Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #10
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Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Questions in this Discourse
The first question:
Osho, are prayer and devotion different?
Osho, are prayer and devotion different?
They are both distinct and inseparable.
They are distinct in that where prayer is complete, devotion begins. They are inseparable in that without prayer there can be no devotion. Understand it like this: a classical musician first tunes his instrument. Once the instrument is tuned, music can arise. Tuning is not the music, but without tuning music will not happen—it is the prelude. Prayer is like that. Prayer is the tuning of the instrument.
Prayer is moving toward the Divine through the medium of words. When words are no longer necessary, the wordless blossoms; when we can be silent with the Divine, become quiet; when there is no need to speak; when faith touches that peak where the question does not even arise that we should say anything—what is to be said, he knows; what is to happen, he knows; what is not to happen cannot happen; what ought not happen will not happen—where love attains such an ultimate state, there is devotion.
Prayer is like the flower; devotion is like the fragrance. In prayer there is some form, some color—shape and qualities; devotion is without qualities, formless. Devotion is the fragrance freed from the flower. But without the flower there is no fragrance.
The boundaries of the two meet and interpenetrate. Where prayer ends and where devotion begins is very hard to say. No line can be drawn. On what day was a man young and on what day did he become old—who will draw that line? On what day was a child still a child, and when did he become young—who will draw it? Until when was a man alive, and when did he die—who will draw it? All lines are artificial, makeshift.
For the sake of convenience I say to you: prayer is devotion with words, and devotion is prayer that has become wordless. Where all words are absorbed into the void, where even music falls silent—in that supreme stillness, in that dense, deep silence, is devotion.
They are distinct in that where prayer is complete, devotion begins. They are inseparable in that without prayer there can be no devotion. Understand it like this: a classical musician first tunes his instrument. Once the instrument is tuned, music can arise. Tuning is not the music, but without tuning music will not happen—it is the prelude. Prayer is like that. Prayer is the tuning of the instrument.
Prayer is moving toward the Divine through the medium of words. When words are no longer necessary, the wordless blossoms; when we can be silent with the Divine, become quiet; when there is no need to speak; when faith touches that peak where the question does not even arise that we should say anything—what is to be said, he knows; what is to happen, he knows; what is not to happen cannot happen; what ought not happen will not happen—where love attains such an ultimate state, there is devotion.
Prayer is like the flower; devotion is like the fragrance. In prayer there is some form, some color—shape and qualities; devotion is without qualities, formless. Devotion is the fragrance freed from the flower. But without the flower there is no fragrance.
The boundaries of the two meet and interpenetrate. Where prayer ends and where devotion begins is very hard to say. No line can be drawn. On what day was a man young and on what day did he become old—who will draw that line? On what day was a child still a child, and when did he become young—who will draw it? Until when was a man alive, and when did he die—who will draw it? All lines are artificial, makeshift.
For the sake of convenience I say to you: prayer is devotion with words, and devotion is prayer that has become wordless. Where all words are absorbed into the void, where even music falls silent—in that supreme stillness, in that dense, deep silence, is devotion.
You have asked: "What is the scientific method of sannyas?"
It is not right to call sannyas a method; sannyas is the supreme method. Sannyas is a device for freedom from the ego. Sannyas is not one among many methods. When all methods fail, then there is sannyas. When a person has done all he could—practiced yoga, meditated, done penance, performed worship, devotions, fasts—everything he could do on his own, he has done. And it is not that nothing came of it; much benefit came, but no fulfillment. He did receive; it is not that he received nothing. Whoever probes, searches, walks, finds. But he does not find so much that the search comes to an end.
Then one day, after employing all methods, it begins to dawn that there is one obstacle—I am the obstacle—because of which all methods remain incomplete. I do meditate, but I am the one who meditates—and this I becomes the barrier. I do penance, but I am the one who performs it—and this I changes the very quality of penance. I seek nectar, but I seek it in the vessel of the I. And the I is poison: even if a drop of nectar falls into this vessel, it turns into poison. The day, after many methods, this is understood—that sannyas is methodless—that day a person asks: Where do I hang this I? How do I drop this I?
If you try to drop it by yourself, there is a snag. The snag is that the I itself will be the dropper. Understand this; it is a little subtle.
To try to drop the I by yourself is like someone trying to lift himself by his own shoelaces. Or like a dog you might have seen on a cold winter morning, basking in the sun, trying to catch its own tail. He sits and sees: here is the tail, lying so near—so near that he lunges at it. But as he lunges, the tail also leaps away. Then the dog becomes even more agitated, even more intense. It seems a challenge worth accepting. He begins to snap more and more; the more he snaps, the more he goes crazy. The tail cannot be caught that way.
You will not be able to drop your ego by yourself. Who will be the dropper? The ego will hide in the very one who drops. Such is the subtle movement of ego. The ego will start saying, Look, how egoless I have become! See, who is as humble as I am! See, I have become the dust under everyone’s feet—everyone’s feet! But the I stands there, relishing it. Once it used to relish: I have so much wealth! I have so much name! I have so much fame! Now it relishes, Look at my humility.
There is an old story from China. A Taoist sage lived alone deep in the forest. Travelers passing through the forest saw the sage sitting under a tree and were greatly impressed. They had seen other sages, but a sage sitting in such solitude! They had seen sages who sought disciples; this man had fled from everyone. He had nothing to do with disciples, nothing to do with crowds. They bowed at his feet and said, You are a true sage! We have seen the so-called sages running in the marketplace, collecting crowds of disciples. You are the true sage! The sage opened his eyes and said, You are right: I do not have a single disciple.
What difference does it make? One says, I have a hundred thousand disciples, and another says, I do not have a single disciple. Where is the difference? There is none. The I stands. In the sage’s eyes the same glitter appeared—the glitter of ego. The sage is saying, Look at me! And where is the sage then? If I am the sage, then I am—and all else is deceit, pretension. All is false; I alone am the truth.
What else is ego? To drop it by oneself is difficult. The meaning of sannyas is simply this—take some pretext to let the ego fall. I say to you: Come, give it to me. Ego is not a thing that you can hand over to me. Ego is a shadow. It is not something that, if you give it to me, I will be in any trouble. Ego is nothing at all, only a delusion. I say to you: Come, give it to me. You are filled with delusion; I say, Give me your delusion, I will take care of it; you be at ease. This is only a device. The Master is only a device, a place where the ego can be laid down—simply, without effort.
To take sannyas means to give the ego. You offer the ego from that side; I give you sannyas from this side. You bow there; I will pour myself into you here. You empty yourself there; then a relationship will arise between you and me which is neither that of a student nor only that of a disciple; a relationship in which you are no longer other than me—you become one with me, indistinguishable from me. Only one who has no wish to turn back can dare this. Only one who has no attachment to the past can dare this. Only one who is courageous enough to take the risk can dare this.
Sannyas is a risk, an audacity. It is the supreme method. It is the final stage of all methods. When other methods do their work but cannot loosen the ego, then there is sannyas.
The word sannyas means: samyak-nyasa—putting down rightly. Exact release. Precise liberation. All efforts have been made; now we are defeated, tired. In that defeated, tired state we place whatever we have on the altar, and become weightless.
It is very difficult for a person to become weightless. Ego is so powerful within us that because of it we see ego in others too. Even where it is not, we see ego. Leave aside people—we even keep looking for some kind of ego in God.
Yesterday I was reading a poem—
At night, who knows
whether someone counts or does not count
the stars in the sky, like this—
lest any be left out from rising!
At dawn, who knows
whether someone listens or does not listen, like this—
lest any bird be left out from singing!
At noon, does someone
look or not look
racing his eyes across the whole forest
to see whether everyone has had water to drink or not!
And in the evening, this—
that whatever each was given,
has he lived it fully or not!
There is no God sitting somewhere like that. God is not a person. But since we are persons, we imagine even God in the shape of a person. We think, God too must be saying “I.” I make the stars move, I wake the stars, I put the stars to sleep, I rouse the birds, I open the petals of flowers, I go and see, I protect, I plan, I coordinate—there is no such “I” there. But within you, you have assumed there is an “I”—I breathe, I do this, I do that. You think, God must have a cosmic ego just like that.
As you experience that your being is not needed and yet everything goes on, that is the supreme experience. The day you find that even if you do not breathe, it goes on—everything goes on; no obstacle comes anywhere. The truth is, it goes better than before, because earlier the I caused small hindrances; now even those do not arise. Because of the I there used to be dejection sometimes; because of victory there used to be intoxication sometimes; because of defeat there used to be sorrow; now even those do not happen. Now there is neither intoxication nor despondency. Now all is quiet. Now all the turmoil is gone, all the hustle is gone. Now things flow very silently—like streams flow, like trees grow, like a child grows in a mother’s womb, like a seed breaks open in the earth—everything goes on quietly, without anyone doing anything.
Do you think, when a seed breaks open in the soil, that it breaks itself? That it says, Now I will break; see, the days of spring have come; now the season is favorable; now the time has come; this date has arrived, now I must crack open. Do the birds on waking in the morning think, Now it is morning, let us rise and sing; for this is what our ancestors did, this is what we shall do, this is our destiny. Do you think, when evening comes, the stars decide, Now let us lift our veils and appear, the day is done, the sun has set?
Nowhere is anyone thinking anything. Everything is happening silently. There is no doer anywhere, and the vast doing goes on. This is the mystery, this is the leela. There is no holder of the play. Sannyas is an experience in that direction. Sannyas is a doorway in that direction—drop, and let things happen through you.
Then you have asked: The path that I have found in silence—Is it superior, or is sannyas?
If a path has been found in silence, where will it lead? It will lead into sannyas. If understanding has arisen in silence, it will lead into surrender. If what you found in silence is only ego, then it will become a barrier to sannyas. So your question does not carry much meaning—Which is superior? It is like asking: If a flower has bloomed in solitude, then is the fragrance superior, or the flower? If the flower has bloomed, fragrance will manifest—what else will manifest? If silence has ripened in solitude, the death of ego will happen—what else will happen? And sannyas is an experiment in the death of ego. There is no difference between the two.
Does fragrance
have a tone or does it not?
In love,
is there fear or is there not?
Do old, timeworn images
dance in the mind or not?
Do rays, diving deep,
read the shadow or not?
Are flower and seed one, or not?
Are full moon and new moon one, or not?
Or are all things one,
only their faces different—
like our
joy and sorrow?
Where is the difference?
Are flower and seed one, or not?
Are full moon and new moon one, or not?
That which is the new moon will become the full moon. And that which is the full moon becomes the new moon.
If in solitude a path has been found, where will it take you? A path glimpsed in silence will ultimately take you into surrender. Surrender is sannyas.
I am only a device; whether sannyas happens here or not is not the question—it will happen somewhere. That it should happen here—there is no such insistence. Why here? The earth is vast; it can happen anywhere.
So keep this in mind: I am not saying that your sannyas must happen here. That your flower must spread its fragrance only here—what kind of talk is that! But if the flower has bloomed, fragrance will spread. Sannyas will ripen. Whether clothes change or not is not the big question. Whether it happens with me or with someone else, or in utter solitude—that too is not the point. But sannyas will happen, if the path has been found.
