---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Buddha Disease"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "DISEAS"
dategiven: "29 January 1977 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #29"
chaptertitle: "Thorns are as significant as roses"
acode: "7701295"
shorttitle: "DISEAS29"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "The Buddha Disease: Chapter #29"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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Prem means love, and rajhansa means a royal swan.

It is a mythological metaphor. The ordinary swan can stay in any lake but the royal swan only stays at the purest lake in the himalayas; the lake is called mansorovhar. In the hindu mythology it is the purest lake in the world and it is the most beautiful. It is at the highest point in the would and very inaccessible. Rarely a man reaches -- very difficult to reach. Nobody lives around there but beautiful swans.


The metaphor is that a royal swan will not be satisfied with an ordinary lake -- it needs the ultimate lake. And that's how the human soul is. The human soul is called rajhansa -- a royal swan.


This world is a very ordinary, dirty lake. It cannot satisfy the royal swan -- hence so much dissatisfaction, so much discontent. Hence so much misery -- because somehow we go on feeling deep down that this is not the place we belong to; deep down this awareness persists. In unhappiness it persists; even in happiness it persists. In failure it persists -- even in success it persists: that here is not our home, that we are outsiders, that we belong to some other dimension, to some other shore, to some other world.


That feeling exists only in human beings. The trees are at home -- they are not strangers; they belong to the earth. They are perfectly happy. The animals are at home. They don't seek, they don't search, there is no enquiry. They are not exploring -- they are just wherever they are... in a way, contented.


Only human beings are discontented, and the discontent is so deep that even when you achieve everything of this world -- all that this would can give you, you have -- even then that discontent never leaves you. In fact, it becomes more prominent.


When you have everything of this world, suddenly you start feeling more and more discontented, because you have all and still nothing has happened. Deep down the desert continues, the thirst continues, the quest continues -- you have not yet arrived.


So in Hindu mythology the soul is called the rajhansa. The body is the lake, the world is the lake -- an ordinary lake,and somewhere high in the himalayas.... Mm? that too is metaphorical. That simply means in some higher reaches of consciousness, in some higher peaks of consciousness, somewhere is mansorovhar -- the ultimate lake -- where this royal swan will be happy; his thirst will be quenched and he will feel at home.


Himalaya is just a metaphor. With the East, always remember that all is metaphoric -- nothing is literal. This not being understood, the western mind goes on misinterpreting. The western mind is very literal, matter of fact, earthly. When it says two, it means two. In the western mind two plus two are always four -- never so in the eastern mind. Everything is possible. Two plus two may be three sometimes, may be five sometimes. Nothing can be said. It is not literal -- it is poetic.


And language is not representative of reality in the east -- just symbolic. So one has to search deeply into the metaphors. Himalaya is again a metaphor, as is mansorovhar, as is rajhansa -- all metaphors.


But there are higher peaks of consciousness -- Himalayas of consciousness. When one comes to samadhi, one touches the highest peak. It is absolutely silent there, cool, calm... eternal. On the highest peak of the himaLayas, the snow is eternal  -- it has never melted. Until just a few years ago nobody had walked on it.


In fact Hindus were not very happy when Hillary climbed everest -- they were not happy. You are destroying their beautiful metaphor -- for nonsense. They have always thought it untouchable. No human feet have even trodden upon it -- it is virgin, uncontaminated by the human touch. Hindus were not happy.


They could have climbed it thousands of years before but they never tried. They believe in the metaphor and not in the reality. The fact is not so important as the significance. They didn't feel that it was good -- it was a violation. But these metaphors, once understood, give tremendous insight.


... And remember, this is not the world where one can be really satisfied. Howsoever cleverly, cunningly, one befools oneself, one day or other one has to awake and one has to recognise the fact that one has to go into some other dimension to seek and search.


Sannyas is the beginning of that dimension -- the road that leads to mansorovhar, the road that goes to the highest peak of the consciousness, of the himalayas of consciousness.


So remember it: be contented with the world but never be contented with yourself. Let there be a divine discontent, a burning fire, so you are consumed in that fire, reduced to ashes... nothing left behind, not a trace. And immediately you are transported to another plane of being. That plane of being is the search, is the goal.


