Ari Main To Naam Ke Rang Chhaki #2
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Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Questions in this Discourse
First question:
Osho, what is man?
A longing—for the transcendence of oneself. As a seed longs to disappear so that a tree may be, so is man a seed—eager to vanish so that the Divine may happen.
Osho, what is man?
A longing—for the transcendence of oneself. As a seed longs to disappear so that a tree may be, so is man a seed—eager to vanish so that the Divine may happen.
Man is the seed of the Divine’s flower. Therefore, to the extent one is willing to disappear, to that extent one is truly human. And the one who succeeds in disappearing is blessed.
Man is a prayer—to be absorbed, dissolved. For in being, there is pain. As a river runs toward the ocean, crossing mountains and plains, carrying a great prayer for union with the sea. And what will happen in that union? The river will be lost—yet in getting lost she will become the ocean. So is man a stream of consciousness flowing toward the Infinite.
Boundary brings pain; the boundless—bliss. Wherever there is a limit, there is a prison. Man is a longing to spread his wings and fly beyond all limits.
Therefore, in the life of the one in whom the dream of going beyond oneself has not arisen, he may look human, but humanity has not been born within him. To be human in body is one thing; to be human in spirit is another. To be human in spirit means the sky has taken hold of you; your eyes have lifted toward the moon and stars; the heights have called; you have accepted the challenge of the heights; you are no longer prepared to live in dark ravines—however safe, however convenient, however many multitudes dwell there.
He who walks toward height must become alone, because the crowd does not dare to rise to the heights. A crowd is a crowd; herd-instinct is its way of life. If you are going where the crowd is going, you are not yet a man of the Self. To be self-possessed means the capacity to go alone; such trust in oneself that I can live alone, I can seek alone.
A religious person does not follow; he inquires. A religious person investigates; he does not believe. Never mistake a believer for religious. The believer is deceived and deceiving. The religious person does not believe until he knows. And once one has known, what need of belief? When you have known, you have known—belief is not required. Do you believe in the sun when it rises in the morning? Do you? Is there a debate whether to accept the sun or not—whether to be theist or atheist? No. When the sun is seen to rise, belief and disbelief cease to be issues. What is, is.
Truth is to be known. But to know, one must pay the price. Belief is cheap—worth two cowries. Become a Hindu, become a Muslim, a Jain, a Christian—cheap things; nothing need be risked. In fact, remaining Hindu, remaining Muslim is all profit—because the crowd is with you, the crowd’s conveniences are with you, the crowd’s safeties are with you; you are not alone.
Man is he who sets out alone. Rabindranath has said: Ekla chalo re—walk alone! Only by walking alone will you be able to attain That. The crowd never goes that far; the crowd drags you here; the crowd has not yet even felt the longing to rise above itself. In whomsoever the yearning has arisen that as I am, where I am, it is not enough—there is no contentment; the thirst is unquenched, the hunger unappeased—some lake must be sought where thirst is slaked; some place found where the head can bow; some ocean found where I can break all boundaries and dissolve! The I-sense, the ego, is the boundary. Egolessness is the dissolution of all boundaries.
You ask, “What is man?”
The search to become egoless. The desire to go beyond limits. Self-transcendence!
In this world, other than man, none can transcend himself. Therefore self-transcendence is the definition of man. A mango tree can be nothing but a mango tree—bound. The neem will remain neem; there is no way to be otherwise; it cannot transcend itself, cannot go beyond itself. A lion is a lion; a dog is a dog—there is no way beyond that. Only man has the capacity to go beyond man, to attain Buddhahood, to attain godliness.
This is man’s glory—and man’s agony.
Glory, because the possibility is open; the whole sky is his. If he stretches out his arms, the whole existence is his; he can take all existence into his embrace. Hence glory.
Yet there is much anguish. Anguish because wherever he is, he will not find rest; restlessness will remain. Onward, and onward—the race continues. A great torment abides within, a tension persists. No animal or bird is in tension, because what is, is; there is nothing else to become.
Man’s trouble, man’s pain, his melancholy, his suffering—because he is not content with what is; he must become something more. Within him, like a deep arrow, a desire is lodged—to become something more! He cannot sit assured—he must journey! Man is a journey. No animal or bird is a journey; only man is a journey.
And if you make it a journey of wealth, of position, you will remain a journey and nothing else. If you make it a journey of religion, it becomes a pilgrimage. Going to Kashi or to Kaaba does not make a pilgrimage. When man, out of the longing to be Divine, becomes ready to surrender everything, then the pilgrimage begins. Only then does one arrive at that sacred place—where there is contentment, ultimate contentment; where there is fulfillment; where, having arrived, there remains nothing further to attain. Call that place nirvana, call it moksha—call it whatever you will!
Man is the seed of liberation.
Man is a drop in which nirvana lies hidden. But until the drop meets the ocean, nirvana cannot be revealed. When man blossoms, the fragrance of the Divine rises from him. Therefore, until you become divine, there is no way to be consoled. However much you may explain yourself away, however much you may entangle yourself, the remembrance will return—again and again breaking through all arrangements—that you are squandering your life; whatever you are doing is futile. This livelihood, this shopkeeping, this marketplace—all this is fine, but the real work you have not yet done—this sting will keep arising. This wound within will keep reminding you. And it is good that this sting keeps arising, that this thorn keeps pricking, for only if it keeps pricking is there hope that one day you may become that which it is your destiny to become.
The soul slipped from the mold and was lost in the Real;
the melody, parted from the reed, became distraught.
As a note leaves the flute, and the moment it is apart from the flute it is thrown into turmoil—
the melody, parted from the reed, became distraught.
As a flute’s note strays from the flute and is troubled, and sets out to seek its primal tone, its original source—so is man: a note separated from the reed, a ray gone far from God, a traveler astray from his home.
The soul slipped from the mold and was lost in the Real—
and one day you must rise above this body and be lost in the Real.
The soul slipped from the mold and was lost in the Real—
that which is the Real, that which is Reality—until you merge into it, you are like a flute-note wandering, seeking its source. Restless, anguished.
When the soul throbbed, the glance of longing turned lover;
when the heart leapt, it became the theater of the Beloved’s beauty.
The world of yearning gathered to a single center
when, from the profusion of phantoms, the heart grew distraught.
Eyes brimming, tresses disheveled, glances all unrest—
for the sake of such repentance, I myself became repentant.
Else, what was man but the mere arrangement of elements?
Only a few agitations were given the name “human.”
What is man otherwise—just a juggling of the five great elements!
Else, what was there but the ordering of the elements—
earth, water, air—just an assemblage; what was man? He is blessed only because—
only a few impatient longings were given the name “human.”
But there are some urgencies, some agitations, some restlessnesses.
Earth is only earth if there is no restlessness in it to become nectar. The body is only body if within it the dream of attaining the Divine has not arisen.
Do not mistake this aggregate of the five great elements for man himself; it is only a possibility. When within it the longing is born—to go beyond oneself, to rise above oneself, to take a leap beyond oneself—then the real man is born. Such a man we call dvija—twice-born.
One birth is from the mother’s womb. The second birth comes through meditation, through prayer, through worship, through adoration. Keep the second birth in view. Only after the second birth, only as a dvija, do you become truly human. Before that, you are human only in name.
Man is a prayer—to be absorbed, dissolved. For in being, there is pain. As a river runs toward the ocean, crossing mountains and plains, carrying a great prayer for union with the sea. And what will happen in that union? The river will be lost—yet in getting lost she will become the ocean. So is man a stream of consciousness flowing toward the Infinite.
Boundary brings pain; the boundless—bliss. Wherever there is a limit, there is a prison. Man is a longing to spread his wings and fly beyond all limits.
Therefore, in the life of the one in whom the dream of going beyond oneself has not arisen, he may look human, but humanity has not been born within him. To be human in body is one thing; to be human in spirit is another. To be human in spirit means the sky has taken hold of you; your eyes have lifted toward the moon and stars; the heights have called; you have accepted the challenge of the heights; you are no longer prepared to live in dark ravines—however safe, however convenient, however many multitudes dwell there.
He who walks toward height must become alone, because the crowd does not dare to rise to the heights. A crowd is a crowd; herd-instinct is its way of life. If you are going where the crowd is going, you are not yet a man of the Self. To be self-possessed means the capacity to go alone; such trust in oneself that I can live alone, I can seek alone.
A religious person does not follow; he inquires. A religious person investigates; he does not believe. Never mistake a believer for religious. The believer is deceived and deceiving. The religious person does not believe until he knows. And once one has known, what need of belief? When you have known, you have known—belief is not required. Do you believe in the sun when it rises in the morning? Do you? Is there a debate whether to accept the sun or not—whether to be theist or atheist? No. When the sun is seen to rise, belief and disbelief cease to be issues. What is, is.
Truth is to be known. But to know, one must pay the price. Belief is cheap—worth two cowries. Become a Hindu, become a Muslim, a Jain, a Christian—cheap things; nothing need be risked. In fact, remaining Hindu, remaining Muslim is all profit—because the crowd is with you, the crowd’s conveniences are with you, the crowd’s safeties are with you; you are not alone.
Man is he who sets out alone. Rabindranath has said: Ekla chalo re—walk alone! Only by walking alone will you be able to attain That. The crowd never goes that far; the crowd drags you here; the crowd has not yet even felt the longing to rise above itself. In whomsoever the yearning has arisen that as I am, where I am, it is not enough—there is no contentment; the thirst is unquenched, the hunger unappeased—some lake must be sought where thirst is slaked; some place found where the head can bow; some ocean found where I can break all boundaries and dissolve! The I-sense, the ego, is the boundary. Egolessness is the dissolution of all boundaries.
You ask, “What is man?”
The search to become egoless. The desire to go beyond limits. Self-transcendence!
In this world, other than man, none can transcend himself. Therefore self-transcendence is the definition of man. A mango tree can be nothing but a mango tree—bound. The neem will remain neem; there is no way to be otherwise; it cannot transcend itself, cannot go beyond itself. A lion is a lion; a dog is a dog—there is no way beyond that. Only man has the capacity to go beyond man, to attain Buddhahood, to attain godliness.
This is man’s glory—and man’s agony.
Glory, because the possibility is open; the whole sky is his. If he stretches out his arms, the whole existence is his; he can take all existence into his embrace. Hence glory.
Yet there is much anguish. Anguish because wherever he is, he will not find rest; restlessness will remain. Onward, and onward—the race continues. A great torment abides within, a tension persists. No animal or bird is in tension, because what is, is; there is nothing else to become.
Man’s trouble, man’s pain, his melancholy, his suffering—because he is not content with what is; he must become something more. Within him, like a deep arrow, a desire is lodged—to become something more! He cannot sit assured—he must journey! Man is a journey. No animal or bird is a journey; only man is a journey.
And if you make it a journey of wealth, of position, you will remain a journey and nothing else. If you make it a journey of religion, it becomes a pilgrimage. Going to Kashi or to Kaaba does not make a pilgrimage. When man, out of the longing to be Divine, becomes ready to surrender everything, then the pilgrimage begins. Only then does one arrive at that sacred place—where there is contentment, ultimate contentment; where there is fulfillment; where, having arrived, there remains nothing further to attain. Call that place nirvana, call it moksha—call it whatever you will!
Man is the seed of liberation.
Man is a drop in which nirvana lies hidden. But until the drop meets the ocean, nirvana cannot be revealed. When man blossoms, the fragrance of the Divine rises from him. Therefore, until you become divine, there is no way to be consoled. However much you may explain yourself away, however much you may entangle yourself, the remembrance will return—again and again breaking through all arrangements—that you are squandering your life; whatever you are doing is futile. This livelihood, this shopkeeping, this marketplace—all this is fine, but the real work you have not yet done—this sting will keep arising. This wound within will keep reminding you. And it is good that this sting keeps arising, that this thorn keeps pricking, for only if it keeps pricking is there hope that one day you may become that which it is your destiny to become.
