---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Madman's Guide to Enlightenment"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "MADGUI"
dategiven: "03 June 1978 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #3"
chaptertitle: "None"
acode: "7806035"
shorttitle: "MADGUI03"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "The Madman's Guide to Enlightenment: Chapter #3"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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[Osho gives a fourteen-year-old boy the name Swami Prem Ajita -- unconquerable love]


And love is the only power that cannot be conquered. There is no way to conquer it. The only way to approach it is to surrender -- not through conflict, not through conquering. The only way to attain to love is to bow down to it. If one starts fighting for it, one goes on missing it. And that's why millions of people in the world live a loveless life. They have been trying to do the impossible: they have been trying to conquer it; they want to possess it. Just as they possess money, other kinds of power, they want to possess love too. And it cannot be possessed; it is bigger than we are. We can be possessed by it but we cannot possess it. So one has to surrender to love.


And that's the way to god too; god cannot be conquered. One has not to be aggressive towards god. One has not to become a soldier; one has to become a sannyasin. And that's the difference between a soldier and a sannyasin: the soldier is trying to conquer; the sannyasin is trying to be conquered. The sannyasin is praying to god: 'Conquer me. I am available -- possess me. Take me away from myself. Destroy my will, my ego. Let your will be done.'


And this is the time -- if one starts in the right direction one can avoid many many unnecessary problems.


This is the time to start meditating, so before the diseases happen you are already ready; they cannot happen to you.


People start meditation only when the diseases have already happened. To start meditation early in life is to create such consciousness that problems won't arise, and even if they arise you will be able to solve them easily. Start meditating, mm? Good... good!


[Osho speaks to a sannyasin ma who is distraught because her relationship has fallen apart.]


Everything is perfect. And all the worries have been only in the head; your energy has remained absolutely unaffected, and that is something to be very happy about. You have passed through a great turmoil, great anguish.


It was a nightmare, but just a nightmare. Your centre has not been damaged by it, and that's one thing very beautiful.


The whole trouble was worth it. If one can pass through such moments of anguish without getting disturbed at the very core of one's being, one has passed through a great test. It brings integrity. It makes one more certain of one's being. You will never be the same again. All the wavering and all the possibilities of wavering, have been passed over.


It looks, when one is passing through it, almost like hell, and one wishes one did not have to pass through it. But once you have passed through it, it is felt as a blessing. Soon you will feel that it was a blessing, and you will be grateful to [your ex- boyfriend] too.


In fact, looked at from the right vantage point, wrong never happens; all that happens is right. If it doesn't look right, that is simply our opinion. It is not according to our desire, that's all -- but our desire may not be for our growth; it may be a hindrance. It is not necessarily so that whatsoever we desire is good for us. Almost always it is just the opposite: our desires are our undoing. We desire -- when it is not fulfilled we think something has gone wrong. But we never look deep down and see that in the first place the desire itself may have been wrong. Because as far as reality, existence, god, is concerned, all is always right. It is just that our ego wants its own private way, its own private goal. And whenever it clashes against the goal of the whole cosmos, it is destroyed -- it has to be destroyed. It is for our welfare.


Now you will be moving into a new dimension, and that's why I have called you. Now forget all that... and forgive too, because unless you forgive, you cannot forget. Remember, they go together: we can forget only if we forgive. If somewhere some complaint remains, some grudge, it is impossible to forget. That grudge functions like a wound, and you go back to it again and again. You go on playing with your own wound and you don't allow it to heal. Wounds have to be left alone; they heal faster. One should not go on disturbing their healing processes. Forgive and forget. And feel grateful. Write a letter to [your ex-boyfriend] too, that you are grateful; whatsoever happened was good.


And start the real life now. I was waiting for this moment. In fact, today you are becoming a real sannyasin. The first time was a formal initiation. This is real. The first time was only your desire to be changed; now you are ready too. It was your hope; now it can become an actuality. So completely clean yourself of the whole past.


Now this is your home, this is your place, this is where you belong. Start working afresh. And I need you here. So for a few days rest and then plan a group and start running it.

[Osho speaks to an elderly sannyasin ma]


Much is going to happen -- just receive it. All that you have to do is to receive.


What is happening here is not a kind of doing -- it is a kind of receiving. If you can be open, you will be fulfilled. If you can dare to open your heart, if you can remain vulnerable, you will be flooded with new light, with new life, with new energy. It is a transmission of energy. It is not a question of much doing on your part. All that is needed on your part is not to interfere, that's all. And all these groups and meditations are nothing but a help so that you stop interfering. Once your interference is dropped, all is available.


And very rarely do such opportunities exist on the earth. So just absorb as much as you can -- even if sometimes it is too much and you become frightened, and sometimes it takes you to such strange spaces where you have never been and you want to shrink back and cling to the familiar. But god is the unknown. That which is known is the world, and that which is unknown and which remains unknown is god. So the jump is from the known to the unknown, the jump is from the familiar to the unfamiliar. It is an adventure into the unmeasured, unmapped, uncharted.


