[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up.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.]
[Osho talked about different facets of meditation to the new sannyasins. It's a process of death and resurrection he told the first.]
It is a paradoxical phenomenon: on the one hand you, as you were before disappear completely. Your whole identity evaporates as if it has only been a dream; not even a trace is left behind. And on the other hand there is a new upsurge of energy, a new beginning, a fresh beginning, as if you are the first man on earth, as if god has created Adam again.
It is absolutely discontinuous with your old idea of yourself. There is no continuity at all; hence it is a death and a resurrection, the death of the old and the birth of the new. It is the most strange phenomenon in the world -- death and life together -- the most mysterious experience.
A famous Zen master, Shido Bunan, used to say again and again to his disciples: "While living, be dead...* thoroughly dead.' Whatever you then do, as you will, is always good."
He also used to say when you are both alive and dead, thoroughly dead to yourself, how superb the smallest pleasure!"
Man lives with a false idea about his being and it is that false notion that causes all the miseries, that creates hell. There is no way to get rid of miseries living within your world of the ego. You can change from one misery to another misery, you can divorce one misery but you will be immediately married to another. But you cannot get beyond misery within the world of the ego. To go beyond misery means to let the ego die.
Jesus says "Let the dead bury their dead." Whatsoever is gone is gone, whatsoever is dead is dead; don't go on carrying it because it kills your life. Carrying a corpse is dangerous. And we are all carrying not a single corpse but many corpses, hence our growth is nil. We cannot progress even a single inch -- the weight is too much, the weight of a past of thousands of years.
Sannyas means getting rid of the whole past, your past and the past of the collectivity you are born in: the Christian, the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Indian, the Arabian, the German, the white man's past, the black man's past, man's past, woman's past -- the past as such. It has to be completely burned so it cannot raise it's head again. In a single blow one has to cut all connections with the past. That's what sannyas is, it is becoming thoroughly dead to the past.
The moment you are courageous enough to be thoroughly dead to the past, a miracle happens, the greatest miracle of life, the miracle, the only miracle -- that you are resurrected. And then you are resurrected you don't belong to time, you belong to eternity; you are no more mortal, you are immortal.
The whole art of sannyas is first learning the process of dying to the past and then, second, learning how to live in the present. Within these two steps the whole journey is complete.
And your name, Han, is also beautiful; it comes from a Hebrew root, john. It means god's gracious gift.
Meditation is the greatest gift one can long for, one can pray for, because every other treasure is just rubbish compared to it. And because John was the most beloved disciple of Jesus, it has also become associated symbolically with a new meaning: the beloved disciple.
Sannyas means disciplehood. It means merging and melting into the master, forgetting your self, your separate entity. The master is only an opportunity to help you to get rid of the ego. Once you are free of the ego you have passed through the master, through the gate, you have entered into god. The master is only a gate, but without passing through the gate nobody en into the temple of god.
[Then he talked about meditation as being like a fire because it burns away most of who you think you are and leaves behind only what's really essential, your intrinsic core.]
We cling to the circumference, so much so that we have completely forgotten about the centre. Unless the circumference disappears completely we are not going to be reminded of the centre. And the centre contains all, the very kingdom of god.
And the centre is capable of creating a thousand and one circumferences, so there is no fear; one can burn one's circumference and go to the centre, to the roots; they are capable -- their potential is infinite -- of bringing forth another tree. But when you are born you are unconscious. You are born as a centre but because you are unconscious you start creating a circumference -- society helps to create it -- but you are unconscious, so whatsoever people go on forcing upon you becomes your periphery. It is borrowed, and anything borrowed is ugly, anything borrowed is against your nature. It is others' imposition, their desires and ambitions.
Your father wanted you to be a doctor or an engineer. Nobody ever bothered about what your potential was; maybe you were born to be a poet. Now, forcing you to be an engineer is almost murdering you because engineering cannot be poetry, it is very unpoetic. You may be a born musician and forcing you to become a mathematician is violent, very violent. And for centuries we have been doing this to every child. The child is the most oppressed and exploited person in the whole world.
First we were thinking that the proletariat is the most oppressed class; then we became aware that even more than the proletariat, woman is the most exploited class. Now a third thing is going to happen, it is already happening; those who are pioneers, those who always go on exploring into the unknown, are becoming aware that the child is the most exploited and oppressed person and the most helpless. Even the proletariat are not so helpless. They can fight back, they have their unions and now they have great organisations, political parties and ideologies. The woman is also starting to fight back, asserting herself. But the child is the problem -- who will fight for the child?