The soul slipped from the mold and was lost in the Real;
the melody, parted from the reed, became distraught.
As a note leaves the flute, and the moment it is apart from the flute it is thrown into turmoil—
the melody, parted from the reed, became distraught.
As a flute’s note strays from the flute and is troubled, and sets out to seek its primal tone, its original source—so is man: a note separated from the reed, a ray gone far from God, a traveler astray from his home.
The soul slipped from the mold and was lost in the Real—
and one day you must rise above this body and be lost in the Real.
The soul slipped from the mold and was lost in the Real—
that which is the Real, that which is Reality—until you merge into it, you are like a flute-note wandering, seeking its source. Restless, anguished.
When the soul throbbed, the glance of longing turned lover;
when the heart leapt, it became the theater of the Beloved’s beauty.
The world of yearning gathered to a single center
when, from the profusion of phantoms, the heart grew distraught.
Eyes brimming, tresses disheveled, glances all unrest—
for the sake of such repentance, I myself became repentant.
Else, what was man but the mere arrangement of elements?
Only a few agitations were given the name “human.”
What is man otherwise—just a juggling of the five great elements!
Else, what was there but the ordering of the elements—
earth, water, air—just an assemblage; what was man? He is blessed only because—
only a few impatient longings were given the name “human.”
But there are some urgencies, some agitations, some restlessnesses.
Earth is only earth if there is no restlessness in it to become nectar. The body is only body if within it the dream of attaining the Divine has not arisen.
Do not mistake this aggregate of the five great elements for man himself; it is only a possibility. When within it the longing is born—to go beyond oneself, to rise above oneself, to take a leap beyond oneself—then the real man is born. Such a man we call dvija—twice-born.
One birth is from the mother’s womb. The second birth comes through meditation, through prayer, through worship, through adoration. Keep the second birth in view. Only after the second birth, only as a dvija, do you become truly human. Before that, you are human only in name.
Second question:
Osho, what is the first glimpse of the Divine? When does it happen?
Osho, what is the first glimpse of the Divine? When does it happen?
Chinmay! The very moment you are gone, the first glimpse of the Divine happens. As long as you are, it will not happen. If you want the first glimpse to happen to “you,” it will never happen. If you remain, there is no glimpse. You are the obstacle—there is no other obstacle; remember this.
People often imagine there are other obstacles—karma, sin, ignorance; remove these and the glimpse will come. You are mistaken. Neither karma, nor sin, nor ignorance is the obstacle; if there is an obstacle, it is you. It is the obstacle of “I.”
And until the “I” dissolves, there is no glimpse. As far as the “I” extends, the door remains closed. The sun may be rising, but its light will not reach you. When the “I” is gone, the door opens. When you disappear, the Divine is.
The first glimpse of the Divine happens at your death—at your dissolution.
“If you would enter the beloved’s assembly,
break the pitcher of ego and come.
O lover of reason and intellect—here, reason has no use.”
If you want to enter that beloved’s world, that gathering of the Friend—just break one thing, the vessel of selfhood; break the sense of “I” and come.
O intoxicated one of wit and wisdom!
And if you come carrying your cleverness, your shrewdness, your erudition, your virtue, your renunciation, your saintliness, your great holiness—
“O lover of reason and intellect—here, reason has no use.”
—you will not reach. There, neither cleverness nor calculation nor book-learning is needed. Only one thing is needed—come as emptiness. In your emptiness, His fullness descends. Your very void draws down His plenitude.
Disappear, so that you may attain.
People want a glimpse of the Divine but will not pay the price. Then no glimpse ever comes. Or what “glimpses” they do get are only the mind’s play—Krishna standing with a flute, Rama with bow and arrow, Jesus on the cross. These are the mind’s projections, not the Divine. God has no form, no color, no attribute. God is not a person who can be “glimpsed.”
God is an experience, a taste that spreads through your whole being, down to every pore. God is a felt sense, not a person—just as love is a felt sense. Love is not a meeting where you converse with love; love appears.
“The little tale of the single word ‘love’ is this:
contracted, it is the lover’s heart; expanded, it is the whole universe.”
“Love” is a small word—two and a half letters, Kabir said—but no story is greater. In that small word all the scriptures are contained. “Two and a half letters of love—who reads them is a true scholar.” The Vedas, the Quran, the Puranas—everything is contained in it.
“Contracted, it is the lover’s heart; expanded, it is the whole universe.”
All the play is of this love. If it contracts, it becomes the lover’s heart; if it expands, it becomes God.
Don’t shrink your love—let it expand! Let it expand so vastly that the whole of existence becomes the courtyard of your love. Let it expand so completely that you are no more. Let your heartbeat pulse in the life of the cosmos; let your sap flow in the greenness of trees; bloom in the flowers, in the moon and stars, in hills and mountains. Expand and expand, until this small knot you have tied tight as ego melts away. Spread it so wide that it dissolves; thin it out until it disappears. Then—the first glimpse.
But remember, the first glimpse does not mean “you” will get a glimpse. You will not be there; only then the first glimpse. This is the paradox.
As long as the devotee remains, God is not. And when God is, where is the devotee? The devotee has never “met” God. When the devotee is gone, union happens. When the devotee is no more, union is. Hence the proclamation of “Anal Haq,” “Aham Brahmasmi.” A moment comes when the devotee is no more, only God remains. In that moment the cry rises, “Aham Brahmasmi—I am Brahman!”
As long as you see God as separate from you, know that you are still not beyond the mind’s net. If you see God standing over there, understand that your ego still persists. Where the seer remains, the seen God is imagination. As long as a seer exists, the seen is woven out of your thought. Only One must remain. Seer and seen must become one. In that instant—the first glimpse.
And when that first glimpse comes, you see that nothing you did had any cause-and-effect connection with what is received. What we did is a no-thing; it was futile. What has happened has nothing to do with our doing.
What we do is like this: I have heard of a lizard living in a palace. There was a marriage among the lizards—band and shehnai were playing, an invitation came. But the lizard said, “I cannot come. Don’t you see my work? If I go, the entire palace will collapse. I am the one holding it together. I have a great responsibility. You who live in straw huts can leave; no harm done. But this is a grand palace—heavy loss will follow if I leave. I cannot possibly come.”
If a lizard thinks like this, do not be surprised—all lizards think so. So do humans. “Without me everything will fall apart. If I am gone, what will happen to the world? Palaces will fall, life’s order will break.” This sense of “I” returns by subtle paths. It becomes austerity in the name of religion, it becomes yoga. Then you think your yoga will bring God closer; your practice will bring attainment. But your practice and your attainment are related just as the lizard is related to the palace’s support—not more than that.
The day the first glimpse descends, you realize how mad you were! “I used to think: I will eat this way, eat this many times; I will not drink water at night; I will strain my water; I will wear so many clothes; sleep this long; rise at brahma-muhurt; do this, do that—and by the sum of all this I will gain God.” When God is realized, you will laugh: “How mad I was! What calculations I made! What I ate, what I drank; how many clothes I wore or did not; where I stayed; how many fasts, vows, rules—how utterly futile! There is no proportion at all. What is received is so vast that if it were gained by your fasts, it would be worth two pennies. If the price you paid were truly God’s price, God would no longer be worth attaining. If God is bought by your headstand for an hour each day, then that is God’s price? If you got Him by lying on thorns—is that His price?”
There is no cause-and-effect. When grace pours, all effort is swept away—like a flood that carries off all the scrub on the banks; nothing remains, everything goes. So those who have known say: nothing we did had any relation to receiving. Yet, until it happens, we keep thinking: “If I don’t do, how will I get it?”
Ego always thinks in the language of doing. And in this world, most things are indeed obtained by doing. If you do nothing, you get no wealth, no office. Sit idle and you remain a fool; others will grab what comes before you. Here there is hustle and bustle—pushing, shoving, cut-throat competition. It won’t happen that while you sit quietly people arrive and insist, “Please be Prime Minister!” No, there is great botheration here—head-breaking struggles—and even then nothing is certain; at the last moment the prize slips away. It’s a heavy fight.
So here, everything seems to come by karma, by doing. Thus a mathematics is born within: if all else comes by doing, then God too must come by doing. There the mistake begins. God is beyond this world’s arithmetic. Not by doing, but by surrender. Not by action, but by non-doing; not by struggle or aggression, but by disappearing. One who simply sits—quiet, silent—so silent that not even a ripple stirs within—at some uncaused moment the arrival happens, and one does not even know when. And so the greatest miracle is that those who do not do, receive. Those who descend into the depths of non-doing, receive. Those who sink into the fathomless stillness of emptiness, receive.
You ask, “What is the first glimpse? When does it happen?”
Chinmay, when you dissolve, it happens. So dissolve yourself. Let yourself be swept away—don’t save yourself. Don’t save yourself by any pretext. Don’t hang yourself on any peg—whether the peg of knowledge, renunciation, austerity, saintliness—let them all go! Break all pegs. Leave no props, no alibis. This much you can do: do not manufacture the ego.
And the beauty is: ego exists only if you manufacture it. If you don’t make it, it is not there. So the moment you understand that without ego God is found, the very manufacturing of ego begins to quiet down. Ego is like riding a bicycle: keep pedaling and it moves; stop pedaling and, after a little coasting, it comes to a halt. How far will it go?
Ego is not a thing. It’s formed by continuous pedaling. Hence the egoist must be busy doing something or other. A deputy minister must become a minister; a minister must reach the cabinet, reach Delhi; after Delhi, then something more—always more! The pedaling must never stop. If he has a thousand rupees, they must become ten thousand; ten thousand must become a lakh; a lakh must become ten lakhs. He has to keep pedaling. Not that once you reach ten lakhs you can stop and enjoy—stop pedaling and you will fall flat on your back.
Ego lives only in constant activity. Ego is like a tightrope walker—if you do not keep giving it motion and feeding it, it disappears. Ego is not an object.
Therefore do not ask me, “How do we destroy the ego?” People ask this often. Tell them: “If ego is not, God will be.” They reply, “Then how do we destroy ego?” If you destroy it, a new ego will be born: “I am egoless! See, I have destroyed the ego!” This is subtler, more dangerous; its roots go deeper than before, and it becomes an obstacle again.
So don’t ask how to destroy the ego—because if you destroy it, it won’t be destroyed. Simply understand how not to create it. Just recognize the strategies by which you manufacture ego, and relax those strategies. Suddenly you’ll find the ego shrinking, scattering; its leaves falling—autumn has come. Soon its roots will dry up—just don’t water it—and you will find the ego gone.
And the instant ego is gone, at once the Divine appears—the first glimpse! And the first glimpse is the last. Once the glimpse comes, everything is attained. Then there is no difference between first and last. Once God is tasted, it is tasted, and there is no returning. Who will go back into ego’s filth—and why? One who has known heaven—why fall back into hell? One who has found diamonds and jewels—why pick pebbles?
“Today, in such a way, the Beloved sat beside me;
as long as He was with me, I was not.
Faith and heresy, and the world and religion—all were gone.
O Love, be blessed—that only You remained.
O Lord, safeguard the secret of someone’s love:
whether the hand of madness remains or not, may the sleeve remain.
Go, seek some other world for self-restraint—
O Love, I am no longer fit for You.
I do not accept the vastness of the two worlds;
let my fate hold two yards of earth in the lane of the Beloved.”
This is all the devotee longs for—
“I do not accept the vastness of the two worlds;
let my fate hold two yards of earth in the lane of the Beloved.”
The two worlds’ expanse and all their mysteries—I do not want them. Two yards in the Beloved’s alley are enough.
“Behold love’s strange compensation:
the longing to weep remains when there are no tears.”