[A centre leader from Germany says that many people come to the ashram: And I feel that the explosion is so fast that my explosion, my growth... it's not big enough for that which will come now.]


Don't be worried, mm? That's my responsibility! And you will be big enough... whatsoever happens, you will be big enough. You will be capable enough of accepting all the challenges. They are going to happen.


Within a few years the whole world is going to explode -- from everywhere thousands of sannyasins will be coming. So you have to get ready by and by -- but there is no problem in it.


Once you know that you can leave it to me, there is no problem. Then you can do and rest and there is no worry. The worry arises when you are the doer. When you are just a vehicle there is no worry. And as a doer, you will be tired soon. You will go mad if too much pressure comes. As a non-doer nobody can exhaust you. A non-doer can never be exhausted -- he is infinite -- because a non-doer is joined with the infinite.


In the very moment you decide to be a non-doer and only an instrument in that very moment of surrender -- you are joined with the source; then there is no problem. You will do many things -- you will do and you will forget. You will not carry the past and the ego will not arise. The ego is the crushing thing, the poison... so just leave it to me.


That's why I am teaching so much about surrender. People who are around me right now are not aware of what is going to happen. I am preparing them for many things of which they are not even aware. And surrender is going to be the key, because when things start happening and they explode, they will not be able to cope with it -- they will go crazy. The pressure will be too much -- it will kill them.


If they know surrender, there is no trouble. Then they can float... whatsoever happens, they can float. Even if the whole world goes chaotic -- only my people will be silent and calm and quiet and collected and centred. They will remain unaffected. So you don't be worried, mm?


[A sannyasin says: I'm questioning my relationship... I'm receiving a lot of violence... very unloving.... I can't find my centre.]


So the problem is finding the centre or the relationship? -- because these are two different things. One can find the centre without any relationship. So what exactly is the problem? Do you want to find your centre or do you want to make this relationship work?


[She replies: The relationship is very important to me and I think I've become very attached.]


Then from where does the problem arise? If it is as important as you say, then you have to sacrifice for that important thing. We go on saying something is important and we never sacrifice anything for it. Then it is meaningless -- saying so is not relevant. If you think it is important, then sacrifice, because we have to pay for everything! If you think it is something beautiful that has to be protected, helped, you will have to drop a few things which come as a hindrance: jealousy, indifference, conflict, anger. One has to choose!


If you are in love with your indifference, sadness, unhappiness, closedness, drop the relationship and love these things. Or if one is in love with the relationship, in love with love, then one is ready to drop every thing -- then it doesn't matter.


So when you say 'important', mean it too... otherwise we go on using words without any significance. The words in themselves are insignificant. The significance is not in the words -- it is in us; we use the words. If we put significance into it, it is there. Then an ordinary word can become tremendously luminous... an ordinary sign can have a significance. Otherwise even a very beautiful word just becomes ugly.


If you feel this relationship is something important, sacrifice and make a conscious decision about it; then you will not be a mess. You are in a mess because you are being pulled in different directions, and you go on allowing those different directions. One has to choose and one has to be very certain. One cannot have both the things together.


For example, people cannot have jealousy and love together; you cannot have both together. If you want to protect jealousy, love will disappear. If you want to protect love, jealousy has to disappear. Love and ego cannot exist together.


These are the problems to be understood -- once understood there is nothing of a complexity in them. Once you see clear-cut-ly, distinctly, that the ego will not allow you to love.... You go on talking about relationship, but how can the ego relate? The ego cannot relate -- the ego separates. With the ego there is no marriage. It isolates, it alienates... it throws you away from people... it makes you like an island.


There is no relationship with the ego. Relationship is possible only when the ego has been dropped -- then you can relate, commune.


So first just watch. Mm? there is no hurry to choose. Because you may not choose this love. I'm not saying to choose it -- I'm saying that if you really are in love with your love, you have to choose. You may not be really -- you may be just saying for saying's sake. You may be just using a cliche. You may have said that it is very important, just to impress me, or to impress the people who are around here; or you may not have used the word with any consciousness at all.


