Become an offering, an opening, a prayer
The Buddha Disease #17
Date:
1977-01-17
(pm)
Place:
Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Osho's Commentary
Prem means love and achintya means inconceivable. And love is inconceivable through the mind, through the intellect. You cannot think about it, you cannot know it by thinking. There is no way to approach it intellectually. You can know it, but the knowledge has to be totally different than that of the intellect. the knowledge has to be intuitive. The knowledge has to be more total -- not only in the head, but spread all over.
Love can be known only as a participant, as an insider. You have to move into it. Unless you are affected by it, you will never know it. and the scientific approach is that you should not be affected by the thing you are going to know. You should remain aloof, detached... unaffected. You should not get involved in it: that is the scientific way to know a thing.
So science knows everything except love. and because the scientific attitude cannot know love, it cannot know prayer. Because it cannot know love, it cannot know the innermost core of human beings, because that core consists of love. Because it cannot know love, it cannot know god, because god is nothing but the ultimate love.
[The disheartened reader with a scientific bent, should refer to 'Shadow of the Whip' December 3rd, where Osho talks to a biologist about science and meditation. He said, '... In fact a scientist can meditate better than anybody else...']
So ordinarily, love is inconceivable. But there is a way to approach it. The way is not of a detached observer -- the way is of one who gets involved in it, the way of commitment, involvement. One can know it by being drunk with it. One can know it by being drowned in it. The way is not scientific but artistic -- the way of all aesthetics.
A poet knows the flower -- not the way a botanist knows it. The poet participates in the being of the flower. He forgets himself in it. The observer becomes the observed and the observed becomes the observer. They both become one. There comes a moment of a poetic participation when the poet and the flower are not two things... merging into each other, melting, overlapping, overflowing into each other. A moment comes when the poet does not know who is who -- who is the flower and who is the poet.
In that moment, exactly in that moment, there arises a totally different kind of knowing. It is not good to even call it 'knowing', because the very word gives a sense of your being aloof.
The same way -- the poet's way -- is the religious way. The poet tries to be involved with flowers, with a beautiful face, with the moon, with the stars... with particular manifestations. And religion tries to get involved with the total -- not with any particular: the flower and the moon and the river. No -- the religious person wants to get involved in the basic reality which flows as the river somewhere, blooms as a flower somewhere, shines like a star... the substratum of it all. He wants to get involved with that substratum.
That's what god is -- not a person, not someone sitting there in heaven, but the basic substratum of all reality.
And there are two ways to approach: one is the scientific way. It is doomed to fail from the very beginning. It will know many things but it will always miss the ultimate. Before the ultimate it will be simply useless... not only useless, but dangerous too, because it will deny.... When it is not able to know, it will say,'If I cannot know, then it cannot be.'
So try love. Try the approach of the poet and the mystic. That is going to be your way. Love is going to be your way of knowing. To remind you, this name will constantly work: love inconceivable. And all conceivability is of the mind, hence love is inconceivable. You can experience. It is experiencable, but not conceivable....
Prem means love, and angali means a prayer... and many things more. It means offering, too. And literally what you are doing with your hands -- this is called angali.
When somebody goes to the temple with hands put in this gesture, it shows,'I am ready to receive you' -- a gesture of receptivity...'If you come, you will not find my heart closed. If god comes, he will find me a ready host. My doors will be open for you -- and not only that, there will be welcome. You will not have to knock on the doors. I will be ready, and I will be waiting ecstatically.'
Angali means all this. It is one of the most beautiful names possible. So become an angali, mm? an offering, a prayer, an opening and a receptivity.
Osho's Commentary
Love can be known only as a participant, as an insider. You have to move into it. Unless you are affected by it, you will never know it. and the scientific approach is that you should not be affected by the thing you are going to know. You should remain aloof, detached... unaffected. You should not get involved in it: that is the scientific way to know a thing.
So science knows everything except love. and because the scientific attitude cannot know love, it cannot know prayer. Because it cannot know love, it cannot know the innermost core of human beings, because that core consists of love. Because it cannot know love, it cannot know god, because god is nothing but the ultimate love.
[The disheartened reader with a scientific bent, should refer to 'Shadow of the Whip' December 3rd, where Osho talks to a biologist about science and meditation. He said, '... In fact a scientist can meditate better than anybody else...']
So ordinarily, love is inconceivable. But there is a way to approach it. The way is not of a detached observer -- the way is of one who gets involved in it, the way of commitment, involvement. One can know it by being drunk with it. One can know it by being drowned in it. The way is not scientific but artistic -- the way of all aesthetics.
A poet knows the flower -- not the way a botanist knows it. The poet participates in the being of the flower. He forgets himself in it. The observer becomes the observed and the observed becomes the observer. They both become one. There comes a moment of a poetic participation when the poet and the flower are not two things... merging into each other, melting, overlapping, overflowing into each other. A moment comes when the poet does not know who is who -- who is the flower and who is the poet.
In that moment, exactly in that moment, there arises a totally different kind of knowing. It is not good to even call it 'knowing', because the very word gives a sense of your being aloof.
The same way -- the poet's way -- is the religious way. The poet tries to be involved with flowers, with a beautiful face, with the moon, with the stars... with particular manifestations. And religion tries to get involved with the total -- not with any particular: the flower and the moon and the river. No -- the religious person wants to get involved in the basic reality which flows as the river somewhere, blooms as a flower somewhere, shines like a star... the substratum of it all. He wants to get involved with that substratum.
That's what god is -- not a person, not someone sitting there in heaven, but the basic substratum of all reality.
And there are two ways to approach: one is the scientific way. It is doomed to fail from the very beginning. It will know many things but it will always miss the ultimate. Before the ultimate it will be simply useless... not only useless, but dangerous too, because it will deny.... When it is not able to know, it will say,'If I cannot know, then it cannot be.'
So try love. Try the approach of the poet and the mystic. That is going to be your way. Love is going to be your way of knowing. To remind you, this name will constantly work: love inconceivable. And all conceivability is of the mind, hence love is inconceivable. You can experience. It is experiencable, but not conceivable....
Prem means love, and angali means a prayer... and many things more. It means offering, too. And literally what you are doing with your hands -- this is called angali.
When somebody goes to the temple with hands put in this gesture, it shows,'I am ready to receive you' -- a gesture of receptivity...'If you come, you will not find my heart closed. If god comes, he will find me a ready host. My doors will be open for you -- and not only that, there will be welcome. You will not have to knock on the doors. I will be ready, and I will be waiting ecstatically.'
Angali means all this. It is one of the most beautiful names possible. So become an angali, mm? an offering, a prayer, an opening and a receptivity.