[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up.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.]
[Experiencing bliss is a bit like baking a pie: we've got all the ingredients, we just have to learn how and when to use them, Osho explained. Or it's like creating an orchestra... ]
Misery is a state of noise -- many voices within you, in fact the whole marketplace, all kinds of people, a crowd, a mob, and each part of you trying to control other parts.
George Gurdjieff used to say that the man is made of millions of small I's. He used to draw a picture of man to show to his disciples made with small eyes -- just I's and I's and I's, millions of I's. Each I has the notion 'I am the centre of the whole, I am the suprememost self;' hence the great conflict and continuous struggle. Within a single hour you go on changing: one I comes on the top, then another, then another. It is like a rotating wheel -- a rotary club! So each Rotarian becomes the president in his turn. That's exactly the meaning of the Rotary Club; 'Don't be worried, you will have your chance! Just wait and you will be made the president. But each I is the president or the king or the queen only for a moment; others are pushing their way up. And this whole thing is a chaos.
That's how man is. It is really a miracle how we go on containing this chaos within such thin skin. The bag is full of such a noisy crowd -- politicians, they are all politicians, diplomats, and very cunning and clever. And the fight is constant; even while you are asleep the fight continues.
This is the state of the ordinary human man -- a very unmusical state, a state of discord. This is actually what hell is all about. People ask me "Where is hell?" I just look at them and feel sorry for them. They are carrying it within themselves and they are asking "Where is hell? Does hell exist?"
But this whole situation can be transformed. All that is needed is to find a technique which can bring all these discord an t fragments into one unity, into one organic unity. Right now thousands of musicians are playing within you but each is playing solo, without any consideration for others.
A meditator learns the art of becoming an orchestra. The same players are used but now they are used with an organic vision. They all contribute; first they were contributing in creating hell, now they start contributing in creating paradise.
When your inner being becomes a deep accord, that is the meaning of Nado, a deep harmony, no discordant note at all, all players playing in tune with each other, nothing is out of step. There is no conflict but only cooperation. In that cooperation, in that harmony, man is really born, reborn.
And that's what sannyas is all about. It is a death -- the death of the crowd -- and it is also a birth -- the birth of individuality, of organic unity. And then there is bliss. Bliss is a natural phenomenon when there is no conflict in you. Bliss is not something like a goal that has to be achieved, it is not something that is far away; it is just putting things right.
You can arrange your room in such a way that it can drive you crazy: all the sofas are upside down or hanging from the ceiling. They are the same sofas, but with them hanging from the ceiling nobody sitting there will feel any moment anything can fall. There are notices all over: "Beware!" And they are all hanging from thin threads. They could have been beautiful if placed rightly. All the paintings are put upside down; just to look at them, can drive anybody crazy. One can arrange the room in such a way that even the devil wouldn't be willing to enter -- he would escape! And With the same things the same room can be arranged in such a beautiful aesthetic way that even god would feel jealous of you.
This is the situation: we have all the ingredients to make us a paradise but we are not using them in the right way.
My whole work here consists in helping you to put everything into the right context, into the right perspective. And then there is bliss. It starts showering on you. It is the natural consequence of inner harmony.
[And once you've learned how to be blissful you get truth into the bargain as well, because bliss acts as a medium. That's what Osho told Angelika, another new sannyasin.]
When you are in a state of misery you are closed, closed to all that is. You live in your own dreams, in your own anxieties, in your own despair -- which are all false, which are lies invented by the mind. The whole nightmare is self-created. And you don't allow any light to enter. You don't open the windows and the doors, you don't look at the sky and the stars, you are not available to the wind, to the rain, to the sun. Enclosed in oneself one lives a life of lies. Open to existence truth starts coming from all dimensions; it starts penetrating you.
But to be open there is only one way, and that is to be cheerful, blissful, dancing, singing, rejoicing. Unless a m an rejoices he remains closed to god.
