---
section: Library
booktitle: "Satyam Shivam Sundram"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "SATYAM"
dategiven: "14 November 1987 am"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #15"
chaptertitle: "Choose the flowers, leave the thorns"
acode: "8711140"
shorttitle: "SATYAM15"
audio: "Yes"
video: "Yes"
esttime: "105mins"
displaytitle: "Satyam Shivam Sundram: Chapter #15"
---

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<p class="question">BELOVED OSHO,
FROM WHAT I HEARD YOU SAY, I UNDERSTOOD THAT FOR ENLIGHTENMENT TO HAPPEN, MEDITATION IS A PREPARATION, BUT ALSO AN INTENSE URGE IS REQUIRED, A REALIZATION THAT NOTHING ELSE REALLY MATTERS. I SEE MYSELF BEING INTERESTED IN ALL KINDS OF THINGS, ALL KINDS OF MIND-STORIES, MUSIC, WOMEN, SENSE PERCEPTIONS. WILL THESE INTERESTS PREVENT ENLIGHTENMENT?</p>


Anand Virendra, there is a very ancient story that an old man came to his master and said," I have been to see a great number of teachers and I have given up a great number of pleasures. I have fasted, been celibate, and stayed awake all night, seeking enlightenment. I have given up everything I was asked to give up and I have suffered, but I have not been enlightened. What should I do?"
The master replied, "Give up suffering."


Virendra, neither music can prevent your enlightenment, nor sense perceptions, nor women. Only one thing can prevent your enlightenment, and that is suffering. Enlightenment is the ultimate celebration, so any small celebrations that you are having will become just like steps towards it. But suffering cannot become a step towards enlightenment.


You are asking, "I see myself being interested in all kinds of things, all kinds of mind-stories..." They will disappear as your meditation will grow, just as when you bring the light in, the darkness disappears. The darkness can never be a hindrance. You cannot say that the darkness is so thick and so old that whenever I bring the light in, the light goes off. Darkness cannot put the light off.


Your mind-stories are just soap bubbles. Once you have touched even a glimpse of meditation -- what to say about stories, mind itself disappears.


Music will be deepened as your meditation grows; your music will have new flavors, new flowers, new fragrances. Your music will become more and more in tune with your meditation. Ultimately the music comes to a point of perfection when no instrument is needed... but pure silence, without any sounds. In fact, what you call music is a play between sound and silence. Those who emphasize the sound miss the deeper meaning of music. The deeper meaning is between two sounds, in the gaps.


Meditation is not against music. On the contrary, music has been born out of meditative consciousness. When it was used for the first time, it was used to express something about meditation. But the gestalt has to change; from sound the emphasis should change to the silence. And meditation will do that miracle automatically.


As far as women are concerned, it is impossible to become enlightened without women. They are the real driving force. People say that behind every great man there is a woman. That may be right, may not be right, but behind every enlightened man there are many women -- torturing him, harassing him until finally he decides it is better to become enlightened. If there is no woman to harass you, why should you try to become enlightened in the first place? Women have not become enlightened for the simple reason that no man is harassing them. So don't be afraid of women; they are an immense help, absolutely necessary.


Sense perceptions are not a hindrance. Your sensitivity, your perceptivity will become deeper as your meditation deepens. So, finally, the old man in the story was given the right answer by the master. That's my answer also to you.
Just get rid of suffering.


Nothing else in the world can prevent your meditation.
<p class="question">BELOVED OSHO,
SOMETIMES, SITTING WITH YOU IS PURE DELIGHT. MY WHOLE BODY IS FLOODED WITH A STRANGE AND LOVELY FEELING, LIKE A SILENT ORGASM THAT HAS NO TOP OR BOTTOM. BUT MORE OFTEN I FEEL SO BUSY WITH MY ACHES AND PAINS AND THOUGHTS THAT I CAN'T BE HERE, I CAN'T SEEM TO RELAX INTO MYSELF, OR LET ANYTHING BE. THEN I GET REALLY WORRIED THAT THERE IS SOME UNCONSCIOUS RESISTANCE. CAN YOU TELL ME IF I'M FIGHTING OR WHAT? AND IF I AM FIGHTING, WHAT FOR?</p>


Yoga Sudha, what is happening "sometimes" will start happening more and more. Your emphasis, your attention should be on what is happening, not on what is not happening. You have to understand a fundamental law: attention is nourishment.


