Allowing Fingers Pointing To The Moon #6

Man has only to allow; bliss is always established by god. We can create misery but we cannot create bliss. Misery is within our hands, bliss is not. Bliss has to be allowed to happen. It is not a doing, it is a happening. The moment you surrender, misery starts disappearing and bliss is established through surrender.

Man can achieve many things, but there are a few things which are unachievable: bliss, truth, love. These are the things which happen. You cannot be aggressive. You can only let them happen, you can allow them to happen. You can only be receptive.

If you are simply receptive money will not happen. It won't come and start rushing towards you. Even if you have some, it will leave you; somebody else will possess it. Political power will not happen. You have to fight for it tooth and nail, you have to be absolutely mad for it. The maddest is going to win. And you have to forget everything: you have not to worry about what is good and what is bad, only then you can win in the struggle for money, power, prestige. The law is that whatsoever leads to achieving your end is good.

But there are a few things which cannot be achieved in this way -- and they are the real things. So this has to be used as a criterion: that which can be achieved by you is bound to be unreal. The very idea of your ego is unreal, so whatsoever it achieves is unreal. Only things that come to you from the beyond, things which shower upon you, are real. They are gifts of god.

So one has to learn to be a little feminine. The outward aggressiveness is masculine. That's why it is a man's world and why man has dominated down the ages. And unless women also become ugly like men they will not be able to dominate in the outside world. Unless they also become cruel, violent, aggressive, unless they also loose their grace, they will not be able to succeed. And even if they lose all their grace they will be second-rate men; they can't be first-rate because that will not be natural to them.

That's what is happening through the liberation movement: women are only becoming second-grade men. It is not liberating them, it is simply making them imitators, and all imitation is ugly. A woman has to be a woman. She is equal but she is not similar to man. She has a totally different dimension of existence.

Science is masculine, religion is feminine. Science is aggressive, it is an effort to conquer nature. And religion is receptive, it is an effort to be pregnant with god, to allow god to happen.

Friedrich Nietzsche has criticized Jesus very much, and one of his greatest criticisms was that Jesus is feminine, womanish. And I agree with him. I agree with him, he is right, his insight is right -- but his criticism is wrong.

Jesus is feminine, Buddha is also feminine, Lao Tzu even more so. All the great religious people have been feminine -- feminine in a very spiritual sense, not biological. They were receptive people, they made themselves utterly silent and open and they waited. They were patient.

One has to learn to wait, pray and wait, meditate and wait, and then bliss starts happening. Out of nowhere it comes. It is a gift of god. And when something has been felt as a gift of god, gratitude arises. And it is gratitude that is the most significant religious quality.
Gratitude is the essence of prayer.

LIFE IS GOD'S GRACIOUS GIFT

-- (Mukta whispers to Osho as he leans forward, 'She is Joke -- pronounced Yo-ka.')
Yo-ka? Come here!

You have a beautiful name. Mukta destroyed the whole beauty of it. I would have read it as 'joke'. (much laughter)... but she said yo-ka! (more laughter)

Joke is a form of john; it means god's gracious gift. Life is a gift, but very few people recognize it, because god goes on giving us life without making any fuss about it. It is given so silently that we never become aware that something precious has been given to us. And god does not even wait to be thanked. He does not make a show out of it. He does not even whisper "I am giving you the most precious thing in existence -- life, consciousness, love." He really knows how to give. That is the art of giving: the person to whom the gift is given should not know about it, otherwise it will be a little humiliating, he may feel embarrassed... Hence god gives anonymously, in such a way that the people who are the receivers never become aware of the gift, unless they make a deliberate effort to wake themselves up.

Sannyas is a deliberate effort to be conscious of what has been given to you. And if you become conscious of it, you become capable of receiving more. If you become grateful for it, you become worthy of receiving more.

The person who thanks god for all that is happening to him goes on receiving more and more, because a thankful heart becomes more and more open, a thankful heart becomes more and more receptive.

So your name is beautiful. Remind yourself that everything is a great gift. Everything that has happened to you is a great gift -- all the pains and all the pleasures, all the agonies and all the ecstasies, all the ups and all the downs. Everything is beautiful because everything is contributing towards your growth, towards your ultimate flowering.

BECOME A HOST FOR THE DIVINE

The walk of a wolf has a beauty of its own. It is graceful, very alive, full of vigor. It has an inner strength, courage. The wolf represents all these things: grace, courage, strength. And these are all gifts of god.

We can only be receivers, we can't be achievers. All that is significant has to be received. All that we achieve is insignificant. Remember that distinction: whatsoever man can achieve is going to be mundane and will be taken away by death; whatsoever comes to man from the beyond cannot be taken away by death. It is immortal, it is eternal.

To be a sannyasin means to be constantly in a receptive mood, with doors open, with a welcoming heart, vulnerable, unafraid. To become a host for the divine -- that's what sannyas is all about.