The old so-called religions used to tell people "You will be blissful if you find god." Their condition for blissfulness was to first find god. It is because of that stupid condition humanity has remained without god, it has remained godless. Even those who believe in god are godless people. It is putting things upside down.
Bliss comes first. Bliss is something that a man is capable of because we create our misery; if you stop creating misery bliss is natural. But people liked the old idea because it helped their misery, it protected their misery. It gave them a certain rationalisation: "What can we do? We have to be miserable because we don't know god. Unless we experience god misery is misery is bound to continue." So they accepted misery, they rationalised it and they lived in it.
My effort here is to change the whole process of transformation, to put it right. Bliss is something very natural. If you stop creating misery you are blissful; it is not something that has to be invented by you. It is the same energy that becomes misery. Don't invest it in misery at all. Don't put your energy into jealousy, into hatred, into anger, into possessiveness. Withdraw it from all those stupid things.
William Blake is right when he says "Energy is delight." If you withdraw your energy from all stupid investments you are so full of energy, throbbing with energy, dancing with energy, you cannot contain it. You have to dance, you have to rejoice! You have to love, you have to laugh. It starts overflowing.
And those are the moments when you open up, just like a bud opening its petals. Suddenly god is yours, truth is yours, and you become a vehicle for it. It can reach others also through you. The person who realises truth naturally becomes a messenger of truth.
That is another meaning of Angelika -- a messenger of god, a messenger of truth. It is a beautiful name, but to make it a reality is a great challenge. Accept that challenge, achieve that reality. It can be achieved, it is achievable -- difficult but not impossible.
[We have to slow down, we move too fast, Osho went on to say.]
Patience is the quality that the contemporary man has completely lost. We are living in the most impatient age. People are mad about speed, as if speed in itself has some intrinsic value. Nobody is bothered about where you are going, why you are going; these questions have become irrelevant. People ask with what speed you are going. That has become the most important question.
I have heard about a jet plane which lost its way and lost all contact with earth. The pilot informed the passengers "There are two things, one is good news, one is bad news. First the bad news: we have lost all contact with earth. We don't know where we are, we don't know where we are going, we don't know what is going to happen, where we are going to land. And now the second, the good news: you should be happy that we are going with great speed. In fact we have broken all past records!"
But this is actually the situation of man. We don't know from where we are coming, to where we are going, why we are going in the first place, but very concerned whether we are going with speed or not. Everybody is saving time and becomes very worried if you have to wait for two minutes for the bus or if the aeroplane is half an hour late. You start behaving as if you will die!
For twenty years I travelled all over this country and I watched people: the train is late just fifteen minutes and they are in such a panic! I was surprised: What are you going to do? -- even if you save fifteen minutes what you will do with them? You will fight with your wife or you will beat your child. What are you going to do? (laughter) It is good that the train is fifteen minutes late -- your wife is happy, your children are happy and everything is going perfectly well. Why are you so worried?
These same people are playing cards; you ask them and they say "We are killing time" -- the same people who can't wait for two minutes, who can't stand in the queue, who are trying to go ahead somehow to reach the window first, who have lost all patience. And then they are playing chess and then they are playing cards and looking at some silly movie, they are pondering over some stupid newspaper for hours. It is the same news, almost the same. It is very difficult if you don't know the date, it is very difficult to know whether the newspaper is today's or tomorrow's or the day after tomorrow's or yesterday's -- it makes no difference. It is the same Ayatollah Khomeini, Carter "Billygate" (laughter) or something or other. The same fools! Sometimes they change their faces -- sometimes it is Nixon and sometimes it is Carter and sometimes it is somebody else -- but they are the same fools trotting on the same stage and doing the same kinds of gimmicks, and keeping the audience enchanted!
