Chapter #15

[!info] Note

[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up.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.]

FLOWER POWER

A sannyasin cannot be a rock; he has to be a flower. The rock represents hardness, the flower represents softness. The rock represents destructiveness, the flower is creativity.

Every rock has to become a flower; every rock has the seed to become a flower, it has the potential. But one has to discover the flower, one has to remove the rock chunk by chunk so only the flower is left. The flower is the very centre of the rock. In fact the rock is not your enemy, it protects the flower until the time is ripe.

So one should not be against the rock but one should not cling to it either. Be thankful to it but now the moment has come to discard it. Now let it be something that is past, that is no more relevant, that will not have any meaning in the future. Now the future belongs to the flower. Think of yourself as being more like a flower with all its softness, vulnerability, delicateness, feminineness, receptivity.

The flower lives very momentarily, it is not stable. The rock is far more stable, it is almost permanent. The flower is born in the morning and may be gone by the evening yet for those few moments that it lived it really lived. It danced in the wind, in the sun, in the rain – it rejoiced.

The rock may be almost permanent but it is dead, it lives not. Durability has no value. Even a single moment of total aliveness is far more significant than being dead for the whole of eternity. So let the rock be the past and the flower the future.

PARIJAT IS THE NAME OF AN EASTERN FLOWER

Parijat is the name of an Eastern flower.

Flowers represent many things. The one thing that is the most important of all those is the phenomenon of flowering, of opening.

Man is also a flower, but closed like a bud. And unless we make a deliberate effort, unless we help, it won’t open on its own. Society has created every kind of hindrance for its opening. Society is against the ultimate flowering of man because the moment a man flowers he becomes transcendental to all kinds of social formalities, structures, religions, nations, ideologies – and everybody is afraid of that transcendence. That means one has gone beyond all that you cherish and think of as very valuable.

To the transcendental consciousness all social morality is childish, stupid. Nations and politics are only for the mediocre, for the unintelligent; they are almost for the insane.

It has happened just now in America: the whole country has gone from choosing a peanut as president to choosing a big nut! And this goes on happening everywhere – small nuts are replaced by bigger nuts. Only bigger nuts can replace them because only the bigger can push them out; otherwise they won’t budge an inch.

The man who becomes transcendental is no longer a Hindu nor a Christian nor a Mohammedan, is neither German nor French nor Indian; he transcends all these limitations. That’s why no society wants anybody to flower: people should remain mediocre, ungrown-up, because those ungrown-up people are always dependent on leaders, on priests, on popes, on imams and ayatollahs. They are always dependent on somebody. They have to be – they need a father figure.

The ungrown-up person’s mental age remains somewhere nearabout twelve or fourteen; he never goes beyond that. Millions of people die at the age of fourteen. That is their psychological age and that is the age of their death too. Then only the body goes on living but their soul remains absolutely dead, repetitive.

Sannyasins have to learn how to remove the barriers. And they can be easily removed, the only thing is that you have to become conscious of what the barriers are. They can easily be removed because you can just throw them away, nobody can prevent you. You can simply drop out of all “isms,” ideologies, churches. Who can prevent you? You can simply use nations for normal purposes – the passport, the visa – otherwise deep down you can be free. You need not be a German or an Italian, just to be human is enough. You need not be identified with any race.

Once all these hindrances are removed, meditation becomes very simple. And meditation is a nourishment for the flower, it is like the sun rising: as the sun rises the flower starts opening.

So remove the barriers and start meditating and becoming silent – and the sun will rise in its own time and the flower will open up.

(Osho names another sannyasin, Harsinger; it’s also the name of a flower.)

Flowers are songs of nature, existence rejoicing. The flower is really the language of delight. In its own way nature is saying that it is happy, celebrating.

My sannyasins have to be flowers on a higher plane so that god can feel millions of people around the earth rejoicing. Sannyas is also only a language of delight. I don’t teach you anything about hell and heaven and life after death; I only teach you life herenow, and how to be colourful, fragrant, how to dance and sing and how to show your gratitude towards existence. That is enough and that takes care of everything else.

No other religion is needed; just be a flower, and in that very being you have prayed – you have surrendered, you have expressed your gratitude.

(Madhukamini is the name of a flowers and one that is among his favourites – Osho tells another sannyasin.)