Because he is so helpless he cannot have unions, he cannot be independent, he cannot earn his own livelihood. He is so utterly dependent that it is very easy to exploit him. And the people who have been exploiting him are not doing it consciously; in fact they intend to help the child in every possible way. They love the child, that's what they say, but their love is unconscious and anything unconscious, even love, becomes poisonous.
Unconsciousness is poison; it can be destructive to any beautiful thing. And just the opposite is the case with consciousness: a man with consciousness can use even poison in such a way that it becomes medicinal. The unconscious man, even if you give him elixir, ambrosia, is bound to kill himself or others with it. He cannot do otherwise.
Parents are not consciously exploiting their children; they are doing it for the child's sake. They think that if he is a engineer, a scientist, a mathematician, a professor, a politician, a president, a prime minister, that will be good for him; if he is rich, has great money and wealth and name and fame, he will be happy in his life. But they are completely unconscious because they know... but they know only in a very very vague way, it is not clear-cut. They see presidents, prime ministers; they know they are not happy. They see the rich people; they know they are not happy. They themselves may be rich and they know they are not happy. They may have succeeded in their life, in their profession, and they know that life has been just a stupid exercise of utter futility, nothing has been gained. But that's all they know, and that's all they can teach. With all good wishes they impose their ideas on the child. That becomes the circumference of everyone.
Sannyas means that we will have to destroy that circumference so that you can be brought back to your original centre. The Zen people call it the original face -- your face before anybody started painting it and putting masks on it to make it beautiful, to make it look beautiful -- just the original face as nature intended it to be. That already exists at the centre but the circumference has to disappear. And through the fire of meditation is the only way -- because the circumference means the mind and meditation means no-mind; hence I say the only way, because if mind has to be destroyed then you have to learn the ways of being a no-mind.
And once you have discovered your centre you can a totally new circumference, but it will be accordance with your nature. Then life has beauty, harmony, grace. And to live in harmony is to know god. How long will you be staying?' About one or two years' replied the new sannyasin. That's very good! So the fire is going to do its work!
[Meditation is fire -- and rebellion, he went on to say to someone else.]
Meditation brings rebellion in life -- rebellion against all traditions, conventions, dogmas, creeds, rebellion against the whole past, because unless you are completely clean of the past you cannot be totally herenow. And unless you are totally herenow you will never know what the truth is.
Truth is never in the past, never in the future; truth is always here and now. Truth means that which is. You cannot use the word 'was' for truth or 'will be' for truth; truth is always 'is', isness is truth.
Our mind goes on moving from the past to the future. It is like a pendulum moving from one extreme to another extreme. It never stays in the middle, and the middle is the truth. From the past to the future, from the future to the past, we go on shuttling like a goods train. We never stay in the now, and the now is the nature of existence. Existence knows only one tense, the present tense.
That is the greatest rebellion in life, to drop all the traditions and all conventions -- Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, the Koran, the Bible, the Gita -- to drop them all in toto. It needs guts, needs courage, it needs a man, not a child, It needs some integrity, some growth. And my whole work here is to help you to become more mature so that you can pass through this rebellion.
Once you have passed through this rebellion Christ is born in you, Buddha is born in you; they are different names for the same experience. But all this happens through meditation, hence sannyas revolves around the idea of meditation.
I don't give you any other thing, no character, no ordinary life style. I just tell you a simple and single thing: be meditative. In meditation is my whole philosophy of life. Out of it thousands of flowers bloom and blossom. Out of it everything that is needed comes by itself -- you need not search for it,'
Mind is an identification with the body. One feels 'I am the body'; this is the state of mind. Meditation is a disidentification with the body. One starts feeling 'I am in the body but I am not the body. The body is just like a house and I am residing in it. I have resided in many bodies, many houses -- there is no need to cling to this particular house. This house is going to collapse as all houses always collapse sooner or later. But my being is eternal, it cannot collapse. It is not made of collapsible material, it is not made of material at al]; it is just pure consciousness.