SANNYAS IS AN INVITATION TO GOD

Sannyas is an invitation to god, that 'I am ready,' that 'I am open,' that 'I am available,' that 'if you come, you are welcome,' that 'if you come my doors will be open and I will be waiting for you,' that 'if you come you will not find me asleep; I will be awake and I will be ready. I am ready to be your host.' That's what sannyas is all about, an invitation to god so that he can become a guest.

But he is always ready to become the guest. All that is needed is that we should be ready to be his host. The moment we are ready he suddenly appears at the door. Perhaps he was already standing there but because we were not ready we could not see. Perhaps he was knocking on the door but we were not receptive so we could not hear him.

Remember it, and let this invitation become an undercurrent, day in, day out. Not so much verbally but existentially, become an invitation. And no invitation has ever been rejected by him.

SURRENDER AND YOU WILL BE VICTORIOUS

The law of bliss is simple, and anybody can become its master. But very few people try it, very few people even think about it. It is so simple -- that is one of the troubles. We are always interested in the difficult, in the complex. The complex is a challenge for the ego. The obvious, the simple, is not a challenge at all. The ego is not interested in the obvious and the simple -- and god is obvious and very simple. Unless you also become simple you will not be able to commune with god.

This is the simple law, that if you want to commune with god... God is not a challenge. It is not a question of achieving something unachievable. It is not a question of walking on the moon or reaching Everest. It is not far away from you, it is your ordinariness. Your very ordinariness is your godliness.

One just needs to relax, to be in a let-go and accept life joyously, with no desire to achieve anything. The desire to achieve creates tension, anguish, anxiety, and in that anxiety we go on missing that which is very close by. We remain occupied with the anxiety and remain oblivious of the truth that is within us.

Relaxation is the law, let-go is the law. God is not a question of conquest but of surrender, hence the ego is not interested in it. It is interested in conquest. Without god our life is nothing but a defeat, a failure, a frustration. Only when god enters into your life is there meaning and joy and love and laughter. With the entry of god some celestial music starts happening within you. Your heart becomes a temple and your life starts having a beauty, a grace.

The simple law is: Surrender and you will be victorious. If you want to be victorious you will be defeated. You will never be victorious. But remember, god has to be invited and we have to prepare for the great guest. We have to learn how to be a host. Sannyas is nothing but the whole art of being host to the ultimate guest. And then all victory is yours.

THE SECRET OF LET-GO

God is always ready to give. He is always ready to share his being, his bliss, his truth, but we are unavailable, we are very closed. We don't give him any way into our being, we don't open even a single window. Out of fear we keep all the doors and windows closed; hence the wind and the sun and the rain... nothing can reach us.

God comes in many ways, in thousands of ways, but he just remains standing outside. And he is so polite that he will not even knock on the door, he will not ring the bell. He is so silent that you will not hear his footsteps. He will wait, and he can wait because he has infinity. But we lose much because our life is short, our time is very small and it is slipping out of our hands every moment.

And the older we grow, the more closed we become because the more afraid we are: death starts knocking on the door. Death is not polite. It is very noisy, it is not silent. If you don't open the door it will force the door open, it will pull you out. So as we grow older we become more and more afraid, we become more and more enclosed, encapsulated, and god becomes farther and farther away.

He is always close but we are not available. He is near but we are far, far away from him. The strange phenomenon has to be understood because much depends on that understanding. He is very near but we are very far away; he is always available, we are never available.

The whole effort of all the masters down the ages has been to help you to become available, to help you to gather courage so that you can open your doors and windows and you can allow him -- not reluctantly: you can welcome him. The moment you are ready to welcome him he immediately transforms your being. And that transformation is bliss. His grace showers on you, cleanses you, purifies you.

Man alone, on his own, cannot do that. It is impossible for man to cleanse his own heart, to purify his own being. It is like pulling yourself up by your shoestrings. It is impossible. You can try to jump a little bit but you will be back on the same earth again. You may even fall and have a few fractures.
Man has to learn the secret of let-go.

SANNYAS IS AN EFFORT TO BE WITH GOD

Manuela is a prayer. It is a prayer for god. It means 'god be with us.'

But in fact the problem is not that god is not with us, god is always with us, the problem is from our side, we are not with him. If god were not with us we could not exist even for a single moment. He is our life, he breathes in us, he beats in our hearts, he is our consciousness. He is always with us, but we are not always with him.

The moment we are also with him a radical change happens. Then you become aware of the meaning, of the significance, of the song of life. Then you become aware of how much has been bestowed upon you, how much has been given to you. Then great gratefulness is felt, and that gratefulness is the essential core of religion, the very soul of religion. Everything else is ritual. To feel gratitude is to be religious.

But the prayer is good: it is a longing of our heart to be with god. But we don't know what to do, so we pray, 'God be with us.' But an empty prayer is not going to be fulfilled. You have to learn how to be with god, you have to practise your prayer, you have to come to a point where you deserve to have it fulfilled.
That's what sannyas is all about: an effort to be with god.