Yet your very question shows that the path likely has not been found. You have assumed that it has. If it truly had, why ask? What else would there be to ask? You must be believing that it has happened—How can it be that I have not attained? The same I stands somewhere behind. The same I prevents the bowing.
Look closely—it is your choice. If you wish to remain with that I, who am I to obstruct? If that I gives you relish, then you have all my blessings—enjoy it. But if in that I thorns prick; if melancholy grips you; if sorrow deepens; if because of that I life remains shallow and gains no depth—then here too we have opened a door; through that door you can enter the temple of the Divine. There are many other doors; there is no claim for this door alone. But you must enter somewhere. Tire of the I; drown in surrender.
Then one day, after employing all methods, it begins to dawn that there is one obstacle—I am the obstacle—because of which all methods remain incomplete. I do meditate, but I am the one who meditates—and this I becomes the barrier. I do penance, but I am the one who performs it—and this I changes the very quality of penance. I seek nectar, but I seek it in the vessel of the I. And the I is poison: even if a drop of nectar falls into this vessel, it turns into poison. The day, after many methods, this is understood—that sannyas is methodless—that day a person asks: Where do I hang this I? How do I drop this I?
If you try to drop it by yourself, there is a snag. The snag is that the I itself will be the dropper. Understand this; it is a little subtle.
To try to drop the I by yourself is like someone trying to lift himself by his own shoelaces. Or like a dog you might have seen on a cold winter morning, basking in the sun, trying to catch its own tail. He sits and sees: here is the tail, lying so near—so near that he lunges at it. But as he lunges, the tail also leaps away. Then the dog becomes even more agitated, even more intense. It seems a challenge worth accepting. He begins to snap more and more; the more he snaps, the more he goes crazy. The tail cannot be caught that way.
You will not be able to drop your ego by yourself. Who will be the dropper? The ego will hide in the very one who drops. Such is the subtle movement of ego. The ego will start saying, Look, how egoless I have become! See, who is as humble as I am! See, I have become the dust under everyone’s feet—everyone’s feet! But the I stands there, relishing it. Once it used to relish: I have so much wealth! I have so much name! I have so much fame! Now it relishes, Look at my humility.
There is an old story from China. A Taoist sage lived alone deep in the forest. Travelers passing through the forest saw the sage sitting under a tree and were greatly impressed. They had seen other sages, but a sage sitting in such solitude! They had seen sages who sought disciples; this man had fled from everyone. He had nothing to do with disciples, nothing to do with crowds. They bowed at his feet and said, You are a true sage! We have seen the so-called sages running in the marketplace, collecting crowds of disciples. You are the true sage! The sage opened his eyes and said, You are right: I do not have a single disciple.
What difference does it make? One says, I have a hundred thousand disciples, and another says, I do not have a single disciple. Where is the difference? There is none. The I stands. In the sage’s eyes the same glitter appeared—the glitter of ego. The sage is saying, Look at me! And where is the sage then? If I am the sage, then I am—and all else is deceit, pretension. All is false; I alone am the truth.
What else is ego? To drop it by oneself is difficult. The meaning of sannyas is simply this—take some pretext to let the ego fall. I say to you: Come, give it to me. Ego is not a thing that you can hand over to me. Ego is a shadow. It is not something that, if you give it to me, I will be in any trouble. Ego is nothing at all, only a delusion. I say to you: Come, give it to me. You are filled with delusion; I say, Give me your delusion, I will take care of it; you be at ease. This is only a device. The Master is only a device, a place where the ego can be laid down—simply, without effort.
To take sannyas means to give the ego. You offer the ego from that side; I give you sannyas from this side. You bow there; I will pour myself into you here. You empty yourself there; then a relationship will arise between you and me which is neither that of a student nor only that of a disciple; a relationship in which you are no longer other than me—you become one with me, indistinguishable from me. Only one who has no wish to turn back can dare this. Only one who has no attachment to the past can dare this. Only one who is courageous enough to take the risk can dare this.
Sannyas is a risk, an audacity. It is the supreme method. It is the final stage of all methods. When other methods do their work but cannot loosen the ego, then there is sannyas.
The word sannyas means: samyak-nyasa—putting down rightly. Exact release. Precise liberation. All efforts have been made; now we are defeated, tired. In that defeated, tired state we place whatever we have on the altar, and become weightless.
It is very difficult for a person to become weightless. Ego is so powerful within us that because of it we see ego in others too. Even where it is not, we see ego. Leave aside people—we even keep looking for some kind of ego in God.
Yesterday I was reading a poem—
At night, who knows
whether someone counts or does not count
the stars in the sky, like this—
lest any be left out from rising!
At dawn, who knows
whether someone listens or does not listen, like this—
lest any bird be left out from singing!
At noon, does someone
look or not look
racing his eyes across the whole forest
to see whether everyone has had water to drink or not!
And in the evening, this—
that whatever each was given,
has he lived it fully or not!
There is no God sitting somewhere like that. God is not a person. But since we are persons, we imagine even God in the shape of a person. We think, God too must be saying “I.” I make the stars move, I wake the stars, I put the stars to sleep, I rouse the birds, I open the petals of flowers, I go and see, I protect, I plan, I coordinate—there is no such “I” there. But within you, you have assumed there is an “I”—I breathe, I do this, I do that. You think, God must have a cosmic ego just like that.
As you experience that your being is not needed and yet everything goes on, that is the supreme experience. The day you find that even if you do not breathe, it goes on—everything goes on; no obstacle comes anywhere. The truth is, it goes better than before, because earlier the I caused small hindrances; now even those do not arise. Because of the I there used to be dejection sometimes; because of victory there used to be intoxication sometimes; because of defeat there used to be sorrow; now even those do not happen. Now there is neither intoxication nor despondency. Now all is quiet. Now all the turmoil is gone, all the hustle is gone. Now things flow very silently—like streams flow, like trees grow, like a child grows in a mother’s womb, like a seed breaks open in the earth—everything goes on quietly, without anyone doing anything.
Do you think, when a seed breaks open in the soil, that it breaks itself? That it says, Now I will break; see, the days of spring have come; now the season is favorable; now the time has come; this date has arrived, now I must crack open. Do the birds on waking in the morning think, Now it is morning, let us rise and sing; for this is what our ancestors did, this is what we shall do, this is our destiny. Do you think, when evening comes, the stars decide, Now let us lift our veils and appear, the day is done, the sun has set?
Nowhere is anyone thinking anything. Everything is happening silently. There is no doer anywhere, and the vast doing goes on. This is the mystery, this is the leela. There is no holder of the play. Sannyas is an experience in that direction. Sannyas is a doorway in that direction—drop, and let things happen through you.
Then you have asked: The path that I have found in silence—Is it superior, or is sannyas?
If a path has been found in silence, where will it lead? It will lead into sannyas. If understanding has arisen in silence, it will lead into surrender. If what you found in silence is only ego, then it will become a barrier to sannyas. So your question does not carry much meaning—Which is superior? It is like asking: If a flower has bloomed in solitude, then is the fragrance superior, or the flower? If the flower has bloomed, fragrance will manifest—what else will manifest? If silence has ripened in solitude, the death of ego will happen—what else will happen? And sannyas is an experiment in the death of ego. There is no difference between the two.
Does fragrance
have a tone or does it not?
In love,
is there fear or is there not?
Do old, timeworn images
dance in the mind or not?
Do rays, diving deep,
read the shadow or not?
Are flower and seed one, or not?
Are full moon and new moon one, or not?
Or are all things one,
only their faces different—
like our
joy and sorrow?
Where is the difference?
Are flower and seed one, or not?
Are full moon and new moon one, or not?
That which is the new moon will become the full moon. And that which is the full moon becomes the new moon.
If in solitude a path has been found, where will it take you? A path glimpsed in silence will ultimately take you into surrender. Surrender is sannyas.
I am only a device; whether sannyas happens here or not is not the question—it will happen somewhere. That it should happen here—there is no such insistence. Why here? The earth is vast; it can happen anywhere.
So keep this in mind: I am not saying that your sannyas must happen here. That your flower must spread its fragrance only here—what kind of talk is that! But if the flower has bloomed, fragrance will spread. Sannyas will ripen. Whether clothes change or not is not the big question. Whether it happens with me or with someone else, or in utter solitude—that too is not the point. But sannyas will happen, if the path has been found.
Yet your very question shows that the path likely has not been found. You have assumed that it has. If it truly had, why ask? What else would there be to ask? You must be believing that it has happened—How can it be that I have not attained? The same I stands somewhere behind. The same I prevents the bowing.
Look closely—it is your choice. If you wish to remain with that I, who am I to obstruct? If that I gives you relish, then you have all my blessings—enjoy it. But if in that I thorns prick; if melancholy grips you; if sorrow deepens; if because of that I life remains shallow and gains no depth—then here too we have opened a door; through that door you can enter the temple of the Divine. There are many other doors; there is no claim for this door alone. But you must enter somewhere. Tire of the I; drown in surrender.
Third question:
Osho, is it possible that I remain your disciple without taking sannyas, and keep advancing the silent practice that has been born within me? It is all your gift, of course, but this is a method awakened from my own innermost being, and I feel there is more benefit in following it. I also think there should be a branch in your path through which one may reach that ultimate reality even without taking sannyas and so on. Kindly tell me how far my thinking is right.
Osho, is it possible that I remain your disciple without taking sannyas, and keep advancing the silent practice that has been born within me? It is all your gift, of course, but this is a method awakened from my own innermost being, and I feel there is more benefit in following it. I also think there should be a branch in your path through which one may reach that ultimate reality even without taking sannyas and so on. Kindly tell me how far my thinking is right.
As long as you think, you will think wrongly. Thinking itself is wrong. As long as you go on thinking, you will think wrongly, because the very notion of “I” is wrong.
You don’t want to take a risk. You are eager to attain, and yet you don’t want to take any danger.
You say: “Is it possible that I remain your disciple without taking sannyas?”
From my side there is no obstacle; the obstacle will arise from your side. What obstacle could there be from me? Be a disciple at your ease, be a student, or be no one at all—there is no obstacle from my side. From my side you are free.
The obstacle will come from your side. You want to remain a disciple without becoming a sannyasin—already the obstruction has begun. It means you want to come close without actually coming close. How will that happen? If you come close, sannyas will happen. If you want to avoid sannyas you will have to stay far away, sit at a little distance, keep some margin. There will always be the fear that if you come too close you may be dyed in my color. Even when you listen to me, you will listen from afar—how much to take and how much not to take. You will remain the chooser. And alas! if you knew what truth is, what need would there be to listen to me at all? You know nothing of truth. You will choose, and your untruths will be the very basis of that choosing. That will be your scale, and on that you will weigh. And you will always be afraid that you may come too close, that you too, like these others in ochre robes, may become hypnotized: “I don’t want to be a sannyasin; I only want to remain a disciple.”
Do you understand the meaning of disciple?
