[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up.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.]
[What is too costly to be sold and yet is given away for free? Love, said Osho to Prem Anthony.]
Love is not a commodity, hence it cannot be purchased or sold. That is one of the most difficult problems human beings have to face. They all need love, but it is not a commodity, it is not a thing. It has to be deserved -- one has to be worthy of it. One has to create the right state of mind within oneself, only then does love start showering on you.
It would be far easier if it were a commodity, if it were something which money could purchase. But whatsoever money can purchase remains only a toy. You can play with it, it can keep you occupied but it cannot fulfill you. It can make your life comfortable, but it cannot give you any joy, any bliss, any truth. It can certainly help you to live in luxury but it will not give you any of the real thrill of being alive. In fact it can kill you in many ways, because the more you become burdened with things, the less alive you are.
In fact that's how money creates comfort. It makes you more and more insensitive, more and more closed, it helps you to live in a cozy grave. Hence the paradox: the richest are the most poor people in the world. Sometimes poor people are far richer. If they know how to use their poverty they can be immensely rich. But people don't know how to use their poverty, people don't know how to use their richness. They don't really know how to be here on the earth.
Sannyas is the art of living life in its totality, with intensity and passion, with all that is possible. All that is potential has to be made actual. And it can happen only through love.
By love I mean a state of deep silence in you, of no turmoil, of calmness and quietness. Then suddenly the whole existence starts flowing towards you. And the moment existence starts flowing towards you, rushes towards you, you feel for the first time significant, meaningful. That meaning is inestimable, immeasurable, in fact incomprehensible. The mind is left far behind -- it is something of the heart. Hence I talk about love, not about logic.
Logic remains of the mind. It is useful, but remember, only useful. It can create commodities in the world, it can create things, gadgets, technology. It can make you comfortable but it cannot give you the ecstasy for which the heart longs. And unless that ecstasy happens, one has lived in vain.
Be silent, be alert, and you will be surprised that something that was not available to you becomes abundantly available; you cannot exhaust it. You could not have purchased it and now you cannot exhaust it, you can go on sharing it with people. The more you share it, the more you have it.
[On the twenty-first of the month Osho talked to Prem Simone about right hearing. To Dhyan Simone who took sannyas tonight he talked about listening to not the voice of the outer master but one's own inner guide.]
Meditation is the art of hearing your own inner voice. It is there, it is always there. Your being always wants to talk to you. It has many messages to give to you; in each situation it immediately gives you a message. And it is always right; there is no question of right and wrong, there is no question of choice. The being simply shows you what to do, where to move, in what direction. It is clear-cut; there are no ifs and buts. And the clarity is so profound that you cannot miss it; you will be able to see the light.
And then, not to follow it is impossible. It is impossible. Knowing perfectly well where the door is, seeing perfectly well where the door is, and still trying to get out through the wall is impossible. Yes, a blindman can grope, but the man with eyes simply moves out by the door. He never even gives a thought to it, he never decides whether to move out by the door or by the wall -- it is not a question at all. He simply moves out by the door because the door, not the wall is meant for moving out by. He never gropes, he never asks anybody.
At the innermost centre of our being is immense light, immense clarity. But we live on the periphery where everything is noisy. We live on the periphery because our mind is nothing but the periphery. It is a peripheral phenomenon. It is useful because that is the only place from where we can connect to the world, from where we can communicate with people; it is the only place from where we can talk to the neighbours. When you want to talk to your neighbour you go to the periphery of your house; just standing by the side of your fence you can talk to your neighbour.
Slowly slowly we have become so accustomed of talking to others that we have forgotten that there is somebody inside us also who wants to talk to us, who has tremendously significant messages.
The guide exists within us, but to hear it we have to move inwards a little bit so that the traffic noise is no more there, so that the neighbours are no more there, so the whole world disappears.
That is the whole process of meditation: moving inwards, getting away, far away from the periphery. Rather th an looking out, looking in; rather than listening outside, listening inside. It is only a question of changing the gestalt. Once you have got the knack even standing in the very marketplace you can turn in. Amidst the noise of the world you can still remain in contact with your being.
