---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Shadow of the Whip"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "WHIP"
dategiven: "25 November 1976 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #16"
chaptertitle: "Live at the Maximum"
acode: "7611255"
shorttitle: "WHIP16"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "The Shadow of the Whip: Chapter #16"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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Anand means bliss and amara means eternal, deathless, immortal. And in the East we define bliss as that which is eternal. Happiness is that which is momentary. When happiness becomes eternal, it becomes bliss. Happiness is just a glimpse of that bliss -- as if you have seen the far away Himalayan mountain peaks in a dream... or in a dark night there is a sudden lightning and you have seen the vision -- mm? Everything was clear for a moment, then again the darkness -- and even darker than before.


Happiness is a far away glimpse of bliss. -And by its very nature it is momentary. You cannot make lightning permanent -- by its very nature it is momentary. People hanker for happiness and they want to make it permanent. That is the whole desire of the human mind -- to make happiness something permanent, which abides, which remains. But by its very nature it is non-abiding, by its very nature it is momentary. Human beings go on struggling for the impossible. And then of course there is frustration. You can look everywhere -- there is frustration, misery.


So don't hanker for happiness, rather search for bliss -- and that is a totally different dimension. That's what meditation is all about -- the technology of the inner search for something which is eternal in you. Only on the base of that can one come to a point where one can relax and be really happy. This ordinary happiness makes you really more and more unhappy. By the time you are settling with your unhappiness, again there is a moment of lightning -- again there is happiness, again you are unsettled, again desire arises... then there is frustration. By the time you are settling again, another moment of happiness.


So these moments of happiness are far between -- and between two moments of happiness there is great misery. We suffer that misery in the hope that the moment will be coming. It has not come today -- tomorrow it will be coming, or the day after tomorrow, but it must be coming. We live by hope.


To enter into meditation is to enter into another dimension -- the dimension of no hope, no desire... the dimension of no time. And the search is not for happiness at all -- the search is for that which is eternal. By the time you recognise the eternal in you, suddenly there is bliss, and then bliss is no more like lightning -- it is a permanent light in you that abides. Then happiness is not something that comes and goes -- you are happiness then.


When happiness becomes just your nature, it is bliss. When it comes and goes it is of no use. It is just like a toy, mm? The child becomes engaged, occupied, enjoys playing with it, but meanwhile misery goes on growing and it goes on exploring again and again....


Anand means bliss and jagdeesh means god, lord of the world; so, god of bliss. And everybody is this -- the ultimate. We may know it, we may not know it. We may recognise, we may not recognise, but the reality remains the same -- only God is, and everything else is just a dream. This name will remind you continuously. So be a god, live like a god, move like a god.


God has not to be realised -- God is already there. It is your reality... it is you. One has just to start living it on the way.


And that is the basic teaching that I am bringing to you -- that God has not to be searched for. It is not somewhere far away -- it is already the case. Just start living it.


Whatsoever you do, do with the conscious idea that you are God -- love like a god, move, walk like a god. Mm? just let that feeling arise more and more. And once you start living that vibration, suddenly you become aware that you have always been that. And not only you -- the moment you recognise that you have been always divine, the whole existence suddenly turns into a totally different world; everything becomes divine.
.... And do a few groups here.


First Tathata. Tathata means to be in a state of suchness -- it is a buddhist word... to live life as it is without hankering for any improvement, because all improvement is a desire of the ego. To think of oneself in terms of becoming is to create misery. So Tathata means whatsoever is, is -- live it. Don't compare it with the past and don't compare it with the future. Let that moment, the present moment, be all, as if there is no other time -- in fact there is not, only the present is. Tathata means living in the present, and living so totally that the past and the future disappear, so you are passionately herenow, intensely herenow. You become a burning flame -- your torch burns from both ends together. And in those moments one exists at the optimum.


We are living at the minimum, that's why we are missing the joy. We are not meant to live at the minimum. We are made to live at the optimum, we are made to live at a hundred degrees -- from there is evaporation, transformation. But we live near about ten degrees: just lukewarm -- neither cold nor hot.


Tathata means that this moment is all, so you cannot dissipate your energy and you cannot spread your life. There is no past -- it is already gone; and there is no future -- because it has not come yet. So all that you have got is this atomic moment. There is no way to spread your life. You cannot be horizontal, you have to be vertical -- because this is the only moment there is, and you have to live in depth. That creates intensity... that creates passion. Life becomes a passionate affair. Then each moment has its own flame, and there is no smoke.


Smoke comes when you are not burning totally. If you burn a new, freshly-cut log, it smokes because it resists, it fights the fire. It is not ready to burn, the sap is still alive; the log is not dry. The log is not ready to move with the flames -- it fights. There is resistance, struggle, conflict, so there is no fire, only smoke; the log smokes. When the log is dry, there is no smoke -- there is pure fire. When there is no past, when there is no future, you are not wet with desire -- you are dry.


And this moment is all. There is no way to spread yourself anywhere, so you dive deep. And in that depth one starts living at the optimum -- and to live at the optimum is to live like a god. So Tathata will be your first step towards it. And the second is Sahaj....


Sahaj means spontaneity. That which happens on its own accord -- only that is true and that is beautiful and that is good. That which you do is wrong. Whenever you are the doer you have erred. Being spontaneous means that whatsoever life wants, it happens. You cooperate with it -- with no condemnation, with no judgement, with no good/bad. Nothing is moral, nothing is immoral.


There are only two types of things: either natural or unnatural. So if you go on dropping the unnatural, the natural becomes a bigger stream by and by. That will be the second step, and then I will tell you what else to do... and the camp is there.


And fundamentally I am here, mm? So just drink me as deep as you can. And you are not new here. Some day you will recognise that you have been with me before.
So it is a continuity of an old story....
			

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