---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Imprisoned Splendor"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "IMPRIS"
dategiven: "06 June 1980 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #6"
chaptertitle: "None"
acode: "8006065"
shorttitle: "IMPRIS06"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "The Imprisoned Splendor: Chapter #6"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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> [!info]
> Note
>
[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.]


People take life for granted, hence there is no gratitude in them. And without gratitude there is no growth, without gratitude there is no religion, without gratitude there is no prayer. Religion begins in gratitude and ends in gratitude. It is a journey from gratitude to gratitude. In the beginning it is a seed, in the end it becomes a flower. But the most fundamental fact is that life should not be taken for granted. We have not earned it, it is a gift. It is such a simple and obvious fact. Maybe because it is so obvious people tend to forget about it.


Religion does not begin in the belief that god exists; it begins in this awareness, that life is a gift. We don't know from whom -- that has to be enquired into -- but one thing is certain, that it is a gift. Some unknown force, some mysterious force has given you the most valuable thing. And once this feeling becomes crystallised in you then the enquiry starts. God is not very far away from gratitude.


Every child is born with great brilliance, with great intelligence, but we destroy his intelligence. Our whole structure is such that we can allow only mediocre people to survive. Our society, our state, our church, are all afraid of the intelligent person because intelligence is basically rebellious. So at the very beginning we start paralysing the intelligence of the child. By the time he is grown-up he will be mediocre -- educated, maybe well-educated, with university degrees, with a Ph.D. and D.Lit., but deep down no more rebellious, no more intelligent. Now he will function like a computer -- and society needs computers, machines, slaves.


We have not been able yet to create a society which can allow intelligence to grow to its peaks. We are still living under a primitive fear, we are still living with a thousand and one taboos and superstitions.


Meditation means getting rid of all this nonsense that society imposes upon you, meditation means freedom from all structures imposed by others on you.. And then again the mirror is clean, again you can reflect that which is. And god is another name for that which is -- nothing else. Once the layers of dust that have been put upon your mirror are removed, you are capable of reflecting reality. And once reality is reflected as it is you start responding to it, you become responsible for the first time.


Meditation brings peace naturally. Peace has not to be cultivated, it is a by-product. If you go deep into meditation peace comes of its own accord and then it has a beauty of its own. But if you cultivate peace then it is simply a facade. Deep down you are boiling, deep down you are ready to be violent to others or to yourself. Deep down you are constantly ready to destroy. Deep down you are destructive, you are bound to be destructive.


If you cannot be destructive to others because of the facade that you have created, then you will be destructive to yourself. Either you will be a sadist or you will be a masochist, either you will be an Adolf Hitler or you will be a Mahatma Gandhi. But both are pathological, both are destructive and violent. One destroys others, the other destroys himself. And for thousands of years we have worshipped people who are suicidal, self-destructive. We have called them great saints, mahatmas, sages -- and that is sheer nonsense. They are not sane people.


And why did they become so masochistic, self-destructive? The simple reason is they created a false peace around themselves. Now they cannot show their real faces outside. They cannot be angry to others so they become angry with themselves. Either this is going to happen or they become hypocrites: in public they show one face, in private they have another face.


The political leaders are all hypocrites. In public you will see them smiling and looking so graceful, and in their private lives they are simply ugly and they can do any harm to anybody; they create all the wars in the world. They have double personalities, they are split people. They say one thing and they do something else, and of course they have to continuously hide, so deep down they become deceptive, dishonest.


My sannyasins have to drop that whole idea of becoming peaceful through cultivation. Peace has to come of its own accord. You have to go deep into meditation, you have to become more and more alert, aware, watchful -- that's going to be your work. And if it succeeds peace will be coming. Peace becomes a criterion. If you achieve peace through your meditation it shows that meditation is moving in the right direction. If you achieve peace that means you are doing something worthwhile; if you don't, then you have to look again. Somewhere you have missed the point, you have gone astray. In the name of meditation you are doing something else.


So peace is a by-product, but it can also function as a criterion of whether you are moving in the right direction or not. If you are moving in the right direction you are bound to be peaceful because you are coming closer and closer to god. That very closeness to god becomes peace. And when you have entered into god you become absolutely peaceful.


Meditation is human, it is your work. Peace is divine, it is god's gift. And god is very fair: if you are going into meditation earnestly, sincerely, you will be rewarded. There is no question about it, it has always happened that way. But this thing has to be remembered: peace is god's gift. We cannot do anything about it directly but we can create the right situation in which it descends from above.


It is like flowers: you cannot do anything directly about the flowers but you can prepare the ground, you can sow the seeds, you can help the plant to grow, you can sow the seeds, you can help the plant to grow, and wait. In the right season, at the right moment the flowers will come; your effort will be rewarded. But you cannot pull flowers out of a seed, neither can you pull flowers out of a tree; you have to allow them to happen. They come from some unknown source, some mysterious source, but they always come. One has to be patient enough. One has simply to do one's work and trust that whenever the time is ripe the flowers will come.


