[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up.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.]
[Man is miserable because of his mother, your psychoanalyst will explain. It's because he hasn't found god, your priest will insist. No, the crux of it, as Osho sees it, is this: that man is simply stupid.]
Man has got the potential to be intelligent, bright, but he never uses it. Rather than digging into his own sources of intelligence, he borrows from other people, from the society, from the parents, from the teachers, from everywhere. And they have done the same in their own turn, so we inherit stupidity.
Our nature is bright, our nature is intelligence, but our inheritance is stupid and that's why we are miserable, otherwise there is no need to be miserable. An intelligent person can always find ways and means to be blissful. That's the whole purpose of intelligence, that's why intelligence has been given to man. But unless you use it, it is as if it does not exist.
My religion is not that of belief but that of intelligence. I teach my sannyasins to behave more consciously, more intelligently, so that their life slowly slowly can become a beautiful experience. It is not difficult, it is very easy. All that we need is to put aside all the superstitions that have been given to us by people who loved us and who thought they were doing good to us but who were unconscious; they knew nothing about what they were doing.
Sannyas means a rebellion against the conventional, the traditional, the social, the collective and the assertion of individual freedom. With it comes intelligence, with it comes bliss, with it comes many many blessings of which you have not even dreamt. When they come only then does one know what an ecstasy life.
[A giggle is godly. That was the gist of Osho's explanation of the meaning of Deva Yizchak's name.]
Laughter is one of the most divine experiences, but very few people really laugh. Their laughter is shallow. Either it is just intellectual or just a facade, or just a formality or just a mannerism, but it is never total.
If a man can laugh totally, whole-heartedly, not holding anything back at all, in that very moment something tremendous can happen -- because laughter, when it is total, is absolutely egoless -- and that is the only condition to know god, to be egoless.
There are many ways to be egoless but laughter is the most beautiful way. A dancer can be egoless if he loses himself totally in the dance -- then. But dancing is an art, it takes a long time to learn and not everybody has the intrinsic quality of dance. The singer can have it but he has to become the song; that too needs long practice. The musician, the painter, the poet, in fact all kinds of creative people can have the same experience. The condition is the same: the ego has to be lost.
If while painting the painter forgets himself completely and only painting remains and there is no painter, the miracle happens. But all these things are talents. Not everybody can be a painter, not everybody can be a poet, not everybody can be a dancer, but everybody can be a laughing Buddha, everybody can laugh. It is not an art, it is intrinsic. That's where it is far more significant than any other device that can be used to attain to god, because they depend on talents.
Laughter needs no talent. In fact children laugh more beautifully, more totally. As they grow up, their laughter becomes shallow; they start holding back, they start thinking whether to laugh or not to laugh, or whether it is right in this situation to laugh.
One of my teachers died. The shape of the man was such that anybody would laugh just looking at him -- he was a cartoon. And the way he dressed and the way he walked.... he was a teacher of Sanskrit -- very tradition, old-fashioned. Any small thing was enough to irritate him, and it was a joy to irritate him, because then he would almost go crazy. He would throw his chair and he would jump all over the class, he would run after the boys who had teased him or irritated him and it would be a chaos; his class was always a chaos. But he was a very simple man too, very innocent. Although we irritated him, we all loved him.
In Hindi there is a word "bholanath"; it means a very simple person, almost a simpleton. So that was the name we had given to him and he hated the name -- it was not his real name. So whenever he would come into the classroom, we would write on the blackboard "Welcome, Bholanath" -- and that was enough! Then the whole period was finished, then it was going to be an entertainment.
The day he died, of course we all went to his house. And an incident happened. When his body was just about to be removed from the house, his wife came out of the house, fell on his chest and said "Oh, my Bholanath!"
I could not contain myself! (laughter) I was the only person who laughed. Everybody was stunned that I should laugh in such a situation. My father took me home immediately and said "You are not to go to any social gatherings of any kind. What nonsense is this? -- the man is dead, his wife is crying and you laugh?"