Your question is: "Sometimes, sitting with you is pure delight." Why sometimes? -- if it can be even once a delight to sit with me, then pour your whole attention into what is happening that is making you so delight-full, so peaceful, so relaxed. Once in a while you will find that the mind is "so busy with my aches and pains and thoughts that I can't be here." Old habits, long friendships, drop slowly. These aches and pains and thoughts are your old habit.


It is a miracle that sometimes you come out of your old structure, out in the open sky. Just pay more attention to these moments, nourish them, relish them. And when it does not happen, don't be worried. Just remember one thing, that it is an old habit -- but don't give it any attention, don't be bothered. It is absolutely human. For centuries, for many lives we have not known anything other than misery, pain, agony. Naturally they have gone deep into our unconscious.


There is no fight at all that is happening within you; it is just that an old habit takes possession of you. You should remember, "It is just a habit and I am not to be concerned with it, not to be bothered with it." Let it be there and soon those old habits will start falling like dead leaves from the trees.


In fact, there seems to be no problem; it is just that you are not aware of your habits, unconscious accumulations. It is good that they are coming up, because that is the only way to get rid of them. Don't repress them, otherwise they will go on coming up. And don't give them attention, otherwise you are giving nourishment to things that should be starved and allowed to die.


Your whole focus should be on those beautiful moments that happen to you, those orgasmic spaces. Fill them with all your energy, and slowly, slowly it is an absolute inevitability that that which is blissful is going to win over the suffering. That which is ecstatic is going to win over the agony -- unless you decide to pay more attention to the agony and take the ecstasy just for granted. Then there will be trouble.


So the only thing to remember is to pour your attention and love, and rejoice and feel grateful for those moments which give you orgasmic blissfulness. The others are not to be even talked about. Let them come... it is good that they are surfacing.


Now there are three things you can do: either you can repress them -- then you will not get rid of them, they will come again -- or you can give nourishment to them; that will make them stronger and your orgasmic moments will become shorter, less.


The third thing is, don't repress them and don't give any attention to them. Just accept them. It is your past, it is dead, it will go away by itself. Don't even fight with them, because fight is another name for suppression, and fight is also giving attention to them.


Sandy MacTavish, a young Scotsman, went down to London for a holiday. When he returned, his friend Hamish asked how it was. "Alright," said Sandy, "but they are funny folk down there."
"Why is that?" asked Hamish.
"Well," said Sandy, "one night, very late, it must have been about two in the morning, a man came banging on the door. He screamed and shouted and was in a really nasty temper -- at two o'clock, man."
"And what did you do?" asked Hamish.
"I did not do anything," said Sandy, "I just went on quietly playing on my bagpipes."


Just a little awareness, and all problems can be solved so easily!


But the mind's tendency is negative -- and it is not only for you, Sudha, it is for all to remember: mind tends to be negative, because the negative balance of the mind is big. Your suffering has been long, your pains have been too many, your agonies too much, your failures innumerable.


If you count the moments of joy, you will be surprised; in the whole life of a man he may not be able to find even ten moments of joy to be counted on the ten fingers. But if you want to listen to his miseries, the story is so long it is his whole life... a seventy-year-long story of misery.


And if you think of many other past lives... the same is true about them. Naturally, the negative is too heavy on you. It is such a mountainous load, it is a vast dark night around you. And what are your pleasures? -- just a few fireflies here and there in the deep darkness. Naturally you tend unknowingly, unconsciously, to pay more attention to the negative; you don't pay attention to the positive. The positive has been so small that it has not made even a dent in you.


Because of this negative habit a small thing becomes so big, and it prevents your energy from flowing towards the positive. I want you to pay all your attention to the positive and ignore what is negative. That's what Gautam Buddha's advice has been.


