[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.]
[Praying when you don't know how to meditate is like posting a letter to someone whose name and address you don't know. That was the gist of what Osho said a couple of nights ago. There is no need to even compose a letter because god only understands silence, was the line he took tonight.]
God does not understand Sanskrit, he does not understand Hebrew, he does not understand Latin or Greek -- he does not understand any language.
On the earth there are three thousand languages and scientists say there are at least fifty thousand populated earths, so you can think how many languages.... It would be enough to drive God crazy. It is good that he decided beforehand that he would understand only silence.
To say anything to God is meaningless, it is a monologue. Of course, people like Martin Buber think prayer is a dialogue -- it is not. It is a monologue, there is no other party. You are simply talking to yourself, talking loudly, believing that there is a God who is listening. But God is not a person in the first place, there is nobody to listen.
Hence all prayers which are said are childish, foolish. Meditation is the only real prayer because it is an unsaid prayer. You don't say anything, you simply become silent. You bow down to the whole with deep gratitude, with a great thankfulness, without any words. Your whole being is prayerful.
Prayer is a prayerfulness, and it is possible only through the art of meditation. Hence I am not teaching prayer here, I am teaching meditation because prayer comes out of it in its own time. Meditation is like a flower and prayer is like a fragrance. If the flower is there fragrance is bound to come, it is inevitable that it comes. But you cannot bring a fragrance without the flower. And that's what millions of people are doing in the churches and the temples: trying to bring the fragrance without growing roses.
I am trying to grow roses here. I have chosen the color of the roses for sannyas. These are my roses and this is my garden. And fragrance has started happening, a few buds are opening. The spring is not far away!
[The proof of god lies in your love for the life he has surrounded you with. Osho was talking to Michael from Germany.]
The deeper you love, the deeper your roots enter into god, the more you become convinced of the existence of god.
God is not an argument. There is no philosophical way to prove god, god can be disproved philosophically. There are a thousand and one arguments against him but not a single argument for him. But love is enough. All those thousands of arguments against god simply fall away like dry leaves. Once you know love you have entered the door of the divine.
My whole message is nothing but love. Love men, women, trees, birds, animals, rocks, stars. It does not matter what you love -- love! Be in love with love. That's what sannyas is all about.
[It's a paradox, this mystery called love, Osho went on to say to another sannyasin.]
Love does not want to rule but it becomes wants to conquer but it becomes a conqueror. In fact love wants to be conquered, love wants to surrender, but through surrender the miracle happens; the miracle that surrender changes into victory.
Love does not win through violence, because a victory through violence is not much of a victory; it is a forced phenomenon. The victory that comes through love is natural, spontaneous. And the other is not insulted but dignified, the other is not humiliated but respected.
When two lovers are in deep surrender both become victorious, nobody is the defeated party. This is the miracle of love: both are victorious in love. In fact when they surrender they disappear as individuals. There are not two persons any more but only one being -- one being in two souls, one being in two bodies, one being in two manifestations. And the same happens with the ultimate love I call prayer.
When you fall in love with the whole existence you become victorious but the whole is not defeated. This is the beauty of love that it makes both parties victorious.
[Nobody is really interested in god said the mystic to his newest disciple.]
Even priests are not interested in god. The very word "god" does not create anything in your heart, it does not ring any bells; it is something arbitrary, artificial. But bliss is natural -- even trees are searching for it in their own way.
In African jungles the trees grow so high -- why? The same trees don't grow so high in India or anywhere else. In African jungles they have to grow high because they want to have sunlight and the jungles are so thick that if they don't grow high they will not have any meeting with the stars and the moon and the sun. And that is their bliss, their joys to dance in the wind with the clouds.
Scientists are puzzled about a strange fact, that somehow trees sense, where, in what direction to send the roots. For example, if at its right side, five hundred yards away, there is a pipeline of which the tree cannot in any way be aware, it's roots will start moving towards the pipeline; its roots won't move in any other direction. It has some subtle sense, as if it knows instinctively where the water is.
Animals are searching for bliss in their own way, man is searching in his own way. The theists, the atheists, the believers, the non-believers -- all are seeking bliss. Hence I say bliss is the ultimate truth. If you love the word "god" you can call it god, if you love the word "nirvana" you can call it nirvana, but "satyam", the ultimate truth, is the most beautiful word.