I said you don't know the whole story. If you had known the whole story you also would have laughed. And when I told him the whole story he also laughed! (laughter) He said "I can understand you, but still it is not right; you should have controlled yourself. Learn a little bit of control. There were at least five hundred people -- nobody laughed; and all the students were there -- nobody laughed. Only you laughed."
They all... least the students who knew that that was his nickname given by us, must have felt....
It was just coincidental that the wife said "Oh, my Bholanath, Oh my simpleton -- you have left me alone. Where have you gone?"
As children grow we force them to manage many things, to control many things. Laughter is one of them. By the time they are grown-ups they forget the spontaneity of laughter. They laugh almost as a duty, as if it has to be done.
My sannyasins have to learn the laughter of small children again; they have to laugh consciously and totally -- and not only at others, at themselves too. One should never miss an opportunity to laugh. Laughter is prayer.
Love -- it's sweet on the heart but bitter on the palate of the ego. Osho was talking to Prem Marion.
Love is bitter because you have to drop your ego, it is bitter because you have to drop your possessiveness, your jealousies, your trips of domination. It is bitter because you have to change yourself totally. It is bitter because in fact you have to die to your past and you have to be reborn -- it is a rebirth. But then there is great grace, great beauty, then there is godliness.
If one can love then nothing else is needed. Love is the ultimate religion, there is nothing higher than it. God is only another name for love. But one has to accept the bitterness and one has to pass through that pain. That pain is a birth process so one should joyfully accept it.
It is like drinking a bitter medicine -- but you know that it is going to give you health, it is going to help you to be healthy again, so you take it joyfully although it is bitter.
Love is the bitterest meditation but it brings the greatest health possible too.
[Tonight he reiterated that on the spiritual voyage one has to launch off from love.]
As your love becomes more and more refined... and by "refined love" I mean the love that demands nothing, the love that simply gives for the sheer joy of giving, the love that has no conditions attached to it.
As this love grows in you, you start feeling a new experience: that is prayer. Prayer is the highest form of love, the peak. And once prayer has entered your life, then love is not something that you do or you don't do, it becomes your very presence; you are simply loving. Then it is just like breathing. A man of prayer even while asleep is loving. He is love. Love is not an act for him but his being. When love becomes being it is prayer.
And at that point great fragrance is released. Your flower has blossomed. In the East we call it a one-thousand-petalled lotus. One-thousand-petalled because in the East we have given god one thousand names. Each petal of the lotus represents one quality of god. The opening of the one-thousand-petalled lotus means you have attained to all the qualities of god.
This was the moment when Jesus said "I and my father are one," or Al-Hillaj Mansoor declared "Ana'l haq -- I am God," or the seers of the Upanishads sing "Aham Brahmasmi -- I am the ultimate truth."
[Then to Anand Nityam, Osho explained]
Man knows only momentary pleasures, momentary happiness -- so momentary that they are not of any worth. Before you can recognize them they are already gone. The moment you think, "This is beautiful!" in fact it is no more there; it is already a past experience, it is already part of memory.
Bliss is the search for something that remains, and remains forever. Sannyas is a pilgrimage from the momentary to the eternal. Nothing is wrong in the momentary -- I am not against it -- but one should remain aware that there is more than that in life. Don't stop there. Enjoy it -- while it is there enjoy it. Live it, but remember that there is much more and that you have to go beyond it. Use it as a stepping stone towards the beyond.
The momentary pleasures are not against the eternal bliss; they can be used as hindrances if you are foolish. That's what millions of people in the past have done. All the religions of the world have been teaching people that momentary pleasures are against the eternal bliss. I say, that is not so. That is so only if you are stupid. If you are intelligent you can use the stones on the road as stepping stones; there is no need to think of them as hindrances. And that is the whole art of intelligence: to transform hindrances into stepping stones.
That's my whole work here: to help you to transform each hindrance into a stepping stone. All momentary joys can become windows into the eternal, can give you a glimpse, just a lightning glimpse. But that makes you aware that something more is there. That gives you the courage and the hope to inquire, to go on the long pilgrimage for the unknown and the unknowable.
How long will you be here? (Her reply was so soft, only he caught the answer.)