Disciple means one who is totally ready to learn. Totally ready. Then whether sannyas happens or death happens, he sets no conditions. He says—having come to learn, we will bind no conditions. Then let whatever happens happen. If before learning you have already decided that you will learn only this much and not take a step beyond, how will you get rid of your past? How will you be free of what has gone by? Then your past will keep obstructing you.
From my side there is no obstacle. I am not telling anyone to become a sannyasin. Soon I shall even begin to explain to people not to become one—after all, how much trouble should I take? There is a limit. Soon I shall even begin to discourage people: no, there is no need for sannyas. I am not telling anyone to take sannyas. And if ever I do tell someone, I tell only the one whom I find has already taken it within—who is only waiting. Waiting only because he feels a hesitation: “How can I say, Please give me sannyas?” I tell only such a one. “How can I ask? Who knows whether I am worthy or unworthy?” When I find a person who thinks, “How can I ask? Perhaps I am unworthy. I don’t want to put him in the dilemma of having to say no,” so he waits silently—when I see someone waiting silently like this, only then do I call him and say, “You take sannyas.” Otherwise I do not say it.
You don’t want to take a risk. You are eager to attain, and yet you don’t want to take any danger.
You say: “Is it possible that I remain your disciple without taking sannyas?”
From my side there is no obstacle; the obstacle will arise from your side. What obstacle could there be from me? Be a disciple at your ease, be a student, or be no one at all—there is no obstacle from my side. From my side you are free.
The obstacle will come from your side. You want to remain a disciple without becoming a sannyasin—already the obstruction has begun. It means you want to come close without actually coming close. How will that happen? If you come close, sannyas will happen. If you want to avoid sannyas you will have to stay far away, sit at a little distance, keep some margin. There will always be the fear that if you come too close you may be dyed in my color. Even when you listen to me, you will listen from afar—how much to take and how much not to take. You will remain the chooser. And alas! if you knew what truth is, what need would there be to listen to me at all? You know nothing of truth. You will choose, and your untruths will be the very basis of that choosing. That will be your scale, and on that you will weigh. And you will always be afraid that you may come too close, that you too, like these others in ochre robes, may become hypnotized: “I don’t want to be a sannyasin; I only want to remain a disciple.”
Do you understand the meaning of disciple?
Disciple means one who is totally ready to learn. Totally ready. Then whether sannyas happens or death happens, he sets no conditions. He says—having come to learn, we will bind no conditions. Then let whatever happens happen. If before learning you have already decided that you will learn only this much and not take a step beyond, how will you get rid of your past? How will you be free of what has gone by? Then your past will keep obstructing you.
From my side there is no obstacle. I am not telling anyone to become a sannyasin. Soon I shall even begin to explain to people not to become one—after all, how much trouble should I take? There is a limit. Soon I shall even begin to discourage people: no, there is no need for sannyas. I am not telling anyone to take sannyas. And if ever I do tell someone, I tell only the one whom I find has already taken it within—who is only waiting. Waiting only because he feels a hesitation: “How can I say, Please give me sannyas?” I tell only such a one. “How can I ask? Who knows whether I am worthy or unworthy?” When I find a person who thinks, “How can I ask? Perhaps I am unworthy. I don’t want to put him in the dilemma of having to say no,” so he waits silently—when I see someone waiting silently like this, only then do I call him and say, “You take sannyas.” Otherwise I do not say it.
This question has been asked by Vijay. Vijay came for darshan the day before yesterday. He kept glancing again and again at the mala. But I did not say anything. I did not say it precisely because all these moods sit within. And Vijay has known me—has been acquainted with me—for at least twenty years. But inside him there is a certain sense of “I,” an ego I know well. It is a rigid ego; that is the obstacle. That same ego keeps taking new forms. Now that very ego says: “Can I not remain with you as a disciple without taking sannyas? Is taking sannyas necessary?”
From my side nothing is compulsory. Go as far as you wish to go. If you want to remain a disciple, remain a disciple; if you want to remain a student, remain a student; if you wish to come as a spectator, come as a spectator. Drink as much as you can drink. There is no obstacle from me—and if you want to go further, there is no obstacle in that from me either.
You ask: “The practice of silence that has been born within me—should I keep taking it further? It is all your gift...” Even this you must be saying with difficulty. Even this, that it is all my gift, you must have said by forcing yourself. You have had to say it. Otherwise your pleasure is in saying, “The silent practice that has arisen within me, shall I keep advancing it? Because it is a system awakened from my own depths. And it seems to me that following this brings more benefit.”
When you already know where the benefit lies, then quietly follow what you take to be your benefit. The day you don’t see benefit, ask then. The time has not yet come; the moment to ask has not yet come. The day you are defeated, ask then. Why do you ask if you know the benefit? Somewhere there must be doubt. Somewhere there must be doubt whether it is truly benefiting you—or whether I am merely going on believing.
Often it happens so. A few days ago an elderly gentleman came and said he had been meditating, chanting a mantra, for thirty years. I asked, “Has anything happened?” He said, “Why not!” But on his face I could see another feeling: that nothing had happened, even as he said, “Why not!” So I said, “Are you speaking truthfully? Think a little and then say; close your eyes for a moment—has anything happened?” He must have thought; he was not entirely stupid—otherwise he would have sat obstinately insisting that surely something had happened. He opened his eyes and said, “You have caught it rightly—nothing at all has happened.” Then I asked, “Why did you so quickly say, ‘Why not!’” He replied, “That too seems difficult. If after chanting a mantra for thirty years nothing happens, what unworthiness it makes me feel! Then what a sinner I must be! Then thirty years have gone waste?” And so the ego of those thirty years would be shattered.
So often people keep doing even when nothing happens. Because how to drop it now? Thirty years have been invested; someone has given fifty years to some method—how to leave it now? Recently an elderly gentleman, C. S. Lewish from London, came—he is a disciple of Gurdjieff. Some fifty years... his age eighty... for fifty years he had walked according to Gurdjieff’s stream. From there he used to write me that he wanted to come, to have darshan. “With Gurdjieff it didn’t happen; I missed. I must not miss you.” He came here, but the ego of those fifty years of walking with Gurdjieff’s system was heavy. He began to say, “At this age, what sannyas! I am eighty; at this age why change boats!”
I said, “If the old boat carries you, I too will not say change boats. My boat is crowded as it is; you can go by the old one—there is little room here anyway; we are trying to enlarge the boat every day. But if the old boat takes you nowhere, think once.”
He got so frightened that he ran away. Just the thought—that perhaps the old boat had not worked—frightened him! He did not enter the ashram the next day. He had come to stay two or three months. He left only a letter: “I am going.” That feeling of fifty years—“I have invested fifty years in one practice.” Who knows by what devices a man’s ego keeps filling itself.
If you have found a path, walk it joyfully. If there is benefit, do not leave it! Why take any loss with me then? When benefit is happening, when you know where your benefit lies, then—carefree—keep walking that very path.
And you have also advised me that I should consider keeping a branch in my path through which, without taking sannyas and such, one might still reach that ultimate reality.
Why? Those who do not have the courage to join me totally should remain elsewhere. Why create their crowd here? Let me work here on those who have had the courage to drop themselves wholly. Why gather these weak ones here? Why gather these cripples here—the lame and the limping? Those who have surrendered—I want to take them to their destination; my entire energy must be put into them.
Therefore I will choose. Soon I will keep choosing, and gradually I will sift out completely those with whom I feel the association has no meaning—who are not truly with me, who are crowding here needlessly. So that my whole energy and all my facilities can be available to those who have taken the risk. I have a responsibility toward them. They have taken the risk; I have a duty toward them. And those who have staked nothing—what have I to do with them? You will receive in the very measure in which you stake yourself. More than that cannot be given. More than that is not possible.
Today the East gave me nothing—
though every day it would give so much.
Verse by verse, gusts of wind,
light, song, fragrance.
Today it gave me nothing—
perhaps
my sun did not arise
within me;
my lotus did not open
its petals
after the night had passed!
The sun can give only when you open your lotus-petals—when you open your heart-lotus. If you keep your heart-lotus closed, then do not complain about the sun; do not say that the sun gave you nothing. At least spread your bowl to receive.
Sannyas is precisely that spreading of the bowl. You say: “My bowl is empty.” You say: “I will not hide it; truthfully I declare—my bowl is empty, these my hands are empty; this is my begging bowl—fill me.” The meaning of sannyas is just this: I submit that I have been left empty, and I do not want to remain empty; I want to depart from this life filled. Sannyas means I say, “I am ignorant; I need a ray.”
There are people who want to say, “I too know—but if I get a little something from you as well, there is no harm; I will manage that too, I will keep that also. As it is, I have already attained; if I get something from you too—well, that much more good.”
Those who already “know” will get nothing from me. Those who are “wise” will not receive even a single ray from me—not because I will be stingy in giving, but because they will not open their lotus-heart.
Sannyas is an invitation to efface oneself.
Some vast
wave of the fluid ocean of form
is breaking upon
the shores of my soul;
there is pain, and yet
an assurance arises—
that the wave
is joining form
to the formless!
Pain does happen. When you break, there will be sorrow. The heart will be scorched to cinders, shattered into fragments. No one breaks in comfort—this is true. When you break, there is pain. But let at least this assurance remain—
there is pain, and yet
an assurance arises—
that the wave
is joining form
to the formless.
Let me come like a wave; open your heart so I may break you. If I break you, it is to make you. If I kill you, it is to revive you. If you hang on the cross, it is your resurrection. Sannyas is the cross—and the resurrection.
You ask: “The practice of silence that has been born within me—should I keep taking it further? It is all your gift...” Even this you must be saying with difficulty. Even this, that it is all my gift, you must have said by forcing yourself. You have had to say it. Otherwise your pleasure is in saying, “The silent practice that has arisen within me, shall I keep advancing it? Because it is a system awakened from my own depths. And it seems to me that following this brings more benefit.”
When you already know where the benefit lies, then quietly follow what you take to be your benefit. The day you don’t see benefit, ask then. The time has not yet come; the moment to ask has not yet come. The day you are defeated, ask then. Why do you ask if you know the benefit? Somewhere there must be doubt. Somewhere there must be doubt whether it is truly benefiting you—or whether I am merely going on believing.
Often it happens so. A few days ago an elderly gentleman came and said he had been meditating, chanting a mantra, for thirty years. I asked, “Has anything happened?” He said, “Why not!” But on his face I could see another feeling: that nothing had happened, even as he said, “Why not!” So I said, “Are you speaking truthfully? Think a little and then say; close your eyes for a moment—has anything happened?” He must have thought; he was not entirely stupid—otherwise he would have sat obstinately insisting that surely something had happened. He opened his eyes and said, “You have caught it rightly—nothing at all has happened.” Then I asked, “Why did you so quickly say, ‘Why not!’” He replied, “That too seems difficult. If after chanting a mantra for thirty years nothing happens, what unworthiness it makes me feel! Then what a sinner I must be! Then thirty years have gone waste?” And so the ego of those thirty years would be shattered.
