---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Tantra Vision, Vol 1"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "TVIS1"
dategiven: "22 April 1977 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #2"
chaptertitle: "The goose is out!"
acode: "7704220"
shorttitle: "TVIS102"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "95mins"
displaytitle: "The Tantra Vision, Vol 1: Chapter #2"
---

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The first question:
<p class="question">IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE APPROACHES OF  SHIVA AND SARAHA TOWARDS TANTRA?</p>


NOT REALLY, NOT ESSENTIALLY. But as far as the form is concerned, yes. Religions differ only in the form. Religions differ only in their methodology. Religions differ as far as the door into the Divine is concerned, but not existentially. And there are only two basic formal differences: that of the path of devotion, prayer, love, and the path of meditation, awareness. These two basic differences persist.


Shiva's approach is that of devotion; it is that of prayer, of love. Saraha's approach is that of meditation, awareness. The distinction is still formal, because when the lover and the meditator reach they arrive at the same goal. Their arrows are released from different angles, but they reach the same target. Their arrows are released from different bows, but they reach the same target. The bow does not matter finally. What type of bow you have chosen does not matter if the target is attained.


And these are the two bows because man basically is divided into two: thinking and feeling. Either you can approach reality through thinking or you can approach reality through feeling.


The Buddhist approach -- the approach of Buddha and Saraha is through intelligence. It is basically through the mind that Saraha moves. Of course, the mind has to be left behind, but it is the MIND that has to be left behind. By and by, the mind has to disappear into meditation but it is the MIND that has to disappear, it is the THINKING that has to be transformed. And a state of no-thought has to be created. But remember: it is a state of no-thought, and that can be created only by slowly dropping thoughts, by and by. So the whole work consists in the thinking part.


Shiva's approach is that of the feeling, of the heart. The feeling has to be transformed. Love has to be transformed so that it becomes prayer. On Shiva's way, the devotee and the deity remain, the BHAKTA and BHAGWAN remain. At the ultimate peak they both disappear into each other. Listen to it carefully: when Shiva's Tantra reaches to its ultimate orgasm. I is dissolved into thou, and thou is dissolved into I -- they are both together, they become one unity.


When Saraha's Tantra reaches to its ultimate peak, the recognition is: neither you are right, neither you are true, neither you exist, nor I -- both disappear. There are two zeros meeting -- not I and thou, neither I nor thou. Two zeros, two empty spaces dissolve into each other; because the whole effort on Saraha's path is how to dissolve thought, and I and thou are parts of thought.


When thought is utterly dissolved, how can you call yourself l? And whom will you call your God? God is part of thought, it is a thought-creation, a thought-construct, a mind-construct. So all mind-constructs dissolve and SHOONYA, emptiness, arises.


On Shiva's path you no more love the form, you no more love the person -- you start loving the whole existence. The whole existence becomes your thou; you are addressed to the whole existence. Possessiveness is dropped, jealousy is dropped, hatred is dropped -- all that is negative in feeling is dropped. And the feeling becomes purer and purer. A moment comes when there is pure love. In that moment of pure love, you dissolve into thou and thou dissolves into you. You ALSO disappear. but you disappear not like two zeros, you disappear as the beloved disappears into the lover and the lover disappears into the beloved.


Up to this point they are different, but that too is a formal difference. Beyond this, what does it matter whether you disappear like a lover and a beloved or you disappear like two zeros? The basic point, the fundamental point, is that you disappear, that nothing is left, that no trace is left. That disappearance is Enlightenment.


So you have to understand it: if love appeals to you, Shiva will appeal to you, and THE BOOK OF THE SECRETS will be your Tantra Bible. If meditation appeals to you, then Saraha will appeal to you. It depends on you. BOTH are right, both are going on the same journey. With whom you would like to travel, that is your choice.


If you can be alone and blissful, then Saraha; if you cannot be blissful when you are alone, and your bliss comes only when you relate, then Shiva.


This is the difference between Hindu Tantra and Buddhist Tantra.

The second question:
<p class="question">OSHO, WHATSOEVER YOU SAY, I ALWAYS AGREE WITH IT. THEN WHY IS MY LIFE NOT CHANGING?</p>


MAYBE BECAUSE OF THE AGREEMENT. If you agree with me, or if you disagree with me, your life will not change. It is not a question of agreement or disagreement -- it is a question of understanding. And understanding is beyond both agreement and disagreement.


Ordinarily, when you agree you think you have understood me. If you have understood me then there will be no question of agreement and disagreement. How can you agree with truth? or disagree? The sun has risen -- do you agree or do you disagree? You will say the question is irrelevant.


Agreement, disagreement, is about theories, not about truth. So when you agree with me you are not really agreeing with me -- you start feeling that I agree with your theory that you have already been carrying with yourself. Whenever you feel that Osho is in agreement with you, you feel that you agree with Osho. Whenever I am not in agreement with you, then there is trouble, then you don't agree with me. Or, you don't listen to that, you don't hear that. You simply close yourself when I am saying something which does not agree with you.


It is not a question of agreement and disagreement. Drop this! I am not here in search of any converts; I am not trying any philosophy; I am not here proposing any theology; I am not seeking followers. I am seeking disciples -- and that is a totally different thing, utterly different. A disciple is not one who agrees: a disciple is one who listens, who learns. The very word'disciple' comes from learning, discipline.


A disciple is one who is open to learn. A follower is closed. A follower thinks he has agreed; now there is nothing and no need to remain open -- he can close, he can afford to close. A disciple can never afford to close; there is so much to learn. How can you agree or disagree? And a disciple has no ego, so who will agree and who will not agree. A disciple is just an opening there is nobody inside to agree or not agree. Your very agreement is creating the trouble.