PRAYER MEANS LISTENING TO GOD

Prayer does not mean saying something to god, asking for something, prayer means listening to god. If you have to say something it can only be a thank you. A simple yes is enough.

But organized religions all over the world have been teaching people unnecessary prayers. And people are repeating those prayers, parrotlike. They have lost all meaning, they have become pure ritual, they are only formal.

Being here with me you have to learn the true prayer. It consists of silence, it consists of deep listening. God wants to convey something to you. He's searching for you, but he never finds you because you are always so busy. Whenever he rings you are engaged.

Be silent, more and more unoccupied, more and more available, and soon you will start hearing the still, small voice within.

God does not speak from the outside, he speaks from your innermost core, he is already there. And to be connected with your innermost core is true prayer. The moment you are connected... it is so blissful, so ecstatic that you can only bow down in deep gratitude. There is nothing to say, or only a deep yes. One may cry in joy or dance almost like a drunkard -- that is okay, that is absolutely right. But a Christian prayer, a Hindu prayer, a Mohammedan prayer, are all nonsense. Prayer cannot be Christian or Hindu, just like love cannot be Christian or Hindu.

'Prayer' is one of the most beautiful words, but tremendously misunderstood. and the misunderstanding has been perpetuated by the so-called religious people: by the priests and the rabbis. They have been telling people that prayer means a dialogue with god; if you have to say something to god. That is utter nonsense -- we have nothing to say. On the contrary we have to listen to god; that is prayer -- not saying something but listening.

Saying is aggressive, listening is receptive. Saying is masculine, listening is feminine. We have to be just all ears. When you are just all ears, listening from every pore of your body, you are in prayer. And then certainly god speaks. And he speaks from the innermost core of your own being.

But we are continuously full of chatter. Even in the churches, temples, synagogues, we are chattering. In the name of prayer we go on chattering. We go on talking, saying things to god. He knows; there is no need to say anything to him. But we need to listen to him. It is a very still, small voice, but if you are silent it is heard.

And once you have heard the divine voice within you, you are no more the same. That is the moment of rebirth: you are born anew.

SANNYAS: A NEW BEGINNING

It is very rare to find a person who is ready to learn. A teachable spirit means one who is ready to learn, who is humble enough to learn, who is ready to accept his ignorance.

People pretend to know without knowing. They become unteachable spirits. The knowledgeable person is impossible; he cannot be taught.

A great musician used to ask a double fee from the disciples who knew something about music, and those who were absolutely ignorant he was ready to teach for half the fee. People were puzzled and they asked 'What is the matter? Are you mad? People who have learned so much about music, they should be taught for a lesser fee.'

But the master said 'That is not so. First I have to take away their knowledge -- that takes much time. First I have to destroy their knowledge, and that is more difficult than teaching. Those who are ignorant are available, immediately available. They are like blank sheets of paper, you can write upon them. But the people who come with knowledge have already written many things on themselves. First they have to be cleaned, and that is an arduous effort.'

I agree with the master. That man must have known more than music, he must have known something deeper than music. He must have known the very secret of being a master.

So really be a disciple. Drop all that you know, unlearn it, so that I can start. It is always good to start afresh. That's what sannyas is: a new beginning, a discontinuity with the past, a death and a rebirth.

IT IS ALL YOURS!

All that we have is a gift from god. If we recognise it as a gift gratitude arises; if we don't recognise it as a gift we live in ungratefulness. And to be ungrateful is to be irreligious, to be grateful is to be religious.

Religion has nothing to do with churches and temples and rituals and all that. It has something to do with gratitude. It is essentially gratefulness that is the foundation of true religion.

Look in, look out, and everywhere, in thousands of ways, you will find the grace of god showering on you. Don't remain blind to it. Become more sensitive to it. To be totally sensitive is all there is in meditation. Meditation means opening up, becoming sensitive, receptive, seeing things as they are. And then naturally one starts feeling tremendous thankfulness arising, from every pore of one's soul, mind, body, from one's totality.
That moment is the moment of transformation.

Everyone is favoured by god equally. There is no partiality in existence. Existence is absolutely impartial. But that does not mean that it is cold. It is very warm, loving, protecting, caring. But we are not open to its warmth, we are closed.

The problem is with us, not with existence. Hence the whole effort down the ages has been a single one: to help people to open up so that they can commune with the stars and the clouds and the sun and the moon -- because this totality is what god is. There is no god other than this existence. And unless you are open, fearlessly open, you will never become aware of what you are missing. You are missing life, you are missing love, you are missing truth.

Sannyas means the longing to commune with existence. Gather courage and open yourself to all the beauty and the blessing and the benediction. It is all yours. Just for the asking it is yours.