As you move into meditation this feeling starts becoming stronger every day. That does not mean that you start neglecting the body, on the contrary, you start caring about the body more carefully because it is a beautiful house, a gift of god. You have to keep it clean and beautiful and young and vital, energetic, alive, because you have to live in it for many many years. There is no need to make it ugly, poor, starved. Make it a palace, make it a marble palace, make it a temple, but remember "I am not it," so when it dies you are not dying. The body is born, the body dies; you are never born and you never die.
And the method of meditation is very simple: just watching. Three things have to be watched. The first is the body and its actions. Walking, watch it; sitting, lying down, watch it, and as you watch you will be able to understand "I am the watcher and the body is the watched. It is separate from me." Then there is a deeper watchfulness, the second step. Watch your mind and its activities: thoughts, desires, memories, dreams. If you have succeeded in the first you are bound to succeed in the second too. And then suddenly you become aware "I am not the mind either." Then the subtlest watching begins, the third step. Watch your feelings, sentiments, emotions, moods -- which are very vague and subtle -- watch your heart.
Once a person has become able to watch all three he transcends them, he becomes aware of the fourth, his true being. That is the moment when the soul is born, really born. Before that you were only so-so alive, lukewarm, but not intensely alive, not passionately alive, not totally alive. I believe in totality, intensity.
God isn't a person he told the next sannyasin, so if you imagine you are praying to god you're only paying homage to your own imagination.
... and people have created as many gods as they want. But godliness is a truth. Godliness means a quality, aliveness. The whole existence is full of aliveness. It is a dance a celebration. It is not just matter, it is consciousness.
The people who believe in god are believing in a superstition. The people who really want to find out the truth about god have not to believe but to meditate. Meditation requires no a priori belief; it simply means watching your mind and becoming silent. Slowly slowly mind starts disappearing and silence becomes more and more profound. When the mind completely disappears and there is only a peace pervading you, you become aware of godliness. Then the whole existence is transformed. It becomes luminous, with the tremendously beautiful presence of something mysterious. That mystery is god, that luminosity is god, that bliss is god, that benediction is god.
[This Osho followed by talking about the two kinds of silence that one can experience.]
One is a very superficial silence. Everybody experiences it once in a while -- the silence that you feel when you wake up in the morning just for a few seconds. There is no worry, no thought. Just for a few seconds there is a gap, night is over, the dreams are finished and the day with all its worries and troubles has not yet started. But it is a superficial silence; it is a by-product of sleep. Sleep is rest but it is not a deep rest, hence it cannot give you a deep silence.
Meditation is a deep deep rest, as deep as possible. And it goes on deepening every day. A moment comes in meditation when the depth is such, abysmal, that you cannot see any bottom anywhere; it is infinite. Then you go on falling and falling into that deep abyss; there is nowhere to stop. But the deeper you go, the more bliss arises.
Superficial silence can be disturbed very easily by any silly thing. If you get up out of your bed and you don't find your slippers where they should be, if the servant has forgotten to put them there, all silence is disturbed and you are mad and you start slamming doors and doing all kinds of things. This kind of silence is of not much use. This silence also comes after making love, but that too is very momentary; soon it is lost.
Sannyas is the search for a silence that remains like an undercurrent for twenty-four hours a day, so deep and so profound that there is no possibility of it getting disturbed. Nothing can disturb it, not even death.
It happened once: a Zen master was writing a letter -- it was the middle of the night -- and a thief entered his hut. Of course the door was not locked; there was nothing there, so there was no need for a lock. The thief came into the house just through a misunderstanding. If he had known that it was a Zen master's house he would not have entered, because what can you find in a Zen master's house?
But when he entered the Zen master looked at him and asked him 'What do you want?' The way he asked ... the thief could not lie. When you are encountering a man of truth it is very difficult to lie, it is almost impossible.
The thief said "I am sorry -- I am a thief -- I have come to steal something. But excuse me, I never know that I was entering a Zen master's house."
The master said "Don't feel embarrassed. Look into that box -- there are ten rupees. More I cannot offer because more I don't have. You can take those ten rupees, you deserve them. You have come so far and the night is so dark. And in fact I am feeling very happy: this is the first time a thief has given me the honour of being thought rich, otherwise I am a poor man. You have honoured me by coming to my house; now I can also brag that thieves have started coming to me, to my house. So take out those ten rupees.