But if you tell people to rest, to meditate, to sit in silence ... impossible! Resting or sitting in silence for ten minutes it seems as if ten years have passed. When you sit in meditation then for the first time you understand Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity: in that sitting in meditation for ten minutes it appears as if ten years have passed. So time is not something chronological, it has nothing to do with the clock, it is something psychological. It depends on your impatience. And people want everything like instant coffee or instant love -- everything has to be done immediately. That's why we are living in such misery; our misery is rooted in our impatience.
A sannyasin has to learn how to be patient, how to forget this constant hurry -- this constant hurry to nowhere. This is a state of craziness, insanity. We have to drop the idea of instant coffee completely. And once you drop the idea of hurrying, of worrying about time, you start settling, you start becoming calm and quiet. And in that calm and quiet state, when there is nowhere to go and you are not even thinking to go anywhere, when there is no tension in the mind to reach somewhere, when there is no goal, no desire, bliss happens. And the miracle is that it happens instantly!
[Dissolve the ego in bliss and make your life a little sweeter was the message to Anand Visarjana.]
Not to be is the only way of really being. So I cannot agree with Shakespeare that to be or not to be is the question. It is not the question at all, (laughter) because not to be is the only way to be! The moment you disappear as an ego you become vast; you start experiencing some oceanic, unbounded ecstasies.
But we are attached too much to the mind, which is a very tiny thing, a very small biocomputer. And we are attached to the body, identified too much with it. It is just a small hut live in it, keep it clean, keep it beautiful -- use your biocomputer, take care of it as one should take care of every mechanism, and it is a very subtle and delicate mechanism -- but don't become identified with these things. It is just like a driver becoming identified with his car. Of course he is in the car, inside the car, but he is not the car.
That's actually the case with us: We have become identified with the mechanism in which we are living. And this identification creates the idea of ego: "I am this body, I am this mind. I am Christian, I am Hindu, I am white, I am black, I am this, I am that.... All these things are nothing but identifications.
Meditation means becoming unidentified, just remembering "I am only consciousness, a watchfulness, an awareness, a witness." In that witnessing the ego dissolves; and the dissolution of the ego is the greatest revolution. You are suddenly transported from a small, ugly world into the vast and the beautiful, from time to eternity, from death to immortality.
[Find god and then you will be blissful -- that's how it was once put to us. But bliss is god's nickname according to Osho.]
There is no god other than bliss. To seek some other god is to seek in vain. All other gods are inventions of theologians. The only true god, the natural god, is bliss. One need not be a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan; one has only to be natural, relaxed, in a state of let-go. And then one starts feeling the presence of tremendous bliss all around. The whole existence is full of bliss, we just have to become available to it, receptive to it.
The real seeker is not really a seeker -- because seeking seems to be a little aggressive. The real seeker is one who can wait in a deep let-go, and then things start happening on their own. Existence is made of the stuff called bliss, If we can just rest and relax, if we can go with the flow of things with no resistance; it is the easiest thing in existence. But that has become the problem; because it is the easiest it does not appeal to the ego.
The ego is always attracted towards the hardest thing, the most impossible thing. It wants to go to the moon. Of course there is nothing on the moon. Standing on the moon you will simply feel silly. But everybody wants to go to the moon. For what? I can't see the point. What are you going to do there? You will only long for somebody else to give you some news about the earth, somebody who can bring some newspapers and magazines -- at least the latest "Playboy"! What else will you do there? You will need a radio or a television so that you can see what is happening on the earth. And you were here all the time! There is nothing on the moon but there is a great desire to reach the moon because it is so impossible. Now they are thinking to go to Mars and then they will start thinking of going to other stars.
Man is so stupid; his stupidity knows no limits. I have been searching for infinites. One that I have absolutely found is human stupidity -- it is infinite! I cannot be that certain about god's infinity but I am absolutely certain about human stupidity and its infinity. It is unbounded, knows no limits.