To be in contact with your being is to be going the right way, always going the right way. So I don't give any detailed instructions to my sannyasins about how to live, what to do, what not to do. They would very much like to be given detailed instructions because that's how they have lived their whole life: somebody was always saying that this is right and this is wrong. Left alone they feel very much afraid -- nobody to guide them, nobody to tell them what is right; hence they have invented god the father. It is nothing but a projection of the child for a father, the feeling that "A father is absolutely needed, otherwise I am lost."
Hence all the religions which talk about god as father have remained primitive, they are childish. And Sigmund Freud is right as far as Christianity is concerned, Judaism is concerned, Mohammedanism is concerned. He is perfectly right -- that god the father or god the mother are nothing but projections of a childish mind, a mind which has remained retarded, which cannot depend on its own insight, which always needs some outward authority.
But the projected god is just a projection, so he cannot speak to you. That's why the priest becomes a must, the priest becomes the mediator. You need the Pope, the Shankaracharya, the Ayatollah. They become agents; they speak in the name of god, on his behalf. Then the whole game of religion begins: you project because you are childish, but the god which is projected has no voice -- he cannot say anything to you, in fact he does not exist at all; it is just an idea in your mind, nothing else -- but the priest can speak.
The priest is the most cunning person in the world. His is the most cunning profession because he exploits your childish mind and he wants you to remain childish. He becomes the mediator. He says "I know what god's voice is. I can hear it and I will tell you and I will guide you."
The whole of religion is nonsense, this type of religion is nonsense. We have to get rid of this whole idea.
God is your inner voice. No priest is needed, you need not have any instructions from anybody about your life. But one thing has to be done, you have to move inwards so that you can hear the still, small voice. Once it is heard, once you know how it can be heard, your whole life is transformed. Then whatsoever you do is right.
Socrates says knowledge is virtue. By knowledge he does not mean knowledgeability, by knowledge he means intuitive insight, knowing. His statement is tremendously significant. Intuitive knowing is virtue. He does not say what is virtue and what is sin; intuitive knowing is virtue, because the man who knows intuitively, the man who can hear his own innermost core, is bound to be virtuous, he cannot be otherwise. It is inevitable. Once heard you cannot go against it because nobody can be so foolish, it is unimaginable.
So my whole effort here is -- and this has been the effort of all the masters; Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra -- to help the disciple to listen to his own centre. I am not giving you a discipline, I just have to help you to listen to your own centre and then to follow your own heart. That will be virtue, and that is real character, that is real morality. But it comes from your own innermost recesses; it is nothing imposed from the outside.
"Simone" is a beautiful word: gracious hearing. And one who can hear his own innermost core becomes capable of hearing many things. He can hear the song of the birds -- for the first time -- he can hear the wind passing through the pine trees -- for the first time -- he can hear the whispering of the trees -- for the first time. He has learned a new language: hearing his own being he has become capable of hearing the being of the whole existence itself, because it is the same language.
But one has to begin with oneself. The sannyasin begins with his own centre and ends with the centre of the world. And the ultimate miracle is to know that these two centres are not two, they are one. We are different as far as circumferences are concerned, we are not different as far as the centre is concerned.
The day it happens that you come to know that your centre and the centre of the world are not two separate centres but one is the day of enlightenment, is the day when one is liberated. That is the ultimate fulfilment of life and everything that life contains. It is the most blissful event. It is the most perennial experience. And without experiencing it nobody really has the right to die.
One should make it a commitment that "I will put my whole energy into experiencing this phenomenon called god, tao. dhamma. truth. I will not leave any stone unturned." This commitment is sannyas
[Meditation is the whetstone for intelligence, Osho told Dhyan Lenie, a housewife from Holland.]