WE ARE NOT ORPHANS

God is the protector. We are not orphans, we are not insecure, but we unnecessarily become worried about security, safety, and we create so much worry that we go on missing the joy of life. The whole energy becomes converted into worrying. Rather than becoming a celebration it becomes misery, anguish.

One of the most fundamental things to understand is that we are protected. There is no need to worry about it, no need even to think about it. Then the whole energy becomes available. And to be full of energy is to be full of delight.

William Blake is right, he says 'energy is delight.' That's a great insight. He is one of the most insightful persons that the West has produced. His words are very pregnant. Just being full of energy for no reason at all, overflowing with energy, one feels blessed. But our whole energy goes into worrying: we create a thousand and one worries. We create our own enemies, and then those enemies become parasites.

In a single blow drop worrying, drop all anxiety and anguish. That's the beginning of sannyas: leaving everything to god. If he can take care of the whole existence he can also take care of you. And then one lives a carefree life. Not careless but carefree; very careful but not anxiety-ridden, careful in the sense of being alert, aware, conscious.

NOTHING EVER GOES WRONG

One of the most important thing to understand is that whatsoever we can do is going to be very small, tiny, momentary. It can't last. It is like a sandcastle, or like paper boats: you can play with them but they cannot take you to the other shore.

Man's hands are small. He has to learn to depend, to rely on, to trust in god. All that is great is always a divine gift: love, beauty, bliss, truth, freedom -- they all come to us. We have to be on the receiving end, we have to be humble, receptive, open, welcoming.

Everything is happening on its own. We need not be worried about anything -- the whole universe is running so smoothly. Seeing its beautiful harmony one should drop all worries. There is no need to be worried. Nothing ever goes wrong, all is always right. Yes, sometimes we feel that things are going wrong. That feeling comes because we have a certain idea of how things should be. If they are not going according to that idea we feel miserable.

Drop that idea and then everything is absolutely right. If you don't have a certain idea of how things should be, then everything is as it is and one starts living in suchness. That is Zen.

This is going to be your path. Become more and more silent, cool, alert, aware, unworried, unhurried, with no idea of the future, with no burden of the past, living in the moment, living the ordinary life with great joy because it is god's gift; it can't be ordinary.

It looks ordinary because we have created great ideals about how life should be. We are creating all our frustrations by creating expectations. Drop all expectations, and frustrations disappear like shadows as if they had never been there, like dreams. And to be without expectations and without frustrations is to be really alive, fully alive, totally alive.

BECOME A WARRIOR FOR GOD

In a way everyone is a warrior. Either one fights for one's own ego or one fights for god, not for one's own ego. That's the only difference between the sinner and the saint. The sinner fights for his own ego, the saint fights for god; he has no ego of his own. He is god's warrior, he is just a vehicle, a medium. He allows god to take possession of him. He leaves everything, surrenders everything, to god. He lives in a let-go. His only prayer is 'Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.'

Let that be your path: become a warrior for god. That's what a sannyasin is, a warrior for god.

To fight for the ego is doomed because the ego is false and the fight is foolish. You are fighting for something which does not exist in the first place. To fight for god is tremendously beautiful and it is bound TO Succeed.

One of the great mystics of the Upanishadas has said 'Satyameva jayate' -- truth is bound to win. Truth wins. There is no possibility of it failing, it is impossible. It is not in the nature of things for truth to fail. Truth is always victorious.

To be with god is to be with truth, to be with god is to be in harmony with the whole. And then there is no defeat, no failure, no frustration.

BE A CLOUD

A cloud is absolutely free, tethered to nothing. The whole sky belongs to it. And it is so free that it has no destinations, because destination also becomes a bondage: you have to go only in a certain direction, you can't go in other directions. The cloud is utterly free, it can go anywhere; there is no destination, there is no destiny.

And the cloud is so free for the simple reason that it exists in a let-go. It allows the winds to take it wherever the whole wills, it has no will of its own. It is free from its will too, it is free from its ego too. It is always available. If the winds are going to the East, it goes to the East as dancing as it goes to the West. It has no preference, no choice. Its existence is that of choicelessness. And that's exactly what a sannyasin has to be: a cloud.

Man can move towards god in many ways. There are wrong ways also, just as there is a right way. Wrong ways are many, the right way is one.

It is just as diseases are many, health is one, hence health has no name, diseases have names. Somebody has T.B. and somebody has cancer and somebody has something else; there are thousands of diseases.

But health has no adjective to it. It is simple because it is one. Whenever you are healthy you experience the same thing as anybody else who is healthy will experience, but when you are ill you are privately ill. Illness has something private about it, it is personal. Healthy is impersonal.

There are many wrong ways towards god but only one right way. The wrongs ways are... One can move towards god through fear. One will only think that one is moving, one will never move. That's why it is wrong. How can you go toward god if you are moving out of fear? The natural tendency when you are afraid is to escape. You can go away, farther away from god, but not closer to him. And all the religions have been teaching people to be afraid of god.