People waste their whole lives thinking about god, arguing about god, and never listening to their heart that the heart has no desire for god. The heart only wants to dance, sing, enjoy, live, love, be loved. The heart wants to be like a flower full of perfume, like a bird flying into the open sky. The heart wants to become a torch, a light in the darkness of life. There is no desire for god. Unless you were told by your parents and teachers and the priests you would never have thought about god.
Exactly that is happening in Soviet Russia. No child thinks about god because the priests have disappeared, parents have turned into communists; the state is controlled by the atheists so schools can't teach religious education. Churches have been converted into hospitals or schools or other utilitarian things. God has simply disappeared.
One of my friends visited Russia; he was a Buddhist monk. In those days Russia and China were very friendly so he could get permission to enter Russia. In a school the first thing he asked of a small child was "Do you believe in god?" The child laughed uproariously! He said "Do you? So old and you still believe in god?" The child said "In the past foolish people used to believe in god. God does not exist." Now they have been told god does not exist so they say god does not exist. Now there is no desire in them for god. You have been told god exists so there is great desire for god.
But whether you are in Russia or China or India or Germany it makes no difference. Everybody is interested in bliss. The atheist, the theist, the catholic, the protestant, the black, the white -- everybody is interested in bliss. And now scientists say even trees and plants are interested in bliss.
One of the great Indian scientists, Jagdish Chandra Basho proved that even metals are interested in blissful states. They get bored and tired. People laughed at him thinking that he was talking nonsense, but now, after forty or fifty years, his research is being proved by many people all over the world. He was the first to say that trees have life and sensitivity and intelligence. Now it is a proved fact that trees are immensely interested in being loved, in being needed; they desire bliss as much as anybody else. The whole existence has only one desire and that desire is for bliss.
Hence I say bliss is god and there is no other god. All other gods are man's inventions, and it is better we drop them so that we can look in the right direction.
[The last person for sannyas tonight was named Mumuksha. It's a very special word Osho began. But tricky to explain to a Westerner.]
It is difficult to translate it because in no Western language has anything parallel to it, equivalent to it, synonymous to it ever existed, for the simple reason that the very idea never arose in the Western consciousness; it is an Eastern contribution. So you will have to understand it I can describe it but I cannot translate it.
There are three steps for the seeker; in the Western mind there are only two. The first is that of the curious person who is simply curious. Curiosity is good but it is not very deep; it is shallow, it is childish. It is just like a small child who goes on asking about everything. If you don't answer he does not bother about it; he starts asking about something else. Even if you answer, he is not very interested in your answer; while you are answering he is asking another question. He is simply jumping from one subject to another. Everything seems interesting to him but his interest is shallow.
The second step is that of enquiry. That creates science. When you are not jumping from one subject to another, when you become concentratedly concerned with one subject and you start pouring all your intelligence into that direction, it is enquiry. Now there is a possibility you may come back with some treasure.
The third thing has never existed in the West. That third thing is called mumuksha. Enquiry is about something that is outside you; mumuksha is something about your own being. It is a longing to know "Who am I?" Just as the scientist is interested to know what matter is or what electricity is or what gravitation is, the mystic is interested in knowing what consciousness is. His enquiry is inner, introvert, his enquiry is subjective. The scientist will call it dreaming, unnecessarily wasting your time. "Think of something tangible, provable. Think of something which can be observed by others too." This subjective world cannot be observed by others, hence it cannot be proved, so for the scientist there is no subjective world at all. That is his accepted assumption, that the world means the objective. It is a very strange assumption. The scientist accepts everything except himself, the knower accepts everything that is known except the knower. This is patent stupidity, because how can there be knowing without the knower? How can there be an object without a subject? There is no possibility of there being anything outside if there is nothing inside. Who knows? Who observes? To know the knower is mumuksha, to be conscious of consciousness is mumuksha. Mumuksha literally means "freedom", because to be aware of awareness brings freedom -- freedom from all ignorance, bondage and misery. And then there is bliss, beauty and benediction -- in one word: "god".
