[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up.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.]
[You can only perceive bliss when your vision is clear of the blinkers of the mind -- this was the message in Anand Karin's name.]
Pleasure is of the body, happiness is of the mind, bliss is of the soul. And the soul means your whole being. It contains pleasure, it contains happiness and it contains far more. It is not that pleasure is denied, that happiness is rejected; they are part of it but very small parts. It is like a vast sky which contains all nuances of joy, from the body to the soul
And Karin means purity, cleanness, clarity, spotless clarity, crystal-clear. Bliss is possible only when one has such a clarity that nothing comes between one's vision and existence -- no cloud, no smoke around... and the mind is just smoke. It is nothing but clouds.
Mind keeps you unaware of the sun, unaware of the source of light. It is like a rainy day: the whole sky is covered with clouds. And remember, the clouds are momentary -- they come and go -- but they can cover the eternal. The sky is always there, forever. The clouds come and go, the sky never comes and never goes, but the momentary has the quality of covering the eternal.
All thoughts are momentary, they come and go. No thought remains forever, no emotion remains forever, no mood remains forever, but they have the quality of covering the eternal.
It is because of thoughts, desires, memories, that one remains unclear. The very essential core of sannyas is to attain to such a deep clarity that no thought hinders you, no idea comes between you and existence. When you meet existence face to face, with nothing interfering, there is bliss. One suddenly feels one has come home. Nothing is missing, nothing is lacking, all is fulfilled.
That is the moment when one touches the highest peak of being, of bliss, of benediction.
[Misery exists because of man's many-mindedness, Osho told us.]
Man is never one organic unity, he is almost like a crowd. He is multi-psychic -- many minds, many desires, and all those minds are fighting with each other for domination, all those desires are competing with each other. And the crowd is constantly in a turmoil.
Gurdjieff used to say that man has many selves, small selves, but no real self, no real centre. And all these fragments, these small selves, these tiny egos, go on rushing in different directions; hence the whole of life is wasted in just keeping oneself together. Otherwise one would start falling apart like Humpty-Dumpty.
Bliss happens when you become integrated, when you become like a garland. When a thread, a hidden thread, runs through all the flowers they become a garland. Otherwise you can heap the flowers together but they are all separate, they have no integration, they are not part of one whole. The garland is a beautiful symbol for integration.
We have all that is necessary to become a real man, an authentic individual. All that is missing is a thread that can join them all together. Sannyas is that thread. Any commitment to transform oneself becomes the thread. The moment you really and totally commit yourself, the moment that you decide to become a new being... that very decision starts changing you. In that very moment a miracle has already happened. Suddenly you have a sense of direction and all those tiny selves, small egos, are no more quarrelsome, no more in conflict; they all stand in a queue. Once a great decision has settled in you they all fall in line.
It is just like a small school where the master is not present and all the children are doing all kinds of things -- shouting, jumping, beating each other, fighting; it is a mess. But the moment the master enters suddenly a silence falls over the place. All the children are sitting in their places, at least pretending to road and write; all of the noise has disappeared.
The same happens when a great decision is taken. All these small conflicting selves suddenly realise that now the creater self has arrived, the beginning has happened, the first flower of spring is there. Spring is not far away, it is on the way; the first indication has come.
Sannyas is the beginning of a great journey of immense experiences -- in fact a non-ending journey because every day you will see new doors opening. And they go on opening, it is inexhaustible. Existence is infinite, so we can go on exploring it. We never come to a point where we can say now the journey is finished. Every day the journey becomes more and more rich, every day it starts taking on new dimensions, new altitudes, new heights, new depths -- but it never ends. That is the beauty of it, it begins but it never ends.
The Buddha is reported to have said that the world never begins but it ends. Nirvana -- his word for god -- begins but never ends. And both together become the circle. The world never begins, it has always been there, beginninglessly there, but it ends. It ends the moment you enter into meditation. It ends, it is finished for you; that chapter is closed. Then god begins but god never ends. Both together make the whole of existence.
Hence I am for both. One need not renounce the world. One simply needs to enter into meditativeness and the world ends by itself. And when it ends by itself there is great beauty, there is grace. It simply disappears like dewdrops evaporating in the early morning sun. And then what is left is a totally different phenomenon. One has not even dreamt about it.