Without meditation there is so much dust and so much rust inside that one is bound to remain dull Even the so-called very talented people are dull They may have become experts in a particular field, but as far as the totality of life is concerned they are very stupid. You can depend on them if the situation is within the scope of their knowledge, but if the situation is new you cannot depend on them. They are as foolish as anybody else, or sometimes even more foolish because they cannot accept their ignorance; hence they will pretend that they know the answer even in an absolutely new situation. But they know only that which has been fed into their minds.
Intelligence is the art of facing the new, the art of encountering the unknown. Only in encountering the unknown does one come to know whether there's intelligence or not. Expertise does not prove intelligence, it only proves efficiency.
Children are far more intelligent than grown-ups. It is a very strange world. Grown-ups should be more intelligent but that is not the case. The more experienced they become, the more unintelligent they become. Rather than looking into the situation and finding the answer, they start looking in their memory. If the answer comes from the memory, good, otherwise they are at a loss. And this world today depends on experts for almost everything. So we force every child to become an expert in some way rather than helping him to become more intelligent.
Society is really in need not of intelligence but of efficient workers, slaves. It is afraid of intelligent people because intelligent people are bound to be rebellious, are bound to be disobedient. They cannot be easily manipulated and they cannot be reduced to things. They would rather die than be enslaved. They would like to live their life according to their light because they have a light.
Hence the whole effort of the vested interest is to put your light out so you have to depend on some foolish politician or the priest or the professor.
Lenie also has another meaning: light. But they are just the same; intelligence, brilliance and light are not different things. The intelligent person has a flame inside him. He is full of light, so full that you can even see a certain aura surrounding him. And whatsoever he says and does has a grace and a beauty about it.
And he encounters the unknown and even the unknowable with tremendous courage, with great calm, with absolute trust, because he knows there is light in him and that is enough to guide him in every kind of situation.
Knowledge can give you expertise in a particular direction; meditation simply makes you intelligent. You can use it in any direction, in any dimension; it includes all, it is not exclusive, it is inclusive. And that gives totality to a person.
This is what is called wisdom in the scriptures. A wise man may not be so knowledgeable but he is always
Whatsoever he does has the imprint of intelligence in it It is immaterial what he is doing, but one thing is absolutely certain, that there will be intelligence in it.
My effort here is to give you as much sharpening as possible so your consciousness becomes like a sharp sword. And when that sharp sword is in your hands you can cut all the problems from their very roots in a single blow. That brings revolution in life, that transforms you and your vision. It gives you a totally new world because now you have a totally new consciousness.
[The logical or the lyrical -- man can choose either as his orientation in life. Osho outlined the difference.]
If one lives a prose-life then one lives in a very mundane and worldly way. Then one can succeed in having much money, power, prestige but inside one will remain empty and miserable and insane. One will only vegetate -- there will be no dance in life.
And you can see it: millions of people are living a prose-style of life simply for one reason, that all the others are living in the same way. It is easier to be part of the collective. To choose a poetic style means you are trying to be an individual, you will be living your life in your own way. And a life lived in one's own way is dangerous, it is insecure. For many reasons the masses will condemn it, because. poetry is not going to bring you power, money, prestige; it cannot fulfil any kind of ambition. But it will give you tremendous joy, it will make you radiant; you will start opening like a lotus, you will become a flower. You will enjoy life to the fullest, but it will be a life of interiority, of inwardness, of love, of music, of dance -- things which are not valued by the world.
The world values diamonds, the world values presidents, the world values Adolf Hitlers -- all kinds of maniacs. The world is not interested in poets, in - painters, in musicians, in dancers, in meditators. The world has all kinds of condemnatory names for these people. They seem to the worldly, vagabonds, hobos, useless, good for nothing.
One has to accept all this condemnation. If one wants to live a life of beauty and bliss one has to be ready to accept all these condemnations. One should not care at all. It does not matter what people think about you, what really matters is what is your own inner experience.
My sannyasins have to live like poets, poets of life -- non-ambitious, utterly egoless, non-political, non-worldly, but always in a kind of celebration that goes on. The sannyasin has to live his life as celebration and he has to die his death as celebration.
The day you have fulfilled these two conditions you have done the greatest miracle in the world.