But the time has come -- before death knocks at the door one has to know what life is. If one dies without knowing what life is, one lived in vain. So you cannot afford to waste your life. Use each single opportunity that is available here to the utmost, to the maximum, and receive as much as is humanly possible.


Trust. And don't argue. Those arguments just become barriers. Put aside all your knowledge. That knowledge is not going to help. Only being helps, not knowledge; knowledge pretends, promises, but never delivers the goods. So put all knowledge aside. That means to put the whole mind aside, to let the heart function at the optimum. And you will not go empty-handed I would not like you to go empty-handed. I am ready -- you be ready!

[A sannyasin says: I just feel like coming closer to you... ]


Things are perfectly good, mm? -- you are getting closer and closer to me every day, and as you come closer, the desire to be more close will arise. That is a good indication.


It has nothing to do with physical closeness; it is something inward. The physical closeness is just one of the most superficial ways of being close -- the mundane way to be close, the worldly way to be close. There are higher and more superior ways of being close, and those are happening. The energy is flowing towards me, the distance is becoming less and less. Just remember me more....


[A sannyasin says he cannot hear with his left ear; and that he was born left-handed and forced to write with his right hand -- he writes from right to left.]


Yes, the problem is there. There was no need to change you from the left to the right, but that happens to every left-handed child. That is one of the minorities which has been oppressed down the ages. Many minorities have been oppressed, exploited; that is one of the minorities -- and not a small minority. Almost ten percent of people are born left-handed. One in ten is left-handed, so nothing is wrong in it. It is just that the society has a fixed obsession with the right hand, so parents and the teachers start forcing the child to be right-handed. And hands are not just hands -- they are indicative of the brain system.


A left-handed child is saying that his brain hemispheres are just in the reverse order. His left hemisphere is on the right side, his right hemisphere is on the left side. So when you force the child he has to do it, because the whole society is against it. He feels guilty, as if something is wrong. Nothing is wrong. And when one is forced to change, the whole system is disturbed. That's what has happened.


So if you can do a little more work from the left side, everything will settle and in every way your capacity, your ability, your intelligence, will rise higher. So do more things with the left hand. Start writing again with the left hand; now nobody is preventing you. Work with the left hand more.

[The sannyasin answers: I'm completely reversed.]


That too is not a problem, or it is only a problem because the language is fixed. There are languages which go that way, so that is not really the question. But we have not been able to evolve a language which will satisfy everybody's need. There are languages which are written the way you write. That cannot be done, otherwise nobody will be able to understand your writing. But at least you can write with the left hand and you can do more things with the left hand. You know that you are left-handed -- accept it, rejoice in it and enjoy it!


Forget the nonsense that is in the mind because everybody is saying 'The right hand is right and the left is wrong.' Nothing is right and nothing is wrong; whatsoever is natural to you is good. You can learn some language also which is written that way and you will really be in ecstasy writing that kind of language. Or you can invent your own calligraphy! Just do anything... just nonsense will do, but it will relax the whole inner system of your mind.


You have to move towards the left more. And once you have done that you will feel at ease, more silent, more calm, quiet, cool. Otherwise this problem will remain and it can create more and more problems as days pass. Because it is almost as if the car has been made to be driven with the left-hand -- it has a left-hand drive -- and you are trying to drive it from the right, so the whole mechanism is not there. All you can do is push it from behind and just somehow manage it.
Just accept it -- it is perfectly good.

[Another sannyasin says: I can't formulate what I'm trying to say.]


There is no need to say anything. Things are settling, things are changing, and when things are in change there are many things to say and yet it is very difficult to be articulate, because so many things are happening and so many things are going on simultaneously. It is very difficult to find from where to begin: it is almost like a circle, and circles inside circles are there. It is a transitory period. When the old starts disappearing and the new has not yet appeared on the horizon -- the night is gone and the day has not come -- that kind of interval is there.


So whatsoever you can ask will look irrelevant, because you can only ask something that you know. That is disappearing; that is your past. You cannot ask anything which is relevant because that has to be about the future which has not yet become present. Next time you come things will be very clear; you will be able to ask exactly according to your need. But whether you ask or not your need will be fulfilled; that's my work. It is not a question of your asking. And sometimes it happens: a person asks one thing and I give him something else, because I can see that that question is not in any way useful; that question is just a head question. Head questions make no sense but gut questions do, questions which come from the navel, not from the head, questions which don't come from your studies, knowledge, scholarship -- questions which come from your existence, existential questions.


And that's what you are groping for. You can ask many questions but they are all of the head. Soon you will be able to ask something existential. But whether you ask it or not, I am already at work. Just go, continue to meditate, and make it a point that a one-hour meditation is a must.
			

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