It has a special way: when the Madhukamini flowers then thousands of flowers come to the tree. They don’t come in small numbers they explode; the whole tree becomes just flowers.

And another beautiful thing about the Madhukamini is that It blooms in the night. Flowers ordinarily bloom in the day, they need the sun. Only very courageous flowers bloom in the night. They don’t bother about the sun and darkness does not disturb them at all. It is a white flowers you can see it even in darkness.

And the third thing about Madhukamini is that with just a small breeze its petals start falling down, showering like rain. In the morning yoU will find a thick layer of petals all around the tree, and it is so fragrant that just one single tree is enough for at least half a mile.

I would like my sannyasins to be like Madhukamini because the night is really dark. Humanity is passing through a very dark space; unless we decide to flower in darkness there is no possibility of flowering.

Individual flowers have happened – a Buddha, a Jesus, a Zarathustra, a Lao Tzu – but that is not going to change humanity. That is just like your pouring a spoonful of sugar into the ocean and hoping, that the ocean will become sweet. It is hoping against hope.

We need an explosion, thousands of Buddhas are needed around the earth; less than that won’t do. Unless millions of people bloom humanity cannot grow. And it has come to a point where either it has to grow or it has to commit suicide. It has never been so crucial before. Nature has brought man to the ultimate point where a decision is needed, a conscious decision. Nature is not going to help any more, nature has done its work. As far as nature is concerned its work is complete. Now man has to take his own evolution in his own hands – and that’s the whole purpose of sannyas.

MISERY MAKES MONADS OF MEN

The miserable person becomes closed. That is the nature of misery, the intrinsic nature of misery, that it closes you; all the windows, all the doors, are closed. You are afraid, so much so that you withdraw within yourself. Misery makes one introvert and introversion is a kind of morbidity, it is slow suicide.

One should be capable of going in but one should also be capable of going out. One should remain free; one should not become obsessed either with the inner or with the outer, because both together make our lifes both together create the harmony, the balance.

The categories into which Jung has divided humanity are true as far as the humanity that exists today is concerned – but they should not be true for the future. Jung divides humanity into the extrovert and the introvert but that division has to be dissolved; one should become capable of both. And the miracle is that the moment you are capable of both you transcend both. Only the transcendental can be capable of moving in and moving out. Something that is neither in nor out can move between the two. The in cannot come out, the out cannot go in; a third element, which can have the movement, is needed.

Misery makes people introverts. It is a kind of psychological grave. Blissfulness makes people more communicative, more available, more open,,more vulnerable, more healthy. Extroverts are always healthier than introverts – for the simple reason that they relate with life, and life is god. And when you relate, when you rejoice, when you share with existence, existence also responds. It is not indifferent to you, it is a very loving existence. If we are blissful it showers its love on us.

So the first thing is to become blissful, because humanity is almost crippled and paralysed because of its misery.

We have lived the misery and the pattern of misery for so long that it has almost become our life style. In fact people think the more miserable a person is, the holier he is; the more sad, the more serious, the longer the face the greater saint people think he is.

Christians say Jesus never laughed, never in his whole life. It does not say anything about Jesus, it simply says something about the Christians: that is their idea of a perfect saint. How can a perfect saint like Christ laugh? – laughter seems to be so human and he is the son of god.

This is a very ugly approach towards life, very ill, sick, sickening, nauseating. My approach is just the opposite of it. To me laughter is prayer, to me blissfulness is virtue, because it’s only through laughter and blissfulness that you will become a beloved of god.

Yes, one should also be capable of going in, because there too god exists. He is within, he is without, and he should be tasted in every possible way. He should be experienced from all possible aspects and dimensions – and these two are very fundamental dimensions. But first one should experience god through bliss by communicating with stars and trees and rivers and mountains, by communing with people, animals, birds. That is a natural phenomenon. When you have experienced god without, then it is easy to move in. Now you know that if god exists in everything he must exist in you too. It can’t be otherwise; he is life and you are alive and he is everywhere – how can he miss you? He must be there too.

The experience of god in the universe, in its beauty, in its splendour, makes one trust going in to the deepest core, to dive deep. Then the interior and the exterior become one, then it is one spectrum and you can easily move from one polarity to the other. When a person is capable of moving between the both with ease then he is a sannyasin.

