towards the same goal.

The first thing to remember: an ashram exists with a master; it is his personal influence, his person, the atmosphere, the milieu that he creates through his being. An ashram is his being, and when you enter into an ashram you are not entering into an institution, you are entering a live person, you are becoming part of the soul of the master. Now you will exist as part of the master, he will exist through you. So no forced discipline, but spontaneous happenings will be there. vedant08

In October 1971 Vishwaneed Neo-Sannyas Commune is set up by Ma Anand Madhu in Ajol, Gujarat. Facilities are provided for experiments in 21-days’ silence and seclusion

It is helpful to practice breath awareness for twenty-one days in total seclusion and silence. Then, much will happen.

During the twenty-one-day experiment, practice Dynamic Meditation once a day and constant awareness of breathing for twenty-four hours a day. Do not read, do not write, do not think, because all these acts are of the mental body; they are not concerned with the etheric body.

You can go for a walk. This helps because walking is part of the etheric body; all manual actions are concerned with the prana sharira, the etheric body. The physical body does these things, but it is for the etheric body. Everything concerned with the etheric body should be done, and everything concerned with another body must not be done. You can also have a bath once or twice a day; it is concerned with the etheric body.

When you go for a walk, just walk. Do not do anything else; just be concerned with your walking. And while walking, keep your eyes half-closed. Half-closed eyes cannot see anything other than the path, and the path itself is so monotonous that it will not give you something new to think about.

You must remain in a monotonous world, just in one room, seeing the same floor. It must be so monotonous that you cannot think about it. Thinking needs stimuli; thinking needs new sensations. If your sensory system is constantly bored, there will be nothing outside of you to think about.

During the first week you may feel less need of sleep. Do not be concerned about it. Because you are not thinking, because you are not doing many of the things that you

ordinarily do, you will need less sleep. And if you are constantly aware of your breathing, so much energy will be generated in you, you will become so vital, that you will not feel sleepy. So if sleep comes it is alright; if it doesn't come it is alright. If you do not sleep it will not be harmful....

So much will come to you: things that are absurd, illogical, unimaginable, inconceivable, fantastic, nightmarish. You must go on watching your breath. Let these things come and go; just be indifferent to them. It is as if you are going for a walk. The street is full of people. They pass by, but you are indifferent to them; you are not concerned with them. Then these images and fantasies will be released and, by the end of the first week, a new silence will come to you. The moment the unconscious is unburdened, there will be no more inner noise. Silence will come to you, a deep inner silence.

You may experience moments of depression. If a deep-rooted feeling of depression has been suppressed in the unconscious, it will come and overwhelm you. It will not be a thought, it will be a mood. Not only thoughts will be coming to you, but moods, too, will be coming. Sometimes you will feel exhilarated, sometimes you will feel depressed or bored, but be as indifferent to these moods as you are indifferent to thoughts. Let them come and go. They will go by themselves so do not be concerned with them. Moods, too, have been suppressed in the unconscious. During the twenty-one days of the experiment they will be released, and then you will experience something that you have never experienced before--something new, something unknown.

Each individual will experience something different. There are many possibilities, but whatever happens, don't be afraid; there is no need to be. Even if you feel that you are dying, no matter how strong that feeling is, no matter how sure you are of it, accept it. Thoughts, feelings, moods, will be so acute, so real. Just accept them. If you feel that death is coming, then welcome it--and go on watching your breath....

After the first week you will begin to have some psychic experiences. The body may become very big or very small. Sometimes it will disappear, it will evaporate, and you will be bodiless. Do not be afraid. There will be moments when you cannot find where your body is--it is not--and moments when you will see your body lying or sitting at a distance away from you. Again, do not be afraid.

You may feel electrical shocks. Every time a new chakra is penetrated, there will be shocks and tremblings; the whole body will be in a turmoil. Do not resist; cooperate with these reactions. If you resist, you will be fighting against yourself. Shocks, trembling, a feeling of electricity, heat, cold--anything felt on your chakras you must cooperate with. You yourself have invited it, so do not resist it. If you resist it, your energies will be in conflict, so cooperate with any psychic experiences that you may have.

Sometimes you may not feel that you are breathing. It is not that breath has stopped, but that it has become so natural, so silent, so rhythmic, that it is not felt....

Just be aware of this situation. You were aware of breathing; now be aware of a situation where no breath is felt. Whatever happens, be aware of it. Awareness must be there. If nothing is felt, then you must be aware of your no-feeling. Nothing is being felt, but awareness must be there....

Do not stop the experiment before the twenty-one days are over. After the first week you may want to stop it. Your mind may say, "This is nonsense. Leave." Do not listen to it.

Just tell yourself once and for all that for twenty-one days there is nowhere else to go.

After the third week you may not want to leave. If your mind is so blissful that you do not want to disturb it, if only nothingness, blissfulness is there--if you are just a vacuum--then you can prolong the experiment for two or three or four more days. But do not break it before the twenty-one days are over....

So go and begin it as soon as you can. artof18

In 1972 Samarpan Rajneesh Sadhana Ashram, New York state, is the first residential ashram overseas

You ask me: Can you guide us as to some specific ways that Rajneesh Sadhana Ashrams in the West and elsewhere should be structured which makes them different from other Ashrams? How are they unique?

Remember three words: love, discipline, an independence. These three have to be combine. Love should be the main thing. So whatsoever you do, you must remember that it must be loving. It is very easy to be authoritative. It is every easy to restrict others, because the mind wants to dominate. Then the guru becomes the dominator and the dictator. Then love is lost. So love is the base of whatsoever you are doing.

For example, smoking: it is innocent, but you can create much fuss about it, an you can make it so significant that it seems as if the whole moksha (liberation) is dependent on whether you smoke or not. It is not so.

For example, sex: All those who want to dominate will always be against sex. You cannot dominate a person if you give freedom about sex. You cannot dominate because man has two basic things: food and sex. He cannot survive without these two things.

These are survival bases: food and sex. So all the religions who want to dominate others, they will always be concerned with food and sex--always! They will control your food completely and then they will control your sex completely. Then you are just a slave without knowing that you have become a slave. But food cannot be completely controlled, because you will have to eat something--because for an individual to survive, food is necessary. So they create many taboos around food. Unscientific, nonsensical taboos are created.

The basic thing is that if one controls your food, he controls your life. So, really, you have become a slave. But food cannot be completely controlled, and one has to eat some time because an individual's life depends on it. But sex can be completely controlled,

because individual existence is not dependent on sex. You are already born, so sex can be completely cut out. That is why religions are totally against sex.

Every religion creates taboos around food, but allows something to eat, whatsoever it is. But they try to control sex completely. And once someone controls your sex, he controls you.

So the first thing is we are not to control anybody. We are just to help. Our Ashrams are not dominating fields for someone to play God and then create a slavery around him.

Love, I say, is the basic thing to remember. Whenever you are thinking to prohibit anything, remember, it is not going to be your domination. It must be something to help the other person, and that is the basic difference.

If I say take vegetarian food, it is just to help you. You will be more patient with vegetarian food, more silent, and it will be easy for you to move in meditation. You can move with non-vegetarian food also, but then you are doing two contradictory things. So it is just a love act when we say that a vegetarian diet will be helpful. So be a vegetarian.

But we are not food addicts and maniacs and faddists. So this is not going to be a principle. We are not saying to anyone that he must be, for his whole life, a vegetarian. We are not saying that! You have come to the Ashram to experiment for deeper meditation. So if you have come for deeper meditation, it is good to be vegetarian. Later on, if you feel it is good for your whole life, that is up to you. We are not for vegetarian_ism._ It is not an "ism". It is up to you. If you feel that it is good for you and later on also you want to continue, it is up to you.

So do not create any "ism" around anything. We just want utilitarian devices. The same for sex, because it is very easy to inhibit any person about sex and create guilt feelings. And once someone feels guilty, you can dominate him....

Our approach is with love. We do not want to create any guilt in anyone, because we are not to dominate just to help. So if we say anything about sex, it is not against sex. If we

say that it should not be displayed while others are present, that is only not to trespass others' freedom. So remember this: whatsoever you do, first make it judged by the criterion of love. This must be the first touchstone. Whatsoever you decide, always remember, love must be the reason for the decision....

So discipline is just utilitarian, just for outward behaviour so that a group can live easily, peacefully, with each other. Remember this: the discipline is not for the inner individual. It is only for his outer behaviour, because he is not alone. There are others. That is the difference from a disciplinarian. For a disciplinarian, discipline is the absolute end, the ideal. For me, it is just a technique, and the technique is to help the individual to be independent. And we want discipline so that he becomes more responsible toward others-

-so that no one is disturbed by him. When no one is disturbed by him, he will not be disturbed by anyone.

There should be no conflict in behaviour among Ashram residents, and everyone can grow inwardly without any conflict with the outside. Just to get rid of conflict, we have to create discipline. It is not against the individual. It is against the possibility of conflict.

When many persons are living together, there are bound to be many conflicts. So no trespassing, and this is to help the individual to be independent, not to be a slave.

Love should not become possession. Discipline should not become a dead end. And we must continuously remember that everyone remains independent, even following discipline. So make it clear to everyone who comes to the Ashram that this is your choice. You have come to the Ashram. You have entered the Ashram for a few days, for a certain period. You choose discipline. This is with your independence; you choose it! If you do not want to choose it, do not come. This is your choice. Once you choose it, it is your responsibility to follow it.

Even then there will be many problems. Even if you make all the rules, problems will be there, because you cannot know what can happen in any moment. Whenever something occurs and you feel that the rules and the discipline are not fixed about it, remember love and independence, and then decide the discipline. Your mind must be loving, and the person must get a maximum of independence. And then decide the discipline between these two.

It is going to be a delicate thing, and that is the responsibility of the Vice Chancellor and the Chancellor: to decide so delicately! Think it over. Do not be hasty. And always decide within the framework of love and independence. From you, love must be the base. For the other, love must be the end. And between these two there is discipline just because of communal living. If everyone is alone, then there is no question of discipline. Because the other is there, the question of discipline comes.

So this is going to be the difference: for us moksha is not the ideal. The individual himself is the ideal. How he becomes totally independent: that is moksha, that is liberation. So we have to help him, because in other ashrams, for them, their emphasis is on moksha, God Realization or something vague, something very very far away. Because of that ideal, that goal, they will force the individual to become a slave. They say that unless you become a slave completely, you cannot achieve moksha. And in order to gain the ideal, individuals become slaves.

For us, the individual himself is the end. There is no future ideal for him. So owe are to help him to attain this very moment, and we cannot cause that individual to be a slave in any name.

There are only two ways to make slaves: one is physical force, another is mental force. They both work the same. Dictators use physical force. Religious organizations, churches, they use mental force. But the end result is slavery. You can force someone physically or mentally, and the second is more tricky, more cunning. So we are not going to cause anyone to be a slave in any sense_. sannyas magazine Jan-Feb73_

In 1972 two farming communes are set up: 'Kailash' in Chanda, donated by Ma Anandmayi, Osho's past-life mother, where a group of 30 Western sannyasins participate in a 6-month residential program; and 'Samarpan', Baroda, Gujarat, donated by Swami Swarupanand (Sheela's father), for a group of Western and Indian sannyasins. Some experiments developed by Gurdjieff are used.

Kailash was a great group. It was a different kind of group, but it was good; it helped the people tremendously! shore07

Gurdjieff was experimenting with his disciples. He and his thirty disciples lived in a big house, and he told them to live there in such a way as if the other twenty-nine did not exist. They were not to speak with anyone, not to make any signs, not to make any gestures which might create any communication. Even if one passed by someone else, he had to remember that he was all alone there, nobody else was there in the house.

Knowingly or unknowingly, nothing was to be done by anyone that might indicate the presence of the other. If someone stepped on somebody else's toes he was not to make any apology, for there was no one else present there. Even if because of somebody's mistake an ember from the fire was to fall on someone's hand, no one was to ask for any forgiveness--for there was no one else present there. No one was even to express through their eyes, "I am sorry."

Gurdjieff asked these thirty disciples to stay like that for three months. Twenty-seven disciples ran away after some time; only three remained to the very end, but those three were transformed into totally different persons.

What was the purpose of this experiment? Let us understand it. It is very easy not to pay any attention to others, or not to apologize, even if you kick someone! This is very easy, there is no difficulty in it. This is how we always want it to be. But this is not the significant point. So what meaning does this experiment carry?

Remember, its meaning is deep and hidden. Gurdjieff had asked you not to pay any attention to the fact that there is someone else present, but then also to understand well that others also will not pay any attention to you. That is where the catch is. You will not pay attention to others, you are alone; others will not pay attention to you, they are twenty-nine. You will not receive twenty-nine other people's attention, for three months, at all!

All transactions are mutual. I give you attention, you give me attention. It is a business. I am fulfilling your ego, you are fulfilling mine. But in this experiment the exchange will cease at both the ends. What was the reason for those twenty-seven disciples running away? Many of them said later, "We felt as if we were suffocating, that we would die, that we were choking."

Actually their throats were not choking, it was their ego's throats that were choking. They were thinking, "Three months! And there will be no food for our egos! By the time we are out of this place we will be empty." Those three courageous disciples who stayed, came out after three months as different persons altogether. What had changed in them?

Ouspensky was one of those three disciples who had stayed through the experiment. Later he said, "This man Gurdjieff was amazing, because in three months. And we had

no idea that this was a device to kill our egos. We had thought that the experiment was being carried out to bring peace and silence to our minds. We were not even told that our egos will be killed. After three months we became as though we did not exist; only our being remained. There was no tune of 'I' arising anywhere in us."

The day no 'I' arises within you, that day you are standing at your real 'I'. That real 'I' is called the soul. And naturally then your individuality becomes spotlessly clean like the full moon--ever blissful and self-luminous. finger05

In 1972 an island at Ambernath near Bombay is donated and inaugurated as 'Ananda-Shila', with the Meditation Camp in February 1973. However the land is found to be unsuitable, damp, infested with mosquitoes, and the water salty. The structure Osho recommends is reported in Sannyas Magazine:

Ananda-Shila will work as a World Centre for Meditation and the Science of Religion by promoting a series of activities connected to the following:

• A Yoga-Therapy Centre*
• A Naturopath and Acupuncture Research Centre as helpful grounds for scientific investigations and collateral to Meditation
• A University for Meditation, inclusive of departments such as: (a) A Training centre for esoteric sciences; (b) A Training College for Yoga and meditation; (c) An East and West Meeting Centre for Psychologies and Philosophies
• A Library of Universal Knowledge
• A Publication Centre
• A Temple of Understanding: The Temple will represent all religions of the world, visibly manifested as sixteen gates opened to a central, void space to represent the Divine
• A Hostel for resident sannyasins
• A Guesthouse for visitors and students under training
• A Hall for mass meditation and international conferences
• Fifty Underground Cells for deep meditation
• A Bungalow for the private residence of Osho
• Residential Cottages for friends

Ananda-Shila, according to Osho's inspiration, will be an absolutely non-political and non-sectarian Foundation which will work for the rising of awareness among human beings with a basis of love and understanding_. sannyas magazine Jan-Feb 1973_

*Note: As early as September 1970 Osho talks to an American woman working with mentally disturbed patients, about group therapy and the need for a commune, so people can become aware of suppressed emotions which have caused their madness, followed by creativity, and relaxation (early04.doc). This topic is covered later, see Part VII.

Osho writes to a friend in India:

The news of the commune delights me. The tree's seed is sprouting, soon innumerable souls will shelter under its branches. Soon the people for whom I have come will gather-- and you are going to be their hostess! So prepare yourself; that is, empty yourself completely because only emptiness can be the host. You are already on your way singing, dancing, blissful like a river flowing to the sea. I am delighted, and I am always with you. The ocean is close--just run, run, run! teacup03

Osho continues to lead Meditation Camps

Osho continues to lead several meditation camps each year, many of which are held in the hill resort of Mt Abu in Rajasthan. Osho introduces new meditation techniques, with music, and shaktipat experiments. Discourses include commentaries on the Upanishads, The Seven Portals of Samadhi by Madame Blavatsky, and Light on the Path by Mabel Collins, as well as instructions for the camp, and for meditations.

Here, Osho concludes his commentary on Nirvana Upanishad:

We have reviewed the Upanishad and have noted certain statements in which the sage has warned us not to repeat his words except to those who are intimate with us. The words should be told only to those who will not misunderstand. Tell them to one who is ready to learn and who will not add meanings of his own. He should understand only that which is told. Tell these words to one who can bow down at your feet, who seeks not only answers but convictions born out of action, one who wants to reach the highest stage of spiritual knowledge.

The sage gives this last advice: that before repeating this Upanishad, first be sure the person is responsible. And this ends the Nirvana Upanishad. The Upanishad ends here, but through this you will not achieve nirvana. Where this Upanishad ends, the journey to nirvana begins.

I am completing this discourse in the hope that you will begin your own journey to nirvana, and you will continue to flow toward it. I have told you so many things during these discourses, trusting fully that you have come here ready to listen and understand. If some of you have not come here in the attitude of a disciple, I shall have to ask the sage to forgive me, because in that case I have said these things contrary to the warning he gave. If someone has heard these things from a place of continuing mental objection or opposition, I would request that he forget that I have spoken at all.

To whatever I have said, if you have any thought of adding anything of your own, remember that it will be an injustice--not only to me, but also to the sage who has written the Upanishad. I have presumed that all those who have gathered together here are my intimates, and communication is possible between us. Precisely for this reason, I have not only given these discourses but I have also simultaneously taught you how to meditate.

Those who listen to words as an entertainment also might attend discourses, but they are not eager to meditate; therefore, those who were interested only in these discussions would have run away, seeing that they would have to enter into doing the meditation three times daily, tirelessly and in full sincerity. Meditation has been set at the end of each discourse so that such people would escape. I do not concern myself about you when you are just listening to me, but when I see you go deeply into meditation, then I take care of you.

Your efforts in meditation have assured me that those to whom I have told these things have truly deserved to be told. thousd15

I am more more emphatically interested in meditation than in discussions. These discussions are just to give you a push, to satisfy you in an intellectual way; just to give you a feeling that whatsoever you are doing is very intellectual, rational. It is not.

So whatsoever I have been saying is in a way quite the opposite of what I have been trying to pull you into. My approach, as far as these discussions were concerned, was rational, just to satisfy you--just to give you some toys to play with, so that you can be persuaded into something else. That something else is not rational; that is irrational.

Someone came to me and said...he is new here, he has come just two days ago, and he is not acquainted with the Eastern mind at all; he is from the West. So he came to me and said, "I am bewildered, because whatsoever you are saying, and whatsoever is being done in meditation...there seems to be no connection at all."

I said to him, "Of course there is no connection; but still there is. But it is very indirect." I try to pacify your mind just to help you take a jump out of it. I go on rationalizing things, talking logically, arguing about, only in order that your argumentative mind is just exhausted, and you can take a jump out of all the nonsense that is called rationality.

So our meditation has been just a jump into irrational existence. And existence is irrational--it is mystic, it is a mystery. So please don't cling to what I have said to you; rather, cling to whatsoever I have persuaded you to do. Do it, and someday you will

realize that whatsoever I have said is meaningful. But if you go on clinging to what I have said, it may give you knowledge, it may make you more knowledgeable, but you will not attain to knowing. And even whatsoever I have said may become a hindrance.

I don't know. I may have helped you to create a hindrance--I don't know. It depends on you.