So become a garland, become a meditator, because I don't teach anything else. My sannyas is synonymous with meditation. Everything else is non-essential; the essential is meditation, silence, thoughtlessness, awareness. And all these things are possible if your decision is total.
[Much of what Osho said to Dhyanprem about meditation and love he has said earlier this month. He did bring up one point which I've not heard him talk of before:]
The synthesis brings something new into existence for which there is not yet any name; hence I have to use two words "dhyan", "prem" -- meditation and love. There is no way, not a single word in any language, which can express that ultimate unity because in fact it has never been tried.
There have been meditators but they were sad. You can look at Christian saints and pictures of such long faces that one would not like their company at all.
Bertrand Russell is right when he says that if these Christian saints are in heaven then he would prefer hell. Any intelligent person would prefer hell. If I am also convinced that these Christian saints are there in heaven then I will take my sannyasins to hell. That is far better. At least we will have good company!
Meditators have failed -- the world has not been transformed -- and lovers have never boon able to take off from the ground. Our love is like an aeroplane which is being used as a bullock cart. It can rise -- of course you can use it as a bullock cart, but it can rise high into the sky. They cannot rise by themselves, neither meditation nor love, but when both are together, so deeply together, that they become one entity. That brings god to your door -- you need not go anywhere in search of him.
[Meditation and love together can be the womb that will birth the new man, Osho went on to say, and outlined what our part in the conception could be. First he talked about love, about how we think we so we don't bother to seek to learn it.]
One of the very fundamental illusions of humanity is that everybody thinks that he knows what love is; hence nobody discovers it Everybody assumes that they know what love is, hence there is no need to learn, no need to seek, no need to experience. And because of this, love is missing from the world.
There are lovers and no love. Parents pretend they love their children, children pretend they love their parents, husbands pretend, wives pretend -- pretensions and pretensions... And it is not that they are doing it knowingly, they may be completely unaware of the fact. But the root cause is... If everybody was told from the very beginning that love is the greatest art in life because it is the greatest magic, the most miraculous phenomenon.... You cannot take it for granted, you have to explore it, you have to go deeply into it, you have to learn its ways. It is an art.
People learn painting for years; then too, only in thousands of painters does one become a Picasso. People learn music for years and then only once in a while is there a Yehudi Menuhin or Ravi Shankar. If people start exploring love then there will be a few great lovers. Their very presence will enhance the whole existence and everybody will become at least a little bit loving.
And my observation is that painting is a talent so all cannot be great painters. Music is a talent, inborn, so all cannot be great musicians. The majority of painters are bound to remain only technicians not real creators. And the same is the case with music and poetry and literature and all dimensions of creativity. The majority are bound to remain only technical; they know the technique but they have no creative vision.
About love things can be different because love is not a talent but everybody's potential. Hence ultimately it is possible that the whole of humanity can come to a height of love. In fact on that day only will the real humanity be born. We are still living before the real event. It has not yet happened.
Somebody asked Bernard Shaw "What's your opinion about civilisation?" He said "It is a good idea but somebody has to do it -- it has not happened yet."
My sannyasins have to begin a new era. It is not only a question of individual transformation because when thousands of people become meditators and lovers it is bound to affect the whole energy pattern of humanity. Down the centuries it has been experienced again and again that if in a village of one thousand people even one person is a real meditator, the whole quality of the people changes.
Man has come to this state not because of the greater majority but because of a few people like Jesus, Buddha, Zarathustra, Krishna -- just because of these few people. With each Buddha, with each Christ, with each awakened soul, humanity takes a step higher.
But if it can happen -- and it can happen -- that thousands of people become awakened, then the whole humanity will have a quantum leap. That's what I call the beginning of the new man.
My effort here is not just to help individuals -- obviously that's what I am doing -- but deep down it is an effort to create the situation, the background the essential context in which a new man can arise with love in his heart, with light in his soul, with intelligence, with awareness, and can transform the whole earth into a paradise. That miracle is possible. In fact it is only possible now -- it was never possible before -- because we have come to a certain stage of growth. Man is no more childish, he has come of age.