And nobody is ever transformed through agreement. Agreement is very superficial, very intellectual. To be transformed, one needs understanding. It is always understanding that transforms, that mutates. AND, when you understand, you are not to do anything -- the understanding will start doing things. It is not that first you understand, then you practise -- no. The VERY understanding, the very fact of understanding, goes deep into your heart, sinks, and there is transformation.
Transformation is a consequence of understanding.


If you agree then the problem arises: Now what to do? I have agreed, now something has to be practised. Agreement is very stupid, as stupid as disagreement.


And then mind is very cunning! You never know what you mean by agreement... A few scenes -- first:


The boy's mother had died when he was an infant, and his father had worked hard to raise him properly. Finally, the boy went away to college. His first letter was a disappointment to his father. It was a disappointment but the old man did not know exactly why. Surely there was nothing to despair of in the content. Perhaps something in the tone bothered him. The letter read: "Dear Dad,


Everything is fine. I like it here at college. I'm on the football team. I'm in the best fraternity on campus. I got an'A' on my first algebra exam..."


After some thinking, the father was able to put his finger on the difficulty. He wrote back:


"Look, son, I don't want to seem to be a silly old man, but there is something which would make me very happy. It isn't that I think you're ungrateful in any way. But I've had to work very hard to raise you and send you to college and I never had a chance to go to college myself. What I mean is this: it would mean a lot to me if you would say,'We did this and we did that,' instead of'I did this and I did that.' It would help me to feel -- as if I had a part in it all."


The boy understood immediately and thereafter letters came in the form: "Well, Dad, we won this big game last Saturday. We've got a date with a swell girl. We're going to get an'A' in history." The old man took earnest pleasure in this sharing of experience. Days were sunny for him.


One day a telegram arrived: "Dear Dad, We got the Dean's daughter in trouble. She had twins. Mine died. What are you going to do with yours?"


Mind is very cunning. Watch... when you agree with me, do you really agree with me? or do you find that I am agreeable to you? And then mind is very legal, mind is a lawyer: it can find ways to agree and yet remain the same. Not only that, but when you agree you start feeling as if now it is Osho's duty to transform you -- what more can you do'? -- you are agreeing, you have done your part. What more can you do? -- you have agreed. you have become a sannyasin, you have surrendered. What more can you do'?


Now, if nothing is happening, you start getting angry at me. Then when I say something to you, it is not exactly the same thing that you hear. You hear in your own way. You hear with all Your interpretations. You hear through your past, through memories, through knowledge, through your conditionings. YOU HEAR THROUGH THE MIND! And the mind gives a color to everything that you hear. It immediately Jumps on it, changes it, makes it agreeable to you; drops a few things, exaggerates a few other things, fills the gaps. Only part of what I have said remains in it and the part can never transform, only the whole.


But the whole can remain whole only when you are not making any effort to agree or disagree. When you are not making any effort to agree or disagree, you can put the mind aside. If you are trying to make an effort to agree, how can you put the mind aside? It is MIND which agrees or disagrees.


Understanding is something bigger than mind. Understanding happens in your total being. It is as much in your head as it is in your toe. Understanding is something total. Mind is a very tiny part, but very dictatorial. And it goes on pretending that it is the whole.
Second scene:


Then there was the middle-aged businessman who took his wife to Paris. After traipsing with her from one shop to another, he begged for a day off to rest, and got it. With the wife gone shopping again, he went to a bar and picked up a luscious Parisienne. They got on well until the question of money came up. She wanted fifty American dollars; he offered ten.


They couldn't get together on the price, so they didn't get together.


That evening he escorted his wife to one of the nicer restaurants, and here he spotted his gorgeous babe of the afternoon seated at a table near the door.


"See, monsieur?" said the babe, as they passed her. "Look what you got for your lousy ten bucks."


Your understanding is your understanding. Your interpretation is your interpretation. You will look from your angle.


Whatsoever you hear is your interpretation, always remember  -- beware of it! It is NOT what I have said: it is what you have thought that you have heard -- and they are not the same things. You agree with your own echo; you don't agree with me. You agree with your own idea. Then how can you change? The idea is yours, the agreement is yours, so there is no possibility of change.


You please stop agreeing, disagreeing. You just listen to me. Your method of agreement may be a sort of trick to protect yourself, so that you don't get the shock. It functions like a buffer. I say something: you agree immediately. The shock is avoided. If you were not agreeing with me, it may have shocked you to your very roots, it may have shaken you to your very guts. I say something; you say, "Yes, I agree." With this agreement you cut. Now there is no need to be shocked -- you agree. If you were not agreeing or disagreing... it is the same thing with disagreement. The moment I say something and there is somebody who says, "I don't agree," he has cut the energy. Now the energy will not go into his roots and will not shake him.


We have created so many buffers around ourselves, protections. These protections will not allow you to change. To change you will need to be shocked -- shocked tremendously, terribly. It is going to be painful -- transformation is going to be painful. Agreement is very comfortable, so is disagreement. I don't make much difference between agreement and disagreement; they are two aspects of the same coin.


The REAL person who wants to be near me and close to me, who wants to be really in contact with me, will not agree, will not disagree. He will simply listen to me -- pure listening, absolutely pure listening, with no interpretation. He will put himself aside. He will give me way.

The third scene:


The teacher had just finished giving her first-graders the basic facts of life. Little Mary raised her hand from a front-row seat. "Can a six-year-old boy make a baby?"