Now our last meditation. Because it is going to be the last, do not withhold yourself at all. Just be in it as totally as possible. thou17

In January 1972, for the first time, Osho leads a Meditation Camp in English as well as Hindi. After July 1973 the camps are alternately all English or Hindi. Osho continues this pattern until 1981, after which his discourses are in English.

When I am speaking in Hindi--many people do not understand Hindi but they can also utilize this occasion. Those who do not understand Hindi should close their eyes and listen just to the sound. They should sit in silence as if in meditation. And many times the truth that one does not understand through the words one comes to understand merely by listening to the sound.

When I am speaking in English, friends who do not understand English should not think that this is of no use to them. They should close their eyes and meditate on the sound of my words without attempting to understand the language. There is no need to try to understand a language which you do not know. Sit silently, become like an ignorant person, and meditate upon the impact of the sound. Just listen. That listening will become meditation and it will be beneficial.

The real question is not the understanding, but to become silent. Hearing is not the point, becoming silent is the point. So many times what happens is that what you have understood becomes a barrier, and it is good to listen to something that you do not understand at all; then thinking cannot interfere. When something is not understood there is no way for thoughts to move; they simply stop.

Therefore, listening sometimes to the wind passing through the trees, to the birds singing, to the sound of running water, is better than listening to the seers and sages. The real Upanishads are flowing there, but you will not understand them. And if you do and you can just listen, your intellect will soon quiet down because it is not needed. And when your intellect quiets, you are transported to the place you are in search of. finger02

Our individual consciousness is not really individual; deep down it is collective. We look like islands, but all the islands deep down are connected to the earth. We look like islands, different--I am conscious, you are conscious--but your consciousness and my consciousness somewhere deep down are one. It is connected to the earth, the basic ground.

That's why many things happen which look inexplicable. If you meditate alone it will be more difficult to enter into it, but if you meditate with a group it is very easy, because the

whole group works as a unit. In meditation camps I have felt and observed that after two or three days your individuality is no more; you become part of a greater consciousness. And very subtle waves are being felt, very subtle waves start moving, and the group consciousness evolves.

So when you dance, you are not really dancing, but the group consciousness is dancing; you are just a part of it. The rhythm is not only within you, the rhythm is also without you. The rhythm is all around you. In a group you are not. The superficial phenomenon of being islands is forgotten and the deeper phenomenon of being one is realized. In a group you are nearer to the divine; alone you are further away, because again you become concentrated on the ego, on the superficial difference, on the superficial separation. This technique helps, because really you are one with the universe. It is only a question of how to dig it or how to fall into it and realize it.

Being with a friendly group always gives you energy. Being with someone who is antagonistic, you always feel that your energy has been drained out. Why? If you are with a friendly group, in a family, and you are sitting, relaxing, just being together, you feel energized, vitalized. Meeting a friend, you feel more alive than you were before. Just passing an enemy, you feel that you have lost some energy, you feel tired. What happens?

When you are meeting a friendly sympathetic group, you forget your individuality; you drop down to the basic level where you can meet. When someone is antagonistic, you become more individual, egoistic; you cling to your ego. Because of that clinging you feel tired. All energy comes from the roots; all energy comes with the feeling of a collective being.

In the beginning, doing this meditation you will feel a collective being arising, and then ultimately a cosmic consciousness arises. When all differences are lost, all boundaries disappear and existence remains as one piece, one unit, one whole; then everything is included. This effort to include everything starts from your own individual existence.

Include. vbt61

Dynamic Meditation evolves

(There are 112 basic techniques of meditation.) I have developed my own techniques other than the 112, because I saw that for the modern man there are a few problems which are not covered in those 112 techniques. They were written perhaps ten thousand years ago for a totally different kind of mankind, a different kind of culture, different kind of people. The modern man, the contemporary man, has some differences--over ten thousand years it is absolutely unavoidable.

For example, the Dynamic Meditation is not amongst those 112. It is absolutely necessary for the modern man, although it may not have been at that time. If people are innocent there is no need for Dynamic Meditation. But if people are repressed, psychologically are carrying a lot of burden, then they need catharsis. So Dynamic Meditation is just to help them clean the place. And then they can use any method from the 112. It will not be difficult. If they, right now, directly try, they will fail.

I have seen many people trying directly--reaching nowhere, because they are so full of garbage that first it has to be emptied out.

Dynamic Meditation is of immense help. All the techniques that I have developed are for the contemporary man, and doing these techniques he will be clean, unburdened, simple, innocent. Perhaps there will be no need to try those techniques. But just for curiosity's sake you can try one of the techniques, and you will be surprised how quickly you enter into its very innermost core.

So first thing is something cathartic, which is absolutely necessary for the contemporary man. And then those silent methods can be used. last319

In the September 1971 Meditation Camp, Osho changes the third stage of dynamic meditation from 'Who am I?" to shouting 'Hoo Hoo Hoo'

Now we will get ready for the meditation. Take note of a few things which I could not pass on to you last night. There are two or three hints to be given to you and then we will sit for the meditation.

Last night I said to you about sense-conservance for seven days. The least you use your senses the better. If you do not use them at all, the best. Keep your eyes closed for most of the time; keep your mouth shut for most of the time; keep you ears closed for most of the time. Devote these seven days completely to meditation. Do not keep any other options for this period. Do not go even for a walk; do not go even for sight seeing....

Pay full attention to sense-conservance. Do not let even an iota of energy be wasted, then so much energy will be accumulated in seven days that we will use it. Seating you on that very energy we will send you on the inner journey.

Take minimum food, because most of our energy is spent in digesting the food. Take minimum of it, take only that much that you do not even notice that you have taken food in. Take this as the guideline that after eating you do not feel that you have taken food in-

-eat only that much.

So, not too much of your energy to go into digesting food. Remember, whenever food is being digested, all your energy from the head moves to the stomach. This is why one feels sleepy after eating. Here we are going to do meditation, wherein all the energies have to be taken towards the head, because it is there where the door has to open. So, minimum amount of food--keep this in mind.

The third point. Do not be miserly to hold even an iota of your energy from pulling it into the meditation experiment. Many times it happens that you applied all your energy but withheld just a fraction of it, then all that you applied goes waste because of that little fraction that you withheld. The question is not that of how much energy you applied, the question is whether you applied all of it or not....

So, the third thing is: Put your total energy.

The meditation that will be done have in the mornings has three stages of doing to it and the fourth stage is of relaxation.

You will blindfold yourself, put earplugs into your ears and for the first ten minutes you will breath so deeply and intensely that the energy in your whole body is awakened through the hit of this breathing. The breathing is to be used like a hammer to hit within. No system to it, just inhaling fast and deep and exhaling fast and deep. For ten minutes, to ride fast with the breathing: In, out, in, out. In ten minutes, this breathing will

awaken the body electricity in every cell of your body.

When the body electricity will awaken, then in the second stage all kind of movements will begin in your body. Somebody will begin to dance, somebody` will jump, somebody will shout, weep, somebody will laugh. Let all this happen totally for ten minutes. Dance, sing, weep, shout--forget the whole world. If for ten minutes you did all this with full intensity, you will suddenly find that you are separate from your body. The Paramhansa that is sitting within you will start watching that it's the body that is dancing, laughing, jumping.

In the third stage, last time we were repeating the phrase 'Who am I', 'Who am I', this time we will be saying only: 'Hoo', 'Hoo',.... A deep sound of 'Hoo'--a fast and deep hit. In the phrase 'Who am I', the mind begins to think, hence drop it. There is no possibility of thinking in 'Hoo', 'Hoo'. It is not a word, it is only a sound. It is a sound just as 'Om' is a sound. The hit of the sound 'Hoo' will go deep within you reaching up to below your navel. If you will make the right hit, it will reach up to down below your navel, and from there will arise currents of energy running towards the head. So, in the third stage, 'Hoo', 'Hoo' for ten minutes.

In all the three stages you have to go completely mad.

In the fourth stage, the moment I say 'Be quiet', you have to go absolutely quiet. Do not wait even for a moment then. Then even if your mind says, even if you are enjoying the action, yet you have to stop. Then you have to stop completely and for ten minutes lie down on the earth like a corpse. Simply lie down like a corpse, be dead for ten minutes. During these ten minutes, if death could come to you even for a moment, through that very door will the divine enter you.

This is the experiment we are going to do now.

In the afternoon, we will come here and do kirtan for half an hour and then for thirty minutes we will go into complete silence.

About our night meditation, I will give information at the night time itself. thousd02

By October 1972 Osho has changed the fourth stage of Dynamic Meditation to a 'Stop' or 'freeze', in whatever position one is in, and remaining in it for 10 minutes.

This fourth step is the meditation; the first three steps are just preparations. The fourth step is just like Zen. You are not doing anything. No effort. Just waiting silently.

But it takes time. At least three weeks are needed to get the feel of the technique, and three months are needed before you can begin to move in a different world. But the time it will take is not fixed. It differs from individual to individual. If your intensity is very great, then even in three days it can happen. quest03

You ask: Will You please indicate something about the fifth stage in active meditation.

Nothing can be said about it; that is why I never talk about it. The fourth is the last--the fifth will happen but nothing can be said about it. There is no need either. The fifth is not a state, it is your being. The first four are states, steps, but the fifth is not a state, it is not a step. It is your own being, it is your nature. But nothing can be said about it. If you come to the fourth the fifth will happen to you, that much is certain. If you can come to a total silence in the fourth, then the fifth will happen. It is a growth of your silence.

But nothing can be said about it--or whatsoever can be said will be misunderstood....

Once you know how to make this energy flow upward and withinward, you will reach to higher orgasms, to higher peaks of ecstasy, than you can ever reach with any woman or any man. An inner meeting will have started.

The first step is to change your prana, your breathing pattern. The second stage is to throw your emotions, the suppressed part of your mind--a catharsis. And the third is to hit your life energy to move upward. And when the energy starts moving upward, then you are not to do anything, you are simply to lie down as if dead.

There is to be no diversion there. The energy simply moves upward and you are not to do anything. That is why I go on emphasizing not to move. After the third step when I say "Stop!" stop completely. Do not do anything at all because anything can become a diversion and you miss the point. Anything, just a cough or a sneeze, and you may miss the whole thing because the mind has become diverted. Then the flow will stop immediately because your attention has moved.

Do not do anything. You are not going to die! Even if the sneeze is coming and you do not sneeze for ten minutes, you will not die. If you feel like coughing, if you feel an irritation in the throat and you do not do anything, you are not going to die. Do not be

afraid: no one has ever died. Remain dead as far as the body is concerned so that the energy can move in one flow.

When the energy moves upward you become more and more silent. Silence is the by- product of energy moving upward and tension is the by-product of energy moving downward. You will be more and more in anxiety when energy moves down; you will be more and more silent, quiet, calm and cool as energy moves upward and inward. And these words downward and outward are synonymous, and inward and upward are synonymous. And when you have become silent, that energy is moving like a flood, it is passing through all the chakras, all the centers. And when it passes through all the chakras, it cleanses them, it purifies them, it makes them dynamic, alive, and the flood goes upward, upward to the last chakra.

Sex is the first chakra, the first center, the lowest--and we exist at the lowest. That is why we know life only at its minimum. When the energy flows upward and reaches to the last chakra, to the sahasrar, energy is at its maximum, life is at its maximum. Then you feel as if the whole cosmos has become silent: not even a single sound is there. Everything becomes absolutely silent when the energy comes to the last chakra.

You know the first chakra; it will be easy to understand through that. When the energy comes to the sex center, you become absolutely tense. The whole body is feverish, your every cell is in a fever. Your temperature goes high, your blood pressure goes high, your breathing becomes mad. Your whole body is in a temporary delirium--at the lowest.

Quite the opposite is the case at the last chakra. Your whole body becomes so cool, so silent, as if it has disappeared. You cannot feel it. You have become bodiless. And when you are silent the whole existence is silent because the existence is nothing but a mirror: it reflects you. In thousands and thousands of mirrors, it reflects you. When you are silent the whole existence has become silent.

This is the fourth step and I will not say anything about the fifth. This is the door-- absolute silence. Then you can enter the temple and you can know it but I cannot say it. And if you come to know it, you will also not be able to say anything about it. It is inexpressible. doctrn05

Osho brings a 5-piece conga-drum band to the July 1973 meditation camp. Later Osho has a musical accompaniment recorded for his meditations.

You ask: In reference to the meditation techniques based on sounds, please explain the difference between the chaotic music played in Your Dynamic Meditation and the rock music of the West.

Your mind is in chaos. That chaos has to be brought out, acted out. Chaotic music can be helpful, so if you are meditating and chaotic music is played or chaotic dancing is there around you, it will help to bring out your chaos. You will flow in it, you will become unafraid of expression. And this chaotic music will hit your chaotic mind within and will bring it out. It helps.

Rock, jazz, or other music which is chaotic in a way also helps something to come out, and that something is repressed sexuality. I am concerned with all your repressions.

Modern music is more concerned just with your repressed sex, but there is a similarity. However, I am not concerned only with your repressed sex, I am concerned with all your repressions--sexual or not sexual...

This state of mind is neurotic. The whole society is ill. That is why I so much insist on chaotic meditation. Relieve yourself, act out whatsoever society has forced on you, whatsoever situations have forced on you. Act them out, relieve yourself of them, go through a catharsis. The music helps. vbt28

Osho adds a fifth stage of five minutes celebration at the end of the Dynamic Meditation

You have reaped. You have reaped bliss, you have reaped ecstasy. Now sow it for others. In the world, you sow first and then you reap. In the spiritual dimension, everything is just the reverse. First you reap, and then you sow.

You have reaped what Buddha has sown, what Jesus, Krishna and Mohammed have sown. They have sown seeds and you have reaped them. Now, sow seeds for others. And remember well that sowing is just exhaling. It is part of the whole process. You will remain half, incomplete, imperfect, unless bliss has started flowing from you toward everything.

This is a very necessary law. When you become silent, you hear it. No one else is saying it to you. Your own heart, your own innermost being, tells you this. This indication, this teaching, this message is not from without. It is from your own innermost self...There's no possibility of not obeying it; it is your own. But if you know it well, it will be easy.

It will be easy if you know that it is part of the process: that bliss should be distributed and shared; only then will it grow more. If you don't know this law, your miserliness, your old selfcenteredness may delay the completion of the process.

It can only be delayed; it cannot be disobeyed forever. But why delay it? So remember this: whenever you feel any moment of bliss happening, share it.

That's why my insistence, so much insistence, that after meditation you must express your bliss; you must celebrate it. You must make it a point that whatsoever happens to you--allow it to be shared. Dance and sing. These are just symbolic; they are just to serve as a continuous remembrance.

When you have gone from here, many things will happen to you if you continue meditation. But whenever something happens to you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it. Even if you cannot do anything else, just smiling, smiling to some stranger, may be enough. Just taking the hand of some stranger in your hand and feeling the friend within him will do it. Or sharing anything, just as a token. Or if there is no one there and you are sitting under a tree, then dance and feel that you are dancing with the tree. Sing, and feel

that you are singing with the birds. And sooner or later you will come to understand that when you share, even a tree is ready to share back with you....

And if a tree can share, why not birds? They are more alive. Why not animals? They are still more alive. And why not the whole existence? Sooner or later we will find that even stones share. Their soul may be hidden very deep, but it is there; and one day we are going to find out instruments which will give us indications that even a stone, a rock, has emotions.

So wherever you are, whenever you feel that some ecstatic emotion has happened to you, dance to its tune, sing to its tune, and share your happiness in whatsoever way it happens to you, in whatsoever way you feel to share it. But share it! It will grow more. With sharing, it grows. With miserliness--with not sharing--it dies down, it shrinks. Death is a shrinkage. Shrinkage is death.

Life is expansion; allow it to expand. And once you know the feeling of expansion you will allow it to happen, because it is your own innermost self dictating. alchem09

This will look strange--that I say don't make meditation a practice, rather make it a play, a fun. Enjoy it while doing it, not for any result.

But our minds are very serious, deadly serious. Even if we play, we make it a serious thing. We make it a work, a duty. Play just like small children. Play with meditation techniques, and then much more is possible through them. Don't be serious about them; take them as fun. But we make everything serious. Even if we are playing, we make it serious. And with religion we have always been very serious. Religion has never been fun, that's why the earth has remained irreligious. Religion must become a fun and a festivity, a celebration--a celebration of the moment, enjoying whatsoever you are doing; enjoying so much and so deeply that mind ceases. vbt52

Osho writes to a friend:

The temple of God is open only to a dancing, singing, happy heart. A sad heart cannot enter there so avoid sadness; fill your heart with colour as vivid as a peacock--and for no reason. He who has reason to be happy is not really happy. Dance and sing--not for others, not for a reason, just for dancing's sake; sing for singing's sake; then the whole life becomes divine and only then becomes prayer. To live so is to be free. teacup03

The final form of Dynamic Meditation is as follows:

First Stage: Ten minutes of deep, fast breathing through the nose. Let the body be as relaxed as possible; then begin with deep, fast, chaotic breathing--as deep and as fast as possible. Go on breathing intensely for ten minutes. Don't stop; be total in it. If the body wants to move while you are breathing, let it; cooperate with it completely.

Second Stage: Ten minutes of catharsis, of total cooperation with any energy that breathing has created. Let the emphasis be on catharsis and total letting go. Just let whatever is happening happen: do not suppress anything. If you feel like weeping, weep; if you feel like dancing, dance. Laugh, shout, scream, jump, shake--whatever you feel to do, do it! Just be a witness to whatever is happening within you.

Third Stage: Ten minutes of shouting hoo-hoo-hoo. Raise your arms above your head and jump up and down as you continue to shout hoo-hoo. As you jump, land hard on the soles of your feet so that the sound is forced deep into the sex center. Exhaust yourself completely.

Fourth Stage: Fifteen minutes of stopping dead, as you are. Freeze! Whatever position you are in, stop completely.

Fifth Stage: Fifteen minutes of dancing, of celebration, of thanksgiving for the deep bliss you have experienced. medfre

Kirtan: devotional dance and song

In the afternoon session from four to five, there will be half an hour of kirtan, devotional singing and dancing. Everyone has to participate in it. The kirtan will go on for half an hour, and during that period you should sing and dance totally and madly. This will be followed by half an hour of silence. After the kirtan, you should blindfold your eyes, plug your ears and sit down in silence.

During that half an hour of silence, there should be no expression, no catharsis of any kind. No sounds, no weeping, no shouting, no laughing, nothing, you are simply like a corpse. All that laughing, shouting, singing and weeping has to be exhausted completely in the half an hour of kirtan. Only he who will be able to empty himself completely of all these will be able to be silent for half an hour. If you withheld anything, that will try to erupt in the half an hour of silence period and only you will be responsible for that. In the kirtan, jumping, dancing, you cathart completely and throw out all the rubbish. Then for half an hour, you either lie down or just sit completely still, like a corpse. As you like-- sitting or lying down, but no catharsis of any kind in that half an hour. No sounds, no movements, no action of the body. Everything has to be made silent-body mind and speech, everything has to be made silent... thousd01

Dancing is not passive, it is very active. In the end you become movement; the body is forgotten, only movement remains. Really, dancing is a most unearthly thing, a most unearthly art, because it is just rhythm in movement. It is absolutely immaterial so you cannot hold on to it. You can hold on to the dancer, but never to the dancing. It just withers in the cosmos. It is there, and then it is not there; it is not here, and then suddenly

it is here--it comes out of nothing and it is here--it comes out of nothing and then, again, goes into nothing.