The thief was in such a puzzled state he could not figure it out, what to do, what not to do, how to manage with this man. He wanted somehow to escape so he quickly took out the ten rupees and as he was leaving the master said "Wait. Leave at least one rupee in the box because in the morning I will have to pay the milkman. Put it back"
So the thief followed the master just like a small child. He wanted somehow to escape this dangerous man. What kind of thing was this -- because he had been stealing his whole life and for the first time he had encountered a real man.
He rushed out of the room. The master said "Wait, learn a few manners -- thank me first and then close the door." So he had to thank the master and close the door.
After a few days he was caught -- there were some other cases against him -- and he confessed that he had stolen from the master also.
The judge said "This is too much, to steal from a man who is enlightened. Don't you have any heart? Are you completely dead or what?" And he said "I will call the master to court and if he says you have stolen from him, that's enough. Then I will not look into other cases, that's enough: I will send you at least for twenty years."
The master was called and the master said "This is a beautiful man. Release him immediately. He never stole from me." Now there was another surprise for the thief. The master said "Because he thanked me you cannot call it stealing. I gave him the money and he thanked me for it, he was perfectly grateful for it. And I asked him to close the door and he had. In fact I owe one rupee to him." He had brought one rupee for the thief saying "Please accept this one rupee because that night I had to tell you to leave one rupee. It was not good of me but you were so generous that you left one rupee for me for the morning milk. And remember, if you have to come again, at least inform me two days before. Then I will manage something. I will beg and I will find a few people and I will arrange some money for you."
Because the master said release him, the thief was released. He followed the master to his hut. The master says 'Why are you following me? I told you, if you want to steal anything you have to inform me two days before. Come in two days.' The thief said "Forget all about stealing, I am coming to be initiated by you, because this is the first time I have seen what profound silence is. Now there is only one longing in me, to be as silent as you are. I have seen the beauty and the grace of it and the bliss of it. You are my first encounter with god." Meditation brings such a profound silence that cannot be disturbed at all. How long will you be here?
Two more weeks, said Lalita, the Italian translator, but she's coming back in January for one year.
That's perfectly good. Come back! And one year always means forever. First come here, come here for one year -- I trust Italians
Osho's Commentary
[Osho talked about different facets of meditation to the new sannyasins. It's a process of death and resurrection he told the first.]
It is a paradoxical phenomenon: on the one hand you, as you were before disappear completely. Your whole identity evaporates as if it has only been a dream; not even a trace is left behind. And on the other hand there is a new upsurge of energy, a new beginning, a fresh beginning, as if you are the first man on earth, as if god has created Adam again.
It is absolutely discontinuous with your old idea of yourself. There is no continuity at all; hence it is a death and a resurrection, the death of the old and the birth of the new. It is the most strange phenomenon in the world -- death and life together -- the most mysterious experience.
A famous Zen master, Shido Bunan, used to say again and again to his disciples: "While living, be dead...* thoroughly dead.' Whatever you then do, as you will, is always good."
He also used to say when you are both alive and dead, thoroughly dead to yourself, how superb the smallest pleasure!"
Man lives with a false idea about his being and it is that false notion that causes all the miseries, that creates hell. There is no way to get rid of miseries living within your world of the ego. You can change from one misery to another misery, you can divorce one misery but you will be immediately married to another. But you cannot get beyond misery within the world of the ego. To go beyond misery means to let the ego die.
Jesus says "Let the dead bury their dead." Whatsoever is gone is gone, whatsoever is dead is dead; don't go on carrying it because it kills your life. Carrying a corpse is dangerous. And we are all carrying not a single corpse but many corpses, hence our growth is nil. We cannot progress even a single inch -- the weight is too much, the weight of a past of thousands of years.
Sannyas means getting rid of the whole past, your past and the past of the collectivity you are born in: the Christian, the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Indian, the Arabian, the German, the white man's past, the black man's past, man's past, woman's past -- the past as such. It has to be completely burned so it cannot raise it's head again. In a single blow one has to cut all connections with the past. That's what sannyas is, it is becoming thoroughly dead to the past.
The moment you are courageous enough to be thoroughly dead to the past, a miracle happens, the greatest miracle of life, the miracle, the only miracle -- that you are resurrected. And then you are resurrected you don't belong to time, you belong to eternity; you are no more mortal, you are immortal.
