Dhyan Darshan #8

My beloved ones!

Let's take a few questions, then we'll sit for the meditation experiment.

It is not so. Whichever of the two practices takes you deeper, you can do it at any time. If you find the two practices to be complementary to each other, you can do both in the morning and in the evening, whenever it is convenient. If one of the two practices does not have meaning for you, you can drop it. A single practice will bring the same result; doing both together will also bring you to the same result. It depends on each individual to choose whatever suits their convenience.

Keep your gaze steady toward me. The eyes will move and sway; they won’t remain still, but the gaze can remain steady. Keep swaying, keep dancing, but keep looking only at me. Let the act of seeing stay directed toward me.

And just as in the morning practice the last ten minutes are for waiting, so in the night practice too, waiting afterward is essential. Do the practice for forty minutes, or thirty—whatever is convenient—and then leave ten or fifteen minutes, even twenty, as convenient, for waiting.

You can also do this: do the practice before going to sleep at night, and then, while waiting, fall asleep. The result will be very deep; the whole night will become waiting. If that waiting keeps sinking into the deeper mind through the night, then in the morning you will have to wake up in a very different state; everything will seem changed.

It’s up to you. In the night practice, those who have done the morning practice and feel that vigorous breathing will help may use vigorous breathing. Those who feel that their meditation is deepening even without it may drop it. It depends on you.

That friend’s card is here, but he cut his name off the back. I know whom I told it to; it’s his card. And I will also tell you why I said it to him—then the reason for cutting the name will be clear too.

That friend had come to me. He told me that many years ago an astrologer had told him a lot of things, and all of them have come true exactly as the astrologer had said. Now he is in his thirty-fourth year, and the astrologer had said that in the thirty-fourth year he would kill someone. That thirty-fourth year has arrived, and because everything else has come true so far, he is now disturbed.

So I told him: If you feel everything has come true, then—without my taking any position right now on whether astrology is right or wrong—if everything has indeed come true, there is great danger that precisely because so much has matched, the killing may also happen. So change your identity. I said to him, take a one-year period of renunciation. Become a sannyasin for one year: change your name, change your persona, spend a year in practice. If this one year breaks him off, shatters him off from his old personality, if he becomes a different person, there is every likelihood the mind’s continuity, its inner thread of sameness, will snap. And because the things the astrologer said have come true so far, it is precisely that “rightness” which creates the fear that he may kill. That is the advice I gave that gentleman.

Now here he asks me, “You advise everyone.” That advice was not given to everyone.

And he asks, “When the mind is not peaceful, you tell us to take sannyas.” It is precisely so the mind can become peaceful that I say it. When your mind is completely at peace, will you still feel like taking sannyas? There will be no need for sannyas then—sannyas will already have happened.

He is saying, “We are ill as it is, and you’re advising us to take medicine.” He is asking whether one advises medicine to the sick. When you are healthy, will you still need medicine?

But there are some foolish ones who won’t drink medicine while they are ill, and will start drinking it once they are healthy. If a sick person takes medicine he can become healthy; if a healthy person takes medicine he can become sick. This…

But here’s the really amusing thing! I told him this very mindfully. Killing someone doesn’t seem all that difficult to him; taking sannyas seems more difficult. I didn’t go to his house; he himself asked for time and came, saying, “I’m in a great difficulty now. The time of the predicted killing has arrived, and since everything has come true, I’m afraid it may happen.” But killing seems easy, sannyas seems hard!

Sannyas simply means this much: the personality we had until yesterday—we sever our connection with it. The identity we had until yesterday, the self-image we were known by—we declare that we are no longer that; we say it to the world and to ourselves.

A sannyasin is reborn. Hence the change of name. The change of name means only this: the old man has died. In the ancient initiation into sannyas the process was this: when someone took sannyas, first he was stripped naked and bathed, as a corpse is bathed before burial; his head was shaved, as a corpse’s head is cleaned; then he was laid upon a funeral pyre, and the pyre was lit. And then all around—his loved ones, his friends, the initiating master—everyone would say, “That man is burning, that man is dying—the one you were.” And when the flames were just about to catch him, he would be pulled out, and they would say, “Now you are a different man. The one you were until yesterday has gone to the pyre; now you are a different man. You are no longer anyone’s son, no longer anyone’s husband, no longer anyone’s wife. Your new life has begun. All your old identity, all your old identifications, have been broken.”