Buddha's word for ignoring the negative was upeksha. It is a very beautiful word. Ignoring is a literal translation of upeksha, but it misses something immensely valuable which I will have to explain to you. Upeksha is ignoring, plus. When you ignore something, there is a possibility that even in ignoring you are paying attention; although you are ignoring you are paying attention. You may not look at somebody, but you are keeping yourself from looking. You may not be speaking to somebody, but you are holding; it is the same whether you are speaking or you are holding it back.


Upeksha means, as if the negative does not exist, as if it is just a shadow which will disappear on its own... no attention at all. You don't pay attention to your shadow, or do you? The whole day it follows you and you don't take any note of it. That is upeksha.


Ebenezer MacTavish was known to be the grumpiest farmer in the neighborhood. One year when MacTavish's apple crop was exceptionally good, a neighbor was confident that he would not complain.


"I'll bet you are happy with your apple crop," said the neighbor, "just about every one of them is a perfect apple."


"I suppose they are alright," replied MacTavish grudgingly," but what am I going to do? I have got no rotten ones to feed to my pigs."


That is the tendency of the negative mind. Even in paradise you will find so many wrong things that the paradise will not be a paradise with the negative mind; it will become a hell. Psychologically speaking, the negative mind is hell and the positive mind is heaven.


I have told you the story of Edmund Burke, one of the great English philosophers. He was very friendly with the archbishop of England. They had graduated together and they loved each other very much. The archbishop was waiting for some day when Edmund Burke would come to listen to him. But he never came, although the archbishop was always going to any meetings that were addressed by Edmund Burke. This was very strange.


Finally, he invited him specially: "This Sunday you have to come. You have not heard me even once and I have been hearing you each time you speak."


Very reluctantly, Edmund Burke said, "If you invite me, I will come."


He came, sat in front. The archbishop had prepared his sermon as perfectly as he could because Edmund Burke was there and he wanted to impress him. But all the time he was becoming more and more nervous because Edmund Burke was sitting there with the same face, with no movement of any emotions, no encouragement in his eyes, no joy in listening to what was being said. The archbishop thought, "This is strange: he is sitting just like a dead man -- and I am trying my best, it is the best sermon that I have ever delivered."


Coming back home there was a long silence. Finally, as they were parting, the archbishop could not resist the temptation. He asked, "What is the matter with you? Are you sick or something? -- because I did not see a single emotion on your face. If the sermon was not good, then there should have been some emotion; if it was good, then too... But you remained almost like a stone statue. When people were laughing you did not even smile; when people were crying I did not see that your eyes were wet with tears. You behaved strangely, and I had prepared the best sermon of my life."


Edmund Burke said, "You created such contradictory statements that it is enough that I did not hit you then and there. I was holding myself back; that's why I looked like a stone statue. If I had been relaxed I would have come near to you and given you a good hit!"


The archbishop said, "But what was so bad that you wanted to hit me?"


Edmund Burke said, "You made two statements without realizing that they are contradictory. First you said, those who believe in Jesus will enter into paradise. Secondly, you said, those who are living a moral life will enter into heaven."


The archbishop said, "But what is the contradiction?"


Edmund Burke said, "You studied philosophy with me, but you don't understand philosophy at all. What about a man who is living an immoral life but believes in Jesus Christ? And what about the man who is living a moral life and does not believe in Jesus Christ? That's where the contradiction is. It is not apparent to you or to your listeners, but you cannot deceive me."


The archbishop thought about it. Certainly it was a contradiction.


Edmund Burke said, "You can answer me now. A man who has lived his whole life, moral, good, but does not believe in Jesus Christ -- what is going to happen to him? What happened to Socrates? Because Jesus Christ was born five hundred years later, Socrates had no idea of Jesus Christ, and he never believed in anyone else. But he was one of the most pious, most moral, and one of the greatest human beings that the earth has produced.


"What about Gautam Buddha? -- who did not believe in any Jesus Christ, who did not believe in any Hindu gods, who did not believe even in the existence of God, but lived one of the greatest lives you can conceive. You cannot find a single fault in his life.