And so it happens. When the Divine is seen, you can neither weep nor laugh. You cannot even say “thank you,” you cannot bow—because even those acts go with the ego. There remains only awe, a stunned silence—no “thank you” arises, no tears remain to fall in gratitude.
“Behold love’s strange compensation:
the longing to weep remains when there are no tears.”
When the moment to offer thanks comes, the tongue won’t move, the lips won’t part, the throat will choke. When you wish to let two tears fall, you’ll find there are none. When you’d bow your head, no head remains. When you’d dance in ecstasy, you won’t find yourself. Who is left to dance?
This is the paradox of religion.
As long as you are, you can cry, sing, dance—but no dance happens. And when the happening comes—dance, dance like a mad one in bliss—who is left to dance? Those days are gone when you were; now only the Divine is. In such a moment—the first glimpse!
“In lament there is the same song as in celebration;
the only difference is in the nearness and farness of the sound.”
That is the only difference. Even now, you are not; only the Divine is—your illusion is that you are. In sorrow is the same note as in joy. Even on this earth, the breeze of heaven blows. In this sun’s rays are His rays. In these people, He alone throbs. You do not know it—that is all.
“In lament there is the same song as in celebration.”
From the same veena rises the music of bliss, and from that same veena arise the songs of separation. The veena is the same; the note is the same.
“In lament there is the same song as in celebration;
the difference is only the nearness or distance of the sound.”
Just a small difference. You have not heard God’s voice from near. You have heard it from far—in the Vedas, in the Quran, in the Bible, secondhand—from Buddhas, from Nanak, from Kabir, from Jagjivan—but not yourself. The difference is only between a far and a near voice. Hear it yourself, and all is fulfilled.
“This is why a tremor of longing throbs in the breast of every instrument:
my voice too is included in Your voice.”
The day you know, you will see: your voice too was His voice. What you spoke, He spoke. You did not know that in your own throat He sits enthroned. There is no other but He. You do not know it—that is all—but even now you are in God. That a fish does not know it is in the ocean—what difference does it make? It is in the ocean nonetheless.
“He who is neither in form, nor in meaning, nor in sound—
the very being of the heart belongs to that same chain of mystery.
Ask the wounded hearts of lovers
about the delight of a single sidelong, mischievous glance.”
Ask the lovers—the heart pierced—about that one playful glance of the Beloved’s eye, and a revolution happens. What could not be erased is erased; what could not be found stands right before you—and you discover it stood before you always.
“Ask the wounded hearts of lovers
about the delight of a single sidelong glance.
What can one say of the nook of longing—God, God!
I am hearing the song that is still asleep in the instrument.”
Then such subtlety arises that the song not yet born from the veena, still asleep in its strings, is heard. For now, the veena plays and you hear nothing—you are utterly deaf. The veena is sounding and you ask, “Where is the music?” And the veena is singing in the cuckoo, in the call of the papiha, in the wind passing through the trees. It sings in the river dancing down to the sea. In your own throat, in your neighbor’s throat—on every side is the resonance of His veena. It is His sound. All sounds are His—unstruck sound!
“What can one say of the nook of longing—God, God!
I am hearing the song that is still asleep in the instrument.”
When the eye opens, recognition comes, the first glimpse arrives—then even the song not yet sung is heard; its intoxication pervades. What was invisible becomes visible. And if religion can be defined at all, this is its definition: the art of making the invisible visible; the art of seeing what cannot be seen; the art of touching the Untouchable.
If you ask in truth, only One is untouchable: the Divine. He cannot be touched—yet the art of touching Him is called religion. The art of making the impossible possible is religion.
But the root formula of this art is one: disappear! Let the ego go. The Divine has already arrived; only the ego must go—and the eyes open, the ears open. Even the song asleep in the strings is heard.
Then life is an experience. Then life is a wondrous beauty—many-splendored. Then life is a celebration.
People often imagine there are other obstacles—karma, sin, ignorance; remove these and the glimpse will come. You are mistaken. Neither karma, nor sin, nor ignorance is the obstacle; if there is an obstacle, it is you. It is the obstacle of “I.”
And until the “I” dissolves, there is no glimpse. As far as the “I” extends, the door remains closed. The sun may be rising, but its light will not reach you. When the “I” is gone, the door opens. When you disappear, the Divine is.
The first glimpse of the Divine happens at your death—at your dissolution.
“If you would enter the beloved’s assembly,
break the pitcher of ego and come.
O lover of reason and intellect—here, reason has no use.”
If you want to enter that beloved’s world, that gathering of the Friend—just break one thing, the vessel of selfhood; break the sense of “I” and come.
O intoxicated one of wit and wisdom!
And if you come carrying your cleverness, your shrewdness, your erudition, your virtue, your renunciation, your saintliness, your great holiness—
“O lover of reason and intellect—here, reason has no use.”
—you will not reach. There, neither cleverness nor calculation nor book-learning is needed. Only one thing is needed—come as emptiness. In your emptiness, His fullness descends. Your very void draws down His plenitude.
Disappear, so that you may attain.
People want a glimpse of the Divine but will not pay the price. Then no glimpse ever comes. Or what “glimpses” they do get are only the mind’s play—Krishna standing with a flute, Rama with bow and arrow, Jesus on the cross. These are the mind’s projections, not the Divine. God has no form, no color, no attribute. God is not a person who can be “glimpsed.”
God is an experience, a taste that spreads through your whole being, down to every pore. God is a felt sense, not a person—just as love is a felt sense. Love is not a meeting where you converse with love; love appears.
“The little tale of the single word ‘love’ is this:
contracted, it is the lover’s heart; expanded, it is the whole universe.”
“Love” is a small word—two and a half letters, Kabir said—but no story is greater. In that small word all the scriptures are contained. “Two and a half letters of love—who reads them is a true scholar.” The Vedas, the Quran, the Puranas—everything is contained in it.
“Contracted, it is the lover’s heart; expanded, it is the whole universe.”
All the play is of this love. If it contracts, it becomes the lover’s heart; if it expands, it becomes God.
Don’t shrink your love—let it expand! Let it expand so vastly that the whole of existence becomes the courtyard of your love. Let it expand so completely that you are no more. Let your heartbeat pulse in the life of the cosmos; let your sap flow in the greenness of trees; bloom in the flowers, in the moon and stars, in hills and mountains. Expand and expand, until this small knot you have tied tight as ego melts away. Spread it so wide that it dissolves; thin it out until it disappears. Then—the first glimpse.
But remember, the first glimpse does not mean “you” will get a glimpse. You will not be there; only then the first glimpse. This is the paradox.
As long as the devotee remains, God is not. And when God is, where is the devotee? The devotee has never “met” God. When the devotee is gone, union happens. When the devotee is no more, union is. Hence the proclamation of “Anal Haq,” “Aham Brahmasmi.” A moment comes when the devotee is no more, only God remains. In that moment the cry rises, “Aham Brahmasmi—I am Brahman!”
As long as you see God as separate from you, know that you are still not beyond the mind’s net. If you see God standing over there, understand that your ego still persists. Where the seer remains, the seen God is imagination. As long as a seer exists, the seen is woven out of your thought. Only One must remain. Seer and seen must become one. In that instant—the first glimpse.
And when that first glimpse comes, you see that nothing you did had any cause-and-effect connection with what is received. What we did is a no-thing; it was futile. What has happened has nothing to do with our doing.
What we do is like this: I have heard of a lizard living in a palace. There was a marriage among the lizards—band and shehnai were playing, an invitation came. But the lizard said, “I cannot come. Don’t you see my work? If I go, the entire palace will collapse. I am the one holding it together. I have a great responsibility. You who live in straw huts can leave; no harm done. But this is a grand palace—heavy loss will follow if I leave. I cannot possibly come.”
If a lizard thinks like this, do not be surprised—all lizards think so. So do humans. “Without me everything will fall apart. If I am gone, what will happen to the world? Palaces will fall, life’s order will break.” This sense of “I” returns by subtle paths. It becomes austerity in the name of religion, it becomes yoga. Then you think your yoga will bring God closer; your practice will bring attainment. But your practice and your attainment are related just as the lizard is related to the palace’s support—not more than that.
The day the first glimpse descends, you realize how mad you were! “I used to think: I will eat this way, eat this many times; I will not drink water at night; I will strain my water; I will wear so many clothes; sleep this long; rise at brahma-muhurt; do this, do that—and by the sum of all this I will gain God.” When God is realized, you will laugh: “How mad I was! What calculations I made! What I ate, what I drank; how many clothes I wore or did not; where I stayed; how many fasts, vows, rules—how utterly futile! There is no proportion at all. What is received is so vast that if it were gained by your fasts, it would be worth two pennies. If the price you paid were truly God’s price, God would no longer be worth attaining. If God is bought by your headstand for an hour each day, then that is God’s price? If you got Him by lying on thorns—is that His price?”
There is no cause-and-effect. When grace pours, all effort is swept away—like a flood that carries off all the scrub on the banks; nothing remains, everything goes. So those who have known say: nothing we did had any relation to receiving. Yet, until it happens, we keep thinking: “If I don’t do, how will I get it?”
Ego always thinks in the language of doing. And in this world, most things are indeed obtained by doing. If you do nothing, you get no wealth, no office. Sit idle and you remain a fool; others will grab what comes before you. Here there is hustle and bustle—pushing, shoving, cut-throat competition. It won’t happen that while you sit quietly people arrive and insist, “Please be Prime Minister!” No, there is great botheration here—head-breaking struggles—and even then nothing is certain; at the last moment the prize slips away. It’s a heavy fight.
So here, everything seems to come by karma, by doing. Thus a mathematics is born within: if all else comes by doing, then God too must come by doing. There the mistake begins. God is beyond this world’s arithmetic. Not by doing, but by surrender. Not by action, but by non-doing; not by struggle or aggression, but by disappearing. One who simply sits—quiet, silent—so silent that not even a ripple stirs within—at some uncaused moment the arrival happens, and one does not even know when. And so the greatest miracle is that those who do not do, receive. Those who descend into the depths of non-doing, receive. Those who sink into the fathomless stillness of emptiness, receive.
You ask, “What is the first glimpse? When does it happen?”
Chinmay, when you dissolve, it happens. So dissolve yourself. Let yourself be swept away—don’t save yourself. Don’t save yourself by any pretext. Don’t hang yourself on any peg—whether the peg of knowledge, renunciation, austerity, saintliness—let them all go! Break all pegs. Leave no props, no alibis. This much you can do: do not manufacture the ego.
And the beauty is: ego exists only if you manufacture it. If you don’t make it, it is not there. So the moment you understand that without ego God is found, the very manufacturing of ego begins to quiet down. Ego is like riding a bicycle: keep pedaling and it moves; stop pedaling and, after a little coasting, it comes to a halt. How far will it go?
Ego is not a thing. It’s formed by continuous pedaling. Hence the egoist must be busy doing something or other. A deputy minister must become a minister; a minister must reach the cabinet, reach Delhi; after Delhi, then something more—always more! The pedaling must never stop. If he has a thousand rupees, they must become ten thousand; ten thousand must become a lakh; a lakh must become ten lakhs. He has to keep pedaling. Not that once you reach ten lakhs you can stop and enjoy—stop pedaling and you will fall flat on your back.
Ego lives only in constant activity. Ego is like a tightrope walker—if you do not keep giving it motion and feeding it, it disappears. Ego is not an object.
Therefore do not ask me, “How do we destroy the ego?” People ask this often. Tell them: “If ego is not, God will be.” They reply, “Then how do we destroy ego?” If you destroy it, a new ego will be born: “I am egoless! See, I have destroyed the ego!” This is subtler, more dangerous; its roots go deeper than before, and it becomes an obstacle again.
So don’t ask how to destroy the ego—because if you destroy it, it won’t be destroyed. Simply understand how not to create it. Just recognize the strategies by which you manufacture ego, and relax those strategies. Suddenly you’ll find the ego shrinking, scattering; its leaves falling—autumn has come. Soon its roots will dry up—just don’t water it—and you will find the ego gone.