Religious people are defined as god-fearing. Now, that is ridiculous -- a religious person never fears god, he loves him. Fear is not a bridge. If you fear god, deep down you will hate him; deep down he is your enemy, he can't be your friend. And how can you surrender out of fear? The surrender will be superficial. You will wait to take revenge.

It is because of these religions that the modern mind has taken revenge. It is because of the accumulated fear of centuries that Friedrich Nietzsche has to declare 'God is dead and now man is free.' This is the whole sentence. People quote only half of it -- that god is dead. The other half is as important, even more IMPOrtant than the first part: god is dead and now man is free. Free from what? -- free from fear. There is nothing to fear now if god is dead.

And the next sentence Nietzsche says, 'Now you can do whatsoever you want to do' there is nobody to hinder you. You are no longer in a prison.'

Nietzsche is just the opposite of all the priests who have been creating a fear in people's minds. This is the outcome; Nietzsche is the by-product. And our century is atheistic for the simple reason that we have become tired of remaining afraid.

Man can also move towards god through greed. That is the wrong way again, because greed means you want to exploit. Greed means you are motivated. You have certain desires to be fulfilled through god, god is not your goal. You want money, you want power, you want paradise, you want all the pleasures of paradise. And because they can be got only through god, out of compulsion you surrender to god. But god is a means, not the end, and to reduce god to a means is ugly, it is disgusting. God is the ultimate end, there is nothing beyond it.

And so on, so forth ... these are the wrong ways. They appear to be ways but they are not ways they are walls. The only right way is love.

Love more, love deeply, love for love's sake, and you will be surprised that slowly slowly something new starts happening around you: the presence of god is felt.

Whenever you are in a loving space god fills it. And once you have tasted the joy of being filled by god you would like to remain in love twenty-four hours a day. Then love becomes your natural state and god becomes your inner experience. It is only through love that people have reached god. Others have been wandering astray.

Love is my message, but don't cling to the word 'love', don't make a gospel out of it. It is to be experienced.

The words of the buddhas are just fingers pointing to the moon. Don't cling to the fingers, they are not the moon. Look towards the moon, to where the fingers are pointing.

My function here is just to point towards god. You are not to become attached to me, you are not to become hooked on me and on my words. You have to remain absolutely free so that you can move towards the moon, the ultimate experience.

Gerald means a heart full of love, loyalty, trust.

That's exactly the definition of a religious consciousness. These qualities are needed. Without these qualities one can never become aware of god, of love, of beauty, of the tremendous splendour of existence.

Existence is known through the heart, not through the head. And the heart approaches existence in deep love, trust. There is no other way to commune with the whole.

These qualities slowly slowly transform you. They transform you from a doubting confusion into an absolute certainty of knowing. They take you out of the chaos of the head into the harmony of the heart.
Remember them.

Meditation should not be forced. It should be helped, it should be invited, one should prepare oneself to receive it, but one should not force it to happen. It is a delicate matter.

It is as if a bud has come to the rose bush. You can force it open, it can be opened forcibly, but it won't have the same beauty. You have killed something, you have destroyed it, you have been violent. You should have waited. And waiting does not mean that nothing has to be done. Water the bush, put fertilizers in the soil, protect the bush with a fence. Take every care so that the bush is nourished, is strong, because the more nourished the bush is, the stronger the rose is going to be, the longer it is going to stay on the stem. The richer the soil is, the more fragrant the rose is going to be. But these are indirect methods to help. You should not simply go and force the bud to open. One can fORCe it, and one will have a certain kind of flower, but it will be half-dead, stillborn; almost from its very birth it is dead.

Exactly that is to be remembered about meditation. It is also a very delicate flower, so do everything to help it, to nourish it, but don't try to force it. That's what people do: they bring in their will power. That is violence, will is violent. Don't bring in your will power. Leave it to god. Be in a surrender, clean yourself of all thoughts, of all desires, become more alert, more watchful, more silent, more together, more graceful, more harmonious. Do all these things ... and then one day suddenly the satori, the meditation. Suddenly you find that you have changed. Wings have grown on you, you can fly. Gravitation has no power over you any more.

When meditation is spontaneous it has tremendous beauty because it is alive. And only an alive meditation can liberate you, not a forced, dead meditation.

Bliss is a sun that rises within you. Ordinarily man lives in a dark night, never knowing any dawn, never knowing any sunrise, just stumbling in the darkness, falling here, falling there, getting wounded.

If you look at man's life, the whole life is simply a groping, and is of absolute futility because through this groping he never finds the door. The door can be found only if your inner being becomes full of light, if the sun rises.

It happens through meditation. Meditation is the beginning of a sunrise. It is an invitation for the sun to rise within you. It is inviting light. It is inviting silence, peace. Ordinarily we never think of these things: peace, silence, stillness, light -- and these are the real Treasures. They constitute our real kingdom.