Osho's Commentary
[Experiencing bliss is a bit like baking a pie: we've got all the ingredients, we just have to learn how and when to use them, Osho explained. Or it's like creating an orchestra... ]
Misery is a state of noise -- many voices within you, in fact the whole marketplace, all kinds of people, a crowd, a mob, and each part of you trying to control other parts.
George Gurdjieff used to say that the man is made of millions of small I's. He used to draw a picture of man to show to his disciples made with small eyes -- just I's and I's and I's, millions of I's. Each I has the notion 'I am the centre of the whole, I am the suprememost self;' hence the great conflict and continuous struggle. Within a single hour you go on changing: one I comes on the top, then another, then another. It is like a rotating wheel -- a rotary club! So each Rotarian becomes the president in his turn. That's exactly the meaning of the Rotary Club; 'Don't be worried, you will have your chance! Just wait and you will be made the president. But each I is the president or the king or the queen only for a moment; others are pushing their way up. And this whole thing is a chaos.
That's how man is. It is really a miracle how we go on containing this chaos within such thin skin. The bag is full of such a noisy crowd -- politicians, they are all politicians, diplomats, and very cunning and clever. And the fight is constant; even while you are asleep the fight continues.
This is the state of the ordinary human man -- a very unmusical state, a state of discord. This is actually what hell is all about. People ask me "Where is hell?" I just look at them and feel sorry for them. They are carrying it within themselves and they are asking "Where is hell? Does hell exist?"
But this whole situation can be transformed. All that is needed is to find a technique which can bring all these discord an t fragments into one unity, into one organic unity. Right now thousands of musicians are playing within you but each is playing solo, without any consideration for others.
A meditator learns the art of becoming an orchestra. The same players are used but now they are used with an organic vision. They all contribute; first they were contributing in creating hell, now they start contributing in creating paradise.
When your inner being becomes a deep accord, that is the meaning of Nado, a deep harmony, no discordant note at all, all players playing in tune with each other, nothing is out of step. There is no conflict but only cooperation. In that cooperation, in that harmony, man is really born, reborn.
And that's what sannyas is all about. It is a death -- the death of the crowd -- and it is also a birth -- the birth of individuality, of organic unity. And then there is bliss. Bliss is a natural phenomenon when there is no conflict in you. Bliss is not something like a goal that has to be achieved, it is not something that is far away; it is just putting things right.
You can arrange your room in such a way that it can drive you crazy: all the sofas are upside down or hanging from the ceiling. They are the same sofas, but with them hanging from the ceiling nobody sitting there will feel any moment anything can fall. There are notices all over: "Beware!" And they are all hanging from thin threads. They could have been beautiful if placed rightly. All the paintings are put upside down; just to look at them, can drive anybody crazy. One can arrange the room in such a way that even the devil wouldn't be willing to enter -- he would escape! And With the same things the same room can be arranged in such a beautiful aesthetic way that even god would feel jealous of you.
This is the situation: we have all the ingredients to make us a paradise but we are not using them in the right way.
My whole work here consists in helping you to put everything into the right context, into the right perspective. And then there is bliss. It starts showering on you. It is the natural consequence of inner harmony.
[And once you've learned how to be blissful you get truth into the bargain as well, because bliss acts as a medium. That's what Osho told Angelika, another new sannyasin.]
When you are in a state of misery you are closed, closed to all that is. You live in your own dreams, in your own anxieties, in your own despair -- which are all false, which are lies invented by the mind. The whole nightmare is self-created. And you don't allow any light to enter. You don't open the windows and the doors, you don't look at the sky and the stars, you are not available to the wind, to the rain, to the sun. Enclosed in oneself one lives a life of lies. Open to existence truth starts coming from all dimensions; it starts penetrating you.
But to be open there is only one way, and that is to be cheerful, blissful, dancing, singing, rejoicing. Unless a m an rejoices he remains closed to god.