Sannyas means only this much: that the uninterrupted stream of our life should be broken somewhere—somewhere a break, a gap, a fracture. Otherwise, out of habit, a person goes on living as he lived until yesterday. Somewhere a break is needed. Otherwise we go on bound to the old groove, and that same groove holds us until death.

There is no other meaning to sannyas; psychologically it means only this: we are changing the image of the self that has existed in a person’s mind up to now. It makes a difference. Astonishingly, it makes a difference.

There is a friend who took sannyas. He used to say to me, “What will changing clothes do?” I said, “Change them and see. And if it doesn’t do anything, change back.”

Fifteen days later he came and said, “This is amazing! My feet stop for a moment in front of the liquor shop; then I remember—I am a sannyasin—and my feet move on at once. The old mechanical habit of taking a cigarette out and bringing it to my lips—my hand does it, it reaches my mouth, and instantly I remember—I am a sannyasin—and my hand goes limp.”

A discontinuity has arisen. Now if someone abuses him, he cannot abuse back in quite the same way he did yesterday. For a moment the remembrance will come: I am a sannyasin. Even that much remembrance is effective. That remembrance is not small. We have heard a word: surati. Someone has also asked a question about it. Do you know what surati means? Surati means—a colloquial form of smriti—remembering, a continuity of recall.

A man goes to the market. He has to buy an item; he ties a knot in his shirt or his dhoti. What relation does the knot have to the item to be brought? None at all. But wherever the knot is seen, it reminds him—there is something to bring home. That knot becomes surati, becomes smriti, becomes remembering. Twenty-five times a day, whenever his eye falls on the knot tied in the shirt, he remembers—there is something to take home. There is a very good chance he will bring it. There is less scope for forgetting, because he has kept with him a device for remembrance.

A sannyasin’s clothes are one such helping knot for surati. His ochre garment reminds him that he is a sannyasin, and it reminds others too that he is a sannyasin. Over very long periods—thousands of years—knots of remembrance have been created in human consciousness. If a person appears as a sannyasin…

A sister came and told me, “My mother is absolutely crazy. If someone is wearing ochre clothes just as a fashion, she still bows down to them.” So I said, “She is not crazy. Even if that person is wearing those clothes just for fashion, if someone bows to him, it will make a difference in him too. If you put ochre robes on the worst of men and the whole society begins to bow to him and give him respect, it will become difficult for that man to be bad.”

The mind has its laws of functioning. If even the worst of men begins to receive respect, he too wants to be worthy of respect, and doing what contradicts respect becomes difficult. He is benefited as well. And the one who gives respect gets a chance for his ego to melt—because he gives respect without a reason.

If a minister passes on the road, you salute him. That is conditional; it is not without reason; there is a cause behind it. Tomorrow that man will no longer be a minister and no one will salute him. Someone has power, position, prestige, wealth; someone has knowledge.

A sannyasin has nothing. A sannyasin means one who has said that none of it has any meaning. He is a beggar. That is why the Buddhists added “bhikshu” (beggar) before a monk’s name. Now to bow to a beggar! It is without cause; there is no reason. If you don’t, the beggar can do nothing. If you don’t salute the minister, he can do something—and he will! Otherwise what was the use of his labor, his running around, to become a minister? If you don’t give respect to a rich man, he will do something, because he worked so hard for wealth—and if no respect comes, all that effort seems wasted.

If you don’t respect a sannyasin, he will do nothing. There is no question of it—he is a beggar. He says, “There is nothing in this world that I have; I am completely empty, an empty begging bowl.” But giving respect to him melts your ego and reminds him of who he is. And if that remembrance remains for twenty-four hours…

And you will be amazed: the day you resolve to be a sannyasin, even in sleep the remembrance will remain that you are a sannyasin. The memory penetrates even into sleep and begins to work. And we become what we remember. We become what we remember.

