---
section: Library
booktitle: "Dance Til the Stars Come Down From the Rafters"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "RAFTER"
dategiven: "11 January 1980 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #11"
chaptertitle: "None"
acode: "8001115"
shorttitle: "RAFTER11"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "Dance Til the Stars Come Down From the Rafters: Chapter #11"
---

```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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been copy-typed. It is for reference purposes only.]


What does it mean? --  his name, Osho asks Atta, the other of the aspiring sannyasin, two-and-a-half-year-old M'Ocean.
-- It began with the motion in my womb. And we had a boat at the time so we changed the spelling.
-- (to the child) Come here!
He is malaed. Osho bent to touch him but his gaze is averted.
You missed! This is your name: Swami O'Ocean.


This is your name: Swami Prem Rami. Prem means love; rami means exalted. Love is one of the most exalted experiences in life. It is the peak of being in ecstasy. It is the ultimate orgasmic joy. God is simply another name for it.


Love as profoundly as possible. Love for the sheer joy of loving, not for any motive, not for any desire. The moment desire enters love, love loses all exaltedness.


And there is one very fundamental law of life: if you fall from the peak you fall the lowest. The higher you go, the more is the danger. And love takes you to the highest, hence one has to be very very aware, alert not to fall from those peaks, otherwise one goes deep down into the mud.


That's what lust is, it is muddy. Love has fallen. It is as if the diamond has fallen into the mud and is lost. It can be reclaimed, it has to be reclaimed, but if one had been a little more aware it would not have happened in the first place. So one cannot move higher without awareness.


Love more, and love with more awareness. Awareness is the only prevention against desire.


Buddha has said: When you are aware it is like a house where people are awake. The guard is awake, the house is full of light. thieves do not dare to enter it. The unaware person is like a house full of darkness, no light. The guard is drunk, the master fast asleep, the doors are open. It is an invitation for thieves.


Anger and lust and greed and jealousy, these are all thieves, far more dangerous than ordinary thieves because they go on stealing chunks of your being. Slowly slowly they leave behind only a hollow person with no substance, with no soul.
Love plus awareness is the whole of religion.


This is your name: Ma Veet Silvia. Veet means going beyond; silvia means the sudden terror that people feel in the profound solitude of a forest.


The moment you feel absolutely alone a great terror arises in your being. When you are surrounded by rocks and trees and not people with whom you can relate, communicate, on whom you can depend in some dangerous situation, a terror arises from the very depth of your being and takes possession of you, as if your very soul had started trembling. That is silvia. One has to go beyond it, because unless one is ready to go beyond it one cannot move into meditation.


Meditation takes you into the inner forest where eternal silence prevails, where you are absolutely alone and where you cannot invite anybody to be with you, where you have to be alone. It is impossible not to be alone in your innermost being. That's why millions of people never try to go in, for the simple reason that they have an unconscious understanding; something instinctive in them says to them 'Don't enter there. It is dangerous -- you will be all alone. Even if you shout there will be nobody to hear.'


And the deeper you go, the more alone you are. When you reach the very source of your being the aloneness is absolute and the silence is eternal. Nothing stirs.


Afraid of that, people go on rushing outside doing this and that, remaining occupied with something or other. Even stupid things they become involved in. Just a football match... and thousands of people. Or a cricket match... and thousands of people are so excited. If somebody comes from another planet and watches our cricket matches and football matches he will not be able to believe it: 'What are these humans beings doing?' So much shouting and so much excitement and so much quarrelling and slogans, and so much fight... and bloodshed can happen at any moment. 'What are these people doing?' These people are simply avoiding themselves. They are getting involved in anything -- any stupid thing is excuse enough to remain away from oneself. Sannyas is just the reverse process. You have to drop all stupid occupations. Do the necessary, but not because you want to remain occupied. And whenever you have time go in, explore the inner territory. It is unmapped, uncharted -- trememdously beautiful once you become attuned to it. Once you lose the fear great joy arises in you, and a joy that cannot be taken away. The very energy that becomes fear becomes bliss.


And unless a man is capable of being alone he is not capable of being at all. He is not really a being. He is so superficial that to call him a being is to misuse the word. He is just the circumference without any center, a shadow without a soul.


So now this is the work: you have to go inwards. Learn the ways of silence and being alone. And I am not saying not to relate with people. In fact, you can relate only if you know how to be alone. Then you are and you can relate, otherwise your relationships are again occupations. You are relating just to keep yourself occupied, the other is relating just to keep himself occupied. And all these so-called love relationships are nothing but games people go on playing to avoid the reality.


When a man is able to be alone he is also able to love. And his love has a totally different quality, a different beauty, a different fragrance to it. It is something divine, it is something of the beyond. It is deeply fulfilling. It brings great contentment.


This is your name: Ma Anand Judith. Anand means bliss; judith means praise of the lord.