But great effort is needed. One needs to put one's total energy into it Put your total energy into giving yourself a rebirth. And it will not only be a rebirth for you, it will be helping the whole humanity. To me that is true service.
[Then Osho proceeded to describe the situation of most of us regarding love. It seems we have a long way to go; on the other hand, we couldn't be in bettor hands than his!] Love can be animal, human or divine.
Animal love does not care about the other at all. It is absolutely selfish; one uses the other only as a means. If you see animals loving each other you can observe it -- it is a well-known fact -- that once they have made love, they part without even saying a thank-you, without even looking at each other. There is foreplay but there is no afterplay. Before making love there is foreplay because you have to persuade the other, seduce the other, but after making love all is finished.
And the same is true about the majority of human beings, there is no afterplay. You are very polite and loving to the woman before making love; once you have made love, you turn over and go to sleep. This is animal love; the other is being used. And the woman also knows it, so she uses you. She will say that she has a headache today, that she is not feeling well. But on payday she never has a headache -- never, it never happens!
When you come home on payday she is as beautiful as she has never been -- so young, so fresh -- and she gives you such a hug. You know the hug is not given to you, it is given to your money. Your heart is breaking but what to do? The first thing she will do is to take the salary envelope and then she is finished with you!
When she needs you she is very loving, when you need her, you are very loving -- but nobody seems to care for the other. This is animal love. The other is used as a means.
The moment you start respecting the other and you don't use the other as a means -- rather than using the other as a means you start sharing your energies together, meeting on equal terms and being respectful because the other is a person not a thing -- love takes on a new height; it becomes human.
Very rarely, only once in a while, can you see human love. And unless there is human love, human beings are not human beings; they only appear to be human beings. They are still in the jungle, still monkeys.
Charles Darwin is very much deceived in thinking that man has evolved. Who says so? Look... just make a small window in the head of a man and look inside; the monkey is there, jumping from one branch to another and doing all kinds of acrobatics. It is just that the body is erect; man is no more jumping from one branch to another physically, but psychologically he is still a monkey.
And I have heard monkeys chatter among themselves, they think man has fallen -- of course, he has fallen from the tree! And they seem to be far more right than Charles Darwin -- what kind of evolution is this? Can you fight with a monkey? Impossible. You will find yourself very weak.
If suddenly in a lonely jungle a monkey comes, then you will know who is evolved. The monkey is in every way stronger; you have lost strength. His agility, his dynamism -- you have lost some skill that he knows. Jumping from one tree to another is not an easy job. Try it... and you will have a million fractures!
So monkeys don't think it is evolution; it is involution, man has fallen. But just because we have got a human form we feel very happy that we are human beings and that god has made man in his own image.
This man... if this man represents god's image, then even god is not worth anything, then he has no value. If this is the image of god then it is better to be finished with god.
Only when human love arises in your heart is the real human being born. What to say about divine love? Even human love is not easy, but the ultimate goal for sannyasins is to go even beyond the human love.
In human love you respect the other, but the other remains the other. There is a gap, there is a distance. In divine love there is no distance, no gap. Two persons melt and merge into each other; they become one organic unity, two bodies, one soul. Then love is divine.
And that is the experience that gives you the proof of god's existence; when you have experienced it with one person you know that now you can melt with the whole. You know the art, you have learned it; you can now melt with the whole universe and become one with it.
That is prayer. Not the Christians and Hindus praying in their temples -- that is not prayer. Prayer is the ultimate state of love, the fragrance of that ultimate state, the fragrance of the flower of divine love.
[Then more on love to Satprem. Her name means true love, Osho told her. Our love is only so-called love, he began.]
It has many other things in it which are far more predominant: jealousy, possessiveness, domination -- all kinds of ego numbers. And ego is the most poisonous thing for love. Love is very delicate. Ego is like a rock and love is like a rose flower. If you hit a rose flower with a rock nothing will happen to the rock but the rose flower will be gone.
Remember it as something fundamental, that the higher, is always fragile, the lower is stronger. The higher is bound to be delicate.
Now, if there were a wrestling match between Gautam Buddha and Mohammed Ali, everybody knows who would win. Mohammed Ali is just a rock, Buddha is a rose flower. The higher can easily be destroyed by the lower, very easily; hence the higher has to be protected.
