---
section: Library
booktitle: "Nirvana now or never"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "NEVER"
dategiven: "07 February 1980 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #7"
chaptertitle: "None"
acode: "8002075"
shorttitle: "NEVER07"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "Nirvana now or never: Chapter #7"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
<!--This file is automatically generated. Do not edit!-->
> [!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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been copy-typed.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.]


This is your name: Swami Dhyan Sindhu.
Dhyan means meditation. Sindhu means the ocean.


Man without meditation is just like a dewdrop: very small, confined, limited, and that's the root cause of misery, to feel bounded, to feel encapsulated, to feel small. Because of this feeling one starts compensating; hence the ego. One feels small, one does not want to feel small. One feels inferior, one feels hurt because of inferiority, and the inferiority complex creates its opposite, the ego.


The ego is an illusion that "I am not limited", that "I am omnipotent", that "I am tremendously powerful", that "I am this, I am that". Through money, power, prestige, one goes on proving that "I am not inferior. Who says I am inferior?"


The ego exists in the same proportion as you feel inferior. The proportion is exactly the same. The more inferior you feel, the more egoistic you become. The ego is a compensation, but because it is illusory it does not help in the long run. It is a very short-sighted measure. It can keep you in delusion for a while but again and again the reality asserts. Deep down, hidden behind the facade of the ego you know the wound, that you are small, that you are limited by birth and death, that you are limited by the body, by the mind, that you are limited by time and space. It is impossible to hide it forever. It is such a reality.


But, if one enters into meditation a great revolution happens: a radical change sets in. The dewdrop disappears; instead one finds something oceanic.


Man is a dewdrop because he feels identified with the body, with the mind. Meditation is the awareness that "I am not the body and not the mind!" The moment you become aware that you are not the body and the mind, suddenly all boundaries disappear; they were created by your identification. Suddenly you are no more in the prison.


The prison was illusory, it was your creation. And because the prison was illusory all your efforts to get our of it were illusory. The ego is an effort to get out of an illusory prison. It is like a medicine which is itself illusory but is trying to cure some illusory disease. And an illusory disease always finds some illusory medicine...


Meditation is a simple process of knowing the reality as it is. It is silence, it is awareness, it is watchfulness, it is witnessing. And witnessing is the key, because when you witness something you cannot remain identified with it. The moment you witness something you are separate from it. The witnessing is never the witnessed. If you can witness your body you are transcendental to the body, beyond the body. If you can watch your mind you are beyond the mind. If you can watch your feelings you are beyond the heart, and these are the three limitations.


Once you know your transcendence you feel oceanic, vast. Then there is no need for the ego. The ego cannot be dropped, because in the first place it doesn't exist. But in meditation it disappears.


And this is where I differ from all so-called traditions. They all say "Drop the ego, then you can enter into meditation". That is sheer nonsense! It is lying, like telling a person that "First you get healthy then you can use the medicine. First you get healthy". If that is the requirement to use the medicine then the whole thing is absurd. For what the medicine has to be used then? And this is what has been taught for centuries: drop the ego, so that you can enter into meditation. This is not possible.


So the people who try to drop the ego they start having a new kind of ego, far more subtler -- the ego of humbleness, the ego of egolessness. Again they are trapped. It is bound to happen, it is inevitable.


My approach is just the opposite: do not be bothered by the ego. Go to the roots. Why you have created the ego? -- because you feel inferior so you want to create something big around yourself to hide your limitedness. You want to brag, you want to puff your ego as big as possible; like a balloon you go on puffing it. But inside the cause is inferiority and inferiority is caused because of identification. So the deeper you go into the roots you will find the basic disease of humanity is identification; hence the only medicine that is going to cure is witnessing. Witnessing destroys identification, and then you need not drop the ego because there is no ego to be found.


And to experience oneself in one's vastness, infinity, eternity, is the moment of bliss, the moment of truth, the moment of realisation. That is the ultimate goal of sannyas.

This is your name: Swami Anand Pratika.
Anand means bliss. Pratika means a symbol.


