Who neither exults nor hates, neither grieves nor hankers।
A renouncer of good and ill, devout—such a one is dear to Me।। 17।।
Equal toward foe and friend, and likewise in honor and dishonor।
The same in cold and heat, in pleasure and pain, free from attachment।। 18।।
Geeta Darshan #9
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
यो न हृष्यति न द्वेष्टि न शोचति न कांक्षति।
शुभाशुभपरित्यागी भक्तिमान्यः स मे प्रियः।। 17।।
समः शत्रौ च मित्रे च तथा मानापमानयोः।
शीतोष्णसुखदुःखेषु समः संगविवर्जितः।। 18।।
शुभाशुभपरित्यागी भक्तिमान्यः स मे प्रियः।। 17।।
समः शत्रौ च मित्रे च तथा मानापमानयोः।
शीतोष्णसुखदुःखेषु समः संगविवर्जितः।। 18।।
Transliteration:
yo na hṛṣyati na dveṣṭi na śocati na kāṃkṣati|
śubhāśubhaparityāgī bhaktimānyaḥ sa me priyaḥ|| 17||
samaḥ śatrau ca mitre ca tathā mānāpamānayoḥ|
śītoṣṇasukhaduḥkheṣu samaḥ saṃgavivarjitaḥ|| 18||
yo na hṛṣyati na dveṣṭi na śocati na kāṃkṣati|
śubhāśubhaparityāgī bhaktimānyaḥ sa me priyaḥ|| 17||
samaḥ śatrau ca mitre ca tathā mānāpamānayoḥ|
śītoṣṇasukhaduḥkheṣu samaḥ saṃgavivarjitaḥ|| 18||
Translation (Meaning)
Questions in this Discourse
A friend has asked, Osho, the many virtues and signs of the lover-devotee of God you have spoken of in this chapter all seem to be feminine qualities. Why is that? And please explain whether emphasizing only feminine qualities does not contain an imbalance of life. In the vast balance of life, what is the significance of the proper contribution of both feminine and masculine qualities in the context of bhakti-yoga?
The path of devotion is the path of the feminine. But this does not mean that men cannot walk upon it. If a man would go, he too needs within him the feeling-tone of being the Beloved of God. On the path of devotion even a man enters as a woman. This must be understood a little more deeply.
First, understand that no woman is wholly woman and no man is wholly man. Both are present in both. They must be; there are reasons for this. Whether you are male or female, your very making is of both woman and man. You cannot be alone. You cannot be without man, you cannot be without woman. Both have given to you; you are the meeting of both. Both are within you. Your mother is present in you, your father too.
You are both woman and man at once. Then what is the difference? Only a difference of proportion. The man is sixty percent male, forty percent female. The woman is sixty percent female, forty percent male. It is a matter of ratio. But if you are a man, a hidden woman is within you; and if you are a woman, a hidden man is within you.
In the West, the great psychologist of this century, Carl Gustav Jung, established this insight for the first time. In the East it is very ancient. We created the image of Ardhanarishvara—Shiva half woman, half man. That is a conception thousands of years old, and it is true. Jung, in this century, gave it force in the West: no man is only man, no woman only woman—both are both.
This has deep implications. It means that if you are a man, the attraction you feel toward a woman is actually for the woman hidden within you. Therefore no woman in the world will ever fully satisfy you. Until you meet the woman within, no satisfaction is possible.
And if you are a woman, the attraction and search for man—no man will satisfy you. All men will fail. Until you meet the man hidden within you, the search will continue.
In truth, each person is seeking outside the woman or man hidden inside. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of it in someone, and you fall in love. Love means only this: when a man glimpses in some woman the reflection of the woman hidden within, he falls in love.
Hence when you fall in love there is no logic, no reason. You say, “I just fell in love. It was not in my control.” Whenever some resonance occurs between your inner woman and an outer woman...
But that resonance cannot last long, because it can never be complete. The kind of woman within you does not exist anywhere on earth; she is only within. The kind of man within you exists nowhere on earth. You may catch a hint in someone, but as you come closer, the hint breaks. The closer you come, the more the disillusionment.
Blessed are the lovers who never meet their beloveds, for their illusion remains intact. Unfortunate are those who meet, for the illusion breaks. A found beloved does not remain beloved for long; a found lover does not remain beloved for long. The illusion must break. Some small compatibility is possible, but it is only an appearance.
Jung says: until the inner woman and inner man meet, you will remain unfulfilled, and lust will keep its hold on you.
In tantra this inner confluence has been called yuganaddha. When the inner woman and man unite, it is called yuganaddha. With that union, you become nondual; you become one, no longer two. That event of oneness within is the union with the Divine.
Right now you are two. Another psychological point: outwardly you are the opposite of what you are within. Outwardly male, inwardly female; outwardly female, inwardly male.
Another striking observation of psychologists is that as age advances, the opposite traits begin to emerge. Women, approaching fifty, begin to appear more masculine. Many grow mustache or beard hairs, the voice becomes huskier, qualities become more man-like, even the body moves toward a masculine shape.
After fifty, men begin to show femininity; feminine traits start appearing.
Psychologists say: what was on the surface you have spent through a lifetime of use, and what was repressed within remained unspent. The surface weakens, and the inner begins to show itself.
A woman exhausts her feminine energy by fifty; she has used it. The inner man remains unused. As the outer feminine weakens, the inner man pushes and starts to manifest.
A man exhausts his masculinity by fifty; the inner woman, untouched and fresh, begins to appear.
This shift after fifty is complex, and it creates a thousand difficulties. You lived as a man, so you trained, groomed, educated yourself in masculine traits—and suddenly something changes within, a new world begins for which you have no training.
Jung advised that men and women around forty-five should be sent back to school, because a revolutionary inner change is happening for which they are unprepared, while what they are prepared for is becoming useless, and a new event is unfolding. Until we address this, Jung says, more and more people will go neurotic.
Forty-five is a dangerous age; most mental illnesses begin after that. But forty-five is also the age to become religious.
Jung said: most of the patients who come to me are around or above forty-five, and most suffer because there is no religion in their life. If there were religion, they would not go mad.
Now, here Krishna is speaking to Arjuna of the path of devotion, and he enumerates feminine qualities. Yet a man like Arjuna is hard to find: a Kshatriya, a man among men; such a man appears once in thousands of years. To speak to him of feminine qualities seems paradoxical. It certainly raises a question.
But if you understand what I am saying, it means Arjuna’s masculinity is nearing its exhaustion. In the latter part of life, as his masculinity wanes, his inner woman will begin to manifest. From that opposite, the path of religion will open. One.
Second, in spiritual terms, the feminine means receptivity. The masculine is aggressive, attacking. Biologically too, the male is the aggressor; the female is receptive. The woman is a womb; she accepts, contains, assimilates; she does not attack.
The path of devotion is the path of receptivity and acceptance. It is feminine. There one must welcome God within—reverently, bowed, surrendering the head, to bear Him within. The devotee becomes a womb for God. Whether the devotee is male or female is irrelevant. But one who cannot become a womb for God cannot be a bhakta.
You may be surprised to hear, or perhaps you know, there was a sect of devotees whose men wore women’s clothes; a small stream of it still remains in Bengal. They live like women, and accept God as their husband. Even at night they sleep with the deity’s image beside them, as a beloved would sleep with her lover.
This may seem strange to us because we do not know the inner mystery at work. When we do not know the inner secret of something, it becomes a great obstacle.
Rahul Sankrityayan, a great scholar, strongly opposed this: What madness is this! Men becoming women—what nonsense, what drama! And to an outside eye it does seem so.
But Rahul Sankrityayan had no idea what was happening within the devotee. That outer feminization is only an expression of the inner event. He is becoming feminine inwardly too. And you will be amazed: sometimes devotees reached a state where their inner feminization was so deep that even bodily organs became feminine.
Such an event occurred in the life of Ramakrishna. It is unique. Ramakrishna conducted a most valuable experiment: having known God by one path, he tried others to see whether they also lead to the same. He experimented with eight or ten paths. One was a devotional sect where one must practice only as a woman.
For six months Ramakrishna wore women’s clothes, moved like a woman, lived in a feminine mood, with the single conviction: I am the Beloved, and God is the Lover.
A startling thing happened, witnessed by thousands. His gait changed; he began to walk like a woman.
It is very hard for a man to walk like a woman, because the body structures differ. The woman’s body is shaped for the womb; there is a spacious emptiness within, and because of it her legs swing differently. A man’s legs cannot move in that way.
Yet Ramakrishna began to walk like women. That alone is not much. A greater event: after two months his breasts began to grow. Even this is not extraordinary—men sometimes develop slight breasts with age. The most astonishing event: after four months Ramakrishna began to menstruate. Among the rare, valuable events in human history, this shows how profoundly feeling can affect the body.
So wholeheartedly did he accept, I am Your Beloved and You are my Lover, that every pore of his body consented, and the body became feminine. After those six months of practice, it took him another six months to become fully male again; the symptoms took that long to subside.
A bhakta means one who has the feeling of the Beloved. Therefore whatever qualities Krishna lists are feminine.
Have you noticed that all religions—whether devotional or not—have valued qualities that are feminine? Whether Mahavira calls it nonviolence, Buddha calls it compassion, or Jesus calls it love—these are feminine qualities. When the feminine is fully manifest, these qualities are present.
For this reason the profound German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche called Buddha, Christ, and the like feminine—and said they ruined the world. Because what they teach makes people feminine.
Nietzsche argued that such teachings feminized humankind; they give no value to masculine traits—to manliness, fire, strength, aggression, violence, struggle, war. They have made the world womanly.
There is some truth in his words—but in fact they did not succeed in truly feminizing humanity; if they had, the earth would have become a paradise.
Whatever is truly valuable in life is somehow linked with the mother. Whatever is precious, tender, like a flower, is connected with the feminine.
Man is a restlessness; woman is an equilibrium. This need not be taken as a claim about all women as they are now; I speak of the ultimate meaning of Woman. At the ultimate fulfillment, a woman would be thus. As of now, most women are also like men, striving to become men. In the West, they are fighting hard to be like men—dress like men, do men’s jobs, demand men’s rights—whatever men do!