My understanding is that the only praise of god is through being blissful. It need not be verbal -- in fact it can't be verbal. Words are so futile, so empty; words can't contain it. One has to praise god existentially, not intellectually. Every fibre of your being has to pulsate with joy, every cell of your being has to dance in prayer. When you become a celebration you are in prayer. In fact you become prayer itself. Only then are you in prayer. Then nothing is said and all is said. There is no need then to go to the church or to the synagogue or to the temple. Then wherever you are you are joyous. Joyous for the simple reason that god has chosen you to be, that he has created you, joyous that he has given you a chance, an opportunity to see the beauty of the world, to see this mysterious existence, to be part of it, to partake of it, to drink from it, to be drunk with it. Just for that simple reason one fells thrilled, ecstatic. One can dance, one can sing, or one may simply sit silently, but one is praising. Only that praise reaches to god. Words are very heavy things. They fall back to the earth, they can't move beyond the earth. Only a silent joy can penetrate the ultimate reality.


So be cheerful, be blissful. And whenever you feel like praying, dance, sing. Forget about god. It is not a question of addressing him or talking to him -- that is all nonsense. What can be said to god? What is there to say, except yes? And that can be said only by your dance, it can't be said in any world Words are so inadequate, they have their limitations. They are good for worldly use, but the moment you start moving into the other world, the world of the beyond, they become absolutely irrelevant.


Your name is really difficult! To make any sense out of it, even for me is difficult! But we will make sense somehow. Swami Wolfgang Maria: Wolfgang means the walk of a wolf and maria means rebellion. So let us think over what to make out of it.


The only thing possible is that the walk of the wolf is very graceful; hence Germans became addicted to this name Wolfgang. It walks really beautifully. The grace and the beauty of the walk is enchanting, hypnotic. And the wolf also walks with great awareness. He is alert, watchful. He is very courageous, but always on guard too.


Those two qualities can be used by a sannyasin. The first is grace, the second is watchfulness.


And maria means rebellion. Out of grace and out of watchfulness a rebellion arises that transform you. It is something inner. It has nothing to do with any outer structure, the society, the state, the church. It is not against anybody, it is against one's own unconscious, against one's own mechanical habits, against one's own robotlike existence.


One has to rebel gracefully, watchfully, against all that keeps one a prisoner. And that which keeps you a prisoner is something within you. It is not really the society that keeps you a prisoner. It can force you into a prison but still it cannot touch your soul, your soul still remains free. And if we remain unconscious we may be free on the outside, but deep down we are chained. An invisible wall surrounds us. We carry around ourselves a transparent prison. And that prison has to be broken.


Sannyas means a decision to rebel against all that remains unconscious and keeps you a prisoner, tethered to the robotlike existence. And this has to be done with grace; it has not to be done in a crude way, it has not to be done violently. It has to be done very lovingly, because it is your life and it is your energy which has to be very very silently persuaded to change. You cannot attack it. If you attack you create a conflict. If you attack you become split, you become schizophrenic.


Gracefully, silently, one has to transform oneself. Then great beauty arises.


This is your new name: Ma Antar Kranti. Antar means inner; kranti means revolution -- the inner revolution.


There are two kinds of revolutions. One is against the society: the political revolution. It is always a failure, it has never succeeded. It is never going to succeed. We can change the structure but unless people's consciousnesses are changed they will create the same structure again, because the structure arises out of the inner structure of consciousness.


That's what happened in Russia. They rebelled, revolted against the Czar, and what they created is far worse slavery. Stalin proved to be a bigger czar that even Ivan the Terrible, because the consciousness of the people remained the same, they only destroyed the outer structure. And if the consciousness is the same it will create the same structure again. And of course, next time it will create a better structure than before -- stronger, far more solid. That's what has happened in Russia. That's what has been happening down the ages in almost all the countries. Each revolution has failed.


But there is hope -- hope because there is another kind of revolution possible: the inner revolution. You start rebelling against the very source of slavery. Our consciousness is only partially conscious, only one tenth of it is conscious. Nine tenths of it is unconscious, a dark continent. That unconsciousness has to be dispelled, that darkness has to be dispelled. We have to create more light inside.


And that's the function of meditation. Meditation is only the alchemy of creating more inner light. And when your whole being is full of consciousness, when your inside is full of light, the revolution has happened. The Buddha or the Christ is born. Sannyas is the first step towards that ultimate goal.


This is your new name: Ma Viram Mano. Viram means stopping; mano means the mind -- stopping the mind.


That's the golden secret, the innermost secret of sannyas. We don't know how to turn the mind off, it always remains on. From birth to death it continues to work. Of course, if you work so much with the mind it becomes mediocre, it becomes stupid. It never has any moment for rest, it cannot rejuvenate. The body can sleep in the night, but the mind still goes on working. In the day it thinks , in the night it dreams. It is the same process; the work continues.


Meditation means learning the art of turning the mind off. It is almost like a switch. You can turn the light on and you can turn the light off. Once you know how, it is simple; if you don't know how, it is very difficult. If you were to bring a villager who has never seen electricity, how would not be able to find the switch through his own investigation.