Love is the highest flowering of human consciousness; it is the lotus of your inner being. We in the East have called it the one-thousand-petalled lotus. One thousand represents its multi-dimensionality; it contains the whole universe. That's what Jesus moans when he says god is love.
The old Jewish concept of god was of a very demanding, dictatorial type of god who demanded your total allegiance, or regarded you as being inimical to him.
Now this is the way fascists speak, communists speak. This is a very chauvinistic way of speaking: "If you are not with me then you are against me... as if there is no third alternative. One can simply be neither for you nor against. But no fanatic leaves a third alternative; every fanatic says either you are with him or you are against him. He lives in an either-or world. He does not believe that there can be many more possibilities, that life can be a spectrum. That is beyond his vision.
Jesus changes the whole idea of god, he makes him love. But love has to be authentic. Once love is authentic you have entered the shrine of god. And for love to be authentic one has to be very alert not to let it be destroyed by the lower instincts -- jealousy, possessiveness, domination. These are very low phenomena, rocklike. So unless one is continuously aware, cautious, one will not be able to grow the rose.
But if one is cautious none of these rocks can do anything. In fact they can be arranged in such a way that they can give a beautiful context to the rose.
There are Zen gardens where rocks are used with flowers, arranged in such a way that the rock enhances the beauty of the flower, the flower enhances the beauty of the rock. They are in an attunement, they are no more enemies.
When love is protected from the lower instincts and the flower opens up you can even use those lower, rejected things in a beautiful way. And that is the greatest art. Nothing really has to be thrown out, everything can be used; but first there must be the higher value. Only with the higher value can you use the lower in a meaningful way, in a new symphony.
If the higher is missing then the lower cannot be used in any symphony; with the higher even the lower becomes higher. But first and foremost is the high value.
My sannyasins have to learn the ways of authentic love. Don't demand anything, don't desire anything out of love, don't ask anything in return of love -- let it be unconditional. And be thankful if it is accepted by somebody, be grateful. Feel obliged that your love has been accepted, that your love was worth accepting, that the person was generous, that he opened his heart to your heart, that he has given you a new glimpse, that to you he became a mirror in which you could see your love growing.
Each sannyasin has to become an authentic lover. Authentic love brings freedom, pseudo love brings bondage. Beware of pseudo love! People are dying under the weight of pseudo love.
[Osho's concluding words tonight were about meditation. He said meditation is fun -- yet he left a few of us with tears in our eyes.]
Meditation should not be a serious affair. The so-called meditators all over the world tend to be serious. They think they are doing something holy, something spiritual, something extraordinary. And the moment this happens to you your ego starts being exploitive. Even your meditation is exploited by the ego, you start feeling holier-than-thou. And that destroys your meditativeness from the very beginning.
My approach is totally different to what the approach has been for centuries in the world: meditation has to be taken as fun. Nothing is holy in it. The whole existence is holy, so why call it holy specially? To play is holy, to laugh is holy, to love is holy. If everything is holy then there is no need to call anything especially holy; all is sacred because only the sacred exists. So there is no need to make any categories of the sacred and the mundane. I don't divide existence into two because once you divide existence into two you are divided, You become split. I take the whole existence as one.
Meditation is fun, joy, a song, a dance, a celebration. Once you start looking at meditation in this way things will be very easy. You will slowly slip into meditation without any hindrance from the ego, you will never become holier-than-thou.
That is the ugliest thing in the world. That's why to me the so-called saints seem to be the ugliest people in the world, and the most stupid too because they were trying to go beyond ego and they are caught by the ego in such a subtle trap that they cannot even see it.
My sannyasins have to be very ordinary, nobodies. And if one can be just ordinary the extraordinary has happened. If one can be just nobody then the miracle has happened because that is the greatest thing that can happen to somebody. Feeling nobody, a nothingness pervades you, and that nothingness is the secret of the miracle. And then there are many songs out of it, many many joys out of it. All the mysteries are yours, all the ecstasies are yours. The whole universe belongs to you. Suddenly you are not an alien, not a stranger.
This is our home. Herenow is paradise -- this very body, the Buddha and this very earth, the lotus paradise.