The old so-called religions used to tell people "You will be blissful if you find god." Their condition for blissfulness was to first find god. It is because of that stupid condition humanity has remained without god, it has remained godless. Even those who believe in god are godless people. It is putting things upside down.
Bliss comes first. Bliss is something that a man is capable of because we create our misery; if you stop creating misery bliss is natural. But people liked the old idea because it helped their misery, it protected their misery. It gave them a certain rationalisation: "What can we do? We have to be miserable because we don't know god. Unless we experience god misery is misery is bound to continue." So they accepted misery, they rationalised it and they lived in it.
My effort here is to change the whole process of transformation, to put it right. Bliss is something very natural. If you stop creating misery you are blissful; it is not something that has to be invented by you. It is the same energy that becomes misery. Don't invest it in misery at all. Don't put your energy into jealousy, into hatred, into anger, into possessiveness. Withdraw it from all those stupid things.
William Blake is right when he says "Energy is delight." If you withdraw your energy from all stupid investments you are so full of energy, throbbing with energy, dancing with energy, you cannot contain it. You have to dance, you have to rejoice! You have to love, you have to laugh. It starts overflowing.
And those are the moments when you open up, just like a bud opening its petals. Suddenly god is yours, truth is yours, and you become a vehicle for it. It can reach others also through you. The person who realises truth naturally becomes a messenger of truth.
That is another meaning of Angelika -- a messenger of god, a messenger of truth. It is a beautiful name, but to make it a reality is a great challenge. Accept that challenge, achieve that reality. It can be achieved, it is achievable -- difficult but not impossible.
[We have to slow down, we move too fast, Osho went on to say.]
Patience is the quality that the contemporary man has completely lost. We are living in the most impatient age. People are mad about speed, as if speed in itself has some intrinsic value. Nobody is bothered about where you are going, why you are going; these questions have become irrelevant. People ask with what speed you are going. That has become the most important question.
I have heard about a jet plane which lost its way and lost all contact with earth. The pilot informed the passengers "There are two things, one is good news, one is bad news. First the bad news: we have lost all contact with earth. We don't know where we are, we don't know where we are going, we don't know what is going to happen, where we are going to land. And now the second, the good news: you should be happy that we are going with great speed. In fact we have broken all past records!"
But this is actually the situation of man. We don't know from where we are coming, to where we are going, why we are going in the first place, but very concerned whether we are going with speed or not. Everybody is saving time and becomes very worried if you have to wait for two minutes for the bus or if the aeroplane is half an hour late. You start behaving as if you will die!
For twenty years I travelled all over this country and I watched people: the train is late just fifteen minutes and they are in such a panic! I was surprised: What are you going to do? -- even if you save fifteen minutes what you will do with them? You will fight with your wife or you will beat your child. What are you going to do? (laughter) It is good that the train is fifteen minutes late -- your wife is happy, your children are happy and everything is going perfectly well. Why are you so worried?
These same people are playing cards; you ask them and they say "We are killing time" -- the same people who can't wait for two minutes, who can't stand in the queue, who are trying to go ahead somehow to reach the window first, who have lost all patience. And then they are playing chess and then they are playing cards and looking at some silly movie, they are pondering over some stupid newspaper for hours. It is the same news, almost the same. It is very difficult if you don't know the date, it is very difficult to know whether the newspaper is today's or tomorrow's or the day after tomorrow's or yesterday's -- it makes no difference. It is the same Ayatollah Khomeini, Carter "Billygate" (laughter) or something or other. The same fools! Sometimes they change their faces -- sometimes it is Nixon and sometimes it is Carter and sometimes it is somebody else -- but they are the same fools trotting on the same stage and doing the same kinds of gimmicks, and keeping the audience enchanted!