That actually happened. When for the first time electricity came to Vienna, a friend, a villager came to see Sigmund Freud. At night he was unable to turn the light off and he could not sleep for the whole night. Her was also afraid to ask -- because what wold people thing? You  cannot even turn the light off? He tried every way that he knew. He knew how to put a lamp out, how to put a candle out. He even stood on a table, he tried to blow it out, but nothing happened. He tried in every possible way. And you have to forgive him. How could he imagine that just behind the door there was a switch? He could not imagine it -- you cannot expect him to at all.


In the morning when Freud asked him, 'Did you sleep well?' he said, 'Sleep well? I could not sleep at all! I am so tired. And now I have to tell you the whole thing... I was trying to look knowledgeable, so I didn't ask, it felt humiliating. But that light kept me occupied for the whole night. I thought about how to turn it off and I tried in every possible way but I could not. Is there any way to turn it off or does it have to remain on?'
Then Freud took him, and just behind the door there was a switch.


That is exactly the case: there is a switch in the mind. The name of the switch is watchfulness, awareness, witnessing. If you start witnessing the mind it begins to stop. The more that witnessing grows, the more and more do you become aware of a secret key, that the mind can be stopped easily. And that moment is of treat liberation, when you can turn the mind off for hours. And when it comes back, when you recall it, it comes back rejuvenated, fresh.


Hence meditators are bound to be more intelligent than other people. If they are not then their meditation is false, then they don't know what meditation is; they are doing something else in the name of meditation. A meditative person is bound to be more sensitive, more intelligent, more creative, more loving, more compassionate. These qualities grow of their own accord. And the whole secret is in one thing: learn to stop the mind. The moment you know how to stop the mind you become the master, and then mind is a beautiful mechanism. You use it when you want to use it, when it is needed, and you put it off when it is not needed.

This is your new name: Swami Viramo. Viramo means total rest, relaxation.


Meditation can flower only in deep relaxation; relaxation is the right soil for meditation to happen. Meditation is not concentration, remember. Concentration is a strain, it can't be relaxed, it is tension, it cannot be restful. Concentration means that you are focusing your mind-energies onto one point, excluding everything else. It is a great effort, and tiring. It is useful in science. Science functions through concentration because science never goes beyond mind. And mind functions at its highest peak and pitch when it is concentrated -- naturally, because all the energies become pooled at one point.


Religion is an effort to go beyond the mind. Concentration is not of any help there. Hence concentration and meditation are not synonymous -- not only they are not synonymous, they are polar opposites of each other. Meditation means a totally relaxed state, so relaxed that the mind melts. Just as in concentration it becomes stronger and stronger -- the more concentrated it is, the more strong it is. In relaxation it becomes waker and weaker, because noting is excluded, all in included. And there is no strain, no tension; there is no need for them because you are not trying to focus yourself. You are simply available and open. That availability, that openness to existence is meditation. It needs a very restful, relaxed background.


So whenever you have time, relax. And just be alert about all that is happening around: the dog barking in the distance, the neighbors quarrelling, the traffic noise. Nothing should be taken as a distraction; in meditation nothing is a distraction. Distraction can only be there if you are trying to concentrate. Of course if you are trying to concentrate then anything that disturbs you is a distraction. But in meditation there is no possibility of distraction because in the first place we are not trying to concentrate at all. So nothing can disturb and nothing can distract; all is absorbed.


In that openness, mind slowly slowly starts disappearing, evaporating, and a few glimpses of no-mind start arriving. Those are great experiences. And slowly slowly, one day it happens that you know that you are out of the mind, completely out of the mind. You have gone beyond.


Hence, sometimes mystics almost look like mad people, because mad people go out of their mind, they fall below the mind, and mystics also go out of the mind -- they go beyond the mind. Both lose the mind in different ways, in different directions, but one thing is similar. So it is possible that the mystic may look a little mad, and vice versa, the madman may look a little mystical.


Sannyas is a door leading into harmony with the whole, a bridge, so that you can slowly drop your fight with existence. We are fighting; knowingly, unknowingly, consciously, we are fighting. We have been brought up to fight. We have been told that it is a continuous fight, the survival of the fittest, so we have to fight, we have to struggle. It is a tooth-and-nail struggle. Everybody is at your neck and you have to be at everybody else's neck. We have been brought up with this idea, in such a wrong atmosphere..., it becomes so engrained that we need not be aware of it. It goes on working there. We are constantly fighting, and this is how we dissipate our energies.


Man is part of the whole. There is no question of any struggle. How can the part fight the whole? We have to submerge ourselves into it, we have to be in deep harmony with it. That is sargamo, that is real music: when you are no more in any conflict, when you are simply in a let-go flowing with the river, not even swimming, just flowing with the river, floating. Wherever the river is going you are floating with it. It is already going to the ocean. It will take you to the ocean, you need not struggle.


This idea is very basic to my sannyas, the idea of let-go, the idea of non-resistance, the idea of no struggle. Then great music is heard, then great music is experienced and lived. You can call that music god, you can call that music paradise. Those are only names of the experience of the absolute harmony between the individual and the universal.
			

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