So first watch it: if you are really in love and you think it is important, be ready to sacrifice. And I'm not asking you to sacrifice any beautiful thing. Jealousy, sadness, closedness, possessiveness -- these are not very beautiful things that one should be afraid to sacrifice... but people are afraid to sacrifice these things! They are ready to sacrifice happiness very easily, they are ready to sacrifice even love -- but they are not ready to sacrifice their ego. They are ready to sacrifice joy, delight -- anything -- but not jealousy; they cling with these diseases.


So for three, four days, meditate over it very quietly. And don't go with a prejudice that you have to do this -- nothing! For three days you simply meditate to have a clear perspective as to what the case is. And be very very impartial. Mm? don't try to deceive yourself. Just be impartial... to see clearly.


Once something is seen with clarity, steps can be taken -- they are not difficult. In fact the most difficult thing is the clarity. And people never bother about clarity -- they are immediately interested in doing something. Doing is not the point -- be clear. Doing comes out of clarity, out of understanding. So for three days simply meditate on the whole situation.


First, see what is the case, what is happening, why that which you want to happen is not happening, what the hindrances are. Just have the whole perspective, and after three days write a letter to me. Be very clear.


This won't do -- this saying that you are in a mess. Sometimes this is a trick. You don't want to sort it out -- you want to remain in a mess so that the whole thing remains as it is and there is no problem of decision, of change, of moving in a new direction. People go on as if something will happen and things will settle. They think 'tomorrow' -- as if just time will do. You will still be yourself. Tomorrow things will become even more complicated, because you will have lived twenty-four hours more and in those twenty-four hours you will have created more mess -- so don't wait for tomorrow. Whatsoever is to be done, look into it immediately. And time can do nothing if you are not going to do anything. Time itself has no creativity in it. One has to take one's life into one's own hands.


So for three days just see, try to see what the situation is. And many times you will come across certain things which you would not like to see in yourself -- still see them.


For example, you may come to see that you don't really love -- so don't hide it, because it is not a question of hiding! You have to be completely clear about the picture of your own being. If you don't love, you don't love. Then it has to be reckoned with. Note down that you don't love. It hurts and the very idea that you don't love hurts... but this is my understanding -- that rarely, out of one hundred people, do one or two persons love. Ninety-eight think they love and suffer! Their suffering is fictitious -- in the first place they don't love!


Those two persons who love, their suffering is not suffering -- their suffering is a sacrifice. And when I use the word 'sacrifice', I mean its original meaning -- it is sacred. They are happy doing it -- they are not unhappy. They will be unhappy if this situation of sacrifice is taken away from them. No, they are happy. They are called forth... they are ready. They are ready to stake their whole life for it.


Ninety-eight percent of people don't love but they go on thinking they love. They go on creating problems and it is difficult to sort them out because from the very foundation things are missing. You go on creating a structure and the foundation is not there so the building is never made. Or even if you sometimes succeed in making it, it is very dangerous to live in it.


That's why when two persons succeed in love, getting married, they are getting into hell. They have created a building which is very dangerous -- it can collapse any moment. It is ready to collapse! Once they are in it, it will collapse. It is going to kill them'


So for three days be very very clear about it -- what the case is -- and sort things out. And after three days, write a letter to me. But don't say'I am in a mess', because I see that you are not. You want that -- it would have been good that you were in a mess -- then things are clouded. One doesn't need any decision; what can one do? All over there is fog and one cannot see the road... but I know that you see the road.


My feeling is that deep down you are alert about what is the case, but you are not allowing it -- allow it to surface. And after a few days I will see. Mm? Good!


[A sannyasin couple ask about their relationship of ten months. It has been very good, like a honeymoon, until the woman began doing groups, and the hostility, aggression, coming up for her affected their relationship, especially since she began learning karate.]

And you are learning karate? Very good!


No, it is just a passing phase -- it will go. And it is good, mm? It is good; it is not bad. Every couple has to pass through it. And if you cannot pass through it, the relationship was not worthwhile.