And the instant ego is gone, at once the Divine appears—the first glimpse! And the first glimpse is the last. Once the glimpse comes, everything is attained. Then there is no difference between first and last. Once God is tasted, it is tasted, and there is no returning. Who will go back into ego’s filth—and why? One who has known heaven—why fall back into hell? One who has found diamonds and jewels—why pick pebbles?
“Today, in such a way, the Beloved sat beside me;
as long as He was with me, I was not.
Faith and heresy, and the world and religion—all were gone.
O Love, be blessed—that only You remained.
O Lord, safeguard the secret of someone’s love:
whether the hand of madness remains or not, may the sleeve remain.
Go, seek some other world for self-restraint—
O Love, I am no longer fit for You.
I do not accept the vastness of the two worlds;
let my fate hold two yards of earth in the lane of the Beloved.”
This is all the devotee longs for—
“I do not accept the vastness of the two worlds;
let my fate hold two yards of earth in the lane of the Beloved.”
The two worlds’ expanse and all their mysteries—I do not want them. Two yards in the Beloved’s alley are enough.
“Behold love’s strange compensation:
the longing to weep remains when there are no tears.”
And so it happens. When the Divine is seen, you can neither weep nor laugh. You cannot even say “thank you,” you cannot bow—because even those acts go with the ego. There remains only awe, a stunned silence—no “thank you” arises, no tears remain to fall in gratitude.
“Behold love’s strange compensation:
the longing to weep remains when there are no tears.”
When the moment to offer thanks comes, the tongue won’t move, the lips won’t part, the throat will choke. When you wish to let two tears fall, you’ll find there are none. When you’d bow your head, no head remains. When you’d dance in ecstasy, you won’t find yourself. Who is left to dance?
This is the paradox of religion.
As long as you are, you can cry, sing, dance—but no dance happens. And when the happening comes—dance, dance like a mad one in bliss—who is left to dance? Those days are gone when you were; now only the Divine is. In such a moment—the first glimpse!
“In lament there is the same song as in celebration;
the only difference is in the nearness and farness of the sound.”
That is the only difference. Even now, you are not; only the Divine is—your illusion is that you are. In sorrow is the same note as in joy. Even on this earth, the breeze of heaven blows. In this sun’s rays are His rays. In these people, He alone throbs. You do not know it—that is all.
“In lament there is the same song as in celebration.”
From the same veena rises the music of bliss, and from that same veena arise the songs of separation. The veena is the same; the note is the same.
“In lament there is the same song as in celebration;
the difference is only the nearness or distance of the sound.”
Just a small difference. You have not heard God’s voice from near. You have heard it from far—in the Vedas, in the Quran, in the Bible, secondhand—from Buddhas, from Nanak, from Kabir, from Jagjivan—but not yourself. The difference is only between a far and a near voice. Hear it yourself, and all is fulfilled.
“This is why a tremor of longing throbs in the breast of every instrument:
my voice too is included in Your voice.”
The day you know, you will see: your voice too was His voice. What you spoke, He spoke. You did not know that in your own throat He sits enthroned. There is no other but He. You do not know it—that is all—but even now you are in God. That a fish does not know it is in the ocean—what difference does it make? It is in the ocean nonetheless.
“He who is neither in form, nor in meaning, nor in sound—
the very being of the heart belongs to that same chain of mystery.
Ask the wounded hearts of lovers
about the delight of a single sidelong, mischievous glance.”
Ask the lovers—the heart pierced—about that one playful glance of the Beloved’s eye, and a revolution happens. What could not be erased is erased; what could not be found stands right before you—and you discover it stood before you always.
“Ask the wounded hearts of lovers
about the delight of a single sidelong glance.
What can one say of the nook of longing—God, God!
I am hearing the song that is still asleep in the instrument.”
Then such subtlety arises that the song not yet born from the veena, still asleep in its strings, is heard. For now, the veena plays and you hear nothing—you are utterly deaf. The veena is sounding and you ask, “Where is the music?” And the veena is singing in the cuckoo, in the call of the papiha, in the wind passing through the trees. It sings in the river dancing down to the sea. In your own throat, in your neighbor’s throat—on every side is the resonance of His veena. It is His sound. All sounds are His—unstruck sound!
“What can one say of the nook of longing—God, God!
I am hearing the song that is still asleep in the instrument.”
When the eye opens, recognition comes, the first glimpse arrives—then even the song not yet sung is heard; its intoxication pervades. What was invisible becomes visible. And if religion can be defined at all, this is its definition: the art of making the invisible visible; the art of seeing what cannot be seen; the art of touching the Untouchable.
If you ask in truth, only One is untouchable: the Divine. He cannot be touched—yet the art of touching Him is called religion. The art of making the impossible possible is religion.
But the root formula of this art is one: disappear! Let the ego go. The Divine has already arrived; only the ego must go—and the eyes open, the ears open. Even the song asleep in the strings is heard.
Then life is an experience. Then life is a wondrous beauty—many-splendored. Then life is a celebration.
Third question:
Osho, Krishna says to Uddhava: It is my firm conviction that apart from satsang and bhakti-yoga there is no other way to cross the ocean of the world. Are satsang and devotion two sides of the same coin? Kindly explain.
Osho, Krishna says to Uddhava: It is my firm conviction that apart from satsang and bhakti-yoga there is no other way to cross the ocean of the world. Are satsang and devotion two sides of the same coin? Kindly explain.
Narendra! Satsang is the lake, and bhakti is the bath. Satsang is the name of a contagious atmosphere—where one catches the “disease” of the Divine, where the “fever” of religion takes hold.
Satsang means: to sit near one who has attained God. Just as illness is contagious, so is health. Just as sin is contagious, so is virtue. Sit by a gambler and the itch to gamble arises; sit near one absorbed in prayer and waves of prayer begin to rise within you.
We are not isolated fragments; we are joined, interwoven. Go near the Himalayas and even those who have never lifted their eyes will, on seeing the virgin snow of Gaurishankar glittering in the sunlight—gold melting, silver flowing—lift their gaze at least once. Those who have always walked with eyes fixed on ruts, drains, refuse—if they go near the Himalaya, they will have to look up once at Gaurishankar. And if even a single glimpse falls upon the eyes, the journey has begun.
Satsang means to sit by one who is like Gaurishankar; in whose presence your dreams begin to unfold; by whose side dormant longings awaken; in whose nearness the divine madness to realize God takes hold.
Satsang is the lake; those who plunge into it become devotees. Without satsang, no devotion. How will you learn devotion? Where will you taste it? Perhaps by hearing one who has tasted, by seeing their state of feeling, by sitting near them—stirred by their waves—by peering into their eyes, holding their hand, resting your head at their feet—a few drops may descend into your throat. One thing is certain: whoever has known the Divine, you cannot return from their presence the same as you went. You will return either as a friend or as an enemy. Whoever returns as a friend has begun to bear the imprint of devotion. Whoever returns an enemy has started a strategy of self-protection. He was frightened. Enmity is self-defense.
If someone goes to a Buddha and returns an enemy, do not be angry with him; he is worthy of compassion. He panicked. The flood that was coming toward him from the Buddha frightened him. He clutched the bank in fear. He denied the Buddha’s flood. “No, there is no flood,” he said. He became so afraid that he felt: if I open my eyes once more to this Gaurishankar, I will not be able to halt my steps. They will set out upon the journey. Then what of all I have built—home and household, the nets I’ve cast in the marketplace? And everything is unfinished. Nothing is complete yet. My son must be married. My daughter is about to give birth. I have just inaugurated a new shop. Everything is new and unripe. And here everything always remains new and unripe; nothing ripens here, ever. Even in the oldest life everything stays entangled. Nothing is resolved; knot follows knot. What will happen to all this if I set out after seeing this Gaurishankar? How to escape this Gaurishankar? There is only one way: deny that it exists. Declare that there is no Gaurishankar—so that the question never rises again.
Thus people sometimes return from the Buddhas as enemies. They are protecting themselves. They say: No, there is no Buddha. This man is deluded. What God, what truth? This world alone is everything. What I have known is right. I will not let my knowing be disturbed. With great difficulty I have assembled a little world; do not tell me it is all illusion. Do not wake me from my sleep. I have gathered lovely dreams. I have just managed, somehow, to emerge from nightmares; a few good days are near—and you come and say: this world is all a dream! Seek God!
No, there is no God. One must deny Him—if one wants to save one’s world, one has to deny God. And one must deny the messenger who brings God’s word. If you can persuade yourself that there is no God, no one ever attains God, that all this is delusion—then you are safe. You can re-entangle yourself in your dream.
But no one can return neutral from the presence of the enlightened. This is the touchstone of the Buddhas: from them one either drowns, dyed through and through in their color, or one returns an enemy. Only two relationships exist with Buddhas—friendship or enmity; there is no third. No one can remain indifferent to a Buddha; it’s impossible. And if you choose enmity, you throw away the opportunity with your own hands.
Friedrich Nietzsche said: I cannot accept God, because to accept God would mean that I am wrong—and that all I have done is wrong.
Nietzsche seems an honest man. At least he speaks truth: I cannot accept God. How can I? It would mean I am wrong; all I have done is wrong; my life’s running about has been in vain. This goes against the ego. Better to deny that unknown, unseen—who knows whether He is or not? Deny Him.
There are only two ways. If you accept God, you can no longer live as you did yesterday. Your style of life must change—must. There is no other way. You will have to begin anew. You will have to lay new foundations, new cornerstones—begin again.
Whoever has the courage to begin again—perhaps after fifty, sixty, seventy years of living—while death knocks at the door, to begin again—only that one can befriend the Buddhas. Befriending the Buddhas is what is called satsang.
Nietzsche is right from his standpoint: I will not accept God—for then I am wrong, and all I have done is wrong. Easier to deny God once for all than to deny my entire world.
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin stood trial. He had shot his wife. The magistrate asked, “Nasruddin, what was the reason?” He said, “I came home and found her sleeping with another man, so I shot her.” The magistrate asked, “Ordinarily, if you were so angry, why didn’t you shoot the man?” Nasruddin replied, “Rather than shooting a new man every day, it was better to rid myself of the trouble with one woman.”
Your world is vast—shop, market, money, position, prestige, family. It seems easier to forget the one God, to shoot that one idea and save the rest.
Satsang means: you will become restless. Therefore, first people avoid satsang. They try every means. If by mistake, by accident, they do come, they sit stiff and guarded. They keep defending themselves, planning how to escape—lest they get entangled. They find little excuses: this reason, that reason; the time has not come. They postpone to tomorrow: when the time comes. And if they feel themselves being drawn into some current, anger arises: Who is this who is destroying the carefully arranged drama of my life?
Have you ever taken a toy from a child? The state he gets into—that is what happens to those in satsang who are too attached to their toys. Take a toy from a child—he cries and screams. You know it is only a toy, but he does not. He wants to keep it clutched to his chest; even at night he sleeps with it hugged. You too sleep at night hugging your toys. Some people fall asleep totalling their money—that toy hugged to the chest. Some drift to sleep planning to fight an election. They arrange all the disturbances they will create in the morning—these toys!
In satsang, toys will be snatched. In satsang nothing else is taken—only toys are taken, toys are broken.
Remember: if some so-called saint pampers your toys, consoles you, lulls you into reassurance—know that it is not satsang. Satsang is where all your toys are smashed, smashed thoroughly, ruthlessly. Mercy for you requires ruthlessness toward your toys. To be compassionate to you, one must be merciless to your toys.
Therefore satsang is a hard process—only for the courageous, the daring. Hence the wise have said: it is the edge of a sword.
Satsang means: you are ready now. If your dreams are snatched, you will not try to save them. You have seen enough sorrow. You have seen life and found nothing; your hands are empty. Hands full of toys are empty hands. If this much understanding has dawned, friendship will flower in satsang.
