---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Shadow of the Bamboo"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "BAMBOO"
dategiven: "10 April 1979 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #10"
chaptertitle: "None"
acode: "7904105"
shorttitle: "BAMBOO10"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "The Shadow of the Bamboo: Chapter #10"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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Anand Joseph. Anand means bliss, joseph is a blessing; it means may God increase. Your full name will mean may God increase your bliss. It is always a possibility, a hope, a dream. The dream can be fulfilled, the hope can become reality, the possible can be actual; but between the two there is a great gap. That gap has to be bridged by meditation. That gap has to be bridged by sannyas.


Man should not be contented with himself as he is. He should remain constantly discontented with himself as he is, only then is there a possibility of surpassing, transcending. Because whatsoever we are is not our true being. To be contented with it is to be befooled by the society. It is to be contented with a mask. It is not our real essence. And we will not search for the real essence if we are contented with the mask; we will not look for the original face. And the search for the original face is the only thing worth doing in life. Everything else is worthless.


Unless you know who you are in your essence, life has been missed. In getting initiated into sannyas you are taking a great step -- from the possible to the actual, from the dream to the reality.


I am here to help, with my total being. If you are ready to accept the help with your total being, the miracle can happen. It is up to you.


Prem Iris. Prem means love, iris means rainbow. Love is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. It is a rainbow. It is the whole spectrum, from the lowest to the highest, from black to white and all in between. And unless a man becomes capable of living love in all its dimensions, he is not prepared to receive God in his heart. It is the fire of love that prepares you.


One has to go through many pains and many pleasures, many dark nights and many sunlit days, the many agonies and many ecstasies that love brings. It is only between these two -- as if one is walking on a tightrope, balancing constantly -- that one grows, that one matures.


Never avoid love. Love is the greatest experience, even when it is agonizing. So what to say about it when it is ecstatic?


You have a beautiful name. In Greek mythology Iris symbolizes the messenger from the gods to man. The rainbow is a message from God to man. It is a bridge between the human and the divine; and that's exactly what love is.


Anand Lise. Anand means bliss, lise is a form of Elisabeth. It comes from a Hebrew root "el"; el means God. Your full name will means goddess of bliss. That's our potential -- we have to make it actual. The seed is there; we just have to give it the right soil and the right climate and we have to become right gardeners, and soon things start happening. The seed disappears in the soil; and the death of the seed is a resurrection: a tree is born.


Man ordinarily is just a seed; the name of the seed is the ego. The ego is a hard shell around the soft potential that is hidden behind it. It is good because the soft potential needs protection, but it is dangerous if it protects too much. When the time comes for it to disappear and dissolve, if it resists, if it rejects, if it is not ready to surrender to the soil, if it is not ready to die, then the protector has turned into the enemy. And that's what happens.


The ego is not bad in itself; it is protective to a certain extent. Beyond that it is dangerous -- it has to be dropped. Sannyas is nothing but the art of dropping the ego. The moment the ego drops, the seed has died, and you are resurrected as a new being.


Sannyas is a new birth. Think of it as a new birth, as a discontinuity with the past, as if the old is gone, as if it never belonged to you, as if you have read about it in a novel or you had seen it in a film; it was somebody else!s past. Start fresh, new, unburdened of the past, and then life starts taking on the flavor of magic. And one day, when the season is right and when the time has come, one blooms in thousands of flowers. That blooming is bliss, that blooming is coming home. Never rest before it. Never be contented before it has happened.


A great divine discontent, which is missing in the modern mind, is needed. The modern mind is very topsy-turvy, upside down. The modern mind is very much discontented with things: the car, the house, the refrigerator. Each year new models are needed, more gadgets, more refined, computerized. The modern mind is very discontented with things, hence one goes on accumulating great possessions. But the modern mind is utterly contented with itself, hence there is no spiritual growth.