The ultimate truth is the centre of existence, it is bliss, and everybody is moving towards it. Those who are intelligent move consciously so that they can avoid unnecessary things, unnecessary by-paths, cul-de-sacs, so they are not worried about non-essentials; they move directly. Those who are not so intelligent, not so conscious, go zigzag; they take a long time, millions of lives even.
To be a sannyasin means a deliberate, conscious search for truth, for bliss, for god. It is a commitment, an involvement, a conscious decision that 'from this moment my life will be devoted to that which can fulfil it, which can make me contented.'
[However diligently you work on a stone you can never make a pearl of it. That's what we try to do though, Osho said.]
We go on polishing the mind in schools, colleges, universities, with the hope that we will be able to create an intelligent humanity. Our stupidity is such that for five thousand years we have been doing this and yet we have not realised the fact that humanity has not become intelligent at all. On the contrary, human beings have become more unintelligent.
In fact the uneducated person seems to be more sharp, more intelligent, than the so-called professor, the scholar, the pundit. or course the professor knows many words and he can quote scriptures, and the uneducated person knows no information, but put them in any real situation and you will immediately see that the uneducated behaves more intelligently than the educated.
It is said of Edison that he had two cats and sometimes he had to wait for the cats to come in at night. Somebody suggested "Why don't you make a hole in the door so you can go to sleep -- whenever the cats want to they can come in and they can also go to sleep. There is no need to wait for them." He liked the idea.
The man who had suggested it was his own servant, absolutely uneducated. Two poles: Edison, the man who invented one thousand scientific gadgets -- the gramophone, the radio, the electric bulb... In fact without Edison you would be in difficulty living because all gadgets are his. And the servant was utterly uneducated.
The next day, when the servant came, he was puzzled. He asked Edison "What have you done? Why have you made two holes?" He said "But I have got two cats and how can two cats pass through one hole?" The servant could not believe him: what nonsense was this?
In any real situation you will be able to see who is intelligent. The challenge has to be new otherwise the scholar will win the race. If it is something old that he knows about then he will seem to be very intelligent, but if it is something absolutely new about which he has no information he will prove less intelligent than the uninformed person.
The uninformed person has to depend on his own consciousness and the informed person depends on his memory -- that's where the difference lies. The uninformed person has not much of a mind but he has some natural quality of meditativenes~.
Each child is born with it, it is our natural ingredient. It is not something that has to be learned, meditation has only to be discovered. It is hidden behind layers of mind. And the whole process of meditation is to cut through all these layers so that you can rediscover your natural intelligence. And to be naturally intelligent is to be blissful, to be naturally intelligent is to know what life is all about. In being naturally intelligent one is bound to experience godliness all around.
Mind is mediocre, all minds are mediocre -- the great minds and the small minds. They differ only in degree , degrees of mediocrity. But intelligence means a glimpse of no-mind, and all original insights have arisen out of that state of no-mind.
I call that state meditation. Meditation is the art of slipping out of the grip of the mind so that you can see existence as it is without any prejudices. Then there is great light, clarity, understanding, and to live out of that clarity, understanding, out of that light, is to live a life of celebration. That is the goal of sannyas. How long will you be here? he asked. Only a month, was the reply.
Then come back again, Osho smiled. And finally you have to come forever -- this is your home!
[This is your name Osho told Marco from Italy, Swami Veet Marko. Veet means going beyond, Marko means warlike.]
In the past we have praised warlike qualities very much because the whole past of humanity is nothing but wars and wars. In three thousand years we have fought five thousand wars. It is rare to find a single day when somewhere on the earth war is not going on. It seems man lives only to fight.
They say that we fight to live, but the fact seems to be just the opposites we live to fight. If there is nothing to fight we simply feel empty, unoccupied, we have nothing to do. And everybody knows the fact that whenever two countries are at war, destroying each other, both countries become very alive. People have more liveliness; their faces are more shining, their eyes seem to be clean and clear as if some dust has fallen, some boredom has disappeared.
We have been trained for thousands of years for war and now a great problem has arisen in the World: because of that training we have come to a state where total war is possible. All other wars were partial -- a little bit of destruction used to happen -- but now we are capable of destroying the whole earth totally. And not only this earth, we are capable of destroying seven hundred earths of this size and shape.
This state was never conceived before, this is new. Now we have to learn something new to face it. We have to drop praising warlike qualities. Instead of the soldier the sannyasin has to be praised. The soldier moans hate and the sannyasin stands for love.
