---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Shadow of the Whip"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "WHIP"
dategiven: "18 November 1976 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #10"
chaptertitle: "Be a Pure Hedonist"
acode: "7611185"
shorttitle: "WHIP10"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "The Shadow of the Whip: Chapter #10"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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[To a sannyasin, newly arrived:]


Do a few groups here, mm? Join the music group and become part of the family here. Music melts people very easily. Otherwise something remains frozen and one is not even aware of it. So the first necessity of all growth is to be relaxed. Nobody can grow with a tense mind, and sometimes it happens very paradoxically that even the growth itself becomes a tension -- one has to grow. Then the very idea of growth becomes the barrier. So start with music.


And the dance is unstructured, it is just natural -- whatsoever comes to you, the way it comes to you -- it is not a performance. You are not dancing for anybody else, you are simply dancing for yourself or for God -- which means the same. When I say 'or for God', I really mean it. And when I say 'it means the same', that too I really mean, because when you dance naturally it is God dancing -- you disappear. When you perform you come in, the ego enters in. God is no more there.
Whenever you are not, God is. Your absence is His presence.


And this is the basic arithmetic for any possible growth -- that you have to disappear. So for the first ten days you dance and sing, and after that you have to do two groups. First Tathata. Tathata means 'suchness'... whatsoever is. The 'should' creates all the problems. Once you have an idea how things should be you are going to be in trouble. Then you go on proposing and God will go on disposing -- because your idea is your idea. It doesn't fit --  it doesn't fit with the whole. The whole is vast and you are very tiny. The tiny wants the whole to take a shape according to his ideas -- as if a leaf on the tree wants to have a certain destiny which is not possible, or a drop in the ocean wants to have a certain destiny which is not possible. The drop has to be just a part of the ocean so that whatsoever is the ocean's destiny is the drop's destiny; there is no 'should' on the part of the drop. When there is no 'should' there is no boundary. When there is no 'should' you can simply relax and melt.


So this will be your first group, Tathata. This word is very significant -- that's why I have chosen it. It is the essential word of Buddha. He says to live in the suchness of things. And by suchness he means that whatsoever happens, happens such is the case. Your wife leaves you, so Buddha says 'Such is the case -- she has left.' So accept it and live it. If she comes back, good -- such is the case. If she never comes, that too is good -- what can be done?


So to live in suchness is one of the most significant experiences. And if you can learn it, it is not only to be used in the group, it has to become your very life.


I am using these groups just to give you a glimpse of how things change. If you just change your attitude you see how things suddenly change, how things have always been beautiful but because of your attitude you were unable to see their beauty, you were missing them. Once you relax in the idea of suchness there is no anxiety, there is nothing to be done, you have no task to fulfill. Nothing is left except delight, except celebration.


And celebration, once it starts, never ends. It goes on accelerating. In fact the word acceleration comes from the same root as celebration; both have the same root. Once you start celebrating, it accelerates, it goes on and on, deeper and deeper, and higher and higher -- there is no end to it.


So the first group, Tathata, Ist to 3rd December, and the second group is Tao, 6th to 10th. That is a further step of Tathata. Tao means the eternal law -- what in India we call the dhamma, or what the christian theologians call logos, the eternal law, the law of all things: the law according to which trees grow and flower, and the law according to which water flows and moves to the ocean, and the clouds float, and the sun rises, and the birds sing, and the man falls in love with a woman, and a child is born... the law of a thousand and one things; the law of the total. Once you start feeling the taste of suchness, you are very close to tao. Once you accept life as it is, suddenly you fall in line with tao, with the eternal law.


And this is what I mean by a religious person: a person who lives according to nature, not according to any philosophy; who simply trusts nature and its ways. They are mysterious, unpredictable, one never knows what is going to happen. ..but that is the beauty of it -- that one is constantly thrilled, surprised. Each moment brings a new, amazing experience, a new wonder. So first Tathata, then Tao, these two. Then there will be a camp, and I will tell you what else to do then, mm? Would you like to say something to me?