If men smoke, women want to smoke as men do—because inequality hurts.
So whatever men do, even if it is wrong, women feel they must do it too. Across the world there is a race for women to become like men.
Therefore women should not think I am speaking about them as they are; they should consider that if their femininity were to be fully manifest, what I say would be true.
If woman is fully manifest—and she can be—and when man too becomes fully manifest, he becomes like a woman. There are many reasons.
First, understand it biologically.
Biologists say the woman is balanced, the man is not—even at the bodily level. In the sperm from which life is born, and in the union of ovum and sperm from which personality is formed, there is something to note. In the male seed there are two kinds of sperm: one with twenty-four “compartments,” and one with twenty-three. The female ova all have twenty-four “compartments”; there is no ovum with twenty-three.
When a woman’s ovum with twenty-four meets a man’s sperm with twenty-four, a girl is born—twenty-four and twenty-four. When the ovum with twenty-four meets a sperm with twenty-three, a boy is born—twenty-four and twenty-three.
Biologists say the woman is balanced—both pans of the scale equal, twenty-four and twenty-four. In man there is a restlessness—one pan dips, the other rises.
So if you observe a little girl and a little boy, you will notice the boy’s restlessness; the girl appears calm. From birth the boy starts a little mischief. If he doesn’t, people say he is a bit effeminate, like a girl. That restlessness, that imbalance, begins to work.
This restlessness has its troubles, and its advantages. Equilibrium has benefits, and drawbacks. In the world nothing has benefit without cost, nor cost without benefit.
Because of his restlessness, man built vast empires. Because of it he created science, made discoveries. Because of it he climbed Everest and reached the moon.
Woman, lacking that restlessness, made no inventions. She is content; sufficient in her being. She has nowhere to go. To her it is incomprehensible why one must climb Everest.
Hillary—the first to climb Everest—was asked by his wife, “What need is there to climb Everest? It’s beyond understanding: living peacefully at home, why invite trouble, risk death? You may not even make it—many have died. And even if you reach, what will you gain? Why climb Everest at all?”
Do you know what Hillary said? “As long as Everest is there, man will be restless; one has to climb. There is no other reason. The very existence of an unconquered peak is a challenge to man. Because Everest is, we must climb. No other reason.”
Man is restless. He longs for war and struggle, seeks new challenges, takes on new disturbances, accepts new trials.
There was no need to go to the moon—none yet. But the moon is there; to stop is hard. The scientist who first proposed lunar travel wrote: “Now that we have the means to reach the moon, we must go. No further justification is needed. If we can, we will.”
So there is an advantage: in the outer world, masculine traits are useful. Man is outward-bound. In the inner world, feminine traits are useful. Woman is inward-going.
Even in love: a man prefers to love with eyes open; a woman with eyes closed. A man wants the light on when he loves; women want complete darkness. The man wants to see the expressions on the woman’s face as he loves; the woman closes her eyes completely—she wants to forget the man, to drown within. In the deepest moments of love, she wants to forget the man and sink into herself. Her juice is inward.
The man wants to see whether the woman is pleased, delighted; then he is pleased. If he sees she is unhappy, troubled, or unmoved, his pleasure evaporates. Man’s gaze is outward.
This means that if you wish to go within, you must develop the qualities of the woman hidden in you. And if women wish to go outward, they must develop the man hidden in them.
The outer journey can be made with the support of the masculine; the inner journey with the support of the feminine. That is why Krishna speaks of feminine qualities with such depth.
First, understand that no woman is wholly woman and no man is wholly man. Both are present in both. They must be; there are reasons for this. Whether you are male or female, your very making is of both woman and man. You cannot be alone. You cannot be without man, you cannot be without woman. Both have given to you; you are the meeting of both. Both are within you. Your mother is present in you, your father too.
You are both woman and man at once. Then what is the difference? Only a difference of proportion. The man is sixty percent male, forty percent female. The woman is sixty percent female, forty percent male. It is a matter of ratio. But if you are a man, a hidden woman is within you; and if you are a woman, a hidden man is within you.
In the West, the great psychologist of this century, Carl Gustav Jung, established this insight for the first time. In the East it is very ancient. We created the image of Ardhanarishvara—Shiva half woman, half man. That is a conception thousands of years old, and it is true. Jung, in this century, gave it force in the West: no man is only man, no woman only woman—both are both.
This has deep implications. It means that if you are a man, the attraction you feel toward a woman is actually for the woman hidden within you. Therefore no woman in the world will ever fully satisfy you. Until you meet the woman within, no satisfaction is possible.
And if you are a woman, the attraction and search for man—no man will satisfy you. All men will fail. Until you meet the man hidden within you, the search will continue.
In truth, each person is seeking outside the woman or man hidden inside. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of it in someone, and you fall in love. Love means only this: when a man glimpses in some woman the reflection of the woman hidden within, he falls in love.
Hence when you fall in love there is no logic, no reason. You say, “I just fell in love. It was not in my control.” Whenever some resonance occurs between your inner woman and an outer woman...
But that resonance cannot last long, because it can never be complete. The kind of woman within you does not exist anywhere on earth; she is only within. The kind of man within you exists nowhere on earth. You may catch a hint in someone, but as you come closer, the hint breaks. The closer you come, the more the disillusionment.
Blessed are the lovers who never meet their beloveds, for their illusion remains intact. Unfortunate are those who meet, for the illusion breaks. A found beloved does not remain beloved for long; a found lover does not remain beloved for long. The illusion must break. Some small compatibility is possible, but it is only an appearance.
Jung says: until the inner woman and inner man meet, you will remain unfulfilled, and lust will keep its hold on you.
In tantra this inner confluence has been called yuganaddha. When the inner woman and man unite, it is called yuganaddha. With that union, you become nondual; you become one, no longer two. That event of oneness within is the union with the Divine.
Right now you are two. Another psychological point: outwardly you are the opposite of what you are within. Outwardly male, inwardly female; outwardly female, inwardly male.
Another striking observation of psychologists is that as age advances, the opposite traits begin to emerge. Women, approaching fifty, begin to appear more masculine. Many grow mustache or beard hairs, the voice becomes huskier, qualities become more man-like, even the body moves toward a masculine shape.
After fifty, men begin to show femininity; feminine traits start appearing.
Psychologists say: what was on the surface you have spent through a lifetime of use, and what was repressed within remained unspent. The surface weakens, and the inner begins to show itself.
A woman exhausts her feminine energy by fifty; she has used it. The inner man remains unused. As the outer feminine weakens, the inner man pushes and starts to manifest.
A man exhausts his masculinity by fifty; the inner woman, untouched and fresh, begins to appear.
This shift after fifty is complex, and it creates a thousand difficulties. You lived as a man, so you trained, groomed, educated yourself in masculine traits—and suddenly something changes within, a new world begins for which you have no training.
Jung advised that men and women around forty-five should be sent back to school, because a revolutionary inner change is happening for which they are unprepared, while what they are prepared for is becoming useless, and a new event is unfolding. Until we address this, Jung says, more and more people will go neurotic.
Forty-five is a dangerous age; most mental illnesses begin after that. But forty-five is also the age to become religious.
Jung said: most of the patients who come to me are around or above forty-five, and most suffer because there is no religion in their life. If there were religion, they would not go mad.
Now, here Krishna is speaking to Arjuna of the path of devotion, and he enumerates feminine qualities. Yet a man like Arjuna is hard to find: a Kshatriya, a man among men; such a man appears once in thousands of years. To speak to him of feminine qualities seems paradoxical. It certainly raises a question.
But if you understand what I am saying, it means Arjuna’s masculinity is nearing its exhaustion. In the latter part of life, as his masculinity wanes, his inner woman will begin to manifest. From that opposite, the path of religion will open. One.
Second, in spiritual terms, the feminine means receptivity. The masculine is aggressive, attacking. Biologically too, the male is the aggressor; the female is receptive. The woman is a womb; she accepts, contains, assimilates; she does not attack.
The path of devotion is the path of receptivity and acceptance. It is feminine. There one must welcome God within—reverently, bowed, surrendering the head, to bear Him within. The devotee becomes a womb for God. Whether the devotee is male or female is irrelevant. But one who cannot become a womb for God cannot be a bhakta.
You may be surprised to hear, or perhaps you know, there was a sect of devotees whose men wore women’s clothes; a small stream of it still remains in Bengal. They live like women, and accept God as their husband. Even at night they sleep with the deity’s image beside them, as a beloved would sleep with her lover.
This may seem strange to us because we do not know the inner mystery at work. When we do not know the inner secret of something, it becomes a great obstacle.
Rahul Sankrityayan, a great scholar, strongly opposed this: What madness is this! Men becoming women—what nonsense, what drama! And to an outside eye it does seem so.
But Rahul Sankrityayan had no idea what was happening within the devotee. That outer feminization is only an expression of the inner event. He is becoming feminine inwardly too. And you will be amazed: sometimes devotees reached a state where their inner feminization was so deep that even bodily organs became feminine.
Such an event occurred in the life of Ramakrishna. It is unique. Ramakrishna conducted a most valuable experiment: having known God by one path, he tried others to see whether they also lead to the same. He experimented with eight or ten paths. One was a devotional sect where one must practice only as a woman.
For six months Ramakrishna wore women’s clothes, moved like a woman, lived in a feminine mood, with the single conviction: I am the Beloved, and God is the Lover.
A startling thing happened, witnessed by thousands. His gait changed; he began to walk like a woman.
It is very hard for a man to walk like a woman, because the body structures differ. The woman’s body is shaped for the womb; there is a spacious emptiness within, and because of it her legs swing differently. A man’s legs cannot move in that way.
Yet Ramakrishna began to walk like women. That alone is not much. A greater event: after two months his breasts began to grow. Even this is not extraordinary—men sometimes develop slight breasts with age. The most astonishing event: after four months Ramakrishna began to menstruate. Among the rare, valuable events in human history, this shows how profoundly feeling can affect the body.