I am against monks and nuns and the people who have renounced the world – they are all morbid, sick, cowardly, afraid. It is out of fear that they have become closed.

One should go inside to discover, not out of fear but on an exploration. The inner-going consciousness should be an adventure, not out of any fear. There is no need to be afraid, there is nothing to be afraid of. If only god is then how can there be anything to be afraid of?

So to me the first thing is to be blissful – that will help you to experience god in manifold forms around you – and then enquire within. And then remain available for both, never cling to any one aspect.

The truth can be true only if it is whole. The moment you divide it you destroy it.

GOD: AS CLOSE AS YOU ARE CONSCIOUS

Meditation is a certain kind of archery; god is the target and we are the arrows. And once we are clear about the goal then the arrow starts moving in a direct line, it does not go zigzag.

Jesus says the path to god is narrow but straight. Both qualifications are significant. It is narrow, narrow because only one person can walk on it. You cannot take somebody with you, you have to go alone, hence it is narrow, so narrow that you cannot even take your friend, your beloved, with you. You have to go alone; nobody can go in a crowd. And it is straight; nobody can go zigzag, one can only go like an arrow.

The whole thing is to be aware that god is our target. In everything we are searching for god. That’s why there is so much frustration in life.

You love a person but it is not long before misery starts settling in. All those fantasies of the honeymoon days are finished. They don’t last long; soon there is despair, a kind of hopelessness. Why? The analysis that people make is wrong; they think this person has failed them and the same is the attitude of the other, he thinks you have failed him or her. Nobody has failed anybody, in fact both were searching for god and god has not been found. They were imagining god in their lovers and they have found only very limited human beings with all kinds of ugliness, possessiveness, jealousy. Their idea was of something divine and what they have found is very ordinary – that’s the frustration.

When people fall in love, they always fall in love with god. In the beginning lovers always think of the other as divine. The man thinks he has found the woman, the woman he has been searching for his whole life. The woman may be absolutely crazy.

Now, Teertha is here sitting just behind you: he has found Krishna – one of the craziest women in the whole commune – and he thinks this is the woman he has been searching for his whole life!

But how long can you think that? Within two or three days Krishna will reveal her reality and then Teertha will say, “My god! – is this the woman I have been looking for my whole life?” But this happens to every lover.

And it is not only about love but about everything. The person who has been searching for money thinks that once he has got enough money, so many million dollars, he will feel at ease – arrived – and there will be no need to worry and no need to be miserable; then he can rest and enjoy life. By the time he reaches the point suddenly he realizes that the money is there but there is no relaxation, no rest, no joy. He is as miserable as before or even more, because at least before there was a certain hope; even that hope has left.

My own observation is that people are searching for god in love, in money, in prestige, and they are going to fail everywhere because god cannot be found this way; they are looking in the wrong direction. They are not conscious of their search.

A sannyasin has to be absolutely conscious of the search, conscious that we are looking for the ultimate truth in everything. Once this is clear then everything else becomes secondary and god is the only quest, then life can move like an arrow, directly. And the miracle can happen even in a single moment. If one is really conscious then god is not far away.

The distance between god and you is really the distance of consciousness; if you are unconscious then god is far away. The more unconscious you are the farther away he is; the more conscious you are, the closer. If you are absolutely conscious then this very moment god is possible – because god surrounds you. He is your breath, he is your very heartbeat.

LOVE -- THE SOUL'S SCENT

The Sufis have one hundred names for god, in fact, ninety-nine, because one is not spoken and cannot be spoken but it has to be counted. It is silent. That is the truest name, the hundredth, but there is no way to say it. Ninety-nine names are ninety-nine aspects. Kamil is one of the aspects of god: perfection. And the thing that man can bring closest to perfection is love. It is because of this that Jesus said god is love, because in the human experience the most perfect experience possible is that of love; all other experiences are going to be very imperfect.

For example, one can have great physical strength but it cannot be perfect. Even the greatest wrestler has to die; in fact the wrestlers die early deaths and they die out of very dangerous diseases. Gama died of tuberculosis. In those days there was no medicine for tuberculosis. He had the most perfect body possible but he died very early. The body has limitations, the mind has also limitations; even the most perfect mind has its flaws.