Osho's Commentary
[You can only perceive bliss when your vision is clear of the blinkers of the mind -- this was the message in Anand Karin's name.]
Pleasure is of the body, happiness is of the mind, bliss is of the soul. And the soul means your whole being. It contains pleasure, it contains happiness and it contains far more. It is not that pleasure is denied, that happiness is rejected; they are part of it but very small parts. It is like a vast sky which contains all nuances of joy, from the body to the soul
And Karin means purity, cleanness, clarity, spotless clarity, crystal-clear. Bliss is possible only when one has such a clarity that nothing comes between one's vision and existence -- no cloud, no smoke around... and the mind is just smoke. It is nothing but clouds.
Mind keeps you unaware of the sun, unaware of the source of light. It is like a rainy day: the whole sky is covered with clouds. And remember, the clouds are momentary -- they come and go -- but they can cover the eternal. The sky is always there, forever. The clouds come and go, the sky never comes and never goes, but the momentary has the quality of covering the eternal.
All thoughts are momentary, they come and go. No thought remains forever, no emotion remains forever, no mood remains forever, but they have the quality of covering the eternal.
It is because of thoughts, desires, memories, that one remains unclear. The very essential core of sannyas is to attain to such a deep clarity that no thought hinders you, no idea comes between you and existence. When you meet existence face to face, with nothing interfering, there is bliss. One suddenly feels one has come home. Nothing is missing, nothing is lacking, all is fulfilled.
That is the moment when one touches the highest peak of being, of bliss, of benediction.
[Misery exists because of man's many-mindedness, Osho told us.]
Man is never one organic unity, he is almost like a crowd. He is multi-psychic -- many minds, many desires, and all those minds are fighting with each other for domination, all those desires are competing with each other. And the crowd is constantly in a turmoil.
Gurdjieff used to say that man has many selves, small selves, but no real self, no real centre. And all these fragments, these small selves, these tiny egos, go on rushing in different directions; hence the whole of life is wasted in just keeping oneself together. Otherwise one would start falling apart like Humpty-Dumpty.
Bliss happens when you become integrated, when you become like a garland. When a thread, a hidden thread, runs through all the flowers they become a garland. Otherwise you can heap the flowers together but they are all separate, they have no integration, they are not part of one whole. The garland is a beautiful symbol for integration.
We have all that is necessary to become a real man, an authentic individual. All that is missing is a thread that can join them all together. Sannyas is that thread. Any commitment to transform oneself becomes the thread. The moment you really and totally commit yourself, the moment that you decide to become a new being... that very decision starts changing you. In that very moment a miracle has already happened. Suddenly you have a sense of direction and all those tiny selves, small egos, are no more quarrelsome, no more in conflict; they all stand in a queue. Once a great decision has settled in you they all fall in line.
It is just like a small school where the master is not present and all the children are doing all kinds of things -- shouting, jumping, beating each other, fighting; it is a mess. But the moment the master enters suddenly a silence falls over the place. All the children are sitting in their places, at least pretending to road and write; all of the noise has disappeared.
The same happens when a great decision is taken. All these small conflicting selves suddenly realise that now the creater self has arrived, the beginning has happened, the first flower of spring is there. Spring is not far away, it is on the way; the first indication has come.
Sannyas is the beginning of a great journey of immense experiences -- in fact a non-ending journey because every day you will see new doors opening. And they go on opening, it is inexhaustible. Existence is infinite, so we can go on exploring it. We never come to a point where we can say now the journey is finished. Every day the journey becomes more and more rich, every day it starts taking on new dimensions, new altitudes, new heights, new depths -- but it never ends.
That is the beauty of it, it begins but it never ends.
The Buddha is reported to have said that the world never begins but it ends. Nirvana -- his word for god -- begins but never ends. And both together become the circle. The world never begins, it has always been there, beginninglessly there, but it ends. It ends the moment you enter into meditation. It ends, it is finished for you; that chapter is closed. Then god begins but god never ends. Both together make the whole of existence.
Hence I am for both. One need not renounce the world. One simply needs to enter into meditativeness and the world ends by itself. And when it ends by itself there is great beauty, there is grace. It simply disappears like dewdrops evaporating in the early morning sun. And then what is left is a totally different phenomenon. One has not even dreamt about it.