And whoever sits in satsang in the spirit of friendship—devotion is born in him.
Satsang is the lake; devotion is the bath. Whoever bathes in satsang becomes fresh. New eyes arise, a new heart awakens. Ways of seeing and recognizing become new. All dust falls away. There is a rebirth—a true beginning of life. The life you began after birth was in unconsciousness. You knew nothing; you did what your parents made you do. You followed the neighborhood. If people went to a temple, you went to a temple; if to a mosque, to a mosque. If they memorized the Quran, you memorized the Quran; if the Gita, then the Gita. You imitated. That is natural—one cannot expect more from a child. A child imitates. But unfortunate are those who remain childish all their lives, imitating forever. Children can be forgiven. What else could they do? Where father went, the child went; before which idol mother bowed, the child bowed. If Satyanarayan’s story was recited at home, he thought—this is religion. If Vedic rites and fire offerings were performed, he thought—this is religion. There was no other way; he had to learn from these very people.
Children can be forgiven. But how long will you remain a child? How long this copycat life? Become mature. When a person becomes mature, he becomes worthy of satsang. Then he begins the search on his own. He says: I will seek one in whom it has happened. I will not follow those who, like me, do not know—who are blind. I will sit near a radiance, an aura, where there has been a glimmer of truth.
And remember: if you are courageous, the moment you reach satsang your heart will testify: yes—this is the right place. This witness is not of the intellect; it is of the heart. The heart speaks—and the heart never lies. The intellect always lies, because all it says is borrowed. Sit with an open heart by a Kabir, a Nanak, a Jagjivan; without any barrier, look fully upon Kabir—your heart will bear witness. A wave within will say to you: here is where to bow; the pilgrimage-place is found.
If you listen to the intellect, trouble begins. The intellect will repeat its memorized lore.
Kabir speaks from his own seeing. Your intellect will not match Kabir’s words. Intellect says: say the namaz. Kabir says: Why are you shouting, madman—has your God gone deaf? Intellect says: perform the prayer; and Kabir says: Has your God become deaf? This strikes the intellect. The intellect says: This is not right. The intellect has heard that to die in Kashi brings liberation. Kabir says: Don’t die in Kashi. If dying in Kashi brings liberation, what a cheap liberation!
People go to Kashi to “turn toward death.” Many old folk dwell there for that very reason—to die there. They never lived religion; they go to Kashi to die.
Kabir says: Live!
At the time of his death Kabir stood up and said: Come, my time to die is near. He had lived in Kashi all his life. “Now let us go from here.” People said: What are you saying? Kabir said: I will not die in Kashi. Let us go, away from Kashi.
He went to a nearby village and died there—only to give the message: places do not grant liberation. It is the inner state that matters.
Live! Religion is about living, not dying. Where you die is nothing; how you live is everything. Listen to Kabir and your intellect will object. If you insert the intellect in between, you will return an enemy—and miss satsang. The intellect will say: But the Veda says this, the Quran says that, the Gita says this—what is this Kabir, what is this Buddha saying? It does not fit logic; it does not fit scripture. You miss.
Satsang is grasped by the heart. Set the intellect aside. Feel with the heart. Sit in silence—go to a Kabir and sit quietly; say to the mind: You be quiet; let my heart speak; let it sway; let it catch the waves of this presence. You will be amazed: what your heart says is decisive. If it is true satsang, if one who has realized truth is present there, your heart will surrender instantly—instantly. The heart knows—only the heart knows. The intellect knows nothing; it gropes in the dark. The heart has the eyes of love; it experiences. Then the whirlwind begins; satsang begins; the bond with the Infinite is tied; the journey starts. The deeper you dive, the more devotion is refined.
By diving into satsang, devotion is purified. When devotion reaches its crescendo, God is realized.
Understand these three steps: satsang is the beginning, devotion the middle, God the culmination. But recognition happens through the heart.
How can one describe the cupbearer’s intoxicated eyes?
Such was the rapture that I too became rapt.
If you behold a lover of God and look into his eyes—he is so intoxicated that by looking into them you too will become intoxicated.
How can one describe the cupbearer’s intoxicated eyes?
Such was the rapture that I too became rapt.
You need not drink; seeing the wine rippling in the cupbearer’s eyes, some intoxication will overtake you too.
The pious ascetic is unaware of this secret:
The true prostration is the one with a naked brow.
The so-called religious know nothing of true prostration, true prayer—where the head bows of itself; not only bows, dissolves! In temples and mosques you bow your head out of habit, fear, conditioning—not out of feeling. Where there is no feeling, how can there be devotion? When the head bows from feeling, it never rises again.
In every hue you behold, the Beloved is hidden—
And the veil upon Him is that there is no veil.
Let a little recognition happen—or come to know someone who knows—and you will find Him everywhere. The wonder is: He is not hidden at all.
In every hue you behold, the Beloved is hidden.
Behind every curtain—only He.
And the veil upon Him is that there is no veil—
The Divine stands laid bare, naked.
In every dwelling He dwells in such a way:
Ask—and He is nowhere; see—and He is here.
He is concealed in every house.
Ask—and He is nowhere; see—and He is here.
It is a matter of seeing, not of asking.
Kabir said: It is not a matter of writing and reading; it is a matter of seeing. See! The heart sees; the intellect asks.
In every dwelling He dwells in such a way:
Ask—and He is nowhere; see—and He is here.
If someone asks me about the ways of meeting You—
The world says it is impossible.
Ask a lover; do not ask the world. What does the world know? Ask about God from the one in whose eyes you glimpse God’s intoxication; in whose presence the wine of God seems to flow; near whom you begin to fear you might drown; near whom a flood comes; near whom your heart stirs with a new surge; near whom your heart beats in a new rhythm, your breath takes a new cadence; near whom for a little while you forget the world, doors to another realm open, veils of mystery lift—ask him. In fact, do not ask—see. Seeing is the true questioning. Mere questions will not do—see.
Satsang is the vision of the True Master.
And what Krishna said to Uddhava is exactly right: It is my firm conviction that apart from satsang and bhakti-yoga there is no other way to cross the ocean of the world.
Satsang is the beginning, devotion the middle, God the consummation.
Satsang means: to sit near one who has attained God. Just as illness is contagious, so is health. Just as sin is contagious, so is virtue. Sit by a gambler and the itch to gamble arises; sit near one absorbed in prayer and waves of prayer begin to rise within you.
We are not isolated fragments; we are joined, interwoven. Go near the Himalayas and even those who have never lifted their eyes will, on seeing the virgin snow of Gaurishankar glittering in the sunlight—gold melting, silver flowing—lift their gaze at least once. Those who have always walked with eyes fixed on ruts, drains, refuse—if they go near the Himalaya, they will have to look up once at Gaurishankar. And if even a single glimpse falls upon the eyes, the journey has begun.
Satsang means to sit by one who is like Gaurishankar; in whose presence your dreams begin to unfold; by whose side dormant longings awaken; in whose nearness the divine madness to realize God takes hold.
Satsang is the lake; those who plunge into it become devotees. Without satsang, no devotion. How will you learn devotion? Where will you taste it? Perhaps by hearing one who has tasted, by seeing their state of feeling, by sitting near them—stirred by their waves—by peering into their eyes, holding their hand, resting your head at their feet—a few drops may descend into your throat. One thing is certain: whoever has known the Divine, you cannot return from their presence the same as you went. You will return either as a friend or as an enemy. Whoever returns as a friend has begun to bear the imprint of devotion. Whoever returns an enemy has started a strategy of self-protection. He was frightened. Enmity is self-defense.
If someone goes to a Buddha and returns an enemy, do not be angry with him; he is worthy of compassion. He panicked. The flood that was coming toward him from the Buddha frightened him. He clutched the bank in fear. He denied the Buddha’s flood. “No, there is no flood,” he said. He became so afraid that he felt: if I open my eyes once more to this Gaurishankar, I will not be able to halt my steps. They will set out upon the journey. Then what of all I have built—home and household, the nets I’ve cast in the marketplace? And everything is unfinished. Nothing is complete yet. My son must be married. My daughter is about to give birth. I have just inaugurated a new shop. Everything is new and unripe. And here everything always remains new and unripe; nothing ripens here, ever. Even in the oldest life everything stays entangled. Nothing is resolved; knot follows knot. What will happen to all this if I set out after seeing this Gaurishankar? How to escape this Gaurishankar? There is only one way: deny that it exists. Declare that there is no Gaurishankar—so that the question never rises again.
Thus people sometimes return from the Buddhas as enemies. They are protecting themselves. They say: No, there is no Buddha. This man is deluded. What God, what truth? This world alone is everything. What I have known is right. I will not let my knowing be disturbed. With great difficulty I have assembled a little world; do not tell me it is all illusion. Do not wake me from my sleep. I have gathered lovely dreams. I have just managed, somehow, to emerge from nightmares; a few good days are near—and you come and say: this world is all a dream! Seek God!
No, there is no God. One must deny Him—if one wants to save one’s world, one has to deny God. And one must deny the messenger who brings God’s word. If you can persuade yourself that there is no God, no one ever attains God, that all this is delusion—then you are safe. You can re-entangle yourself in your dream.
But no one can return neutral from the presence of the enlightened. This is the touchstone of the Buddhas: from them one either drowns, dyed through and through in their color, or one returns an enemy. Only two relationships exist with Buddhas—friendship or enmity; there is no third. No one can remain indifferent to a Buddha; it’s impossible. And if you choose enmity, you throw away the opportunity with your own hands.
Friedrich Nietzsche said: I cannot accept God, because to accept God would mean that I am wrong—and that all I have done is wrong.
Nietzsche seems an honest man. At least he speaks truth: I cannot accept God. How can I? It would mean I am wrong; all I have done is wrong; my life’s running about has been in vain. This goes against the ego. Better to deny that unknown, unseen—who knows whether He is or not? Deny Him.
There are only two ways. If you accept God, you can no longer live as you did yesterday. Your style of life must change—must. There is no other way. You will have to begin anew. You will have to lay new foundations, new cornerstones—begin again.
Whoever has the courage to begin again—perhaps after fifty, sixty, seventy years of living—while death knocks at the door, to begin again—only that one can befriend the Buddhas. Befriending the Buddhas is what is called satsang.
Nietzsche is right from his standpoint: I will not accept God—for then I am wrong, and all I have done is wrong. Easier to deny God once for all than to deny my entire world.
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin stood trial. He had shot his wife. The magistrate asked, “Nasruddin, what was the reason?” He said, “I came home and found her sleeping with another man, so I shot her.” The magistrate asked, “Ordinarily, if you were so angry, why didn’t you shoot the man?” Nasruddin replied, “Rather than shooting a new man every day, it was better to rid myself of the trouble with one woman.”
Your world is vast—shop, market, money, position, prestige, family. It seems easier to forget the one God, to shoot that one idea and save the rest.
Satsang means: you will become restless. Therefore, first people avoid satsang. They try every means. If by mistake, by accident, they do come, they sit stiff and guarded. They keep defending themselves, planning how to escape—lest they get entangled. They find little excuses: this reason, that reason; the time has not come. They postpone to tomorrow: when the time comes. And if they feel themselves being drawn into some current, anger arises: Who is this who is destroying the carefully arranged drama of my life?
Have you ever taken a toy from a child? The state he gets into—that is what happens to those in satsang who are too attached to their toys. Take a toy from a child—he cries and screams. You know it is only a toy, but he does not. He wants to keep it clutched to his chest; even at night he sleeps with it hugged. You too sleep at night hugging your toys. Some people fall asleep totalling their money—that toy hugged to the chest. Some drift to sleep planning to fight an election. They arrange all the disturbances they will create in the morning—these toys!