Even a man like Albert Einstein, who is certainly the greatest mathematician in the whole of human history, used to commit such errors in his calculations that even a school child would laugh. He himself was puzzled at how he could manage to know about the infinite universe when he committed such small errors.

Once it happened that he was travelling in a bus, he gave the fare to the conductor and the conductor gave him back some change. Einstein counted it and he said ‘This is not enough, give me more.’ The conductor counted the change again and gave it back to him and said ‘This is perfectly okay.’ Einstein counted again and he said ‘No, this is not right.’ And the man said ‘That means you don’t know how to count – get lost!’ He was not aware that this man was Albert Einstein, and what he is saying to him ‘You don’t know how to count, you don’t know even a little arithmetic. Don’t bother me and don’t bite my head off.’

Albert Einstein has recounted in his memoirs that it was a shock but the conductor was right: when Einstein counted, the conductor was right and Einstein was wrong.

Mind has its limitations because it is a machine. Only one thing has no limitations, and that is love, because it is beyond body-mind; it is the only spiritual quality. Love is the fragrance of the soul, hence it comes closest to perfection. Living a life of love is living a life of prayer, religiousness, spirituality.

My whole message is of love. Love unconditionally, love for no other reason but for love’s sake – and that will bring you closer and closer to god every moment of your life. And in fact when love is perfect god immediately happens, because love’s perfection and god’s happening are two sides of the same coin.

THERE'LL ALWAYS BE AN INNER-LAND

(And unless we explore it we will remain outsiders to ourselves, Osho tells Swami Svadesh.)

Svadesh means one’s true country, one’s own country. To translate it is a little bit difficult because ‘sva’ means your innermost self and ‘desh’ means the land, the country – the country of your innermost self. It is unexplored, and man is so mad that he goes on exploring everything else.

He will go to Everest, to the North Pole, to the South Pole, he will go to the moon. Now he is trying to reach to Mars and soon he will be going to other planets; preparations are on the way, projects are on the way. And nobody exactly bothers about why.

What are you going to do even if you reach the moon? You will be the same fool as you are here. What is going to happen on the moon? You will fight in the same old way. Christians will be Christians, Hindus will be Hindus, Russians will be Russians, Americans will be Americans, and they will start dividing the territories and they will start putting up their flags and fighting. The same thing will be repeated on the moon, on Mars, on every planet wherever man goes, because unless you change nothing is going to happen.

The whole misery is because one thing remains unexplored, and that is our innermost territory. And that is where the light is, that is where the potential for transformation exists.

Sannyas means a decision to explore your inner world; it is the search for your real country. Unless you have found it wherever you are, you are going to remain a foreigner. Even in your so-called country you will be a foreigner. Only the man who has discovered himself is at home. Wherever he is he is at home because he has found the home.

WOMB IN THE IN

Man is not only miserly in giving, he is even more miserly in receiving, because in fact as far as giving is concerned it is not against the ego; the ego enjoys it. You are the giver, you are higher than the person to whom you are giving. But ego feels very humiliated in receiving because ego feels you are lower and the person who is giving is higher. and all that is significant in life has to be received, it cannot be achieved.

Love cannot be achieved, truth cannot be achieved, peace cannot be achieved, god cannot be achieved; you just have to be receptive like a womb, available. You have to become a host. And unless you trust existence you cannot be a host. If you are too cautious then you cannot welcome everything and in your very cautiousness you will miss the real guest.

God is missed because people are not ready to receive, otherwise god comes every moment and knocks on your door. There is no need to go in search of god, god in continuously searching for you, but you are not ready to receive. And it is such a great gift that unless you put your whole ego aside you will not be in a welcoming mood.

To welcome existence simply means to surrender the ego. In the very surrender of the ego your heart opens and becomes just a welcome – and then miracles are possible. And everybody is entitled to miracles. If they are not happening then you are not allowing them to happen – remember it!

INNO-SCENTS: THE FRAGRANCE OF SAGE

Pavitro means pure, innocent – pure not in the sense of morality, pure in the sense of innocence. One has not to become a saint one has to become like a child. That is the difference between the saint and the sage: the sage is childlike and the saint is very calculative, each of his moves is very calculated. He is like a chess-players he contemplates at least three or four or five moves ahead of time: ‘If I do this what will happen? If I do this am I going to fall into hell or reach heaven? If I do this will I be accumulating virtue or not? and how much? The saint is basically a Jew. All saints are Jews and all Jews are saints! (laughter) The whole thing is businesslike.