Blissfulness is the symbol of self-realisation. Blissfulness is the indication that one has arrived home. It is blissfulness which proves godliness. Without blissfulness life is meaningless; one is simply groping in darkness, stumbling, somehow managing to live, but there is no significance, no joy. Life is felt like a burden, like a curse.


Jean Paul Sartre says man is condemned, cursed, to be. Obviously, that means one will be constantly thinking of committing suicide -- and that's what is happening to the modern mind: suicide has become the most significant problem. The question is why to live, for what?


Blissfulness has totally disappeared, and the strangest thing is that it has disappeared because of the so-called religious people in the world. The religious people have created a kind of seriousness. They have destroyed cheerfulness, they have condemned cheerful as something mundane, profane, sacrilegious. They have raised sadness, seriousness, to the heights of saintliness.


Christians say that Jesus never laughed. This is an utter lie! But for two thousand years Christians have believed in that. And if Jesus himself never laughed, how anybody else can dare to laugh? To be a Christian means to be sad, and if you are a Christian saint that means you have to be utterly sad, dead, a living, walking corpse, with no joy, with no song, with no celebration.


In a very subtle way religions have condemned life and all that belongs to life and they have praised death and all belongs to death. They were all death-oriented.


My sannyas is life-oriented, life-affirmative. I am against seriousness, I am all for laughter. i am all for cheerfulness, I am all for light-heartedness! The truly religious person will live his ordinary life with immense joy and ecstasy. He will not call it ordinary. He will live it with extraordinary sensitivity. It is a gift from the whole, it is a gift from the beyond -- it has to be respected, loved, appreciated! And it is really an immense gift. All these tress and the birds and the people and the rivers and the mountains and the stars and this vast sky, all this eternity... It seems really strange, sink, that somebody can be serious in this celebrating existence!


But seriousness has been praised, and because it has been praised people have tried to be serious. They have repressed their cheerfulness, they have repressed their dances, they have made themselves cripples, they have paralysed their being in every possible way. They have cut themselves so that they can fit into the pattern of being a respectable saint.


To me this has been a calamity. Religions have been committing a great crime against man, and it is time that it should be corrected. It is already late.


A total rebellion is needed. My sannyasins have to be rebels; rebellion against life-negative attitudes, rebellion against seriousness, rebellion against the so-called other-world. This is the only world, and we have to live now and here. We are not to sacrifice now and here for some fantasy of a heaven or a paradise or a moksha. We are not to sacrifice the present for the future -- that is stupid -- because the future is born out of the present; if you kill the present you are killing the future too, because you are killing the mother and the mother is pregnant. You are killing the child too.


Each moment functions as a mother for the next moment. Condemning it is dangerous. Appreciate it, love it, rejoice in it.


Blissfulness has to be the very flavour of sannyasins, the symbol of my sannyas. Dance, sing, laugh, love, live, and live totally and passionately. Live intensely because who knows? -- the next moment may never come. This may be the last moment. So drink out of it, don't leave a single drop of the wine in the cup of the present! Don't postpone it for tomorrow because the tomorrow never comes.


And if it comes it will bring its own wine -- why be worried? It will bring its own songs and dances. This moment has its own taste -- rejoice in it -- and next moment will bring its own world. And if you know how to rejoice you will be able to rejoice that too, and if there is another world after death you have prepared yourself; by rejoicing in this world you will be ready to rejoice that too.


Sometimes I wonder, if your so-called saints enter into paradise, what they will so there? Just sitting like fools! They cannot dance, they cannot sing, they cannot laugh, they cannot even exchange jokes with each other, and for eternity they have to live there (laughter). Now there is no coming back! Once you enter into paradise you enter forever, so beware! Either don't enter or if you enter then learn the art of being blissful. Then wherever you are it is paradise. Even the hell will be heaven to my sannyasins: they will paint it orange (laughter), they will sing hallelujah, they will dance. Either the devil will have to become a sannyasin or he will have to leave! (laughter) There is no other alternative!


The question is not of going to heaven; the question is learning the art of being in heaven, wherever you are. Right now we are here, so this place this moment, has to be divine. This moment has to be squeezes to its totality.