So wholeheartedly did he accept, I am Your Beloved and You are my Lover, that every pore of his body consented, and the body became feminine. After those six months of practice, it took him another six months to become fully male again; the symptoms took that long to subside.
A bhakta means one who has the feeling of the Beloved. Therefore whatever qualities Krishna lists are feminine.
Have you noticed that all religions—whether devotional or not—have valued qualities that are feminine? Whether Mahavira calls it nonviolence, Buddha calls it compassion, or Jesus calls it love—these are feminine qualities. When the feminine is fully manifest, these qualities are present.
For this reason the profound German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche called Buddha, Christ, and the like feminine—and said they ruined the world. Because what they teach makes people feminine.
Nietzsche argued that such teachings feminized humankind; they give no value to masculine traits—to manliness, fire, strength, aggression, violence, struggle, war. They have made the world womanly.
There is some truth in his words—but in fact they did not succeed in truly feminizing humanity; if they had, the earth would have become a paradise.
Whatever is truly valuable in life is somehow linked with the mother. Whatever is precious, tender, like a flower, is connected with the feminine.
Man is a restlessness; woman is an equilibrium. This need not be taken as a claim about all women as they are now; I speak of the ultimate meaning of Woman. At the ultimate fulfillment, a woman would be thus. As of now, most women are also like men, striving to become men. In the West, they are fighting hard to be like men—dress like men, do men’s jobs, demand men’s rights—whatever men do!
If men smoke, women want to smoke as men do—because inequality hurts.
So whatever men do, even if it is wrong, women feel they must do it too. Across the world there is a race for women to become like men.
Therefore women should not think I am speaking about them as they are; they should consider that if their femininity were to be fully manifest, what I say would be true.
If woman is fully manifest—and she can be—and when man too becomes fully manifest, he becomes like a woman. There are many reasons.
First, understand it biologically.
Biologists say the woman is balanced, the man is not—even at the bodily level. In the sperm from which life is born, and in the union of ovum and sperm from which personality is formed, there is something to note. In the male seed there are two kinds of sperm: one with twenty-four “compartments,” and one with twenty-three. The female ova all have twenty-four “compartments”; there is no ovum with twenty-three.
When a woman’s ovum with twenty-four meets a man’s sperm with twenty-four, a girl is born—twenty-four and twenty-four. When the ovum with twenty-four meets a sperm with twenty-three, a boy is born—twenty-four and twenty-three.
Biologists say the woman is balanced—both pans of the scale equal, twenty-four and twenty-four. In man there is a restlessness—one pan dips, the other rises.
So if you observe a little girl and a little boy, you will notice the boy’s restlessness; the girl appears calm. From birth the boy starts a little mischief. If he doesn’t, people say he is a bit effeminate, like a girl. That restlessness, that imbalance, begins to work.
This restlessness has its troubles, and its advantages. Equilibrium has benefits, and drawbacks. In the world nothing has benefit without cost, nor cost without benefit.
Because of his restlessness, man built vast empires. Because of it he created science, made discoveries. Because of it he climbed Everest and reached the moon.
Woman, lacking that restlessness, made no inventions. She is content; sufficient in her being. She has nowhere to go. To her it is incomprehensible why one must climb Everest.
Hillary—the first to climb Everest—was asked by his wife, “What need is there to climb Everest? It’s beyond understanding: living peacefully at home, why invite trouble, risk death? You may not even make it—many have died. And even if you reach, what will you gain? Why climb Everest at all?”
Do you know what Hillary said? “As long as Everest is there, man will be restless; one has to climb. There is no other reason. The very existence of an unconquered peak is a challenge to man. Because Everest is, we must climb. No other reason.”
Man is restless. He longs for war and struggle, seeks new challenges, takes on new disturbances, accepts new trials.
There was no need to go to the moon—none yet. But the moon is there; to stop is hard. The scientist who first proposed lunar travel wrote: “Now that we have the means to reach the moon, we must go. No further justification is needed. If we can, we will.”
So there is an advantage: in the outer world, masculine traits are useful. Man is outward-bound. In the inner world, feminine traits are useful. Woman is inward-going.
Even in love: a man prefers to love with eyes open; a woman with eyes closed. A man wants the light on when he loves; women want complete darkness. The man wants to see the expressions on the woman’s face as he loves; the woman closes her eyes completely—she wants to forget the man, to drown within. In the deepest moments of love, she wants to forget the man and sink into herself. Her juice is inward.
The man wants to see whether the woman is pleased, delighted; then he is pleased. If he sees she is unhappy, troubled, or unmoved, his pleasure evaporates. Man’s gaze is outward.
This means that if you wish to go within, you must develop the qualities of the woman hidden in you. And if women wish to go outward, they must develop the man hidden in them.
The outer journey can be made with the support of the masculine; the inner journey with the support of the feminine. That is why Krishna speaks of feminine qualities with such depth.
A friend has asked: Osho, yesterday you said that to know anger completely, one must experience it in its totality. Then how is one to know lust completely? Because the experienced say that lust is never satisfied; the more you indulge it, the more it grows. So how can one go beyond lust?
First, keep a little distance from the “experienced ones,” and trust your own experience.
This does not mean that what the experienced have said is wrong. It only means that if you live by another’s experience, you will be deprived of your own. And if you are deprived of your own experience, what the experienced have said will never become true for you.
Those who have spoken have spoken out of experience—not by listening to other experienced people. Keep this distinction in mind. They did not say, “Because the experienced have said it, we say it too.” They said, “We speak from our own experience.” If you truly want to be free, then you too must rely on your own experience.
And it is untrue that lust grows through experience. No desire in this world grows by experience. If lust grew through experience, then no one could ever be free of it.
Everything becomes attenuated through experience. Everything becomes tiresome through experience. However delicious a dish may be, if you eat it every day, how many days will it last? In a few days the taste will be gone. Then it will turn insipid. After a while you will want to run away—you’ll feel you would rather die than have to eat the same dish again.
Experience brings weariness. The mind loses its relish. And if weariness does not arise through experience, understand that you are not experiencing rightly. Understand this well.
And you cannot experience rightly, because what the experienced have said is already troubling you. Even before the experience you are eager to be rid of it.
This friend asks: How to go beyond lust?
First go into lust; then you can go beyond it. You are in such a hurry to go beyond that you never get inside; you never descend into it.
One deep, total experience of sex can take you beyond. But it never becomes deep, because at the back of the mind a hook keeps tugging: “When, how will I go beyond?” You neither go beyond, nor do you experience. You remain stuck in between.
When I say to you that experience itself is liberation, understand it rightly. That which is futile will be seen as futile only through experience—by no other means.
Without experience you may think it is futile, but what will thinking alone do? The taste still remains inside. However many experienced people may say it is futile, will their saying make it futile for you? And if words could do it, the world’s lust would have vanished by now.
How much does a father not explain to his son? Does the son listen? Yet the father goes on and on—and forgets that he too was a son once, and his father said the same to him, and he too did not listen. If he had listened then, where would this son have come from! There is no need to panic; this son, when he grows up, will say the same to his son. Nothing changes.
Another’s experience does not work for you. Your father’s experience cannot become yours. Only your own experience will work.
I am not saying the father is wrong. He speaks from his experience—he has passed through the madness. But he speaks after passing through it. Without passing through, even he could not have said it. Without passing through, no one can say it. And without passing through, no one can accept anyone’s saying either. In this world there is no realization other than through experience. You will have to pass through.
Then why this fear? Why this hurry to go beyond? If the divine has given you an opportunity, why not use it? And why not understand that use fully? Surely there is some intrinsic purpose. The divine is more intelligent than you. If it has woven lust into you, there must be an inherent purpose.
However much saints may say lust is bad, the divine does not say so; otherwise it would not have created it. There would have been no need for it to exist. The divine goes on creating; it does not listen to the saints!
Surely there is an inherent purpose. And it is this: even these saints could not have been born without lust. They too went beyond only by passing through the experience. They too entered it and found it to be futile. That realization of futility is precious—and it comes only when it happens in your own experience.
So do not be in a hurry. Do not rely on borrowed experience. That does not mean you tell the experienced, “You are wrong.” You should simply say, “We do not yet know. We wish to enter and know for ourselves what this lust is. We will know it fully. If it turns out to be wrong, that very knowing will bring liberation. And if it turns out to be right, then there is no need for liberation.”
One thing is certain: whoever has known rightly has become free. And another thing is also certain: those who have not known—no matter how much they bang their heads and believe the experienced—have never become free, nor can they.
Why so much panic? Why so much fear? What is hidden within must be recognized. It is useful to pass through it.
I have heard: An emperor sent his son to a fakir for education. Each month news came that the education was proceeding well. A year passed, and the day arrived when the fakir would bring the young man to court. The emperor was overjoyed. He summoned all his courtiers: “Today my son returns, educated by that great fakir.”
But when the fakir arrived at the palace gate with the boy, the king’s heart sank. He saw the fakir had put his bedding and bundle on the prince’s head, and dressed him in the rags of a porter.
The emperor was furious. “I sent him for education, not for this insult!” The fakir said, “The last lesson is still remaining. Do not interrupt. The year is not yet over; the sun has not set. The boy is still in my charge.” Then he took a whip from his bundle, made the boy put the load down, and gave him seven lashes in the court.
The king screamed, but he was bound by his word: he had given the boy for a year, and the sun had not yet set. He muttered, “No matter, the sun will set; and I will have you hanged”—he said to the fakir—“when the sun sets, do not worry.” “Fulfill your year’s promise,” he said, “then I will deal with you.”
Some old, wise courtiers were present. They said to the king, “At least ask him what he is doing! What is his purpose?”
Someone asked, and the fakir said, “I have a purpose. This boy will be king tomorrow, and will have many people whipped. He must know what a lash means. He will be king, and countless people will spend their lives carrying his burdens. He must know the inner state of the man who trudges down the road with a load. Before he becomes king, he must pass through all those experiences which he will never have once he is king. If he does not pass through them, he will remain immature. In a whole year, I have given him but one education: I have made him pass through all that he would never encounter after becoming king.”