So often people keep doing even when nothing happens. Because how to drop it now? Thirty years have been invested; someone has given fifty years to some method—how to leave it now? Recently an elderly gentleman, C. S. Lewish from London, came—he is a disciple of Gurdjieff. Some fifty years... his age eighty... for fifty years he had walked according to Gurdjieff’s stream. From there he used to write me that he wanted to come, to have darshan. “With Gurdjieff it didn’t happen; I missed. I must not miss you.” He came here, but the ego of those fifty years of walking with Gurdjieff’s system was heavy. He began to say, “At this age, what sannyas! I am eighty; at this age why change boats!”
I said, “If the old boat carries you, I too will not say change boats. My boat is crowded as it is; you can go by the old one—there is little room here anyway; we are trying to enlarge the boat every day. But if the old boat takes you nowhere, think once.”
He got so frightened that he ran away. Just the thought—that perhaps the old boat had not worked—frightened him! He did not enter the ashram the next day. He had come to stay two or three months. He left only a letter: “I am going.” That feeling of fifty years—“I have invested fifty years in one practice.” Who knows by what devices a man’s ego keeps filling itself.
If you have found a path, walk it joyfully. If there is benefit, do not leave it! Why take any loss with me then? When benefit is happening, when you know where your benefit lies, then—carefree—keep walking that very path.
And you have also advised me that I should consider keeping a branch in my path through which, without taking sannyas and such, one might still reach that ultimate reality.
Why? Those who do not have the courage to join me totally should remain elsewhere. Why create their crowd here? Let me work here on those who have had the courage to drop themselves wholly. Why gather these weak ones here? Why gather these cripples here—the lame and the limping? Those who have surrendered—I want to take them to their destination; my entire energy must be put into them.
Therefore I will choose. Soon I will keep choosing, and gradually I will sift out completely those with whom I feel the association has no meaning—who are not truly with me, who are crowding here needlessly. So that my whole energy and all my facilities can be available to those who have taken the risk. I have a responsibility toward them. They have taken the risk; I have a duty toward them. And those who have staked nothing—what have I to do with them? You will receive in the very measure in which you stake yourself. More than that cannot be given. More than that is not possible.
Today the East gave me nothing—
though every day it would give so much.
Verse by verse, gusts of wind,
light, song, fragrance.
Today it gave me nothing—
perhaps
my sun did not arise
within me;
my lotus did not open
its petals
after the night had passed!
The sun can give only when you open your lotus-petals—when you open your heart-lotus. If you keep your heart-lotus closed, then do not complain about the sun; do not say that the sun gave you nothing. At least spread your bowl to receive.
Sannyas is precisely that spreading of the bowl. You say: “My bowl is empty.” You say: “I will not hide it; truthfully I declare—my bowl is empty, these my hands are empty; this is my begging bowl—fill me.” The meaning of sannyas is just this: I submit that I have been left empty, and I do not want to remain empty; I want to depart from this life filled. Sannyas means I say, “I am ignorant; I need a ray.”
There are people who want to say, “I too know—but if I get a little something from you as well, there is no harm; I will manage that too, I will keep that also. As it is, I have already attained; if I get something from you too—well, that much more good.”
Those who already “know” will get nothing from me. Those who are “wise” will not receive even a single ray from me—not because I will be stingy in giving, but because they will not open their lotus-heart.
Sannyas is an invitation to efface oneself.
Some vast
wave of the fluid ocean of form
is breaking upon
the shores of my soul;
there is pain, and yet
an assurance arises—
that the wave
is joining form
to the formless!
Pain does happen. When you break, there will be sorrow. The heart will be scorched to cinders, shattered into fragments. No one breaks in comfort—this is true. When you break, there is pain. But let at least this assurance remain—
there is pain, and yet
an assurance arises—
that the wave
is joining form
to the formless.
Let me come like a wave; open your heart so I may break you. If I break you, it is to make you. If I kill you, it is to revive you. If you hang on the cross, it is your resurrection. Sannyas is the cross—and the resurrection.
Fourth question:
Osho, what is this world? What is this maya?
Osho, what is this world? What is this maya?
It is the dream of a mind filled with darkness. It is the dream of a consciousness fast asleep. Every night you dream, don’t you? This too is a dream—only seen with open eyes. There is not the slightest difference. In the night, inside a dream, you fall into the same delusion—that what you are seeing is real. The same delusion you repeat in the day. The delusion is one and the same. At night you take the dream to be true; in the day you take the world to be true. At night you completely forget the day’s world; in the day you completely forget the night’s dream. You have seen thousands of dreams and thousands of dawns; and every morning, on waking, you found the dreams were false. Yet night came again, and again you were lost in the dream—and still you did not remember. Do you ever remember in a dream that what you are seeing is false, that you have seen this many times? Your sleep is so dense! How many times you have known that the dream is false, yet that wealth does not stay within you. Even this small awareness does not get established in you. You will have to take this very awareness into your sleep. If it goes into sleep, it will also arise in waking.
Gurdjieff used to tell his disciples that the first task is: in sleep, know the dream as a dream. He did not say, “Know the world as a dream,” because that is a big task—this world is vast. You have a small world at night—the dream world—completely private, personal. There you are alone, no one is very big, it’s a small courtyard; here, the sky is immense. And there is a further danger: here you are not the only one who sees—others are seeing too. Others’ testimony also keeps coming that it is real. At night the flower you see is seen only by you—there is no witness—yet even without a witness you take it as true. In the day there are so many witnesses: a flower has bloomed—there are millions who witness it. Perhaps you are wrong—how can so many be wrong! Hence your trust in the day does not break.
In this land there has been an ancient tradition of calling the world maya—illusion. But Gurdjieff found the right method—how to break it. What will happen by merely repeating it? The Vedantins go on saying, “The whole world is maya.” But what changes by saying it? In that Vedantin’s life you will not find anywhere that the world is maya. He lives just as one whom you call ignorant; there is no difference—none at all.
Once a Vedantin sannyasin was a guest in my home. He kept saying, “All is maya.” In his little trunk he carried a small Shankarji lingam. The children of the house next door used to come to play near me. They were playing; I gave them that Shankarji’s lingam. I said, “Play with it! Have fun! Take it!” The swami became very upset. He snatched the lingam at once and said, “What are you saying? This is Shankarji’s lingam—don’t you know? You have made it impure!”
I said, “The world is maya and the lingam is true? This vast world, the whole cosmos, is maya, and this tiny Shankarji is true? Come now, let it go—everything is maya! They are not taking anything special. It’s a piece of stone picked up from somewhere.”
But he could not gather the courage to give the lingam to the children. He quickly tucked it back safely into the little trunk. So I said, “Now stop this prattle of maya and the rest. Your lingam is true, and someone else, who has gathered wealth in his safe, that is maya? What is the difference? Where is the distinction?”
There is a story about Adi Shankaracharya himself: he was descending the ghats of Kashi after his morning bath when a shudra passed by—not only passed, he brushed against him. Shankaracharya became very angry and shouted, “Have you no sense at all? Being a shudra, you keep no awareness! I have just bathed and you have made me impure!”
That shudra said, “Master, I had heard of your knowledge, and I fell under that very spell. I thought, if all is maya, then who is shudra and who is brahmin? What shudra, what brahmin, when all is a dream? Who touched whom, when touching itself is a dream? Then let me ask: did your body become impure, or your soul? For the body is impure—I have read in your words that the body is impure anyway. What is already impure cannot be made impure by my touch. This is a body, that is a body—the impure touched the impure: what difference did it make? And the soul—I have heard in your talks—is pure, ever-awakened, sat-chit-ananda. So if my soul touched your soul, there should be no problem either, for both are pure—pure meeting pure—there is only bliss. Why are you so angry?”
Shankaracharya had never been defeated by any scholar; he was defeated by that shudra. He bowed to him and said, “You have given me the right understanding.”
Theory is one thing, argument is one thing; living experience is another, far greater, thing.
Gurdjieff found the right method. His method was: while dreaming, wake up and see that it is a dream. So he would tell his disciples: every night, as you fall asleep, repeat one thing, one thing, one thing—again and again. Let sleep come without your knowing it, and keep repeating: “Tonight I will not miss. When the dream appears, a feeling will arise within me: this is a dream, this is false.”
It may take three to six months, but one day it happens. One day it happens in the dream itself: the dream is there—the golden palace, the dance of apsaras, heaps of diamonds and jewels, or something else—and one day, by that repetition, dripping down from the conscious into the unconscious, the message reaches. That day the dream is happening and suddenly you wake up inside and see: Ah! This is a dream; it is false. And then an extraordinary experience occurs: the very moment you know it is false, the dream breaks—at once it breaks. It does not go even an inch further; as if the film stopped in a flash and the screen became empty.
Gurdjieff said: then comes the second stage. When this has happened—when you have learned the art of breaking the night’s dream—then, while awake in the day, look and see that all is a dream. That too will happen; perhaps it will take even more time. But the one who has broken the night’s dream will break the day’s dream as well.
You ask: “What is this world? What is this maya?”
It is a dream seen with open eyes. It is the expansion of your desires. It is the projection of your thoughts.
A boat of sand, boatmen of foam,
A wooden train, elephants of shell,
Light and heavy contraptions of plastic,
Wheels of wax that stop and will not turn,
Fields of ash, threshing-floors of dust,
Garments of steam, houses made of smoke,
A canal of magic, bridges made of prayers,
Rattles fashioned from a few ‘plans,’
Disciples of thread, masters of rope-grass,
Pickaxes of cardboard, Farhads made of glass,
Scholars of flour and imams of semolina,
And poet-saints of glittering foil,
Arrows of wool, swords of cotton,
Presidents of clay and ministers of rubber—
Carrying all our toys along,
With empty hands we carry the cosmos.
A rope tied between two pillars—
God knows since when we have been walking like this:
Neither do we fall, nor do we find our balance—
Such is all falsehood.
God knows since when we have been walking like this:
Neither do we fall, nor do we find our balance.
The story keeps moving on—and we keep weaving it. We water it every day. Every day we arrange new arrangements. If the old toys break, we make new ones. If one desire proves futile, we dress up ten more. Until the last breath we keep painting the screen, bringing up new images, installing new songs, striking new melodies—and we suffer greatly. The fruit is suffering.
Understand it like this: the fruit of truth is bliss; the fruit of untruth is suffering. Wherever you find suffering, know that there is untruth. Suffering is the touchstone. The more the suffering, the greater the untruth. Wherever you find suffering, understand that something is false. Falsehood yields suffering; suffering walks hand in hand with falsehood. Suffering and falsehood have an eternal relationship. Wherever a glimmer of joy appears, wherever a little peace descends, wherever a hush surrounds you, where a little rest happens, where a little delight arises—know that truth is near, that a ray of truth has entered the inner screen. Seek—wherever there is joy, seek there.
You have been told: if God is found, bliss is found. I tell you: if bliss is found, God is found. And Shandilya will agree with me. You have been told: if God is found, love will arise in your life. I tell you: if love arises in your life, you will find God. And Shandilya will agree with me.