"Have they gone to hell? And if the law of your God sends Socrates, Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu into hell, your God cannot be said to be just, cannot to be said to be compassionate -- seems to be absolutely ugly and cruel. All that he wants is belief in him. And I know millions of people who believe in Jesus Christ, who come to your churches, who believe in your God, who believe in your HOLY BIBLE, and live an utterly ugly, immoral life, do all kinds of crimes, commit all kinds of sins. What is your answer?"


The archbishop was taken aback. He had never thought about the implications. Very few people think about implications. He said, "Right now I am not able to answer, but next Sunday... Give me seven days to think, because you have raised a very fundamental question and I am caught in a dilemma. If I say yes, a moral man will enter heaven even if he does not believe in Jesus, then naturally the question arises: What is the need to believe in Jesus? And if I say a man who believes in Jesus is bound to go to heaven, then the question arises: If that is enough, then why bother about living a moral life? Why not enjoy all kinds of sins and crimes? So just give me seven days to figure out how I can come out of the dilemma."


Edmund Burke said, "Granted. I will come again next Sunday. Be ready with the answer."


Those seven days were the most torturous days for the archbishop. However he tried, he was always caught in the dilemma. Utterly tired, he could not sleep; the whole night he was thinking but there seemed to be no answer arising.


On Sunday he got to the church earlier than ever before, just to pray to Christ in silence and ask him, "Now help me. I cannot manage to find the answer. You give me the answer" -- because he had not slept for seven days.


Utterly tired, when he was praying he fell asleep at the feet of Jesus Christ and he saw a dream. He was in a train, a very fast train, and he inquired, "Where are we going?" Somebody said, "You don't know where we are going? We are going to heaven." He felt very relaxed, because this was a great chance to see whether Gautam Buddha, Socrates, Chuang Tzu, people like that were in heaven or not. He was immensely happy.


When the train stopped at the railway station of heaven, he looked out of the window and he could not believe his eyes. It was just a desert -- no greenery, no flowers, dead trees without leaves, and under those dead trees were sitting even more dead saints, with no juice. The dust had gathered on them, because they had been sitting there for centuries. He said, "My God, if this is heaven, what will be the situation in hell?"
 never heard of these people here." He inquien his eyes, and who he said, "We have never heard of these people here." He inquired of another man who said, "Gautam Buddha? Socrates? Lao Tzu? From where did you get these names? These fellows are not here." He was shocked because even though he was an archbishop, a fanatic Christian, still, to put Gautam Buddha in hell seemed to be too cruel.


He rushed to the railway station to inquire, "Is there any train going to hell?" The train was ready, so he jumped in. As they started coming closer to hell, strangely, the air became cooler, there was beautiful greenery all around, beautiful lakes and so many flowers, and everybody looked so happy. People were playing on their musical instruments, a few people were dancing.


He said, "This is hell?" He got down, inquired of the stationmaster, "Are you certain this is hell?" The stationmaster said, "Absolutely certain. What is your problem?" The archbishop said, "My problem is, I want to know whether Gautam Buddha, Socrates, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, all these people who never believed in God, who never believed in Jesus -- are they here?"


The stationmaster said, "You see all this greenery and all these flowers and all these crops and you see all this singing and dancing? It started when Gautam Buddha, Socrates, Lao Tzu and people like that started coming into hell. They transformed the whole face of it. Now there is nobody in hell who wants to go to heaven."


This was even more shocking, and the very shock of it woke him up. The early members of the congregation had started coming. Edmund Burke had arrived. The archbishop must have been a very sincere man; that day he did not deliver any sermon, he simply told his whole dream. And he said, "I don't have to conclude. You can draw the conclusion yourself.


"My own simple understanding now is that wherever there are good people, there is heaven. I used to think that heaven was a certain place; now I think heaven is a certain spirituality, a certain flowering of your being. Wherever these people are -- whether they believe in Jesus or not, whether they believe in THE BIBLE or not, that is irrelevant. I have seen both: I have seen the believers, and heaven seems to be completely a graveyard; and hell seems to be such an oasis that even I am wondering what to do -- to continue to believe in Jesus Christ, or start living like a Gautam Buddha."


