---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Old Pond ... Plop"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "POND"
dategiven: "09 January 1981 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #9"
chaptertitle: "None"
acode: "8101095"
shorttitle: "POND09"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "The Old Pond ... Plop: Chapter #9"
---

```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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.]


The body has a limitation, it is confined between birth and death, and so is the mind. Mind is not separate from the body. It is its inner aspect, the inside of the body is mind, the outside of the mind is body.


All the languages have to be changed sooner or later as far as the words 'body' and 'mind' are concerned. Languages give the false idea that these two are separate entities. It is not like body and mind. The truth is bodymind. It is one word, it is one reality. Just as every coin has two aspects and every wall has two sides, so is the case with bodymind. The body is limited, the mind is limited, hence the fear of death.


The body cannot be afraid because it is unconscious, but the mind can be afraid. The mind is constantly trembling. The fear is there that sooner or later the full stop is going to come. And more than the full stop, the problem is that we have not achieved anything yet and life is going down the drain, every moment death is coming closer and life is slipping out of our hands. Hence the fear, the anxiety, the anguish.


But beyond the bodymind complex, fortunately, there is something more in us too -- and that is consciousness. The consciousness is unlimited, it is oceanic, it is vast. The body mind is just like a dewdrop and the consciousness is like an infinite ocean. The bodymind begins at the time of birth and ends st the time of death, but the consciousness has no beginning, no end.


To know this consciousness is to be free from all fear, anxiety, anguish. To know this consciousness is to become deathless, eternal, timeless. To know this consciousness is the very search of sannyas.


Sannyas is an enquiry into consciousness, but to know it one has to drop the idea of being a bodymind. One has to slowly disidentify oneself from the bodymind that surrounds us. It can be done. It has been done. And everybody is capable of doing it. It is not impossible -- difficult, certainly, but not impossible. And it is good that it is difficult because that gives us a challenge.


Sannyas is an adventure, an adventure into the unknown realm of our own being, into our own transcendence.


Sannyas is a surrender of the ego -- and the ego can surrender only if love arises. It is the miracle of love that makes it possible far us to surrender the ego. Without love there is no possibility of surrendering the ego because without love, ego is the only reality that we know of. It is the only thing which supports us, it is the only thing we can cling to. It may be just a straw in the ocean, it may not be capable of saving us, but something is better than nothing -- even a straw can keep us hoping. Although it is hoping against hope, a person who is drowning in the ocean, if he clings to the straw, has to be forgiven. What else can he do? There is nothing else to cling to.


The shore is far away, beyond his vision. He cannot see where it is, whether it exists or not. And thE ocean is drowning him, then anything to cling to gives him a little consolation.


It is only by the birth of love that one can drop the straw.  The birth of love is just as if suddenly a boat has arrived. Now there is no need to say to the person 'Throw that straw'; he will throw it himself. In fact he will not even give it a second look. The moment the boat arrives he forgets all about the straw.


The same happens with love: love is a boat which can take us to the further shore. Once you start feeling love then it is very easy to surrender the ego. People ask me again and again how to surrender the ego. It is not a question of how at all. Those who love never ask, those who ask cannot drop it. The very asking shows that they have never tasted of love.


Sannyas is a love affair. And just a ray of love is enough. More than that is not needed. One can catch hold of that ray and can reach to the very source of light.


Love is like a ray and when we reach to the source you can call it god, godliness, nirvana, liberation, truth, or whatsoever one chooses to call it.


Lao Tzu says 'I call it tao because it has no name.' Tao is just like xyz; it means nothing. In India we have called it aum. Aum also is like tao, it means nothing, it is not a word at all. Hence aum cannot be written alphabetically. It is only a pictorial phenomenon. That is the only symbol in India which is written pictorially. Lao Tzu had noa difficulty in writing tao, because the whole Chinese language is written pictorially, there is no alphabet at all. Even other words are written pictorially.