Psychologists now say that when teachers tell children, “You are donkeys, you are idiots, you are fools,” they become the cause of making those children donkeys and fools. If an entire school’s teachers decide to do it, even the most gifted child—if from the first day they start calling him a fool—will come out of the university a great fool. Not that he had no talent; but the suggestions of so many people begin to work.

When many people begin to give respect to someone, you are suggesting to him that he is worthy of respect. You are suggesting that he ought to be worthy of respect. You are suggesting that he is not ordinary. You are suggesting that he has made a decision, taken a resolve. Knots of remembrance get tied all around that person.

So I gave that friend this advice, and I give it again. He seems a weak man. It was a private suggestion; he should not have asked me here. And even here, if he asked, at least he should not have cut his name off the card. And he has asked in such a way as if he were asking a general question. If a general question was what he wanted to ask, he should have written the whole thing: “In my thirty-fourth year I am going to kill someone!” What intentions! That he asked privately. The advice about sannyas—he asks that publicly. With such weakness nothing can happen in life. Courage is needed. Courage is essential.

One more question. There are some more questions; I will speak to you about them in the morning.

Yesterday too, while walking on the road, he asked me, and I told him it would be better to come in solitude. Because the third eye and matters of that esoteric kind are best shared one-on-one with those who have a genuine urge. Many times, for those who do not need to know, it can be harmful. There are many things which, if learned before their time, do harm. They should be known only when the time is ripe.

And it is not just a few matters; there are many things in life that are esoteric, secret, and knowing them can often be dangerous. What happens is this: our mind is like a child, full of curiosity. There is little inquiry, much curiosity. Inquiry is scarce; curiosity abounds—“What is the third eye?”

It is not as if the third eye matters so much for you. If it did, I had invited him to come; perhaps it would have taken an hour to come and go—he does not wish to spend even that much. So on this matter I will not answer.

Curiosity is not enough. And curiosity can sometimes be dangerous. Sometimes, out of curiosity, someone might drink poison just to see, or put a hand into the fire just to see—just like that. So on the subject of the third eye, I can speak only after I have looked properly into your two eyes to see whether any work on the third is possible or not. Otherwise, it cannot be spoken of.

And there are a few other such questions for which it is not appropriate to speak publicly. Because other people will hear; they too will go and, out of curiosity, begin to do something. Things can start to happen. There is no difficulty in things happening—powers lie hidden within us. And what is needed about them is knowledge of just the kind by which, when you press a button, the light comes on—exactly like that. If a slight touch is made at exactly the right place, the third eye begins to function. But whether the person is fit for the third eye to begin to function—that is the first thing to ascertain.

Plato wrote a little story. He wrote that he asked the greatest moral men, the moralists: “If we were to give you a power, a talisman by which you could become invisible, would your morality still hold?” Plato wrote that whomever he asked immediately asked, “Is there such a talisman?” And when he asked, “Would you remain moral if you had such a talisman?” the man said, “It seems very difficult. If the policeman cannot see, then there is no need to walk properly on the road. If the landlord cannot see, what difficulty is there in stealing his things?”

If you too were to learn that such a talisman exists—even only in imagination, the talisman has not yet been received—if even in imagination you were to know such a talisman exists, immediately you would start making plans: whether to run away with the neighbor’s wife, or with his safe—what to do and what not to do! The mind will immediately begin to make plans.

The third eye is a very powerful thing. It can be misused. And the difficulty is that before meditation there is always the possibility of misuse. Therefore, take care of meditation. Once meditation settles in your consciousness, then no matter how great a power you receive, it cannot be misused—because the mind that misuses is already dead. But before that, if any power is obtained, there is danger, because the mind is present.

