Chapter #25 Even Bein Gawd Ain T A Bed Of Roses #25

(To Nandan): Bliss is a garden where many many flowers bloom. Bliss is not a desert where nothing grows. Yes, the desert also has its own silence, but that silence is dead. The silence of the garden is full of the dancing trees, birds singing. It has a musical quality to it. The desert seems to be fast asleep; the garden is awake. You can feel the liveliness of the garden, the youth, the celebration.

My sannyasins have to become gardens of joy. In the past sannyas was something like a desert. Yes, they lived a detached life, aloof, aware, but utterly cold. They were living corpses just awaiting their death, dragging themselves somehow, hoping for paradise.

I am giving you a totally new concept of sannyas. There is no other paradise than this moment; paradise is always herenow, so it is not a question of attaining it after life, it is a question of attaining it herenow. Not that there is no after-life, there is- but unless you attain it here you will not attain it there. This is the basic condition that has to be fulfilled: one has to live on the earth as if one is living in paradise, then one is capable of entering into paradise. Those who are already in paradise will be able to enter paradise, nobody else. Those who have alredy tasted the joy, they become worthy.

This earth, this life is an opportunity to become so alert, so sensitive, so harmonious, that you can start feeling joy everywhere, that you can start feeling the dance of existence -- not only feeling it but becoming part of the dance; you dissolve yourself into it. Moment to moment one has to go on dissolving more and more. The day you disappear God has happend to you. God never happens before that.

To be is to miss God. Not to be is to attain God. Hence to be or not to be is the question-and to be a sannyasins means choosing the path of not to be.

(TO DESIREE): It is not only man who is in search of God, God is in search of man. If only man were in search there would be no possibility of ever finding God because man's capacities are very tiny. It is just like dewdrops in search of the ocean: it may get lost anywhere. There are deserts and deserts to cross and the journey is long, arduous, and the address of the ocean is not known, nor is the direction. Neither does there exist any map.

Yes, sometimes there are guides -- Buddhas, Christs -- but the way they have reached the ultimate can't be your way. They moved from a different point, from a different angle, from a different space. Each individual has to find his own way. And the way is not ready-made, it is not like a super-highway already there that you just have to walk on. It is by moving towards God that you create the way, the way is created by you. It is like a footpath in the jungle of life: there is no direction, no map; no guide can hold your hand. Yes, they can indicate a few things, they can give you a few hints which will be helpful on the way but they cannot give you the exact map-that is impossible.

So if man were alone in his search for God it would be impossible. But it has happened to many people for the simple reason that God is also searching for them, is also groping for them. Once you start groping then your hands are going to meet somewhere. It is not only that the dewdrop is moving towards the ocean, the ocean is also rushing towards the dewdrop. The dewdrop may not be able to cross the deserts but the ocean can.

To know this to trust that God loves you, is a great foundation. Then the whole of your life can be built accordingly, then your life can become a temple- but the right foundation is needed. Never forget for a moment that God is searching for you, that he is calling you, that he is calling everybody, that he is searching for everybody.

Jesus says: Just as the shepherd goes back into the forest to look for the lost sheep... That is his way of saying that God also comes to seek and search for those who are lost. God is a shepherd, and when the shepherd finds the lost sheep he carries the sheep on his shoulders. he is not angry; on the contrary he is immensely loving because one who was lost is found.

So no one need lose heart, no one need lose hope. God is searching, calling, coming to you in many many ways- you just have to start looking for him also, then the meeting is inevitable.

(TO IGOR): Ordinary peace is negative, it is empty. The ordinary peace is just what they say when the world is at peace between two world wars, but that is much of a peace. The better expression is "cold war", because when there is no war people are preparing for war, getting ready for a new war. After every few years humanity needs to go insane, that is a kind of catharsis. Then for a few years they behave as if they are sane because they have catharted, thrown out insanity; then again they accumulate it.

So ordinarily when we say that a man is very peaceful it simply means that he is not a nuisance, that he will not create any trouble, that he is not troublesome, that you can trust him- but this is not true peace. This is a very negative definition of peace. The real peace is an overflowing joy. It is a state of plenitude, of fullness. The fullness is such that it start reaching others.