Call it Truth, if you want to speak the language of the knower; call it Love, if you want to speak the language of the devotee—but it is one and the same. Where there is truth, where there is love, there is bliss. Bliss is the proof. Therefore, seek bliss. And wherever you find suffering, wake yourself up there. Enough! You have walked a lot! Now this dream must break. And none but you can break it. Only if you want to break it will you be able to break it. Look deeply: how much suffering it brings.
People ask me, “How to break the dream?” This very question is wrong. Just keep seeing clearly how much suffering the dream brings, and it will break. Let there be a precise, direct feeling for suffering; let there be a clear understanding of cause and effect—that wherever suffering appears, there is falsehood.
But you are great tricksters. You think up all kinds of strange things.
Gurdjieff used to tell his disciples that the first task is: in sleep, know the dream as a dream. He did not say, “Know the world as a dream,” because that is a big task—this world is vast. You have a small world at night—the dream world—completely private, personal. There you are alone, no one is very big, it’s a small courtyard; here, the sky is immense. And there is a further danger: here you are not the only one who sees—others are seeing too. Others’ testimony also keeps coming that it is real. At night the flower you see is seen only by you—there is no witness—yet even without a witness you take it as true. In the day there are so many witnesses: a flower has bloomed—there are millions who witness it. Perhaps you are wrong—how can so many be wrong! Hence your trust in the day does not break.
In this land there has been an ancient tradition of calling the world maya—illusion. But Gurdjieff found the right method—how to break it. What will happen by merely repeating it? The Vedantins go on saying, “The whole world is maya.” But what changes by saying it? In that Vedantin’s life you will not find anywhere that the world is maya. He lives just as one whom you call ignorant; there is no difference—none at all.
Once a Vedantin sannyasin was a guest in my home. He kept saying, “All is maya.” In his little trunk he carried a small Shankarji lingam. The children of the house next door used to come to play near me. They were playing; I gave them that Shankarji’s lingam. I said, “Play with it! Have fun! Take it!” The swami became very upset. He snatched the lingam at once and said, “What are you saying? This is Shankarji’s lingam—don’t you know? You have made it impure!”
I said, “The world is maya and the lingam is true? This vast world, the whole cosmos, is maya, and this tiny Shankarji is true? Come now, let it go—everything is maya! They are not taking anything special. It’s a piece of stone picked up from somewhere.”
But he could not gather the courage to give the lingam to the children. He quickly tucked it back safely into the little trunk. So I said, “Now stop this prattle of maya and the rest. Your lingam is true, and someone else, who has gathered wealth in his safe, that is maya? What is the difference? Where is the distinction?”
There is a story about Adi Shankaracharya himself: he was descending the ghats of Kashi after his morning bath when a shudra passed by—not only passed, he brushed against him. Shankaracharya became very angry and shouted, “Have you no sense at all? Being a shudra, you keep no awareness! I have just bathed and you have made me impure!”
That shudra said, “Master, I had heard of your knowledge, and I fell under that very spell. I thought, if all is maya, then who is shudra and who is brahmin? What shudra, what brahmin, when all is a dream? Who touched whom, when touching itself is a dream? Then let me ask: did your body become impure, or your soul? For the body is impure—I have read in your words that the body is impure anyway. What is already impure cannot be made impure by my touch. This is a body, that is a body—the impure touched the impure: what difference did it make? And the soul—I have heard in your talks—is pure, ever-awakened, sat-chit-ananda. So if my soul touched your soul, there should be no problem either, for both are pure—pure meeting pure—there is only bliss. Why are you so angry?”
Shankaracharya had never been defeated by any scholar; he was defeated by that shudra. He bowed to him and said, “You have given me the right understanding.”
Theory is one thing, argument is one thing; living experience is another, far greater, thing.
Gurdjieff found the right method. His method was: while dreaming, wake up and see that it is a dream. So he would tell his disciples: every night, as you fall asleep, repeat one thing, one thing, one thing—again and again. Let sleep come without your knowing it, and keep repeating: “Tonight I will not miss. When the dream appears, a feeling will arise within me: this is a dream, this is false.”
It may take three to six months, but one day it happens. One day it happens in the dream itself: the dream is there—the golden palace, the dance of apsaras, heaps of diamonds and jewels, or something else—and one day, by that repetition, dripping down from the conscious into the unconscious, the message reaches. That day the dream is happening and suddenly you wake up inside and see: Ah! This is a dream; it is false. And then an extraordinary experience occurs: the very moment you know it is false, the dream breaks—at once it breaks. It does not go even an inch further; as if the film stopped in a flash and the screen became empty.
Gurdjieff said: then comes the second stage. When this has happened—when you have learned the art of breaking the night’s dream—then, while awake in the day, look and see that all is a dream. That too will happen; perhaps it will take even more time. But the one who has broken the night’s dream will break the day’s dream as well.
You ask: “What is this world? What is this maya?”
It is a dream seen with open eyes. It is the expansion of your desires. It is the projection of your thoughts.
A boat of sand, boatmen of foam,
A wooden train, elephants of shell,
Light and heavy contraptions of plastic,
Wheels of wax that stop and will not turn,
Fields of ash, threshing-floors of dust,
Garments of steam, houses made of smoke,
A canal of magic, bridges made of prayers,
Rattles fashioned from a few ‘plans,’
Disciples of thread, masters of rope-grass,
Pickaxes of cardboard, Farhads made of glass,
Scholars of flour and imams of semolina,
And poet-saints of glittering foil,
Arrows of wool, swords of cotton,
Presidents of clay and ministers of rubber—
Carrying all our toys along,
With empty hands we carry the cosmos.
A rope tied between two pillars—
God knows since when we have been walking like this:
Neither do we fall, nor do we find our balance—
Such is all falsehood.
God knows since when we have been walking like this:
Neither do we fall, nor do we find our balance.
The story keeps moving on—and we keep weaving it. We water it every day. Every day we arrange new arrangements. If the old toys break, we make new ones. If one desire proves futile, we dress up ten more. Until the last breath we keep painting the screen, bringing up new images, installing new songs, striking new melodies—and we suffer greatly. The fruit is suffering.
Understand it like this: the fruit of truth is bliss; the fruit of untruth is suffering. Wherever you find suffering, know that there is untruth. Suffering is the touchstone. The more the suffering, the greater the untruth. Wherever you find suffering, understand that something is false. Falsehood yields suffering; suffering walks hand in hand with falsehood. Suffering and falsehood have an eternal relationship. Wherever a glimmer of joy appears, wherever a little peace descends, wherever a hush surrounds you, where a little rest happens, where a little delight arises—know that truth is near, that a ray of truth has entered the inner screen. Seek—wherever there is joy, seek there.
You have been told: if God is found, bliss is found. I tell you: if bliss is found, God is found. And Shandilya will agree with me. You have been told: if God is found, love will arise in your life. I tell you: if love arises in your life, you will find God. And Shandilya will agree with me.
Call it Truth, if you want to speak the language of the knower; call it Love, if you want to speak the language of the devotee—but it is one and the same. Where there is truth, where there is love, there is bliss. Bliss is the proof. Therefore, seek bliss. And wherever you find suffering, wake yourself up there. Enough! You have walked a lot! Now this dream must break. And none but you can break it. Only if you want to break it will you be able to break it. Look deeply: how much suffering it brings.
People ask me, “How to break the dream?” This very question is wrong. Just keep seeing clearly how much suffering the dream brings, and it will break. Let there be a precise, direct feeling for suffering; let there be a clear understanding of cause and effect—that wherever suffering appears, there is falsehood.
But you are great tricksters. You think up all kinds of strange things.
Kusum has asked: Why does a truly religious person suffer while sinners seem to enjoy themselves?
It has never been so. If a “religious” person is getting sorrow, he is a hidden sinner—nothing else. And if a “sinner” is enjoying, then your understanding has slipped somewhere; he is not a sinner. From sin, joy does not arise—cannot arise. If you find some thief very happy, it only means that apart from thieving he has other qualities because of which happiness comes. How can theft give happiness? Perhaps he is courageous. Thieves are often brave. Out of a hundred people in the world, ninety-nine are not thieves simply because they lack courage—nothing else. No special virtue, no high morality; they are just weak, lazy, timid, afraid to steal lest they get caught. Think a little yourself: if someone gave you an absolute guarantee that you would not be caught, would you steal or not? A solid guarantee—you will not be caught. Then you would say, “Why not? Then let’s do it.” So all these days you have refrained from stealing not because stealing is wrong, but because of the fear of being caught—your reputation will be stained, you will be disgraced, people will say, “You—a thief!” Your ego will be hurt. It is only out of that fear that you held back.
Of a hundred “non-thieves,” ninety-nine are non-thieves only out of fear—hence they will suffer. They will think, “We do not steal—why are we suffering?” But you are a thief all the same; whether you steal or not is not what makes one a thief. Thieving is a condition of your consciousness.
Mulla Nasruddin was traveling in a train. In that compartment there were only two: himself and a beautiful woman. He said to the woman, “If I give you one thousand rupees, will you spend the night with me?” The woman said, “What do you think I am? I will pull the chain! I will call the police!” He said, “Don’t be angry—I just made a request. If I give you ten thousand?” The woman fell silent. She didn’t shout, didn’t say she’d call the police or pull the chain. Mulla said, “Ten thousand?” She said, “For ten thousand, I could agree.” Mulla said, “All right—then what if I give ten rupees?” At that the woman sprang up and said, “I’ll pull the chain right now! I’ll call the police!” Mulla said, “What kind of talk is this?” The woman said, “Don’t you know who I am?” Mulla said, “I’ve understood who you are—now we’re only haggling. When you agreed at ten thousand, I knew who you are; now it’s only a matter of price. I am a businessman! I mentioned ten thousand only to recognize who you were. That part is settled, the decision is made—now don’t pull the chain for no reason; sit down. Let’s bargain and settle whatever is to be settled.”
Think about it: your life-state is not made thief-like by the act of stealing; it is the thieving tendency. Because of that tendency you suffer. And if some thief is happy, there must be something in him—some quality from which happiness comes: courage, strength, the daring to stake everything, a carefree mind—“come what may;” perhaps he doesn’t worry about what the world says; perhaps there is a slight rebelliousness. There will be something in him, some virtue from which happiness comes.
Your “mahatma”—you say he is a great saint—he is suffering? If he suffers, that’s proof something is awry. A true saint never suffers—cannot suffer—because sorrow is the shadow of falsehood, of untruth, of maya. If a saint suffers, somewhere there is a mistake; he is not a saint. And if a “sinner” is enjoying, then again your understanding is at fault—look again, look closely.
Sometimes among drunkards you meet such gentlemen as you won’t find among the so-called gentlemen. Often the drunk are simpler than the “virtuous.” Simplicity brings joy. If someone drinks out of simplicity, there will certainly be enjoyment. But if someone refrains from drinking only to gain heaven, there can be no joy there—for there is desire, calculation, trickery. He is a clever fellow saying, “I want to go to heaven; to go, I’ll have to pay this price.”
Examine within yourself, and you’ll find: whenever you are aligned with truth, immediately there is a shower of bliss, the sun breaks out, flowers burst forth, you become fragrant.