[A visitor says: I've come to see if I can get out of myself -- that's the easiest way I can say it. I'll be here three months or so and I hope that will happen.]


Mm mm. Hope is always dangerous. You want to get out of yourself, but who is hoping this? Now this is the dilemma. The hope comes from the same source that you want to get out of. So if your hope is fulfilled you will never get out of it, and if you get out of it you will feel frustrated because your hope will not be fulfilled -- these are the dilemmas that we create. And a dilemma is such a problem that whatsoever happens you will be frustrated, this way or that. So it is foreordained.


The first thing I would like to suggest to you is to abandon hope, drop hope, because the hope comes from you -- it comes from the old mind. It is a projection of the old mind into the future. You want to drop the old mind and the very idea is of the old mind. So you will fall into an absurdity, and then there will be no way out. You will be chasing your own tail like a dog. The dog sometimes sits in winter and enjoys the sun, and then goes on chasing its own tail... jumps and then feels very frustrated, because the tail also jumps. It is his tail.


So the first thing is: be here without any hope. Just be here, for the first time in your life, without any projection about the future. Let us see what happens. Why should we project? Why should we, from the very beginning, start managing the future? Let it be open and then there is a possibility, otherwise there is no possibility.
The second thing: why do you want to get out of yourself?


[The visitor answers: I don't feel... good. I'm too much in the mind, too many thoughts, projections, I find it very hard to be calm, quiet, relaxed. Sometimes that's all right, but it's too much.]


That too has to be understood, because through this idea of getting out of yourself, you are creating a dichotomy, you are dividing yourself in two, you are becoming split.


It is as if you want to get rid of the right hand. The left hand wants to get rid of the right hand, the right hand wants to get rid of the left hand, and nobody is thinking of the total body. The head is as much yours as your heart. And to be in the head is needed as much as it is needed to be in the heart. To be calm is good but if you are incapable of becoming disturbed, your calmness will be dead. So these are the actual facts to be understood: to be silent is good but sometimes to be disturbed is also good, otherwise the silence will be dead, there will be no life in it. Unless you can move to the polar opposite, you cannot be alive. Life lives by polarity, just like a pendulum of an old clock -- moving left, right, left, right. And because of the movement into polar opposites, the clock ticks. Hold the pendulum in the middle, make it quiet -- the clock stops.


So real understanding is never against anything. Real understanding is an acceptance. It has nothing to do with getting out of anything or becoming something else, somebody else. Real understanding simply accepts the polarity that, yes, there are moments when you are low, and there are moments when you are high. This is how life is. It moves between the low and the high. Sometimes there are moments you are sad, and sometimes there are moments, beautiful moments of happiness. This is how life moves, between happiness, unhappiness. It is a constant movement between hell and heaven.


And life is the movement between the two. If you are stuck in hell, you are dead. If you are stuck in heaven, you are dead. To be stuck is to be dead. To be on the move, to be always moving, journeying, exploring, is the meaning of being alive. Then suddenly you have a silence which is not opposite to tensions, which is not opposite to worries. There is a great silence which comprehends worries too. Do you follow me? There is a very great silence which is not opposite to worries -- it comprehends worries too. And there is a bliss which is not against suffering -- it comprehends suffering too. It is so vast, it can contain contradictions.


My whole approach is to make you so aware of the reality of life that you become capable of accepting each and everything, whatsoever life brings. Not only accepting it, but welcoming; not only welcoming, but feeling grateful for it -- even if sometimes it brings pain. And pain too is great. It too is a gift. It sharpens your consciousness; it is not useless.


So this split that you are carrying within you is your problem; not that one part is your problem and another part is your solution -- no! This very split -- that you say, 'I want to get out of myself' -- this very split is your problem. And my suggestion is: relax, and see both and accept both. Both these, both are your hands, your two wings, and with one wing you will not be able to fly. Pain is needed as much as pleasure, and death is needed as much as life. The devil is another wing just as God is. And both help each other. Mm? you can see that God could not do without the devil -- He needed a Beelzebub, He could not run this whole business without him. It was a must -- He depends on him.