A relationship is not all roses. You enjoyed the honeymoon too long -- now the other part has to be experienced. And the other part is as significant as the honeymoon... the thorns are as significant as the roses.


Some things can be learned only through suffering. A few things can be learned through being happy, a few things can be learned only through being unhappy, sad. A few things are learned through compassion, love, and a few things are learned through anger, hostility.


If a person does not know what hostility is, he will miss something. He will be too sweet, he will not have any salt and he will become tasteless. These opposites make life rich.


As you pass through the first phase of being happy together, make it a point that whatsoever happens, you are going to pass this second phase also. One point should be remembered -- that if you want to separate, never separate in a negative mood. When the honeymoon comes again, you can separate. Let that be the point, the decision, and then it will be a conscious work on your being, a deliberate work.


It is very easy to be happy when one is happy. The real work starts when the situation goes against you. Then too, if you can remain calm and quiet at least, if not happy, soon you will see a new quality of happiness arising in you which can face storms and still remain unperturbed. And certainly this is deeper than the ordinary honeymoon-type of happiness -- that is very shallow.


So make a decision -- that if you decide some day to depart you will have to wait up to when you start feeling happy and the honeymoon starts; then you can separate. And you have to achieve that point again.


It is a wheel -- it will come again; as this point has come, the other will come again. And this time it will come in a deeper state, on a higher altitude. Then you will have understood one thing -- that each time the wheel goes down and you are unhappy, it will touch a new layer, a deeper layer of your being. Then you can wait -- the wheel will go up again, and this time it will be a higher ecstasy. In fact there are seven layers and there are seven honeymoons and seven hells with each honeymoon.


Because of this seven, in India they have made it a ritual that when a person is married, a couple is married, they have to move seven times around the fire. It is very symbolic, very psychological.


Fire is the symbol of life and fire is the symbol of death too. That's why in india we have chosen fire to dispose of the human body -- because life was fire, let death also be fire; there is a subtle harmony. That which was life, let that be death too. In fact life and death are the same, so they must arise out of the same thing. Man arises out of the fire element.


If you ask the scientists they will say it is oxygen, but oxygen is the fire element. Fire is nothing but oxidization. The East says that man has arisen, life has arisen out of fire. Whatever has arisen out of fire has to be thrown back to the original source, so they dispose of the dead body in the fire.


Around the fire the new couple has to move seven times. And those seven times, those seven circumlocutions, are symbolic of seven layers. Seven times you will feel life and seven times you will feel death. Seven times fire -- happiness -- will become your life and you will be aglow, and seven times your life will be a hell and you will burn. If a couple can pass all these seven layers, then marriage really happens -- never before it.


The West has not known what marriage is. Marriage is not such a temporary phenomenon -- it takes time to get roots. Two persons are not two ordinary things... great possibilities, infinities. The merger of two persons, of two consciousnesses, into each other, is the greatest chemical change in the whole world. To meet with the other and to meet in rhythm, to meet in a deep inner harmony, is not easy.


So the first honeymoon is nothing. The second will be higher, the third will be still higher, but between each honeymoon there will be a great hell. Nothing to be worried about....


[To the man] And it is good that she is learning karate -- that's very good! Every woman should learn it so that a man cannot dominate physically. Man has dominated too much physically. Because of that domination the woman cannot really feel freedom, and unless the woman feels freedom there cannot be a real harmony. Only two freedoms can meet. Between a master and a slave there is no possibility of meeting. What type of meeting is this going to be? One is a slave and one is a master -- there can be no meeting. They have to exist equally -- on equal footing.


So women have to learn karate, aikido, judo -- they have to learn all sorts of such subtle techniques -- which are feminine techniques but which can make women tremendously strong. Women are not as tall as men, they are not as hard as men, but there is no need -- there are softer and tremendously powerful ways. So let her learn karate!


(to the woman) And sometimes try karate on [him], mm? That is good practice... where will you practice otherwise?


(to both) But pass through this phase -- this will go, mm? In fact from this very moment the climate will change! Good!
			

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