A dancer is sitting here; there is no dancing in him. But if a poet is sitting here, poetry may be in him; poetry can exist in the poet. A painter is here: in a very subtle way, painting is present. Before he paints, painting is there. But with a dancer nothing is present, and if it is present, then he is simply a technician and not a dancer. The movement is a new phenomenon coming in. The dancer becomes just a vehicle: the movement takes over....

Take any activity and go to the limit where there is either madness or meditation. Lukewarm search will not do. artof02

Laughing Meditation

Laughter needs a great learning, and laughter is a great medicine. It can cure many of your tensions, anxieties, worries; the whole energy can flow into laughter. And there is no need that there should be some occasion, some cause.

In my meditation camps I used to have a laughing meditation: for no reason, people would sit and just start laughing. At first they would feel a little awkward that there was no reason--but when everybody is doing it. they would also start. Soon, everybody was

in such a great laughter, people were rolling on the ground. They were laughing at the very fact that so many people were laughing for no reason at all; there was nothing, not even a joke had been told. And it went on like waves.

So there is no harm even just sitting in your room, close the doors and have one hour of

simple laughter. Laugh at yourself. But learn to laugh.

Seriousness is a sin, and it is a disease.

Laughter has tremendous beauty, a lightness. It will bring lightness to you, and it will give you wings to fly.

And life is so full of opportunities. You just need the sensitivity. And create chances for other people to laugh. Laughter should be one of the most valued, cherished qualities of human beings--because only man can laugh, no animals are capable of it.

Because it is human, it must be of the highest order. To repress it is to destroy a human quality. enligh27

Tratak Meditation

In the night we will have a third meditation, a group meditation. You have to stare at me-

-it is a tratak. I will be standing here; you have to stare at me without blinking. The eyes will get tired, tears will start rolling down--let them. Go on staring at me so that I can meet you, you can meet me. Just by talking meeting cannot take place. I talk only to persuade you into something else which cannot be given through talk. So talk is just a seduction for something else, for something else which cannot be communicated through words.

That's why this meditation is the last in the night. The whole day I prepare you. I prepare you to go more and more mad, so by the time night comes you are already insane and you can do something which the mind would not have allowed you to do--stare at me with nonblinking eyes. Why nonblinking eyes? When you blink, mind changes. You may not be aware that your blinking depends on the mind. When you are really interested in something blinking stops. That's why your eyes get tired in a film.

Watching a film, the film is not destructive to the eyes, but your eyes stop blinking. You are so interested you forget blinking. You go on staring, that's why your eyes get tired. And staring at a film is dangerous because you are staring at something which belongs to the lowest of the centers. So if you go to see a movie, if at all you go, continuously blink. Be less concerned with seeing and more concerned with blinking, so you are not hypnotized and the film cannot provoke your lowest center. All films are hitting at the sex center, that's their appeal.

In this third method in the night, you have to stare at me. I want to hit at your sahasrar, the peak, the last, the highest center. Unblinking will be needed as it is needed for the lowest center. Unblinking you look at me: the mind stops. Then a flow starts; then you and I are not two, a bridge is there. I can move in you, you can move in me--a deep communion is possible.

You will be standing while doing this, and you have to go on jumping with your hands raised so that you forget the feeling of the body and you become energy--jumping, moving, dynamic. As you are, your body has become static. With static energy communication is not possible; only with a moving energy, a jumping energy, is contact possible. When energy is static it becomes like ice--dead, frozen. When energy is moving the ice melts, it becomes a river, flowing. And if you go on moving, a moment comes when your energy is not even like water; it becomes like vapor--invisible, rising upwards.

Remember, ice is static, cannot move; water is moving, dynamic, but can only move downwards; vapor is invisible, moving, but can only move upwards. These are the three

states of your energy also. Every energy can have three states: the solid, the liquid, the vaporous.

You have to go on jumping with raised hands so you become a movement. Everybody will be jumping, and soon static energies will mingle with each other, they will become a dance. And you will be constantly, simultaneously, using the mantra hoo, so you are hitting your energy deep. Your energy starts moving upwards; your body has become flexible, liquid, vaporous, jumping, a dance; and constantly your eyes are static towards me, staring towards me, fixed towards me, and I can work on your highest center.

The whole situation is created: your energy moving, hoo constantly hitting at the source-- the lowest source of energy--forcing it to move upwards, you jumping, your eyes staring, mind in a stop, and me constantly working on your sahasrar.

I will be moving my hands just to give you hints. When I move my hands like this you have to go completely mad and become dynamic; just a dance, the dancer is lost. And sometimes, as I move my hands upwards, you have to bring more and more energy to movement. You don't know how much energy you have got; you are holding it. Don't be a miser, allow it. Let it flow, let your totality come into it.

Then there will be some moments when I will put my palms downwards. When I put my palms downwards that shows that now you are in such a vaporous state that a contact can be made. Now I can come to you, now I can touch your sahasrar. So when I put my palms downwards you have to bring all energy, whatsoever there is, to become the dance, the jump, the hoo. Bring your total energy in that moment, because in that moment a contact is possible, a shaktipat is possible.

And you will feel...if you really move with me you will feel the lotus in the head flowering. You will feel the silence that comes through it, the bliss that comes through it. You will feel the perfume that happens within through its flowering. Once this flower starts flowering you can never be the same again. Now you are on the path, now nothing can stop you. Now you can move alone, no master is needed.

A master is needed only up to that point when your budlike sahasrar opens. Once the master has helped you to open it, once the petals have started opening, you can be alone. Now no one is needed, now you have gone beyond all possibilities of falling. You can rise and only rise now, there is no possibility of any fall. You have come to the point which is called by Buddha the point of no return. Only up to that point is a master needed.

These will be the meditations that we will follow. I thought it would be good if I told you about everything so there would be no need again to talk about them. vedant01

Eyes are your doors for going out. Through eyes you are moving, through eyes the desire, through eyes the illusion, through eyes the projection--through eyes moves the whole world. But the innermost cannot be approached through the eyes. You will have to

become blind. Not that you have to throw away your eyes but that your eyes must become vacant, objectless, without dreams. Your eyes must become empty--empty of things, empty of pictures, empty of reflections.

If you can look into the eyes of an enlightened one, you will see they are totally different. A buddha looks at you and still he is not looking at you. You do not become a part of his eyes. His look is vacant. Sometimes you may get scared because you will feel that he is indifferent to you. He is looking at you so vacantly, not paying any attention to you.

Really, he cannot pay any attention to you. The attention is lost now; he has only awareness. He cannot be attentive to anything exclusively because that exclusiveness is created by desire. He looks at you as if not looking. You never become a part of his eyes. If you can become a part of his eyes, then you will become a part of his mind--because eyes are just the door for the mind; they go on collecting the outer world into the inner.

Eyes must become blind. Only then can you see your self. doctrn04

Surrendering to a master* is a minor surrender, but you begin to feel it because the master begins to flow into you immediately. If you surrender to a master, suddenly you feel his energy flowing into you. If you cannot feel energy flowing into you, then know well you have not surrendered even in a minor way....

Even in a minor surrender with a master, energy begins to flow. Suddenly, immediately, you become a vehicle of a great force.

There are thousands and thousands of stories. just by a touch, just by a look, someone

became enlightened. They do not appear rational to us. How is this possible? This is possible! Even a look from the master into your eyes will change your total being, but it can change only if your eyes are just vacant, valleylike. If you can absorb the look of the master, immediately you will be different.

So these are minor surrenders that happen before you surrender totally. And these minor surrenders prepare you for the total surrender. Once you have known that through surrender you receive something unknown, unbelievable, unexpected, never even dreamed of, then you are ready for a major surrender. And that is the work of the master-- to help you in minor surrenders so that you can gather courage for a major surrender, for a total surrender. vbt02

*Note: a banner over the podium announces: "I have come not to teach but to awaken. Surrender, and I will transform you. This is my promise" this concept is developed later, see Part VII.

Gibberish Meditation

In India we used to have camps where, in the afternoon, for one hour there would be a gibberish period, everybody saying whatsoever he wants to say--one thousand people together. It is not a conversation, because you are not talking to anybody, you are simply talking.

It was a rare experience--because I was the only listener and because of what people were saying! One day a man in front of me was phoning, actually talking on the phone. And I heard, "Hello, hello." Everyone looked: "What are you doing?" He was talking on a long- distance call with no phone, nothing. He was a businessman and just the habit...But it was a tremendously relaxing experience for people. After one hour talking nonsense...

One of my very intimate sannyasins...what happened to him was that just talking and shouting, he went and started pushing the car in which I had come. It was standing there on a slope. He was a very sane man but he was pushing the car and he was talking all the time against Jayantibhai, whose car it was that he was going to throw into the ditch. And they were friends--but something must have been incomplete in his mind. Somehow a few people stood up and prevented him. Because he was prevented, he climbed up a tree...and he is not mad! He started waving the branch of a tree so strongly that it seemed that it would break and he would come down on the whole group who was sitting underneath. And all the time he was shouting at Jayantibhai.

With difficulty he was brought down. And nobody had ever thought that this man would do such a thing.

After the hour was over he was so silent--more silent than anybody. I asked him, "How are you feeling?"

He said, "I am feeling more relaxed then I have ever felt in my life. Even though I have been doing stupid things...but you allowed us to do everything that we wanted to do, and I am feeling very relieved. A lot of burden is thrown away, and I am feeling so much love for Jayantibhai. All anger is gone."

The camp used to be for five days or seven days and that man on the phone continued for seven days, "Hello," and he was very serious. As the meditation would begin he would start phoning and he was certainly listening to something, and answering, and deciding about business. "Put this money there, and do this, and purchase that. This is the time to purchase it. Prices are going up." And so serious that finally the last day I asked him, "How are you feeling?"

He said, "I also wonder...this meditation is strange. I am not mad, and I know that there is no phone but that is the only idea that comes to me. And you have said, `You have to allow it.' And afterwards I feel for hours absolutely silent, joyous. A great burden..." It must have been his daily routine and he was missing it.

It has never been used by groups, but the very word `gibberish' comes from the name of a Sufi mystic, Jabbar. He used to talk nonsense. You would ask about the moon, and he would talk about the sun; he never answered the question he was asked. He would make up his own words.

It is because of his name, Jabbar, that the word gibberish came into being; it is the language of Jabbar. He is one of the enlightened Sufi masters. He used gibberish for others; otherwise he was silent. For days, if nobody came, he would be silent. If anybody came and said anything to him, then that person triggered him. Then he would say anything--sentences without meaning, words without meaning. You could not make any sense out of what he was saying.

Jabbar was asked again and again by his disciples, "Why do you do such things?-- otherwise you are so silent. Not only do people laugh at you, we all feel embarrassed that we are your disciples. And they think that we are idiots: what can we learn with this man?"

Only to his disciples would he say, "You know that these people are unnecessarily coming with questions. They don't intend to understand or to change, and my gibberish stops them from coming so I can work in silence with you. And it is good for my mind too, because most of the time I am silent. It is good, just as an exercise for the mind: if it is needed, I can use it. So just to check that it is still working, I use all this

gibberish." mystic15

But this is a strange world. The government of Rajasthan passed a resolution in their assembly that I cannot have camps in Mount Abu, because they had heard all these things were happening there--people who are perfectly alright become almost mad, start doing all kinds of things. Now these politicians in the assembly don't have any idea of human mind, its inhibitions and how to exhaust them, how to burn them. I had to stop that meditation because otherwise they were not going to allow me to have camps in Mount Abu. tahui20

Response to Meditations

It happens many times. It has been my own experience that people come to me and they say, "Now meditation is going deep but we are scared." An ultimate feeling is bound to come when you feel a "dying" fear, as if death is approaching near. When meditation comes to its peak it is deathlike. I tell them, "Don't worry, I am with you." Then they feel okay. I cannot be there--impossible! No one can be there. This is untrue. No one can be there, you will be alone. That point is one of total aloneness. But when I say, "I will be there, you don't worry, you go ahead," they feel okay and they move. If I say, "You will be alone and no one is going to be there," they will step back. The point has come where

fear is bound to be there. The abyss is there and they are going to fall--I must help them to fall. So I say that I am there, you just take the jump. And they take the jump! After the jump they will come to know that no one was there, but now, now the whole thing is finished. They cannot come back. This is a device.

All systems are devices to help: to help people who are full of doubts, to help people who have no trust, to help people who have no confidence. To help people to move into the unknown without fear, systems are created. In those systems everything is just like a myth, that is why there are so many systems. Mahavira creates his own--that system is created according to the needs of his followers. So he creates a system. It is a myth, but very helpful, because many moved through it and reached to the truth. And when they reached they knew that the system was false--but it worked. vbt76

If I tell you to run just now, you will say, "I am feeling sleepy, I cannot run." And then someone comes and says, "Your house is on fire." Suddenly the sleepiness has gone. There is no tiredness, you feel fresh; you start running. What has happened so suddenly? You were tired, and the emergency has made you connected with the second layer of energy, so you are fresh again. This is the second layer. In this (active) technique, the second layer has to be exhausted. The first layer is exhausted very easily. Continue. You will feel tired, but continue. And within a few moments a new surge of energy will come, and you will feel again renewed and there will be no tiredness.

So many people come to me and they say, "When we are in a meditation camp, it seems miraculous that we can do this much. In the morning, for one hour meditating actively, chaotically, going completely mad. And then in the afternoon we do an hour, and then in the night also. Three times a day we can go on meditating chaotically." Many have said that they feel that this is impossible, that they cannot continue and they will be dead tired, and the next day it will be impossible to move any limb of the body. But no one gets tired. Three sessions every day, doing such exertions, and no one is tired. Why? Because they are in contact with the second layer of energy.

But if you are doing it alone--go to a hill and do it alone--you will become tired. When the first layer is finished you will feel, "Now I am tired." But in a big group of five hundred people doing meditation, you feel, "No one is tired, so I should continue a little more." And everyone is thinking the same: "No one is tired, so I should continue a little more. If everyone is fresh and doing, why should I feel tired?"

That group feeling gives you an impetus, and soon you reach the second layer. And the second layer is very big--an emergency layer. When the emergency layer is also tired, finished, only then are you in contact with the cosmic, the source, the infinite.

That is why much exertion is needed--so much that you feel, "Now it is going beyond me." The first moment you feel it is going beyond you, it is not going beyond you--it is just going beyond the first layer. And when the first layer is finished, you will feel tired. When the second layer is finished, you will feel, "If I do anything now, I will be dead." So many come to me, and they say that whenever they reach deep in meditation, a

moment comes when they become afraid and scared and they say, "Now I am afraid. It seems as if I am going to die. Now I cannot penetrate any further. A fear grips me, as if I am going to die, now I will not be able to come out of meditation."

That is the right moment--the moment when you need courage. A little courage, and you will penetrate the third, the deepest, infinite layer. vbt17

I often see small trivialities become hindrances. A man is trying to save his clothes, save his body. While meditating, someone is pushed and jostled. He saves himself by coming out of the group. He sits outside, away from the other meditators. How long will he save his body? He is trying to save it from a small push, but what will happen at the time of the final push? It will be better if one becomes accustomed to small pushes, so that when the last push comes, he won't get frightened. The last push cannot be avoided.

If the sun is hot, the meditator gives up. What difference does it make? He will perspire a little more, his skin will get tanned. If not today then tomorrow, that skin is going to burn to black coal and ash. What today you are saving from the hot sun, tomorrow your own relatives will burn. But we are so busy saving these layers that can never be saved; and what is saved for us forever, we do not even care to know. We become entangled and lost in trivialities and waste our precious lives.

The sage says it is imperishable. He advises us to go in search for that which is imperishable. Whoever the immortal and the imperishable is rich; all others are poor. He has gained that which cannot be stolen by thieves, cannot be burnt by fire or destroyed by weapons, and cannot be killed or obliterated. Now there remains no form. And whenever someone jumps deep into the flow of the immortal, he finds that everything there is unchangeable. thousd03

I have come across many intelligent people who go on saying very unintelligent things about meditation. One man came from Delhi; he is a big government official. He came only for the purpose of learning meditation here. He had come from Delhi, and he stayed seven days here. I told him to go to the morning meditation class on Chowpatty beach in Bombay*, but he said, "But that is difficult. I cannot get up so early." And he will never think over what his mind has told him. Is this so difficult? Now you will know: the exercise can be simple, but your mind is not so simple. The mind says, "How can I get up in the morning at six o'clock?" vbt02

*Note: Dynamic Meditation took place every morning at 6am on Chowpatty Beach near Woodlands Apartment, which Osho did not attend

Only two or three days before, one old lady was here. Her husband is doing meditation deeply. Now she has become worried because he has become more silent. She came to tell me, "My husband has become more silent, and I fear that if this goes on he may become a sannyasin. He may leave us, he may renounce us. So stop my husband from meditation." So I asked her if he had become more of a bad man than he was before. She said, "No, he has become more good. He is not angry now as he was before. He is more

loving, more compassionate. But the whole family has become disturbed. There is a fear that he may leave us."

This fear was not only the fear of the wife. I asked her husband also. He said, "I myself have become uneasy--because the silence is going in, and as the silence is going in everything begins to look different. My family doesn't look to be at all mine. It is as if it is someone else's family. I feel more compassion for the children, but now they are not 'mine'. I am doing everything for them and I will go on doing it, but it is as if I am doing it in a play, in a drama. 'I' am not involved, so I myself have become afraid. If this goes on, then anything can happen. Any day I may leave them."

This fear was of the unknown. A fixed pattern had been there; now a new factor entered it. And that new factor is so alive, it will change everything. So he asked me, "If you tell me to stop, I will stop meditation. And then, in my family, everyone will be happy."

You are afraid of your freedom and everyone else is also afraid of your freedom, so we have a society of slaves. And in our families we have such a deep investment. That is why we do not move toward freedom.

Every moment you are free to choose. You can choose spirituality every moment, or you can choose old habits. To be with old habits is easy. You know them; you have lived them. Nothing is new. With the new you are in the unknown, in the dark. You have to learn again. So a person who is moving in freedom has to be a learner every moment.

And he cannot rely on the past. The past will not help. ult206

Mind is the difficulty, the problem. Our minds are trained scientifically. Our minds are trained analytically. And the method of analysis has some basic qualities: one quality is always to be the outsider.

For example, someone came to me last night, and he said...he was here for the first time; he observed your meditation, he came to me and he said, "This looks absolutely foolish." He is right in a way; it looks foolish whether it is or not. But when he says it looks foolish, he is saying something about himself, not about the meditation. It looks foolish to him. But how could he judge? He was not a participant; he was not in it, he was not doing it--he was observing.

Science observes from the outside; religion goes deep. Religion means involvement, looking at things from inside. A religious person will never say, "It looks foolish." He will say, "It looks strange." He will say, "It looks mysterious." This judgment shows much about the person. He can judge a thing without knowing it; he can judge a thing without experiencing it.

So I told the man, "Rethink the whole thing--whether your judgment is foolish or the persons who were doing it were foolish. Rethink it, because to judge a thing from outside is not good; it is not good, it is fallacious. To judge so immediately is not even scientific.

And to judge according to one's own fixed mind and attitude, according to one's prejudices is not just."

But science goes on, logic goes on, mind goes on in this way: judging everything from the outside. From the outside you can be aware only of parts. You can see my hands, you can see my eyes, you can see my face, you can see my legs, but you cannot see me. I am something else existing inside. Parts exist as my outside. I am the inside of my parts, and that inside is the whole. Someone jumping, crying, weeping or laughing in meditation, may look foolish--but from the outside. You don't know what is happening inside him.