The sage is innocent. He lives like a child. That’s what Jesus means when he says ‘Unless you are like small children you will not enter into the kingdom of god.’ Now, he couldn’t mean saints because they are never like small children. He must have meant sages.

Christianity has avoided even the word. In Christianity sages have not existed at all, only saints – and Christians have a very ugly meaning of the word ‘saint’.

In Sanskrit also the word exists as ‘sant’; – it is the same word as ‘saint’ – but in Sanskrit it means one who has achieved truth. ‘Sat’ means truth and ‘sant’ means one who has achieved it – but the Christian meaning of saint is very ugly. It means one who has been given sanction by the church, that yes, he is a saint. He is sanctioned, certified – -that is the meaning of the Christian saint.

So sometimes it happens that they give posthumous sainthood. The person may have died three hundred years ago. In fact he may have been condemned by the Christians and then later on they start feeling guilty; they find out that that was not the right step, so they make him a saint.

It happens in the reverse order too: a saint may have died three hundred years ago – he was sanctioned by the church, then later on they discover that he was not really a saint – according to the rules (laughter), so they take the certificate back!

You will be surprised that it has even happened – this is unbelievable – that one saint who died three hundred years ago had his certificate taken away – and when you take away the certificate, of course, something has to be done. And what can you do? – the man has been dead for three hundred years. His grave was dug up and his bones were taken out and dragged along the road, and insulted in every possible way… because what else can you do? For three hundred years you have worshipped the wrong person, now the balance has to be put right.

Just now this Polack pope has reopened the case of Galileo, because now they recognise that it was foolish to ask him to change his idea, his hypothesis that the earth goes around the sun. They had called old Galileo – he was seventy-five or more – from his deathbed. He was dragged to the court of the pope and he was forced to kneel down and he was told to ask forgiveness for the sin that he has committed against the Bible – because the Bible says the sun moves around the earth and how could he dare to go against the sacred scripture?

Galileo must have been a very sensible man. He said ‘That’s perfectly right – I must be wrong. How can I be right against the scripture? – the scripture has to be right. So forgive me.’ And when he was getting up one of his friends said ‘Are you really changing your hypothesis?’ Galileo said ‘What is wrong in changing the hypothesis? because my changing of the hypothesis is not going to make any difference at all; the truth is that the earth goes around the sun. Even if I change it the earth is not going to listen to me, neither is the sun going to listen to me. Why should I get into unnecessary trouble?’

The case was closed because he asked forgiveness, but now they are feeling guilty because now it is absolutely a fact…. It looks ugly that the church did this stupid thing with Galileo, so, the pope has ordered the case to be opened again, and for things to be put right.

The Christian idea of a saint is just like a certificate of a university you are certified, you have followed the rules and regulations. But that is possible only if the man has been very calculative. In fact I don’t think, if Christians were asked to issue a certificate for Jesus, that they would be willing to. I don’t think they would because he never followed their rules and regulations; he cannot be given saint-hood.

Nobody has asked – nobody has raised the question, but I want to raise the question (laughter)… whether Jesus is a saint or not. What kind of saint is he? He showed nothing of the sainthoodness that is expected of Christians. He moved with prostitutes, gamblers, drunkards, he enjoyed eating, drinking and merrying. He must have been a man more like Zorba than like a saint. If he were a saint the Jews would not have crucified him.

He was a sage, certainly, but not a saint. But that word does not exist in the Christian vocabulary. Sage is a Taoist terminology; Lao Tzu is a sage, Chuang Tzu is a sage. They don’t talk about saints, saints are just very ordinary people. Sinners are against the social rules and saints are fulfilling the same rules. They are not very different; as far as their quality is concerned they belong to the same category. But the sage transcends them both. When I use the word ‘pure’ I mean the sage, not the saint.

Be like small children. Rejoice, wonder, live in awe! Each moment life brings so many surprises that it is strange that people are not living in a continuous ‘Aha!’ ‘Aha!’ and…

(There is a peal of laughter. Osho pauses – then says:) Say it loudly! You said it very…(more laughter) only in the heart; say it loudly – aha! You will have to learn! – How long will you be here? – Four days. – Aha! (gales of laughter)

[!info] Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)