For example, 'fight' or 'war', 'quarrel' -- a picture is made. A simple picture, very simple, because it has to be written, just one line giving you the idea of a pillar and a small roof -- two lines -- giving you the idea of a roof, and sitting under the roof are one man and two women -- that is war! (laughter) quarrel, conflict, argument -- it contains the whole range of everything. even the word 'war' has to be written in the same way because that is the only symbol -- it is just a little bigger phenomenon, that's all.


Chinese is a beautiful language because it is non-alphabetical. And tao was written just as a picture. but in India we had to invent aum, a special symbol so that it can be demarcated from language; it is not part of language, it is not a word. So one can call it tao -- tao means nothing; one can call it aum -- aum means nothing; one can call it any name, one can invent one's own name -- it will do -- because it is a nameless reality.


Love is the beginning; god, tao, aum, is the end. Love is the boat god, aum, tao, is the further shore. So when love arises... and it is bound to arise if you are near a master. Unless you protect yourself, defend yourself, unless you escape from the situation -- that's another matter -- It is bound to arise.


It happens exactly like in the morning when the sun risen the birds start singing, the flowers start opening. In the presence of the master love naturally arises, the heart starts opening like a flower, the heart starts singing like a bird -- the morning has come!


And once a little taste of love is there the ego can easily be disposed of. And the disposal of the ego is the beginning of the journey, of the real journey life is meant to be.


The state of blissfulness is the true god. All other gods are false, invented -- invented as consolations, invented as father-figures, invented as wish-fulfilment, but they have no reality. The gods of the Christians and the gods of the Hindus and the gods of the mohammedans are just fiction -- religious fiction, spiritual fiction. Just as there is science fiction, there is spiritual fiction, and of course spiritual fiction can be more fictitious because a science fiction writer has at least to be a little bit scientific. At least he has to pretend. But once you move into the world of so-called spirituality, esotericism, then the whole imagination can play all its games. You can invent anything and nobody can argue with you because nothing can be proved, nothing can be disproved. That's why there are so many religions in the world and so many gods.


The Hindus alone have three hundred thirty million gods! (laughter) What to say about others? As many gods as there are Hindus; each Hindu has a god to himself. That's a good idea! (much laughter) Have your own private god. Why use a public vehicle when you can have your own car? But this is all stupidity.


The true god is only one and that true god has no personality at all, no face, no body, no form, no definition. It is the state of blissfulness, it is an experience. That's why as far as bliss is concerned there is no quarrel. Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, Buddhists, Jainas -- all agree that when you achieve god you achieve the ultimate bliss. In fact people are trying to know god just in order to achieve bliss. Even the atheists are not against the idea of bliss. Who can be against the idea of bliss? -- it is everybody's longing. And that's why I say this is the only natural, spontaneous vision of god. Everybody is searching for bliss. So there is no need to worship. You don't worship love; you love. There is no need to worship love. You don't worship freedom, you live it.


Bliss also has to be experienced, not worshipped. All the temples and the mosques and the churches are just out of date, primitive, relics of the past. We can save a few just as antique pieces, for the museums -- otherwise they are not needed at all, they are unnecessarily occupying space. The same space can be used for more purposively, far more creatively. The churches and the temples can become places to dance and sing, to play music -- and that will be far more religious. Because people dancing, singing, playing music, will be more blissful than the phony, so-called religious people who gather there.


If you want to see the real phonies, just sit outside a church on Sunday, and you will see all the Sunday-religious people. They are only religious on Sunday morning. For six days they do everything that is against their religion and on the seventh day they ask forgiveness, so that they can do the same things again the next week, because Monday is coming and they have to start their business again. You can see the phoniness... and they look very religious, very serious, sombre, holy.


I have watched churches, temples, mosques, you meet the same people somewhere else and you will see such a change in their faces. They start wearing a certain mask when they enter into a temple or a church.


My whole idea of religiousness is of experiencing, A sannyasin has to live in such a way that his whole life becomes a song; not only his life, but even his death becomes the very crescendo of his dance, his song, his celebration. It is a question of learning the art of how to live, and how to die. And this has to be done every moment, every moment you have to die as far as the past is concerned and you have to be reborn as far as the present is concerned. Die to the past every moment so that in the present you are fresh, young, alive, vibrating, clean, clear, virgin.