What is the world? What is maya?
A web we have woven—like a spider’s web—
and in which we ourselves are trapped.
Every day I move beyond where I was,
and then I return to the very same place.
I have broken those walls time and again,
yet I keep crashing into these very walls.
Every day many new towns are settled,
every day they sink back into the earth.
There used to be a little warmth in the tremors—
now even those come every single day.
From body to soul it is sand upon sand:
no sunlight, no shade, not even a mirage.
How many longings lie buried in which desert?
Who keeps the count of all these graves?
The pulse flickers and it flares as well;
the heart’s habit is to be anxious.
At night, darkness said to darkness,
“It’s a habit too—this going on living.”
At daybreak even the rainbow seems one-colored;
the goblet too knows but a single gait.
In every corner a mosque stands—
what has become of the tavern’s face?
Someone used to say, “I am an ocean,”
and there isn’t even a drop in my pocket.
I used to write my own condition;
now even danger isn’t written in my fate.
I read my hands like scriptures—
now like the Quran, now like the Gita.
In a few lines, in a few limits,
life stands imprisoned like Sita.
When will Rama return? No one knows.
If only some Ravana would at least come!
Such is the sorry state—
When will Rama return? No one knows.
If only some Ravana would at least come!
Man is shut up like Sita. And no one else made these webs—we made them. Nor did we only make them once; we are weaving them every day. Today too you will weave them. Your day will go in this. You will strengthen these same walls, plate these same bars with more steel, make these same chains heavier. You will manure and water this same madness.
At night, darkness said to darkness,
“It’s a habit too—this going on living.”
You go on living—out of habit. You lived yesterday, you lived the day before; living has become a habit. As people smoke cigarettes, people live. What to do? It has become a habit. People smoke, drink, chew betel nut or tobacco; similarly living too has become a habit. What to do? We lived yesterday, we lived the day before; having lived so long, now living has become a habit—so we go on living. We go on repeating the same things we did yesterday.
Every day I move beyond where I was,
and then I return to the very same place.
Look a little: the wheel of your life keeps turning—here, here, here. That is why the wise called the world the cycle—samsara-chakra.
Every day I move beyond where I was,
and then I return to the very same place.
I have broken those walls time and again,
yet I keep crashing into these very walls.
You think you have broken through—but look closely, you crash into the same things. Yesterday you collided with anger, the day before with anger, before that too—and today as well. Trust yourself: today too you will collide with anger; and tomorrow as well. You think you have sworn oaths never to be angry again. Do oaths help? Everyone takes oaths! Anger is bigger than your oaths. How many times have you vowed not to cling anymore—and yet attachment forms again and again. Attachment is bigger than oaths. How many vows were taken—every vow broke; none can be kept. Vows cannot be kept; only awareness works—nothing else works. Look a little with awareness! Don’t say, “I will not be angry now.” Ask, “Why have I been angry up to now?” Don’t say, “I swear I won’t be angry.” For what will your oath do? Anger will arise from where it always arose—from that same dark unconscious; it will rise again. Your habit is ancient; your oath is new. The habit is big; the oath is small. When the storm of habit comes, the oath will fly away like a straw in the wind. You will repent yet again. Repenting too is your habit.
A man came to me. He said, “Anger has ruined my life; free me from anger. I repent a great deal, and every time after anger I weep, beat my chest; I even kept fasts for days; I have beaten myself; I even thought of suicide—yet this anger does not go. Save me from anger.” I said, “Do one thing: since anger won’t leave you, at least drop repentance.” He said, “What are you saying? If I drop repentance—repenting hasn’t freed me from anger; if I drop repentance I will become even more angry.” I said, “You have already tried that way. Now listen to me: at least drop repentance. Get angry—freely—without worry; and drop repentance. Come back after three weeks and tell me what happened.”
He returned after three weeks and said, “Even repentance doesn’t leave me.” Think about it: when repentance doesn’t leave, how will anger leave? That impotent repentance, which never brought any result— even that doesn’t leave; it too has become a habit. I said, “That is why I told you this—so that you could see: repentance, which never had any effect, dead repentance, even that doesn’t drop; then how will anger drop, which is potent? From it many results have come—good or bad, whatever—but results came. Anger is energy. When impotent repentance doesn’t go, how will this energy-filled anger go? Look again. Think again. You heard from the scriptures that anger is bad, and you started taking oaths; you have not understood your anger.”
There was a time when lightning flashed in the sky and people trembled, shook with fear. The Vedas say Indra is angry; he is flashing lightning; the gods are displeased. Leave aside the ignorant— even the “knowers” of that day thought the gods were angry. There is no god, none to be angry; but lightning was so terrifying, the thunder of clouds so overwhelming—you can imagine how a person’s heart would sink with fear.
Then one day we understood electricity. The seers of the Vedas kept praying, “O Indra, do not be angry! We will sacrifice cows, bulls, humans; we will perform yajnas; we will sing hymns to you, O Indra!” The Vedas are full of praises. But neither did Indra listen—there is none to listen—nor did lightning stop; it kept flashing, clouds kept rumbling, your seers came and went and nothing happened. Their prayers, their offerings and sacrifices were lines drawn on water. You offered up even humans, yet nothing happened. Then one day man understood the secret of electricity; from that day electricity became a slave. Now it runs your fan at home; Indra can do nothing. Electricity runs your fan, lights your house, cooks your food; it does a thousand things. Now no one prays, “O Indra!” We know electricity is in our control.
So too, anger is the lightning of your inner sky. It won’t stop by repentance; it won’t stop by prayer. Understand it, grasp it, recognize it—what is anger? Hidden within anger is compassion. The day you understand anger, you become its master; that day you will find anger has become your servant. A great servant! Riding it you can journey very far. The person with no anger has no backbone. The person with no anger has no life. Only the child who has anger has possibilities. If a child has no anger, know he’s a dullard, good for nothing—seat him as a little Ganesha and worship him if you like, but nothing will ever come from him. There is no possibility; there is no energy.
Anger is the lightning of man’s inner sky. Understand life; recognize it. Without recognition we go on living, and then—
At night, darkness said to darkness,
“It’s a habit too—this going on living.”
Every day I move beyond where I was,
and then I return to the very same place.
I have broken those walls time and again,
yet I keep crashing into these very walls.
Every day many new towns are settled,
every day they sink back into the earth.
Little by little, everything grows desolate.
What is the fruit of this entire journey of the world? The eyes fill with dust, lips are caked with dust, taste dies, sensitivity dies; before dying we are already dead, corpses before the end. Look at people—how much dust has settled on them! Still they go on.
At night, darkness said to darkness,
“It’s a habit too—this going on living.”
From body to soul it is sand upon sand:
no sunlight, no shade, not even a mirage.
How many longings lie buried in which desert?
Who keeps the count of all these graves?
The pulse flickers and it flares as well;
the heart’s habit is to be anxious.
And the heart is anxious—naturally; because nothing comes to hand here. We have groped and groped and are tired—everywhere desert.
From body to soul it is sand upon sand:
no sunlight, no shade, not even a mirage.
Forget water—there isn’t even a false mirage! Forget an oasis— not even its dream can be grasped. Whatever you catch proves futile. Drums sound sweet from afar; as you come near, all color and charm evaporate. From a distance, everything looks fine; up close, all turns empty. Whatever you get turns worthless; what you don’t get, that alone carries your juice. Man lives on hope, not on experience. Experience says: Wake up now—enough! Hope says: Sleep a little longer—who knows, a pleasant dream may be coming. Experience says: Nothing ever came to hand here. Hope says: Until now, true—but who knows about tomorrow? Tomorrow it may happen. A little more, a little more... Hope keeps you hanging. Hope is the foundation of maya.
You will have to wake from this habit. Break this mechanicalness. Whatever you do, begin to do it awake. I am not saying stop it today. Don’t be in a hurry. In haste one remains unripe; and until one is ripe, no revolution happens in life. If there is delight in wealth, go on—gather more wealth, but now with awareness. Look closely, holding money in your hand: What is coming from it? Is anything coming? And I am not saying decide quickly that nothing is coming. Don’t let scriptures step in between, don’t let “true gurus” speak in between. They may say as much as they like that nothing is there, all is ash—but if to you there still appears a gleam in it, then keep looking more closely at that gleam.
Mulla Nasruddin and his wife were walking down a road. He ran to the roadside, picked up something, then flung it away and said, “If I find the man who did this, I’ll cut off his neck!” His wife asked, “What happened?” He said, “Someone coughed and spat in such a way that it looked exactly like a coin—must have shimmered in the sun.”
But unless you yourself pick it up, you won’t know. If you have a mind to gather wealth—gather! If you want position—go! Fight! But go with awareness. Sitting on the chair, look: Have you become higher? What has been gained? If you crave fame, fine, seek it! When thousands know you, then ask: What has been gained? So many people know my name—what has that brought? What happened? When they didn’t know—what was the loss? Now they do—what is the gain? I will vanish, they will vanish; what is the point of this fame and prestige? Just keep looking—awake like this.
Don’t draw conclusions quickly. I request you: do not be in a hurry to conclude. You take quick conclusions, remain unripe, and then you circle back to the same place. Let a thing ripen. The day you fully know that sitting on a chair no man becomes big—even if you become prime minister or president—no man becomes big; in truth, by sitting on the chair all your smallnesses become obvious, broadcast, visible to all—and nothing else happens. Inside, the man who is empty remains empty. But the man who has climbed the chair no longer leaves it; he grips it tight. He also sees that nothing is being gained, but now even to leave is frightening. The fear is: though nothing is being gained, still better this nothing than nothing at all. At least people know me; at least people are under the illusion that I have gained.
Notice this. You have not gained—you know it. But what is the use of saying it? Why reveal your poverty? Strut on. People believe you’ve gained. Let them believe. Even this gives some relief.
Life stands imprisoned like Sita:
When will Rama return? No one knows.
If only some Ravana would at least come!
Let something come—Ravana, if not Rama! Money has come! Others think so; others burn with envy: “This man got it.” We did not—no harm. We will hide our truth, walk on quietly; without anyone knowing, without anyone getting wind, we will take our leave. The story will remain; people will say, “What a man! An Alexander! He died with so much wealth, with so much prestige and fame!”
Remember, those who say such things will be the very people who never got fame in life—so they don’t know that the coin wasn’t a coin at all. They will be the very people who never got wealth, who never got position. Because they didn’t, drums sound sweet from afar.
You see: when the prime minister or president comes, a crowd gathers. Who are these people? The very ones to whom nothing has come in life. The empty gather to fill an empty man. And the irony is: seeing this crowd of empties, that empty man sitting on the chair thinks, “Well, never mind—though I have not gained anything, so many people believe I have; isn’t that something! All right—if Ravana has come, that’s fine.”
The one who keeps watching wakefully will, little by little, recognize all these things with such depth—in that very recognition is liberation; in that very recognition the world ends, and moksha arises.