If the third eye is attained you will surely want to read another’s thoughts. You will surely want to look into a letter sealed in another’s envelope. And much else you will want to do—I leave that to your own thinking; you consider for yourself what all you would like to do if the third eye were to be gained. Therefore, to those who have asked, I would say this is a private matter; let them come and ask me. If they have the requisite fitness, some work can be done in that regard. And here I certainly extend an invitation to all friends among you who wish to know anything about the occult and esoteric, the secret sciences—do come to me; I would like to talk with you. But not for their curiosity. If they have the capacity to work in that direction, then indeed there are many pathways. Man is a source of infinite power; much is hidden within him that can be brought to light. But before meditation, anything is dangerous. Just as science has created dangers: man is still like an animal, yet in his hands is a power like that of the gods—hydrogen bombs, atom bombs. So danger is bound to be. Because man’s intelligence is such that when there is a stone in his hand and a little anger arises, he throws it to kill. The intelligence is of that level—yet in his hand is an atom bomb. Let a little anger arise and he will be the one to throw and kill. But there is a great difference between an atom bomb and a stone, and the man is the same as before.

Similarly, yoga too is a science. And through yoga, long ago, damage of this kind has already been done—the kind that science is causing today. Those who enter the secret paths of yoga before meditation—whatever comes to them becomes black art. It all turns into a dark art. And that dark, blind art is only misused, not rightly used. Therefore, here, concern yourselves with meditation. And if someone has a personal aspiration, let him speak to me separately. In that direction, much work can certainly be done.

Now let us sit for meditation. For forty minutes, with eyes open—today is the fourth day—we have to do a very intense experiment. Therefore, those of you who want to go into intensity, please stand up and move out. And those who remain seated should also remember that they are not to simply sit. Whatever is happening in the body, let it happen intensely—even while seated. And the friends sitting at the back may think that because they are at the back they are just sitting; that is wrong. They too must take part vigorously in the process.

Those who wish to watch, move to the place in front of me. No viewer should stand anywhere else; stand directly in front of me, behind the practitioners. And those who are watching will not talk—be so kind.

Do not talk. There is no need to talk. What need is there of conversation for you to go? Friends who are to do it standing should spread out to both sides and behind me. Friends who only wish to watch should move a little back and stand behind the practitioners—watch from there. No viewer will remain seated in the middle; quietly move away and go to the back. And viewers should not stand anywhere around here; come only to the front so that you can stand apart. Viewers will not talk for forty minutes—be so kind—and just watch silently. And you too, make a little space as you sit, so that you can move, sway, tremble, rock, shout—sit after making a little space.

All right! I will assume the viewers have moved back. You will not talk. For forty minutes, watch silently. There will be benefit even from watching. Watch this time; next time the thought to do it may arise in you as well. But let no viewer stand here. Yesterday some people were standing here, some there—they hinder our practitioners; please go to the back. No one should be seated in the middle.

Now first close your eyes for two minutes. With folded hands, make a resolve before the Lord. Today is the fourth day; we have to put our full energy into it. With the Lord as witness, I resolve that I will put my whole energy into meditation—one hundred percent, total! With the Lord as witness, I resolve that I will put my whole energy into meditation—one hundred percent, total! With the Lord as witness, I resolve that I will put my whole energy into meditation—one hundred percent, total! Do not save even a bit of yourself; you must be totally immersed.

Now open your eyes. For forty minutes, without blinking, look toward me. Energy will awaken within; let it awaken. I will not speak to you; I will signal with my hand. When your energy rises, you have to take it upward. And when your energy rises so high that I feel the energy of the Divine can also be invited, I will signal from above to below. At that time there will be great outcry, much movement—let it happen. (After this, the meditation experiment continued for forty minutes. Osho kept encouraging the seekers with hand gestures to put their full energy into it. After forty minutes of the meditation experiment, Osho asked the seekers to sit quietly and offered final suggestions.) About eighty percent of friends are carrying out the experiment fully, in accordance with their resolve. The results are manifesting to that extent as well. To the twenty percent who have fallen behind, my request is: tomorrow is the last day—please join in too. There is something very near to be known, yet we miss it from close by. We come to the riverbank and still remain thirsty. Kabir has said, it is laughable to see that a fish in the ocean remains thirsty! We come so close, and still we miss. Do not miss. Tomorrow is the last day—add more energy to the morning experiment. Add more energy to the evening experiment. The eighty percent friends have come very near. We should keep the hope that all of us will return from this five-day experiment having learned something that can become a wealth of life. Our night’s session is complete.