Be here forever! That is the meaning of your name, Nityam -- for ever and for ever!
[Man can live out of mentation or meditation -- the choice is his, Osho pointed out to Dhyan Ida.]
If one decides to be a mind only, as millions have decided, because mind is useful, utilitarian. It earns money, it brings power, it enhances your ego, it is cunning, clever, it is a politician. It will win you fame, name, prestige, maybe it will manage to insert your name at least in the footnotes of history books. If one decides to remain a mind all these things will be possible, but there will be no blessing in life, no bliss, no benediction. One will not know the real meaning, the real significance, one will not be able to know the hidden splendour. One will miss all. One will be collecting ordinary pebbles while there is a possibility of collecting real diamonds.
Mind means thinking, meditation means awareness. It is a state of no-thought, it is a state of silence. And when you are silent, god speaks; when you speak, god is silent. Mind continuously speaks; for twenty-four hours a day it goes on and on. Even while you are asleep it goes on chattering. That's why you cannot hear the still small voice of god.
Be silent, and suddenly you will hear that which was heard by Buddha, by Jesus, by Mohammed. And just a word heard in that silence is enough. Just a single word is enough to transform the whole of your life. In that silence, in that state of no-mind, in that "agnosia", blessings go on showering.
There is a beautiful parable in Buddhist scriptures. One of the greatest disciples of Buddha, Manjushri, was sitting under a tree silently, just in a state of meditation, not even meditating -- because when you are meditating you are using your mind, trying, making efforts, chanting, using some strategy, some technique. So, he was not meditating in that way, he was just in a state of meditation. He was just silent, sitting doing nothing. And flowers started showering on him. He was puzzled: "What has happened?"
He looked around and he saw angels showering flowers, and he asked them "What is the matter? Why are you showering flowers on me? You must have mistaken me for the Buddha. I am not the Buddha! The master is there, sitting under that tree. I am just a disciple -- you must have made a mistake."
They said, "No, we have not made a mistake. We are showering these flowers as an offering to you for your great sermon on silence." He said "Sermon on silence? I have not spoken a single word!"
And they said "That's precisely what we mean -- the sermon on silence because you have not spoken, we have not heard, and the sermon is over! Neither you spoke nor we heard; hence these flowers -- just accept them from us. We are grateful that another man has become enlightened. We know your master -- we have been showering flowers on him for years. Now we have got another person also."
And when Manjushri went to see Buddha, the first thing Buddha asked was "How was the sermon on silence? Did you love those flowers? Have you understood the significance of it all? You have become enlightened!"
Manjushri was the first disciples of Buddha to become enlightened. But nothing more is known about him because he loved that sermon on silence so much that he remained silent. Even Buddha could not persuade him ... thousands of times he tried, saying "Now, Manjushri, you should start speaking. Go to the people." Manjushri would simply laugh and sit under the tree and wait for the flowers.
That's exactly the meaning of your name, Ida -- blessings. It is a beautiful name. Create the situation in which the blessings are possible.
[Choose mentation and you live a mummified life, he went on to say.]
The more you are in the mind, the more you are surrounded by a subtle dullness, because you are enclosed. No windows, no doors are open; no fresh air comes in, no sun reaches you. You are cut off from existence. You live in an encapsulated world, just a small prison cell; nothing radiates from it, no fragrance. In fact, the mind stinks -- stinks of violence, competition, ego, greed, and a thousand and one other poisons.
When you start moving out of the mind -- that is meditation -- your life starts having a radiance, there of light around you, a subtle grace, a beauty that comes from the beyond.
Unless It happens life is not fulfilled -- and it can happen any moment. All that is needed is to become disidentified with the mind.
[Unlocking our fetters and showering us with flowers -- that's what he is doing here, Osho told Anand Kranti.]
My effort here is to undo it all, to give you a revolution, to help you to become individual, intelligent, alert, so that nobody can make a slave out of you, so that nobody can reduce you to a thing, to a commodity.
Then life has a totally different meaning. Then it has many flowers and many stars. Then it is ecstatic just to be and one can feel grateful to god. Only in that ecstasy is prayer possible.