Of a hundred “non-thieves,” ninety-nine are non-thieves only out of fear—hence they will suffer. They will think, “We do not steal—why are we suffering?” But you are a thief all the same; whether you steal or not is not what makes one a thief. Thieving is a condition of your consciousness.
Mulla Nasruddin was traveling in a train. In that compartment there were only two: himself and a beautiful woman. He said to the woman, “If I give you one thousand rupees, will you spend the night with me?” The woman said, “What do you think I am? I will pull the chain! I will call the police!” He said, “Don’t be angry—I just made a request. If I give you ten thousand?” The woman fell silent. She didn’t shout, didn’t say she’d call the police or pull the chain. Mulla said, “Ten thousand?” She said, “For ten thousand, I could agree.” Mulla said, “All right—then what if I give ten rupees?” At that the woman sprang up and said, “I’ll pull the chain right now! I’ll call the police!” Mulla said, “What kind of talk is this?” The woman said, “Don’t you know who I am?” Mulla said, “I’ve understood who you are—now we’re only haggling. When you agreed at ten thousand, I knew who you are; now it’s only a matter of price. I am a businessman! I mentioned ten thousand only to recognize who you were. That part is settled, the decision is made—now don’t pull the chain for no reason; sit down. Let’s bargain and settle whatever is to be settled.”
Think about it: your life-state is not made thief-like by the act of stealing; it is the thieving tendency. Because of that tendency you suffer. And if some thief is happy, there must be something in him—some quality from which happiness comes: courage, strength, the daring to stake everything, a carefree mind—“come what may;” perhaps he doesn’t worry about what the world says; perhaps there is a slight rebelliousness. There will be something in him, some virtue from which happiness comes.
Your “mahatma”—you say he is a great saint—he is suffering? If he suffers, that’s proof something is awry. A true saint never suffers—cannot suffer—because sorrow is the shadow of falsehood, of untruth, of maya. If a saint suffers, somewhere there is a mistake; he is not a saint. And if a “sinner” is enjoying, then again your understanding is at fault—look again, look closely.
Sometimes among drunkards you meet such gentlemen as you won’t find among the so-called gentlemen. Often the drunk are simpler than the “virtuous.” Simplicity brings joy. If someone drinks out of simplicity, there will certainly be enjoyment. But if someone refrains from drinking only to gain heaven, there can be no joy there—for there is desire, calculation, trickery. He is a clever fellow saying, “I want to go to heaven; to go, I’ll have to pay this price.”
Examine within yourself, and you’ll find: whenever you are aligned with truth, immediately there is a shower of bliss, the sun breaks out, flowers burst forth, you become fragrant.
What is the world? What is maya?
A web we have woven—like a spider’s web—
and in which we ourselves are trapped.
Every day I move beyond where I was,
and then I return to the very same place.
I have broken those walls time and again,
yet I keep crashing into these very walls.
Every day many new towns are settled,
every day they sink back into the earth.
There used to be a little warmth in the tremors—
now even those come every single day.
From body to soul it is sand upon sand:
no sunlight, no shade, not even a mirage.
How many longings lie buried in which desert?
Who keeps the count of all these graves?
The pulse flickers and it flares as well;
the heart’s habit is to be anxious.
At night, darkness said to darkness,
“It’s a habit too—this going on living.”
At daybreak even the rainbow seems one-colored;
the goblet too knows but a single gait.
In every corner a mosque stands—
what has become of the tavern’s face?
Someone used to say, “I am an ocean,”
and there isn’t even a drop in my pocket.
I used to write my own condition;
now even danger isn’t written in my fate.
I read my hands like scriptures—
now like the Quran, now like the Gita.
In a few lines, in a few limits,
life stands imprisoned like Sita.
When will Rama return? No one knows.
If only some Ravana would at least come!
Such is the sorry state—
When will Rama return? No one knows.
If only some Ravana would at least come!
Man is shut up like Sita. And no one else made these webs—we made them. Nor did we only make them once; we are weaving them every day. Today too you will weave them. Your day will go in this. You will strengthen these same walls, plate these same bars with more steel, make these same chains heavier. You will manure and water this same madness.
At night, darkness said to darkness,
“It’s a habit too—this going on living.”
You go on living—out of habit. You lived yesterday, you lived the day before; living has become a habit. As people smoke cigarettes, people live. What to do? It has become a habit. People smoke, drink, chew betel nut or tobacco; similarly living too has become a habit. What to do? We lived yesterday, we lived the day before; having lived so long, now living has become a habit—so we go on living. We go on repeating the same things we did yesterday.
Every day I move beyond where I was,
and then I return to the very same place.
Look a little: the wheel of your life keeps turning—here, here, here. That is why the wise called the world the cycle—samsara-chakra.
Every day I move beyond where I was,
and then I return to the very same place.
I have broken those walls time and again,
yet I keep crashing into these very walls.
You think you have broken through—but look closely, you crash into the same things. Yesterday you collided with anger, the day before with anger, before that too—and today as well. Trust yourself: today too you will collide with anger; and tomorrow as well. You think you have sworn oaths never to be angry again. Do oaths help? Everyone takes oaths! Anger is bigger than your oaths. How many times have you vowed not to cling anymore—and yet attachment forms again and again. Attachment is bigger than oaths. How many vows were taken—every vow broke; none can be kept. Vows cannot be kept; only awareness works—nothing else works. Look a little with awareness! Don’t say, “I will not be angry now.” Ask, “Why have I been angry up to now?” Don’t say, “I swear I won’t be angry.” For what will your oath do? Anger will arise from where it always arose—from that same dark unconscious; it will rise again. Your habit is ancient; your oath is new. The habit is big; the oath is small. When the storm of habit comes, the oath will fly away like a straw in the wind. You will repent yet again. Repenting too is your habit.
A man came to me. He said, “Anger has ruined my life; free me from anger. I repent a great deal, and every time after anger I weep, beat my chest; I even kept fasts for days; I have beaten myself; I even thought of suicide—yet this anger does not go. Save me from anger.” I said, “Do one thing: since anger won’t leave you, at least drop repentance.” He said, “What are you saying? If I drop repentance—repenting hasn’t freed me from anger; if I drop repentance I will become even more angry.” I said, “You have already tried that way. Now listen to me: at least drop repentance. Get angry—freely—without worry; and drop repentance. Come back after three weeks and tell me what happened.”
He returned after three weeks and said, “Even repentance doesn’t leave me.” Think about it: when repentance doesn’t leave, how will anger leave? That impotent repentance, which never brought any result— even that doesn’t leave; it too has become a habit. I said, “That is why I told you this—so that you could see: repentance, which never had any effect, dead repentance, even that doesn’t drop; then how will anger drop, which is potent? From it many results have come—good or bad, whatever—but results came. Anger is energy. When impotent repentance doesn’t go, how will this energy-filled anger go? Look again. Think again. You heard from the scriptures that anger is bad, and you started taking oaths; you have not understood your anger.”
There was a time when lightning flashed in the sky and people trembled, shook with fear. The Vedas say Indra is angry; he is flashing lightning; the gods are displeased. Leave aside the ignorant— even the “knowers” of that day thought the gods were angry. There is no god, none to be angry; but lightning was so terrifying, the thunder of clouds so overwhelming—you can imagine how a person’s heart would sink with fear.
Then one day we understood electricity. The seers of the Vedas kept praying, “O Indra, do not be angry! We will sacrifice cows, bulls, humans; we will perform yajnas; we will sing hymns to you, O Indra!” The Vedas are full of praises. But neither did Indra listen—there is none to listen—nor did lightning stop; it kept flashing, clouds kept rumbling, your seers came and went and nothing happened. Their prayers, their offerings and sacrifices were lines drawn on water. You offered up even humans, yet nothing happened. Then one day man understood the secret of electricity; from that day electricity became a slave. Now it runs your fan at home; Indra can do nothing. Electricity runs your fan, lights your house, cooks your food; it does a thousand things. Now no one prays, “O Indra!” We know electricity is in our control.
So too, anger is the lightning of your inner sky. It won’t stop by repentance; it won’t stop by prayer. Understand it, grasp it, recognize it—what is anger? Hidden within anger is compassion. The day you understand anger, you become its master; that day you will find anger has become your servant. A great servant! Riding it you can journey very far. The person with no anger has no backbone. The person with no anger has no life. Only the child who has anger has possibilities. If a child has no anger, know he’s a dullard, good for nothing—seat him as a little Ganesha and worship him if you like, but nothing will ever come from him. There is no possibility; there is no energy.
Anger is the lightning of man’s inner sky. Understand life; recognize it. Without recognition we go on living, and then—
At night, darkness said to darkness,
“It’s a habit too—this going on living.”
Every day I move beyond where I was,
and then I return to the very same place.
I have broken those walls time and again,
yet I keep crashing into these very walls.
Every day many new towns are settled,
every day they sink back into the earth.
Little by little, everything grows desolate.
What is the fruit of this entire journey of the world? The eyes fill with dust, lips are caked with dust, taste dies, sensitivity dies; before dying we are already dead, corpses before the end. Look at people—how much dust has settled on them! Still they go on.
At night, darkness said to darkness,
“It’s a habit too—this going on living.”
From body to soul it is sand upon sand:
no sunlight, no shade, not even a mirage.
How many longings lie buried in which desert?
Who keeps the count of all these graves?
The pulse flickers and it flares as well;
the heart’s habit is to be anxious.
And the heart is anxious—naturally; because nothing comes to hand here. We have groped and groped and are tired—everywhere desert.
From body to soul it is sand upon sand:
no sunlight, no shade, not even a mirage.
Forget water—there isn’t even a false mirage! Forget an oasis— not even its dream can be grasped. Whatever you catch proves futile. Drums sound sweet from afar; as you come near, all color and charm evaporate. From a distance, everything looks fine; up close, all turns empty. Whatever you get turns worthless; what you don’t get, that alone carries your juice. Man lives on hope, not on experience. Experience says: Wake up now—enough! Hope says: Sleep a little longer—who knows, a pleasant dream may be coming. Experience says: Nothing ever came to hand here. Hope says: Until now, true—but who knows about tomorrow? Tomorrow it may happen. A little more, a little more... Hope keeps you hanging. Hope is the foundation of maya.
You will have to wake from this habit. Break this mechanicalness. Whatever you do, begin to do it awake. I am not saying stop it today. Don’t be in a hurry. In haste one remains unripe; and until one is ripe, no revolution happens in life. If there is delight in wealth, go on—gather more wealth, but now with awareness. Look closely, holding money in your hand: What is coming from it? Is anything coming? And I am not saying decide quickly that nothing is coming. Don’t let scriptures step in between, don’t let “true gurus” speak in between. They may say as much as they like that nothing is there, all is ash—but if to you there still appears a gleam in it, then keep looking more closely at that gleam.
Mulla Nasruddin and his wife were walking down a road. He ran to the roadside, picked up something, then flung it away and said, “If I find the man who did this, I’ll cut off his neck!” His wife asked, “What happened?” He said, “Someone coughed and spat in such a way that it looked exactly like a coin—must have shimmered in the sun.”