Osho's Commentary
[What is too costly to be sold and yet is given away for free? Love, said Osho to Prem Anthony.]
Love is not a commodity, hence it cannot be purchased or sold. That is one of the most difficult problems human beings have to face. They all need love, but it is not a commodity, it is not a thing. It has to be deserved -- one has to be worthy of it. One has to create the right state of mind within oneself, only then does love start showering on you.
It would be far easier if it were a commodity, if it were something which money could purchase. But whatsoever money can purchase remains only a toy. You can play with it, it can keep you occupied but it cannot fulfill you. It can make your life comfortable, but it cannot give you any joy, any bliss, any truth. It can certainly help you to live in luxury but it will not give you any of the real thrill of being alive. In fact it can kill you in many ways, because the more you become burdened with things, the less alive you are.
In fact that's how money creates comfort. It makes you more and more insensitive, more and more closed, it helps you to live in a cozy grave. Hence the paradox: the richest are the most poor people in the world. Sometimes poor people are far richer. If they know how to use their poverty they can be immensely rich. But people don't know how to use their poverty, people don't know how to use their richness. They don't really know how to be here on the earth.
Sannyas is the art of living life in its totality, with intensity and passion, with all that is possible. All that is potential has to be made actual. And it can happen only through love.
By love I mean a state of deep silence in you, of no turmoil, of calmness and quietness. Then suddenly the whole existence starts flowing towards you. And the moment existence starts flowing towards you, rushes towards you, you feel for the first time significant, meaningful. That meaning is inestimable, immeasurable, in fact incomprehensible. The mind is left far behind -- it is something of the heart. Hence I talk about love, not about logic.
Logic remains of the mind. It is useful, but remember, only useful. It can create commodities in the world, it can create things, gadgets, technology. It can make you comfortable but it cannot give you the ecstasy for which the heart longs. And unless that ecstasy happens, one has lived in vain.
Be silent, be alert, and you will be surprised that something that was not available to you becomes abundantly available; you cannot exhaust it. You could not have purchased it and now you cannot exhaust it, you can go on sharing it with people. The more you share it, the more you have it.
[On the twenty-first of the month Osho talked to Prem Simone about right hearing. To Dhyan Simone who took sannyas tonight he talked about listening to not the voice of the outer master but one's own inner guide.]
Meditation is the art of hearing your own inner voice. It is there, it is always there. Your being always wants to talk to you. It has many messages to give to you; in each situation it immediately gives you a message. And it is always right; there is no question of right and wrong, there is no question of choice. The being simply shows you what to do, where to move, in what direction. It is clear-cut; there are no ifs and buts. And the clarity is so profound that you cannot miss it; you will be able to see the light.
And then, not to follow it is impossible. It is impossible. Knowing perfectly well where the door is, seeing perfectly well where the door is, and still trying to get out through the wall is impossible. Yes, a blindman can grope, but the man with eyes simply moves out by the door. He never even gives a thought to it, he never decides whether to move out by the door or by the wall -- it is not a question at all. He simply moves out by the door because the door, not the wall is meant for moving out by. He never gropes, he never asks anybody.
At the innermost centre of our being is immense light, immense clarity. But we live on the periphery where everything is noisy. We live on the periphery because our mind is nothing but the periphery. It is a peripheral phenomenon. It is useful because that is the only place from where we can connect to the world, from where we can communicate with people; it is the only place from where we can talk to the neighbours. When you want to talk to your neighbour you go to the periphery of your house; just standing by the side of your fence you can talk to your neighbour.
Slowly slowly we have become so accustomed of talking to others that we have forgotten that there is somebody inside us also who wants to talk to us, who has tremendously significant messages.
The guide exists within us, but to hear it we have to move inwards a little bit so that the traffic noise is no more there, so that the neighbours are no more there, so the whole world disappears.
That is the whole process of meditation: moving inwards, getting away, far away from the periphery. Rather th an looking out, looking in; rather than listening outside, listening inside. It is only a question of changing the gestalt. Once you have got the knack even standing in the very marketplace you can turn in. Amidst the noise of the world you can still remain in contact with your being.