Unless we create a great movement around the earth of people who love, who enjoy loving, we will not be able to survive more than twenty years. These twenty years are going to be very decisive. It has never been such a decisive time ever, in the whole of history. For the first time we are coming close- to a point where either we will commit a global suicide or we will enter into a new phase of humanity -- a new quantum jump.
You can see this happening everywhere. In India, particularly, it is very apparent: if two persons are walking on the street holding hands or two lovers meet on the street and embrace each other or kiss each other, that is enough to enrage the whole Indian mind. It is as if love is something ugly. But if two persons are fighting on the same street, daggers in their hands, ready to kill each other, a crowd of a thousand people will gather to watch. Nobody is there to condemn it. This is
In Indian films kissing is not allowed but murder is allowed! There is no question about murder; it seems that is very cultural and religious. Rape is allowed but not kissing! Love seems to be very dangerous to the old idea of culture, religion and man, because the old idea is rooted in hate. have always been condemned and soldiers have been praised. All around the earth you will see statues of great soldiers, memorials to the unknown soldier , but have you ever heard of any memorial for the unknown lovers? (laughter) Or have you seen any statue of two lovers in deep embrace?
What kind of idea have we evolved about human beings? Something seems to be ill and pathological. My effort here is to change the whole pattern.
Your name, Marko, means warlike and I am adding to it a word 'veet'; now it means go beyond warlikeness and become a sannyasin. Soldiers are no more needed in the world; in fact politics are not needed in the world. It is outdated, there is no future for politics. If we want humanity to survive there is no future for politics, no future for nations, no future for races, no future for wars.
[To another Mark, Osho added 'dhyan' so he became a warrior of the inner.]
There is no need to fight with others -- it is a sheer wastage of energy. There are many things inside we have to fight against: the ego, greed, violence, ambitiousness, possessiveness, and so on, so forth. These are the real enemies -- fight with them. And the art of fighting with them is meditation.
Watch them, be aware of them, because there are a few things which simply disappear by watching. If you can be aware of your anger the anger will disappear. Try it and you will be surprised. Just watch it arising, see the cloud surrounding you, trying to pull you in, making every effort to seduce you. Just remain aloof, a watcher on the hills, far away, just a witness and you will be surprised; within minutes the cloud is gone. And when the cloud of anger goes without affecting you, you fall into such a beautiful silence which you may not have known before at all. It is the silence that follows the storm. It is really penetrating, it goes to the deepest core of your being. It is a great nourishment for the soul.
So watch the inner enemies, meditate on the inner enemies, and slowly slowly they start dying of their own accord. A moment comes when you are there and there is nothing to watch. A contentless consciousness -- that is the ultimate peak of meditation. You have won, you are victorious.
In India we have called this state the state of a jina, one who has conquered. We have called Mahavira, the Jina; Jina means one who has conquered. And we have called Siddharth Gautama, the Buddha -- one who has become fully aware. But these are two aspects of the same coin: you become aware and you become a conqueror. You can become a conqueror only if you become aware!
[Her name, Julian, means youthful, Osho told a Dutchwoman. And he prefixed it with 'Dhyan', meditation.]
Mind is always old, never young. Even the youngest mind is not young. It cannot be young because mind means the accumulated past.
Your mind consists of your past experiences -- how can it be young? It can be one day old, it can be ten years old, it can be eighty years old, but it cannot be young. Even the child who is just born has a mind, a few seconds old. By its very nature mind is old. And meditation is young, always young; hence the meditator retains a certain inner youthfulness.
Of course the body will become old. If you go into Indian temples you will be surprised: you will not see a single statue of Rama as an old man -- not that he never became old. You will not find a single statue of Krishna as old, yet he died when he was eighty-five. You will not find a single statue of Buddha as old, yet he died when he was eighty-two -- very old. Mahavira was eighty when he died and he was very ill, he suffered for six months. But not a single statue of these people as old people exists in India. This is to represent their meditativeness -- because we are not concerned with Buddha's body or Mahavira's body or Krishna's body; we are concerned with their inner consciousness, and that is young.
Meditation keeps you fresh, as fresh as the dewdrops in the morning, as fresh as the new rays of the early morning sun, as fresh as the just-opening buds of a flower. And to know this youthfulness is to know something of eternity.
Mind is old, and mind is time. Meditation is always young and timeless. To know meditation is to know the world of timelessness, deathlessness, because when something never becomes old how can it die? And when something is always old, how can it live? The mind never lives; it only pretends to live. And meditation always lives. Even when dying, a meditator knows that he is not dying; a meditator can laugh at death.