"No," said the teacher smiling, "that would be impossible. Any other questions, class?"


Pause. Mary again put her hand up. "Can a six-year-old girl make a baby?"


"No," said the teacher. Whereupon the little boy behind Mary leaned forward and whispered loudly in her ear, "Ya see! I told ya, ya didn't have nothin' to worry about!"


All your agreements, all your disagreements, are just finding ways to remain the way you are, not to change. People's whole lives are devoted to one work: how.not to change. They GO on saying, "I don't want to be miserable," and they go on doing things which make them miserable. They go on saying, "I want to change," but I look deep down in them and they don't want to change.


In fact, this express desire that they want to change is again a trick not to change; so they can say to the world, "I am trying to change and I am saying loudly and shouting loudly I want to change, and still if nothing is happening what can I do?"


You cannot change -- the last thing I would like to say about this question -- YOU cannot change. You can only allow change to happen. Trying to change, you will never change. Who is trying? The old? Look at the inner logic of it: you are trying to change yourself. It is almost like pulling yourself up by your own shoe-strings. What can happen out of it? Nothing is possible. You cannot change yourself, because WHO is this one who is trying to change? It is your past. It is you.


You can allow a change to happen. What can you do to allow it? Please don't agree and disagree with me. You just listen! You just be here. You just let my presence function as a catalytic agent. You just get infected by me. You just catch the disease that I am having, the measles that I am having. You just allow me. You don't try to change yourself.
This allowing is what surrender is all about.


A sannyasin is not one who has agreed with me. If he has agreed with me, then he is not a sannyasin, then he is a follower. Just as Christians are followers of Christ -- they have agreed with Christ, but that has not changed them. Just as Buddhists are followers of Buddha -- they have agreed with Buddha, but that has not changed them. Can't you see the whole world is following somebody or other?


So to follow is a way to avoid change. Please don't follow me. You simply listen to what is happening here, you see what is happening here. You just look into me, and you give me way -- so my energy can start functioning on your energy. It is not a mind thing: it is a total affair... so that you can start vibrating in the same wavelength -- even for a few moments.


Those moments will bring change, those moments will bring glimpses of the unknown. Those moments will make you aware that there is eternity beyond time. Those moments will give you a feel of what it is to be in meditation. Those moments will allow you a little taste of God, of Tao, of Tantra, of Zen. Those moments will bring the possibility of change, because those moments will come, not from your past but from your future.


Agreeing it is your past which agrees with me. Opening, allowing, it is your future which opens -- opens with me. Your possibility of transformation is in your future. The past is dead and gone and finished. Bury it! It has no meaning any more. Don't go on carrying it; it is unnecessary luggage. Because of THIS luggage, you cannot go very high.


What do you mean when you say, "I agree with you"? It means your past agreeing, your past feeling good and nodding, and saying, "Yes, that's what I have always been thinking." This is a way to avoid the future. Be aware....


Just being with me -- that's satsang, that's contact high. Just being with me... in spite of you, a few rays will enter in your being and will start playing. And then you will become aware that whatever life you have lived was not life at all, that you have been in an illusion, that you have been dreaming. Those few glimpses of reality will shatter your whole past. And then there is transformation.


It comes naturally of its own accord -- it follows understanding.

The third question:
<p class="question">SOMETIMES AS I WATCH PEOPLE PLAYING THE SAME OLD GAMES OVER AND OVER, MY EYES FEEL ANCIENT AND JADED AND MY HEART WEARY AND CYNICAL.
I GUESS IT'S BECAUSE I'M SEEING MORE AND MORE MY OWN GAMES AND TRICKS AND I HEAR YOUR MADDENING VOICE BETWEEN MY EARS SAYING,'THAT'S OKAY -- JUST YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT AND LOVE YOURSELF; AND THERE IS NO PROBLEM.'
JUST???!
I THINK IF YOU SAY THIS WORD AGAIN I WILL SCREAM. WASN'T I HAPPIER WHEN I THOUGHT THERE WAS A GOAL?</p>


THE QUESTION IS FROM MA DEVA ANANDO. It is significant. The question can be that of almost everybody who is present. Listen to it. It simply shows a situation that every seeker has to pass.


First, Anando says, "Sometimes as I watch people playing the same old games over and over, my eyes feel ancient and jaded and my heart weary and cynical."


Please don't try to watch others -- that is none of your business. If they have decided to play the old games, if they want to play the old games, if they are happy in playing their old games, who are you to interfere? Who are you even to judge?


This constant hankering to judge others has to be dropped. It does not help others. It harms you, it only harms you. Why should you be bothered? That has nothing to do with you. It is others' joy if they want to remain the old and they want to move in the same rut, in the same routine. Good! It is their life and they have every right to live it their own way.


Somehow we cannot allow others to have their own way. In some way or other we go on judging. Sometimes we say they are sinners, sometimes we say they are bound to go to hell, sometimes we say they are this and that -- criminals. If all that has changed, now a new evaluation that they are playing old games and'I am tired'. Why should you be tired of their games? Let them be tired of their games if they want; or if they don't want, that too is their choice. Please don't watch others.


Your whole energy has to be focussed on yourself. Maybe you are condemning others for their old games just as a trick because you don't want to condemn yourself. It always happens; it is a psychological trick: we project on others. A thief thinks everybody is a thief -- that is very natural for him; that is a way to protect his ego. If he feels the whole world is bad, he feels good in comparison. A murderer thinks the whole world consists of murderers -- that makes him feel good and at ease. It is convenient to think the whole world consists of murderers; then he can murder and there is no need to have any guilt feeling, there is no need to have any prick of conscience.