The whole art of sannyas is first learning the process of dying to the past and then, second, learning how to live in the present. Within these two steps the whole journey is complete.
And your name, Han, is also beautiful; it comes from a Hebrew root, john. It means god's gracious gift.
Meditation is the greatest gift one can long for, one can pray for, because every other treasure is just rubbish compared to it. And because John was the most beloved disciple of Jesus, it has also become associated symbolically with a new meaning: the beloved disciple.
Sannyas means disciplehood. It means merging and melting into the master, forgetting your self, your separate entity. The master is only an opportunity to help you to get rid of the ego. Once you are free of the ego you have passed through the master, through the gate, you have entered into god. The master is only a gate, but without passing through the gate nobody en into the temple of god.
[Then he talked about meditation as being like a fire because it burns away most of who you think you are and leaves behind only what's really essential, your intrinsic core.]
We cling to the circumference, so much so that we have completely forgotten about the centre. Unless the circumference disappears completely we are not going to be reminded of the centre. And the centre contains all, the very kingdom of god.
And the centre is capable of creating a thousand and one circumferences, so there is no fear; one can burn one's circumference and go to the centre, to the roots; they are capable -- their potential is infinite -- of bringing forth another tree. But when you are born you are unconscious. You are born as a centre but because you are unconscious you start creating a circumference -- society helps to create it -- but you are unconscious, so whatsoever people go on forcing upon you becomes your periphery. It is borrowed, and anything borrowed is ugly, anything borrowed is against your nature. It is others' imposition, their desires and ambitions.
Your father wanted you to be a doctor or an engineer. Nobody ever bothered about what your potential was; maybe you were born to be a poet. Now, forcing you to be an engineer is almost murdering you because engineering cannot be poetry, it is very unpoetic. You may be a born musician and forcing you to become a mathematician is violent, very violent. And for centuries we have been doing this to every child. The child is the most oppressed and exploited person in the whole world.
First we were thinking that the proletariat is the most oppressed class; then we became aware that even more than the proletariat, woman is the most exploited class. Now a third thing is going to happen, it is already happening; those who are pioneers, those who always go on exploring into the unknown, are becoming aware that the child is the most exploited and oppressed person and the most helpless. Even the proletariat are not so helpless. They can fight back, they have their unions and now they have great organisations, political parties and ideologies. The woman is also starting to fight back, asserting herself. But the child is the problem -- who will fight for the child?
Because he is so helpless he cannot have unions, he cannot be independent, he cannot earn his own livelihood. He is so utterly dependent that it is very easy to exploit him. And the people who have been exploiting him are not doing it consciously; in fact they intend to help the child in every possible way. They love the child, that's what they say, but their love is unconscious and anything unconscious, even love, becomes poisonous.
Unconsciousness is poison; it can be destructive to any beautiful thing. And just the opposite is the case with consciousness: a man with consciousness can use even poison in such a way that it becomes medicinal. The unconscious man, even if you give him elixir, ambrosia, is bound to kill himself or others with it. He cannot do otherwise.
Parents are not consciously exploiting their children; they are doing it for the child's sake. They think that if he is a engineer, a scientist, a mathematician, a professor, a politician, a president, a prime minister, that will be good for him; if he is rich, has great money and wealth and name and fame, he will be happy in his life. But they are completely unconscious because they know... but they know only in a very very vague way, it is not clear-cut. They see presidents, prime ministers; they know they are not happy. They see the rich people; they know they are not happy. They themselves may be rich and they know they are not happy. They may have succeeded in their life, in their profession, and they know that life has been just a stupid exercise of utter futility, nothing has been gained. But that's all they know, and that's all they can teach. With all good wishes they impose their ideas on the child.
That becomes the circumference of everyone.
Sannyas means that we will have to destroy that circumference so that you can be brought back to your original centre. The Zen people call it the original face -- your face before anybody started painting it and putting masks on it to make it beautiful, to make it look beautiful -- just the original face as nature intended it to be. That already exists at the centre but the circumference has to disappear. And through the fire of meditation is the only way -- because the circumference means the mind and meditation means no-mind; hence I say the only way, because if mind has to be destroyed then you have to learn the ways of being a no-mind.
And once you have discovered your centre you can a totally new circumference, but it will be accordance with your nature. Then life has beauty, harmony, grace. And to live in harmony is to know god.