It all depends whether you are paying too much attention and allowing your consciousness to go to the negative. All your saints are negative; condemning everything is their whole profession. There are millions of people who are not sensitive, but continuously negative. They cannot see anything good anywhere. If by chance they come across something good they pass it by with absolute indifference. They don't count the roses, they only count the thorns. They are so accustomed to viewing things negatively that it is almost impossible for them to see any beauty anywhere. All is wrong. Naturally, a person who thinks all is wrong is going to live in a world which is all wrong, in suffering, in misery, in pain, in agony.
A sannyasin has to change his gestalt.


Try to find the positive, the beautiful, and you will be surrounded with the positive, the beautiful, and the blissful. I am not saying that there are not wrong things in the world; I am not saying that there are not thorns in the rosebush. It is a question of your emphasis. If you look at the roses you will be so ecstatic that who cares about the thorns. But if you look only at the thorns -- and not only look, but count them -- you are going to have bloody fingers, and in that pain you will forget all about roses.


Life is absolutely balanced between the positive and the negative. Now it is your choice which side you want to be -- in heaven or in hell. Wherever you want to be, try to find it in your life every moment. And whenever you have found something positive, pour all your attention and all your love on it. That will make it grow; that will make it more and more important in your life, more and more taking the space of your being.


Remain absolutely indifferent about the negative. I am not saying it is not there; it is there because a few people need it. A few people are so much in love with the negative that if there is no negative they will die out of sheer agony: now there are roses and no thorns, what am I going to do? Everybody looks so beautiful, nothing ugly, everything seems to be so right, nothing is wrong.... They will lose all interest in existence. Their only interest was in the negative.


But they are both there. There are positivist thinkers in the world -- particularly in America -- who say, "Go on thinking about the positive, because the negative does not exist. It is always the positive; the negative is your imagination."


I don't agree with them. The negative is not your imagination, neither is the positive your imagination. They both are there absolutely balanced. It is up to you to choose.


I have heard about a young man meeting an old lady. That old lady belonged to a positivist group which was very prominent fifty years ago in America, Christian Scientists. They believe there is no negative, everything is divine; there is nothing wrong, everything is right. They forget completely that if there is nothing wrong, how are you going to define right? If there is nothing negative, how are you going to define positive? If there is no darkness, how are you going to define light? But it was a very interesting, attractive philosophy.


The old woman asked the young man, "I have not seen your father coming to our weekly meetings."
The young man said, "He is very sick."


The old woman said, "All nonsense. Has he forgotten our philosophy? Sickness is your imagination. Just go home and tell him, 'Sickness is your imagination.' There is no sickness, no death, nothing wrong in the world. It is God who created the world; how can there be wrong?"
The young man said, "I will convey your message."


Three weeks passed and the old man still did not turn up. Again the woman encountered the young boy and asked him, "Did you convey my message?"
He said, "I did."


The old woman said, "But he has not turned up to the meeting."


The young man said, "I am sorry to tell you that now he imagines he is dead!"


He could not say that he is dead because that woman will immediately jump upon him with all kinds of positive philosophy -- how can he be dead? So he managed to say that now he imagines himself to be dead, what can we do?


"We had to put him in a grave. He is so certain that he does not speak, he does not breathe; he believes so much that he is dead that his pulse is gone, his heartbeat is gone. We tried hard your way. I told him, I whispered in his ear, 'It is all imagination; remember your positivist philosophy' -- but his imagination is so strong..."


You live in a world, in an existence which has both. Out of sheer necessity it needs balance in opposite polarities. But you need not be worried about that which makes you miserable.
Choose the flowers and leave the thorns.
<p class="question">BELOVED OSHO,
I SEE THAT I AM EAGER TO DROP MY JEALOUSY, JUDGMENTS, GREED, ANGER, ALL THE BADDIES. YET AT THE SAME TIME I AM RELUCTANTLY CLINGING TO THE PARTS OF MY PERSONALITY I STILL ENJOY INDULGING IN -- MY PASSION, MY CLOWN, MY GYPSY ADVENTURER.
WHY AM I SO AFRAID THAT JUST TO BE THE WATCHER WILL BE BORING?</p>


Deva Dwabha, I can see you must be in a great conflict. You say, "I see that I am eager to drop my jealousy, judgments, greed, anger, all the baddies. Yet at the same time I am reluctantly clinging to the parts of my personality I still enjoy indulging in -- my passion, my clown, my gypsy adventurer. Why am I so afraid that just to be the watcher will be boring?"