So we go on projecting on others whatsoever we don't want to see in ourselves. Please stop that! If you are really tired of old games. then this is the old game -- the OLDEST. For many lives you have been playing it: projecting YOUR defects onto others and then feeling good. And of course you have to exaggerate, you have to magnify. If you are a thief, you have to magnify others' images, that they are greater thieves than you. Then you feel good; in comparison, you are a far better person.


That's why people go on reading the newspapers. Newspapers help you very much. Early in the morning, before you have even taken your tea. you are ready for the newspaper. And the newspaper brings nothing like news, because there is nothing new. It is the same old rotten thing. But you feel good: somewhere, somebody has been murdered, somewhere there has been a Watergate, and somewhere something else, and somewhere somebody has stolen, and somebody's wife has escaped with somebody else... and so on and so forth. Watching all that, you relax; you feel, "So, I am not so bad -- the whole world is going to the dogs. I am a far better person. I have not yet escaped with the wife of the neighbor. I have not killed anybody yet -- although I think of it, but thinking is not a crime where people are actually doing things." You feel good. And the moment you feel good, you remain the same.


Please don't watch others. It is not going to help you. You use your energy, your observation, on yourself.


And there is something tremendously transforming in observation. If you observe yourself, things will start changing. If you start observing your anger, one day you will suddenly find the anger has no more energy the way it used to have; it is no more so fiery. Something has gone dead in it. If you start watching yourself, you will see, by and by, the negative is dying and the positive is becoming more and more alive; that misery is disappearing and bliss is entering into your life; that you smile more, sometimes even for no reason; that a sense of humor is arising in you -- if you start watching -- that old depressed, long face is disappearing. A sense of humor is born. You start taking life more playfully, if you watch; seriousness becomes more and more irrelevant. More and more you become innocent, trusting, less and less doubtful.


I am not saying that your trust will always be respected. No, that is not the point. You may be deceived more, because when you are trusting you can be deceived more. But even when you are deceived, your trust will not be destroyed by it -- in fact, it may even be enhanced. You may start thinking that even if you are deceived -- somebody has taken a little money and deceived you -- you will be able to see that you have saved the far more valuable thing, that is trust; and something almost valueless, the money, is gone. You could have saved the money and the trust would have gone -- that would have been a far greater loss, because nobody has ever been found to be happy just because of money. But because of trust, people have lived like gods on earth. Because of trust, people have enjoyed life so totally that they could feel grateful to God. Trust is a benediction. Money, at the most, can give you a little comfort, but no celebration. Trust may not give you much comfort, but will give you great celebration.


Now, to choose comfort against celebration is simply stupid -- because that comfortable life will be nothing but a comfortable death. Conveniently you can live and conveniently you can die, but the real taste of life is possible only when you are celebrating at the optimum, at the maximum, when your torch is burning from both ends together. Maybe only for a single moment... but the intensity of it, but the totality of it, but the wholeness of it! And this happens only through observation.


Observation is one of the greatest forces of transformation. You start observing yourself. Don't waste your energy for observation on others -- that is a sheer wastage! And nobody will ever thank you for it; it is a thankless job. And whomsoever you observe will feel offended -- because NOBODY likes to be observed; everybody wants to have a private life. Good or bad, stupid or wise, but everybody wants to have his own private life. And who are you to interfere? So don't be a peeping tom, don't go to people's keyholes, and don't watch. It is THEIR life. If they want and if they love to play the old game, let them play!


So the first thing: please stop watching other people; turn the whole energy on yourself.


Second thing you say: "I guess it's because I'm seeing more and more my own games and tricks and I hear your maddening voice between my ears saying,'That's okay -- just you have to accept and love yourself, and there is no problem.' "


I have to repeat it: There is no problem. I have never come across a real problem -- not up to now. And I must have listened to thousands of people and their thousands of problems. I have not come across a real problem yet. And I don't think that it is ever going to happen -- because the real problem exists not.'Problem' is a created thing. Situations are there: problems are not there. Problems are your interpretations of situations. The same situation may not be a problem to one person and may be a problem to somebody else.


So it depends on you whether you create a problem or you don't create a problem but problems are not there. Problems are not in existence: they are in the psychology of man.


Just look next time you are having some trip and riding a problem just watch. Just stand aside and look at the problem. Is it really there? or have you created it? Look deeply into it, and you will suddenly see it is not increasing, it is decreasing; it is becoming smaller and smaller. The more you put your energy into observation, the smaller it becomes. And a moment comes when suddenly it is not there... and you will have a good laugh.


Whenever you are having a problem, just look at it. Problems are fictitious, they don't exist. Just go around the problem, look from every angle -- how can it be? It is a ghost! You wanted it, that's why it is there. You asked for it, that's why it is there. You invited it, that's why it is there.


But people don't like it if you say their problem is not a problem -- they don't like it. They feel very bad. If you listen to their problems they feel very good. And if you say, "Yes, this is a great problem," they are very happy. That's why psychoanalysis has become one of the most important things of this century. The psychoanalyst helps nobody -- maybe he helps himself, but he helps nobody else. He cannot. But still people go and pay. They enjoy -- he accepts their problems; whatsoever absurd problem you bring to the psychoanalyst, he listens to it very sincerely and seriously, as if it is there. He takes it for granted that you are suffering greatly, and he starts working on it and analyzing it. And it takes years!