Love brings that kind of peace. Without love one can attain the negative peace but not the true, the positive. Without love that is impossible. Unless love becomes your centre your peace will be that of the cemetry: noiseless but without any music. It is not worth desiring much. It is a kind of death - not life, not eternal life.

And it also brings a prosperity, with a new meaning. Love gives you inner wealth, growth, centredness, rootedness, integrity. It gives you insight, it gives you wisdom. It makes you aware of the deathless element in you and it also makes you aware of godliness pervading, permeating, the whole existence. It has nothing to do with ordinary peace -- money, et cetera. Love brings both.

Let love be your only law and all follows of its own accord.

SUDHAKAR, A MOON OF BLISS.

OSHO: The moon represents a few things of tremendous importance. One is: it is cool. The sun is too hot. The sun also gives light but its light is fire. It is passion, the sun represents passion. The moon represents compassion, it is cool. Love is there but like a whisper, not like a shout. And bliss has to be less and less fire and more and more light. It has to become more and more like the moon.

In the East the sun represents male energy. The sun is he and the moon is she; the moon is feminine energy. And bliss can be attained only if you are as receptive as a woman. It is not a question of conquering bliss; one cannot conquer bliss. And male energy is always trying to conquer, to achieve, to reach. it is aggression.

Feminine energy is non-aggressive. So is the moon; it is non-aggressive.

The sun also represents the ego for a certain reason; because light comes from the sun, it feels "it is my light." The moon simply reflects, the moon is a mirror: it simply reflects the sunlight; hence it knows " I am nobody - all is God's. I am no one - just a mirror reflecting the beauties of God."

That's how a sannyasin has to be: a nobody, a mirror reflecting all the beauties and all the joys of existence, never for a moment thinking in terms of being a doer or in terms of being the source, but always thinking in terms of nothingness, nobodiness.

To be nobody is the greatest experience in life. To be a nothing is to make God penetrate you because when you are totally nothing all can enter you. For the entry of the all you have to be a total nothingness.

That's what sannyas essentially is: it is effacing the ego and moving into an egolessness. The day the ego dies you have arrived, arrived home. Then there is no more wandering, then there is no more journey. Then there is nowhere to go, then all is yours. When you are not you are a king and when you are you are a beggar.

TO TEN-YEAR-OLD PREM JYOTI

OSHO: I have chosen the color orange: it represents the flame of love. One has to become a flame of love- only then is life beautiful, rich, joyous. And not only is one's life full of joy: when you are a flame of love you shed light on other's paths too and people can become aflame with your love; their inner candles can also be lit through your flame. Then you are tremendously happy because love creates bliss, and also you make others happy because love knows how to give, how to share.

Love people, love animals, love trees, love rocks. Love as much as you can, and the more you love, the more God will be available to you because God is love. God is another name of love.

(TO VEETKAM): Bliss is possible only when one goes beyond desire; hence bliss cannot be desired. If you desire it you will miss it. Bliss is the very understanding that all desires are futile - the desire for bliss is included. Desire as such is futile. To know this is the beginning of bliss and to be absolutely rooted in this understanding is to be blissful. So nobody can desire bliss - that will be a contradiction. And nobody can attain bliss, nobody can achieve it, because all attainment, achievement, is a projection of desire.

When desire disappears from your being totally bliss arrives -- not from the outside but from the innermost recesses of your own sources it starts welling up. I am not saying to drop desires because one can drop desires in order to attain to bliss; then again one misses because that is a subtle desire. The desire deceived you again. It has come back in a subtler form, it has come in again through the backdoor.

I am saying try to understand the futility of desiring, the frustration of desiring, the tears that desiring brings and the anguish that is bound to happen. Watch all the desires and see that they are all doomed. Suddenly a great understanding arises. In that light, in that understanding, desiring disappears, the hindrance is removed, the rock is removed -- and from your innermost core bliss arises.

It is our intrinsic nature. We are missing it because of desire. Desire is going astray from yourself, going away from yourself- non-desire means coming back home.