But if you tell people to rest, to meditate, to sit in silence ... impossible! Resting or sitting in silence for ten minutes it seems as if ten years have passed. When you sit in meditation then for the first time you understand Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity: in that sitting in meditation for ten minutes it appears as if ten years have passed. So time is not something chronological, it has nothing to do with the clock, it is something psychological. It depends on your impatience. And people want everything like instant coffee or instant love -- everything has to be done immediately. That's why we are living in such misery; our misery is rooted in our impatience.
A sannyasin has to learn how to be patient, how to forget this constant hurry -- this constant hurry to nowhere. This is a state of craziness, insanity. We have to drop the idea of instant coffee completely. And once you drop the idea of hurrying, of worrying about time, you start settling, you start becoming calm and quiet. And in that calm and quiet state, when there is nowhere to go and you are not even thinking to go anywhere, when there is no tension in the mind to reach somewhere, when there is no goal, no desire, bliss happens. And the miracle is that it happens instantly!
[Dissolve the ego in bliss and make your life a little sweeter was the message to Anand Visarjana.]
Not to be is the only way of really being. So I cannot agree with Shakespeare that to be or not to be is the question. It is not the question at all, (laughter) because not to be is the only way to be! The moment you disappear as an ego you become vast; you start experiencing some oceanic, unbounded ecstasies.
But we are attached too much to the mind, which is a very tiny thing, a very small biocomputer. And we are attached to the body, identified too much with it. It is just a small hut live in it, keep it clean, keep it beautiful -- use your biocomputer, take care of it as one should take care of every mechanism, and it is a very subtle and delicate mechanism -- but don't become identified with these things. It is just like a driver becoming identified with his car. Of course he is in the car, inside the car, but he is not the car.
That's actually the case with us: We have become identified with the mechanism in which we are living. And this identification creates the idea of ego: "I am this body, I am this mind. I am Christian, I am Hindu, I am white, I am black, I am this, I am that.... All these things are nothing but identifications.
Meditation means becoming unidentified, just remembering "I am only consciousness, a watchfulness, an awareness, a witness." In that witnessing the ego dissolves; and the dissolution of the ego is the greatest revolution. You are suddenly transported from a small, ugly world into the vast and the beautiful, from time to eternity, from death to immortality.
[Find god and then you will be blissful -- that's how it was once put to us. But bliss is god's nickname according to Osho.]
There is no god other than bliss. To seek some other god is to seek in vain. All other gods are inventions of theologians. The only true god, the natural god, is bliss. One need not be a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan; one has only to be natural, relaxed, in a state of let-go. And then one starts feeling the presence of tremendous bliss all around. The whole existence is full of bliss, we just have to become available to it, receptive to it.
The real seeker is not really a seeker -- because seeking seems to be a little aggressive. The real seeker is one who can wait in a deep let-go, and then things start happening on their own. Existence is made of the stuff called bliss, If we can just rest and relax, if we can go with the flow of things with no resistance; it is the easiest thing in existence. But that has become the problem; because it is the easiest it does not appeal to the ego.
The ego is always attracted towards the hardest thing, the most impossible thing. It wants to go to the moon. Of course there is nothing on the moon. Standing on the moon you will simply feel silly. But everybody wants to go to the moon. For what? I can't see the point. What are you going to do there? You will only long for somebody else to give you some news about the earth, somebody who can bring some newspapers and magazines -- at least the latest "Playboy"! What else will you do there? You will need a radio or a television so that you can see what is happening on the earth. And you were here all the time! There is nothing on the moon but there is a great desire to reach the moon because it is so impossible. Now they are thinking to go to Mars and then they will start thinking of going to other stars.
Man is so stupid; his stupidity knows no limits. I have been searching for infinites. One that I have absolutely found is human stupidity -- it is infinite! I cannot be that certain about god's infinity but I am absolutely certain about human stupidity and its infinity. It is unbounded, knows no limits.