What is happening inside him? How can you know from the outside? If he is weeping, what is going on inside him? What is happening to the whole inside? This weeping, if you take it as a part then it is foolish, it is meaningless. If you take it as a whole, deep down something must be happening there which is being released by the tears. Deep down something must be exploding which is being thrown out by his cries and screams. Deep down something must have been moving which is shown by his mad movements. Deep down something so new is happening, something exploding, some inner energy moving through new centers. But that is something inside, and you cannot observe it.

You have to go through it.

You can be a participant but not an observer in religion. thou31

In the last Abu Shivir, there was one person, very learned and holding a government job. For two days he watched. He came to me and said, "I shall not be able to do this that the others are doing." I said, "How can you say you will not be able to do it? Have you tried or without trying you say this? Or is it because you are afraid that what is within will come out. What is the reason?" Our friend looked a little frightened. He glanced hesitantly at his wife who was sitting by his side.

I told his wife to leave us alone for perhaps he was not prepared to give up his intellectualism before her. Then he said, "This is my fear that if I begin to jump and dance, perhaps I shall cause a lot of confusion".

I told him, "Go ahead and cause as much confusion as you like. Try it out once. You will then get acquainted with a completely new part of yourself. That is your authentic face which comes up in your unguarded moment and over which you have no control. It comes up for a moment and is hidden again."

Psychologists say that anger is temporary madness. It is madness in its complete form, only temporary. It lasts a short while and hence you are not aware of it. If it becomes permanent, you will go mad. That which is temporary, can become permanent any time.

I advised him to try, "Shall I try? Shall I dare?" I told him it is no question of trying or daring. You will have tied a band on your eyes and when you feel the madness coming, forget that you are a big official, that you are an educated and intelligent man."

The third day I saw him jumping. He was a different person altogether. He came to me and said, "I feel so free and light! So much so, I feel I shall fly away. God knows how many maladies have left me. Now I feel, whatever you say, will come within my understanding."

The guard of intellectualism that stands watch on our mind has to be removed. Then only can understanding penetrate within you. So first do something to break this so-called understanding. way115

You ask: We can practice right behavior, and behavior according to duty, but then we will be wearing false faces, as we are inwardly, as You say, a madhouse. So should we act as we feel, or act as we ought?

The first thing to be understood: you have to be authentic to yourself--sincere, honest. But that doesn't mean that you have to hurt others through your honesty and sincerity, that doesn't mean that you have to disturb others, that doesn't mean that you have to disturb the rules of the game. All relationships are just rules of the game, and many times you will have to act and wear masks, false faces. The only thing to remember is: don't become the mask. Use it if it is good, and keep the rules, but don't become the mask, don't get identified. Act it, don't get identified with it.

This is a great problem, particularly in the West for the new generation. They have heard too much; they have already been seduced by this idea: be sincere and be honest. This is good, but you don't know how cunning and destructive the mind is. Your mind can find excuses. You can say a truth, not because you love truth so much but just to hurt somebody; you can use it as a weapon. And if you are using it as a weapon it is not truth, it is worse than a lie.

Sometimes you can help somebody through a lie, and sometimes relationship becomes more easy through a lie. Then use it--but don't get identified with it. What I am saying is: Be a good player, learn the rules of the game; don't be too adamant about anything....

Everything helps you to grow in its own way.

The one thing to remember is: life is a great complexity. You are not alone here, there are many others related to you. Be sincere unto yourself, never be false there. Know well what you want, and for yourself remain that. But there are others also; don't unnecessarily hurt them. And if you need to wear masks, wear them and enjoy them, but remember, they are not your original face, and be capable of taking them off any moment. Remain the master, don't become the slave; otherwise you can be violent through your sincerity, unnecessarily you can be violent.

I have seen persons who are cruel, violent, aggressive, sadistic--but sincere, very true, authentic. But they are using their authenticity just for their sadism. They want to make others suffer, and their trick is such that you cannot escape them. They are true, so you

cannot say, "You are bad." They are good people, they are never bad, so no one can say to them, "You are bad." They are always good, and they do the bad through their good.

Don't do that, and don't take life too seriously. Nothing is wrong in masks also, faces also. Just as in the drama on the stage they use faces and enjoy and the audience also enjoys, why not enjoy them in real life also? It is not more than a drama. But I am not saying for you to be dishonest. Be sincere with yourself, don't get identified. But life is great; there are many around you related in many invisible nets. Don't hurt anybody....

Others are there, consider them, and don't try to be violent through so-called good things. So when it is said, "right conduct," it means right relationship with others. You need not be false. When you can be true without hurting anybody, be true. But if you feel that your truth is going to hurt many and is unnecessary, it can be avoided, then avoid it, because it is not only going to hurt others, it will create patterns of cause, and those causes will return as effects on you, they will become your karmas. Then you will get entangled, and the more entangled you are the more you will have to behave in wrong ways.

Just stop. Just see the situation. If you can be true without hurting anybody, be true. To me, love is greater than truth. Be loving. And if you feel that your truth will be hurtful and violent, it is better to lie than to be true. Wait for the right moment when you can be true, and help the other person to come to such a state where your truth will not hurt him. Don't be in a hurry.

And life is a big drama; don't take it too seriously--because seriousness is also a disease of the mind, seriousness is part of the ego. Be playful, don't be too serious. So sometimes you will have to use masks, because there are children around you and they like masks, they like false faces, and they enjoy. Help them to grow so they can face the real face, they can encounter it. But before they can encounter it, don't create any trouble. Right conduct is just consideration for others.

And look: there is a great difference. You may misunderstand what I am saying. When you lie, you lie for yourself. And I am saying: if you need, and if you feel the need to lie, only lie for the consideration of others. Never lie for yourself, don't use any mask for yourself. But if you feel it is going to help others, it will be good for them, use the mask. And inside remain alert that this is just a game you are acting, this is not real....

To me, and to the Upanishads also, right conduct means just the right rules of behavior with others. You are not going to be here forever. You cannot change the whole world, you cannot change everybody; you can at the most change yourself. So it is better to change yourself inwardly, and don't try to be in a continuous fight with everybody. Avoid fight--and faces can be helpful. Avoid unnecessary struggle, because that dissipates energy. Preserve your energy to be used for the inner work. And that work is so significant and it needs all your energy that you can give to it, so don't waste it in unnecessary things.

For the outside world remain an actor, and don't think that you are deceiving anybody. If they like deception, that's what they need, that's what should be given to them. If children like toys to play with, you are not deceiving them. Don't give them a real gun; let them play with the toy gun, because they like the toy. And don't think that the toy gun is false; don't think, "I must be true, I must give a real gun to the child. If he needs a gun, then I must give the true thing. How can I give the toy? This is a deception."

But the child needs the toy, there is no deception; he doesn't need the real gun. So just look at the other, at what he needs, and give him that which he needs. Don't give out of your own consideration, give out of consideration for him. Look at him, study and observe him, and behave in such a way that will be helpful to him and will not be unnecessary trouble for you. This is all that is meant by right conduct. vedant07

Only love can become an antidote. Otherwise when the energy comes to you and you are overfilled with it, you will start dominating. This happens every day. I have come across many, many people. I start helping them, they will grow a little, and the moment they

feel that a certain energy is coming to them they will start dominating others, they will try now to use it.

Remember, never use spiritual energy to dominate. You are wasting your efforts. Sooner or later you will be empty again, and you will fall down suddenly. And this is pure wastage, but it is very difficult to control it because you become aware that now you can do certain things. If you touch someone who was ill and he becomes okay, how can you resist touching others now? How can you resist?

If you cannot resist, you will waste your energy. Something has happened to you, but soon you will throw it away unnecessarily. And really, the mind is so cunning that you may be thinking that you are helping others by healing them. That may be just a cunning trick of the mind, because if you have no love, how can you be so concerned with others' diseases, their illnesses, their health? You are not concerned. Really, now this is a power. If you can heal, you can dominate them.

You may say, "I am just helping them," but even in your help you are simply trying to dominate them. Your ego will be fulfilled. This will become a food for your ego. So all the old treatises say beware. They say beware because when the energy comes to you, you are at a dangerous point. You can waste it, you can throw it away. When you feel any energy, make it a secret; do not allow anyone to know about it. vbt22

Remember this, don't guide anyone unless you have a certain knowledge, a certain experience. And even then, tell others that "this is my experience. It may not be so for you. It is how I have come to it. Your way may differ; it may not prove true for you. So don't take my advice blindly. You can experiment with it. It is an open experiment."

Then you can be of some help. Otherwise, you can create disturbances. Don't get tempted. Don't advise unless you really know. Don't guide. First be a disciple; don't try to be a master. Mastership will come. When your discipleship has become complete and

total, the master will emerge within you. But not before that moment, not before that time. Wait for it. It happens. alchem14

Now, in India you cannot prevent anybody from any kind of meditation. That word is enough! When I started teaching people dynamic meditation, there was trouble everywhere, even in my own house. My uncle started doing it, and the neighbor filed a case against him in the court. My uncle told me, "This is a difficult meditation. That neighbor was my friend, and he would not normally do such a thing, but he is so angry that he says, 'unless you stop this meditation I am going to fight the case, because you disturb me early in the morning; when one really feels like falling into a deep sleep, that is the time of your dynamic!"'

But I told my uncle--and he is our sannyasin; he was here just a few days ago--"Don't be worried. You just say that this is our religion, and this is our meditation." Once you say "meditation" in India, there is no problem.

When he came here, I asked, "What happened to the case?"

He said, "We have won the case, because I said, 'This is our meditation,' and I produced the book.

"The judge read the description and he said, 'If it is a meditation, then...the court has no power over religion.' So he told the neighbor,'You have to accept it, there is no other way. This is his meditation. If you want to do it, you can also do it. Why get unnecessarily boiled up and angry in your bed?--better you also start.'"

And the neighbor was very irritated with the court.

He said, "This is strange--the court suggesting, 'You also start, why waste time? And if it is meditation, we have no jurisdiction over religion.'" ignor21

It happened at a camp in Matheran. I was staying very far away from the campus ground. The first evening, when I was going to my bungalow, a dog followed--really a rare dog. Then the dog remained continuously. Three times I would go to conduct the camp, and three times I would return. It was half an hour's journey. Three times I was asleep, and he would sit just on the veranda. Even when he went to eat something he never left me. For the whole camp this was his routine. He would follow me to the camp, and when others were meditating he would sit more silently, more deeply, than those who were attending the camp. And then he would go back with me.

The last day, when I left Matheran by train, he followed the train. He was running by the side of the train, and the guard took compassion on him and he took him in. Up to Neral he came. This train was a slow train, a toy train, coming from Matheran to Neral, traveling just seven miles in two hours, and the dog could follow. But from Neral it is a fast train, when I took the train from Neral to Bombay others were standing there on the platform weeping and crying, and the dog was also standing there in tears. wing09

Osho’s Discourses

Throughout his four years in Bombay Osho gives discourses and recorded interviews in Woodlands Apartment. He gives many series of lectures in city auditoriums, and holds regular talks in the Cross Maidan attended by up to 70,000 people. These are followed by meditations or kirtan and shaktipat.

The world-famous journalist and writer, Aubrey Menon, has written a book, The New Mystics. He has written about me in that book that when he encountered me in Bombay in a Cross Maidan meeting of almost fifty thousand people, he could not believe his eyes. He writes that he had been sitting in the front row when President Kennedy was speaking, but he could not feel anything. The speech was written by his secretary, it was not spontaneous. "It was ordinary, it did not touch anybody's heart. I came away utterly frustrated."

He had been in the rallies of Adolf Hitler, who was thought to be one of the greatest orators. But, he says, when he heard me, he heard a totally different kind of being.

Adolf Hitler was simply shouting slogans without any meaning, even nonsensical. He was telling the Germans, "All our miseries are because of the Jews." The fact was that the Jews were the richest people in Germany, and his eye was on their riches. "Kill the Jews and take all their money and all their factories and all their businesses!" And he convinced the so-called intellectuals of Germany--even Martin Heidegger, one of the most famous philosophers of this century--that Jews were the problem. "Because of the Jews, Germany is not able to conquer the whole world, so first finish the Jews."

Absolutely absurd.

Aubrey Menon writes, "I could not feel any conviction in what he was saying."

And when he heard me... I am absolutely spontaneous, simple. I don't know what word is going to come next, I don't know what I am going to say to you. I just face you and allow my being to be poured into your hearts. He felt it, and he could not believe that fifty thousand people were sitting so silently as if there was no one--pindrop silence. He says, "I understood the meaning of the phrase for the first time."

You can experience it here. 1seed04

When I am speaking to you, it is in fact the universe using me. My words are not my words; they belong to the universal truth. That is their power, that is their charisma, that is their magic. satyam07

I cannot give you my understanding. I can talk about it, but I cannot give it to you. You will have to find it. You will have to go into life. You will have to err; you will have to fail; you will have to pass through many frustrations. But only through failures, errors, frustrations, only through the encounter of real living, will you come to meditation. That is why I say it is a growth....

Nothing more can come from someone else, nothing more can be delivered. But intellectual understanding can be enough. If you can understand what I am saying intellectually, you can also understand what has not been said. You can also understand the gaps: what I am not saying, what I cannot say. The first understanding is bound to be intellectual, because the intellect is the door. It can never be spiritual. Spirituality is the inner shrine.

I can only communicate to you intellectually. If you can really understand it, then what has not been said can be felt. I cannot communicate without words, but when I am using words I am also using silences. You will have to be aware of both. If only words are being understood then it is a communication; but if you can be aware of the gaps also, then it is a communion. eso02

If you tie down both my hands I cannot speak. I simply cannot speak. I will simply be at a loss for what to do, because my hands are so deeply connected with my expressions.

And you must know that each hand is connected to one hemisphere of the mind, the left hand with the right hemisphere, the right hand with the left hemisphere. They are extensions of your mind. So whenever I speak, I am speaking through two mediums: through words and through hands. Each gesture of the hand helps me to give expression to a certain idea. If my hands are tied down, it is impossible for me to say anything. I have tried it, and I suddenly find speaking absolutely difficult. I want to say something, and I say something else. The whole thing is that the rhythm with my hands is disturbed. mystic17

Shaktipat Experiments

Shaktipat is the energy of a Master which may trigger energy in people, producing involuntary physical and emotional responses like crying, laughing, chaotic breathing, shaking, trembling, and celebrating.

The instructions are: 20 minutes instrumental music, followed by 20 minutes silence, followed by 20 minutes music. During the music people are to express whatever comes. People are requested to bring a flower with them.

"You have nothing to do; you are not the doer. Only be empty, so that I can enter you and work. On your part only surrender is required. Then I will do the rest. But once I enter

you, then let any reactions happen and cooperate completely with them." Sannyas magazine March-Apr 1973

A friend asks: What is shaktipat or energy transmission? And is it possible that someone can transmit divine energy?

No one can do shaktipat, no one can transmit energy; but someone can be a vehicle for such transmission. It is true that no one can do it. And if somebody claims that he can do it, he is indulging in sheer deception. No one can do it, and yet in some moment transmission of energy can happen through someone. If that someone is totally empty and surrendered, shaktipat can happen in his presence. He can work as a conductor, as a catalytic agent, but not knowingly. Through him God's infinite energy can enter into another person.

No one can be a catalytic agent knowingly, because the first condition to act as conductor is that you should not know it, that you have no ego. Ego disqualifies a person for being a medium for shaktipat. With ego one becomes a non conductor of energy; divine energy cannot flow through him. So if there is a person whose ego is completely wiped out, who is absolutely empty inside and is a total void, who is doing nothing for you, really who does not do a thing--then through his emptiness, through his void, which acts as a passage, God's energy can certainly reach you. And its speed can be very fast. Remember this when you come here for tomorrow's meditation.

With this I should also give you a couple of informations for tomorrow.

Shaktipat means that God's energy has descended on you. It: can be possible in two ways. Either it arises from you and joins God's energy or it flows from God and joins you. It is the same thing viewed from two sides; or these are two ways of seeing the same thing.

For example, there is a tumbler half filled with water. Someone can say that it is half filled and another can say that it is half empty. And if they are philosophers they can argue it endlessly and come to no conclusion, because both statements are correct.

Energy descends from above and it can ascend from below, too. And when the two energies meet, when your latent energy meets with the energy of infinity--the explosion happens.

This explosion is unpredictable; nor can it be said what this explosion does. And what happens after this explosion, this too cannot be said. Through out history, those who have been blessed with this explosion of energy have been shouting from rooftops: "Come one, come all, and pass through this explosion and see for yourself what it is. Something has happened here which is simply inexpressible, utterly indescribable."

Shaktipat means the descent of energy from beyond. It can descend. In fact it descends every day. And this energy chooses for its vehicle a person who is empty in every way, who is utterly egoless. He alone turns into its catalytic agent, just a vehicle and nothing else. But even if a little trace of ego is there, even if he thinks that he can do it, he ceases to be the conduit. Then energy cannot flow from him. mirac106

Osho’s discourse series:

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra

From October 1972 to November 1973 Osho gives his well-known series of 80 commentaries in English on Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, the 112 meditation techniques given by Shiva to his consort Devi.

Perhaps I am the only one who has spoken on 112 methods of meditation. There is no other literature on those 112 meditations, and I have developed many new meditations which are not included among those. There is great need for literature on meditation from different angles, because there are meditations which you can do while doing anything. It is just an inner process. There are meditations which need specific times. There are meditations which you can do only while making love. There are meditations which need a certain kind of a structure. So much possibility is there for writing theses on meditations. last323

Paul Reps is still alive somewhere in California (1981). He has in this small book not only collected Zen anecdotes but also _Vigyan Bhairav Tantra--_the one hundred and twelve sutras of Shiva to Parvati, his beloved, in which Shiva talks about all the keys possible. I cannot conceive that there can be anything more to meditation than Vigyan Bhairav Tantra. One hundred and twelve keys are enough--they seem to be enough; one hundred and thirteen will not look like a right number. One hundred and twelve looks really esoteric, beautiful.

This book is very small, you can carry it in your pocket; it is a pocketbook. But you can also carry the Kohinoor in your pocket...although the Kohinoor is studded in the British crown, and you cannot carry that in your pocket. But the most beautiful thing about Paul Reps is that he has not added a single word of his own--which is incredible. He has simply translated, just translated... books15

Some introductory points. First, the world of Vigyan Bhairav Tantra is not intellectual, it is not philosophical. Doctrine is meaningless to it. It is concerned with method, with technique--not with principles at all. The word 'tantra' means technique, the method, the path. So it is not philosophical--note this. It is not concerned with intellectual problems and inquiries. It is not concerned with the "why" of things, it is concerned with "how"; not with what is truth, but how the truth can be attained.

Tantra means technique. So this treatise is a scientific one. Science is not concerned with why, science is concerned with how. That is the basic difference between philosophy and science....

The second thing: this is a different type of language. You must know something about it before we enter into it. All the tantra treatises are dialogues between Shiva and Devi.

Devi questions and Shiva answers. All the tantra treatises start that way. Why? Why this method? It is very significant. It is not a dialogue between a teacher and a disciple, it is a dialogue between two lovers. And tantra signifies through it a very meaningful thing: that the deeper teachings cannot be given unless there is love between the two--the disciple and the master. The disciple and master must become deep lovers. Only then can the higher, the beyond, be expressed.

So it is a language of love; the disciple must be in an attitude of love. But not only this, because friends can be lovers. Tantra says a disciple moves as receptivity, so the disciple must be in a feminine receptivity; only then is something possible. You need not be a woman to be a disciple, but you need to be in a feminine attitude of receptivity....