To be in contact with your being is to be going the right way, always going the right way. So I don't give any detailed instructions to my sannyasins about how to live, what to do, what not to do. They would very much like to be given detailed instructions because that's how they have lived their whole life: somebody was always saying that this is right and this is wrong. Left alone they feel very much afraid -- nobody to guide them, nobody to tell them what is right; hence they have invented god the father. It is nothing but a projection of the child for a father, the feeling that "A father is absolutely needed, otherwise I am lost."
Hence all the religions which talk about god as father have remained primitive, they are childish. And Sigmund Freud is right as far as Christianity is concerned, Judaism is concerned, Mohammedanism is concerned. He is perfectly right -- that god the father or god the mother are nothing but projections of a childish mind, a mind which has remained retarded, which cannot depend on its own insight, which always needs some outward authority.
But the projected god is just a projection, so he cannot speak to you. That's why the priest becomes a must, the priest becomes the mediator. You need the Pope, the Shankaracharya, the Ayatollah. They become agents; they speak in the name of god, on his behalf. Then the whole game of religion begins: you project because you are childish, but the god which is projected has no voice -- he cannot say anything to you, in fact he does not exist at all; it is just an idea in your mind, nothing else -- but the priest can speak.
The priest is the most cunning person in the world. His is the most cunning profession because he exploits your childish mind and he wants you to remain childish. He becomes the mediator. He says "I know what god's voice is. I can hear it and I will tell you and I will guide you."
The whole of religion is nonsense, this type of religion is nonsense. We have to get rid of this whole idea.
God is your inner voice. No priest is needed, you need not have any instructions from anybody about your life. But one thing has to be done, you have to move inwards so that you can hear the still, small voice. Once it is heard, once you know how it can be heard, your whole life is transformed. Then whatsoever you do is right.
Socrates says knowledge is virtue. By knowledge he does not mean knowledgeability, by knowledge he means intuitive insight, knowing. His statement is tremendously significant. Intuitive knowing is virtue. He does not say what is virtue and what is sin; intuitive knowing is virtue, because the man who knows intuitively, the man who can hear his own innermost core, is bound to be virtuous, he cannot be otherwise. It is inevitable. Once heard you cannot go against it because nobody can be so foolish, it is unimaginable.
So my whole effort here is -- and this has been the effort of all the masters; Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra -- to help the disciple to listen to his own centre. I am not giving you a discipline, I just have to help you to listen to your own centre and then to follow your own heart. That will be virtue, and that is real character, that is real morality. But it comes from your own innermost recesses; it is nothing imposed from the outside.
"Simone" is a beautiful word: gracious hearing. And one who can hear his own innermost core becomes capable of hearing many things. He can hear the song of the birds -- for the first time -- he can hear the wind passing through the pine trees -- for the first time -- he can hear the whispering of the trees -- for the first time. He has learned a new language: hearing his own being he has become capable of hearing the being of the whole existence itself, because it is the same language.
But one has to begin with oneself. The sannyasin begins with his own centre and ends with the centre of the world. And the ultimate miracle is to know that these two centres are not two, they are one. We are different as far as circumferences are concerned, we are not different as far as the centre is concerned.
The day it happens that you come to know that your centre and the centre of the world are not two separate centres but one is the day of enlightenment, is the day when one is liberated. That is the ultimate fulfilment of life and everything that life contains. It is the most blissful event. It is the most perennial experience. And without experiencing it nobody really has the right to die.
One should make it a commitment that "I will put my whole energy into experiencing this phenomenon called god, tao. dhamma. truth. I will not leave any stone unturned." This commitment is sannyas
[Meditation is the whetstone for intelligence, Osho told Dhyan Lenie, a housewife from Holland.]