This world is a university. And the divine is putting you through many experiences, burning you in many fires. It is necessary. By that, you are refined into true gold. All the dross is burnt away.
But your condition is that you are gold mixed with dross, and you are listening to those experienced ones who have crossed the fire. They say, “It is fire; avoid it.” But by passing through that very fire they became pure. And if, taking their advice, you stop on this side and say, “It is fire; I will avoid it,” then remember: the dross that burns in fire will also be saved—saved in you.
Pass through the fire. Ask those experienced ones, “Are you saying this after passing through the fire, or without passing? If you say it after passing through, and I accept it without passing through, I drown myself by borrowing your conclusion. Fair enough—your words I will keep in mind. But let me also pass through experience. Let my dross be burnt too.”
Lust is a fire, but much dross is burnt in it. If you can enter lust with awareness, with understanding, with consciousness, your dross is burnt away; you become gold. And that gold is revolution. That attainment of gold is revolution.
So I say to you: allow what comes through your own experience to come. Do not be in a hurry. Do not borrow experience. From others your information will increase, not your being. Your intellect will collect many ideas, but you will remain the same. There is no way without passing through the fire. Nothing comes cheap.
Lust is a pain. On the surface there is pleasure; inside there is only suffering. On the outside the sheen is very colorful, like a rainbow. But in your hands there is nothing—only melancholy, only sadness, only tears. From afar, those tears glitter and look like pearls. Only on coming close do you see the pearls are fake—they are tears, and behind them remains only sorrow. Yet you must pass through it.
If you “avoid” it, you do not actually escape. Avoiding only means you never come close enough to the “pearl” to discover it is but a drop of tear, not a pearl. You still go—because inside, the push of desire is there. The divine is saying, “Go, for only by experience will you be refined. Go.”
The divine sends you without anxiety. It sends each child. Meanwhile we keep “improving” and spend our lives in anxiety. By the time an old person improves, the divine takes him away—then sends new children again. They are untamed again; the same turbulence again; they will do exactly what the experienced have said not to do.
Why does the divine make children? Why not make old people? It could have created the old directly—no fuss, no trouble. The experienced would be born at once. But even if the divine were to give birth to old people, they would still be children—because without experience there is no maturity, no understanding.
The divine creates children. Its courage is remarkable. It creates the unknowing and removes the knowing. We hold that when understanding is complete, there is no more birth. Meaning: those who understand are removed immediately, and the unknowing are sent.
Only the unknowing are sent to school. When the work is done, they leave the school. But if a child going to school listens to a retiring professor and stays outside, what will become of him?
A child is entering school on his first day. That very day an old professor is retiring. The professor says, “There is nothing here. I wasted my life. All was futile. Don’t go in—turn back with me.” This is your condition. Beware of those who are retiring. Their words are true—perfectly true, born of experience. But you too will have to pass through the same. One day you will say the same. But a little time is needed to ripen. You must pass through the fire; only then does maturity come.
So do not be afraid. Whatever natural urges the divine has given you, enter them naturally. Do not panic. Why panic? If the divine is not panicking, why are you so frightened? If the divine is unafraid, why are you so afraid? Enter.
Only, keep one thing in mind when you enter: enter totally. Do not let these rubbishy ideas lodge in your head that “this is wrong.” If you believe it is wrong, you will not truly enter; you will remain half-hearted. Your hand will reach out, but will stop midway, never touching the fire. Then you suffer double loss: neither experience happens nor retreat is possible. You hang in the middle, half-cooked.
On this earth those who hang in the middle have endless misery. From behind, the saints pull: “Come back!” From within, the divine pushes: “Go, pass through experience.” In this tug-of-war you are torn apart.
I say: do not listen to either side. Listen to nature, to your own swabhava. It says: go. Only keep one thing in mind: go with awareness, go with understanding. Go while seeing. What is lust? Why read about it in books? Enter and see. And when you enter, enter with total attention.
But I know people: they come to me and say, “How to be free of lust?” I ask, “When you enter the sexual act, is there any other thought in your mind?” They say, “A thousand thoughts. Sometimes we think of the shop, sometimes the market, sometimes something else. Sometimes we think, ‘What a sin we are committing! What will be the atonement?’”
If even when you go into sex your head is somewhere else, how will you know what it is? Gather your attention. Drop all thoughts. When you enter sex, enter wholly—with your whole heart, with your whole life, with full awareness—so that there is no need to enter again.
If even once there is a meeting of sex and awareness, the first awakening happens right there. Everything appears futile—childish. Even if you wish to go again, you cannot. The thing itself has become pointless.
Until this happens, you will have to go. Nature allows no exceptions. Nature lets cross only those who are fully ripe. It does not allow the unripe to pass. If you remain unripe, it will give you birth again; it will push you again.
If you insist on remaining half-cooked, you will wander for countless births. If you want to be ripe, drop fear, and experience nature with awareness. Liberation is there.
This does not mean that what the experienced have said is wrong. It only means that if you live by another’s experience, you will be deprived of your own. And if you are deprived of your own experience, what the experienced have said will never become true for you.
Those who have spoken have spoken out of experience—not by listening to other experienced people. Keep this distinction in mind. They did not say, “Because the experienced have said it, we say it too.” They said, “We speak from our own experience.” If you truly want to be free, then you too must rely on your own experience.
And it is untrue that lust grows through experience. No desire in this world grows by experience. If lust grew through experience, then no one could ever be free of it.
Everything becomes attenuated through experience. Everything becomes tiresome through experience. However delicious a dish may be, if you eat it every day, how many days will it last? In a few days the taste will be gone. Then it will turn insipid. After a while you will want to run away—you’ll feel you would rather die than have to eat the same dish again.
Experience brings weariness. The mind loses its relish. And if weariness does not arise through experience, understand that you are not experiencing rightly. Understand this well.
And you cannot experience rightly, because what the experienced have said is already troubling you. Even before the experience you are eager to be rid of it.
This friend asks: How to go beyond lust?
First go into lust; then you can go beyond it. You are in such a hurry to go beyond that you never get inside; you never descend into it.
One deep, total experience of sex can take you beyond. But it never becomes deep, because at the back of the mind a hook keeps tugging: “When, how will I go beyond?” You neither go beyond, nor do you experience. You remain stuck in between.
When I say to you that experience itself is liberation, understand it rightly. That which is futile will be seen as futile only through experience—by no other means.
Without experience you may think it is futile, but what will thinking alone do? The taste still remains inside. However many experienced people may say it is futile, will their saying make it futile for you? And if words could do it, the world’s lust would have vanished by now.
How much does a father not explain to his son? Does the son listen? Yet the father goes on and on—and forgets that he too was a son once, and his father said the same to him, and he too did not listen. If he had listened then, where would this son have come from! There is no need to panic; this son, when he grows up, will say the same to his son. Nothing changes.
Another’s experience does not work for you. Your father’s experience cannot become yours. Only your own experience will work.
I am not saying the father is wrong. He speaks from his experience—he has passed through the madness. But he speaks after passing through it. Without passing through, even he could not have said it. Without passing through, no one can say it. And without passing through, no one can accept anyone’s saying either. In this world there is no realization other than through experience. You will have to pass through.
Then why this fear? Why this hurry to go beyond? If the divine has given you an opportunity, why not use it? And why not understand that use fully? Surely there is some intrinsic purpose. The divine is more intelligent than you. If it has woven lust into you, there must be an inherent purpose.
However much saints may say lust is bad, the divine does not say so; otherwise it would not have created it. There would have been no need for it to exist. The divine goes on creating; it does not listen to the saints!
Surely there is an inherent purpose. And it is this: even these saints could not have been born without lust. They too went beyond only by passing through the experience. They too entered it and found it to be futile. That realization of futility is precious—and it comes only when it happens in your own experience.
So do not be in a hurry. Do not rely on borrowed experience. That does not mean you tell the experienced, “You are wrong.” You should simply say, “We do not yet know. We wish to enter and know for ourselves what this lust is. We will know it fully. If it turns out to be wrong, that very knowing will bring liberation. And if it turns out to be right, then there is no need for liberation.”
One thing is certain: whoever has known rightly has become free. And another thing is also certain: those who have not known—no matter how much they bang their heads and believe the experienced—have never become free, nor can they.
Why so much panic? Why so much fear? What is hidden within must be recognized. It is useful to pass through it.
I have heard: An emperor sent his son to a fakir for education. Each month news came that the education was proceeding well. A year passed, and the day arrived when the fakir would bring the young man to court. The emperor was overjoyed. He summoned all his courtiers: “Today my son returns, educated by that great fakir.”
But when the fakir arrived at the palace gate with the boy, the king’s heart sank. He saw the fakir had put his bedding and bundle on the prince’s head, and dressed him in the rags of a porter.
The emperor was furious. “I sent him for education, not for this insult!” The fakir said, “The last lesson is still remaining. Do not interrupt. The year is not yet over; the sun has not set. The boy is still in my charge.” Then he took a whip from his bundle, made the boy put the load down, and gave him seven lashes in the court.
The king screamed, but he was bound by his word: he had given the boy for a year, and the sun had not yet set. He muttered, “No matter, the sun will set; and I will have you hanged”—he said to the fakir—“when the sun sets, do not worry.” “Fulfill your year’s promise,” he said, “then I will deal with you.”
Some old, wise courtiers were present. They said to the king, “At least ask him what he is doing! What is his purpose?”
Someone asked, and the fakir said, “I have a purpose. This boy will be king tomorrow, and will have many people whipped. He must know what a lash means. He will be king, and countless people will spend their lives carrying his burdens. He must know the inner state of the man who trudges down the road with a load. Before he becomes king, he must pass through all those experiences which he will never have once he is king. If he does not pass through them, he will remain immature. In a whole year, I have given him but one education: I have made him pass through all that he would never encounter after becoming king.”