Even after years of psychoanalysis the problem is not solved-because in the first place the problem has never been there, so how can anybody solve it? But after years of psychoanalysis, you get tired; and you get finished with the old problem, you want some new problem now. So one day you suddenly say, "Yes, it is no more there, it is gone," and you thank the psychoanalyst. But it is simply time that has helped, that has healed. It is not psychoanalysis. But there are people who would not like simply to wait and watch.


When you bring a mad person to a Zen monastery, they simply put him in a corner, in a small hut, far away from the monastery; they give him food and they tell him, "Just be there, quiet." Nobody goes to talk to him; food is supplied, his comforts are looked after, but nobody bothers about him. And what psychoanalysis does in three years, they do in three weeks. Within three weeks the person simply comes out and he says, "Yes, the problem is finished."


For three weeks you are left with your problem -- how can you avoid seeing it? And no analysis is given, so there is no diversion; you are not distracted. The psychoanalyst distracts you! The problem may have died on its own within three weeks, but it will not die now because with the support of the psychoanalyst it will live for three years, or even more. It depends how rich you are. If you are rich enough, the problem can continue for your whole life. That means it depends how much you can afford.


Poor people don't suffer from many problems. Rich people suffer they can afford to. They can enjoy the game of having great problems. The poor person cannot afford and cannot enjoy that game.


Next time you are having a problem, look into it, look HARD into it. No need for any analysis; don't analyze it, because analysis is a way of diversion. When you start analyzing, you don't look at the problem. You start asking why? from where? how did it come? -- in your childhood, your mother's relationship with you, your father's relationship with you. You have gone astray. Now you are not looking into the problem itself. Freudian psychoanalysis is really a mind-game. and played with great expertise.


Don't go into the causes! There is no need because there is no cause. Don't go into the past there is no need because that will be going away from the present problem. LOOK into it as a herenow thing, just enter into it. And don't think about causes, reasons. Just watch the problem as it is.


And you will be surprised that looking hard into it, it starts dispersing. Go on looking into it and you will find it has gone.


PROBLEMS ARE NOT THERE. We create them -- because we cannot live without problems. That is the only reason why we create them. To have a problem is to have an occupation. One feels good; something is there to do. When there is no problem you are left alone, empty -- what to do next? All problems finished.


Just think: one day comes God and says, "No problems any more -- finished! All problems gone." What will you do? Just think of that day. People will be stuck; people will start getting very angry about God. They will say, "This is not a blessing! Now what are we supposed to do? No problems?" Then suddenly the energy is not moving anywhere; then you will feel stagnant. The problem is a way for you to move, to go on, to carry on, to hope, to desire, to dream. The problem gives so many possibilities to remain occupied.


And to be unoccupied, or to be capable of unoccupation, is what I call meditation: an unoccupied mind who enjoys a moment of unoccupation is a meditative mind.


Start enjoying some unoccupied moments. Even if the problem is there -- you feel it is there, I say it is not, but you feel it is there -- put the problem aside and tell the problem, "Wait! Life is there, the whole life is there. I will solve you, but right now let me have a little space unoccupied by any problem." Start having a few moments unoccupied, and once you have enjoyed them you will see the fact that problems are created by you because you were not capable of enjoying the unoccupied moments. So problems fill the gap.


Have you not watched yourself? Sitting in a room, if you have nothing to do you start feeling fidgety, you start feeling uncomfortable, you start feeling restless -- you will turn the radio on, or you will, turn the TV on, or you will start reading the same newspaper you have read three times since the morning. Or, if there is only one way, you will fall asleep so that you can create dreams and again remain occupied. Or you will start smoking. Have you watched it? Whenever you are not having anything to do, it becomes very difficult to be, just to be.


I will say again: There is no problem, Anando. Look into the fact of it that there is NO problem in life. If you want to have it, it is your pleasure -- you enjoy with all my blessings But the truth is that there is no problem.


Life is not a problem at all -- it is a mystery to be lived and enjoyed. Problems are created by you because you are afraid to enjoy life and you are afraid to live life. Problems give you a protection -- AGAINST life, against joy, against love. You can say to yourself, "HOW can I enjoy? -- I am having so many problems. How can I enjoy? I am having so many problems, how can I love a man or a woman? I am having so many problems, how can I dance and sing? -- impossible!" You can find some reasons not to sing, not to dance. Your problems give you a great opportunity to avoid.


Look into the problems and you will find they are fictitious.


And even if you are having a problem and you feel it is real, I say it is okay. Why do I say it is okay? Because the moment you start feeling it is okay, it will disappear. The moment you say to a problem that it is okay, you have stopped giving energy to it. You have accepted it! The moment you accept a problem, it is no more a problem. A problem can be a problem only when you go on rejecting it, when you say it should NOT be so... and it is. Then the problem is strengthened.


That's why I say it. People come to me with their big problems and I say, "It is okay, it is very good, you accept it." And I say, "Just you have to accept and love yourself." And I understand, Anando says, "It is very maddening, your voice continuously saying, "That's okay... and there is no problem."'
"JUST???!"


And Anando says, "I think if you say this word again I will scream."


You have been screaming your whole life -- whether you scream or not is not the point -- you have been screaming your whole life. You have not done anything else up to now. Sometimes loudly, sometimes silently, but you have been screaming. That's how I see people -- screaming people, their heart is screaming, their being is screaming. But that will not help. You can scream but that will not help.


Try to understand rather than screaming. Try to see what I am telling you. And what I am telling you is not a theory -- it is a fact. And I am saying it because I have known it that way. If it can happen to me that there is no problem, why cannot it happen to you? Take the challenge of it! I am just as ordinary a man as you are; I don't claim any extraordinary miraculous powers.