But unless you yourself pick it up, you won’t know. If you have a mind to gather wealth—gather! If you want position—go! Fight! But go with awareness. Sitting on the chair, look: Have you become higher? What has been gained? If you crave fame, fine, seek it! When thousands know you, then ask: What has been gained? So many people know my name—what has that brought? What happened? When they didn’t know—what was the loss? Now they do—what is the gain? I will vanish, they will vanish; what is the point of this fame and prestige? Just keep looking—awake like this.
Don’t draw conclusions quickly. I request you: do not be in a hurry to conclude. You take quick conclusions, remain unripe, and then you circle back to the same place. Let a thing ripen. The day you fully know that sitting on a chair no man becomes big—even if you become prime minister or president—no man becomes big; in truth, by sitting on the chair all your smallnesses become obvious, broadcast, visible to all—and nothing else happens. Inside, the man who is empty remains empty. But the man who has climbed the chair no longer leaves it; he grips it tight. He also sees that nothing is being gained, but now even to leave is frightening. The fear is: though nothing is being gained, still better this nothing than nothing at all. At least people know me; at least people are under the illusion that I have gained.
Notice this. You have not gained—you know it. But what is the use of saying it? Why reveal your poverty? Strut on. People believe you’ve gained. Let them believe. Even this gives some relief.
Life stands imprisoned like Sita:
When will Rama return? No one knows.
If only some Ravana would at least come!
Let something come—Ravana, if not Rama! Money has come! Others think so; others burn with envy: “This man got it.” We did not—no harm. We will hide our truth, walk on quietly; without anyone knowing, without anyone getting wind, we will take our leave. The story will remain; people will say, “What a man! An Alexander! He died with so much wealth, with so much prestige and fame!”
Remember, those who say such things will be the very people who never got fame in life—so they don’t know that the coin wasn’t a coin at all. They will be the very people who never got wealth, who never got position. Because they didn’t, drums sound sweet from afar.
You see: when the prime minister or president comes, a crowd gathers. Who are these people? The very ones to whom nothing has come in life. The empty gather to fill an empty man. And the irony is: seeing this crowd of empties, that empty man sitting on the chair thinks, “Well, never mind—though I have not gained anything, so many people believe I have; isn’t that something! All right—if Ravana has come, that’s fine.”
The one who keeps watching wakefully will, little by little, recognize all these things with such depth—in that very recognition is liberation; in that very recognition the world ends, and moksha arises.
The final question:
Osho, do you also drink alcohol?
Osho, do you also drink alcohol?
And there is nothing else truly worth drinking. For years I haven’t drunk water—that much I can assure you; for ten years at least I haven’t touched it. I drink soda and wine. Soda on the outside, wine on the inside. I believe in balance—a little of the outer, a little of the inner.
There is a wine that has never been distilled;
toward it no one has ever been able to gaze.
There is an elixir like that.
I drink this undistilled wine.
I live on this unseen elixir!
And I want to make you drunkards too. Bhakti means wine. Shandilya means a drunkard. The devotee’s temple is a tavern—intoxication, sweetness, mellowness. Drink the Divine; then no other wine will remain worth drinking. In my view, those who drink alcohol do so because their real search is for God—and God is not found. The real quest is how to drown oneself, but there is no place where one can drown; so, let’s forget for a while. The drowning doesn’t happen, so let’s at least forget. For a little while wine gives the illusion that one has forgotten oneself. The ego is great suffering.
There are only two ways. Either drown the ego in God—then it is drowned forever and no pain remains. If you lack the courage to drown it for good, then drown it in alcohol. And there are many kinds of wines. Not just one. The wine sold in the tavern is only one kind. There are many other wines sold in other markets, and they are subtler.
A man mad after wealth—do you think he isn’t drinking? The scriptures call the frenzy for wealth dhan-mad—the intoxication of wealth. He is high. As the heap of money grows, he is drowning his “I” in it. He is drowning himself in his strongbox. He has no other worry now; he has invested all his anxieties in one thing—the pile of money! That is his wine. The scriptures are right—dhan-mad.
A man crazed for position—do you think he is not a drunkard? Do you think Morarji Desai is not a drunkard? The scriptures call it pad-mad—the intoxication of office. It is a greater intoxication than wealth. It must be, because if a man reaches eighty and still is not free of the lure of office, then when will he be free? Terrible! Let life be at stake, but the post must be reached. Somehow, anyhow, one must reach the chair. If a young man is mad for position, it is pardonable; the follies of youth can be forgiven. Youth is a kind of unknowing. But if an eighty-year-old man is crazed after office, it is unpardonable. It means the hair were merely sun-dried; life went on merely as a habit. And the irony is that Morarji is against alcohol—there must be prohibition!
In my view, the harm politics has done to humanity is far greater than the harm done by the wine of grapes. The violence and bloodshed that politics has caused is far more than what grape wine has ever caused. But one kind of drunkard is always against another kind of wine. He likes his own brew; he wants everyone to drown in his.
What is the drunkard seeking—whatever his kind, whether he seeks it in music, in sex, in property, in fame, in power—what is he seeking? He wants to drown himself. Deep down he is seeking God, but he does not clearly understand what he is seeking. The seeker of position, deep down, is seeking the Supreme Position, the Divine. The seeker of wealth, deep down, is seeking the Supreme Treasure, the Divine. The drinker too, in truth, wants to drink that wine—
There is a wine that has never been distilled;
toward it no one has ever been able to gaze.
There is an elixir like that.
I drink this undistilled wine.
I live on this unseen elixir!
He too wants to drink the same, but it seems very costly. Can he pay the price? The journey is very long—the journey to the peak; he does not trust his own legs that much. The path is arduous and steep; one must walk on the edge of a sword. So he thinks: this is not within my power; let me go to the market, buy the cheap stuff, and drink. Let me forget for a little while—this much is a lot. If in alcohol the ego is forgotten even for a little while, there is relief. Then just imagine that wine where the ego is forgotten forever! Then there is only relief, only rest, repose. The devotees have called that state Vaikuntha.
In the Qur’an, when it is said that in paradise the springs of wine flow, this must be the meaning: there is no way to preserve the ego there—everything is drowned. God is wine—that must be the meaning.
Drink, you too! Become drunk, you too! The path of devotion is the path of topers. But drink such a wine that the intoxication never wears off. Let it rise, and never subside. If it wears off, what value can such intoxication have? That kind of high is momentary.
Therefore Shandilya says: break ties with the transient and join with the eternal. Love the transient, sorrow comes. Love the eternal, supreme bliss arrives. Drink the transient wine—the wine of grapes—and it will bring misery. For a little while there will be deception; then the deception will shatter. Each time it shatters, you will fall into a deeper pit, into a denser darkness, into a worse hell. Drink the wine of the Eternal. And when the Eternal is available, why drink the petty? When the rainwater of the Swati star can be had, why drown in the filth of the gutter?
Yes, I drink wine—and I want to teach you to drink it too.
That’s all for today.
There is a wine that has never been distilled;
toward it no one has ever been able to gaze.
There is an elixir like that.
I drink this undistilled wine.
I live on this unseen elixir!
And I want to make you drunkards too. Bhakti means wine. Shandilya means a drunkard. The devotee’s temple is a tavern—intoxication, sweetness, mellowness. Drink the Divine; then no other wine will remain worth drinking. In my view, those who drink alcohol do so because their real search is for God—and God is not found. The real quest is how to drown oneself, but there is no place where one can drown; so, let’s forget for a while. The drowning doesn’t happen, so let’s at least forget. For a little while wine gives the illusion that one has forgotten oneself. The ego is great suffering.
There are only two ways. Either drown the ego in God—then it is drowned forever and no pain remains. If you lack the courage to drown it for good, then drown it in alcohol. And there are many kinds of wines. Not just one. The wine sold in the tavern is only one kind. There are many other wines sold in other markets, and they are subtler.
A man mad after wealth—do you think he isn’t drinking? The scriptures call the frenzy for wealth dhan-mad—the intoxication of wealth. He is high. As the heap of money grows, he is drowning his “I” in it. He is drowning himself in his strongbox. He has no other worry now; he has invested all his anxieties in one thing—the pile of money! That is his wine. The scriptures are right—dhan-mad.
A man crazed for position—do you think he is not a drunkard? Do you think Morarji Desai is not a drunkard? The scriptures call it pad-mad—the intoxication of office. It is a greater intoxication than wealth. It must be, because if a man reaches eighty and still is not free of the lure of office, then when will he be free? Terrible! Let life be at stake, but the post must be reached. Somehow, anyhow, one must reach the chair. If a young man is mad for position, it is pardonable; the follies of youth can be forgiven. Youth is a kind of unknowing. But if an eighty-year-old man is crazed after office, it is unpardonable. It means the hair were merely sun-dried; life went on merely as a habit. And the irony is that Morarji is against alcohol—there must be prohibition!
In my view, the harm politics has done to humanity is far greater than the harm done by the wine of grapes. The violence and bloodshed that politics has caused is far more than what grape wine has ever caused. But one kind of drunkard is always against another kind of wine. He likes his own brew; he wants everyone to drown in his.
What is the drunkard seeking—whatever his kind, whether he seeks it in music, in sex, in property, in fame, in power—what is he seeking? He wants to drown himself. Deep down he is seeking God, but he does not clearly understand what he is seeking. The seeker of position, deep down, is seeking the Supreme Position, the Divine. The seeker of wealth, deep down, is seeking the Supreme Treasure, the Divine. The drinker too, in truth, wants to drink that wine—
There is a wine that has never been distilled;
toward it no one has ever been able to gaze.
There is an elixir like that.
I drink this undistilled wine.
I live on this unseen elixir!
He too wants to drink the same, but it seems very costly. Can he pay the price? The journey is very long—the journey to the peak; he does not trust his own legs that much. The path is arduous and steep; one must walk on the edge of a sword. So he thinks: this is not within my power; let me go to the market, buy the cheap stuff, and drink. Let me forget for a little while—this much is a lot. If in alcohol the ego is forgotten even for a little while, there is relief. Then just imagine that wine where the ego is forgotten forever! Then there is only relief, only rest, repose. The devotees have called that state Vaikuntha.
In the Qur’an, when it is said that in paradise the springs of wine flow, this must be the meaning: there is no way to preserve the ego there—everything is drowned. God is wine—that must be the meaning.
Drink, you too! Become drunk, you too! The path of devotion is the path of topers. But drink such a wine that the intoxication never wears off. Let it rise, and never subside. If it wears off, what value can such intoxication have? That kind of high is momentary.
Therefore Shandilya says: break ties with the transient and join with the eternal. Love the transient, sorrow comes. Love the eternal, supreme bliss arrives. Drink the transient wine—the wine of grapes—and it will bring misery. For a little while there will be deception; then the deception will shatter. Each time it shatters, you will fall into a deeper pit, into a denser darkness, into a worse hell. Drink the wine of the Eternal. And when the Eternal is available, why drink the petty? When the rainwater of the Swati star can be had, why drown in the filth of the gutter?
Yes, I drink wine—and I want to teach you to drink it too.
That’s all for today.