This world is a university. And the divine is putting you through many experiences, burning you in many fires. It is necessary. By that, you are refined into true gold. All the dross is burnt away.
But your condition is that you are gold mixed with dross, and you are listening to those experienced ones who have crossed the fire. They say, “It is fire; avoid it.” But by passing through that very fire they became pure. And if, taking their advice, you stop on this side and say, “It is fire; I will avoid it,” then remember: the dross that burns in fire will also be saved—saved in you.
Pass through the fire. Ask those experienced ones, “Are you saying this after passing through the fire, or without passing? If you say it after passing through, and I accept it without passing through, I drown myself by borrowing your conclusion. Fair enough—your words I will keep in mind. But let me also pass through experience. Let my dross be burnt too.”
Lust is a fire, but much dross is burnt in it. If you can enter lust with awareness, with understanding, with consciousness, your dross is burnt away; you become gold. And that gold is revolution. That attainment of gold is revolution.
So I say to you: allow what comes through your own experience to come. Do not be in a hurry. Do not borrow experience. From others your information will increase, not your being. Your intellect will collect many ideas, but you will remain the same. There is no way without passing through the fire. Nothing comes cheap.
Lust is a pain. On the surface there is pleasure; inside there is only suffering. On the outside the sheen is very colorful, like a rainbow. But in your hands there is nothing—only melancholy, only sadness, only tears. From afar, those tears glitter and look like pearls. Only on coming close do you see the pearls are fake—they are tears, and behind them remains only sorrow. Yet you must pass through it.
If you “avoid” it, you do not actually escape. Avoiding only means you never come close enough to the “pearl” to discover it is but a drop of tear, not a pearl. You still go—because inside, the push of desire is there. The divine is saying, “Go, for only by experience will you be refined. Go.”
The divine sends you without anxiety. It sends each child. Meanwhile we keep “improving” and spend our lives in anxiety. By the time an old person improves, the divine takes him away—then sends new children again. They are untamed again; the same turbulence again; they will do exactly what the experienced have said not to do.
Why does the divine make children? Why not make old people? It could have created the old directly—no fuss, no trouble. The experienced would be born at once. But even if the divine were to give birth to old people, they would still be children—because without experience there is no maturity, no understanding.
The divine creates children. Its courage is remarkable. It creates the unknowing and removes the knowing. We hold that when understanding is complete, there is no more birth. Meaning: those who understand are removed immediately, and the unknowing are sent.
Only the unknowing are sent to school. When the work is done, they leave the school. But if a child going to school listens to a retiring professor and stays outside, what will become of him?
A child is entering school on his first day. That very day an old professor is retiring. The professor says, “There is nothing here. I wasted my life. All was futile. Don’t go in—turn back with me.” This is your condition. Beware of those who are retiring. Their words are true—perfectly true, born of experience. But you too will have to pass through the same. One day you will say the same. But a little time is needed to ripen. You must pass through the fire; only then does maturity come.
So do not be afraid. Whatever natural urges the divine has given you, enter them naturally. Do not panic. Why panic? If the divine is not panicking, why are you so frightened? If the divine is unafraid, why are you so afraid? Enter.
Only, keep one thing in mind when you enter: enter totally. Do not let these rubbishy ideas lodge in your head that “this is wrong.” If you believe it is wrong, you will not truly enter; you will remain half-hearted. Your hand will reach out, but will stop midway, never touching the fire. Then you suffer double loss: neither experience happens nor retreat is possible. You hang in the middle, half-cooked.
On this earth those who hang in the middle have endless misery. From behind, the saints pull: “Come back!” From within, the divine pushes: “Go, pass through experience.” In this tug-of-war you are torn apart.
I say: do not listen to either side. Listen to nature, to your own swabhava. It says: go. Only keep one thing in mind: go with awareness, go with understanding. Go while seeing. What is lust? Why read about it in books? Enter and see. And when you enter, enter with total attention.
But I know people: they come to me and say, “How to be free of lust?” I ask, “When you enter the sexual act, is there any other thought in your mind?” They say, “A thousand thoughts. Sometimes we think of the shop, sometimes the market, sometimes something else. Sometimes we think, ‘What a sin we are committing! What will be the atonement?’”
If even when you go into sex your head is somewhere else, how will you know what it is? Gather your attention. Drop all thoughts. When you enter sex, enter wholly—with your whole heart, with your whole life, with full awareness—so that there is no need to enter again.
If even once there is a meeting of sex and awareness, the first awakening happens right there. Everything appears futile—childish. Even if you wish to go again, you cannot. The thing itself has become pointless.
Until this happens, you will have to go. Nature allows no exceptions. Nature lets cross only those who are fully ripe. It does not allow the unripe to pass. If you remain unripe, it will give you birth again; it will push you again.
If you insist on remaining half-cooked, you will wander for countless births. If you want to be ripe, drop fear, and experience nature with awareness. Liberation is there.
A friend has asked: Osho, Krishna says, “The devotee who lets go of all beginnings is dear to me.” So should one also let go of the very beginning of the search for the Divine?
If you have begun, then you should drop it. But if you haven’t even begun, what on earth will you drop? What do you have to let go of? If you have begun, then you will have to drop it. But where have you begun, that you could drop it!
Our trouble is that we don’t even know what we actually have! And often we drop what we don’t have, and cling to what we do.
Have you started the search for the Divine? Has the beginning happened? If it has, Krishna says, drop that too—this very moment you will become available. But if it hasn’t happened at all, how will you drop it!
A man deceives himself in so many ways that to take account of them is very difficult—very difficult.
People come to me and say, “You say one has to drop effort!” So I ask them, “Are you making any effort? If you have made the effort, then it must be dropped. But if you haven’t even begun to make an effort, what will you drop?”
People say it is not right to be bound to an idol, that idols must be abandoned. They are right. But have you become bound, so that you can abandon it?
Your condition is like this: I have heard that one day Mulla Nasruddin went to the marriage office and inquired about all the rules of divorce. Having understood everything, when he was about to leave, the registrar asked, “So when do you want to come to file for divorce?” He said, “I haven’t even married yet! I’m just making sure that if I do marry, there is the facility of divorce—so I won’t get stuck in a mess!”
You too start worrying about divorce without bothering whether the marriage has even happened. Have you begun the search for the Divine? Have you moved even an inch in that direction? Taken even one step? Even one glance towards it? Never.
If that beginning has happened, Krishna says, it has to be dropped.
All beginnings have to be left; only then does the end become available. All beginnings have to be left; only then is the goal attained. Beginning itself is a desire. Even to realize the Divine is a desire. And the difficulty is that to realize the Divine the mind must be empty of all desires. The desire to realize the Divine is also an obstacle.
But that is the last desire to go. Don’t drop it yet; as yet it has not even arisen. For now, let it be. For now I say: kindle as much desire as you can to realize the Divine. Let that desire be so total that all other desires are absorbed into it. Let all desires merge into a single stream: to realize the Divine. The desire for wealth—let it be submerged into this. The desire for love—let it be submerged into this. The desire for fame—let that too be submerged into this. Let all desires dissolve until only one remains: to realize the Divine. So that all the energies of your life run in one direction.
And the day this oneness happens within you, that very day drop even that desire—to realize the Divine. In that very moment the Divine is found. Because the Divine is not somewhere far away that you have to go searching; it is right here. What is far, you must walk to reach. What is near, you must stop to receive. What is lost must be searched for. What has never been lost only asks that you be still and look.
So that last desire—to realize the Divine—is only a device for dropping all other desires. When all have been dropped, drop that too—just as when a thorn lodges in the foot, we bring another thorn from a tree to extract the one in the foot.
But once you have taken out the thorn from the foot and thrown it away, what do you do with the second thorn that helped you? Do you keep it lodged in the wound? Do you preserve it, saying, “This thorn is very benevolent. How graciously it removed the old thorn. Let me keep it safe here in the wound—might need it someday.”
Then you would be being foolish. The whole operation of removing the thorn would have been in vain, because the second thorn is just as much a thorn. And it may well be stronger than the first—only then could it pull it out. Dangerous. This thorn will take your life.
The idea of the Divine, meditation on the Divine, is there to remove all the thorns of this world—but it too is a thorn.
But don’t be hasty, thinking, “If it’s a thorn, then what have we to do with it? We are already troubled by thorns—why pick up another?” Don’t be so quick. That thorn serves to remove all these other thorns. And the day your thorn is out, that day both thorns must be thrown away together; you don’t keep the second one either.
As all desires fall away, in the end the desire to realize the Divine also has to be dropped. It is the last desire. The very moment it drops you realize: it has always already been attained.
There is a limitation in our language: it makes it seem as if the Divine is somewhere to be sought, hidden somewhere far away, to be located; as if there is a path, a journey to a distant place.
This is a misconception. The Divine is your very being. The very name of your being is the Divine. You are because he is. It is his breath, his heartbeat. Your delusion is to think, “The breath is mine, the heartbeat is mine.” If just this delusion breaks, he is revealed. He was never hidden.
And this delusion will persist as long as you think, “I have to get something—to get God.” You remain as an ego because of your desire. As long as desire is there, you too will remain inside—otherwise who will desire!
And when all desires are lost, when even the last desire is lost, you too are lost—because when there is no desire, there is no desirer left. When that disappears, in that instant vision changes—like light suddenly coming on in the dark. Where nothing could be seen, everything becomes visible. As desire disappears, the darkness disappears and there is light.
The last question.
Our trouble is that we don’t even know what we actually have! And often we drop what we don’t have, and cling to what we do.
Have you started the search for the Divine? Has the beginning happened? If it has, Krishna says, drop that too—this very moment you will become available. But if it hasn’t happened at all, how will you drop it!
A man deceives himself in so many ways that to take account of them is very difficult—very difficult.
People come to me and say, “You say one has to drop effort!” So I ask them, “Are you making any effort? If you have made the effort, then it must be dropped. But if you haven’t even begun to make an effort, what will you drop?”
People say it is not right to be bound to an idol, that idols must be abandoned. They are right. But have you become bound, so that you can abandon it?