Without meditation there is so much dust and so much rust inside that one is bound to remain dull Even the so-called very talented people are dull They may have become experts in a particular field, but as far as the totality of life is concerned they are very stupid. You can depend on them if the situation is within the scope of their knowledge, but if the situation is new you cannot depend on them. They are as foolish as anybody else, or sometimes even more foolish because they cannot accept their ignorance; hence they will pretend that they know the answer even in an absolutely new situation. But they know only that which has been fed into their minds.
Intelligence is the art of facing the new, the art of encountering the unknown. Only in encountering the unknown does one come to know whether there's intelligence or not. Expertise does not prove intelligence, it only proves efficiency.
Children are far more intelligent than grown-ups. It is a very strange world. Grown-ups should be more intelligent but that is not the case. The more experienced they become, the more unintelligent they become. Rather than looking into the situation and finding the answer, they start looking in their memory. If the answer comes from the memory, good, otherwise they are at a loss. And this world today depends on experts for almost everything. So we force every child to become an expert in some way rather than helping him to become more intelligent.
Society is really in need not of intelligence but of efficient workers, slaves. It is afraid of intelligent people because intelligent people are bound to be rebellious, are bound to be disobedient. They cannot be easily manipulated and they cannot be reduced to things. They would rather die than be enslaved. They would like to live their life according to their light because they have a light.
Hence the whole effort of the vested interest is to put your light out so you have to depend on some foolish politician or the priest or the professor.
Lenie also has another meaning: light. But they are just the same; intelligence, brilliance and light are not different things. The intelligent person has a flame inside him. He is full of light, so full that you can even see a certain aura surrounding him. And whatsoever he says and does has a grace and a beauty about it.
And he encounters the unknown and even the unknowable with tremendous courage, with great calm, with absolute trust, because he knows there is light in him and that is enough to guide him in every kind of situation.
Knowledge can give you expertise in a particular direction; meditation simply makes you intelligent. You can use it in any direction, in any dimension; it includes all, it is not exclusive, it is inclusive. And that gives totality to a person.
This is what is called wisdom in the scriptures. A wise man may not be so knowledgeable but he is always
Whatsoever he does has the imprint of intelligence in it It is immaterial what he is doing, but one thing is absolutely certain, that there will be intelligence in it.
My effort here is to give you as much sharpening as possible so your consciousness becomes like a sharp sword. And when that sharp sword is in your hands you can cut all the problems from their very roots in a single blow. That brings revolution in life, that transforms you and your vision. It gives you a totally new world because now you have a totally new consciousness.
[The logical or the lyrical -- man can choose either as his orientation in life. Osho outlined the difference.]
If one lives a prose-life then one lives in a very mundane and worldly way. Then one can succeed in having much money, power, prestige but inside one will remain empty and miserable and insane. One will only vegetate -- there will be no dance in life.
And you can see it: millions of people are living a prose-style of life simply for one reason, that all the others are living in the same way. It is easier to be part of the collective. To choose a poetic style means you are trying to be an individual, you will be living your life in your own way. And a life lived in one's own way is dangerous, it is insecure. For many reasons the masses will condemn it, because. poetry is not going to bring you power, money, prestige; it cannot fulfil any kind of ambition. But it will give you tremendous joy, it will make you radiant; you will start opening like a lotus, you will become a flower. You will enjoy life to the fullest, but it will be a life of interiority, of inwardness, of love, of music, of dance -- things which are not valued by the world.
The world values diamonds, the world values presidents, the world values Adolf Hitlers -- all kinds of maniacs. The world is not interested in poets, in - painters, in musicians, in dancers, in meditators. The world has all kinds of condemnatory names for these people. They seem to the worldly, vagabonds, hobos, useless, good for nothing.
One has to accept all this condemnation. If one wants to live a life of beauty and bliss one has to be ready to accept all these condemnations. One should not care at all. It does not matter what people think about you, what really matters is what is your own inner experience.
My sannyasins have to live like poets, poets of life -- non-ambitious, utterly egoless, non-political, non-worldly, but always in a kind of celebration that goes on. The sannyasin has to live his life as celebration and he has to die his death as celebration.
The day you have fulfilled these two conditions you have done the greatest miracle in the world.
y