I teach only blissfulness because to me that is the symbol of true religion. And it is only a question of understanding. Once you understand that it is unnecessary to be miserable, your energy starts turning into bliss. Once you understand that there is no need to be bothered for respectability... the society is playing a game, the game is it respects if you are serious, and if you want respectability you have to be serious. But then you will remain miserable. That respectability is not worth. Don't be bothered about respectability. Just think of one thing, and that is how to be blissful, whatsoever the cost.


And the blissful person naturally helps others to be blissful. The blissful person is a blessing to himself and also a blessing to whole existence. Perhaps you nay not be respected, perhaps the traditionalists, the orthodox people may not think you religious -- who cares? Those who understand, they will respect you. But the people who understand are very few. The crowd consists of blind people. A sannyasin has to be very clear about it that you are getting out of the mob psychology.


By becoming a sannyasin you are dropping out of the crowd mind, you are becoming an individual. Now, from this moment inwards you will be living the life of a rebel, but it is a joy, it is an ecstasy to be rebellious. Only the rebellious people know what life is, only the rebellious know what god is, because god is the very centre of life. In fact life and god are synonymous.

This is your name: Swami Prem Bhagwat.
Prem means love. Bhagwat means divine, godly.


Love is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. It can be animal, it can be human, it can be divine. These are the three main dimensions.


Love is animal when you are exploiting the other as a means, and millions of people know only animal love. We can call it lust. It is the lowest love, below human beings, more physiological, chemical, hormonal, than psychological. At the most it can bring you a certain sexual relief, the same kind of relief that comes from a good sneeze! (laughter) Sometimes a good sneeze brings even better relief! (more laughter) But it is the same time, type of thing: there is not much in it.


One becomes burdened with sexual energy and one needs the release of the energy. And when the energy is released you feel unburdened. This is a very physiological process. To remain in this kind of love is to miss the great opportunity of life. One has to rise above the animals, but very few people rise -- remember -- because people think this is all there is to love. All these husbands and wives and all these marriage ceremonies, and all these priests and temples and churches and wedding bells and all this nonsense (laughter)... So much ado about nothing!


And these fools say that these marriages are made in heaven. if these marriages are made in heaven, then what is made in hell? then I cannot conceive because one cannot fall below this!


Very rare and few people rise to the level of human love. Human love is friendship, animal love is possessiveness. Animal love reduces the other into a thing, into a commodity. Human love raises the other, helps the other, to some to one's flowering. It does not use the other as a means; it respects the other as an end unto itself. It is pure friendship.


Sex may be a part in it, but a very secondary part, almost negligible, does not play the central role. In the animal love it is all and all. It is simply sex parading behind the word "love", but in human love there are many more things. There is sensitivity, caring, compassion. there is a certain psychological at-onement: two psyches are feeling in deep tune, a subtle dance of energies.


Sexual energies also are there but only a minor part. If in animal love they are ninety-nine per cent, then in a human love they are only one per cent. And the miracle is when higher qualities start growing in your loving relationship, sex itself is transformed; it is no more animal, it also starts having a new quality to it. It is now only one of the ways of sharing. There are many ways. Two lovers may be just sitting there, holding hands, looking at the moon, and that nay be far more satisfying than anything sexuality can ever give. Or maybe listening to each other's song or reading poetry together or watching a painting or creating something together -- a sculpture -- or making a garden, planting seeds, doing something together in deep harmony, in deep accord, a subtle music.


In this music even sex starts having a new flavour: It may happen, it may not happen; it can happen, it is not prohibited, but it is no more animal. It is not the goal of the relationship. Relationship has far higher goals. it is one of the ways of relating, and there are thousand and one other ways of relating.


The animal love is continuously a struggle, conflict: the struggle to dominate the other, the struggle not to be dominate by the other. There is some violence in this. Just animal sexuality is bound to be violent. It is a kind of oppression, exploitation, and one wants to posses the person for future use.