Your condition is like this: I have heard that one day Mulla Nasruddin went to the marriage office and inquired about all the rules of divorce. Having understood everything, when he was about to leave, the registrar asked, “So when do you want to come to file for divorce?” He said, “I haven’t even married yet! I’m just making sure that if I do marry, there is the facility of divorce—so I won’t get stuck in a mess!”
You too start worrying about divorce without bothering whether the marriage has even happened. Have you begun the search for the Divine? Have you moved even an inch in that direction? Taken even one step? Even one glance towards it? Never.
If that beginning has happened, Krishna says, it has to be dropped.
All beginnings have to be left; only then does the end become available. All beginnings have to be left; only then is the goal attained. Beginning itself is a desire. Even to realize the Divine is a desire. And the difficulty is that to realize the Divine the mind must be empty of all desires. The desire to realize the Divine is also an obstacle.
But that is the last desire to go. Don’t drop it yet; as yet it has not even arisen. For now, let it be. For now I say: kindle as much desire as you can to realize the Divine. Let that desire be so total that all other desires are absorbed into it. Let all desires merge into a single stream: to realize the Divine. The desire for wealth—let it be submerged into this. The desire for love—let it be submerged into this. The desire for fame—let that too be submerged into this. Let all desires dissolve until only one remains: to realize the Divine. So that all the energies of your life run in one direction.
And the day this oneness happens within you, that very day drop even that desire—to realize the Divine. In that very moment the Divine is found. Because the Divine is not somewhere far away that you have to go searching; it is right here. What is far, you must walk to reach. What is near, you must stop to receive. What is lost must be searched for. What has never been lost only asks that you be still and look.
So that last desire—to realize the Divine—is only a device for dropping all other desires. When all have been dropped, drop that too—just as when a thorn lodges in the foot, we bring another thorn from a tree to extract the one in the foot.
But once you have taken out the thorn from the foot and thrown it away, what do you do with the second thorn that helped you? Do you keep it lodged in the wound? Do you preserve it, saying, “This thorn is very benevolent. How graciously it removed the old thorn. Let me keep it safe here in the wound—might need it someday.”
Then you would be being foolish. The whole operation of removing the thorn would have been in vain, because the second thorn is just as much a thorn. And it may well be stronger than the first—only then could it pull it out. Dangerous. This thorn will take your life.
The idea of the Divine, meditation on the Divine, is there to remove all the thorns of this world—but it too is a thorn.
But don’t be hasty, thinking, “If it’s a thorn, then what have we to do with it? We are already troubled by thorns—why pick up another?” Don’t be so quick. That thorn serves to remove all these other thorns. And the day your thorn is out, that day both thorns must be thrown away together; you don’t keep the second one either.
As all desires fall away, in the end the desire to realize the Divine also has to be dropped. It is the last desire. The very moment it drops you realize: it has always already been attained.
There is a limitation in our language: it makes it seem as if the Divine is somewhere to be sought, hidden somewhere far away, to be located; as if there is a path, a journey to a distant place.
This is a misconception. The Divine is your very being. The very name of your being is the Divine. You are because he is. It is his breath, his heartbeat. Your delusion is to think, “The breath is mine, the heartbeat is mine.” If just this delusion breaks, he is revealed. He was never hidden.
And this delusion will persist as long as you think, “I have to get something—to get God.” You remain as an ego because of your desire. As long as desire is there, you too will remain inside—otherwise who will desire!
And when all desires are lost, when even the last desire is lost, you too are lost—because when there is no desire, there is no desirer left. When that disappears, in that instant vision changes—like light suddenly coming on in the dark. Where nothing could be seen, everything becomes visible. As desire disappears, the darkness disappears and there is light.
The last question.
A friend has asked: Osho, none among Buddha’s disciples rose to his stature. Among Christ’s disciples no second Christ was born. Mahavira’s disciples are just the opposite of him. In Krishna’s disciples too there is no Krishna. Do you still believe in the master–disciple tradition?
First, your information is very limited. Among Buddha’s disciples, thousands became buddhas. They did not become Gautama the Buddha. No one can become a second Gautama. They became buddhas; they attained buddhahood.
Gautama the Buddha—Siddhartha, son of Suddhodana—his unique personality, his particular flavor: that will never appear again. He is alone of his kind in this world.
You too are alone, unique, incomparable. There has never been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. There is no way to manufacture another you. Unrepeatable! No “ditto” of you can be produced. You are absolutely without a second.
Existence fashions each thing as incomparable. God is a wondrous artist—he does not copy. Even the greatest artists fall back into imitation eventually.
Once someone brought a painting to Picasso. Picasso’s originals fetch a great price. This one was valued around five hundred thousand rupees. The buyer came to confirm: Is it original? Did you paint it? Or is it a copy? Picasso glanced at it and said, “It’s a copy; not an original.”
The buyer was distraught. “But the seller said you painted it right before his eyes!”
So that man was brought in. He protested, “Have you lost your memory? I was right there as you painted this. It’s yours.” Picasso said, “When did I say I didn’t paint it? I did. But it’s still a copy—because I had already painted one like it before. This repeats that one. I too get tired and start repeating myself. So I don’t call it original. What difference does it make whether I copy myself or someone else does? A copy is a copy.”
But God has never made a copy. Each human being is one of a kind. Not only humans: on a large tree you won’t find two identical leaves; on this earth you won’t find two identical pebbles. Everything is original.
So no one can be exactly like Gautama the Buddha. That does not mean others did not attain buddhahood. Among Buddha’s disciples, hundreds attained.
Once someone asked Buddha—perhaps the same friend of yours—“You seem alone. You have ten thousand disciples; how many among them have attained?” Buddha said, “Hundreds among them have.”
The man said, “But there’s no sign of them!” Buddha replied, “I speak; they are silent. They are silent because while I speak, they have no need to be troubled. And you don’t ‘see’ me either; you only hear my words. If I were silent, you would be blind to me as well. When they speak, you will see them. They are silent, because I am speaking—no need.”
And whoever attains does not have to speak. Speaking is a different matter. Many true masters never spoke; they remained silent. Many did not speak but danced, sang—and that was their way of saying it. Many painted—and that was their saying. Many wrote songs and poems—and that was their saying. Some took up an instrument and went village to village, singing—and that was their saying. Each expressed as he could. One who could only remain silent, remained silent; he spoke through his silence.
There are other reasons too. Gautama was a prince. The whole country knew him. When he awakened, all eyes were on him. Some poor man may also have awakened—but no one knew him, no eyes were on him.
And Buddha was a teacher. Not everyone is a teacher; nor is it necessary. Teaching is a separate art, a distinct talent. Buddha could explain, say it, say it skillfully. That is why history remembers him. History does not record all buddhas—only those who leave bold lines upon it.
Among those who loved Christ, there were realized ones. But remember, Christ’s twelve disciples were very humble folk: a fisherman, a woodcutter, a carpenter, a cobbler—poor, unlettered people. Still, they attained; they knew what Jesus knew.
Yet Jesus was crucified—and that, paradoxically, became an advantage. Because of the crucifixion you remember him. Christianity was not born because of Jesus, but because of the cross. Had there been no crucifixion, Jesus would have been forgotten long ago. The cross became a mnemonic; his hanging on the cross became an event that overshadowed history. History has its own ways.
But don’t imagine that among the disciples of Mahavira, Krishna, Christ, or Buddha none attained. Many did—each in his way. They reached exactly where the masters reached—but by their own routes. One reached dancing; another in silence; another by speaking. The ways differed. But whosoever can surrender near a buddha-like presence will certainly arrive.
Surrender is the art of learning. Before a buddha-like presence you need the capacity to bow down completely. We have forgotten the art of bowing—that is why religion is fading from the world.
A friend once came to me—an intelligent, educated man, versed in philosophy. He asked fine, deep questions. But as he was leaving, he poured water over his own questions. He said, “One more thing: why are you sitting above and I below? I want to ask that!”
He had come to learn, yet could not even sit below. I said, “You should have said so at the start. I would have seated you even higher—no difficulty. Then I would learn from you. The day you feel you have something to teach me, do come; I will seat you high and sit below to learn. But if you have come to learn, then sitting below is not the point; the value lies in the feeling of bowing.”
It must have been pricking him all along. He had been talking lofty things—about God, the soul—but the one thought gnawing at him finally came out at the end: that he was sitting lower! He sat, yes, but didn’t even have the courage to say at the start, “I’ll stand; I won’t sit.” Or, “Bring a higher chair; I can’t sit low.” Had he said it, there would have been no issue. It would have been more honest, more true. He kept it hidden inside.
So his questions about God and the soul became false—because his real question surfaced at departure: “Why are you higher and I lower?”
The tendency to bow has been lost. The master–disciple relationship means nothing more than this: that when you go to learn, you go ready to bow. Otherwise, don’t go. Who is asking you to? If you can’t bow, then don’t go.
Our condition is such that we stand in a river and remain thirsty—because we won’t bend. If you won’t bend, how will your vessel fill with water? But we stand rigid. We’ll die of thirst—but how to bend, and before a river!
Don’t bend then. The river will keep flowing. Your bending won’t please the river. The river is not flowing to make you bend; it has no relish in that. If you are thirsty, bend. If not, keep standing.
But our mind is such that we stand stiff and demand that the river come, stoop to our vessel, fill it—and then thank us: “How kind of you to be thirsty, else my being a river would be pointless!”
The sole meaning of master–disciple is this: the master is one who has found, who is now flowing toward God—whose river is in flow. Not for long—soon it will merge into the ocean.
Outer rivers keep flowing. On the Himalayas rains fall each year, and rivers keep running. But these rivers of the buddhas and Krishnas and Christs do not flow forever. They appear, they flow, and then they disappear into the sea. It may take a thousand years for such a riverbed to vanish without a trace. These rivers are like the Saraswati, not like the Ganga or Yamuna—they become subterranean, hidden.
So while there is a chance, bend. People are so unwise that when the river is gone and only sand remains, they bow for thousands of years.