Thirdly, the very words Vigyan Bhairav Tantra mean the technique of going beyond consciousness. Vigyan means consciousness, bhairav means the state which is beyond consciousness, and tantra means the method: the method of going beyond consciousness. This is the supreme doctrine--without any doctrine....

Shiva will answer. His answers are techniques--the oldest, most ancient techniques. But you can call them the latest also because nothing can be added to them. They are complete--one hundred and twelve techniques. They have taken in all the possibilities, all the ways of cleaning the mind, transcending the mind. Not a single method could be added to Shiva's one hundred and twelve methods. And this book, Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, is five thousand years old. Nothing can be added; there is no possibility to add anything. It is exhaustive, complete. It is the most ancient and yet the latest, yet the newest. Old like old hills--the methods seem eternal--and they are new like a dewdrop before the sun, because they are so fresh.

These one hundred and twelve methods of meditation constitute the whole science of transforming mind. We will enter them one by one. We will try to comprehend first intellectually. But use your intellect only as an instrument, not as a master. Use it as an instrument to understand something, but do not go on creating barriers with it. When we will be talking about these techniques, just put aside your past knowledge, your knowing, whatsoever information you have collected. Put them aside--they are just dust gathered on the road.

Encounter these methods with a fresh mind--with alertness, of course, but not with argumentation. And do not create the fallacy that an argumentative mind is an alert mind. It is not, because the moment you move into arguments you have lost the awareness, you have lost the alertness. Then you are not here.

These methods do not belong to any religion. Remember, they are not Hindu, just as the theory of relativity is not Jewish because Einstein conceived it....

Choose a technique which fits you, put your total energy into it, and you will not be the same again. Real, authentic techniques always will be like that....

We will try to understand each method and how to choose for yourself one method which can change you and your mind. This understanding, this intellectual understanding will be a basic necessity, but this is not the end. Whatsoever I talk about here, try it.

Really, when you try the right method it clicks immediately. So I will go on talking about methods here every day. You try them. Just play with them--go home and try. The right method, whenever you happen upon it, just clicks. Something explodes in you, and you know that "This is the right method for me." But effort is needed, and you may be surprised that suddenly one day one method has gripped you.

So while I am talking here, parallel to it go on playing with these methods. I say playing because you should not be too serious. Just play! Something may fit you. If it fits you, then be serious, and then go deep into it--intensely, honestly, with all your energy, with all your mind. But before that just play.

I have found that while you are playing your mind is more open. While you are serious your mind is not so open; it is closed. So just play. Do not be too serious, just play. And these methods are simple, you can just play with them.

Take one method and play with it for at least three days. If it gives you a certain feeling of affinity, if it gives you a certain feeling of well-being, if it gives you a certain feeling that this is for you, then be serious about it. Then forget the others, do not play with other methods. Stick to it--at least for three months. Miracles are possible. The only thing is that the technique must be for you. If the technique is not for you, then nothing happens. Then you may go on with it for lives together, but nothing will happen. If the method is for you then even three minutes are enough.

So these one hundred and twelve methods can be a miraculous experience for you, or they may just be a listening--it depends on you. I will go on describing each method from as many angles as possible. If you feel any affinity with it, play with it for three days. If you feel that it fits, that something clicks in you, continue it for three months.

Life is a miracle. If you have not known its mystery, that only shows that you do not know the technique for how to approach it.

Shiva proposes one hundred and twelve methods. These are all the methods possible. If nothing clicks and nothing gives you the feeling that this is for you, then there is no method left for you--remember this. Then forget spirituality and be happy. Then it is not for you.

But these one hundred and twelve methods are for the whole humanity--for all the ages that have passed and for all the ages that have yet to come. In no time has there ever been a single man, and there will never be one, who can say, "These one hundred and twelve methods are all useless for me." Impossible! This is impossible!

Every type of mind has been taken into account. Every possible type of mind has been given a technique in tantra. There are many techniques for which no man exists yet; they are for the future. There are many techniques for which no man exists now; they are for the past. But do not be afraid. There are many methods which are for you.

So we will start this journey from tomorrow. vbt01

I will be talking here about these one hundred and twelve methods not to feed your mind, not to make you more knowledgeable, not to make you more informed. I am not trying to make you a pundit. I am talking here in order to give you a certain technique which can change your life. vbt04

I claim to have the first and the last religion, for the simple reason that except meditation I have nothing else. So I have found the very essential core; no garbage around it, nothing non-essential, just a simple methodology. And I have looked into all the methods of meditation--there are one hundred and twelve methods.

I have spoken on the one hundred and twelve methods of meditation, and out of one hundred and twelve methods that have been practiced in the East by these three religions, I have chosen one essential point that connects all those one hundred and twelve methods. They differ only in small details, but their basic foundation is witnessing. last202

For example, in this series Osho comments on a meditation technique for lovers:

The second sutra: When in such embrace your senses are shaken as leaves, enter this shaking.

When in such embrace, in such deep communion with the beloved or the lover, your senses are shaken as leaves, enter this shaking. We have even become afraid: while making love you do not allow your bodies to move much, because if your bodies are allowed much movement the sex act spreads all over your body. You can control it when it is localized at the sex center. The mind can remain in control. When it spreads all over your body, you cannot control it. You may start shaking, you may start screaming, and you will not be able to control your body once the body takes over.

We suppress movements. Particularly, all over the world, we suppress all movements, all shaking for women. They remain just like dead bodies. You are doing something to them; they are not doing anything to you. They are just passive partners. Why is this happening? Why all over the world do men suppress women in such a way? There is

fear--because once a woman's body becomes possessed, it is very difficult for a man to satisfy her: because a woman can have chain orgasms; a man cannot have. A man can have only one orgasm; a woman can have chain orgasms. There are cases of multiple orgasms reported. Any woman can have at least three orgasms in a chain, but man can have only one. And with man's orgasm, the woman is aroused and is ready for further orgasms. Then it is difficult. Then how to manage it?...

Shake! Vibrate! Allow every cell of your body to dance, and this should be for both. The beloved is also dancing, every cell vibrating. Only then can you both meet, and then that meeting is not mental. It is a meeting of your bioenergies.

Enter this shaking, and while shaking don't remain aloof. Don't be a spectator, because mind is the spectator. Don't stand aloof! Be the shaking, become the shaking. Forget everything and become the shaking. It is not that your body is shaking: it is you, your whole being. You become the shaking itself. Then there are not two bodies, two minds. In the beginning, there are two shaking energies, and in the end just a circle--not two.

What will happen in this circle? One, you will be part of an existential force--not a societal mind, but an existential force. You will be part of the whole cosmos. In that shaking you will be part of the whole cosmos. That moment is of great creation. You are dissolved as solid bodies. You have become liquid--flowing into each other. The mind is lost, the division is lost. You have a oneness.

This is advaita, this is nonduality. And if you cannot feel this nonduality, then all the philosophies of nonduality are useless. They are just words. Once you know this nondual existential moment, then only can you understand the Upanishads. Then only you can understand the mystics--what they are talking about when they talk of a cosmic oneness, a wholeness. Then you are not separate from the world, not alien to it. Then the existence becomes your home. And with that feeling that "Now I am at home in the existence," all worries are lost. Then there is no anguish, no struggle, no conflict. This is what Lao Tzu calls Tao, what Shankara calls advaita. You can choose your own word for it, but through a deep love embrace it is easy to feel it. But be alive, shaking, and become the shaking itself. vbt33

Tantra is not to help your indulgence, it is to transform it. So do not deceive yourself. Through tantra you can deceive yourself very easily, and because of this possibility of deception Mahavira would not describe tantra. This possibility is always there. And man is so deceptive that he can show one thing when he really means another, he can rationalize. vbt32

Osho’s discourse series: Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega

In December 1973 Osho begins the 10-part series in English on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, about the science of meditation.

Before we talk about the first sutra of Patanjali, a few other things have to be understood. First, yoga is not a religion--remember that. Yoga is not Hindu, it is not Mohammedan.

Yoga is a pure science just like mathematics, physics or chemistry. Physics is not

Christian, physics is not Buddhist. If Christians have discovered the laws of physics, then too physics is not Christian. It is just accidental that Christians have come to discover the laws of physics. But physics remains just a science. Yoga is a science--it is just an accident that Hindus discovered it. It is not Hindu. It is a pure mathematics of the inner being. So a Mohammedan can be a yogi, a Christian can be a yogi, a Jaina, a Buddhist can be a yogi.

Yoga is pure science, and Patanjali is the greatest name as far as the world of yoga is concerned. This man is rare. There is no other name comparable to Patanjali. For the first time in the history of humanity, this man brought religion to the state of a science: he made religion a science, bare laws; no belief is needed....

Yoga is concerned with your total being, with your roots. It is not philosophical. So with Patanjali we will not be thinking, speculating. With Patanjali we will be trying to know the ultimate laws of being: the laws of its transformation, the laws of how to die and how to be reborn again, the laws of a new order of being. That is why I call it a science.

Patanjali is rare. He is an enlightened person like Buddha, like Krishna, like Christ, like Mahavira, Mohammed, Zarathustra, but he is different in one way. Buddha, Krishna, Mahavira, Zarathustra, Mohammed, no one has a scientific attitude. They are great founders of religions. They have changed the whole pattern of human mind and its structure, but their approach is not scientific.

Patanjali is like an Einstein in the world of Buddhas. He is a phenomenon. He could have easily been a Nobel Prize winner like an Einstein or Bohr or Max Planck, Heisenberg. He has the same attitude, the same approach of a rigorous scientific mind. He is not a poet; Krishna is a poet. He is not a moralist; Mahavira is a moralist. He is basically a scientist, thinking in terms of laws. And he has come to deduce absolute laws of human being, the ultimate working structure of human mind and reality.

And if you follow Patanjali, you will come to know that he is as exact as any mathematical formula. Simply do what he says and the result will happen. The result is bound to happen; it is just like two plus two, they become four. It is just like you heat water up to one hundred degrees and it evaporates. No belief is needed: you simply do it and know. It is something to be done and known. That's why I say there is no comparison. On this earth, never a man has existed like Patanjali.

You can find in Buddha's utterances, poetry--bound to be there. Many times while Buddha is expressing himself, he becomes poetic. The realm of ecstasy, the realm of ultimate knowing, is so beautiful, the temptation is so much to become poetic, the beauty is such, the benediction is such, the bliss is such, one starts talking in poetic language.

But Patanjali resists that. It is very difficult. No one has been able to resist. Jesus, Krishna, Buddha they all become poetic. The splendor, the beauty, when it explodes within you, you will start dancing, you will start singing. In that state you are just like a lover who has fallen in love with the whole universe.

Patanjali resists that. He will not use poetry; he will not use a single poetic symbol even. He will not do anything with poetry; he will not talk in terms of beauty. He will talk in terms of mathematics. He will be exact, and he will give you maxims. Those maxims are just indications what is to be done. He will not explode into ecstasy; he will not say things that cannot be said; he will not try the impossible. He will just put down the foundation, and if you follow the foundation you will reach the peak which is beyond. He is a rigorous mathematician--remember this. yoga101

Osho answers Questions

My work is with individuals--I am not concerned with the society and the world. That is how it feels good to me, mm? I'm not saying that this has to be your life also, no. This is how I feel good, this is how I work. This is how it has happened when I came to my own being...this was the way I started functioning.

One never knows. When you come to your being, what you do will be decided by that

moment. stars22

In the old days there was always a one-to-one relationship between a teacher and a disciple. It was a personal relationship and a personal communication.

Today it is always impersonal. One has to talk to a crowd, so one has to generalize. But generalized truths become false. Something is meaningful only to a particular person.

I face this difficulty daily. If you come to me and ask me something, I answer you and no one else. Another time someone else asks me something, and I answer him and no one else. These two answers may even be contradictory, because the two persons who have asked may be contradictory. So if I am to help you, I must speak particularly to you. And if I speak particularly to each individual, I will have to say many conflicting things.

Any person who has been talking in general can be consistent, but then the truth becomes false, because every statement that is true is bound to be addressed to a particular person. Of course, the truth is eternal--it is never new, never old--but truth is the realization, the end. The means are always relevant or irrelevant to a particular person, to a particular mind, to a particular attitude. eso04

If you can ask a foundational question, from the very heart of your being, the answer will come to you even if there is no one to answer you. The vacuum will create the answer, existence itself will give you the answer. But with false questioning, nothing is possible and nothing can be done.

So try to formulate a right question. Even if you fail in your effort it is good. Try to formulate some problem that comes from you: not from the society, not from your teachers, not from your upbringing--just from you.

This is a meditation. This finding out is the meditation. So--find some question! quest12

You say: I would suggest that you should devote mornings to answering our questions and evenings to your independent discourses

No, it would not be proper. I will say what I have to say; you need not worry about it. Whatever questions you ask, I will say only that which I have to say. Questions don't make any difference. krishn12

My simple concern here is meditation. And this is very strange--rarely do you ask questions about meditation. That does not seem to be your main concern. To me, it is my ultimate concern, the only concern, and to you it seems not a priority--it is not the first item on your mind. Perhaps it may be the last thing on your laundry list, but certainly it is not the first; the first things are stupid things, trivia. You waste your time, you waste my time.

And I am ready even to help you to solve those problems just so that you can get rid of all this nonsense and have simple, loving relationships. But that will be possible only when meditation becomes your priority. Out of meditation, everything else will become graceful; you will be able to see deeply into your own acts, into your own behavior, and you will be able to have some compassion for the other person--his human frailty, the possibility of his committing mistakes. dawn12

Questions about Meditation and Enlightenment

People come to me and say, "There was a great light during the meditation, but I lost it again. Infinite light was there, but it disappeared again. There was immense bliss, but where has it gone now?" Now they are searching for it again and cannot find it.

A glimpse means you had come close. But glimpses are bound to be lost. Meditation can, at the most, give only a glimpse. But do not stop there; do not get stuck looking for that same glimpse again and again. The only purpose of meditation is that one gets a glimpse. Then one has to go ahead, into samadhi, into enlightenment, so that one becomes the very flower.

In meditation is a glimpse; samadhi is being it. finger01

So whatsoever you want to play you can play, but forget the ends. If there are ends you have also turned meditation into a work. Just play it, enjoy it, love it. It is beautiful in itself. There is no need for any other end to beautify it.

People come to me and they say, "We are enjoying meditation, but tell us what is going to happen. What will be the end result?"

I tell them, "This is the end result--that you are enjoying. Enjoy it more!"

But they go on insisting, "Tell us something about it. What will be the end result? Where will we reach to?" They are not concerned at all where they are; they are always concerned with where they will reach to. The mind cannot exist in the present so it goes on giving you excuses to move into the future. Those excuses are the desires. So if you desire to be a god, to be a buddha, your meditation will be a sort of desire, and then it is not meditation. If you don't desire anything, you just enjoy being here, you just celebrate being alive, you enjoy the inner energy playing in imagination, in visions, in emptiness, whatsoever you choose, and you are totally one with this moment of enjoyment, then it is meditation. Then there is no desire, and, with no desire, the world drops. With a nondesiring, playful mind you have entered. You are already in it.

But this has to be hammered into your mind again and again because your mind is a transformer. It transforms anything into a desire--anything; it can transform even nondesire into a desire. People come to me and they say, "How does one achieve the state of nondesire? How to achieve the state of nondesire?" Now this has become the desire.

Your mind has a transforming mechanism: whatsoever you put in will come out as a desire.

Be alert of this and enjoy moments so much that no energy is left to move into the future. Then, any day, any moment, it will happen to you that suddenly all the darkness falls; suddenly all that is a burden disappears; suddenly you are freed. But the emphasis should be more and more on play, the present, here and now--and less and less on the

future. vbt68

You ask: "Does this enlightenment happening occur suddenly and unexpectedly?"

Both things can be said. It cannot be predicted, so it happens suddenly. Nobody can say when it will happen. My own disciples go on asking me, "When? Give the date, the day, the month, the year!" And I have to go on lying to them. I go on saying, "Soon!" Soon doesn't mean anything. And soon is a beautiful word, because I need never change it.

Whenever you ask I will say, "Soon!"

The happening is unpredictable because it is so vast a phenomenon. And it is not mechanical, it is not mathematical, so you cannot conclude about it. And it is very mysterious; when it has happened, only then you know that it has happened. So in a sense, because it is unpredictable it is always sudden. Even you don't know when it will happen. Suddenly one day when it has happened you become aware that it has happened.

Not even a single moment before will you be aware that this is going to happen. You will become aware only when it has happened already. Then you will feel that you are no more the same, the man who was there has disappeared and a new man is there in his place--somebody new. You are unacquainted, you cannot recognize yourself. There has been a gap, the old continuity has been broken and something new has come into its place.

Even your master cannot predict it. He may become aware that something is going to happen, but he cannot predict it. There are problems--because even the prediction will change the whole situation. This is the problem, even the prediction will change it. If I become aware that something is going to happen to you tomorrow morning, I cannot say it because that will change the whole situation. If I say, "Tomorrow morning this is going to happen," you will become tense and you will start expecting and you will start waiting. You will not be able to sleep in the night. Then the whole thing is finished, then it is not going to happen tomorrow morning.

Even if your master becomes aware...because there are signs that show that something is going to happen. Your master can see that you are pregnant, he can feel, but it is not such a fixed affair that within nine months the child will be born. You may take nine years, you may take nine lives, you may not take even nine days; even nine moments may be enough. It depends, and it depends on such multidimensional things that nothing can be said. And if something is said, the very assertion will change the whole situation. So the master has to wait, just watch and not say anything.

In this sense it is sudden, but in another sense it is not sudden, because you have to make efforts for it, you have to prepare. You have to prepare the ground, you have to open the doors. The guest may come suddenly, but if your doors are closed he may come and go back. So you have to open the doors, you have to clean the house, you have to prepare food for the guest--you have to be ready. You have to watch and wait at the door--any moment the guest can come. vedant09

Two days ago a lady came to me and said, "I am well advanced in years and am nearing death. When will I attain enlightenment? Please hurry and do something lest I die." I told her to come for meditation for a few days; then we would see what is to be done.

She said, "I do not want to be bothered with meditation. Do something so that I may attain enlightenment."

Now this lady is searching to get something without paying for it. Such a search is dangerous. You gain nothing by it; on the contrary you lose. The meditator should not harbor any such expectations. One receives what one is ready for. You should trust that this is so. mirac206

Many people come to me and ask, "How to know that such and such a person is really enlightened?" Where is the necessity for you to know whether a person is really enlightened or not? If you can stay aware of whether you are enlightened or not, that is

enough. Even if the other has become enlightened, this in itself does not make you enlightened. If the other has not become enlightened, this does not bring any hindrance to your enlightenment.

But why do we think in this manner? There are reasons for it. We want to make sure that nobody has attained to nonattachment. That gives us a sort of relief. Then there is no harm...if I have not attained to nonattachment then there is no harm, nobody else has attained it either! This gives a consolation to the mind, a support to the mind, that I am fine as I am because nobody has ever attained, and neither have I.

This is why our mind is never willing to accept that anybody has attained to nonattachment. We try to find all kinds of loopholes to show that the person has not yet attained. If somebody has attained to nonattachment it creates an inner discomfort within us. That discomfort is that if somebody else has attained, it only means that I can also attain but am unable to do so--and this creates anxiety and guilt. Hence nobody in this world accepts the other as right. It has nothing to do with the other, but in not accepting anybody as right it becomes easier to accept one's own evils. finger12

Meditation means dehypnotization. The process looks just the same.