And particularly man, because he is physically more powerful -- not in any other way, just only physically. And that too is not a natural fact; that too is only because of a certain conditioning for thousands of years. Because he was the hunter, the food gatherer, the woodcutter, naturally, he started growing muscles, started growing more physical strength.


There are matriarchal societies still alive where man is weaker than the woman, because they have lived in a different way. The woman is the food gatherer, she is the hunter; the man takes care of the children, looks, takes care of the house. The man is a housewife and the woman is really the husband. And strange phenomenon: in these matriarchal societies the man is weaker than the woman. It is just because of certain historical situations that man became more powerful -- it is not natural -- but once he became more powerful he used his power to dominate the woman.


Now all over the world the married woman carries signboards that she is married; no man carries any signboard. It is a strange thing. You cannot judge by seeing a man whether he is married or not, but you can judge immediately whether the woman is married or not.


In India the woman who is married can be judged immediately. She used certain ornaments which only married women are allowed to use, she uses colourful clothes which widows are not allowed to use, she uses few ornaments which virgin girls are not allowed to use, so she is a walking signboard that she is married; that she is somebody else property: nobody should look at her. But the man carries no signboard.


Obviously, the reason is clear: you put a signboard on your house -- it is your property -- you put your name on it, but the house cannot put its name on you. You are the owner and the house is the owned. The woman is property, so you have to put...


In India when a man dies, in the old days, the woman had to die with him. Just the fear and the suspicion that she may be used by somebody else; it is better that she should be destroyed with the man. That was prevented. Still it happens once in a while, but because of the Britishers it was prevented. If India would have been in the hands of the Hindus it would have never been prevented. It was so ugly an act, it was pure murder and far more murderous to throw a living woman into burning fire, with the dead body of the husband.


It was forcibly prevented, legally prevented, but still the widow has to show immediately few things: she has to remove the signboard that she is a married woman, she has to shave her head so she becomes ugly, and everybody knows that she is a widow, untouchable: The owner has died and nobody should do anything to hes property. Just to respect the dead she cannot wear any other colour than white, she cannot use ornaments, she cannot participate in marriage ceremonies, she cannot go wherever there is some festival is happening because even her presence is a curse. She is condemned in every way -- although she is allowed to live, but in such a humiliation.
This is all animal. This is not human.


Human love is not a marriage. Human love is a meeting, a merger, a melting, out of freedom. Two persons out of their freedom decide to be together, just for the sheer joy of being together. It is a psychological relatedness. This is the second dimension of love.


And the third is the ultimate dimension; I call it divine, godly. When the other is not even particularised, when your love is not addressed to anybody in particular, when your love is simply a quality, not a relationship at all.


In the first it is a possessiveness, the relationship of the owner and the owned. In the second it is a relatedness between two friends, addressed towards each other. In the third it is simply your quality: lovingness. Now it is not love but lovingness. Wherever you are you are in a state of lovingness -- even withe the trees you are loving, with the rocks you are loving, with people you are loving. It is just a quality to you. It has nothing to do with the other. It is unaddressed love or, in another words, addressed to god -- both mean the same thing because god is not a person.


God means simply the whole universe, addressed to the whole or addressed to nobody in particular, but arising from you, spreading all over, reaching to all nooks and corners of existence. I call it prayer.


First is lust, second is love, third is prayer. And when one reaches to the state of prayer one has found the real source -- of life, of truth, of freedom, of all that is valuable. One has entered into the temple of god. That is our deepest longing: Every human being is searching for it, but one may search consciously or unconsciously. Everybody is searching unconsciously. Sannyas means you are trying to make your search a conscious search, a conscious enquiry.


And remember one thing: only those who consciously search ever reach. The unconscious searchers go on stumbling, go on getting diverted, distracted; there are thousands of wrong doors and there is only one right door. Unless one is very alert one is going to miss it. If one is constantly alert and aware only then one can avoid the wrong doors and can reach slowly slowly like an arrow towards the right door.


Sannyas is a conscious enquiry into the phenomenon of love. And the moment you have reaches to its peak you have reached. Then there is nowhere to go: Immense contentment happens, just flowers go on showering, life becomes a sheer ecstasy.



			

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