How long will you be staying?'
About one or two years' replied the new sannyasin.
That's very good! So the fire is going to do its work!
[Meditation is fire -- and rebellion, he went on to say to someone else.]
Meditation brings rebellion in life -- rebellion against all traditions, conventions, dogmas, creeds, rebellion against the whole past, because unless you are completely clean of the past you cannot be totally herenow. And unless you are totally herenow you will never know what the truth is.
Truth is never in the past, never in the future; truth is always here and now. Truth means that which is. You cannot use the word 'was' for truth or 'will be' for truth; truth is always 'is', isness is truth.
Our mind goes on moving from the past to the future. It is like a pendulum moving from one extreme to another extreme. It never stays in the middle, and the middle is the truth. From the past to the future, from the future to the past, we go on shuttling like a goods train. We never stay in the now, and the now is the nature of existence. Existence knows only one tense, the present tense.
That is the greatest rebellion in life, to drop all the traditions and all conventions -- Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, the Koran, the Bible, the Gita -- to drop them all in toto. It needs guts, needs courage, it needs a man, not a child, It needs some integrity, some growth. And my whole work here is to help you to become more mature so that you can pass through this rebellion.
Once you have passed through this rebellion Christ is born in you, Buddha is born in you; they are different names for the same experience. But all this happens through meditation, hence sannyas revolves around the idea of meditation.
I don't give you any other thing, no character, no ordinary life style. I just tell you a simple and single thing: be meditative. In meditation is my whole philosophy of life. Out of it thousands of flowers bloom and blossom. Out of it everything that is needed comes by itself -- you need not search for it,'
Mind is an identification with the body. One feels 'I am the body'; this is the state of mind. Meditation is a disidentification with the body. One starts feeling 'I am in the body but I am not the body. The body is just like a house and I am residing in it. I have resided in many bodies, many houses -- there is no need to cling to this particular house. This house is going to collapse as all houses always collapse sooner or later. But my being is eternal, it cannot collapse. It is not made of collapsible material, it is not made of material at al]; it is just pure consciousness.
As you move into meditation this feeling starts becoming stronger every day. That does not mean that you start neglecting the body, on the contrary, you start caring about the body more carefully because it is a beautiful house, a gift of god. You have to keep it clean and beautiful and young and vital, energetic, alive, because you have to live in it for many many years. There is no need to make it ugly, poor, starved. Make it a palace, make it a marble palace, make it a temple, but remember "I am not it," so when it dies you are not dying. The body is born, the body dies; you are never born and you never die.
And the method of meditation is very simple: just watching. Three things have to be watched. The first is the body and its actions. Walking, watch it; sitting, lying down, watch it, and as you watch you will be able to understand "I am the watcher and the body is the watched. It is separate from me." Then there is a deeper watchfulness, the second step. Watch your mind and its activities: thoughts, desires, memories, dreams. If you have succeeded in the first you are bound to succeed in the second too. And then suddenly you become aware "I am not the mind either." Then the subtlest watching begins, the third step. Watch your feelings, sentiments, emotions, moods -- which are very vague and subtle -- watch your heart.
Once a person has become able to watch all three he transcends them, he becomes aware of the fourth, his true being. That is the moment when the soul is born, really born. Before that you were only so-so alive, lukewarm, but not intensely alive, not passionately alive, not totally alive.
I believe in totality, intensity.
God isn't a person he told the next sannyasin, so if you imagine you are praying to god you're only paying homage to your own imagination.
... and people have created as many gods as they want. But godliness is a truth. Godliness means a quality, aliveness. The whole existence is full of aliveness. It is a dance a celebration. It is not just matter, it is consciousness.
The people who believe in god are believing in a superstition. The people who really want to find out the truth about god have not to believe but to meditate. Meditation requires no a priori belief; it simply means watching your mind and becoming silent. Slowly slowly mind starts disappearing and silence becomes more and more profound. When the mind completely disappears and there is only a peace pervading you, you become aware of godliness. Then the whole existence is transformed. It becomes luminous, with the tremendously beautiful presence of something mysterious. That mystery is god, that luminosity is god, that bliss is god, that benediction is god.
[This Osho followed by talking about the two kinds of silence that one can experience.]