This I call the perfect understanding, the total understanding. And a total understanding need not do anything, it need not go anywhere, it need not drop anything, it need not change anything. A total understanding can be happy right this moment. It is not an improvement -- it is a sudden illumination.


So abandon hope -- the first thing. And the second thing -- rather than getting out of yourself, start loving yourself as you are. And start loving all the aspects that you are carrying within yourself. Painful spaces too, are yours.


It is almost as when you eat delicious food. It is so tasty, it is so satisfying, but next day after twenty-four hours you have to throw it out of your system -- it is stinking. Now if somebody says, 'I want to get rid of the whole process of defecation -- it is ugly.' Just think about what he is saying. Then you will not be able to eat, you will have to leave food completely -- you will start dying.


It is the same process. That which starts on your tongue and after twenty-four hows you have to throw it out -- it is the same process. These are not two things. And in an alive body, both processes will be there: one will eat, and one will enjoy food, and then one will enjoy getting rid of it too. But the process itself cannot be cut in two. And that which you are throwing out of the system again becomes manure, again goes to the trees, rises high with the sap of a tree and becomes an apple again; again you ear it. This is a circle -- and everything is a circle.


So sometimes when you feel that something is too heavy on you, don't make any judgement in a hurried way -- it must be part of a big circle. Look at the whole thing, and then you will become more accepting. Don't look only at the part. Abandon hope, simply be here with no idea of any improvement. I don't promise improvement because that is a very small promise -- the idea of improvement. Even if you become improved, you will remain the same -- a little modified here and there, decorated, white-washed, but you will remain the same.


I don't promise any improvement, because as I see you, I see you as perfect. You are as you should be. I can promise something greater -- and that is a sudden illumination. But one cannot work for it. You have to work on other planes. It sometimes happens whenever The right moment comes -- and nobody knows when it comes.


So do a few groups, meditate, be here, and drop this constant anxiety to improve. That will not allow you to be in such a relaxed state where sudden illumination is possible. And take a jump into sannyas!

[the visitor nods and Osho gives him sannyas]

Ready for the jump?...
Let this moment be a dropping of your split ideas.


This will be your new name -- so forget the old name, mm? Just by forgetting it, it will be easier for you to have a new identity, a new vision.


Anand means bliss and purnesh means the god of the perfection; god of perfection and bliss. I am giving you this name so that it reminds you continuously that you are perfect as you are. If this seed settles in your heart it will do many things. To accept oneself as one is, is the beginning of a journey that never ends.


The whole western mind is a little schizophrenic. Christianity is the cause of it -- too much condemnation. Now people have even forgotten Christianity. Now Christians are no more Christians; it is just a formality and even that is not true for the new generation.


Those ideas go on lingering in the unconscious. You may not condemn the body, but the condemnation becomes focused on something else -- you may start condemning being in the head, but condemnation continues. You may start condemning something else but condemnation continues.


This very moment you are whatsoever you can ever be. This very moment everything is ready as you need it to be -- just start enjoying it. So drop programmes of improvement and start delighting in the moment.


Forget Christianity for these three months. Be an epicurean, be a pure hedonist. No other religious person is going to say for you do to that, but I say to you to be absolutely hedonistic. Enjoy small things of life -- they are all gifts of God, and through the happiness that they will bring, you will become more and more prayerful.


[An Indian sannyasin who works in the movie industry asks about his problems in being creative, and about expressing his anger and emotions.]

I think you do a few groups.


Mm. Good. And nothing to be worried about. These things come when you change your work. You were doing a certain work you had become perfectly efficient in it. Your whole identity was with that work. You were efficient, you were capable, you knew where you were, what you were doing, you had a certainty, a confidence. Now suddenly at this age, you change the work. Now in the new work you cannot be so efficient. In the new work you will be an amateur, a beginner. Your identity will have to start from the very beginning as if you have just now come out of your school and are starting something new.