Osho's Commentary
[Man is miserable because of his mother, your psychoanalyst will explain. It's because he hasn't found god, your priest will insist. No, the crux of it, as Osho sees it, is this: that man is simply stupid.]
Man has got the potential to be intelligent, bright, but he never uses it. Rather than digging into his own sources of intelligence, he borrows from other people, from the society, from the parents, from the teachers, from everywhere. And they have done the same in their own turn, so we inherit stupidity.
Our nature is bright, our nature is intelligence, but our inheritance is stupid and that's why we are miserable, otherwise there is no need to be miserable. An intelligent person can always find ways and means to be blissful. That's the whole purpose of intelligence, that's why intelligence has been given to man. But unless you use it, it is as if it does not exist.
My religion is not that of belief but that of intelligence. I teach my sannyasins to behave more consciously, more intelligently, so that their life slowly slowly can become a beautiful experience. It is not difficult, it is very easy. All that we need is to put aside all the superstitions that have been given to us by people who loved us and who thought they were doing good to us but who were unconscious; they knew nothing about what they were doing.
Sannyas means a rebellion against the conventional, the traditional, the social, the collective and the assertion of individual freedom. With it comes intelligence, with it comes bliss, with it comes many many blessings of which you have not even dreamt. When they come only then does one know what an ecstasy life.
[A giggle is godly. That was the gist of Osho's explanation of the meaning of Deva Yizchak's name.]
Laughter is one of the most divine experiences, but very few people really laugh. Their laughter is shallow. Either it is just intellectual or just a facade, or just a formality or just a mannerism, but it is never total.
If a man can laugh totally, whole-heartedly, not holding anything back at all, in that very moment something tremendous can happen -- because laughter, when it is total, is absolutely egoless -- and that is the only condition to know god, to be egoless.
There are many ways to be egoless but laughter is the most beautiful way. A dancer can be egoless if he loses himself totally in the dance -- then. But dancing is an art, it takes a long time to learn and not everybody has the intrinsic quality of dance. The singer can have it but he has to become the song; that too needs long practice. The musician, the painter, the poet, in fact all kinds of creative people can have the same experience. The condition is the same: the ego has to be lost.
If while painting the painter forgets himself completely and only painting remains and there is no painter, the miracle happens. But all these things are talents. Not everybody can be a painter, not everybody can be a poet, not everybody can be a dancer, but everybody can be a laughing Buddha, everybody can laugh. It is not an art, it is intrinsic. That's where it is far more significant than any other device that can be used to attain to god, because they depend on talents.
Laughter needs no talent. In fact children laugh more beautifully, more totally. As they grow up, their laughter becomes shallow; they start holding back, they start thinking whether to laugh or not to laugh, or whether it is right in this situation to laugh.
One of my teachers died. The shape of the man was such that anybody would laugh just looking at him -- he was a cartoon. And the way he dressed and the way he walked.... he was a teacher of Sanskrit -- very tradition, old-fashioned. Any small thing was enough to irritate him, and it was a joy to irritate him, because then he would almost go crazy. He would throw his chair and he would jump all over the class, he would run after the boys who had teased him or irritated him and it would be a chaos; his class was always a chaos. But he was a very simple man too, very innocent. Although we irritated him, we all loved him.
In Hindi there is a word "bholanath"; it means a very simple person, almost a simpleton. So that was the name we had given to him and he hated the name -- it was not his real name. So whenever he would come into the classroom, we would write on the blackboard "Welcome, Bholanath" -- and that was enough! Then the whole period was finished, then it was going to be an entertainment.
The day he died, of course we all went to his house. And an incident happened. When his body was just about to be removed from the house, his wife came out of the house, fell on his chest and said "Oh, my Bholanath!"
I could not contain myself! (laughter) I was the only person who laughed. Everybody was stunned that I should laugh in such a situation. My father took me home immediately and said "You are not to go to any social gatherings of any kind. What nonsense is this? -- the man is dead, his wife is crying and you laugh?"