One is a very superficial silence. Everybody experiences it once in a while -- the silence that you feel when you wake up in the morning just for a few seconds. There is no worry, no thought. Just for a few seconds there is a gap, night is over, the dreams are finished and the day with all its worries and troubles has not yet started. But it is a superficial silence; it is a by-product of sleep. Sleep is rest but it is not a deep rest, hence it cannot give you a deep silence.
Meditation is a deep deep rest, as deep as possible. And it goes on deepening every day. A moment comes in meditation when the depth is such, abysmal, that you cannot see any bottom anywhere; it is infinite. Then you go on falling and falling into that deep abyss; there is nowhere to stop. But the deeper you go, the more bliss arises.
Superficial silence can be disturbed very easily by any silly thing. If you get up out of your bed and you don't find your slippers where they should be, if the servant has forgotten to put them there, all silence is disturbed and you are mad and you start slamming doors and doing all kinds of things. This kind of silence is of not much use. This silence also comes after making love, but that too is very momentary; soon it is lost.
Sannyas is the search for a silence that remains like an undercurrent for twenty-four hours a day, so deep and so profound that there is no possibility of it getting disturbed. Nothing can disturb it, not even death.
It happened once: a Zen master was writing a letter -- it was the middle of the night -- and a thief entered his hut. Of course the door was not locked; there was nothing there, so there was no need for a lock. The thief came into the house just through a misunderstanding. If he had known that it was a Zen master's house he would not have entered, because what can you find in a Zen master's house?
But when he entered the Zen master looked at him and asked him 'What do you want?' The way he asked ... the thief could not lie. When you are encountering a man of truth it is very difficult to lie, it is almost impossible.
The thief said "I am sorry -- I am a thief -- I have come to steal something. But excuse me, I never know that I was entering a Zen master's house."
The master said "Don't feel embarrassed. Look into that box -- there are ten rupees. More I cannot offer because more I don't have. You can take those ten rupees, you deserve them. You have come so far and the night is so dark. And in fact I am feeling very happy: this is the first time a thief has given me the honour of being thought rich, otherwise I am a poor man. You have honoured me by coming to my house; now I can also brag that thieves have started coming to me, to my house. So take out those ten rupees.
The thief was in such a puzzled state he could not figure it out, what to do, what not to do, how to manage with this man. He wanted somehow to escape so he quickly took out the ten rupees and as he was leaving the master said "Wait. Leave at least one rupee in the box because in the morning I will have to pay the milkman. Put it back"
So the thief followed the master just like a small child. He wanted somehow to escape this dangerous man. What kind of thing was this -- because he had been stealing his whole life and for the first time he had encountered a real man.
He rushed out of the room. The master said "Wait, learn a few manners -- thank me first and then close the door." So he had to thank the master and close the door.
After a few days he was caught -- there were some other cases against him -- and he confessed that he had stolen from the master also.
The judge said "This is too much, to steal from a man who is enlightened. Don't you have any heart? Are you completely dead or what?" And he said "I will call the master to court and if he says you have stolen from him, that's enough. Then I will not look into other cases, that's enough: I will send you at least for twenty years."
The master was called and the master said "This is a beautiful man. Release him immediately. He never stole from me." Now there was another surprise for the thief. The master said "Because he thanked me you cannot call it stealing. I gave him the money and he thanked me for it, he was perfectly grateful for it. And I asked him to close the door and he had. In fact I owe one rupee to him." He had brought one rupee for the thief saying "Please accept this one rupee because that night I had to tell you to leave one rupee. It was not good of me but you were so generous that you left one rupee for me for the morning milk. And remember, if you have to come again, at least inform me two days before. Then I will manage something. I will beg and I will find a few people and I will arrange some money for you."
Because the master said release him, the thief was released. He followed the master to his hut. The master says 'Why are you following me? I told you, if you want to steal anything you have to inform me two days before. Come in two days.' The thief said "Forget all about stealing, I am coming to be initiated by you, because this is the first time I have seen what profound silence is. Now there is only one longing in me, to be as silent as you are. I have seen the beauty and the grace of it and the bliss of it. You are my first encounter with god."
Meditation brings such a profound silence that cannot be disturbed at all.
How long will you be here?
Two more weeks, said Lalita, the Italian translator, but she's coming back in January for one year.
That's perfectly good. Come back! And one year always means forever. First come here, come here for one year -- I trust Italians