---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Golden Wind"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "GWIND"
dategiven: "16 July 1980 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #16"
chaptertitle: "None"
acode: "8007165"
shorttitle: "GWIND16"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "The Golden Wind: Chapter #16"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
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```
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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up.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.]


The revolution begins with bliss. One cannot grow in sadness, in misery; one can grow only in blissfulness, because when one is miserable the being shrinks, it closes. That's a natural phenomenon, and everybody knows about it because everybody has felt it. It is factual, it is not a theory: whenever you are sad you become closed -- all windows, all doors are closed. You want to be cut off from everything and everybody. Growth becomes impossible because growth needs opening.


In bliss one opens up. All the doors and all the windows are thrown open. You are available to the wind, to the rain, to the sun, to existence. In that meeting with existence growth happens. Hence blissfulness has to be the first step, only then is there a possibility of prayer.


People pray out of their misery. They pray because they are miserable, and they think through prayer they will be able to get out of misery. At the most that kind of prayer can help to console them, but it cannot help them to get out of misery. They will become settled and adjusted to their misery -- that is really dangerous. The so-called religion works in that way: it helps you to become adjusted to all kinds of misery.


That's why in the East you will see people living in all kinds of miseries without any rebellion, without any effort to improve their life. It is because of their so-called religiousness; they have become adjusted to everything, they have forgotten completely that life can be different. They have accepted life as it is.


This is not a good situation: it stops evolution. Hence I never suggest prayer when one is in misery. Prayer should be only when you are cheerful, blissful when you can dance and sing, when you can rejoice. Then prayer is a tremendous leap into the unknown because it helps you to trust existence. Prayer is trust. It is a love affair with the whole, a love affair with the trees and the stars and the mountains and all that is.


Prayer means you are feeling so thankful to everything that is that you are ready to bless it because you feel the blessing of it all showering on you. Then prayer is gratitude, gratefulness, thankfulness, a heartfelt thank you to the whole, unaddressed to anybody, not even to god in particular. A real prayer is always unaddressed. It is a sheer utterance of joy, a shout of joy; it need not be addressed.


Whenever a prayer is addressed, it is not real prayer: it is Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, but it is not prayer. It is prescribed by the state, by the church, by the people who have a vested interest and who want you to adjust according to them. It is an imposition from those who are powerful -- the politicians and the priests. It is a conspiracy against every individual and his freedom.


Real prayer has no adjective to it; it cannot be Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian. It is simply a thankfulness. It need not even be said. It is a deep feeling; your very being is full of it, overflowing with it. That overflowing thankfulness becomes your fragrance.


Prayer is like a flower. Bliss is like the spring when the flowers open up. And when the flowers open there is fragrance; the imprisoned fragrance is released. When prayer starts overflowing with no effort, naturally, spontaneously, when you are just thankful -- for no particular reason at all, just to be is enough, just to exist for a single moment is enough...


To attain to that fragrance is to come to the peak of your life, to the crescendo. There is fulfillment and tremendous contentment. One has arrived home.


All glory is of god. If our life is missing it, it is because of our ego. Ego is something ugly, it is a monster. It is like an octopus that surrounds you from all sides; it is a parasite. It goes on and on exploiting all possibilities of being glorious, all possibilities of attaining dignity and grace, and it goes on creating all kinds of ugly attitudes, motives. Greed comes out of it, anger comes out of it, hatred comes out of it, violence comes out of it, jealousy comes out of it -- all kinds of power trips trying to dominate people.


The whole politics of life arise out of this single source. It poisons your life, it poisons other people's life... but we go on carrying it. And then we are puzzled again and again: why is our life missing the splendour Jesus talks about, Buddha talks about, Zarathustra talks about? Where is the kingdom of god? All that we see is evil, within and without; we don't see anything which can really be called divine. Everything seems to be devilish.


The whole of life is crippled and paralysed by a single poison, the ego. It is very destructive, it destroys others, and it is self-destructive too, because you cannot destroy others unless you destroy yourself. It is impossible to be murderous if you are not suicidal -- those things go together. Only a suicidal person is murderous. In fact he is trying to murder just to avoid suicide. If he cannot murder he will commit suicide.


Adolf Hitler tried to commit suicide many times when he was young. Small things ... and he would think of suicide. He could not get into art school and he thought to commit suicide, then what is the meaning of life? Then he wanted to become an architect and he could not -- again, the idea of suicide.