So become a garland, become a meditator, because I don't teach anything else. My sannyas is synonymous with meditation. Everything else is non-essential; the essential is meditation, silence, thoughtlessness, awareness. And all these things are possible if your decision is total.
[Much of what Osho said to Dhyanprem about meditation and love he has said earlier this month. He did bring up one point which I've not heard him talk of before:]
The synthesis brings something new into existence for which there is not yet any name; hence I have to use two words "dhyan", "prem" -- meditation and love. There is no way, not a single word in any language, which can express that ultimate unity because in fact it has never been tried.
There have been meditators but they were sad. You can look at Christian saints and pictures of such long faces that one would not like their company at all.
Bertrand Russell is right when he says that if these Christian saints are in heaven then he would prefer hell. Any intelligent person would prefer hell. If I am also convinced that these Christian saints are there in heaven then I will take my sannyasins to hell. That is far better. At least we will have good company!
Meditators have failed -- the world has not been transformed -- and lovers have never boon able to take off from the ground. Our love is like an aeroplane which is being used as a bullock cart. It can rise -- of course you can use it as a bullock cart, but it can rise high into the sky. They cannot rise by themselves, neither meditation nor love, but when both are together, so deeply together, that they become one entity. That brings god to your door -- you need not go anywhere in search of him.
[Meditation and love together can be the womb that will birth the new man, Osho went on to say, and outlined what our part in the conception could be. First he talked about love, about how we think we so we don't bother to seek to learn it.]
One of the very fundamental illusions of humanity is that everybody thinks that he knows what love is; hence nobody discovers it Everybody assumes that they know what love is, hence there is no need to learn, no need to seek, no need to experience. And because of this, love is missing from the world.
There are lovers and no love. Parents pretend they love their children, children pretend they love their parents, husbands pretend, wives pretend -- pretensions and pretensions... And it is not that they are doing it knowingly, they may be completely unaware of the fact. But the root cause is... If everybody was told from the very beginning that love is the greatest art in life because it is the greatest magic, the most miraculous phenomenon.... You cannot take it for granted, you have to explore it, you have to go deeply into it, you have to learn its ways. It is an art.
People learn painting for years; then too, only in thousands of painters does one become a Picasso. People learn music for years and then only once in a while is there a Yehudi Menuhin or Ravi Shankar. If people start exploring love then there will be a few great lovers. Their very presence will enhance the whole existence and everybody will become at least a little bit loving.
And my observation is that painting is a talent so all cannot be great painters. Music is a talent, inborn, so all cannot be great musicians. The majority of painters are bound to remain only technicians not real creators. And the same is the case with music and poetry and literature and all dimensions of creativity. The majority are bound to remain only technical; they know the technique but they have no creative vision.
About love things can be different because love is not a talent but everybody's potential. Hence ultimately it is possible that the whole of humanity can come to a height of love. In fact on that day only will the real humanity be born. We are still living before the real event. It has not yet happened.
Somebody asked Bernard Shaw "What's your opinion about civilisation?" He said "It is a good idea but somebody has to do it -- it has not happened yet."
My sannyasins have to begin a new era. It is not only a question of individual transformation because when thousands of people become meditators and lovers it is bound to affect the whole energy pattern of humanity. Down the centuries it has been experienced again and again that if in a village of one thousand people even one person is a real meditator, the whole quality of the people changes.
Man has come to this state not because of the greater majority but because of a few people like Jesus, Buddha, Zarathustra, Krishna -- just because of these few people. With each Buddha, with each Christ, with each awakened soul, humanity takes a step higher.
But if it can happen -- and it can happen -- that thousands of people become awakened, then the whole humanity will have a quantum leap. That's what I call the beginning of the new man.
My effort here is not just to help individuals -- obviously that's what I am doing -- but deep down it is an effort to create the situation, the background the essential context in which a new man can arise with love in his heart, with light in his soul, with intelligence, with awareness, and can transform the whole earth into a paradise. That miracle is possible. In fact it is only possible now -- it was never possible before -- because we have come to a certain stage of growth. Man is no more childish, he has come of age.