They are still bowing on Buddha’s dry riverbed! When Buddha was present, they stood rigid; now they bow. Now there is only sand; that river is long gone. Once there was a river there; now there is only sand.
And yet other rivers are flowing even now. But you won’t bow there—because bowing there might quench your thirst. Beware of that! This is the river-like situation of the master. And until the disciple becomes a disciple, learns to bow, nothing can be learned.
Gautama the Buddha—Siddhartha, son of Suddhodana—his unique personality, his particular flavor: that will never appear again. He is alone of his kind in this world.
You too are alone, unique, incomparable. There has never been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. There is no way to manufacture another you. Unrepeatable! No “ditto” of you can be produced. You are absolutely without a second.
Existence fashions each thing as incomparable. God is a wondrous artist—he does not copy. Even the greatest artists fall back into imitation eventually.
Once someone brought a painting to Picasso. Picasso’s originals fetch a great price. This one was valued around five hundred thousand rupees. The buyer came to confirm: Is it original? Did you paint it? Or is it a copy? Picasso glanced at it and said, “It’s a copy; not an original.”
The buyer was distraught. “But the seller said you painted it right before his eyes!”
So that man was brought in. He protested, “Have you lost your memory? I was right there as you painted this. It’s yours.” Picasso said, “When did I say I didn’t paint it? I did. But it’s still a copy—because I had already painted one like it before. This repeats that one. I too get tired and start repeating myself. So I don’t call it original. What difference does it make whether I copy myself or someone else does? A copy is a copy.”
But God has never made a copy. Each human being is one of a kind. Not only humans: on a large tree you won’t find two identical leaves; on this earth you won’t find two identical pebbles. Everything is original.
So no one can be exactly like Gautama the Buddha. That does not mean others did not attain buddhahood. Among Buddha’s disciples, hundreds attained.
Once someone asked Buddha—perhaps the same friend of yours—“You seem alone. You have ten thousand disciples; how many among them have attained?” Buddha said, “Hundreds among them have.”
The man said, “But there’s no sign of them!” Buddha replied, “I speak; they are silent. They are silent because while I speak, they have no need to be troubled. And you don’t ‘see’ me either; you only hear my words. If I were silent, you would be blind to me as well. When they speak, you will see them. They are silent, because I am speaking—no need.”
And whoever attains does not have to speak. Speaking is a different matter. Many true masters never spoke; they remained silent. Many did not speak but danced, sang—and that was their way of saying it. Many painted—and that was their saying. Many wrote songs and poems—and that was their saying. Some took up an instrument and went village to village, singing—and that was their saying. Each expressed as he could. One who could only remain silent, remained silent; he spoke through his silence.
There are other reasons too. Gautama was a prince. The whole country knew him. When he awakened, all eyes were on him. Some poor man may also have awakened—but no one knew him, no eyes were on him.
And Buddha was a teacher. Not everyone is a teacher; nor is it necessary. Teaching is a separate art, a distinct talent. Buddha could explain, say it, say it skillfully. That is why history remembers him. History does not record all buddhas—only those who leave bold lines upon it.
Among those who loved Christ, there were realized ones. But remember, Christ’s twelve disciples were very humble folk: a fisherman, a woodcutter, a carpenter, a cobbler—poor, unlettered people. Still, they attained; they knew what Jesus knew.
Yet Jesus was crucified—and that, paradoxically, became an advantage. Because of the crucifixion you remember him. Christianity was not born because of Jesus, but because of the cross. Had there been no crucifixion, Jesus would have been forgotten long ago. The cross became a mnemonic; his hanging on the cross became an event that overshadowed history. History has its own ways.
But don’t imagine that among the disciples of Mahavira, Krishna, Christ, or Buddha none attained. Many did—each in his way. They reached exactly where the masters reached—but by their own routes. One reached dancing; another in silence; another by speaking. The ways differed. But whosoever can surrender near a buddha-like presence will certainly arrive.
Surrender is the art of learning. Before a buddha-like presence you need the capacity to bow down completely. We have forgotten the art of bowing—that is why religion is fading from the world.
A friend once came to me—an intelligent, educated man, versed in philosophy. He asked fine, deep questions. But as he was leaving, he poured water over his own questions. He said, “One more thing: why are you sitting above and I below? I want to ask that!”
He had come to learn, yet could not even sit below. I said, “You should have said so at the start. I would have seated you even higher—no difficulty. Then I would learn from you. The day you feel you have something to teach me, do come; I will seat you high and sit below to learn. But if you have come to learn, then sitting below is not the point; the value lies in the feeling of bowing.”
It must have been pricking him all along. He had been talking lofty things—about God, the soul—but the one thought gnawing at him finally came out at the end: that he was sitting lower! He sat, yes, but didn’t even have the courage to say at the start, “I’ll stand; I won’t sit.” Or, “Bring a higher chair; I can’t sit low.” Had he said it, there would have been no issue. It would have been more honest, more true. He kept it hidden inside.
So his questions about God and the soul became false—because his real question surfaced at departure: “Why are you higher and I lower?”
The tendency to bow has been lost. The master–disciple relationship means nothing more than this: that when you go to learn, you go ready to bow. Otherwise, don’t go. Who is asking you to? If you can’t bow, then don’t go.
Our condition is such that we stand in a river and remain thirsty—because we won’t bend. If you won’t bend, how will your vessel fill with water? But we stand rigid. We’ll die of thirst—but how to bend, and before a river!
Don’t bend then. The river will keep flowing. Your bending won’t please the river. The river is not flowing to make you bend; it has no relish in that. If you are thirsty, bend. If not, keep standing.
But our mind is such that we stand stiff and demand that the river come, stoop to our vessel, fill it—and then thank us: “How kind of you to be thirsty, else my being a river would be pointless!”
The sole meaning of master–disciple is this: the master is one who has found, who is now flowing toward God—whose river is in flow. Not for long—soon it will merge into the ocean.
Outer rivers keep flowing. On the Himalayas rains fall each year, and rivers keep running. But these rivers of the buddhas and Krishnas and Christs do not flow forever. They appear, they flow, and then they disappear into the sea. It may take a thousand years for such a riverbed to vanish without a trace. These rivers are like the Saraswati, not like the Ganga or Yamuna—they become subterranean, hidden.
So while there is a chance, bend. People are so unwise that when the river is gone and only sand remains, they bow for thousands of years.
They are still bowing on Buddha’s dry riverbed! When Buddha was present, they stood rigid; now they bow. Now there is only sand; that river is long gone. Once there was a river there; now there is only sand.
And yet other rivers are flowing even now. But you won’t bow there—because bowing there might quench your thirst. Beware of that! This is the river-like situation of the master. And until the disciple becomes a disciple, learns to bow, nothing can be learned.
Osho's Commentary
“He who neither ever rejoices nor hates; who neither worries nor desires; who has renounced the fruits of all auspicious and inauspicious actions—that devotee is dear to me. And he who is the same toward enemy and friend, in honor and dishonor, the same in heat and cold and in the pairs of opposites like pleasure and pain, and who is unattached to the whole world—he is dear to me.”
“He who neither ever rejoices nor hates; who neither worries nor desires; who has renounced the fruits of all auspicious and inauspicious actions—that devotee is dear to me.”
What does this mean? You may wonder: “He who is never elated”—is even joy a hindrance? Is rejoicing a barrier? Krishna’s words seem to suggest so. We need to enter the psychology of it a little.
Why do you laugh? Have you ever asked yourself? Do you laugh because you are happy—or because you are unhappy?
It will sound the reverse—but you laugh because you are unhappy. Laughter is because of sorrow. You laugh to forget sorrow. Laughter is an antidote; it makes grief slip from memory. You switch to the other side. Inside you there is great tension; you laugh, the tension scatters and dissipates.
So don’t assume that those who laugh much are very happy people. Likely the opposite: they are deeply unhappy inside.
Nietzsche said, “I keep laughing. People ask me why, and I evade them—because the truth is reversed. I laugh so that I don’t start crying. If I stop laughing, I will cry. So that no one sees my tears, so that my helplessness is not exposed, I keep laughing. My laughter is a veil in which I hide my sorrow.”
The unhappy often laugh a lot. They’ll find some joke, some excuse—and laugh. Laughter brings a little lightness. But if a person ceases to be unhappy within, then this arrangement of “cheering up” breaks down. When sorrow has vanished from within, then this laughter, this being “elated,” ends; it does not survive.
This does not mean he will be gloomy. But the quality of his joy will be different. His joy will not be the opposite of sorrow; it will not be based upon sorrow. His joy will be natural, causeless.
Your joy is with a cause. Sorrow sits inside; then some cause appears and you brighten a little. His joy will be causeless. He will not laugh; rather, he will be laughter. If we put it this way—he will be in a laughing state—it may make sense. He will not laugh; he will be laughter. He will not even know when he is being “elated,” because he never turns sorrowful; there is no contrast to make him notice.
Krishna’s face never looks gloomy. His flute is always playing. But his joy is not like ours. Our joy is sickly; even our laughter is pathological—filled with sorrow within, with violence and tension concealed in it that come out through it.
Krishna’s laughter is the fragrance of a natural bliss. Think of that light before sunrise—night has gone, the sun not yet risen—the first soft glow of dawn: cool, with no glare, not even in opposition to darkness; twilight between the two. The joy of Krishnas and Buddhas is like that dawn-glow: no sorrow, no “pleasure”—twilight between both.
So Krishna says, “He who never rejoices...”
“Never”! Only one who is sometimes sad can be sometimes elated; otherwise “never” has no meaning.
“He who neither ever rejoices nor hates...”
Because the root of all sorrow is hatred. One who hates will be unhappy.
You know it—your sorrows are less from your own grief and more from others’ happiness! Your house may be enough for you; let the neighbor build a bigger one—and your misery begins.
I used to stay with a friend who was very pleased with his home. Whenever I visited, he proudly showed it: the swimming pool, the garden. It was a lovely house, a large garden, lots of marble—everything splendid. When I went there, it was hard to sit and talk; I had to listen to house-talk all day: this was made, and that was done. Every visit was the same; he was always building something.