So from now onwards meditation has to be your way. Invite more and more peace, more and more silence, stillness. Don't miss a single opportunity to be silent, to be still. Don't miss a single opportunity to relax and look in.

And one day it happens. It never happens gradually, it happens suddenly. You suddenly see the eastern hemisphere inside you becoming red; the sun is rising, the night is over. Then real life begins. Then each moment is so precious, so ecstatic, that each moment contains eternity. Then there is no past and no future, the present is all. Then one knows that one never dies, one is never born. One is always here and now.

Samarpan means surrender. Stephen means a crown, a symbol of victory. Your name is paradoxical. But life is a PAradox, and unless one understands the nature of paradox, one never understands the nature of life.

One is victorious only if one is ready to surrender. If one tries to be victorious one never succeeds. If you want to gain abundant life you have to be ready to lose all, you have to be ready to risk all, to not withhold anything.

This is the way of love and this is the way of god, this is the fundamental law of existence, of tao. In love if you try to conquer you will destroy the whole phenomenon and the beauty of it; if you surrender victory is yours. When two lovers surrender they are not surrendering to each other, remember. That is a misunderstanding. They are simply surrendering to the god of love or the law of love. They are both surrendering to something invisible: the phenomenon of love. In that very surrender both become victorious.

But if both are trying to be victorious then there is no possibility. They will destroy all love. Millions of couples go on destroying their love for the simple reason that both are trying to conquer, to dominate, to possess.

And whatsoever is right about love is right about god too, because god is nothing but ultimate love. If you want to be victorious in life learn the art of surrender.

Sannyas is the first step of surrender. And it is so beautiful to surrender to the ultimate, to the whole. All anxiety disappears, all anguish disappears, all problems are cut from the root in a single blow. You are suddenly free from all misery. It exists only because you are trying to be on your own, separate from the whole, trying to be the ego, fighting for yourself, fighting for your place.

The person who surrenders says 'I am no more. Thy will be done, they kingdom come.' And immediately, instantly, this whole existence is his kingdom. Immediately he is a king, he is crowned.

Man can fight against god or for god. One thing is certain, man has to fight. That is inevitable, one cannot avoid it. But the choice is between these two: either you are on god's side or you are against him. Those who choose to be against him choose to be miserable; they are basically fighting against their own nature, because god is nothing but your nature. They are in an inner turmoil, a civil war. They are destroying themselves. They become many, fragmentary, divided. There is a quarrel continuously going on underneath. It is an almost constant undercurrent.

Those who choose to be with god choose to be blissful. The moment you are with god you are no more; hence there is nobody to worry, to be anxious, to be afraid, to be greedy. They whole has taken over, you have surrendered.

This surrender is sannyas. It is surrendering to the whole and allowing the whole to live through you. Bliss starts happening, immediately silence descends. One suddenly feels so peaceful ... one has never known it before. One has never even dreamt about it, one could not have even conceived that it was possible. And the whole phenomenon is a simple change of gestalt: not to fight against god but to fight for him.
Sannyas means becoming a soldier for god.

Only creators know what bliss is. To create anything, to enjoy creativity, is to allow bliss to happen. One cannot approach bliss directly, there is no direct route. While you are absorbed in creativity bliss comes silently and possesses you. Bliss is very shy: if you try to grab it directly it escapes. Bliss is very feminine. There is no way to be aggressive with it.

It happens only when you are in an absolute surrender. And that's what creativity is. A painter lost in his painting is utterly surrendered. In that moment he is not, he has disappeared. Painting is happening as if of its own accord; he is not doing it, there is no doer. If the doer is there then bliss will not happen. Then he is not really an artist, not a creator, he is just a technician. He knows how to paint but he has no vision.

When the painter gets lost in his painting, when the dancer gets lost in his dance, bliss happens. It comes silently, you can't even hear its footsteps. It comes and possesses you.

Once this secret is known then creativity becomes real worship. Then one need not go to the temples, need not go to the churches, need not bother about god at all and need not bother him. One goes on doing the few small things that one can do, whatsoever they are, but one does them with absolute love, with totality. And one gets lost in them. And slowly slowly twenty-four hours of one's day become creative. Even cleaning the floor becomes creative, even cooking food becomes creative, washing the clothes becomes creative.

Creativity has nothing to do with what you are doing but with how yOU are doing it. It is not concerned with the what but with the how: the energy you are bringing to it, the love you are pouring into it.

So this is my message for you, this has to be your path: let creativity be your meditation, your prayer. Let that be your route towards god.

Victory and bliss both happen together, both are two sides of the same coin. The moment you become victorious over yourself you become blissful too; or vice versa, the moment you are blissful you are victorious. A miserable person remains a slave.

So there are two possible ways to climb the ultimate peak. One is the path of will. That means trying to be victorious over yourself. Finally bliss will be yours, but will come as a consequence, as a by-product. You will find it only on the peak when you have arrived. The second path is of surrender. You start by surrendering to god, rather than trying to be victorious over yourself. By surrendering to god bliss starts happening right now, this very moment. And as you become more and more blissful, your start climbing higher and higher. Ultimately victory is yours but that is a by-product. You meet it on the peak.