To avoid it he entered the army, he became murderous, and then he succeeded in being the greatest murderer in the whole of human history. And ultimately he committed suicide. When he could not murder any more, when he saw that everything that he had made was crumbling down, that now there was no more possibility of his being victorious and a world-conqueror, that he had lost the war, when he saw the enemy forces entering Berlin the only thing that came to his mind was suicide, he committed suicide.


Many psychologists have been puzzled by it because their idea is that a suicidal person and a murderous person are opposites -- that's not true. They appear opposites but they are not opposites. It is the same mind which moves like a pendulum between two polar opposites. But it is the same mind which goes from the left to the right, from the right to the left. It moves between two extremes.


This fundamental thing is still missing in modern psychology. They still think in terms of opposites. They have not been able to see that opposites meet somewhere and are joined together and are not real opposites, only apparent opposites -- basically complementary, not contradictory.


Any moment the suicidal person can become murderous, and any moment suicidal; but it is the same ego, the same pendulum that moves. It never stops in the middle because to stop in the middle means death of the ego. Hence all the great masters of the world have talked about the golden means stop in the middle.


Buddha has called his path the middle way, majjhim nikaya. He says if you can avoid the extremes then there is nothing else to be done, just avoid the extremes absolutely and remain in the exact middle and you will be able to transcend all problems of life. Don't be murderous, don't be suicidal, neither be this nor be that; just begin in the middle, and in the middle the ego dies. The ego lives through extremes.


So there are worldly people -- that is one extreme; then there are other-worldly people -- that is another extreme. There are people who are after money and there are people who have renounced money. These are extremes, the ways of the ego. A few people live in the market, their whole life is devoted to the marketplace, and a few escape to the monasteries. They are the same people, apparently looking very opposite but they are not opposite people. They belong to the same spectrum, the same mind; the same ego moving from one extreme to the other.


My sannyas means being exactly in the middle. And that is the whole art of attaining to divine glory, because in the middle is transcendence from all problems. Just as if when you stop the pendulum in the middle the clock stops, stop the ego in the middle and the whole mechanism of the ego -- -the mind -- stops, the whole clock stops. Suddenly you transcend time, mind, you enter into eternity. And there is the glory and the splendour.


All that is needed is a tremendous awareness of extremes and the attraction between the extremes. And avoiding that attraction is the only path.


Meditation is not something added to you, it is just the explosion of your self-nature. It is already there in the seed form, so it is not an achievement. You already have it -- all that is needed is a little exploration: 'Where is it?' But we have never explored our inner beings.


Man is a strange animal, he explores everything -- he will go to Everest, he will go to the North Pole and the South Pole and he will go to the moon -- but he will never think of going within himself. That is the greatest disease man suffers from.


The only space that he leaves unexplored is his own inner world -- and the real treasure is there. And unless one enters into the shrine of one's own being one's life is just a wastage, a wastage which is inestimable. We are losing such a golden opportunity but we are not even aware that we are losing the golden opportunity. We are so unconscious that we go on throwing away all that is precious and we go on collecting junk.


People collect every kind of junk. Even when they become old they are so childish, collecting old postal stamps ... or collecting just any kind of ancient junk, anything that experts say is antique. And the things that are known as antique in the world, ninety-nine por cent of them are not antique at all; they are manufactured, they are very modern.


One of my friends runs a factory in Nepal which manufactures antiques -- ancient Buddhas, fifteen hundred years old, seventeen hundred years old... I asked him 'How do you create them?' He showed me his factory. First the statue has to be created then an inscription is made in the language of those days. Then the inscription has to be rubbed off so a few words are missing, and then acid has to be poured onto the statue. Then the statue has to be put deep into the earth for at least six to nine months. A few of its limbs have to be broken -- the nose may be missing, an eye may be missing -- and then a simply ordinary statue becomes antique, and suddenly it becomes very precious!


If it were modern it would have been just three hundred, four hundred rupees at the most. But when it becomes antique after six months of all kinds of treatment, then it collects thousands of dollars.


People are just mad! And this is something that gives an indication of their mind. There are people who will go on collecting old scriptures; the older they are, the better they are thought to be. Here are money-collectors, and all kinds of stupidities go on. Man has infinite greed and nothing satisfies him. It cannot satisfy him because the real search which can satisfy never begins.


He is really searching for his own ancientmost treasure, but searching in a wrong direction. Going to Everest he is really trying to find the highest peak of consciousness, but his whole effort is misplaced. Going to the moon is really symbolic: he wants to explore his own moon energy, his own silent energy; the moon represents silence, peace, the feminine inside. But rather than going there he will go to the moon,


All these efforts are doomed to fail. But before one effort fails, we have already planned another, and in this way we go on moving from one failure to another failure. Death simply closes a long series of failures.