I said you don't know the whole story. If you had known the whole story you also would have laughed. And when I told him the whole story he also laughed! (laughter) He said "I can understand you, but still it is not right; you should have controlled yourself. Learn a little bit of control. There were at least five hundred people -- nobody laughed; and all the students were there -- nobody laughed. Only you laughed."
They all... least the students who knew that that was his nickname given by us, must have felt....
It was just coincidental that the wife said "Oh, my Bholanath, Oh my simpleton -- you have left me alone. Where have you gone?"
As children grow we force them to manage many things, to control many things. Laughter is one of them. By the time they are grown-ups they forget the spontaneity of laughter. They laugh almost as a duty, as if it has to be done.
My sannyasins have to learn the laughter of small children again; they have to laugh consciously and totally -- and not only at others, at themselves too. One should never miss an opportunity to laugh. Laughter is prayer.
Love -- it's sweet on the heart but bitter on the palate of the ego. Osho was talking to Prem Marion.
Love is bitter because you have to drop your ego, it is bitter because you have to drop your possessiveness, your jealousies, your trips of domination. It is bitter because you have to change yourself totally. It is bitter because in fact you have to die to your past and you have to be reborn -- it is a rebirth. But then there is great grace, great beauty, then there is godliness.
If one can love then nothing else is needed. Love is the ultimate religion, there is nothing higher than it. God is only another name for love. But one has to accept the bitterness and one has to pass through that pain. That pain is a birth process so one should joyfully accept it.
It is like drinking a bitter medicine -- but you know that it is going to give you health, it is going to help you to be healthy again, so you take it joyfully although it is bitter.
Love is the bitterest meditation but it brings the greatest health possible too.
[Tonight he reiterated that on the spiritual voyage one has to launch off from love.]
As your love becomes more and more refined... and by "refined love" I mean the love that demands nothing, the love that simply gives for the sheer joy of giving, the love that has no conditions attached to it.
As this love grows in you, you start feeling a new experience: that is prayer. Prayer is the highest form of love, the peak. And once prayer has entered your life, then love is not something that you do or you don't do, it becomes your very presence; you are simply loving. Then it is just like breathing. A man of prayer even while asleep is loving. He is love. Love is not an act for him but his being. When love becomes being it is prayer.
And at that point great fragrance is released. Your flower has blossomed. In the East we call it a one-thousand-petalled lotus. One-thousand-petalled because in the East we have given god one thousand names. Each petal of the lotus represents one quality of god. The opening of the one-thousand-petalled lotus means you have attained to all the qualities of god.
This was the moment when Jesus said "I and my father are one," or Al-Hillaj Mansoor declared "Ana'l haq -- I am God," or the seers of the Upanishads sing "Aham Brahmasmi -- I am the ultimate truth."
[Then to Anand Nityam, Osho explained]
Man knows only momentary pleasures, momentary happiness -- so momentary that they are not of any worth. Before you can recognize them they are already gone. The moment you think, "This is beautiful!" in fact it is no more there; it is already a past experience, it is already part of memory.
Bliss is the search for something that remains, and remains forever. Sannyas is a pilgrimage from the momentary to the eternal. Nothing is wrong in the momentary -- I am not against it -- but one should remain aware that there is more than that in life. Don't stop there. Enjoy it -- while it is there enjoy it. Live it, but remember that there is much more and that you have to go beyond it. Use it as a stepping stone towards the beyond.
The momentary pleasures are not against the eternal bliss; they can be used as hindrances if you are foolish. That's what millions of people in the past have done. All the religions of the world have been teaching people that momentary pleasures are against the eternal bliss. I say, that is not so. That is so only if you are stupid. If you are intelligent you can use the stones on the road as stepping stones; there is no need to think of them as hindrances. And that is the whole art of intelligence: to transform hindrances into stepping stones.
That's my whole work here: to help you to transform each hindrance into a stepping stone. All momentary joys can become windows into the eternal, can give you a glimpse, just a lightning glimpse. But that makes you aware that something more is there. That gives you the courage and the hope to inquire, to go on the long pilgrimage for the unknown and the unknowable.
How long will you be here? (Her reply was so soft, only he caught the answer.)