I am very ordinary, just as you are. The only difference between me and you is you don't say okay to yourself and I have said an absolute okay to myself -- that is the only difference. You are continuously trying to improve yourself and I am not trying to improve myself. I have said: Incompletion is the way life is. You are trying to become perfect and I have accepted my imperfections. That is the only difference.


So I don't have any problems. When you accept your imperfection, from where can the problem come? When whatsoever happens you say "It is okay," then from WHERE can the problem come? When you accept limitations, then from where can the problem come? The problem arises out of your non-acceptance. You cannot accept the way you are, hence the problem. And you will never accept the way you are, so the problem will always be there. Can you imagine yourself some day accepting, totally accepting the way you are? If you can imagine, then why don't you do it right now? Why wait? For whom? For what?


I have accepted the way I am, and that very moment all problems disappeared. That very moment all worries disappeared. Not that I became perfect, but I started enjoying my imperfections. Nobody ever becomes perfect -- because to become perfect means to become absolutely dead. Perfection is not possible because life is eternal. Perfection is not possible because life goes on and on and on -- there is no end to it.


So the ONLY way to get out of these so-called problems is to accept your life as you find it right this moment, and live it, enjoy, delight in it. The next moment will be of more joy because it will come out of this moment; and the next to that will be of even more joy because, by and by, you will become more and more joyous. Not that you will become joyous through improvement, but by living the moment.


But you will remain imperfect. You will always have limitations, and you will always have situations where, if you want to crate problems, you can immediately create. If you don't want to create problems, there is no need to create. You can scream but that won't help. That's what you have been doing -- that has not helped.


Even primal therapy has not proved of much help. It allows people to scream -- yes, it feels a little good, it is a tantrum therapy. It allows you to vomit. It feels a little good because you feel a little unloaded, unburdened, but then within a few days that euphoria disappears; again you are the same, again accumulating. Again go to the primal therapy -- you will feel good for a few days... again the same.


Unless you understand that one has to STOP creating problems, you will go on creating problems. You can go into an encounter group, you can do primal therapy, you can do thousands of other groups, and after each group you will feel tremendously beautiful, because you dropped something that was on your head -- BUT YOU HAVE NOT DROPPED THE MECHANISM THAT CREATES IT. You have dropped something which you were having, but you have not dropped the very factory that goes on creating it. Again you will create. It will not be of much use. It will give you a respite, a rest.


But if you REALLY understand the thing. the thing is that you have to stop creating problems -- otherwise you can go from one group to another group, from one psychoanalyst to another psychoanalyst, from one psychiatrist to another psychiatrist, from one therapy to another therapy... and everybody will give you a little respite, a little rest, and again you are doing the same thing.


My whole effort here is to cut the problem from the very roots. Please don't create problems -- they are not, they exist not.


And the last thing Anando says, "Wasn't I happier when I thought there was a goal?"


Yes, you were happier and you were more miserable too -- because your happiness was in the hope; it was not a true happiness. So I say you were happier and more miserable too. Miserable you were here in the present, and happy you were in the future -- but how can you be in the future? The goal is in the future.


Unhappy you were here; happy you were there.'There' exists not -- it is all here. It is ALWAYS here. Everywhere it is here!'There' exists only in the dictionary. So it is with'then'. It is always now.'Then' exists not. Yes, you were happier in your dreams of thinking of a goal, of thinking of a beautiful future. But why does a person think about a beautiful future? -- because he is miserable in the present.


I don't think about a beautiful future. I cannot conceive how it can be more beautiful! How can it be more beautiful than it is right now this moment? How is existence going to be more happy and joyous than it is this moment? Have a look -- how can it be more happy, more joyful? But that's a trick, again a trick of the mind: to avoid the present we go on thinking about the future so that we need not see the present. And the present is all there is.


So you are right -- you were happier, happier in your dreams. Now I have shattered all your dreams. Happier in your hopes -- now I am trying in every way to create the state of hopelessness, so there is no hope left. I AM TRYING TO BRING YOU TO THE PRESENT. You have been wandering in the future; I am pulling you back to herenow. It is hard work. And to take goals away one feels very angry. You ARE sometimes very angry with me. I have taken your hope, your dreams, or I am trying you are clinging to them; you are so addicted to your hope that you even start hoping through me.


You start hoping through me: "Osho will do this." This man is not going to do anything. You start hoping that "Now I am with Osho so there is no need to be afraid. Sooner or later I am going to become Enlightened." Forget all about it! ENLIGHTENMENT IS NOT A HOPE! It is not a desire and it is not in the future. If you start living right this moment, you are Enlightened. I am trying to make you Enlightened every day, and you say, "Tomorrow." Then as you will... but tomorrow it will never happen. Either it is now or never!


Become Enlightened right now! And you can become because you are... simply deluded, simply thinking that you are not.


So don't ask how. The moment you ask the how, you start hoping. So DON'T ask the how, and don't say, "Yes, we will become." I am not saying that. I am saying you are. Somendra!... the goose IS out. The goose has never been in. One just has to be alert in the moment. Just a single moment of alertness, a shock, and you are free.


Every day I am trying to make you Enlightened, because I know you ARE Enlightened. But if you want to go on playing the game of Samsara, you can go on playing.


Happier, certainly, you were -- and miserable too. I have taken your happiness because you cannot hope any more. If you allow me a little more, I will take your misery too. But first the happiness has to go, because misery exists as a shadow to the hope of happiness. So first the hope of happiness has to go, only then will the shadow go.