People waste their whole lives thinking about god, arguing about god, and never listening to their heart that the heart has no desire for god. The heart only wants to dance, sing, enjoy, live, love, be loved. The heart wants to be like a flower full of perfume, like a bird flying into the open sky. The heart wants to become a torch, a light in the darkness of life. There is no desire for god. Unless you were told by your parents and teachers and the priests you would never have thought about god.
Exactly that is happening in Soviet Russia. No child thinks about god because the priests have disappeared, parents have turned into communists; the state is controlled by the atheists so schools can't teach religious education. Churches have been converted into hospitals or schools or other utilitarian things. God has simply disappeared.
One of my friends visited Russia; he was a Buddhist monk. In those days Russia and China were very friendly so he could get permission to enter Russia. In a school the first thing he asked of a small child was "Do you believe in god?" The child laughed uproariously! He said "Do you? So old and you still believe in god?" The child said "In the past foolish people used to believe in god. God does not exist." Now they have been told god does not exist so they say god does not exist. Now there is no desire in them for god. You have been told god exists so there is great desire for god.
But whether you are in Russia or China or India or Germany it makes no difference. Everybody is interested in bliss. The atheist, the theist, the catholic, the protestant, the black, the white -- everybody is interested in bliss. And now scientists say even trees and plants are interested in bliss.
One of the great Indian scientists, Jagdish Chandra Basho proved that even metals are interested in blissful states. They get bored and tired. People laughed at him thinking that he was talking nonsense, but now, after forty or fifty years, his research is being proved by many people all over the world. He was the first to say that trees have life and sensitivity and intelligence. Now it is a proved fact that trees are immensely interested in being loved, in being needed; they desire bliss as much as anybody else. The whole existence has only one desire and that desire is for bliss.
Hence I say bliss is god and there is no other god. All other gods are man's inventions, and it is better we drop them so that we can look in the right direction.
[The last person for sannyas tonight was named Mumuksha. It's a very special word Osho began. But tricky to explain to a Westerner.]
It is difficult to translate it because in no Western language has anything parallel to it, equivalent to it, synonymous to it ever existed, for the simple reason that the very idea never arose in the Western consciousness; it is an Eastern contribution. So you will have to understand it I can describe it but I cannot translate it.
There are three steps for the seeker; in the Western mind there are only two. The first is that of the curious person who is simply curious. Curiosity is good but it is not very deep; it is shallow, it is childish. It is just like a small child who goes on asking about everything. If you don't answer he does not bother about it; he starts asking about something else. Even if you answer, he is not very interested in your answer; while you are answering he is asking another question. He is simply jumping from one subject to another. Everything seems interesting to him but his interest is shallow.
The second step is that of enquiry. That creates science. When you are not jumping from one subject to another, when you become concentratedly concerned with one subject and you start pouring all your intelligence into that direction, it is enquiry. Now there is a possibility you may come back with some treasure.
The third thing has never existed in the West. That third thing is called mumuksha. Enquiry is about something that is outside you; mumuksha is something about your own being. It is a longing to know "Who am I?" Just as the scientist is interested to know what matter is or what electricity is or what gravitation is, the mystic is interested in knowing what consciousness is. His enquiry is inner, introvert, his enquiry is subjective. The scientist will call it dreaming, unnecessarily wasting your time. "Think of something tangible, provable. Think of something which can be observed by others too." This subjective world cannot be observed by others, hence it cannot be proved, so for the scientist there is no subjective world at all. That is his accepted assumption, that the world means the objective. It is a very strange assumption. The scientist accepts everything except himself, the knower accepts everything that is known except the knower. This is patent stupidity, because how can there be knowing without the knower? How can there be an object without a subject? There is no possibility of there being anything outside if there is nothing inside. Who knows? Who observes? To know the knower is mumuksha, to be conscious of consciousness is mumuksha. Mumuksha literally means "freedom", because to be aware of awareness brings freedom -- freedom from all ignorance, bondage and misery. And then there is bliss, beauty and benediction -- in one word: "god".