A Zen master was dying. He suddenly asked his disciples, "Tell me how to die, in what posture? Should I be lying down or sitting or standing?" They were in a sad state, feeling the misery -- the master was dying and he was not giving up his old tricks yet! At the point of death he was asking, "In what posture...?" What does it matter?
The master asked, "Have you heard of anybody dying in a sitting posture?" One man said "Yes, we have -- a few Zen masters have died in a sitting posture." The master said, "Then that is not for me because I don't want to repeat. Have you heard of anybody standing and dying?" One man said "I cannot be absolutely certain but I have heard that once in China a Zen master died standing." The master said "Then that too is cancelled. Have you heard of anybody dying standing on his head?"
Nobody had heard of it. Nobody had even thought about it! How can you die standing on your head, doing sirshasan, a headstand? They said, "We have never heard of it -- and this is so ridiculous, the very idea..." The master said, "Then that is good, I shall do it." He stood on his head and the disciples simply watched, they could not do anything. Now they were at a loss as to what to do. Has he died or not? They had never heard of any convention about what you have to do when a man dies on his head.
Somebody reminded them that his elder sister was a Zen nun and she lived just nearby. It would be better to call her and leave it to her. She came -- she was an enlightened woman. She came and she shouted at her brother; she said "You stupid -- is this a way to die? And does it suit an enlightened person? Behave!" And of course as she was the elder sister the Zen master laughed and came down from his headstand. The sister said, "For the whole of your life you have been doing mischief. Now at least at the tome of death, don't be mischievous: lie down on the bed and die as one is supposed to die!" So he lay himself down on the bed and died!
And the sister left immediately. When her brother died she said, "Now it is finished, now you can do whatsoever you want to do. Now I am no more needed."
When you know your inner eternity, your inner immortality, death is a laughing phenomenon; you can laugh at it. Meditation makes it possible to live a life of laughter and also to die a death laughingly, celebratingly. The whole of life and death become nothing but a cosmic joke. Hence my love for jokes! How long will you be here? Two weeks. Then come back again because you will have to learn how to die.
Osho's Commentary
[Praying when you don't know how to meditate is like posting a letter to someone whose name and address you don't know. That was the gist of what Osho said a couple of nights ago. There is no need to even compose a letter because god only understands silence, was the line he took tonight.]
God does not understand Sanskrit, he does not understand Hebrew, he does not understand Latin or Greek -- he does not understand any language.
On the earth there are three thousand languages and scientists say there are at least fifty thousand populated earths, so you can think how many languages.... It would be enough to drive God crazy. It is good that he decided beforehand that he would understand only silence.
To say anything to God is meaningless, it is a monologue. Of course, people like Martin Buber think prayer is a dialogue -- it is not. It is a monologue, there is no other party. You are simply talking to yourself, talking loudly, believing that there is a God who is listening. But God is not a person in the first place, there is nobody to listen.
Hence all prayers which are said are childish, foolish. Meditation is the only real prayer because it is an unsaid prayer. You don't say anything, you simply become silent. You bow down to the whole with deep gratitude, with a great thankfulness, without any words. Your whole being is prayerful.
Prayer is a prayerfulness, and it is possible only through the art of meditation. Hence I am not teaching prayer here, I am teaching meditation because prayer comes out of it in its own time. Meditation is like a flower and prayer is like a fragrance. If the flower is there fragrance is bound to come, it is inevitable that it comes. But you cannot bring a fragrance without the flower. And that's what millions of people are doing in the churches and the temples: trying to bring the fragrance without growing roses.
I am trying to grow roses here. I have chosen the color of the roses for sannyas. These are my roses and this is my garden. And fragrance has started happening, a few buds are opening. The spring is not far away!
[The proof of god lies in your love for the life he has surrounded you with. Osho was talking to Michael from Germany.]
The deeper you love, the deeper your roots enter into god, the more you become convinced of the existence of god.
God is not an argument. There is no philosophical way to prove god, god can be disproved philosophically. There are a thousand and one arguments against him but not a single argument for him. But love is enough. All those thousands of arguments against god simply fall away like dry leaves. Once you know love you have entered the door of the divine.
My whole message is nothing but love. Love men, women, trees, birds, animals, rocks, stars. It does not matter what you love -- love! Be in love with love. That's what sannyas is all about.