Many people come to me and they say, "Whatsoever is being done here, is it not hypnosis?" It is _de_hypnosis. The process is the same, but the dimension is reversed. You can hypnotize yourself--that is going further from yourself towards the object. You can dehypnotize yourself--that is going back from the object towards oneself. When you are centered in some object, you are hypnotized. When you are centered in yourself, you are dehypnotized. When you are yourself, you are beyond hypnosis. thou27

In the old days, particularly in the East, hypnosis was used in every ashram. The master used it in every way to help you, because consciously you may take years to do a particular thing but in hypnosis, through hypnosis, within seconds it can be done.

Unnecessary effort can be saved. But only masters were allowed to hypnotize. Hypnosis remained a secret science in the East; it was not used publicly because there are possibilities of misusing it. vedant09

Questions about Religion

Thousands of times I had to tell people, "Are you really interested in God? What will you do if he exists? Is it going to make any difference in your life whether God exists or not? Is it a life and death problem for you?"

They would say, "No, but we are curious whether God is or not." And sooner or later, when they became a little more acquainted with me, their real problems would come up: anger, jealousy, possessiveness. They are real problems, but they hurt the ego. To ask,

"Why am I jealous?" is to recognize your jealousy, is to declare that you are jealous. Nobody wants that. Everybody is jealous, everybody is possessive, but everybody thinks it is not so. "It is not so with me--it may be so with others." guida10

You ask: Does God exist? How can there be so much evil and corruption in the world if God exists?

God is a mythical word, a mumbo-jumbo word that is the invention of the priesthood. Actually, to ask whether God exists is absurd. For those who know, God is existence, or existence is God.

Things exist, not God. A chair exists because a chair can go into nonexistence. To say that the chair exists is meaningful because its nonexistence is possible.

God is existence, the very isness. When we say God exists we create something out of the word God, then God becomes a thing. But God is not a thing, nor is God a person. That is why you cannot make him responsible for anything. Responsibility only comes when there is a personality, when there is someone who can be responsible.

God is not a person, he is pure existence. The word is misleading because the word personifies. It is better to use the word existence. The totality of existence is God.

So it cannot be asked whether God exists. That is like asking whether existence exists. Put this way--whether existence exists--the question becomes absurd. Obviously existence exists; there is no question about it. The question cannot even exist if there is no existence, nor can the questioner.

I would like to make it clear that when I say God, I mean existence as such. God is not a thing among other things, God is total thingness. To say that the table exists is the same as saying that the table is God. To say that you exist is the same as saying that you are God. God is the existence. God is isness, the quality of isness, the quality of existence. gchall08

A Muslim friend came to visit me. This was his question too. He said, "The biggest question I feel is that if God is, then why is the world so evil?" He is right, because there can be no relationship between God and evil. How can there be?

I told him, "Let us remove all evil from the world for a moment. Can you visualize what the world will be like then?" The moment you remove evil, the good also disappears from the scene. Good cannot exist on its own. It is because of evil that good exists. Remove darkness and light disappears together with it. Light exists because of darkness. Remove the cold, and the heat is automatically lost. Heat and cold are different variations of the same thing. If we try to remove death, life too will be lost. If there is no death, how can life be? Or, if there is no life, how can death be?

The universe exists with the help of polar opposites. The world's existence is brought about by the music between opposites. If the opposite is removed, both are removed. Remove the male, and the female is lost. Remove old age, and youth is lost. The young person always wishes to prolong his youth because he does not know that youth and old age are so closely combined that if one is removed, the other is lost. We all wish ugliness to be removed from the world; but if ugliness is lost, beauty will also disappear. If you wish for a world without ugliness, be prepared to face a world where nothing is beautiful.

I told my friend, "If you wish for a world where evil is banned, good will flee from such a place immediately. Then this world will be a big prison house; because where there is no freedom to do evil, there can be no freedom at all.

In fact, the word "freedom" contains the freedom to do evil also. If a man is told that he is free only to be good, what meaning does such a freedom convey? This freedom has no meaning. Rather, it implies bondage. It would be proper to say; you are condemned to be good--not free to be good. When we tell a person he is free to be good, the freedom to be evil enters along with the freedom to be good. God is the totality and yet he does not control anything. This means that God creates, but He creates freedom.

A man is free to be good and free to be bad--as bad as he wishes--when God is the Lord of everything. This is because true freedom exists only if there is freedom to do what one wishes, be it good or bad. When no such freedom exists, man is not man but a machine which does whatever it is made to do because it is insentient.

Man is sentient; he possesses consciousness. Consciousness is not possible without freedom. way204

For tantra, everything is holy.

One Christian missionary was with me a few days ago and he said, "God created the world."

So I asked him, "Who created sin?" He said, "The devil."

Then I asked him, "Who created the devil?"

Then he was at a loss. He said, "Of course, God created the devil."

The devil creates sin and God creates the devil. Then who is the real sinner--the devil or God? But the dualist conception always leads to such absurdities. For tantra God and the devil are not two. Really, for tantra there is nothing that can be called "devil", everything is divine, everything is holy. And this seems to be the right standpoint, the deepest. If anything is unholy in this world, from where does it come and how can it be? vbt02

People come and ask me whether their fate is determined. They are asking whether they are so important, so significant for this universe that their fate must be determined beforehand. "What is my purpose?" they ask. "Why was I created?" This childhood nonsense that you are the center creates these questions like, "For what purpose am I created?"

You are not created for any purpose. And it is good that you are not created for any purpose; otherwise you would be a machine. A machine is created for some purpose. Man is not created for some purpose, for something--no! Man is just the outflowing, overflowing creation. Everything simply is. Flowers are there and stars are there and you are there. Everything is just an overflowing, a joy, a celebration of existence without any purpose....

Try to understand it. Because our minds are fixed, we take things as theories, not as devices. So many times people come to me and say, "One day you said this is right, and another day you said that is right, and both cannot be right." Of course both cannot be right, but no one is saying that both are right. I am not concerned at all with which is right and which is wrong. I am only concerned with which device works. vbt06

People come to me and say that they are seeking God, that they are seeking their soul. Their faces give no indication of their search. Their search is misnamed; they seek something very different under the cover of God and soul.

A friend approached me--he was an old man--and said he has been seeking God for the last thirty years. "That is a long time!" I exclaimed. "You should have found him by now. It seems that God is avoiding you. If that is so, then even thirty births will not be sufficient. Or it could be that you are not seeking in the right direction, you have not taken the path to his house. Either he is avoiding you or you are avoiding him. Tell me exactly what it is that you seek."

"I told you. I am seeking God," he said. "I do my practices and my meditation regularly, but I have no results to show."

"What results are you trying to achieve?" I asked. "I want to attain some occult powers."

Now this man is not seeking God; he is seeking power in the name of God. It is not only in the bazaar that we find one name on the label and something quite different inside the package. It happens in the temples too. shiva08

Osho writes to a friend:

Love. You ask for my ten commandments. This is very difficult because I am against any sort of commandment. Yet just for the fun of it I set down what follows:

• Obey no orders except those from within.
• The only God is life itself.
• Truth is within, do not look for it elsewhere.
• Love is prayer.
• Emptiness is the door to truth, it is the means, the end and the achievement.
• Life is here and now.
• Live fully awake.
• Do not swim, float.
• Die each moment so that you are renewed each moment.
• Stop seeking. That which is, is: stop and see. teacup03

Questions about Esoterica

From 1970-1974 Osho gives many discourses on esoteric and occult subjects, published under the titles: In Search of the Miraculous, The Psychology of the Esoteric, I Am The Gate, Hidden Mysteries. These are complex and need to be read in full. After 1974, Osho does not often speak on these subjects.

You ask me how I am connected with any esoteric group. If you can be in contact with one, you can be in contact with all. It is just a matter of tuning. If your radio can work with one station, there is no difficulty in its working with another. If the mechanism is working rightly, you can catch any station around the world. If you can be in contact with one esoteric group, you can be in contact with all. You may not want to be in contact, you may want it, but once you know the tuning you can be in contact. And many times you come across a secret school but you lose the opportunity, you lose the track.

Whatsoever I am saying is in many ways esoteric. That is why many times I become very confusing to you. Any exoteric teaching is never confusing, it is clearcut. It is just like two plus two equals four, it is always a simple thing. But the esoteric, the inner, the secret, is difficult to understand, because your understanding becomes disturbed with any new knowledge which has to be absorbed.

Any knowledge that you know, you can absorb easily. It can become a part of you; you can easily digest it. Anything which is new to you is hard to digest. And no esoteric knowledge can be delivered in mathematical terms. It has to be delivered mystically, it

has to be delivered poetically. Then it becomes living. It means many things simultaneously.

I have been in contact with many esoteric groups. I have known many persons who are still alive who belong to some group. I have known many keys which were delivered by authentic teachers. But no key of the old tradition is enough, so I am devising new keys. Because I am devising new keys, I am not directly concerned with any esoteric group, as each esoteric group is interested in and is entrusted with a particular key to preserve. I am not interested in a particular key. I am interested in devising new methods, new techniques, new keys, because all the old keys have become in many ways irrelevant.

One thing has to be understood, that all these keys were developed in a world which was local, always local. For the first time, we are in a world which is absolutely nonlocal, universal. Really, for the first time we are in a world. Before, we were always confined to a particular part of the world. All those keys were developed for particular local conditions and cultures. Now, for the first time the world is, in a way, a mixed-up mess. There is no particular culture, there is no particular conditioning. Everything is mixed up. And soon this is going to be more and more the case. Soon there will be a world citizen with no local background at all but with a universal background. Before this century ends, we will need--we are already in need of--keys which are universal....

All local keys developed in a world which was divided. There was no universal mind-- there never has been as far as our so-called knowledge of history is concerned.

Sometimes this phenomenon of a universal mind has happened, but that is beyond our civilization, that is beyond our memory. This phenomenon of a universal mind has happened previously but that has been completely forgotten.

I have known so many esoteric groups--in this life and before. I have been in contact with many esoteric groups, but I cannot tell you their whereabouts. I cannot tell you their names, because that is not permitted. And it is of no use really. But I can tell you that they still exist, they still try to help....

You can also be in contact with some esoteric group. There are techniques and methods. But then you will have to do much work upon yourself. As you are, you can never be in contact. You will just pass by an esoteric circle but you will not even be able to detect it. You will have to change yourself, tune yourself for new dimensions, for new vibrations to be felt; you will have to be sensitive.

Then you will not ask me, "Have you been in contact with an esoteric group?" You will know just by sitting near me, you will know just by looking into my eyes. You will feel just by hearing my words, or even by hearing my silence. You will understand. But that will come only if you change yourself, attune yourself for the new reality--if you open yourself for new dimensions.

Esoteric groups are and always have been there. Only you are closed--closed in thought, closed in thinking, closed within yourself, with no opening, no window, no door. The sky

is there--just open the window, and you will know the sky and the stars. Howsoever far off they may be, just by opening your window, which is so near, you come in contact with far-away stars. In a way, it is illogical: by opening such a near window, how can you come in contact with far-away stars? If I tell you, "Open this window behind you and then you will come in contact with the whole universe," you will say, "It is absurd. Just by opening this window, which is so near, how can I be in contact with what is so far?" But it is so. Open a window in your mind, make a meditative window, and you will be in contact with so many far-away lights, with so many happenings which are always around.

Just around the corner, just around you, everything is happening. But you are blind or asleep or just unaware. I am here; you cannot conceive of what is happening here. You cannot conceive of it!...

Buddha passes through a village...and no one recognizes him. His own father does not recognize him; even with his own wife there is no recognition.

I am here! You cannot recognize what is inside, only the outside is known. You only become acquainted with the outside. That is how it should be. You are not in contact with your own innerness, so how can you be in contact with mine? That is an impossibility. It becomes easy if you are in contact with your own innerness. Then you can be in contact with my innerness, or innerness as such. Otherwise, you will just go on asking me, and I will continue answering you. Then everything just misses the point.

But I answer you not in order that you should get the answer from my answer. No, I never hope against hope, I never hope that my answer can become your answer. I know very well that my answer is of no use to you. But then why do I go on answering your questions?

I go on answering not in order that my answer will become your answer, but because if you can listen to me silently, totally, in that silent listening you will come directly upon your own innerness. Suddenly it can explode in you, suddenly you can be in another world that is completely different from any in which you have been living. And if that happens, then you have come into a new existence.

That new existence is your own. It is an esoteric, inner secret. That inner existence has all these things. gate08

In any inner feeling, any inner realization, if you become doubtful whether it is true or imaginary, then it is certainly imaginary--because the Truth is so self-evident that you cannot doubt it. The doubting mind just disappears.

So sometimes someone comes to me and says, "Tell me whether my kundalini has risen or not. My teacher says my kundalini has risen, so tell me." So I tell them that unless it becomes self-evident to you, do not believe anyone. When that phenomenon happens, you will not go to ask anyone whether it has happened or not. If someone comes and asks

you, "Tell me whether I am alive or not," what will you say to him? Certainly he is dead! Even if this has to be asked, then certainly he is dead.

Life is a self-evident fact; no proof is needed. How do you feel your life? Do you have any proof of it? Is there any proof? How do you feel your life? How do you know you are alive? Is there ever a doubt whether "I am alive or not"? ultal110

The lines traced on the body are a very superficial phenomenon. Deep within is the mind. The mind with which you are familiar, however, does not exist deep down; it is superficial. Deep down there is a mind which you do not know at all. The centers that exist deep within this body alone, which Yoga calls chakras, are the accumulated forms of many lives. One who knows can, by placing his hand on a particular chakra, discover how active it is. By touching your seven chakras, it can be known whether you have ever experienced them or not.

I have experimented with the chakras of hundreds of people, and I have been surprised to find that at the most one or two--and only rarely three--chakras have begun to be activated; generally, they remain dormant. You have never used them, but they are your past. If a man who has experienced them comes to me and I can see that all his seven chakras are in motion, then it can be said that this is his last birth. Then there will be no next birth, because if all seven chakras are in motion, then there is no possibility of a next life. This life will be nirvana, this life will be liberation. hidden05

You ask: Is reincarnation a part of your teachings?

I don't talk much about doctrines. I am not very interested in intellectual gymnastics. Reincarnation is a fact, but I don't talk much about it. I may help you to remember your past lives, but I don't make a doctrine out of it. If you can remember them than it is okay. If you don't remember them, that too is okay. But I don't talk about it. It is useless. quest09

Someone was here to meet me a few days before. He said, "I am very much advanced, so don't start with me from ABC." This is the mad type of man.

So I asked, "First relate to me how much you have advanced. What have you gained?"

So he said, "I see visions of Krishna. Sometimes I dance with him in my visions. I have visions of very beautiful places--lakes, hills."

Whatsoever he said was just dreaming, so I said, "If this is what you mean when you say that you have advanced very much, then it is very difficult to even proceed because you are simply dreaming. You have not even taken the first step."

The first is the most difficult: to recognize this, let this fact penetrate deep. Howsoever painful, welcome it--only then can something be done. If you recognize it you will become humble, if you recognize it you will become simple, if you recognize it you will become childlike--then there is much possibility, then much opens. ultas117

One man came to me in Bombay. He brought a very big suitcase with him; he received messages from god every day. He said, "Nobody listens to me and people think I am mad. My wife takes me to the psychiatrist. I heard about you and I thought you are the right person; you will understand. Now look!"

He opened his suitcase. There were thousands of pieces of paper. I looked at them--all kinds of nonsense--and he said they were 'special information'. Two plus two is four--that is special information that has come to him. And anything, whatsoever comes to his mind, he writes, and he thinks it is special information.

Forget all this! It is time to get out of it otherwise you will be wasting your life. shore05

A friend came yesterday. He is an intelligent person and has great regard for me. He told me, "Why do you not perform some miracle like Sai Baba? Thousands will flock to you." What use are these thousands of people? What shall I do with them? They come not because of Sai Baba but because of the miracles. If even one came for the sake of Sai Baba it would be more fruitful.

One who comes for miracles is not a theist. A theist is one who says, "Everything in this world is a miracle. There is nothing that is not a miracle A seed turns into a tree; clouds move in the sky; the sun comes out, there are stars; there are birds and animals; there is man--everything is a miracle!" He who sees no miracle in all this is impressed by the ash that comes out of the hands of a miracle-man. That the sun comes out is no miracle to this blind man, but a little ash drops from this man's hand and he is impressed!

The intelligence that believes in this ash is not the intelligence that can go God-ward. Lakhs of people are bound to gather, but this crowd will be the crowd that gathers to watch a magic show. It has nothing to do with religion.

The stories woven around Mahavira, Christ or Rama are downright false but the devotee, out of sheer frustration invents them. Otherwise his God does not look distinctive from the rest of mankind. So he says, "When Mohammed walked, even on the sunniest day a cloud moved along with him. The devotee has to say all this because his logic is the same as the atheist's; he has the same intelligence.

One who sets out to look for miracles does not have the heart of a devotee. Is there anything in this world that is not a miracle? Show me a single thing that is not a miracle! This whole world is a miracle!

Is it not a miracle that you are? There is no reason why you should be. The world would have no complaint if you were not. But you are--a complete living entity. It never occurs to us that there is no reason why we should exist. The world would have got on just as well without us. Yet we are! We do not know who creates us; we do not know who destroys us, who brings us into existence, who takes us out of it. We do not know. Is this not a great miracle that is taking place every moment of our existence? And here are we flocking to see a man who takes a little ash out of his hands! Lack of intelligence makes

such things appear like miracles. If man is intelligent, the whole world appears to be a miracle.

Otherwise, we have to invent devices to prove that Rama is God, Krishna is God. I do not say they are not. What I mean to say is that everything on this earth is God. Everything here is divine. There is nothing on this earth which is not God. way204

Fools are always searching for something esoteric--only nonsense appeals to them. And sometimes I talk nonsense, because I am not here only to help those who are not fools. I am also throwing my net wider and wider; some fools have to be caught by me too. They are good people!...

There is a deep urge in man to know things which are worthless, to know things which make you feel special--because only you know those things and nobody else does. Man wants to be special, and nothing makes you more special than so-called esoteric knowledge. That is why esoteric knowledge remains important. All kinds of rubbish go on in the name of esoteric knowledge--that the earth is hollow, that inside the earth there are great civilizations. And there are people who still believe in it, and in many more such stories.

Man lives such a dull and drab life that he wants some sensation. Those who are a little wiser, they read scientific fiction or detective stories. Those who are not so wise, they read spiritual fiction.

And these things were said by me when I was surrounded by a certain group of fools. They were not interested in anything else. And I have to respond to you; as you grow, my responses will be higher and higher. The day you have understood the whole stupidity of the human mind I will not need to talk to you; just sitting silently will be more than enough.

These things were told by me to a certain group of people who were only interested in those things. It would have been absolutely pointless to talk about anything else with those people. Now that they have almost disappeared, and now that a totally different quality has come here, I can go more into the world of the truth. But still I have to use words, and words distort.

Only silence communicates the truth as it is. wisdom10

People's problems

Those who are awakened find it difficult to even think that there is or there can be a world.

Just this morning I was talking to a sannyasin. She had come and she was asking when she would get rid of all this misery and anxiety: "Sometimes it appears that it has happened, but then again I revert to the same misery."

I told her that I am also in a difficulty. Slowly, slowly it has become very difficult for me to even understand how misery becomes possible, how it becomes possible for misery to occur. It is not that I was never in misery. I was, but now I find it difficult to understand.