In the ancient days things were just the opposite: people were very contented with things but very discontented with themselves. Hence it was more possible for Buddhas and Christs and Krishnas to be born. Now it has become almost a rarity. And even if somebody becomes a Buddha, nobody can believe it. k has become such a rare phenomenon that it looks impossible; it cannot happen. It seems that all those old stories are mere stories. These people have never really walked on the earth.


They have. They have lived as physically as you, as much in the world as anybody else, but they lived with a totally different vision. They lived with mature souls, with ripe consciousnesses, with lotuses opening within their beings.

[Bruco: it means caterpillar.]


Veet Bruco. Veet means go beyond.... You have remained a caterpillar long enough, now become a butterfly. And that's my whole business here: transforming caterpillars into butterflies.


Every man is a caterpillar. And the misery is that many have forgotten that to be a caterpillar is only a stage of growth, it is not the destiny; that it is a passing phase, that you are not to cling to it; that you have to go beyond it, that there is much more to life. In fact life has infinite treasures to bestow upon you.


But if you talk to the caterpillar and talk about the butterflies, he will not believe you. He cannot believe that he can fly. And it is natural -- how can he believe? -- because he has no wings.


He can only trust a butterfly who can convince the caterpillar that "I have been just like you! You are perfectly logical, and this was my argument too once, that I don't have wings so how can I fly? But wings can grow: the caterpillar can disappear and the butterfly can appear instead. This has happened to me," the butterfly can say to the caterpillar.


Then too, very hesitatingly, very suspiciously, very doubtingly, the caterpillar will listen.


If he can trust a butterfly then things will start changing. Then he will start groping for the possible. Then he will start dreaming about that for which he has never given a single thought. Then a great desire in his being will arise to transcend, to surpass himself.


Friedrich Nietzsche has said: The greatest misfortune that can happen to a man is that he forgets to surpass himself. And that will be the greatest calamity for humanity -- the day the whole humanity forgets that man is not the goal but a bridge; that man has to be surpassed; that a man is really man if he surpasses himself, that in his very surpassing is his humanity; that a man is an arrow towards the unknown, that a man is a journey, a pilgrimage.


Yes, you have chosen a beautiful name -- I loved it! But now a higher stage of bruco... now start dreaming of being a butterfly!


Anand Frank. Anand means bliss, frank means free, freedom. Bliss and freedom are two aspects of the same phenomenon. They are never separate; they cannot be separated. If you know what bliss is you will know what freedom is; if you know what freedom is, you will know what bliss is. They are not really two things but two aspects. And one can start the search from either; the other will come of its own accord.


Start becoming blissful. Be more meditative; go deeper into dance, music, song, love. Fall in love with existence. Be more sensitive to it, remain available, open, vulnerable, and you will become more and more blissful. And you will be surprised that hidden behind your bliss is coming a new world of freedom. You are growing wings, the whole sky is becoming yours. You will feel that there are no limitations.


Or you can start by being free... Then drop all that binds you, all kinds of bondages -- psychological, spiritual, religious. Don't be a Christian, don't be a Hindu, don't be a Mohammedan; don't believe in anything unless you know. It is a razor's edge, the path of freedom. One has to be very alert and aware so that nothing clings and one doesn't cling to anything, otherwise immediately bondage is created.


The path of bliss is the path of a drunken man. You can forget yourself, you can be drowned in it; that's how the ego disappears on that path. But the path of freedom is the path of being aware, alert. That is the way the ego disappears on the path of freedom.


U you can surrender, then follow the path of bliss, love, devotion. If it is difficult, then follow the path of the warrior -- the way of awareness, meditation, witnessing. But whichever you follow the ultimate result is the same: you gain both. Whenever you reach to the peak, both are waiting there for you. The difference is only in the paths but the ultimate experience is one: it is of bliss/freedom.


So be here, experience. Both the things are available here -- meditation, prayer -- and find out for yourself whichever feels in tune with you, whichever fits with you, whichever clicks. That is your path, and the other will come of its own accord.
			

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