Even those people who we think are successful people are not really successful people. Even Alexander the Great or Napoleon or Ivan the Terrible, all these people who have made great conquests, deep down are very miserable because they know perfectly well that death is approaching and all that they have gathered is bound to be taken away, so what is the point of it all? It is simply pointless.


The only treasure worth searching for is your own nature. The real adventure is to go within yourself. And that's what sannyas is all about. Once it becomes your commitment -- a deliberate, conscious commitment, a decision that whatsoever happens I have to find myself, my nature, my being, 'that I am not going to miss this opportunity of life'... once this decision is clearly there and your energies start pouring into it, there is no reason why one should fail. Nobody has ever failed. Whosoever has put his energies into the inner search has always found himself.


So let your initiation into sannyas be a great decision, the greatest of your life. From this moment onwards withdraw your energies from all that is non-essential. Yes, the essential has to be done and fulfilled, but that is not much. It is the non-essential that destroys life. Withdraw your energies from the non-essential and put that energy into the inner search. And it is a promise that once you go totally into it there is no reason why one should fail; nobody has ever failed. Without any exception, those who have entered inwards with intensity, with passion, have always reached to their innermost core. And there, light explodes. One suddenly comes to know that this is what life is for, this is the meaning of life.


Meditation is the only possibility of knowing that you are deathless. The body dies but not you, the body is born but not you. You have been before birth and you will be there after death. Hence life is not just an episode between birth and death, on the contrary, there are many births and many deaths in a long, long eternity of life. Birth and death are just small events, just like bubbles in the river, waves which come and go, but the river remains ... and the river goes on and on.


Unless this becomes your experience one cannot live life joyously because the fear of death contaminated everything. We may not be conscious of it but it is always there like a shadow following us. We may not think about it at all, in fact we don't want to think about it -- people avoid the subject of death as much as they can. Even if it comes up in certain situations, they change the subject as quickly as possible; nobody wants to discuss it,


There have been only two taboos in the world, sex and death. Don't talk about sex because sex is bound to bring up the question of death sooner or later. And the second taboo is death. Don't talk about it, because people start becoming afraid, they know that it concerns them and they escaping it in many ways. Even the word 'death' is not used. When somebody dies we have beautiful words to describe it: 'He has become a beloved of god.' We will not say that 'He has died' but 'He has become a beloved of god', 'He has gone to the other shore.'


We have expressions in every language to avoid the word 'death', but whatsoever we do, it is there. And everybody knows that it is there. From the very moment a child is born death follows him. Every day it is with you, and one has to encounter it, and one has to see it face to face and one has to come to terms with it. The only way is meditation. Meditation means becoming aware of 'Who am I? Am I the body or the mind or am I something more, something different?'


Meditation moans becoming aware inside your being, becoming alert, watchful, witnessing. And then those things are very simple: you can see that you are not the body, because one day the body was a small child, then it became a young person, then it became old -- and you are the same. The body has been going through a thousand and one changes and you are exactly the same, nothing has happened to you. That's why if you close your eyes you cannot exactly say how old you are. It is in looking in the mirror that you become aware that you are becoming old,' otherwise with closed eyes you cannot feel any age. Nobody can feel it, nobody can see any change inside; consciousness remains unchanging. 'Hence the changing is not me and cannot be me.'


And the mind is even more changing than the body. Even the body stays the same for a few days, a few months, even a few years, but the mind is very momentary. One moment there is anger, another moment there is no anger, one moment there is sadness, another moment there is joy -- it is continuously changing. You are a witness of it all, and the watcher cannot be the watched. You are the subject and all these things are the objects.


As this becomes your deep experience a realisation, a great freedom arises in you. The body is there and it has to be used; it is a beautiful house to live in. The mind is there and it has to be used; it is one of the most beautiful mechanisms given by nature to you -- use it to its fullest capacity. But remember, don't get identified with any, neither the body nor the mind. Remaining unidentified one becomes aware of eternity, of deathlessness. That is amrit, that is nectar. To taste it, even just a drop of it, is enough and your whole life takes on a totally different perspective, a different vision. Suddenly you are transported. men you live in the same world yet you are no more the same.


That's what sannyas is: being in the world yet being in such a totally different way. Being in the world as a witness -- that defines sannyas precisely. In your remaining unidentified with everything that goes on, remaining centred in your consciousness, unwaveringly centred, slowly slowly it becomes a crystallised phenomenon. Then even when death really happens you will be able to see it happening. You will be able to see that the body is dropping; just like a dead leaf dropping from the tree, the body is dropping from you.