It is as if somewhere far away in the past one might have seen a snake in a rope and now, on remembering, one finds it difficult to grasp how it was even possible to see a snake when it was a rope. And if somebody is still seeing the snake, it becomes a very difficult situation for me. The difficulty is that what is appearing to you like a great question is no longer a question at all to me, and it feels that you are carrying all kinds of meaningless things with you. But to say so also feels wrong, because that person is suffering, running fast; he is still seeing the snake. If you say to a person who is running fast in fear, whose heart is shaking and sinking, "Why are you running and talking all this nonsense, it is a rope and not a snake," he will become very angry.

Remember, you have no idea of the difficulties of a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Krishna and a Christ in teaching you, because they have to give you treatment for a sickness which really does not exist at all. The sickness is simply not there, but the patient is trembling; the patient is complaining that he is dying....

The mind of man creates illusions. These illusions are self-imposed. All of these illusions merge in the ultimate truth. The moment the witness is experienced, the whole world, the whole panorama of our projections, shrink and merge in the witness--in the endless, boundless ocean. finger07

I have been meeting hundreds and hundreds of persons deeply, intimately, closely. When they start talking about their sadness I have to be serious--otherwise they will not feel that I am sympathetic, they will not feel good about it. Then they will never turn to me again. I have to be sad with their sadness and serious with their seriousness to help bring them out of it. and this is their own creation, and they are making every effort to create it. And

if I try to bring them out, they create every type of barrier--not knowingly of course, because no one will do it knowingly. vbt67

People come to me and I look at them, and I see that they are fast asleep, dreaming. Their problems are out of their dreams, and they want to solve them. They cannot be solved because they are not real. How can you solve an unreal problem? If it exists, it can be solved--but it is nowhere; it cannot be solved. An unreal problem--how can it be solved? It can be solved only by an unreal answer. But that unreal answer will create other problems which again will be unreal. And then you fall ad nauseam; there is no end to

it. vbt55

You will be surprised, but this is my experience of thousands of people: that they cling to their misery for the simple reason that they have grown a certain kind of friendship with

misery. They have lived with it so long that now to leave it will be almost like a divorce. misery09

People talk about misery--I have listened to many people about their misery--but the way they talk about their misery it seems they are feeling very happy. Their misery is something like a piece of art. They exaggerate it; they go on making it bigger and bigger-

-and they enjoy it. mystic43

I have lived with thousands of people; I have never judged anybody. I have simply loved everybody who has been with me, and I have seen tremendous changes happening in them without any effort on my part. Just my love has made them different. upan02

One lady was here just two or three days ago. She said, "My mind is sexual, so what can I do?" Someone else came and said, "I feel very inferior; an inferiority complex is there.

What can I do?" So I told that man, "You feel inferior, so feel inferior; know that you feel like that. What to do? There is nothing to do. One feels sexual, so feel sexual. Know that you are sexual." But the moment I say such things to someone, he feels shocked. He had come for a technique to change himself.

No one accepts himself; you are such enemies to yourself. You have never had any love for yourself; you have never been at ease with yourself. And this is surprising: you expect everyone to love you, and you yourself cannot even love yourself. You are so against yourself, you would like to shatter yourself in every way and create another. If you were allowed you would create another man. And you would not be satisfied with that either because you would still remain behind it.

Love yourself, accept yourself, and don't create unnecessary problems. And all problems are unnecessary; there are no necessary problems. I have not come across any. Remain with your facticity, and transformation will happen. But it is not a result, you cannot force it to happen. It is a consequence, not a result. If you accept yourself and remain alert, it comes. You cannot force it, you cannot say that "I will force it to come." And if you force, a false thing will happen to you, and then that false thing can be disturbed by anyone--by anyone. vbt38

One man came to me and he said, "I am very much afraid of death." He had cancer, and death was very near; any day it could happen. And he could not postpone it. He knew it was going to happen. Within months it would be there, or even within weeks.

He was really physically, literally, trembling, and he said, "Just give me one thing: how can I get rid of this fear of death? Give me some mantra, or something which can protect me and give me courage to face death. I don't want to die trembling in fear." The man said, "I have been to many saints. Many things they have given--they were very kind.

Someone has given me a mantra, someone has given me some sacred ashes, someone has given me his picture, someone has given something else, but nothing helps. Everything is in vain. Now I have come to you as the last resort. Now I will not go to anyone anymore. Give me something."

So I told him, "Still you are not aware. Why are you asking for something?--just to get rid of fear? Nothing will help. I cannot give you anything; otherwise, as others have proved failures, I will also prove a failure. And they gave you something because they don't know what they are doing. I can say only one thing to you: Accept it. Tremble if trembling is there--what to do? Death is there, and you feel a trembling, so tremble. Don't reject it, don't suppress it. Don't try to be brave. There is no need. Death is there. It is natural. Be afraid totally."

He said, "What are you saying? You have not given me anything. Rather, on the contrary, you say to accept."

I said, "Yes, you accept. You just go and die peacefully with total acceptance."

After three or four days he came again, and said, "It works. I couldn't sleep for so many days, but for these four days I slept deeply, because it is right, you are right." He said to me, "You are right. Fear is there, death is there, nothing can be done. All the mantras are just hocus-pocus; nothing can be done."

No doctor can help, no saint can help. Death is there, a fact, and you are trembling. It is just natural. A storm comes and the whole tree trembles. It never goes to any saint to ask how not to tremble when a storm is passing by. It never goes for a mantra to change it, to protect it. It trembles. It is natural; it is so.

And the man said, "But a miracle has happened. Now I am not so afraid." If you accept, fear starts disappearing. If you reject, resist, fight, you give energy to fear. That man died peacefully, unafraid, fearless, because he could accept fear. Accept fear and it disappears. vbt60

A woman came to me the day before yesterday. It was very crowded and in that crowd she abruptly said, "Bless me!"

I said, "Fine."

The next day she came back again and asked, "Will the blessings come true?--because the blessings of good saints do come true, and you have blessed me."

I said, "This seems to be difficult. It appears you will drag me to a court of law if they don't come true! At least let me have some idea in what connection you want my blessings to come true."

She said, "But you should know that whenever a good saint blesses someone, the blessing does come true."

I said to her, "There is one escape for me in it, that at least you cannot drag me into the courts. If the blessings do not make what you want come true you may understand that I am neither good nor a saint--and the matter is over. This way you created one escape

route for me. Now I don't even want to know what it is that you wanted my blessings for. If it does not come true you can understand that neither was I good nor a saint, and the matter is over."

We call this being religious! The woman believes she is religious. finger15

One woman was here just a few days ago. Her husband had died just during the past month. She was disturbed. She came to me and she said, "Only assure me that he is reborn in a good place and then everything will be okay. Just give me a certainty that he has not gone to hell or he has not become an animal, that he is in heaven or he has become a god or some such thing. If you can just assure me of this, then everything is okay. Then I can bear it; otherwise I am miserable."

The priest would say, "Okay! Your husband is born as a god in the seventh heaven, and he is very happy. And he is waiting for you."

These prayers, they make you adjusted to the pattern...you feel better.

Meditation is a science. It is not going to help you in adjustment, it is going to help you in transformation. That is why I say these three signs will be there as indications. Silence will come, but not as an adjustment. Silence will come as an inner flowering. Then silence will not be an adjustment with the society, with the family, the world, the business--no! Then silence will be a real harmony with the universe. vbt02

People ask how they can live happily? I tell them to live this very moment happily, and don't ask how. If you breathe do it joyfully, if you raise your hands do it joyfully, if you walk, sit, do it joyfully. What ever you do, do it with a happy frame of mind so that all your actions become a waterfall of happiness. Don't stop for happiness, and don't even ask how? What ever you may be doing, the meanest of the mean jobs--if you are sweeping your house outside, that too do it happily, enjoy it too.

Whatever you have to do, wherever you may be placed, don't do anything unhappily. Because then even if you get salvation, there also you will enter unhappily. There too you will manage to search out unhappiness. Your sight and attitude for searching unhappiness will be there with you, and there too you will generate darkness. Even if God was present, you will find out some fault or the other, so that you can remain unhappy.

What ever you may be doing, do it happily, but don't ask for happiness. sadhan02

Paradox of Total Action: When the action is total, energy does not diminish. When I said so, I meant that action is not total when we are split, divided and in conflict. When I am split within, my action is incomplete--not total. As for example, you met me and I embraced you. If at the time of embracing, one portion of my mind tells me, "Why are you doing this? This is not proper, don't do it," and at the same time, the other portion tells me, "I will do it, it is very good"; then I am quarrelling with two parts. I shall embrace you with one half, and I shall be trying to push you away with the other half. I

am doing two contrary actions at the same time. In doing these two opposite actions, my mental energy within will be diminished, but had I embraced somebody with all my heart without any tinge of opposition in it, there is no cause for the energy to diminish. On the contrary, this total embrace will fill me with more energy, will fill me with extra joy.

Energy is diminished in conflict. Inner conflict, inner duality causes the loss of energy. Howsoever noble the work may be, if there is conflict within, energy is bound to diminish, as you are fighting with yourself within. It is like my building a house, in which I put a brick with one hand and remove it with the other hand. Thus my energy will be lost and the building will never be constructed. All of us are thus split up in self- contradictory parts. Whatever we do is confronted with an opposition outside. If we love someone we hate him also. If we make friends with someone, we make an enemy of him also. If we flatter someone, we also arrange to disrespect him from another side. Thus we are double minded all the time. Therefore, every person becomes bankrupt slowly, his inner energy diminishes. The person dies fighting against himself.

If you examine the truth in this. you will understand this fact. When you start to do any work and If you are fully engrossed in it, you will always come out more fresh and energetic. And, on the contrary, if you do that work halfheartedly, you will come out tired and shattered from that work. So, those who are able to do their work whole heartedly, like a painter totally engrossed in his painting, in preparing his picture, never gets tired.

They return from their work completely refreshed and pleased. But if you employ this same painter, on a fixed salary to make pictures, then he returns home completely tired because his mind is not there in the job totally. So no sooner does a part of our mind stand against us that our energy begins to diminish.

What I mean by a total act is not intended for one particular work, but it applies to all jobs you are doing. Do even routine jobs--duties like eating and bathing totally. While taking a bath, only that act of bathing should be with you; your mind, at the moment, should not think or do anything else. If you are totally engaged in bathing, not only the body but your soul too will take a bath. After the bath you will realise that you have gained something. But it is possible when you are taking a bath, your legs are on the road and your mind is there in the office, and you are on the run, then the bath has no interest and joy in it. That bath will be split up--divided activity. You simply throw water on your body and run for another activity. In finishing a job thus, you waste your energy, this happens from moment to moment, it is happening for twenty-four hours. You are lying on the bed but you haven't slept. You can get rest only if the action of sleeping is total.

You are simply lying and dreaming. You are lying and thinking. You are lying and changing sides. Thousands of thoughts enter your head. You are thinking of what you did today and also of what you will do tomorrow. When this is the condition, you get up from your bed completely exhausted and weary. Even sleep will not be able to give you rest, because you are not total in that sleep....

When a person is totally one with himself he becomes integrated. Then there is no division within. When such a person makes love, he only makes love, when he is angry, he is totally angry, when there is an enemy in front, he thinks of him only as an enemy.

When a person is busy totally in any work, he does not lose his energy. And it is very interesting to note that when a person is totally engrossed in any activity, gradually it becomes impossible for him to be angry, as the anger burns up completely, and is completely scorched out and then it is difficult for hatred to remain within.

We have anger in us as long as we do all our activities halfheartedly. When our actions become total, power of love blooms in our life. When our actions are total, prayers become our longing of life, the day on which the mission of our entire life is over. God alone remains a sacred hymn, a truth for us. When that integration--that oneness--is produced within, we also see integration, oneness, outside. As long as there is duality within, there is duality outside too. ppath06

Western seekers come to Osho

Each year an increasing number of Westerners are coming to Osho, as centres are being set up around the world. Many of the hippies coming to Osho have had spiritual experiences with lsd and other drugs which led them to meditation. Several are in the helping professions: social workers, therapists, psychiatrists. Osho experiments with new therapy techniques

There are stories that a disciple would come to the master and wait for thirty years, would not ask anything but just wait for the master to ask, "For what have you come?" Thirty years is too much--one life completely wasted--but waiting for thirty years will do the work.

People from the West come to me and they say, "This very evening we are leaving, so give us some key. How can we become silent? But we don't have any time to stay--we must go." They are thinking in terms with which they have become acquainted--instant coffee--so they think there must be some instant meditation, a key I can hand over to them and it is finished. No, there is no key. It is a long effort, it is a deep patience. And the more you are in a hurry, the longer it will take. So remember this: if you are not in any hurry it may happen this very moment. When you are not in a hurry the quality of mind is there, silence is there. vedant05

Just a few days before one seeker was here from California. He traveled long. He had come to meet me. And then he said, "Before I meditate or before you tell me to meditate, I have heard that whosoever comes to you you push into meditation, so before you push me in, I have got questions." He had at least a list of hundred questions. I think he has not left any that is possible--about God, about soul, about truth, about heaven, hell and everything--a sheet full of questions. He said, "Unless you solve these questions first, I am not going to meditate."

He is logical in a way because he says, "Unless my questions are answered how can I meditate? Unless I feel confident that you are right, you have answered my doubts, how I can go in some direction you show and indicate? You may be wrong. So you can prove your rightness only if my doubts disappear."

And his doubts are such they cannot disappear. This is the dilemma: if he meditates they can disappear, but he says he will meditate only when these doubts are not there. What to do? He says, "First prove there is God." No one has ever proved, no one can ever. That doesn't mean that God is not there, but he cannot be proved. He is not a small thing which can be proved or disproved. It is such a vital thing, you have to live it to know it. No proof can help.

But he is right logically. He says, "Unless you prove how I can start? If there is no soul, who is going to meditate? So first prove that there is a self, then I can meditate."

This man is committing suicide. No one will be ever able to answer him. He has created all the barriers, and through these barriers he will not be able to grow. But he is logical. What should I do with such a person? If I start answering his questions, a person who can create a hundred doubts can create millions, because doubting is a way, a style of mind. You can answer one question through your answer he will create ten because the mind remains the same.

He looks for doubts, and if I answer logically I am helping his logical mind to be fed, to be more strengthened. I am feeding. That will not help. He has to be brought out of his logicalness.

So I told him that, "Have you ever been in love?" He said, "But why? You are changing the subject."

I said, "I will come to your points, but suddenly it has become very meaningful to me to ask have you ever loved."

He said, "Yes!" His face changed.

I asked, "But you loved before or before falling in love you doubted the whole phenomenon?"

Then he was disturbed. He was uncomfortable. He said, "No, I never thought about it. I simply had fallen in love, and then only I became aware."

So I said, "You do the opposite. First think about love, whether love is possible, whether love exists, whether love can exist. And first let it be proved, and make it a condition unless it is proved you will not love anybody."

He said, "What you are saying? You will destroy my life. If I make this a condition, then I cannot love."

"But," I told him, "This is the same you are doing. Meditation is just like love. You have to know it first. God is just like love. That's why Jesus goes on saying that God is love. It is just like love. First one has to experience."

A logical mind can be closed, and so logically, that he will never feel that he has closed his own doors of all possibilities for all growth. yoga105

A Western friend is practising meditation. He is here with us. His trouble is anger. He is so filled with anger that it overflows at the slightest excuse. I advised him to vent his anger on a pillow. He was surprised! "That is madness!" He exclaimed. "On a pillow?" I told him, "You start and see, it is not so bad. If you could vent your anger on a human being and not see the foolishness of it. It is not more foolish to take it out on a pillow I assure you." He tried the first day and came and gave me a complete report. He felt a little awkward in the beginning. After five or seven minutes when the momentum built up, he started hitting the pillow hard as if it were alive. Not only did the pillow become alive but it assumed the form of the person he hated most. He remembered this foe and all that had happened ten years ago. He had wished to beat him up but could not. He says he felt to laugh, he felt very uneasy too but he enjoyed it also!

Since the last three days he is beating up his pillow. Today he has given the final report and it is very astonishing.

The full report is like this: The very first day all the faces of people he had wanted to hit and could not, began to come up. The next day all faces disappeared. There was no one before him, there was plain anger alone. He saw the anger coming out from within him and there was no one to receive it at the other end--pure anger. Then it occurred to him that all this was already within him, he only needed excuses to throw out the poison within him. Then an understanding arose. He saw anger in a new form. Now the responsibility of anger, shifted from the other person. Now he knew that there was a fire within him that needed to come out. Now the responsibility shifted on him--it no longer was objective, it became subjective. It was no longer that the other abused and the anger arose. Now he understood that he was wanting to be angry and was looking out for excuses. If no one had abused him, he would have found some other excuse. He would have even gone to the extent of inciting someone to abuse him! And the simple reason for all this was, that there was something within him that was pressing for release. It was necessary to be rid of it.

The next day in the course of these beatings that he carried out three to four times a day, it became absolutely clear to him that the anger was not because of another but was within him. Today was his third day. He told me: "I am shocked at myself". As soon as the realisation came that the anger is not on someone, that the anger is already within myself, something departed from within--everything was peaceful. Now I have become absolutely weak and incompetent to be angry. If you abuse me now, I shall be unable to

express anger. At least I find myself incapable of doing so at this moment. Some load has come off me and I feel empty within."

Understanding means: Whatever happens within you is with your full consciousness and in your full awareness--Whatever happens. Then many things will stop happening by themselves. What stops happening, is sin; and what keeps happening even in your full consciousness is virtue. Understanding is the test. Whatever can go on with understanding is virtue. What does not go along with understanding, is sin. What can be activated in ignorance alone, is sin and that which cannot be activated in ignorance, is virtue. So understanding means only this: that whatever happens within me, happens with my full knowledge and nothing slips from my consciousness. way103

Today I have come to know, through the partner of the friend who was carrying out the pillow-meditation lately, that he had taken out a knife and torn the pillow into pieces! I had not told him to do this! It sounds funny--such madness! But we do not laugh when a living person is stabbed in anger though the passion gratified is the same as when ripping open a pillow! Whether it is a pillow or a human being--that is immaterial. More pleasure is derived from stabbing the pillow however, for there are no limitations.

Close yourself in your room and when your overriding trait catches hold of you, allow it to manifest itself to the full. Consider it as meditation. Give it complete expression.

Allow it to come out of every pore of your body. Then reflect on it--you will laugh! You will even be surprised at what all you can do! Your mind will also wonder how you could ever do all that--and that too when you are alone! If there was someone present, then it was excusable!

You will feel restless the first or second time. The third time you will be in full form. And when you indulge in it whole-heartedly, you will get a strange experience. You will find that outwardly you are doing all this but within, a consciousness stands and watches. This is impossible when the other is concerned but by yourself, it becomes easy. All around the flames of anger will surround you, you will stand in the centre--alone and apart. And once a person observes his anger apart from himself, once someone observes his sex or his greed or his fear thus, a ray of knowledge begins to emit in his life.

He has attained an experience.

He has recognised one of his powers and now it is impossible for him to be deceived through this particular energy. We become the masters of that power which we recognize. The energy that we clearly perceive, no longer enslaves us; whereas the power we do not recognize, keeps us enslaved.

So you can take the pillow to be your beloved or you can take it to be the Kohinoor diamond. You can look upon it as your enemy before whom you tremble. It makes no difference who you are or what you are. way105

Recently a mother had come to me all the way from New York with her daughter. There was a lot of struggle between the two. The mother was under the impression that she loved her daughter very much. She had come two months before also. Then she had told me that she loved her children so much that she would even give her life for them. I told her to think over again for this was not natural. She insisted that she loved her three daughters so, it would be hard for me to imagine! I again told her to think it over.