It seems you are not experienced enough. You have just heard these great things: if you drop your jealousy, judgments, greed, anger and all the baddies, you will have all the pleasures and blissfulness of paradise showering on you.


In fact you are not really interested in dropping them. If you can get all the pleasures and ecstasies of enlightenment and still can keep your jealousy, judgments, greed and anger, I think you will be immensely happy.


The trouble is you will have to choose. How can you drop your greed and jealousy and judgments and anger, if you enjoy your passion, your clown, your gypsy adventurer?


My suggestion is, first enjoy as much as you can your gypsy adventurer, your passion, your clown. Be completely fed up with them. Don't get in a split.


That happens to many people, hearing great words: they create a split within themselves. I don't want you to be schizophrenic; I want you to be psychologically and spiritually healthy.


My suggestion is, first indulge in your passions as much as you can till you get really bored. This has to be the first step. Then only can you take the second step very easily. It is the first step which is preventing you from taking the second step. When you are utterly finished, you are bound to drop all greed, jealousy, judgments, anger. What are you going to do with these things? It is one complete package... But begin with your passion, because I have never heard that there has ever been a single person in the world who did not become fed up with his passion.


Yes, if you live a lukewarm life you may not get fed up. But live totally, pour your whole energy into your passions, into your clownhood, into your gypsy adventurer, and soon you will see that what you were thinking was going to bring great blessings to you has only destroyed your energies and has left you like a spent cartridge.


Only then will you be able to drop jealousy -- and there will be no need to drop it. Then they will all drop on their own accord. Then on the third step you will not be able to ask this: Will the watcher be boring?


Do you think I am bored? I am not even bored with you. Every day, morning, evening, I come with such joy to see you. I never remember that you are the same people I have seen the night before.


I am absolutely fresh every moment. The watcher is not boring; the watcher is such an utter silence, such tremendous peace and such a joy arising within yourself, not coming from outside. And the watcher brings you experiences that you have not even dreamed about.


You have heard the word 'ecstasy' but you don't know what it is. You have heard the word 'truth'; you don't know what it is. You have heard the word 'beauty' but if somebody asks you what it is you will not be able to answer.


The watcher brings satyam, shivam, sundram to you. It opens the door of truth, of godliness, of immense beauty and eternal life. It gives you new eyes, new perception. The trees look greener than they are looking now, and even a small wild flower gives you so much joy, so much wonder.
The whole world becomes such a mystery.
There is no question of being bored.


The world for the watcher goes on changing so quickly. It is only for the people who are blind -- and I call all those people blind who don't have their watcher awake; that is the only spiritual blindness. That's why you think these are the same trees, these are the same birds, this is the same sun, this is the same ocean. You can't see that existence goes on renewing itself every moment.


I love to quote Heraclitus, who says, "You cannot step in the same river twice." Finally I have improved upon Heraclitus. I say you cannot step in the same river even once, because the river is constantly flowing.


But to the blind it seems it is the same river. You are each moment becoming different; otherwise how do you come to youth from your childhood? If your first photograph, taken the day you became part of your mother's body, is shown to you, you will have to see it with a magnifying glass, and it will be nothing but a full point. You will not be able to recognize where your nose is, where your ears are, where your eyes are. Is this me? But once it was... and since then things have been changing continuously.


Do you remember what the date was when you suddenly became a young man or a young woman from a child? It doesn't happen suddenly; it goes so gradually that unless you are a watcher you will not be able to see the subtle changes that are happening every moment all around. For the blind it is the same world.


Deva Dwabha, you are asking, "Why am I so afraid that just to be the watcher will be boring?"


You are afraid not because you know that the experience of being a watcher will be boring... There is not a single instance in the whole history of mankind that any watcher, any meditator has said that the inner experience is boring. That is not the fear. You don't know what is going to be the inner explosion when the watcher arises.