But great effort is needed. One needs to put one's total energy into it Put your total energy into giving yourself a rebirth. And it will not only be a rebirth for you, it will be helping the whole humanity. To me that is true service.
[Then Osho proceeded to describe the situation of most of us regarding love. It seems we have a long way to go; on the other hand, we couldn't be in bettor hands than his!]
Love can be animal, human or divine.
Animal love does not care about the other at all. It is absolutely selfish; one uses the other only as a means. If you see animals loving each other you can observe it -- it is a well-known fact -- that once they have made love, they part without even saying a thank-you, without even looking at each other. There is foreplay but there is no afterplay. Before making love there is foreplay because you have to persuade the other, seduce the other, but after making love all is finished.
And the same is true about the majority of human beings, there is no afterplay. You are very polite and loving to the woman before making love; once you have made love, you turn over and go to sleep. This is animal love; the other is being used. And the woman also knows it, so she uses you. She will say that she has a headache today, that she is not feeling well. But on payday she never has a headache -- never, it never happens!
When you come home on payday she is as beautiful as she has never been -- so young, so fresh -- and she gives you such a hug. You know the hug is not given to you, it is given to your money. Your heart is breaking but what to do? The first thing she will do is to take the salary envelope and then she is finished with you!
When she needs you she is very loving, when you need her, you are very loving -- but nobody seems to care for the other. This is animal love. The other is used as a means.
The moment you start respecting the other and you don't use the other as a means -- rather than using the other as a means you start sharing your energies together, meeting on equal terms and being respectful because the other is a person not a thing -- love takes on a new height; it becomes human.
Very rarely, only once in a while, can you see human love. And unless there is human love, human beings are not human beings; they only appear to be human beings. They are still in the jungle, still monkeys.
Charles Darwin is very much deceived in thinking that man has evolved. Who says so? Look... just make a small window in the head of a man and look inside; the monkey is there, jumping from one branch to another and doing all kinds of acrobatics. It is just that the body is erect; man is no more jumping from one branch to another physically, but psychologically he is still a monkey.
And I have heard monkeys chatter among themselves, they think man has fallen -- of course, he has fallen from the tree! And they seem to be far more right than Charles Darwin -- what kind of evolution is this? Can you fight with a monkey? Impossible. You will find yourself very weak.
If suddenly in a lonely jungle a monkey comes, then you will know who is evolved. The monkey is in every way stronger; you have lost strength. His agility, his dynamism -- you have lost some skill that he knows. Jumping from one tree to another is not an easy job. Try it... and you will have a million fractures!
So monkeys don't think it is evolution; it is involution, man has fallen. But just because we have got a human form we feel very happy that we are human beings and that god has made man in his own image.
This man... if this man represents god's image, then even god is not worth anything, then he has no value. If this is the image of god then it is better to be finished with god.
Only when human love arises in your heart is the real human being born. What to say about divine love? Even human love is not easy, but the ultimate goal for sannyasins is to go even beyond the human love.
In human love you respect the other, but the other remains the other. There is a gap, there is a distance. In divine love there is no distance, no gap. Two persons melt and merge into each other; they become one organic unity, two bodies, one soul. Then love is divine.
And that is the experience that gives you the proof of god's existence; when you have experienced it with one person you know that now you can melt with the whole. You know the art, you have learned it; you can now melt with the whole universe and become one with it.
That is prayer. Not the Christians and Hindus praying in their temples -- that is not prayer. Prayer is the ultimate state of love, the fragrance of that ultimate state, the fragrance of the flower of divine love.
[Then more on love to Satprem. Her name means true love, Osho told her. Our love is only so-called love, he began.]
It has many other things in it which are far more predominant: jealousy, possessiveness, domination -- all kinds of ego numbers. And ego is the most poisonous thing for love. Love is very delicate. Ego is like a rock and love is like a rose flower. If you hit a rose flower with a rock nothing will happen to the rock but the rose flower will be gone.
Remember it as something fundamental, that the higher, is always fragile, the lower is stronger. The higher is bound to be delicate.
Now, if there were a wrestling match between Gautam Buddha and Mohammed Ali, everybody knows who would win. Mohammed Ali is just a rock, Buddha is a rose flower. The higher can easily be destroyed by the lower, very easily; hence the higher has to be protected.