At this she began to cry and beat her breast. She said, "You are cruel, take back your words, for I really and truly love my children." The louder she screamed the more adamant I became. "Whom are you trying to convince by this--me or your own self?" I asked her. "If you love them, you love them. There the matter should end. There is no need to make an exhibition like this! Since you cry and scream so much and beat your breast I tell you again. Look within and try to understand yourself. Your crying will have no effect on me; but it is bound to affect you."

If you want to love you must know how to cry and beat your breast or else how can others know what you feel? The louder you cry the better you can convey your feeling and that is why women can easily prove that they love whereas a man finds it difficult.

"This will not work with me," I told her.

So this time she brought her eldest daughter along with her. She said, "Now look at us." I did and within fifteen days as much enmity as can exist between two individuals, manifested itself in full between these two.

Enmity exists between a mother and daughter; society, family, hides it. As the daughter grows into a young girl, the mother starts becoming her enemy. This is absolutely natural. This is our animal heritage. As the son grows up and becomes a young man, the father is filled with jealousy. This is not a matter to be discussed. All fathers and all sons know it. As the boy grows up, he tries to push the father out. Verily, he has to make a place for himself. Looking at the daughter in the full bloom of youth, the mother feels she lost hers on account of her. No one is the cause for loss of youth. Without children too, she would have become old. But she does not think of this. Every man that enters the house first looks at the young girl and then at the old mother. This is very painful.

The custom of sending a married daughter off to her husband's home was initiated by women and since the woman always has her way, the man had to give in. Daughters had to be sent away from the house. Even if the father takes more interest in his daughter, which is very natural, the mother is filled with jealousy. Then the daughter no longer looks a daughter in the mother's eyes but a sheer woman.

For fifteen days I tried my best to bring out all their maladies from within. I instigated them both against each other. Their fever reached such a pitch that they were ready to fall on each other's throat. Then I made them both sit with me and told them to bring out whatever was within them. Then the disease that came out of them was such no mother or a daughter could ever imagine. This is so within each mother and each daughter. But we

suppress these feelings and dress our wounds. We spread flowers without when there is nothing but dirt and filth within....

You will be shocked to know the jealousy, the disgust, the invectives the mother and daughter expressed against each other. So much so, that I found myself in a fix. I was afraid that if their problem is not solved quickly--they had to return to New York soon-- there would be chaos. Then I had to carry out processes to remove all their hatred. There they sat--the mother and daughter--and they said such things to each other as a daughter has never ever openly told her mother or a mother, her daughter, but which they both have always thought about each other from times immemorial.

You could never dream a mother telling her daughter, "You are my enemy. You always try to snatch away the man who tries to love me." And the daughter says, "You are a harlot!" When the mother asked, "Do you hate me?" She said, "I do, I do, I hate you, this very moment!" The mother said, "You are nobody to me. I cannot bear the very sight of you!"

When all this invective came out in an hour's time, I told them to sit silently with their eyes closed. Thus they sat for five minutes and both were crying. Then they both clung to each other. That night they slept on one cot. The next day the mother said, "It was like a honeymoon night. After years, I was able to be loving to my daughter again." But I told her to beware for this love will only gather hatred. Wherever there is (dwandwa) duality, we tend to gather the opposite.

Lao Tzu says, "The saint is beyond the opposites. He is apart from both of them. They are neither harsh nor compassionate." way116

An American youth of the Peace Corps came to me. He is one of the four hundred who have come to India to establish peace. He took sannyas. I asked him, "Is it not to save yourself from your own restlessness that you are trying for peace for others?"

He was taken aback. "What do you say? You are absolutely right but how did you know? There is so much conflict in my family! I can't get on with my father, I cannot get on with my mother or my brothers. Things had reached such a peak that there would have been bloodshed. Either I would have killed my father or he would have killed me! Therefore it was necessary to run away from home. I heard there was need for peace in India so I joined the Peace Corps and came here. Ever since then I have plunged whole-heartedly into my work."

All the organisations that are out to serve society, also all reformers and leaders, are those who are not satisfied with lesser conflicts. They look for bigger spans and amplitudes.

And they look for problems that defy solutions. You cannot dwell longer on problems that are easily solved, you have to then move on the fresh problems. So we look for permanent problems that can never be solved. We are people who have no knowledge of tranquility and whose whole make-up is of restlessness. We create restlessness with each

movement of ours--sitting, standing, walking, talking. Even our silence is filled with restlessness. way109

Once a young man, a Jesus freak, came to me. He was living as poor a life as possible, without shoes, with rotten clothes. And he was travelling on foot all over India. From the Himalayas he was going to the south, and just living by begging.

When he passed the town I was in somebody told him about me and he came to see me. And I said, "What are you doing? What is this nonsense?"

He said, "You call it nonsense? Jesus says 'Blessed are the poor in spirit.'"

I said, "He does not say that just by not wearing shoes you become poor in spirit or just by begging you become poor in spirit. As far as I can see you are tremendously egoistic." The moment I said this he became very angry, almost ready to fight.

I said, "Sit down. That's what I am saying--that you are not humble. Your humbleness is just a strategy of the ego and you are using Jesus' words in a totally wrong context; you have not understood them."

But that's what Christians down the ages have been doing with the words of Christ. And that is going to be done to almost all enlightened people and their teachings. Hence my effort is to be as direct as possible, so there is less possibility of misunderstanding.

I don't want to be metaphorical, I don't want to use parables because they can be interpreted in many ways. I don't want to use traditional words, or if I have to use them because there are no other words available then I want to make my meaning as clear as possible, as definite as possible. In that sense I am very logical and mathematical.

I call meditation the greatest richness because it makes you aware of your own infinite treasure. It makes you a master of the kingdom of god. And the only key to that kingdom is through meditation, through silence, watchfulness, awareness. gwind28

Many hippies have visited me. I felt really sorry for them. They were going on a right path, but somewhere the path turned to the polar opposite. Their resentment was so strong that they started doing exactly the opposite of what they were taught to do. They dropped out of schools, out of colleges, out of universities, because it was not their own choice.

But do you know what happened to the hippies? You don't find them after the age thirty- five. They come back to the society, become again what they have been taught. Their long hair disappears, their beards disappear, their mustaches disappear. All the hippies who have reached nearabout the age of forty are now perfectly accepted gentlemen in the society. They are good businessmen, good salesmen, successful. false25

I have changed many hippies; now you cannot recognize them. Even they may have forgotten that the first time when they came to me...Just going from Kathmandu to Goa--

just in between, by the way--they had stopped to see what was happening there, what was cooking there. And then they thought, "This guy seems to be far out"--and they stayed forever. They forgot about Goa, they forgot about their hippie ideology; and when they became sannyasins they became totally new persons with new values.

We need more wandering philosophers around the world, wandering teachers around the world so that young people can belong to them and learn something--and live something. socrat23

One girl came to me just two or three days ago, and she said, "I was in Goa"--she is my sannyasin--and she said, "I took lsd and then I became certain that enlightenment had happened to me, so I threw your mala into the sea, because now there is no need. I changed the dress, because I am now enlightened, so what is the use of orange or the mala or anything?"

This is a sort of madness. Enlightenment is not so cheap. But in the West they are making everything cheap. I go on hearing that there are three week intense enlightenment growth groups--in three weeks you are enlightened!

A poet may have dreamed, may have taken hashish. And scientists say that poets have some difference, some chemical difference from ordinary persons--they have some hashish in their blood, really, so they can imagine more, they can dream more, they can go on dream trips more than others. So they write, but their writing is imaginative, it is not objective. It may help them as a catharsis, that they are unburdened.

But there is another type of literature, totally different, which is objective. These Upanishads were not written for the joy of the writer, they were written for those who were going to read them--they are objective. What they will do to you if you contemplate on them has been planned; every single word has been put there, every single sound has been used. If someone contemplates on it, then the state of the writer will be revealed to him; the same will happen to him if he contemplates. These scriptures are called holy; that's why. vedant08

You ask: Can LSD be used as a help in meditation?

LSD can be used as a help, but the help is very dangerous; it is not so easy. If you use a mantra, even that can become difficult to throw, but if you use acid, LSD it will be even more difficult to throw.

The moment you are on an LSD trip you are not in control. Chemistry takes control and you are not the master, and once you are not the master it is difficult to regain that position. The chemical is not the slave now, you are the slave. Now how to control it is not going to be your choice. Once you take LSD as a help you are making a slave of the master and your whole body chemistry will be affected by it....

LSD can be used to bring you to meditation only if your body has been prepared for it. So if you ask if it can be used in the West, I will say that it is not for the West at all. It can be used only in the East--if the body is totally prepared for it. Yoga has used it, tantra has used it, there are schools of tantra and yoga that have used LSD as a help, but then they prepare your body first. There is a long process of purification of the body. Your body becomes so pure and you become such a great master of it that even chemistry cannot become your master now. So yoga allows it, but in a very specific way.

First your body must be purified chemically. Then you will be in such control of the body that even your body chemistry can be controlled....

In tantra, particularly in "leftist" tantra, they use alcohol to help meditation. It looks absurd; it is not. The seeker will take alcohol in a particular quantity and then will try to be alert. Consciousness must not be lost. By and by the quantity of alcohol will be raised, but the consciousness must remain alert. The person has taken alcohol, it has been absorbed in the body, but the mind remains above it; consciousness is not lost. Then the quantity of alcohol is raised higher and higher. Through this practice a point comes when any amount of alcohol can be given and the mind remains alert. Only then can LSD be a help.

In the West there are no practices to purify the body or to increase consciousness through changes in body chemistry. Acid is taken without any preparation in the West. It is not going to help; rather, on the contrary, it may destroy the whole mind.

There are many problems. Once you have been on an LSD trip you have a glimpse of something you have never known, something you have never felt. If you begin to practice meditation it is a long process, but LSD is not a process. You take it and the process is over; then the body begins to work. Meditation is a long process--you have to do it for years, only then will the results be forthcoming. And when you have experienced a shortcut, it will be difficult to follow a long process. The mind will crave to return to using the drugs. So it is difficult to meditate once you have known a glimpse through chemistry; to undertake something that is a long process will be difficult. Meditation needs more stamina, more trust, more waiting, and it will be difficult because now you can compare.

Secondly, any method is bad if you are not in control all the time. When you are meditating you can stop at any moment. If you want to stop, you can stop this very moment; you can come out of it. You cannot stop an LSD trip: once you have taken LSD you have to complete the circle. Now you are not the master.

Anything that makes a slave of you is ultimately not going to help spiritually, because spirituality basically means to be the master of oneself. So I wouldn't suggest shortcuts. I am not against LSD, I may sometimes be for it, but then a long preliminary preparation is necessary. Then you will be the master. But then LSD is not a shortcut. It will take even longer than meditation. Hatha yoga takes years to prepare a body--twenty years, twenty-

five years, then a body is ready; now you can use any chemical help and it will not be destructive to your being. But then the process is far longer.

Then LSD can be used; I am in favor of it then. If you are prepared to take twenty years to prepare the body in order to take LSD, then it is not destructive. But the same thing can be done in two years with meditation. Because the body is more gross, mastery is more difficult. The mind is more subtle so mastery is easier. The body is further away from your being, so there is a greater gap; with the mind the gap is shorter....

If the mastery is of the mind then you can change the body, but the preparedness of the body belongs to the body alone. Hatha yoga invented many methods so that the process could be completed, but then even greater methods were discovered: how to control the mind directly--raja yoga. With these methods the body can be a little helpful, but there is no need to be too concerned with it. So hatha yoga adepts have said that LSD can be used, but raja yoga cannot say LSD can be used, because raja yoga has no methodology to prepare the body. Direct meditation is used.

Sometimes it happens--only sometimes, rarely--that if you have a glimpse through LSD and do not become addicted to it, that glimpse may become a thirst in you to seek something further. So to try it once is good, but it becomes difficult to know where to stop and how to stop. The first trip is good, to be on it once is good; you become aware of a different world and then you begin to seek, you begin to search, because of it--but then it becomes difficult to stop. This is the problem. If you can stop, then to take LSD once is good. But that "if" is a great one....

With the first you are the master; with the second you are not. The first will try to take a second, and then it will go on continuously; then it is no longer in your hands. To begin anything is easy because you are the master, but to end anything is difficult because then you are not the master.

So I am not against LSD, and if I am against it, it is conditional. This is the condition: if you can remain the master, then okay. Use anything, but remain the master. And if you cannot remain the master, then do not enter into a dangerous road at all. Do not enter at all; it will be better. artof12

When Japanese started coming to me for sannyas I was a little bit puzzled--because all over the whole world when you want to say yes, you move your head up and down. And the Japanese, when they want to say yes, move the head from side to side--which means "no" all over the world, that is the sign for no--but that is their sign for yes, and the head moving up and down is their sign for no.

So when I would ask them something I would be very much puzzled; I could not believe that. They had come to take sannyas. They were sitting before me and I was asking "Are

you ready for sannyas?" and they would shake. "Then why have you come? You have

traveled here from Japan unnecessarily and you are sitting here in front of me just for that purpose, and you are saying no?"

Then my interpreter said to me, "You are not understanding; that person is saying yes. In Japan, the head moving from side to side is yes; the head moving up and down is no." So you have to remember it when you are talking with the Japanese. Otherwise there is going to be great confusion--you will say something, they will understand something else. They cannot speak but they can understand. upan39

Osho makes Predictions

During this time Osho comments on future events, which later become news

According to me, meditation and medicine are two poles of the same science where the connecting link is still missing. But slowly, slowly they are coming closer to each other. Today in most of the major hospitals of America a hypnotist has become essential. But hypnotism is not meditation. However, this is a good step. At least it shows that there is an understanding that something needs to be done about the consciousness of man, and that only treating the body is not enough.

And I think that if a hypnotist has entered the hospitals today, then tomorrow a temple will also enter. It will come later, it will take some time. After the hypnotist every hospital will have a department of the Yoga, of meditation. It should happen. Then we will be able to treat man as a whole. The body will be taken care of by the doctors, the mind by the psychologists, and the soul by yoga, meditation.

The day the hospitals accept man as a whole, as a totality, and then treat him as such, will be a day of rejoicing for mankind. I request you to think in that direction so that this day will come soon. early10

Did you know that there is a movement going on in those countries where medical science has increased the lifespan of people. This movement is for euthanasia. The old people are demanding that they should be given a right to die in the constitution. They say that life has become arduous for them and you are just keeping them hanging on in the hospitals. It has become possible: you can put a man on an oxygen cylinder and keep him hanging on endlessly. You can keep him alive, but that life will be worse than death. God knows how many people in Europe and America are lying in hospitals in upside down or other strange positions, hooked up to oxygen cylinders. They have not the right to die, and they are demanding to be given the right to die.

My understanding is that by the end of this century most of the developed countries in the world will have the right to die as one of the constitutional rights of man, because the doctor has no right to keep a person alive against his wishes.

By increasing the age of a person you cannot remove the fear of death from him. By making a person healthy you can make his life more happy but not fearless. Fearlessness

comes in only one situation, which is when one comes to understand from within that there is something in him that never dies. This understanding is absolutely essential.

Meditation is the realization of this immortality, that that which is within me never dies. Only that dies which is on the outside. And that is why you should treat the body medically so that it lives happily for as long as it lives, and at the same time try to be aware of what is inside you so that even if death is at your doorstep, you are not afraid. This inner understanding is fearlessness. early10

So I myself am pleased and hope that science succeeds in making a test-tube baby as soon as possible, because then we will be helped by scientific investigations to break our identity with the body. Then we will know for sure that the body is a kind of machine, and that to believe in it as the self is foolish. It is foolishness even now, but at present we are unwilling to recognize that the body is a machine. It is a machine even so. It is produced by natural forces, so by understanding the secrets of nature we will be able to produce it, and then we will have the cooperation of natural forces to break our identification with the body. absolu09

America recently decided that each cigarette packet should have written with ink in black letters 'This is harmful to health'. The vendors of cigarettes, the owners and the manufacturers all, they made enough hue and cry that they would undergo the loss of crores. When I read it all, I said these cigarette manufacturers do not know that people are so unconscious; for how many days will they read this notice written with red ink? And the same happened. For six months the sale of cigarettes decreased; after six months it turned to the same level as before. It is written on the packet with red ink, but the reader needs to be present. Once or twice he reads it and then sleeps again. The cigarette packet comes and the notice is written there but no one reads it. Cigarette sales have become normal again. thousd04

By and by, Soviet Russia will become capitalistic. It will have to. Otherwise it will die from stagnation. To me, a capitalist society is a natural phenomenon. A socialist structure is not natural. It is something imposed, something conceived of through the mind.

Capitalism developed by itself; socialism has to be brought about, it cannot come by itself.

Marx thought it would happen, but he was basically wrong. And he has proven to be wrong. quest15

Osho Leaves Bombay for Poona

In 1974 Osho suggests Laxmi look for a property in Poona. Laxmi finds #33 Koregaon Park. On 21 March 1974 Osho celebrates his Enlightenment Day with friends in Woodlands Apartment in the morning, and again that afternoon in Poona!

When I dropped traveling. I had already enough people, so I started a new phase: meditation camps in hill stations or in faraway Kashmir for those who wanted to be with me for twenty-one days or seven days--small camps, big camps.

For a while it went well because I was not entering the cities, but politicians cannot sit silently. They were living so much in the fear of being thrown out of their power positions that they started creating trouble for the meditation camps.

Hotels were reserved but when we arrived the government had canceled the reservation. Now the hotel manager would say, "We cannot do anything, it is from higher up; the government wants to have a special conference for these seven days so we cannot give it to you." And there was no conference. The hotel remained empty just so that we could not have the camp.

When even to have a camp became impossible, that was the time I moved to Poona--just to remain there. "Now, anybody who wants to come should come here"--because they had made it almost impossible for me to move. mystic27

I found that meditation camps began creating trouble for me. In Rajasthan, in their assembly, they decided that I should not be allowed into Rajasthan. I had been going to Mount Abu which is in Rajasthan. In Gujarat, at that time, Morarji Desai was the chief minister. He himself proposed to the assembly that my coming to Gujarat should be prohibited.

I used to go to Bhavnagar, to Rajkot, to Jamnagar, to Dwarka--and there were a few very beautiful places for camps--Nargol...miles and miles of huge saru trees. The sun never reaches underneath them because on top they are so full of leaves, branches, and they grow very close. And by the side of the sea you can hear the sound of the sea waves and listen--sitting, not together, but scattered in the forest.

So it became a trouble that my camps should be stopped everywhere. Now, my camps were not doing any harm to anybody. And in my camps only people were coming who wanted to come. hyaku08

Humidity is dangerous for me. Whenever I went to Bombay, attacks of asthma would immediately increase. last112

And my allergy needed dry air and cool air, no humidity. That's why I shifted from Bombay to Poona, because Bombay was more humid, Poona was less, but still it didn't make much difference. last317

In Bombay, I became aware that the whole city is floating in urine and shit! I have always wondered why Morarji Desai had chosen Bombay to be his residence. It is because the perfume that surrounds the great city of Bombay...except Morarji Desai, nobody else could enjoy it? mess113

I don't have any possessions. Although I live like a king, I don't possess anything. Nothing is mine. If one day someone comes and says to me, "Leave this place at once," I will leave immediately. I will not even have to pack anything. Nothing is mine. That's how one day I left Bombay. Nobody could believe that I would leave so easily without looking back even once. glimps16