Your fear is that the watcher will not arise unless you drop your passion, your clown, your gypsy adventurer. Your fear is of change. You don't know anything about the watcher; in fact as far as I can see you must be utterly bored right now, because only a bored person becomes a gypsy adventurer, running from one place to another. You see all these tourists...


This is a different class of humanity and a different category, the tourist. They are utterly insane people, loaded with cameras, and always in a hurry; even if they come to the Taj Mahal, they don't have much time, they immediately take a few photographs and the taxi moves on. They have not seen the Taj Mahal; they were adjusting their cameras. By the time the taxi wallah starts honking that it is time to go, there are many other places to see... and finally they decide, back at home, relaxed, "We will look at the album and we will appreciate the beauty of the Taj Mahal and the Himalayas and Kashmir."


This seems to be such a stupidity. You could have purchased all those photographs in your own town. They are available... and you cannot have better photographs than those that are available because they are taken by great, professional photographers. Your photographs will be just amateur. You went around the world just to collect photographs?... What was the fear to remain with the Taj Mahal at least for twenty-four hours?


Those who know the Taj Mahal the way I know it remain there exactly fifteen days. When the moon starts rising, the first day of the moon, you have a beautiful Taj Mahal, just a glimpse for a moment and then there is darkness. Then the second day more light... the third day more light. As the light grows, the Taj Mahal also becomes more and more clear, as if a dream is becoming a reality.


And on the full moon night exactly, nearabout nine o'clock, the Taj Mahal is the most beautiful. The combination of the full moon and the Taj Mahal has been made not by ordinary architects; it has been made by Sufi mystics. It has been made to create gratitude and prayer in you. It is not a place for tourists, it is a place for seekers.


Seekers are not in a hurry; they will wait, they will look at the Taj Mahal from every side in different lights, in the day, in the night. In the morning when the sky is full of stars, the Taj Mahal has a different beauty. The beauty goes on changing. That is the grandeur of this Taj Mahal -- and this is the grandeur of this whole existence. The Taj Mahal is just a representative.


The adventurer, the gypsy is really a bored person. He is trying to get rid of boredom, so he goes on running from one place to another place, from one woman to another woman. He gets bored quickly with everything, runs after another thing, thinking perhaps he will not be bored there. But he forgets completely that things are not boring, you are bored.
Wherever you are, you will be bored.


If Deva Dwabha comes to meet God himself, she will take a few photographs -- what else to do? -- and will start getting fed up. The same God, eternally ancient... how many pictures can you take? You can finish your whole roll of film and then you are stuck with this old dull and dead God. You will start running, even if it is to hell, and you will enter into it; maybe there is some adventure there. But you will get bored in every place, because boredom is your approach and attitude; it is not a quality of things. What is your passion? How long does it take you to get fed up with one passionate relationship? Perhaps one night, or perhaps that is too much.


There is a Sufi story. A king was very much angry because he wanted a beautiful woman, a poor woman in the city, to be his lover. But the most shocking thing was that she was in love with one of his servants. That was too much, too humiliating and insulting. When the king wants her, the girl refuses, and she is interested in a poor servant of the same king.


He asked his council of wise men what should be done. The oldest of them suggested both should be brought to the court, stripped naked, tied together embracing each other, and "let them stand in your garden for twenty-four hours surrounded by guns so they cannot escape."


The king said, "What? Allowing them to embrace naked in my garden? What kind of advice are you giving me?"


The old man said, "I am old enough, and I know how long it takes one to be bored. Just do it, and in the morning you will see the result." This young man and young woman have been hankering and dreaming about when they will get married and when they will go for a honeymoon and how beautiful it is going to be. Perhaps there has never been such a beautiful honeymoon ever, because nobody has ever loved so much. Every lover thinks that way. Every lover thinks, "I am the first and foremost lover in the world."


But when they were brought and made naked and told to embrace each other, it looked very awkward, surrounded by a gang of people with loaded guns -- and the whole court was watching. But the order had to be followed, so they embraced each other and then they were tied so that they could not separate from each other.