[It's a paradox, this mystery called love, Osho went on to say to another sannyasin.]
Love does not want to rule but it becomes wants to conquer but it becomes a conqueror. In fact love wants to be conquered, love wants to surrender, but through surrender the miracle happens; the miracle that surrender changes into victory.
Love does not win through violence, because a victory through violence is not much of a victory; it is a forced phenomenon. The victory that comes through love is natural, spontaneous. And the other is not insulted but dignified, the other is not humiliated but respected.
When two lovers are in deep surrender both become victorious, nobody is the defeated party. This is the miracle of love: both are victorious in love. In fact when they surrender they disappear as individuals. There are not two persons any more but only one being -- one being in two souls, one being in two bodies, one being in two manifestations. And the same happens with the ultimate love I call prayer.
When you fall in love with the whole existence you become victorious but the whole is not defeated. This is the beauty of love that it makes both parties victorious.
[Nobody is really interested in god said the mystic to his newest disciple.]
Even priests are not interested in god. The very word "god" does not create anything in your heart, it does not ring any bells; it is something arbitrary, artificial. But bliss is natural -- even trees are searching for it in their own way.
In African jungles the trees grow so high -- why? The same trees don't grow so high in India or anywhere else. In African jungles they have to grow high because they want to have sunlight and the jungles are so thick that if they don't grow high they will not have any meeting with the stars and the moon and the sun. And that is their bliss, their joys to dance in the wind with the clouds.
Scientists are puzzled about a strange fact, that somehow trees sense, where, in what direction to send the roots. For example, if at its right side, five hundred yards away, there is a pipeline of which the tree cannot in any way be aware, it's roots will start moving towards the pipeline; its roots won't move in any other direction. It has some subtle sense, as if it knows instinctively where the water is.
Animals are searching for bliss in their own way, man is searching in his own way. The theists, the atheists, the believers, the non-believers -- all are seeking bliss. Hence I say bliss is the ultimate truth. If you love the word "god" you can call it god, if you love the word "nirvana" you can call it nirvana, but "satyam", the ultimate truth, is the most beautiful word.
The ultimate truth is the centre of existence, it is bliss, and everybody is moving towards it. Those who are intelligent move consciously so that they can avoid unnecessary things, unnecessary by-paths, cul-de-sacs, so they are not worried about non-essentials; they move directly. Those who are not so intelligent, not so conscious, go zigzag; they take a long time, millions of lives even.
To be a sannyasin means a deliberate, conscious search for truth, for bliss, for god. It is a commitment, an involvement, a conscious decision that 'from this moment my life will be devoted to that which can fulfil it, which can make me contented.'
[However diligently you work on a stone you can never make a pearl of it. That's what we try to do though, Osho said.]
We go on polishing the mind in schools, colleges, universities, with the hope that we will be able to create an intelligent humanity. Our stupidity is such that for five thousand years we have been doing this and yet we have not realised the fact that humanity has not become intelligent at all. On the contrary, human beings have become more unintelligent.
In fact the uneducated person seems to be more sharp, more intelligent, than the so-called professor, the scholar, the pundit. or course the professor knows many words and he can quote scriptures, and the uneducated person knows no information, but put them in any real situation and you will immediately see that the uneducated behaves more intelligently than the educated.
It is said of Edison that he had two cats and sometimes he had to wait for the cats to come in at night. Somebody suggested "Why don't you make a hole in the door so you can go to sleep -- whenever the cats want to they can come in and they can also go to sleep. There is no need to wait for them." He liked the idea.
The man who had suggested it was his own servant, absolutely uneducated. Two poles: Edison, the man who invented one thousand scientific gadgets -- the gramophone, the radio, the electric bulb... In fact without Edison you would be in difficulty living because all gadgets are his. And the servant was utterly uneducated.
The next day, when the servant came, he was puzzled. He asked Edison "What have you done? Why have you made two holes?" He said "But I have got two cats and how can two cats pass through one hole?"
The servant could not believe him: what nonsense was this?
In any real situation you will be able to see who is intelligent. The challenge has to be new otherwise the scholar will win the race. If it is something old that he knows about then he will seem to be very intelligent, but if it is something absolutely new about which he has no information he will prove less intelligent than the uninformed person.
The uninformed person has to depend on his own consciousness and the informed person depends on his memory -- that's where the difference lies. The uninformed person has not much of a mind but he has some natural quality of meditativenes~.