Then once I went, and he said nothing about the house. I was puzzled. He had been mad about it—like he had come to earth only to build this house, with nothing else in his dream.
Even his wife was distressed. She told me, “I thought he was building this house for me—for the homemaker. Now it seems he brought a wife for the house—so the house won’t feel empty! I used to think he married me and therefore is building; now I feel I was wrong.”
When I found him silent about the house, I asked at noon, “What’s the matter? There’s a strange gloom. Why no mention of the house?” He said, “Don’t you see? Next door they’ve built a bigger one! What’s left to say about mine? Wait. In two or four years we’ll talk—once I’ve raised this higher than that...”
He was miserable, depressed. His house was unchanged. But a longer line got drawn next door; his line became shorter.
Your greater miseries aren’t your own; they are others’ happiness. And the converse is also true: your greater pleasures aren’t yours; they are others’ sorrows.
You feel happy when you make someone else’s house look smaller. Your own house gives you no joy. And when someone makes your house look small, you are miserable. Your house gives you neither joy nor sorrow; it’s others’ houses! Envy, jealousy...
Krishna says: he who neither hates nor rejoices, who does not worry...
What is worry? What is this churn within? We endlessly ruminate on what has happened. If you opened a man’s skull, you’d find a ruminant—chewing years-old cud: this happened, that happened.
Why carry what is no more? Or we fret about a future that isn’t yet. Either the past that has gone, or the future that has not come—and in this worrying we lose the present. God is now, here. And you are in the past or future. This worry bleeds life out; it exhausts you.
So Krishna says: one who does not worry—meaning, one who is quiet, here, neither entangled in past nor future—who abides in the present moment, untroubled, thought-free, beyond thought.
In the present there are no thoughts. All thoughts are of past or future. And the future is nothing but the projection of the past. Yet we drown in these—backward or forward. But here? Here you are not at all. And here is God. Hence no meeting.
Krishna says: one who does not worry, who does not desire, who has renounced the fruits of all auspicious and inauspicious actions—who has left all doership to God: “You are the doer.” Such a devotee is dear to me.
He who is the same toward enemy and friend, in honor and dishonor, in heat and cold, in pleasure and pain—unattached—is dear to me.
One who is even, who does not swing from one extreme to the other. We swing constantly. The one you love, you also hate. In the morning you love; by evening you hate. The one you find beautiful, you also find ugly—beautiful at dusk, ugly at dawn. What you like you also dislike; you swing round the clock, like a pendulum—left to right, right to left. This wavering, uneven mind cannot fathom the depths of existence.
Krishna says: one who is even. If happiness comes, he is unshaken; if sorrow comes, unshaken.
You are shaken in every condition. In sorrow you are shaken—and if you win a lottery, you may die of a heart attack!
I have heard: a church priest once got into trouble. A man had won a lakh-rupee lottery. His wife heard the news while the husband was out. She panicked: as soon as he hears about a lakh, his heart won’t stand it. She knew him—if he gets a rupee he goes wild; a lakh—he’ll go mad or die.
She thought, “I must do something before he gets home.” The priest next door was clever, wise. She went to him: “My husband has won a lakh-rupee lottery. He’ll be home soon. Please come over and break it to him in such a way that he doesn’t suffer the shock of happiness.”
The priest asked, “What will you give me?” She said, “Take five thousand.” He exclaimed, “What did you say—five thousand!” He had a heart attack and fell right there. The first casualty was the priest.
Human beings are shaken by the intense—whether pleasure or pain. Equanimity means not being shaken. Whatever comes, he receives it: “All right—come, and go.” Morning comes, evening comes, darkness, light, pleasure, pain, friend, foe—he accepts them quietly and stands apart, aloof, watching.
Such a person, Krishna says, is dear to me.
A few announcements for tomorrow. Only those friends should come who truly want to enter into this mood of devotion, because tomorrow will be for experiment. One sutra of the Gita remains; I will take it the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow there will be no Gita sutra. Tomorrow there will be no talk—something will be done.
Those who have listened these days—if you feel there is something to do, not only to hear—only those should come. Those who only want to hear can come the day after; tomorrow is their holiday. Those who want to do, come tomorrow.
Please keep this in honesty, because we cannot put up barriers here. If you don’t want to do and still come, we cannot stop you—but that will be your dishonesty. Don’t come. If you do, come resolved to participate in the experiment. That is the first point.
Second, those who are coming should bring a flower—any flower. And on the way keep repeating one thought like a mantra: “This flower is my ego; this flower is my ‘I-ness’; this is my ego.” Pour your entire ego into the flower.
With eyes open, with eyes closed—keep only this feeling. Smell the flower and feel, “This is my ego I am smelling.” Touch it and feel, “This is my ego I am touching.” Look at it and feel, “This is my ego I am seeing.”
From home to here, keep your attention on the flower and project your ego wholly into it. Immerse your ego into the flower.
As your ego enters the flower, the flower will begin to feel heavy. If you do the experiment rightly, you will clearly feel the flower’s weight. Not only that—as your ego enters, the flower will start to droop and wither.
Pour yourself into it with your whole life-breath, “Let my entire ego enter this flower.” Keep only this feeling; drop all other thoughts. If any thought intrudes, the moment you notice, drop it and return to, “This flower is my ego.” If you bring your ego contained in the flower, results will be possible here.
Bring the flower and sit quietly. And tomorrow, once you arrive, do not converse at all. Close your tongue entirely. Your talking will disturb your experiment. The moment you enter the ground, go silently to your place. Hold the flower between both hands and keep only one feeling, eyes closed: “Into this flower my whole ego is entering.” Keep doing this until I come. Once I arrive, I will tell you what to do next.
We will do a one-hour experiment. It is an experiment in collective shaktipat. If you agree to drop your ego, if you have contained it in the flower, I will come and say, “Now throw the flower away.” Until I say so, keep holding it. As the flower drops, you will feel as if a load has been lifted from your head—a weight, a mountain. And once that is gone, another work will be possible.
For the first twenty minutes, there will be music here, and I will keep looking at you. During those twenty minutes you must gaze at me without blinking. Even if tears flow, do not blink. For twenty minutes gaze steadily. The whole world is gone; there is only you and me. Just the two of us remain.
If this feeling comes—just the two of us remain, you and I—I will begin to work upon you. And what you cannot do alone in years can happen in moments.
But courage is needed to keep your eyes fixed on me for twenty minutes. Look at no one else. There will be many people here—no concern of yours. Look at me. If your neighbor begins to cry or scream or do something, do not turn your eyes. Look at me.
This experiment is grave and profound. If you do it with a little understanding, you will enter great experience.
For twenty minutes look at me. Whatever arises within, let it arise. Someone will scream, someone will cry. Someone has held his tears back for years, lifetimes—old wounds will start to flow. Someone will burst out laughing. Someone will behave like a madman. Don’t bother. And if something wants to happen within you, don’t stop it. Come only if you have this courage.
Come only if you have the courage to go mad. If you hold yourself back, your coming is pointless—and because of you the atmosphere around you will also be wasted. Don’t come. There is no need.
For twenty minutes I will try, through your eyes, to draw out your diseases, your disorders. If you cooperate, untold mental tensions, illnesses, worries will drop. You will become suddenly light.
Then twenty minutes of silence. In that silence, sit like a stone. Eyes closed, body left like a corpse.
Then for the last twenty minutes you will have a chance to express what arose in that twenty minutes of silence—the joy that will have descended—deep, unfamiliar peace will begin to flow within like a spring. You will have twenty minutes to give it expression.
Someone will dance with joy, someone will sing, someone will chant. But do not attend to others. Attend to your own inner feeling: if you feel to dance, dance; if to sit quietly, sit; if to sing, sing. Pay no mind to anyone.
If for one hour you cooperate with me, I can enter within you. Much can be transformed inside you.
The purpose is to give you a glimpse. How will we even seek that for which we have no taste at all? If we have never tasted a drop of God, how will we set out in search? If a little glimpse comes; a faint note is heard; a little spring of bliss breaks forth; a little light appears—then we, too, will start running. Sloth will drop from our feet; dullness will leave our life-breath. But a glimpse—just a glimpse! Then we will search for lifetimes. He cannot escape us then. Wherever he is, we will find his trail.
I have heard: a caravan of gypsies left a village, and they stole a child—the priest’s little boy. They locked him inside their wagon and moved on.
Gypsies often steal children. The child was too small to understand what was happening. Lying in the wagon, his attention was toward the village, which was receding.
It was evening; the church bells were ringing. He listened. As the wagon went farther, the bell grew fainter. He listened even more intently—perhaps this would be the last time; who knows if he would ever hear it again? The only memory of his village—the fading sound of that bell...
He listened so intently that the clatter of wheels, the horses’ hooves, the gypsies’ talk—all faded. Only the bell could be heard. He listened far into the hush.
Years passed. He grew up. Only one memory of his village remained—the bell’s sound. He could not recall his father’s name, nor the village’s name, nor its look. The church, the house—everything had been forgotten; he had been so small. But one thing had sunk deep—the bell’s sound.
What use is a bell’s sound? How to find the way back? As a young man he ran away from the gypsies. Each evening, wherever he was, he stood near some village and listened for bells.
They say that after five years of searching, one evening he recognized a bell. “This is the one.” He went away from the church and checked—yes, the farther he went, the fainter it became—just as it had that first time.
He ran to the church. The sound matched. He recognized the church. He fell at his father’s feet. The father was old, near death. He could not recognize his son. He asked, “How did you recognize? How did you find your way back? I had even forgotten you.” The son said, “A sound—the bell of this church—stayed with me.”
If in tomorrow’s experiment even a faint note of the divine is heard, it will stay with you. And across lifetimes, wherever that note is heard, you will know the temple is near—search is possible.
But tomorrow only those should come who are prepared to do the experiment. The rest—honestly—should not come.
Now let us do kirtan. Sit in your places for five minutes. Do not get up. Leave after the kirtan.