Chapter #30 Even Bein Gawd Ain T A Bed Of Roses #30

Footes?...(WHISPERS) What is the meaning of your name?

FOOTES: Um... it means me!

OSHO: Mm..mm...(THOUGHTFULLY). This is your new name, (A PAUSE): Swami Veet Footes.

Now it means go beyond "me"! (lAUGHTER)... because that is the only problem, the me. It has to be transcended. It is our prison, not our reality. It is the only barrier between us and God. The idea of I, me, mine, keeps us separate from the whole, does not allow us to merge, meet, melt. Life is ecstasy only when one is capable of totally merging into the whole, otherwise life is hell. But it is not the fault of life, it is the fault of a wrong idea of ourselves. We think of ourselves as islands and we are not islands; we are part of the continent called God.

ANAND YOGO -- BLISSFUL UNION.

Bliss is a meeting of the part with the whole. It is the ultimate union, the dewdrop slipping fromthe lotus leaf into the ocean, becoming one with the ocean. Yes, in a way the dewdrop disappears, but only in a way; in another way it attains the oceanic infinity. In one way it dies. It is no more confined in its smallness, in its boundaries; it leaves that body. But its soul spreads all over the ocean. It disappears from time into eternity; it resurrects in eternity.

Sannyas also is a death and a resurrection: a death as a person and a resurrection as part of this cosmic reality. It is a state where one is so utterly attuned, in harmony, on accord that one feels no separation at all. That state of non-separation is bliss.

Once it has happended it remains forever; you cannot lose it. It is the point of no return. Somebody asked a great Indian mystic, Kabir, "What happened to you when you came to realize the truth?" These are the exact words that he said: "The dewdrop disappeared into the ocean and the ocean disappeared into the dewdrop."

(To Sagaro): He has no boundaries. All boundaries are fictitious; all boundaries are created by us, they are pseudo. They are boundaries just like the boundaries of nations: they are only on the map. The earth is undivided, so is consciousness, it is an undivided phenomenon. There is no I, no thou, but only he. And that is God; that unbounded oceanic feeling is God.

Meditation is only a door to escape from the prison that we have become, to escape from our smallness, to escape from the darkness that we go on living in. We have lived that darkness for so long that is seems that's all that life is meant to be. Life is much more. It is not a misery; it is bliss. It is not matter, it is consciousness. It is not death; it is eternal life.

EWALD BECOMES ANAND GYANO.

Wisdom is always a state of bliss. If it is not then it is not wisdom -- it is mere knowledge. It is bliss that makes the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is never blissful; it is tense, it is not relaxed. And it CAN'T be blissful, it can only be a great burden because it is borrowed. It cannot be blissful because it does not allow you to enter into your own being, rather it takes you away from yourself. The more you accumulate information, the less and less you are aware of yourself. You become too occupied with the outside world, with what people say, with what people have written. You become too concerned with the Bible and the Koran and the Gita, and you forget yourself completely. And the real source of wisdom is within you.

Yes, Jesus is right when he says that the kingdom of God is within you; it is not in the Bible, not in the Koran, not in the Gita .One can know all the scriptures of the world and yet will remain as ignorant as ever -- in fact one will be in more difficulties than before. An ignorant man is at least humble: he knows that he knows not. But the knowledgeable man becomes very egoistic -- and ego can only create misery. It is beyond its capacity to give bliss. Bliss comes only when ego is gone; and the knowledgeable person is the most egoistic person in the world. Political power cannot give you as much ego as knowledge does.

Turn in. Listen to your own heart. Start reading your own being, studying your own being, all the scriptures are contained there. They have arisen from there. You have the source of all bliss, wisdom, love within you. All the riches that you will ever need are inbuilt. You are not to achieve them, you have only to discover them. They are already there -- just a few layers of rubbish, of dust have to be removed. Once the dust is removed the mirror reflects the reality; that reflection is wisdom. In that wisdom one feels immensely joyous for no reason at all. Then just to be is enough to be blissful. One need not be rich, one need not be famous, one need not be powerful; one needs nothing -- one is enough unto oneself.

ANAND SUNDARA: BLISS AND BEAUTY.

Bliss brings beauty -- real beauty, not something superficial; not of the body but of the soul; not that it decorates your circumference, but it transforms your center. It is only through bliss that one really becomes beautiful. All other kinds of beauties are ephemeral, shadows; one moment they are there, another moment they are gone -- but the beauty that comes through bliss is forever.

It is a spiritual phenomenon but it affects everything: your mind, your body, your all. A spiritual person may not be physically beautiful but once he attains to his innermost core even his non-beautiful body starts becoming luminous, becomes surrounded by a grace, an aura. It is said that Jesus was an ugly man, but the disciples never felt like that; they had never seen a more beautiful man.

Kahlil Gibran has written a small parable. Jesus is passing by the garden of Mary Magdalene. He is tired; it is hot, the sun is like fire. He wants to have a little rest so he rests underneath a tree. That tree is part of the garden of Mary Magdalene. She looks out of the window. She has never seeen such a beautiful man before -- and she was one of the most beautiful women of those days. Even kings used to knock on her door.

She came to Jesus and said to him "I have never seen such a beautiful person in my life. Come into the house; rest there, be my guest!" Jesus said "I have already come into your house and I have already become a guest. There is no need for me to come into the material house and physically be your guest. I have already penetrated your heart. I will remain part of you."

Jesus may have been an ugly man, yet he was beautiful because now a totally different kind of beauty was arising like a perfume. And when the perfume is really strong one tends to forget the flower; one becomes engulfed in the perfume. Bliss brings that perfume, that beauty.

Sannyas is an enquiry into bliss, into how to be blissful. It is not difficult to be blissful. In fact to be miserable is a very difficult thing: it is something impossible that man has managed to do. It is impossible because it its against our nature. We have succeeded in doing the impossible.

Napoleon said " There is nothing impossible." I agree with him, because if man can be miserable then of course nothing is impossible -- because this is the hardest thing to manage. It is against our intrinsic nature -- our nature is blissful.

Each child is born blissful. is cheerful, and each child is beautiful. Later on that beauty disappears; that cheerfulness, that bliss disappears. We start educating him in our ways of misery. We give him ambition and ego and all kinds of nonsense and soon he is just like us. When he is just like us we say "Now he has come of age." It takes almost twenty-one years for us to make a mess of a child -- then we give him the voting right. Now we can rely on him: he is just as insane as we are. Before that there is danger because he is more sincere, more innocent. But up to now the society has managed to destroy every child.

The function of a Master is to undo what society goes on doing. Now you are becoming a sannyasin so you have to cooperate with me in undoing many things, so that the unnatural can disapear and the natural can start flowing again. That is bliss. To be natural and spontaneous is to be blissful, and to be blissful is to be beautiful, is to be graceful.

My sannyasins are not renunciates. They have to rejoice in the beauty of existence. Ecstasy has to be their contribution to the world -- ecstasy in ordinary life. They have to transform the mundane into the sacred.

TOSHO IS LEAVING...

So if you leave, come back, mm?- otherwise stay. (LAUGHTER)

So you have not decided yet whether to leave or not, mm? Just toss a coin and I will manage something! (MORE LAUGHTER)

TOSHO: Then I'll stay.

OSHO: That's good! I have done it -- stay!

HAREESH TOO.
And when will you be back?
HAREESH: I trust that you will bring me back... whenever!
OSHO: Forever?
HAREESH: Forever... or whenever!
OSHO: Wherever you are, you are with me and working for me so... no question.
HAREESH: I wanted you to say something to me -- and you've said it.