In satsang, toys will be snatched. In satsang nothing else is taken—only toys are taken, toys are broken.
Remember: if some so-called saint pampers your toys, consoles you, lulls you into reassurance—know that it is not satsang. Satsang is where all your toys are smashed, smashed thoroughly, ruthlessly. Mercy for you requires ruthlessness toward your toys. To be compassionate to you, one must be merciless to your toys.
Therefore satsang is a hard process—only for the courageous, the daring. Hence the wise have said: it is the edge of a sword.
Satsang means: you are ready now. If your dreams are snatched, you will not try to save them. You have seen enough sorrow. You have seen life and found nothing; your hands are empty. Hands full of toys are empty hands. If this much understanding has dawned, friendship will flower in satsang.
And whoever sits in satsang in the spirit of friendship—devotion is born in him.
Satsang is the lake; devotion is the bath. Whoever bathes in satsang becomes fresh. New eyes arise, a new heart awakens. Ways of seeing and recognizing become new. All dust falls away. There is a rebirth—a true beginning of life. The life you began after birth was in unconsciousness. You knew nothing; you did what your parents made you do. You followed the neighborhood. If people went to a temple, you went to a temple; if to a mosque, to a mosque. If they memorized the Quran, you memorized the Quran; if the Gita, then the Gita. You imitated. That is natural—one cannot expect more from a child. A child imitates. But unfortunate are those who remain childish all their lives, imitating forever. Children can be forgiven. What else could they do? Where father went, the child went; before which idol mother bowed, the child bowed. If Satyanarayan’s story was recited at home, he thought—this is religion. If Vedic rites and fire offerings were performed, he thought—this is religion. There was no other way; he had to learn from these very people.
Children can be forgiven. But how long will you remain a child? How long this copycat life? Become mature. When a person becomes mature, he becomes worthy of satsang. Then he begins the search on his own. He says: I will seek one in whom it has happened. I will not follow those who, like me, do not know—who are blind. I will sit near a radiance, an aura, where there has been a glimmer of truth.
And remember: if you are courageous, the moment you reach satsang your heart will testify: yes—this is the right place. This witness is not of the intellect; it is of the heart. The heart speaks—and the heart never lies. The intellect always lies, because all it says is borrowed. Sit with an open heart by a Kabir, a Nanak, a Jagjivan; without any barrier, look fully upon Kabir—your heart will bear witness. A wave within will say to you: here is where to bow; the pilgrimage-place is found.
If you listen to the intellect, trouble begins. The intellect will repeat its memorized lore.
Kabir speaks from his own seeing. Your intellect will not match Kabir’s words. Intellect says: say the namaz. Kabir says: Why are you shouting, madman—has your God gone deaf? Intellect says: perform the prayer; and Kabir says: Has your God become deaf? This strikes the intellect. The intellect says: This is not right. The intellect has heard that to die in Kashi brings liberation. Kabir says: Don’t die in Kashi. If dying in Kashi brings liberation, what a cheap liberation!
People go to Kashi to “turn toward death.” Many old folk dwell there for that very reason—to die there. They never lived religion; they go to Kashi to die.
Kabir says: Live!
At the time of his death Kabir stood up and said: Come, my time to die is near. He had lived in Kashi all his life. “Now let us go from here.” People said: What are you saying? Kabir said: I will not die in Kashi. Let us go, away from Kashi.
He went to a nearby village and died there—only to give the message: places do not grant liberation. It is the inner state that matters.
Live! Religion is about living, not dying. Where you die is nothing; how you live is everything. Listen to Kabir and your intellect will object. If you insert the intellect in between, you will return an enemy—and miss satsang. The intellect will say: But the Veda says this, the Quran says that, the Gita says this—what is this Kabir, what is this Buddha saying? It does not fit logic; it does not fit scripture. You miss.
Satsang is grasped by the heart. Set the intellect aside. Feel with the heart. Sit in silence—go to a Kabir and sit quietly; say to the mind: You be quiet; let my heart speak; let it sway; let it catch the waves of this presence. You will be amazed: what your heart says is decisive. If it is true satsang, if one who has realized truth is present there, your heart will surrender instantly—instantly. The heart knows—only the heart knows. The intellect knows nothing; it gropes in the dark. The heart has the eyes of love; it experiences. Then the whirlwind begins; satsang begins; the bond with the Infinite is tied; the journey starts. The deeper you dive, the more devotion is refined.
By diving into satsang, devotion is purified. When devotion reaches its crescendo, God is realized.
Understand these three steps: satsang is the beginning, devotion the middle, God the culmination. But recognition happens through the heart.
How can one describe the cupbearer’s intoxicated eyes?
Such was the rapture that I too became rapt.
If you behold a lover of God and look into his eyes—he is so intoxicated that by looking into them you too will become intoxicated.
How can one describe the cupbearer’s intoxicated eyes?
Such was the rapture that I too became rapt.
You need not drink; seeing the wine rippling in the cupbearer’s eyes, some intoxication will overtake you too.
The pious ascetic is unaware of this secret:
The true prostration is the one with a naked brow.
The so-called religious know nothing of true prostration, true prayer—where the head bows of itself; not only bows, dissolves! In temples and mosques you bow your head out of habit, fear, conditioning—not out of feeling. Where there is no feeling, how can there be devotion? When the head bows from feeling, it never rises again.
In every hue you behold, the Beloved is hidden—
And the veil upon Him is that there is no veil.
Let a little recognition happen—or come to know someone who knows—and you will find Him everywhere. The wonder is: He is not hidden at all.
In every hue you behold, the Beloved is hidden.
Behind every curtain—only He.
And the veil upon Him is that there is no veil—
The Divine stands laid bare, naked.
In every dwelling He dwells in such a way:
Ask—and He is nowhere; see—and He is here.
He is concealed in every house.
Ask—and He is nowhere; see—and He is here.
It is a matter of seeing, not of asking.
Kabir said: It is not a matter of writing and reading; it is a matter of seeing. See! The heart sees; the intellect asks.
In every dwelling He dwells in such a way:
Ask—and He is nowhere; see—and He is here.
If someone asks me about the ways of meeting You—
The world says it is impossible.
Ask a lover; do not ask the world. What does the world know? Ask about God from the one in whose eyes you glimpse God’s intoxication; in whose presence the wine of God seems to flow; near whom you begin to fear you might drown; near whom a flood comes; near whom your heart stirs with a new surge; near whom your heart beats in a new rhythm, your breath takes a new cadence; near whom for a little while you forget the world, doors to another realm open, veils of mystery lift—ask him. In fact, do not ask—see. Seeing is the true questioning. Mere questions will not do—see.
Satsang is the vision of the True Master.
And what Krishna said to Uddhava is exactly right: It is my firm conviction that apart from satsang and bhakti-yoga there is no other way to cross the ocean of the world.
Satsang is the beginning, devotion the middle, God the consummation.
Fourth question: Osho,
Lord, I have broken my ties with the world and joined my tie with You. Wherever You seat me, I will sit. Whatever You give, I will eat. Whatever You clothe me in, I will wear. Wherever You lay me down, I will sleep. Lord, I have broken my ties with the world!
Lord, I have broken my ties with the world and joined my tie with You. Wherever You seat me, I will sit. Whatever You give, I will eat. Whatever You clothe me in, I will wear. Wherever You lay me down, I will sleep. Lord, I have broken my ties with the world!
Arya! The world is His too. The world is also given by Him. There is no need to break ties with it; simply join your tie with Him! Do not break your tie with anyone; do make sure to join your tie with Him. Once your tie with Him is joined, that is enough. Then you will suddenly find that He pervades everything—He pervades the world too. This entire expanse is His. There is no flaw anywhere in this expanse. The flaw is in our ego. The flaw is in our mind.
Maya is not the name of the world; maya is the projection of our mind. The world is His. But the mind has spun out an expansion that is false. It has seen what is not, and overlooked what is. It has grasped the insubstantial and let go of the essence.
Do not break your tie with the world. This is my fundamental teaching. The world is His manifest form. He stands hidden in the world. Regard the world as His image.
Arya, an old conditioning must be deep in your mind. All along it has been said: break your tie with the world and join your tie with the Divine. I say: simply join your tie with the Divine, and you will find that the world too is His form. Why even speak of breaking ties? There is no other here at all. That is why I say: do not leave your home; do not leave your husband; do not leave your children—otherwise trouble will start very soon.
Now, as you have said, “Lord, I have broken my ties with the world!” Then very soon feelings will arise in the mind: What of the husband, what of the children, what of the house! Leave everything—everything is a hassle. Although you are saying—
“Wherever You seat me, I will sit,
Whatever You give, I will eat,
Whatever You clothe me in, I will wear,
Wherever You lay me down, I will sleep—
Lord, I have broken my ties with the world!”
Then, Lord—if so—what for? Why are you breaking your tie with the world? It is precisely this place that He has chosen for you. Sleep, eat, drink—this is His very arrangement.
Such a situation comes to me almost every day. Someone arrives and says, “I have left everything to you; whatever you say, that I will do.” And I say, “Brother, go home!” He says, “I simply cannot go! Whatever you say, that I will do! I have left everything to you! I am not going anywhere now! Now I am at your feet; your will is my will.” And I tell him, “My brother, go home!” He says, “That is impossible now—we have left everything to you!” How is one to make him understand what he is saying? If you have left it to me, then I am saying: go home. He says, “We cannot go home!”
There is an old conditioning. The meaning of sannyas used to be: leave everything, then God will be found. The old meaning of sannyas was: there is a conflict between the world and God. This notion is so ignorant! If there were truly a conflict, the world could not be. If God were opposed to the world, why would He create it? Why let it continue? Why adorn it? Why blossom so many flowers? Why make so many moons and stars? Why go on giving birth to new children?
If you are opposed to something, you will stop creating it, won’t you? If a poet is opposed to poetry, he will not compose poems. And if a painter is opposed to pictures, why would he bang his head? Why would he lift the brush and smear colors on a canvas? Is he mad? God goes on adorning the world, goes on creating it, making it ever-new. God is not opposed to the world. God is wholly immersed in the world—immersed up to the throat. This is His creation. As a dancer is absorbed in his dance, so is God absorbed in this world.
But pundits and priests have created an opposition, a duel between the world and God. I want to free you from duality. I want to see you without conflict. Do not set up any opposition. If this world is acceptable to God, who are you to rise above God and attempt to reject it? If He accepts it, then you accept it too. That is the meaning. Wherever He seats you, sit; wherever He lays you, sleep; whatever He dresses you in, wear it. If He has made you a mother, be a mother; if a husband, then a husband; if a wife, then a wife; if He has given a home, then a home—whatever He has given, accept it simply—with gratitude! It is His. Live it prayerfully. That is the real revolution! See God in your husband, see God in your wife. That is the real revolution! That son who was born in your house is His very form. A ray of Him descended through your womb. See God in him!
In the name of religion much misconduct has occurred. The greatest misconduct was that millions left their homes and ran away. Had they run for some other reason, we would have criticized them thoroughly. But they found such a pretext that people could not even condemn them. We started to honor them and entirely forgot—what became of their wives, what became of their children? Their children turned into beggars, became orphans. Their wives became prostitutes. We kept no account of all this. A man took sannyas, and we got busy welcoming and honoring him, taking out processions of glory, and forgot the consequences of what he had done. Millions left their homes. Millions of homes were ruined. Who is responsible for this ruin, this suffering?
My vision of sannyas, Arya, is entirely different. My vision is: everything is His! He is in everything! Live the world by accepting it as His—and a revolution will happen. Live in the world and yet you will find that you are beyond the world—like a lotus upon water.
Let someone proclaim in garden after garden:
A thousand perils, one small nest;
A perfect guide, a murderous highwayman;
No friend like the heart, no foe like the heart.
There is only one friend and one enemy—the heart, your mind. There is no other friend anywhere, no other enemy anywhere. If you are to drop or change anything, change this mind.