You can choose between the two. My suggestion is always for surrender ..... But you are Japanese, and Germans and Japanese are difficult people! You may like the path of will -- that is the path of the samurai. So you can decide -- a few samurais are also needed here! I leave it to you!

How long will you be here?
-- I'm leaving tomorrow.
-- That's what samurais do! (much laughter) They are always on the go! Then come back again ... and the sooner, the better!

A loyal spirit is the very fundamental of religiousness.

Science depends on doubt, it is rooted in doubt. Religion is rooted in trust. If you trust and you want to make a scientific discovery, you will never succeed. And in the same way, if you doubt you will never be able to grow in a religious way.

Doubt is a perfectly adequate method for extrovert enquiries, it is the right method. I am not against doubt. It has tremendous importance. The whole edifice of science stands on it: doubt and doubt, unless you stumble upon something that you cannot doubt. But still that is only a hypothesis. That means you are still not going to trust it absolutely. Who knows? -- tomorrow some new facts may turn up, so keep the doors open for doubts. For the time being, use it hypothetically; for the time being this is true, but only for the time being. Science never comes to truth, only to approximations, hypotheses.

Religion is a totally different endeavour: it begins in trust. It needs faith, such faith that no doubt ever arises. Not that one has to repress doubt; if you repress it, it will be there.

One has to watch, one has not to co-operate with doubt. It will arise; we are trained in doubt, so it will arise. Just watch it. Be alert that you are not caught by it, that's all. Don't repress it and don't follow it, neither be inimical to it or friendly. Just remain neutral, utterly neutral, and slowly slowly doubt disappears.

Without being repressed, when doubt disappears all clouds disperse and the sun of trust is out of the clouds. And that is the beginning of god in your life. You have moved on to a different plane, into a different dimension.

Your name is beautiful -- you have to make it your very life. Become trust, and see miracles happening.

Science can do miracles through doubt, religion can do miracles through trust. Both are valid, but both are different directions, different dimensions. Both are valid in their own spheres. Neither religion should interfere in science nor science should interfere in religion. On the contrary they should co-operate, compensate each other, become complementary to each other.

That is my vision of a new religiousness -- where science and religion live together in a deep co-operation and become complementary to each other. Bliss happens only in a state of deep trust. Only one who is capable of trusting in existence is worthy of receiving bliss. It is not a question of trusting in any church, any religion, any sect, any doctrine or dogma. The question is of trusting existence.

The moment you trust existence a great peace descends in you; you are at home, at ease. You are not an outsider, a stranger any more, you are part of this whole mysterious universe, an essential part. You cannot be substituted by anybody else. The universe needs you as you are and loves you as you are.

Once you start trusting you start opening up. In distrust one closes -- naturally, in defence one closes, one if afraid to be vulnerable. In trust one opens up; there is nothing to fear, this is our home. The trees and the stars and the sun and the moon are all part of our family, our brothers and sisters.

Saint Francis used to call trees brothers. Even his donkey he used to call 'Brother Donkey.' Cats he used to call sisters.

The universe is a family. The experience is possible only when you trust -- and after that, bliss is inevitable. Without it misery is our fate, it cannot be avoided. With it bliss is natural, it comes of its own accord.

The journey towards oneself needs great patience. But we have become so impatient. Particularly in this century man has lost the unhurried way of life. He is always in a hurry, he wants everything immediately. He thinks that everything is like instant coffee.

But there are a few things which need great patience. Not that they cannot happen immediately -- the paradox is that if you are patient enough they can happen immediately, instantly. But if you are in a hurry it will take an infinite time for them to happen, or they may not happen at all. The impatient one may not ever get them and the patient one can get them immediately.

So this is to be understood from the very beginning of the journey, that it depends on you. If you are impatient the journey becomes very long; if you are patient the journey becomes very short. If you are absolutely patient, if you can say, "I am ready to wait forever," there may be no need to journey at all. Just sitting silently, doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself. It may happen like that!

(To an Indian sannyasin) Remember a few things ... the most important is meditation -- that is the very soul of my sannyas. So find time, space, and make it a point to meditate. In the beginning it is difficult, but remain patient; all that is needed is patience. And remain hopeful, optimistic, because it is only a question of time.

It is as if you sow seeds; you can't expect the sprouts the next day. They will take their time, they will come only in their own time. They don't follow your expectations, they follow a certain law of their own. They have their intrinsic law, their own nature. They will wait for the right season, maybe for the clouds to come, for the rain, maybe for the Spring.