Be here forever! That is the meaning of your name, Nityam -- for ever and for ever!
[Man can live out of mentation or meditation -- the choice is his, Osho pointed out to Dhyan Ida.]
If one decides to be a mind only, as millions have decided, because mind is useful, utilitarian. It earns money, it brings power, it enhances your ego, it is cunning, clever, it is a politician. It will win you fame, name, prestige, maybe it will manage to insert your name at least in the footnotes of history books. If one decides to remain a mind all these things will be possible, but there will be no blessing in life, no bliss, no benediction. One will not know the real meaning, the real significance, one will not be able to know the hidden splendour. One will miss all. One will be collecting ordinary pebbles while there is a possibility of collecting real diamonds.
Mind means thinking, meditation means awareness. It is a state of no-thought, it is a state of silence. And when you are silent, god speaks; when you speak, god is silent. Mind continuously speaks; for twenty-four hours a day it goes on and on. Even while you are asleep it goes on chattering. That's why you cannot hear the still small voice of god.
Be silent, and suddenly you will hear that which was heard by Buddha, by Jesus, by Mohammed. And just a word heard in that silence is enough. Just a single word is enough to transform the whole of your life. In that silence, in that state of no-mind, in that "agnosia", blessings go on showering.
There is a beautiful parable in Buddhist scriptures. One of the greatest disciples of Buddha, Manjushri, was sitting under a tree silently, just in a state of meditation, not even meditating -- because when you are meditating you are using your mind, trying, making efforts, chanting, using some strategy, some technique. So, he was not meditating in that way, he was just in a state of meditation. He was just silent, sitting doing nothing. And flowers started showering on him. He was puzzled: "What has happened?"
He looked around and he saw angels showering flowers, and he asked them "What is the matter? Why are you showering flowers on me? You must have mistaken me for the Buddha. I am not the Buddha! The master is there, sitting under that tree. I am just a disciple -- you must have made a mistake."
They said, "No, we have not made a mistake. We are showering these flowers as an offering to you for your great sermon on silence."
He said "Sermon on silence? I have not spoken a single word!"
And they said "That's precisely what we mean -- the sermon on silence because you have not spoken, we have not heard, and the sermon is over! Neither you spoke nor we heard; hence these flowers -- just accept them from us. We are grateful that another man has become enlightened. We know your master -- we have been showering flowers on him for years. Now we have got another person also."
And when Manjushri went to see Buddha, the first thing Buddha asked was "How was the sermon on silence? Did you love those flowers? Have you understood the significance of it all? You have become enlightened!"
Manjushri was the first disciples of Buddha to become enlightened. But nothing more is known about him because he loved that sermon on silence so much that he remained silent. Even Buddha could not persuade him ... thousands of times he tried, saying "Now, Manjushri, you should start speaking. Go to the people." Manjushri would simply laugh and sit under the tree and wait for the flowers.
That's exactly the meaning of your name, Ida -- blessings. It is a beautiful name. Create the situation in which the blessings are possible.
[Choose mentation and you live a mummified life, he went on to say.]
The more you are in the mind, the more you are surrounded by a subtle dullness, because you are enclosed. No windows, no doors are open; no fresh air comes in, no sun reaches you. You are cut off from existence. You live in an encapsulated world, just a small prison cell; nothing radiates from it, no fragrance. In fact, the mind stinks -- stinks of violence, competition, ego, greed, and a thousand and one other poisons.
When you start moving out of the mind -- that is meditation -- your life starts having a radiance, there of light around you, a subtle grace, a beauty that comes from the beyond.
Unless It happens life is not fulfilled -- and it can happen any moment. All that is needed is to become disidentified with the mind.
[Unlocking our fetters and showering us with flowers -- that's what he is doing here, Osho told Anand Kranti.]
My effort here is to undo it all, to give you a revolution, to help you to become individual, intelligent, alert, so that nobody can make a slave out of you, so that nobody can reduce you to a thing, to a commodity.
Then life has a totally different meaning. Then it has many flowers and many stars. Then it is ecstatic just to be and one can feel grateful to god. Only in that ecstasy is prayer possible.