Love is the highest flowering of human consciousness; it is the lotus of your inner being. We in the East have called it the one-thousand-petalled lotus. One thousand represents its multi-dimensionality; it contains the whole universe. That's what Jesus moans when he says god is love.
The old Jewish concept of god was of a very demanding, dictatorial type of god who demanded your total allegiance, or regarded you as being inimical to him.
Now this is the way fascists speak, communists speak. This is a very chauvinistic way of speaking: "If you are not with me then you are against me... as if there is no third alternative. One can simply be neither for you nor against. But no fanatic leaves a third alternative; every fanatic says either you are with him or you are against him. He lives in an either-or world. He does not believe that there can be many more possibilities, that life can be a spectrum. That is beyond his vision.
Jesus changes the whole idea of god, he makes him love. But love has to be authentic. Once love is authentic you have entered the shrine of god. And for love to be authentic one has to be very alert not to let it be destroyed by the lower instincts -- jealousy, possessiveness, domination. These are very low phenomena, rocklike. So unless one is continuously aware, cautious, one will not be able to grow the rose.
But if one is cautious none of these rocks can do anything. In fact they can be arranged in such a way that they can give a beautiful context to the rose.
There are Zen gardens where rocks are used with flowers, arranged in such a way that the rock enhances the beauty of the flower, the flower enhances the beauty of the rock. They are in an attunement, they are no more enemies.
When love is protected from the lower instincts and the flower opens up you can even use those lower, rejected things in a beautiful way. And that is the greatest art. Nothing really has to be thrown out, everything can be used; but first there must be the higher value. Only with the higher value can you use the lower in a meaningful way, in a new symphony.
If the higher is missing then the lower cannot be used in any symphony; with the higher even the lower becomes higher. But first and foremost is the high value.
My sannyasins have to learn the ways of authentic love. Don't demand anything, don't desire anything out of love, don't ask anything in return of love -- let it be unconditional. And be thankful if it is accepted by somebody, be grateful. Feel obliged that your love has been accepted, that your love was worth accepting, that the person was generous, that he opened his heart to your heart, that he has given you a new glimpse, that to you he became a mirror in which you could see your love growing.
Each sannyasin has to become an authentic lover. Authentic love brings freedom, pseudo love brings bondage. Beware of pseudo love! People are dying under the weight of pseudo love.
[Osho's concluding words tonight were about meditation. He said meditation is fun -- yet he left a few of us with tears in our eyes.]
Meditation should not be a serious affair. The so-called meditators all over the world tend to be serious. They think they are doing something holy, something spiritual, something extraordinary. And the moment this happens to you your ego starts being exploitive. Even your meditation is exploited by the ego, you start feeling holier-than-thou. And that destroys your meditativeness from the very beginning.
My approach is totally different to what the approach has been for centuries in the world: meditation has to be taken as fun. Nothing is holy in it. The whole existence is holy, so why call it holy specially? To play is holy, to laugh is holy, to love is holy. If everything is holy then there is no need to call anything especially holy; all is sacred because only the sacred exists. So there is no need to make any categories of the sacred and the mundane. I don't divide existence into two because once you divide existence into two you are divided, You become split. I take the whole existence as one.
Meditation is fun, joy, a song, a dance, a celebration. Once you start looking at meditation in this way things will be very easy. You will slowly slip into meditation without any hindrance from the ego, you will never become holier-than-thou.
That is the ugliest thing in the world. That's why to me the so-called saints seem to be the ugliest people in the world, and the most stupid too because they were trying to go beyond ego and they are caught by the ego in such a subtle trap that they cannot even see it.
My sannyasins have to be very ordinary, nobodies. And if one can be just ordinary the extraordinary has happened. If one can be just nobody then the miracle has happened because that is the greatest thing that can happen to somebody. Feeling nobody, a nothingness pervades you, and that nothingness is the secret of the miracle. And then there are many songs out of it, many many joys out of it. All the mysteries are yours, all the ecstasies are yours. The whole universe belongs to you. Suddenly you are not an alien, not a stranger.
This is our home. Herenow is paradise -- this very body, the Buddha and this very earth, the lotus paradise.