Every man has the seeds of meditation but one cannot predict when they will start growing. One has to be patient and one has to go on meditating without any concern as to whether one is succeeding or not. And one day, suddenly, out of nowhere it starts happening. It always happens like a miracle. It does not grow gradually, it is always a sudden phenomenon. It is like water: you heat it, you go on heating it; only at a certain degree does it evaporate. At ninety-nine degrees it is still water -- hot water but still water. At one hundred degrees suddenly it is no longer water. And that's how meditation functions.

So don't lost heart. That is one of the basic reasons why people start meditation and don't succeed. Many STARt but after just a few days they think 'We are not succeeding.' It is not a question of succeeding or failing. Just go on doing it irrespective of what is happening -- just as every day you take a bath, you go to sleep. You don't bother about whether you are succeeding or not, whether you are gaining something or not. A bath is good in itself, it has intrinsic value.

Soon meditation becomes like an inner bath. You feel better, you feel more centered, more rooted, more grounded. And if one can keep waiting, one day suddenly it comes like an explosion, like lightning, and from that moment you are no more the same. From that moment you do not need to do meditation; then you are in meditation whatsoever you are doing. Then breathing is meditation, walking is meditation, sitting is meditation, eating is meditation. Then meditation simply becomes your very nature.
So that is the most important thing to remember: meditate.

And the second thing is: spread what is happening here, because India is missing it. India is lagging behind. I feel sorry that India is behaving in a very stupid way. It seems that only when the whole world is turned on will Indians start ... but by that time it will be too late.

So help Indians to understand what is happening here. Right now all they are doing is trying to misunderstand as much as they can, doing hard work to misunderstand; they are putting great energy into it.

People like you can be of immense help. So for yourself, meditation; and for others, help them to understand. I would like many many Indians to enter on the path.

Love is the only golden experience of life. Everything else is valueless. Value comes out of love. The more you love, the more value your life has. The more you love, the more the world starts changing into a golden experience. When your love is absolute the world is solid gold. Then all that is ordinary disappears into an extraordinary beauty, indefinable, unexplainable.

Sannyas is a process of alchemy. The effort is to change whatsoever is gross in you into the subtle, whatsoever is matter in you into consciousness, to change dust into divinity. It is a transformation of the baser metals into gold. It is not a formality. I am not teaching a formal religion, it is absolutely informal. I mean business! You have to go through a great change.

There are ups and downs, agonies and ecstasies on the way; you have to pass through both. And you have to remain alert not to be attached to anything, because if you become attached to anything on the way you will never reach the goal. Remain detached and go on moving.

One day, one arrives. And the strangest thing is that one arrives where in the first place one never left. One arrives at one's own nature. The goal is the source and the source is the goal. That's how life becomes a complete circle, a fulfillment, a contentment.

There is nothing more valuable than meditation because it leads you to your inner treasure, it leads you to the inner kingdom of god. It transforms you totally, from the world of beggars to the world of kings.

Here ordinarily even kings are beggars. Anyone who has not tasted meditation is bound to be a beggar. He may be a rich beggar, that is possible. He may have much money and power and prestige, but deep down he is as poor as anybody else, maybe more so. But the meditator is really rich. He may not have anything or he may have the whole world, that makes no difference. His inner world has been revealed to him.

The moment you know your inner beauty all desires disappear, because then there is nothing worth desiring. You already have it, you already have more than you can ever imagine.

Worshippers are many, the world is full of them. Churches, mosques, temples, synagogues, are all full of worshippers, but I don't call them worshippers. Their worship is only ritual. They are simply following a tradition. They are worshipping symbols. Their heart is not full of love, they don't really have a thirst for god; they are simply performing a social duty. Maybe they have become addicted to it, if they don't do it they feel something is missing.

It is like smoking or drinking: one becomes addicted. The ritual becomes part of your mechanical life. If you don't do it, it haunts you for the whole day. So people do their prayers, they worship, they go to the temples, but it is all superficial. It does not transform them. If the worship is real it is bound to create a new being out of you. It is going to be a rebirth.

I am not interested in rituals. I don't teach that you should do a particular prayer, that parrotlike you should repeat certain formulas in Arabic, in Hebrew, in Sanskrit -- in some dead language, long-forgotten. I don't teach any gibberish. I simply teach you to love the beauty of existence that surrounds you. That is true worship because god is manifest; in thousands of ways he is available. In the trees, in the flowers, in the birds, in the mountains, in the sun, in the moon, in people, in animals, feel him. Rather than believing, feel the beauty of existence, feel the splendour of the universe, the splendour of a night full of stars.

If that cannot create awe in you then nothing can create awe in you. No Bible, no Koran, no Geeta is going to help. If a beautiful sunset cannot help you to bow down on your knees, then no temple, no church, is going to help you. If a distant call of a cuckoo has no magic for you then you are dead, then worship cannot happen to you. Worship is possible only when the heart is throbbing with life.

Love life, and out of that love, slowly slowly you will find a gratitude arising -- that gratitude is worship -- a prayer arising, a silent prayer, a prayer of thankfulness for all that some unknown force has done for you and is constantly doing for you.