And here there are flowers upon flowers. Just spread your hem and fill it with flowers.
Let someone proclaim in garden after garden:
A thousand perils, one small nest;
A perfect guide, a murderous highwayman;
No friend like the heart, no foe like the heart.
Flowers bloom in every garden—
But each has only his own hem.
Lives are spent, centuries pass—
Still the infancy of reason remains.
Love, dear, is no game:
Love is the labor of glass and iron.
What strange secret is this today—
A night of separation, and yet so radiant!
Come, for without you—since yesterday—
The soul is a corpse, the body a grave.
Even thorns have some rights, after all—
Who would snatch away his own hem?
Such a state of feeling is called theism.
Even thorns have some rights, after all—
Who would snatch away his own hem?
If a thorn ever snags your hem, do not be in a hurry to free it—thorns are His too! By all means pluck the flowers, but also embrace the thorns. For not only the flowers are His; the thorns are His as well. If sorrow ever arrives, accept that too. And then you will be amazed to find that the thorn you accepted becomes a flower. The grief you embraced with gratitude transforms right there; the flower of joy blooms right there. Then even the night of separation fills with the light of union. This world too begins to glow with the Divine!
What strange secret is this today—
A night of separation, and yet so radiant!
Separation continues, but the day the devotee accepts everything—unconditionally, without exception—thorns and flowers; night and day; life and death—on that day the night of separation fills with the light of union.
So Arya, your feeling is right, but it needs to be made even more right! There is a small snag in your feeling—drop even that snag! If you are to accept, then accept unconditionally. Do not bring your will in between. Where will enters, ego enters. Where ego enters, distance from God arises. Where will drops, ego drops. Where ego drops, only God is—and nothing else: no world, no “me”—only He! Ask, and you cannot find Him; look, and He is visible.
My feet cannot take a step against the Beloved’s destination,
And if you ask of sense—well, I have no sense left.
Beauty is not apart from love, nor love apart from beauty—
What thing is there that is not embrace within embrace?
Here, nothing is separate.
Beauty is not apart from love, nor love apart from beauty—
Here night and day are together. Here the lover and the beloved are together. Here the devotee and God are together. Here maya and Brahman are together.
My feet cannot take a step against the Beloved’s destination,
And if you ask of sense—well, I have no sense left.
Beauty is not apart from love, nor love apart from beauty—
What thing is there that is not embrace within embrace?
All the imprints of bygone memories are erased from the mind—
And yet there is one thing that cannot be forgotten:
Once I drank a goblet from those intoxicating eyes—
To this day I am not sober, not sober, not sober.
See—those intoxicated eyes are seeking you from every side.
Once I drank a goblet from those intoxicating eyes—
To this day I am not sober, not sober, not sober.
If love is indebted to the grace of beauty’s splendors,
Beauty too is not free of love’s favor.
And certainly love is greatly obliged to beauty; but beauty too is obliged to love. The devotee is grateful to God, true—but God too is grateful to the devotee. For neither the devotee can rest without God, nor God without the devotee. They are joined, united. This entire existence is together. Nothing here is separate. Do not create divisions—world separate and God separate; that to seek God you must abandon the world—do not set up such arithmetic. These calculations are delusions. Wherever you are, as you are, surrender just so. As He keeps you, live just so. As He makes you live, live just so.
Try this unique alchemy! Drop your own will entirely, and suddenly you will find—all burdens gone! Mountain-like weights will fall away; you will be weightless. So weightless that, if you wish, you could fly into the sky. As if the earth’s gravity no longer works. Just try it! There is nothing to do—simply accept, where you are, as you are! This is His will—and His will is my will.
Maya is not the name of the world; maya is the projection of our mind. The world is His. But the mind has spun out an expansion that is false. It has seen what is not, and overlooked what is. It has grasped the insubstantial and let go of the essence.
Do not break your tie with the world. This is my fundamental teaching. The world is His manifest form. He stands hidden in the world. Regard the world as His image.
Arya, an old conditioning must be deep in your mind. All along it has been said: break your tie with the world and join your tie with the Divine. I say: simply join your tie with the Divine, and you will find that the world too is His form. Why even speak of breaking ties? There is no other here at all. That is why I say: do not leave your home; do not leave your husband; do not leave your children—otherwise trouble will start very soon.
Now, as you have said, “Lord, I have broken my ties with the world!” Then very soon feelings will arise in the mind: What of the husband, what of the children, what of the house! Leave everything—everything is a hassle. Although you are saying—
“Wherever You seat me, I will sit,
Whatever You give, I will eat,
Whatever You clothe me in, I will wear,
Wherever You lay me down, I will sleep—
Lord, I have broken my ties with the world!”
Then, Lord—if so—what for? Why are you breaking your tie with the world? It is precisely this place that He has chosen for you. Sleep, eat, drink—this is His very arrangement.
Such a situation comes to me almost every day. Someone arrives and says, “I have left everything to you; whatever you say, that I will do.” And I say, “Brother, go home!” He says, “I simply cannot go! Whatever you say, that I will do! I have left everything to you! I am not going anywhere now! Now I am at your feet; your will is my will.” And I tell him, “My brother, go home!” He says, “That is impossible now—we have left everything to you!” How is one to make him understand what he is saying? If you have left it to me, then I am saying: go home. He says, “We cannot go home!”
There is an old conditioning. The meaning of sannyas used to be: leave everything, then God will be found. The old meaning of sannyas was: there is a conflict between the world and God. This notion is so ignorant! If there were truly a conflict, the world could not be. If God were opposed to the world, why would He create it? Why let it continue? Why adorn it? Why blossom so many flowers? Why make so many moons and stars? Why go on giving birth to new children?
If you are opposed to something, you will stop creating it, won’t you? If a poet is opposed to poetry, he will not compose poems. And if a painter is opposed to pictures, why would he bang his head? Why would he lift the brush and smear colors on a canvas? Is he mad? God goes on adorning the world, goes on creating it, making it ever-new. God is not opposed to the world. God is wholly immersed in the world—immersed up to the throat. This is His creation. As a dancer is absorbed in his dance, so is God absorbed in this world.
But pundits and priests have created an opposition, a duel between the world and God. I want to free you from duality. I want to see you without conflict. Do not set up any opposition. If this world is acceptable to God, who are you to rise above God and attempt to reject it? If He accepts it, then you accept it too. That is the meaning. Wherever He seats you, sit; wherever He lays you, sleep; whatever He dresses you in, wear it. If He has made you a mother, be a mother; if a husband, then a husband; if a wife, then a wife; if He has given a home, then a home—whatever He has given, accept it simply—with gratitude! It is His. Live it prayerfully. That is the real revolution! See God in your husband, see God in your wife. That is the real revolution! That son who was born in your house is His very form. A ray of Him descended through your womb. See God in him!
In the name of religion much misconduct has occurred. The greatest misconduct was that millions left their homes and ran away. Had they run for some other reason, we would have criticized them thoroughly. But they found such a pretext that people could not even condemn them. We started to honor them and entirely forgot—what became of their wives, what became of their children? Their children turned into beggars, became orphans. Their wives became prostitutes. We kept no account of all this. A man took sannyas, and we got busy welcoming and honoring him, taking out processions of glory, and forgot the consequences of what he had done. Millions left their homes. Millions of homes were ruined. Who is responsible for this ruin, this suffering?
My vision of sannyas, Arya, is entirely different. My vision is: everything is His! He is in everything! Live the world by accepting it as His—and a revolution will happen. Live in the world and yet you will find that you are beyond the world—like a lotus upon water.
Let someone proclaim in garden after garden:
A thousand perils, one small nest;
A perfect guide, a murderous highwayman;
No friend like the heart, no foe like the heart.
There is only one friend and one enemy—the heart, your mind. There is no other friend anywhere, no other enemy anywhere. If you are to drop or change anything, change this mind.
And here there are flowers upon flowers. Just spread your hem and fill it with flowers.
Let someone proclaim in garden after garden:
A thousand perils, one small nest;
A perfect guide, a murderous highwayman;
No friend like the heart, no foe like the heart.
Flowers bloom in every garden—
But each has only his own hem.
Lives are spent, centuries pass—
Still the infancy of reason remains.
Love, dear, is no game:
Love is the labor of glass and iron.
What strange secret is this today—
A night of separation, and yet so radiant!
Come, for without you—since yesterday—
The soul is a corpse, the body a grave.
Even thorns have some rights, after all—
Who would snatch away his own hem?
Such a state of feeling is called theism.
Even thorns have some rights, after all—
Who would snatch away his own hem?
If a thorn ever snags your hem, do not be in a hurry to free it—thorns are His too! By all means pluck the flowers, but also embrace the thorns. For not only the flowers are His; the thorns are His as well. If sorrow ever arrives, accept that too. And then you will be amazed to find that the thorn you accepted becomes a flower. The grief you embraced with gratitude transforms right there; the flower of joy blooms right there. Then even the night of separation fills with the light of union. This world too begins to glow with the Divine!
What strange secret is this today—
A night of separation, and yet so radiant!
Separation continues, but the day the devotee accepts everything—unconditionally, without exception—thorns and flowers; night and day; life and death—on that day the night of separation fills with the light of union.
So Arya, your feeling is right, but it needs to be made even more right! There is a small snag in your feeling—drop even that snag! If you are to accept, then accept unconditionally. Do not bring your will in between. Where will enters, ego enters. Where ego enters, distance from God arises. Where will drops, ego drops. Where ego drops, only God is—and nothing else: no world, no “me”—only He! Ask, and you cannot find Him; look, and He is visible.
My feet cannot take a step against the Beloved’s destination,
And if you ask of sense—well, I have no sense left.
Beauty is not apart from love, nor love apart from beauty—
What thing is there that is not embrace within embrace?
Here, nothing is separate.
Beauty is not apart from love, nor love apart from beauty—
Here night and day are together. Here the lover and the beloved are together. Here the devotee and God are together. Here maya and Brahman are together.
My feet cannot take a step against the Beloved’s destination,
And if you ask of sense—well, I have no sense left.
Beauty is not apart from love, nor love apart from beauty—
What thing is there that is not embrace within embrace?
All the imprints of bygone memories are erased from the mind—
And yet there is one thing that cannot be forgotten:
Once I drank a goblet from those intoxicating eyes—
To this day I am not sober, not sober, not sober.
See—those intoxicated eyes are seeking you from every side.
Once I drank a goblet from those intoxicating eyes—
To this day I am not sober, not sober, not sober.
If love is indebted to the grace of beauty’s splendors,
Beauty too is not free of love’s favor.
And certainly love is greatly obliged to beauty; but beauty too is obliged to love. The devotee is grateful to God, true—but God too is grateful to the devotee. For neither the devotee can rest without God, nor God without the devotee. They are joined, united. This entire existence is together. Nothing here is separate. Do not create divisions—world separate and God separate; that to seek God you must abandon the world—do not set up such arithmetic. These calculations are delusions. Wherever you are, as you are, surrender just so. As He keeps you, live just so. As He makes you live, live just so.
Try this unique alchemy! Drop your own will entirely, and suddenly you will find—all burdens gone! Mountain-like weights will fall away; you will be weightless. So weightless that, if you wish, you could fly into the sky. As if the earth’s gravity no longer works. Just try it! There is nothing to do—simply accept, where you are, as you are! This is His will—and His will is my will.
The last question:
Osho, if everything is in God’s hands—if even a leaf does not stir without His will—then a person’s freedom becomes meaningless. Please explain.
Osho, if everything is in God’s hands—if even a leaf does not stir without His will—then a person’s freedom becomes meaningless. Please explain.
Maitreya! There is no “person” at all—what freedom? If there were a person, there could be freedom. There is the Whole. The person is a delusion.