And you can see what happened in twelve hours: they pissed on each other, they had to defecate also, and it became such a stinking phenomenon.... That was really the greatest honeymoon. It was a hot night in New Delhi, and they were perspiring and stinking and just hoping for when the morning comes... They started hating each other that night, in just twelve hours. Everything became very condensed.


In your life it is spread in a thin layer, so it takes a little time, fifteen days. They were experiencing it really totally and intensely. That is passion.


In the morning they were released, and the story is that they ran away from each other never to see each other again. They had seen enough, more than enough. They never met again in their lives. They both left New Delhi, just so as not to see that ugly man again, that ugly woman -- that bitch who was pissing on him.


What is your passion? Make it total and intense, and within twenty-four hours you will be finished with it. And then a few more experiences perhaps... it depends on your intelligence. If you are intelligent one affair is enough. If you are an idiot, then you may go on hoping for your whole life that perhaps another affair will be the right one.


The more intelligent a man or a woman is, the sooner comes the realization that all these lusts, passions, are sheer stupidity. And if you can understand the reason for your being an adventurer, that deep down it is your bored life that goes on seeking for new avenues -- perhaps somewhere, someplace you will not feel bored... You go on running, just simply wasting your life.


And the day your passions are gone, how can you be jealous? Jealousy is a by-product of your passions. And when you are no more interested in anybody, except the exploration of your own being, judgments will fall away. And when you discover your treasure, the hidden splendor within you, your greed will disappear.


When you are feeling so fulfilled, how can you be angry? That anger will destroy your contentment and your fulfillment.


But the secret of all this transformation is watching. No meditator in the whole of history has ever felt bored. In fact, the meditators are the only people who destroy boredom completely. They are so thrilled by existence, they are so thrilled just by their consciousness, they are so thrilled by falling in tune with the heartbeat of the universe that it is impossible to be bored. It is changing every moment; it is every moment a new universe, and it is every moment a new dance, a new song, a new music, which you have never heard before.


Moishe Finkelstein had just entered the parlor of a familiar whorehouse when to his great surprise he saw his father coming down the stairs. Moishe reeled back in surprise. "Dad," he exclaimed, "what are you doing in a place like this?"


Old man Finkelstein was equally stunned, but recovered quickly." Now Moishe," he said nonchalantly, brushing off his suit, "for twenty lousy dollars would you want me to bother your dear, hard working mother?"


People go on finding strange excuses... but the real thing is, they get bored.


Hymie Goldberg had been having lunch in the same restaurant for twenty years and every day he ordered chicken soup with never a change. But one day Hymie called the waiter back after receiving his soup. "Yes, Mr. Goldberg?" inquired the waiter.
"Waiter," said Hymie, "please taste this soup."


The waiter was shocked. "What do you mean, taste the soup? For twenty years you have been eating the same chicken soup every day. Has it ever been different?"


Hymie ignored the waiter's comments. "Please taste this soup", he repeated.


"Mr. Goldberg," cried the waiter, "what is the matter with you? I know what the chicken soup tastes like."
"Taste the soup!" Hymie demanded.


"Okay, okay," said the waiter. "I will taste it. Where is the spoon?"
"Aha!" cried Hymie.


He is not bored with the soup -- the spoon is missing.


Deva Dwabha, first be finished with your passions; it is too early to be a watcher. And as you are finished with your passions and your adventures, you will find your anger and jealousy and greed disappearing. Then will be the right time, the right moment to start the ultimate adventure of being a witness, a meditator, a watcher.


First, play around with the toys you are playing with. In each child's life a moment comes where he throws his toys away and forgets all about them. In each intelligent man or woman's life also comes the time when he is finished with the toys of ordinary life, which are available even to the animals. Then comes an urgent urge to go beyond animals, to go beyond this so-called human society, to inquire into the very life source, one's consciousness. Then you have entered a mystery that is unending.


You will never be bored -- this I say to you with absolute authority, because I am not talking about it, I am within it, part of it. I have never felt a single moment of boredom.


But I will not tell you to believe in what I say; I can only tell you to proceed step by step, so that one day you can also experience this immense benediction. It is your birthright.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.
			

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> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
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