So you can scream if you want to scream, but I will repeat a thousand and one times: Anando, there is no problem. Just you have to accept and love yourself -- yes, JUST.

The fourth question:
<p class="question">ISN'T TANTRA A WAY OF INDULGENCE?</p>


IT IS NOT. It is the ONLY way to get out of indulgence. It is the only way to get out of sexuality. No other way has ever been helpful for man; all other ways have made man more and more sexual.


Sex has not disappeared. The religions have made it only more poisoned. It is still there -- in a poisoned form. Yes, guilt has arisen in man, but sex has not disappeared. It CANNOT disappear because it is a biological-reality. It is existential; it cannot simply disappear by repressing it. It can disappear only when you become so alien that you can release the energy encapsulated in sexuality -- not by repression is the energy released, but by understanding. And once the energy is released, out of the mud the lotus.... The lotus has to come UP out of the mud, it has to go higher, and repression takes it deeper into the mud. It goes on repressing it.


What you have done up to now, the whole humanity, is repressing sex in the mud of the unconscious. Go on repressing it, sit on top of it; don't allow it to move; kill it by fasting, by discipline, by going to a cave in the Himalayas, by moving to a monastery where a woman is not allowed. There are monasteries where a woman has never entered for hundreds of years; there are monasteries where only nuns have lived and a man has never entered. These are ways of repressing. AND they create more and more sexuality and more and more dreams of indulgence.


No, Tantra is not a way of indulgence. It is the only way of freedom. Tantra says: Whatsoever is has to be understood and through understanding changes occur of their own accord.


So listening to me or listening to Saraha, don't start thinking that Saraha is supporting your indulgence. You will be in bad shape if you accept that. Listen to this story:


An elderly gent named Martin went to a doctor for an examination. "I want you to tell me what's wrong, doctor. I feel some pains here and there, and I can't understand it. I've lived a very clean life -- no smoking, drinking or running around. I'm in bed, alone, at nine o'clock every night. Why should I feel this way?"
"How old are you?" asked the doctor.


"I'll be seventy-four on my next birthday," said Martin.


The doctor answered, "After all, you're getting on in years, you've got to expect things like that. But you've lots of time left yet. Just take it easy, and don't worry. I suggest you go to Hot Springs."


So Martin went to Hot Springs. There he met another gent who looked so old and decrepit that Martin felt encouraged by the comparison. "Brother," says Martin, "you sure must have taken good care of yourself, living to such a ripe old age. I've lived a quiet, clean life, but not like you, I'll bet. What is your formula for obtaining a ripe old age like you have reached?''


So this shriveled old guy says, "On the contrary, sir. When I was seventeen my father told me,'Son, you go and enjoy life. Eat, drink and be merry to your heart's content. Live life to the fullest. Instead of marrying one woman, be a bachelor and have ten. Spend your money for fun, for yourself, instead of on a wife and kids.' Yeah: wine, women and song, life lived to the full. That's been my policy all my life, brother!"


"Sounds like you got something," said Martin. "How old are you'?"
The other answered, "Twenty-four."


Indulgence is suicidal -- as suicidal as repression. These are the two extremes that Buddha says to avoid. One extreme is repression, the other extreme is indulgence. Just be in the middle; neither be repressive, nor be indulgent. Just be in the middle, watchful, alert, aware. It is your life! Neither does it have to be repressed, nor does it have to be wasted -- it has to be understood.


It is your life -- take care of it! love it! befriend it! If you can befriend your life, it will reveal many mysteries to you, it will take you to the very door of God.


But Tantra is not indulgence at all. The repressive people have always thought that Tantra is indulgence; their minds are so much obsessed. For example: a man who goes to a monastery and lives there without ever seeing a woman, how can he believe that Saraha is not indulging when he lives with a woman? Not only lives but practises strange things: sitting before the woman naked, the woman is naked, and he goes on watching the woman; or even while making love to the woman he goes on watching.


Now, you cannot watch his watching; you can see only that he is making love to a woman. And if you are repressive, your whole repressed sexuality will bubble up. You must start going mad! And you will project all that you have repressed in yourself on Saraha -- and Saraha is not doing anything like that; he is moving in a totally different dimension. He is not really interested in the body: he wants to see what this sexuality is; he wants to see what this appeal of orgasm is; he wants to see what exactly orgasm is; he wants to be meditative in that peak moment, so that he can find the clue and the key... maybe there is the key to open the door of the Divine. In fact, it is there.


God has hidden the key in your sexuality. On the one hand, through your sex, life survives; that is only partial use of your sex energy. On another hand, if you move with full awareness in your sex energy, you will find that you have come across a key that can help you to enter into eternal life. One small aspect of sex is that your children will live. The other aspect, a higher aspect, is that you can live in eternity. Sex energy is life energy.


Ordinarily we don't move further than the porch, we never go into the palace. Saraha is trying to go into the palace. Now, the people who came to the king, they must have been suppressed people as all people are suppressed.


The politician and the priest HAVE to teach suppression,. because it is only through suppression that people are driven insane. And you can rule insane people more easily than sane people. And when people are insane in their sex energy, they start moving in other directions -- money they will start moving towards, or power, or prestige. They have to show their sex energy somewhere or other; it is boiling there -- they have to release it in some way or other. So money-madness or power-addiction, they become their releases.


This whole society is sex-obsessed. If sex-obsession disappears from the world, people will not be money-mad. Who will bother about money? And people will not be bothered by power. Nobody will like to become a president or a prime minister -- for what?! Life is so tremendously beautiful in its ordinariness, it is so superb in its ordinariness, why should one want to become somebody? By being nobody it is so delicious -- nothing is missing. But if you destroy people's sexuality and make them repressed, so much is missing that they are always hankering: somewhere there must be joy -- here it is missing.