Each child is born with it, it is our natural ingredient. It is not something that has to be learned, meditation has only to be discovered. It is hidden behind layers of mind. And the whole process of meditation is to cut through all these layers so that you can rediscover your natural intelligence. And to be naturally intelligent is to be blissful, to be naturally intelligent is to know what life is all about. In being naturally intelligent one is bound to experience godliness all around.
Mind is mediocre, all minds are mediocre -- the great minds and the small minds. They differ only in degree , degrees of mediocrity. But intelligence means a glimpse of no-mind, and all original insights have arisen out of that state of no-mind.
I call that state meditation. Meditation is the art of slipping out of the grip of the mind so that you can see existence as it is without any prejudices. Then there is great light, clarity, understanding, and to live out of that clarity, understanding, out of that light, is to live a life of celebration. That is the goal of sannyas.
How long will you be here? he asked.
Only a month, was the reply.
Then come back again, Osho smiled. And finally you have to come forever -- this is your home!
[This is your name Osho told Marco from Italy, Swami Veet Marko. Veet means going beyond, Marko means warlike.]
In the past we have praised warlike qualities very much because the whole past of humanity is nothing but wars and wars. In three thousand years we have fought five thousand wars. It is rare to find a single day when somewhere on the earth war is not going on. It seems man lives only to fight.
They say that we fight to live, but the fact seems to be just the opposites we live to fight. If there is nothing to fight we simply feel empty, unoccupied, we have nothing to do. And everybody knows the fact that whenever two countries are at war, destroying each other, both countries become very alive. People have more liveliness; their faces are more shining, their eyes seem to be clean and clear as if some dust has fallen, some boredom has disappeared.
We have been trained for thousands of years for war and now a great problem has arisen in the World: because of that training we have come to a state where total war is possible. All other wars were partial -- a little bit of destruction used to happen -- but now we are capable of destroying the whole earth totally. And not only this earth, we are capable of destroying seven hundred earths of this size and shape.
This state was never conceived before, this is new. Now we have to learn something new to face it. We have to drop praising warlike qualities. Instead of the soldier the sannyasin has to be praised. The soldier moans hate and the sannyasin stands for love.
Unless we create a great movement around the earth of people who love, who enjoy loving, we will not be able to survive more than twenty years. These twenty years are going to be very decisive. It has never been such a decisive time ever, in the whole of history. For the first time we are coming close- to a point where either we will commit a global suicide or we will enter into a new phase of humanity -- a new quantum jump.
You can see this happening everywhere. In India, particularly, it is very apparent: if two persons are walking on the street holding hands or two lovers meet on the street and embrace each other or kiss each other, that is enough to enrage the whole Indian mind. It is as if love is something ugly. But if two persons are fighting on the same street, daggers in their hands, ready to kill each other, a crowd of a thousand people will gather to watch. Nobody is there to condemn it. This is
In Indian films kissing is not allowed but murder is allowed! There is no question about murder; it seems that is very cultural and religious. Rape is allowed but not kissing! Love seems to be very dangerous to the old idea of culture, religion and man, because the old idea is rooted in hate. have always been condemned and soldiers have been praised. All around the earth you will see statues of great soldiers, memorials to the unknown soldier , but have you ever heard of any memorial for the unknown lovers? (laughter) Or have you seen any statue of two lovers in deep embrace?
What kind of idea have we evolved about human beings? Something seems to be ill and pathological. My effort here is to change the whole pattern.
Your name, Marko, means warlike and I am adding to it a word 'veet'; now it means go beyond warlikeness and become a sannyasin. Soldiers are no more needed in the world; in fact politics are not needed in the world. It is outdated, there is no future for politics. If we want humanity to survive there is no future for politics, no future for nations, no future for races, no future for wars.
[To another Mark, Osho added 'dhyan' so he became a warrior of the inner.]
There is no need to fight with others -- it is a sheer wastage of energy. There are many things inside we have to fight against: the ego, greed, violence, ambitiousness, possessiveness, and so on, so forth. These are the real enemies -- fight with them. And the art of fighting with them is meditation.
Watch them, be aware of them, because there are a few things which simply disappear by watching. If you can be aware of your anger the anger will disappear. Try it and you will be surprised. Just watch it arising, see the cloud surrounding you, trying to pull you in, making every effort to seduce you. Just remain aloof, a watcher on the hills, far away, just a witness and you will be surprised; within minutes the cloud is gone. And when the cloud of anger goes without affecting you, you fall into such a beautiful silence which you may not have known before at all. It is the silence that follows the storm. It is really penetrating, it goes to the deepest core of your being. It is a great nourishment for the soul.
