How are we to salute you?

Osho, my hand just won’t leave my heart—how are we to salute you?

So I said to that man, “Do not say this again. I understand why you are saying it: so that the people of your village will recognize that although you have come for the darshan of a non-Muslim, you are still a Muslim. If even in a moment of love it still occurs to you that I am a Muslim, I am a Hindu, I am a Jain, I am a Christian, then that love is not worth two pennies.” It is enough that your hand has reached your chest. And the hand has reached the chest only because the feeling has arisen in the heart. The salaam has happened, the pranam has happened, the prayer has happened, the meditation has happened. All the mantra-like, mysterious experiences of life happen in that small instant. Now do nothing more. Because if you do something more, then you will be the doer.…

Osho, my voice is utterly inadequate—how can I offer my homage? My very being says only this: let me offer you a mute salutation!

Jagdish Bharti! To become silent, to fall utterly quiet, is the way to say the deepest of things. Words touch only the surface; silence touches the bottomless depths. Truth abides in those fathomless depths, while words live on the surface. That is why no word can express truth. Nor can any word express love. Nor can any word express beauty. Truth is utterly helpless before speech—it cannot speak, it is speechless. And words too are helpless, impotent; they are fine for the workaday world, for give-and-take. But the deeper you go, the more useless words become. Homage can only be silent. Homage is surrender; it is to bow down. Why have people bowed in prayer for centuries? Do you think putting your head on the earth makes you religious? Putting your head on the earth does not make you religious. But what is one to do? Words fail—and yet gratitude…

Osho, what should I write? Nothing comes. Only a pranam arises. How should I do it? I don’t even know how. You have refined me so much that only You remain. The ego will melt only through You. Melt it and free me from this pain—this is my prayer. My prayer resounds; will it go on resounding in the future—may I keep such hope?

You did not go hunting for arguments, Yogananda. You came. You dived in with a simple heart. You had faults, as everyone has; you had mistakes, lapses. You were afraid too—whether I would give you sannyas or not. For me there is only one fault that can stop: cowardice. That was not in you. All other faults have no weight. Someone even said to me: “You are giving sannyas to Yogananda? He has a habit of intoxicants!” I said: “We will give him an even greater intoxication! Let us see which intoxication wins.” And the new intoxication has begun to win. In the past Yogananda would come only sometimes. Now he has settled—now he doesn’t go. Now he wants to be part of the ashram, wants to be absorbed in the work. I don’t bother with little, petty matters. Someone said: “He smokes.” So let him! What is made or…

Osho, what should I call you—Prabhu, Vibhu, or Shambhu? I ask this so that I may bow at your feet continuously. Only there do I wish to bow for all three times. Now please hear my prayer!

So absorbed in worship that one forgets even to raise the hands. You don’t remember to bow—you are bowed. So immersed in devotion! “Now, for prayer, my hands no longer rise; the heart seems lost in surrender and consent.” The temperament is so drowned in worship, in prayer: who remembers when to raise hands, when to offer flowers, when to mark the forehead? Bowed is bowed. Bowing is not an outer affair. It is inner—an inward mood. You ask to bow for three times. You will be in trouble, and you’ll put me in trouble too. If you must bow, bow—just spare me! “Because I may bow at your feet continuously.” What is the fear? Why make it “continuous”? Is this moment not enough? Settle this moment within itself. The next moment will care for itself. Why keep accounts of tomorrow? Surely your today is poor. Talk of tomorrow arises…

Osho, assalam alaikum! I have said salaam since childhood, but when I sang it here in the music meditation, a kind of ecstasy came over me. Tears came and laughter too. My being blossomed! I felt like kissing your feet; to bow—bow—and keep on bowing. Thank you!

No, drop the concern! This is a congregation of madfolk anyway. Here no one is taking care of anyone else. Here each is diving within himself. So sometimes a few sannyasins come and tell me that one thing feels very strange in this ashram—that people are each absorbed in themselves, as if no one cares about anyone else! It shouldn’t be like this, they say. They don’t know yet. I tell them, wait a little; it will happen to you too. This “disease” will catch you as well. To be absorbed in oneself is enough. The relish people take in one another is in fact a relish for interfering in one another. Who is laughing, who is crying, who is doing what—people stay terribly eager about these things! They have no news of themselves and go about broadcasting the news of the whole world. Don’t be anxious. Let the ecstasy…