Younger people than you will find faults with you. They will say, 'What have you done? This is just ordinary or nonsense, or change it, and do this and make it like this.' They are more experienced in their work. They may be younger than you, they may be just of your age, they may have great respect for you, but as far as the new work is concerned they are better than you. And new bosses, the same people who were your friends will become boss-like... and it hurts. And it is no easy thing to suddenly start a new work. And not an ordinary work. To write a story needs a long training. a certain discipline of the mind -- writing is not so easy.
Just now I was telling Vivek an anecdote.


A man wanted to become a writer. He had some fancy that he would become famous as a writer, so he went to the novelist Somerset Maugham, and he said, 'I want to become a great writer but how do you start? -- that's the problem.' So Maugham said, 'It is not difficult. I can tell you how I start. I simply sit on my chair, face the typewriter and just write the first word 'the', or type the word 'the', then I wait for inspiration to come. It comes and then off I go. In fact beginning is not the problem. The real pro-blem is how to end it.'


So the man said, 'It is so simple. Nobody told me.' He went home, fixed his place -- he was very happy. He took out the type-writer, the paper, and wrote 'the', and then he waited and waited and waited. The whole night was passing and nothing was coming -- no inspiration. In fact, his head was always full of thoughts and suddenly all thoughts disappeared. He was feeling empty. Finally he wrote, 'The hell with it.' (laughter)


So it is not an easy thing. You are avoiding -- by eating, by drinking, by fighting, quarrelling with [your wife -- so you can find excuses as to why you are not doing your work. The pen is ready, the pencil is there, the paper there, but they are not going to write -- you are going to write! So you can always find excuses -- because your wife was not in a good mood and you were fighting so you could not write, and you had drunk too much so you could not write, you had eaten like a pig so you could not write. These are just tricks of the mind so that you car! find excuses. But this happens... this is natural.


It is very difficult to change your work at a later stage; it becomes more and more difficult. But it is courageous! To do it is very good! It is difficult, but if you can do it you will have a new lease of life. Once you get into the new work you will become younger again and you will again be enjoying life afresh. In fact a courageous man should go on changing, should never get settled into anything, should always remain a vagabond. Then he will remain very very fresh and young, and always learning, learning.


All the great things that have ever happened in the world, have happened through vagabonds who have been changing. A mathematician suddenly becomes a poet -- now he is a fool as far as poetry is concerned, but suddenly he becomes a poet. He is foolhardy and people will laugh, but he will bring something to poetry if he goes into it because all his knowledge will remain there somewhere in the unconscious. His poetry will have arithmetic in it. Even if it will not be so plain on the surface, it will have a different rhythm, a different quality. If a poet becomes a mathematician, he will bring his poetry to it. So it is very good.


This is cross-breeding. And the child that comes out of cross-breeding is always better -- better than both the parents. I am all for cross-breeding. The whole world should be mixing in every way possible. A scientist, suddenly at the age when he has become famous and is settling, should change immediately because now he is dying. The moment he has got a nobel prize he should immediately change from it, should start painting. Now it is finished, now there is no more to it.


It is said about an american president, Coolidge, that when he was asked, 'Why are you not standing next time?' he said, 'There is no more progress there now. What is the point of becoming a president again? I have been a president -- finished! Now I would like to become somebody else -- even a farmer is better, because it is something new. What is the point of becoming the president again?'


His party bosses could not believe, because he is a fool! Everybody was ready to give him another chance and he was not ready. They tried to persuade but he wouldn't listen. He would say, 'What is the point? I have been a president and I have known it. Now the White House is not for me. There is no goal. The end of the ladder has come.'


I believe this man is a beautiful man. He is not a politician and he is not dead either, he is very alive. He went to the farm, he started gardening. That's beautiful. That's something that shows mettle.


So I am happy you changed... but problems will be there, you will be in trouble for a few months. And the more you dissipate your energy in fighting and drinking and this and that, the longer will be the period. So put your whole energy to the work. Now it is a gamble. Put your whole energy into it, and within six months you will be flowing in your new work as you were in your old work. And once you are flowing, you will bring something new to it that only you can bring because of your old experience.
			

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