So watch the inner enemies, meditate on the inner enemies, and slowly slowly they start dying of their own accord. A moment comes when you are there and there is nothing to watch. A contentless consciousness -- that is the ultimate peak of meditation. You have won, you are victorious.
In India we have called this state the state of a jina, one who has conquered. We have called Mahavira, the Jina; Jina means one who has conquered. And we have called Siddharth Gautama, the Buddha -- one who has become fully aware. But these are two aspects of the same coin: you become aware and you become a conqueror. You can become a conqueror only if you become aware!
[Her name, Julian, means youthful, Osho told a Dutchwoman. And he prefixed it with 'Dhyan', meditation.]
Mind is always old, never young. Even the youngest mind is not young. It cannot be young because mind means the accumulated past.
Your mind consists of your past experiences -- how can it be young? It can be one day old, it can be ten years old, it can be eighty years old, but it cannot be young. Even the child who is just born has a mind, a few seconds old. By its very nature mind is old. And meditation is young, always young; hence the meditator retains a certain inner youthfulness.
Of course the body will become old. If you go into Indian temples you will be surprised: you will not see a single statue of Rama as an old man -- not that he never became old. You will not find a single statue of Krishna as old, yet he died when he was eighty-five. You will not find a single statue of Buddha as old, yet he died when he was eighty-two -- very old. Mahavira was eighty when he died and he was very ill, he suffered for six months. But not a single statue of these people as old people exists in India. This is to represent their meditativeness -- because we are not concerned with Buddha's body or Mahavira's body or Krishna's body; we are concerned with their inner consciousness, and that is young.
Meditation keeps you fresh, as fresh as the dewdrops in the morning, as fresh as the new rays of the early morning sun, as fresh as the just-opening buds of a flower. And to know this youthfulness is to know something of eternity.
Mind is old, and mind is time. Meditation is always young and timeless. To know meditation is to know the world of timelessness, deathlessness, because when something never becomes old how can it die? And when something is always old, how can it live? The mind never lives; it only pretends to live. And meditation always lives. Even when dying, a meditator knows that he is not dying; a meditator can laugh at death.
A Zen master was dying. He suddenly asked his disciples, "Tell me how to die, in what posture? Should I be lying down or sitting or standing?" They were in a sad state, feeling the misery -- the master was dying and he was not giving up his old tricks yet! At the point of death he was asking, "In what posture...?" What does it matter?
The master asked, "Have you heard of anybody dying in a sitting posture?" One man said "Yes, we have -- a few Zen masters have died in a sitting posture." The master said, "Then that is not for me because I don't want to repeat. Have you heard of anybody standing and dying?" One man said "I cannot be absolutely certain but I have heard that once in China a Zen master died standing." The master said "Then that too is cancelled. Have you heard of anybody dying standing on his head?"
Nobody had heard of it. Nobody had even thought about it! How can you die standing on your head, doing sirshasan, a headstand? They said, "We have never heard of it -- and this is so ridiculous, the very idea..." The master said, "Then that is good, I shall do it." He stood on his head and the disciples simply watched, they could not do anything. Now they were at a loss as to what to do. Has he died or not? They had never heard of any convention about what you have to do when a man dies on his head.
Somebody reminded them that his elder sister was a Zen nun and she lived just nearby. It would be better to call her and leave it to her. She came -- she was an enlightened woman. She came and she shouted at her brother; she said "You stupid -- is this a way to die? And does it suit an enlightened person? Behave!" And of course as she was the elder sister the Zen master laughed and came down from his headstand. The sister said, "For the whole of your life you have been doing mischief. Now at least at the tome of death, don't be mischievous: lie down on the bed and die as one is supposed to die!" So he lay himself down on the bed and died!
And the sister left immediately. When her brother died she said, "Now it is finished, now you can do whatsoever you want to do. Now I am no more needed."
When you know your inner eternity, your inner immortality, death is a laughing phenomenon; you can laugh at it. Meditation makes it possible to live a life of laughter and also to die a death laughingly, celebratingly. The whole of life and death become nothing but a cosmic joke. Hence my love for jokes!
How long will you be here?
Two weeks.
Then come back again because you will have to learn how to die.