The person is like a wave in the ocean. If a wave thinks, “I am independent,” it can believe it for a little while; for a little while the illusion of being independent can arise. Because the wave rises toward the sky—a towering wave!—stretching to touch the moon and stars. It seems, “I am free, independent of the ocean; look, I am separate.” It also seems, “I am separate from the other waves—one wave is falling, one is rising, one is dying, one is young, one is growing. I am not falling because another wave is falling—so I must be separate. I am not rising because another wave is rising—so I must be separate.”
But is the wave truly separate? Does the wave have any freedom? It is a delusion; it is ego. The wave is one with the ocean. And all the other waves are connected through the ocean. All the waves belong to the ocean. The ocean is waving—where are the waves? The ocean is waving—where are the waves?
The Divine is waving; where is the person? The person is a delusion. Once you assume “I am,” then the question of freedom arises. What freedom?
And don’t think I am saying you are dependent. When there is no freedom, how can there be dependence? Freedom and dependence are two sides of the same coin. No one here is free, because no one is separate. No one here is dependent, because there is no “other”—so how dependence? Neither freedom nor dependence. For both dependence and independence, two are required. If no one else exists, if you are alone, will you say, “I am free”? Free from whom? How free? And if you are alone and there is no other, can you say, “I am dependent”? Dependent on what? There is one abode. In the One, waves arise. The One only appears as the many.
Therefore all freedom is illusion; all dependence is illusion. Drop freedom, drop dependence, drop the root of both—ego! And when the ego is gone, what happens—grace, a great celebration—you cannot even imagine it! You cannot conceive that grace. Because this freedom–dependence, this ego—these are your sufferings, the causes of your hell. You are entangled in them. And who ever becomes free? Even Alexander is not free. When death comes, it is proved that he is dependent. And the most dependent of the dependent is also not truly dependent.
In Greece there was a sage, Epictetus. The emperor of Greece summoned him and said, “I have heard you claim that no one can make you dependent; this is false.” Epictetus said, “Then, Your Majesty—please demonstrate!” A bold challenge! A naked fakir, he said, “Then, do it and show!” The emperor was of a cruel nature. He called the executioners. Epictetus was bound in shackles. “And now?” the emperor asked. Epictetus replied, “I am not dependent. What you have enslaved is the body; that is not me.”
The emperor told the executioners, “Break his leg.” They twisted and broke his leg. Epictetus said, “Look, you are breaking it—until now, sometimes His Majesty had some use for me; from now on I won’t be of any use—keep that in mind—break it at your leisure!” His leg was being broken, yet he spoke as if something belonging to someone else was being broken. “At your leisure! Until now I was of some use; henceforth I won’t be—do keep that in mind. That much I caution you.”
His leg was broken; Epictetus kept laughing. He said, “You can put my body in chains, you can throw it in prison—but you will not be able to imprison me. I am freedom itself.”
So there is an Epictetus who says, “I am free”—lying in prison, his leg being broken, bound in chains! And there is an Alexander who, at the time of death, experiences that all his empire, all his wealth, is utterly futile. “I am dying just as a dog dies.”
What is the difference?
Both are delusions. No one is dependent; no one is free. The Divine is—and the One is. You can manufacture whichever illusion you prefer. If you want the illusion of freedom, take yourself to be other than the body, and the illusion of freedom will arise. If you want the illusion of dependence, identify yourself with the body, and the illusion of dependence will arise. But there is only One. If there were two, then there could be independence and dependence. If you want to understand rightly, this existence is an interdependence. Not independence, not dependence—interdependence. Everything depends on everything else.
And in the final analysis there is only One. You inhaled; when the breath entered you, it became your breath—you said, “my breath.” A moment earlier it was someone else’s breath. And a moment later your breath went out; someone else inhaled it—it became his breath. You plucked a pear from a tree and ate it. Until now it was outside, separate; in two days it was digested—became blood, flesh, marrow—became a part of you. One day you will die; on your grave a pear tree will grow, it will bear a pear; your blood, flesh, marrow—all will become its manure. Perhaps your grandchild will eat it—so the forefathers get digested!
Everything is mutually dependent; everything is connected.
The great English poet Tennyson said: Stir even a single blade of grass, and the distant moons and stars are stirred. As when you shake a spider’s web—touch one tiny strand, the whole web trembles. Pluck a single leaf, the whole existence quivers.
That is why Mahavira spoke of ahimsa—nonviolence. Do not even pluck a leaf. Because here there is only One.
That is why Jesus said, “Forgive even your enemy.” Because the enemy is not other—he is you. Love your enemy as you love yourself, because you and the enemy appear separate on the surface, but within you are one.
What is the essence of all religions?
A small word: this existence is nondual. On the basis of this nonduality all disciplines developed—of ahimsa, of prayer, of meditation. All disciplines have arisen from the vision of nonduality. From the Gangotri of Advaita have flowed all the rivers of thought. But the fundamental spirit must be understood: here no one is independent, no one is dependent. If you look from the surface, the periphery, there is interdependence; if you look at the center, there is not even interdependence, for what “inter”—there are not two; there is One.
To know the One is to know the Divine.
Therefore it is said again and again that the egoist will not know. For the egoist assumes, “I am separate”; he has already accepted two. In accepting two, the illusion arises, the wall appears. “I am separate”—this is ignorance. “I am not separate”—this is the proclamation of knowledge: Aham Brahmasmi!
Uddalaka said to his son Shvetaketu: Tat tvam asi, Shvetaketu! Thou art That. Not the least bit different. Not a hair’s breadth apart.
Sink into this feeling. Go deep into this feeling. The deeper you go into this feeling, the more satsang. The deeper the satsang, the greater the devotion. The greater the devotion, the nearer is God.
There is no distance: only a little courage is needed—the courage to let go of yourself!
Man is the longing to transcend himself. Awaken that longing. Awake! Let it awaken so intensely that it becomes a flame—and in it you are burned to ashes! The moment you are ashes, from within you the New is born—the eternal, the deathless! Amritasya putrah!
That’s all for today.
The person is like a wave in the ocean. If a wave thinks, “I am independent,” it can believe it for a little while; for a little while the illusion of being independent can arise. Because the wave rises toward the sky—a towering wave!—stretching to touch the moon and stars. It seems, “I am free, independent of the ocean; look, I am separate.” It also seems, “I am separate from the other waves—one wave is falling, one is rising, one is dying, one is young, one is growing. I am not falling because another wave is falling—so I must be separate. I am not rising because another wave is rising—so I must be separate.”
But is the wave truly separate? Does the wave have any freedom? It is a delusion; it is ego. The wave is one with the ocean. And all the other waves are connected through the ocean. All the waves belong to the ocean. The ocean is waving—where are the waves? The ocean is waving—where are the waves?
The Divine is waving; where is the person? The person is a delusion. Once you assume “I am,” then the question of freedom arises. What freedom?
And don’t think I am saying you are dependent. When there is no freedom, how can there be dependence? Freedom and dependence are two sides of the same coin. No one here is free, because no one is separate. No one here is dependent, because there is no “other”—so how dependence? Neither freedom nor dependence. For both dependence and independence, two are required. If no one else exists, if you are alone, will you say, “I am free”? Free from whom? How free? And if you are alone and there is no other, can you say, “I am dependent”? Dependent on what? There is one abode. In the One, waves arise. The One only appears as the many.
Therefore all freedom is illusion; all dependence is illusion. Drop freedom, drop dependence, drop the root of both—ego! And when the ego is gone, what happens—grace, a great celebration—you cannot even imagine it! You cannot conceive that grace. Because this freedom–dependence, this ego—these are your sufferings, the causes of your hell. You are entangled in them. And who ever becomes free? Even Alexander is not free. When death comes, it is proved that he is dependent. And the most dependent of the dependent is also not truly dependent.
In Greece there was a sage, Epictetus. The emperor of Greece summoned him and said, “I have heard you claim that no one can make you dependent; this is false.” Epictetus said, “Then, Your Majesty—please demonstrate!” A bold challenge! A naked fakir, he said, “Then, do it and show!” The emperor was of a cruel nature. He called the executioners. Epictetus was bound in shackles. “And now?” the emperor asked. Epictetus replied, “I am not dependent. What you have enslaved is the body; that is not me.”
The emperor told the executioners, “Break his leg.” They twisted and broke his leg. Epictetus said, “Look, you are breaking it—until now, sometimes His Majesty had some use for me; from now on I won’t be of any use—keep that in mind—break it at your leisure!” His leg was being broken, yet he spoke as if something belonging to someone else was being broken. “At your leisure! Until now I was of some use; henceforth I won’t be—do keep that in mind. That much I caution you.”
His leg was broken; Epictetus kept laughing. He said, “You can put my body in chains, you can throw it in prison—but you will not be able to imprison me. I am freedom itself.”
So there is an Epictetus who says, “I am free”—lying in prison, his leg being broken, bound in chains! And there is an Alexander who, at the time of death, experiences that all his empire, all his wealth, is utterly futile. “I am dying just as a dog dies.”
What is the difference?
Both are delusions. No one is dependent; no one is free. The Divine is—and the One is. You can manufacture whichever illusion you prefer. If you want the illusion of freedom, take yourself to be other than the body, and the illusion of freedom will arise. If you want the illusion of dependence, identify yourself with the body, and the illusion of dependence will arise. But there is only One. If there were two, then there could be independence and dependence. If you want to understand rightly, this existence is an interdependence. Not independence, not dependence—interdependence. Everything depends on everything else.
And in the final analysis there is only One. You inhaled; when the breath entered you, it became your breath—you said, “my breath.” A moment earlier it was someone else’s breath. And a moment later your breath went out; someone else inhaled it—it became his breath. You plucked a pear from a tree and ate it. Until now it was outside, separate; in two days it was digested—became blood, flesh, marrow—became a part of you. One day you will die; on your grave a pear tree will grow, it will bear a pear; your blood, flesh, marrow—all will become its manure. Perhaps your grandchild will eat it—so the forefathers get digested!
Everything is mutually dependent; everything is connected.
The great English poet Tennyson said: Stir even a single blade of grass, and the distant moons and stars are stirred. As when you shake a spider’s web—touch one tiny strand, the whole web trembles. Pluck a single leaf, the whole existence quivers.
That is why Mahavira spoke of ahimsa—nonviolence. Do not even pluck a leaf. Because here there is only One.
That is why Jesus said, “Forgive even your enemy.” Because the enemy is not other—he is you. Love your enemy as you love yourself, because you and the enemy appear separate on the surface, but within you are one.
What is the essence of all religions?
A small word: this existence is nondual. On the basis of this nonduality all disciplines developed—of ahimsa, of prayer, of meditation. All disciplines have arisen from the vision of nonduality. From the Gangotri of Advaita have flowed all the rivers of thought. But the fundamental spirit must be understood: here no one is independent, no one is dependent. If you look from the surface, the periphery, there is interdependence; if you look at the center, there is not even interdependence, for what “inter”—there are not two; there is One.
To know the One is to know the Divine.
Therefore it is said again and again that the egoist will not know. For the egoist assumes, “I am separate”; he has already accepted two. In accepting two, the illusion arises, the wall appears. “I am separate”—this is ignorance. “I am not separate”—this is the proclamation of knowledge: Aham Brahmasmi!
Uddalaka said to his son Shvetaketu: Tat tvam asi, Shvetaketu! Thou art That. Not the least bit different. Not a hair’s breadth apart.
Sink into this feeling. Go deep into this feeling. The deeper you go into this feeling, the more satsang. The deeper the satsang, the greater the devotion. The greater the devotion, the nearer is God.
There is no distance: only a little courage is needed—the courage to let go of yourself!
Man is the longing to transcend himself. Awaken that longing. Awake! Let it awaken so intensely that it becomes a flame—and in it you are burned to ashes! The moment you are ashes, from within you the New is born—the eternal, the deathless! Amritasya putrah!
That’s all for today.