Sex is one of the activities given by nature and God in which you are thrown again and again to the present moment. Ordinarily you are never in the present -- except when you are making love, and then too for a few seconds only.


Tantra says one has to understand sex, to decode sex. If sex is so vital that life comes out of it, then there must be something more to it. That something more is the key towards Divinity, towards God.

The fifth question:
<p class="question">WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? I UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU SAY, I READ YOUR BOOKS AND ENJOY THEM TREMENDOUSLY, BUT STILL SOMETHING VERY ESSENTIAL IS MISSING.</p>


MEDITATE ON THESE beautiful words of Wordsworth:

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US, LATE AND SOON,
GETTING AND SPENDING, WE LAY WASTE OUR POWERS.
LITTLE WE SEE IN NATURE THAT'S OURS,
WE HAVE GIVEN OUR HEARTS AWAY, A SORDID BOON,
THIS SEA THAT BARES HER BOSOM TO THE MOON,
THE WINDS THAT WILL BE HOWLING AT ALL HOURS
AND ARE UPGATHERED NOW LIKE SLEEPING FLOWERS;
FOR THIS, FOR EVERYTHING, WE ARE OUT OF TUNE
IT MOVES US NOT......


That's what is missing. IT MOVES US NOT..... we are out of tune with existence. This WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US... GETTING AND SPENDING, WE LAY WASTE OUR POWERS. LITTLE WE SEE IN NATURE.... How can you find God and how can you find bliss if you don't look into nature? Nature is manifested God. Nature is God's body, God's form, God's temple.


WE HAVE GIVEN OUR HEARTS AWAY.... That's what is missing.
FOR THIS, FOR EVERYTHING, WE ARE OUT OF TUNE
IT MOVES US NOT......


So just reading and listening to me will not help much... start feeling. Listening, feel too not only listen. Listening, listen too through the heart. Let it sink into your feeling aspect. That is the meaning when all the religions say SHRADDHA -- faith, trust -- is needed. Trust means a way of listening from the heart -- not through doubt, not through logic, not through reasoning, not through discursive intellect, but through a deep participation through the heart.


As you listen to music, listen to me that way. Don't listen to me as you listen to a philosopher; listen to me as you listen to the birds. Listen to me as you listen to a waterfall. Listen to me as you listen to the wind blowing through the pines. Listen to me, not through the discursive mind, but through the participant heart. And then something that you are continuously feeling is missing will not be missed.


The head has become too much of an expert; it has gone to the very extreme. It is a good instrument; yes, as a slave the head is wonderful -- as a boss it is very dangerous. It has gone to the very extreme. It has absorbed all your energies. It has become dictatorial. Of course, it works, but because it works you have started depending on it too much. And one can always go to the extreme, and mind tends to go to the extreme.


Young Warren was very ambitious, and when he got a job as an office boy he was determined to learn everything possible so that he could impress the boss and get ahead. One day the boss called for him and said, "Tell the traffic department to book me a passage on the Queen Mary, sailing on the eleventh."


"Excuse me, sir," said the lad, "but that ship doesn't sail until the twelfth."


The boss looked at him, impressed. Then he said, "Have the purchasing department put an immediate order for a six months' supply of aluminium."


"May I suggest," answered Warren, "that the order be placed tomorrow, because the price will be reduced. In addition, order only one month's supply because the trend of the market indicates the price will go lower."


"Very good, young man, you're on the ball. Send Miss Kate in to take some dictation."
"Miss Kate is out today," the boy replied.
"What's the matter, is she sick?"
"No, sir, not until the ninth."


Now this is knowing too much, this is going too far. And that's what has happened to the human mind: it has gone too far, it has crossed its limit. And it has absorbed all the energy so nothing is left for the heart. You have completely bypassed your heart. You don't go through the heart. That way you don't move any more. Heart is almost a dead thing, a dead weight. That's what is missing.


You can listen to me through the head, and of course you will understand whatsoever I am saying -- and still you will not understand anything, not a single word, because this is an understanding of a totally different kind. This is an understanding which is more akin to love than to knowledge.


If you are in love with me, only then... if you have started feeling for me, only then... if an affection is growing between me and you, if it is a love affair, only then....

And the last question:
<p class="question">OSHO, HOW DO YOU DEFINE A GOOD SPEECH?</p>


DIFFICULT TO SAY. I have never delivered a single speech in my life. You are asking a wrong person. But I have heard a definition that I liked and I would like you to know it:


A good beginning and a good ending make a good speech -- if they come really close together, the beginning and the end. Of course, the best speech has no middle at all, and the very best is never delivered.


And I have always been delivering the very best, the undelivered one. I have never delivered a single speech in my life, because I deal in silence, not in words. Even when you hear words, that was not the purpose. Even when I use the words, the words are used only as necessary evils -- because they have to be used, because you cannot understand silence yet.


I am not talking to you. I have nothing to say, because that which I have cannot be said, it cannot be discoursed about. But you don't understand anything else but words, so I have to suffer, I have to use words which are meaningless. And I have to say things which should not be said -- in the hope that by and by you will start looking more directly into me; by and by, you will not listen to the words but to the message.


Remember: the medium is not the message. The words are not my message. The message is wordless.


I am trying to hand you the undelivered speech. It is a transfer beyond words, so only those who are joined with me through their hearts will be able to receive it.
			

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> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
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