The greatest experience of life is to see death clearly, alert, aware. It is the greatest experience, because one who can see it happening is never born in the body again. Then he becomes part of the eternal flow of consciousness, of the universal consciousness, then he becomes part of god.


Unless this experience happens you will have to come back again and again into the body. The body is just like a school: if you fail you have to go back; if you pass then there is no need to go back.


My observation is that everyone can pass in this experience, everyone has the potential, we just never try to actualise it. Now this has to be your goal.


A man who has never known meditation goes on thinking about himself as a very small phenomenon. From the outside man looks very small -- the body is a small thing, compared to the earth it is so small. The earth itself compared to the sun is very small. The sun is sixty thousand times bigger than the earth, so compared to the sun we are just like such small dust particles, almost invisible. But the sun is not very big really. There are stars with which in comparison this sun is just a dust particle.


So what are we as far as the body is concerned? -- so small that it is impossible even to conceive that things can be smaller than we are. We are almost like electrons: invisible, just hypothetical, nobody has seen them.


There is a beautiful story written by Bertrand Russell -- he has written a few stories, and when a man like Bertrand Russell writes a story it is not an ordinary story.


A great theologian dies, and of course in his heart he thinks that he will be welcomed by god. He reaches the doors of heaven but he is very shocked: the door is so big, he cannot completely see where it ends. He goes on knocking and knocking and he feels, 'On such a vast door -- I cannot see where it starts or where it ends -- my knocks are like a small ant knocking on the church door.'


Millions of years pass, then a janitor opens a window in the door and looks down. He searches very carefully to see who is knocking at the door and then he finds this tiny theologian. The theologian thinks he is god, and he says, 'My father, have you recognised me or not?' But he is very afraid whether or not his voice can be heard by this man -- he is so far away. He shouts as loudly as he can.


The janitor says, 'Excuse me -- I am not god the father, I am just the janitor. As far as god the father is concerned, I have not seen him. He is so big and I am so tiny in comparison to him, I have not seen him yet. I have not even seen anybody who has seen him, because the people who have seen him are very big. They have millions of eyes.'


'I ask admission' said the theologian, because I am a good man and devoted my life to the glory of god.' 'Man?' said the janitor. 'What is that? And how could such a funny creature as you do anything to promote the glory of god?'


The theologian is astonished. 'You can't be ignorant of man. You must be aware that man is the supreme work of the creator.'


'I am sorry to hurt your feelings,' said the janitor, 'but what you're saying is news to me. However, since you seem distressed you shall have a chance of consulting our librarian.'


The librarian is huge, like a mountain, and has ten thousand eyes. 'This,' says the janitor, 'says that it is a member of a species called man which lives in a place called earth. It has some odd notion that the creator takes special interest in this place and this species.'


'Perhaps you can tell me where this place is that you call earth,' says the librarian.


'It is part of the solar system' says the theologian. 'And what is the solar system?' asks the librarian. 'The solar system is part of the Milky Way' says the theologian. 'And what is the Milky Way?' asks the librarian. 'The Milky Way is one of the galaxies' replies the theologian.


The theologian was losing all hope. He thought he would be welcomed and god himself would be waiting at the door. More inquiries are made and a clerk concerned with the galaxies is called in. Several years later he returns with more information about this particular galaxy. At this point it is all such a shock to the theologian that he wakes up. He had not really died, he was dreaming. He wakes up, he is completely perspiring, and from that day he forgets all about his religion. That dream shattered all his religion, his spirituality. Now he knows, 'All that is nonsense, my own creation, my own imagination.' It is a beautiful story....


Man is very small, but only from the oustide. If you look at man from the inside, he is as vast as the whole existence itself. But we have never looked from the inside, that's why everybody suffers from some kind of inferiority complex.


Meditation frees you from an inferiority complex. And except for meditation, nothing can make you free from an inferiority complex, no psychological analysis can help. At the most psychologists can help you to create another fiction -- that is the superiority complex. But it is as stupid as the first one, in fact more stupid than the first one. The first one has some reality about it; the superiority complex is simply fiction, pure fiction.


A meditator neither feels inferior nor superior, he simply feels he is no more, only the vast existence is, the whole space is. He becomes part of it, he is immersed in it, he becomes oceanic. And to feel that vastness is the greatest bliss in life. It is also freedom from fear, it is also the ultimate truth.


So put all your energies into meditation, into awareness, so that you are able to look at yourself from the inside. Meditation is the mirror,,the real mirror which will give you your original face.
			

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