They have always come. They came to Jesus, to Buddha, to Mohammed; they are going to come to you too. God has no favorites, he is neither for somebody nor against somebody. God simply means the ultimate law of nature. Just fulfill your task and nature immediately responds.


Knowledge can be acquired, wisdom cannot be acquired. There are many ways to acquire knowledge . you can acquire it through books, through experienced people, through universities, through teachers, It is a question of collecting information and memorising it, But it is not possible to acquire wisdom at all, neither from books nor from universities nor from teachers.


Wisdom is an inner growth -- it does not come from the outside. For knowledge you have to look for outside sources, from where to get it. For wisdom you have to look within, to dig within. When you have reached your very centre it explodes. It is already there, just waiting for you to come.


Meditation is only a method of digging withinwards. Meditation is absolutely scientific. It does not require belief, it does not require that you be a Christian or a Mohammedan or a Hindu; it does not even require that you be a theist. You can be an atheist, you can be a Communist, you can be anybody. It does not ask anything to change from the beginning. It simply asks you to be open, to enquire, to be ready to go d n. Only that readiness is needed, and an open mind, unprejudiced. And then it is a very simple process.


It can be reduced to a very simple maxim: to watch your thoughts is meditation, because through your watching your thoughts, they start disappearing, evaporating. When your watchfulness becomes really intense, thoughts disappear, and in that thoughtless consciousness you hit upon your innermost core... and the explosion.


That explosion is wisdom. That explosion makes one a Christ or a Buddha. And my whole effort here is not to make you a Christian but a Christ, not to make you a Buddhist but a Buddha. Why become a Christian? -- because that is knowledge. Why not become Christ? -- that is wisdom. Why become a Buddhist? -- that is knowledge. Become a Buddha -- that is wisdom. Why settle for secondary things? Why not go to the primary source which is within yourself? Why settle for borrowed things, old and rotten? Why not go in and get in tune with truth freshly, here and now.


Moksha means ultimate freedom, freedom from all limitations -- the limitations of the body and the limitations of the mind. Your consciousness has no limitations, it is unbounded, but we have become identified with the body, which is limited. Because of that identification, think this is all that we are. We are far more, immensely more. And we have become identified with the mind too.


These are small things and we are as vast as the sky. To experience that vastness is moksha. That is real freedom. And the only way is meditation, because meditation destroys all identifications. It makes you aware that you are not the body, you are not the mind I you are neither this nor that. Finally you are only the witness.


When this pure witness is experienced you have reached the ultimate peak. There is nothing beyond it. At that peak you know freedom, you know bliss, you know love -- you know all that is worth knowing. And not only do you know it, you are it.


The message of sannyas is love. That's the first and the most important thing to understand about sannyas. I am not much interested in god, in heaven, but I am absolutely interested in love, because the person who knows what love is, is bound to know what god is, but not vice versa. One may go on believing in god -- one will not come to know what love is. In fact the believers in god have created so much hatred on the earth, nobody else has done so much mischief. Christians, Mohammedans, Hindus -- they are all participants in a great conspiracy.


They talk about god, about peace, about love and all that they do is make bloodshed and nothing else. And for centuries that has been going on. In fact no sinners have done so much sin as your so-called saints. They may not have done it directly but they have provoked people to do such things.


Your bad people have been so bad; your so-called good people have really proved more dangerous culprits. or course they talk about beautiful things, but you have to look behind the beautiful things. They talk about god, but then they have to fight for god, then they have to kill people for god. Both the parties are fighting for god and both the parties are killing each other for god.


Now when man becomes a little more alert and aware this whole thing will seem so ridiculous, so primitive, and so stupid. And this has been done in the name of religion.


Hence my emphasis is on love, because if love happens then everything else happens. There is no question about it. A loving person cannot avoid encountering god for long. Even if he wants to escape he cannot escape; he will find god, he is bound to find him, it is inevitable.


But to know love needs one thing, and that is readiness to dissolve your ego. If you are not ready to dissolve yourself you can never know what love is. The dewdrop slipping into the ocean knows what love is. And that is the way of sannyas: be a dewdrop and slip into the ocean. Forget that you are somebody, from this moment you are a nobody, a non-entity, a nothingness.


In that nothingness the very kingdom of god happens. That nothingness opens the door to all the mysteries of life. It makes you aware of the infinite treasures of your being. Suddenly you are in tune with existence. It is the ego that is a jarring note. It never allows you to commune with existence, it always hinders. It is not a bridge, it is a wall -- it has to be dropped.


The only thing to be renounced in my sannyas is the ego. And the only thing to be experienced in my sannyas is love. And they are two sides of the same coin: dissolve the ego and you are capable, immediately capable, of entering into the world of love.
			

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