And never allow the past to accumulate its dust upon you -- keep your mirror clean. And slowly slowly blissfulness deepens. As bliss deepens in you god deepens in you. The moment you explode in absolute bliss you have attained the ultimate.


The only problem in life is love. Either people are missing love -- then their life is empty, then their life has no meaning, no significance, no joy -- or people are full of love but their love is contaminated by attachment. Again they become miserable;t again, anguish arises, because that attachment, that clinging creates possessiveness, jealousy, poisons love completely. It is like a garden which is full of weeds and you are trying to grow roses in it. If your mind is full of jealousy, possessiveness, domination, ego trips and all those numbers, then you cannot grow roses of love. The whole soil is being exploited by the weeds -- and weeds are cunning people, very cunning people!(laughter)


You need not sow them, they come on their own, uninvited. You need not water them, they survive on their own, they find ways and means to survive. Even if you uproot them they will appear again. They are very clever as far as survival is concerned.


I don't believe in Charles Darwin's idea of survival of the fittest, because the rose cannot survive and the weeds survive. That means the weeds are the fittest! The rose cannot survive on its own, you have to help it, you have to water it, you have to give it fertilisers, manure, you have to protect it. Too much rain may disturb it, too much rain may kill it. It is against many odds that you have to protect it.


And love is a rose flower, far more delicate than any rose can ever be. It is the subtlest flowering of consciousness. It is the flower of your innermost being. It is the opening of your heart. Just as petals open, your heart opens in love. But there are dancers for it, and those dangers all come from attachment. Attachment is the root of all the dangers for love.
One has to destroy attachment mercilessly.


So these are the two situations people are in: either they are loveless, living a loveless life, because they don't want to get into the troubled waters of jealousy and possessiveness, so they remain aloof, isolated. These people become monks and nuns, afraid of relationship, they move away from the world. They start living in closed quarters. Not only is their monastery closed to the world, they themselves become completely closed to existence. They are not available to the wind, to the rain, to the sun, to people, to animals -- they are not available to anything. They are very much preoccupied with themselves, they are completely closed, windowless, afraid that something may come in and they may get disturbed, distracted.


There are monasteries where for a thousand years not even a single woman has entered. Not even a six-month-old baby girl is allowed in the monastery of Athos. For one thousand years no woman has entered. And the monk who enters the monastery enters forever, he does not come out. And there have been such monasteries in Tibet, in the Himalayas, everywhere. So much fear of the world is nothing but fear of love!


And the reason is not that love is dangerous; the reason is that they are not capable of destroying the weeds; hence they become afraid of the very idea of the garden. They start escaping from the garden. These are one kind of people. Then there is the other kind, the whole world consists of the other kind, the worldly people. They love but their love does not bring any bliss, it brings only misery, conflict. It makes their life a constant nightmare. It drives them crazy, insane.


My effort here is to bring about a totally new kind of person. That's my vision of a new man, that he should be able to love. He should not go to a monastery. He should live in the marketplace and yet he should be able to drop all possessiveness, all attachment, all clinging, all jealousy.


It can be done because I have done it, so you can do it! (laughter) I never say a single thing which is not my own experience. I speak on my own authority.


There is a Sufi story of an old master, a woman came to him dragging her small child and said to the master, 'I am tired of this boy. He eats so many sweets that I am afraid he will become ill, his teeth will become rotten. And he suffers very much -- stomach ache, this and that -- but he eats only sweets and nothing else. So you do something. I know if you say he will listen to you.'


The master looked at the boy and said to the woman, 'You come after a week.' The woman was very much puzzled because many times she had visited the master and asked him very difficult questions about life and death and incarnation and god and heaven and hell and he has already ready to answer instantly. Now just a small thing, he has to say something to this boy, and he needs seven days!


But then she thought, 'These Sufi masters are little crazy. There may be something in it, so one week I have to wait.'


She came after one week, and the master said, 'Sorry. You come after two weeks. I am not yet ready.' Even the boy was puzzled.


After two weeks they came back and the master looked at the boy and said, 'You can do it.' The boy said, 'But why did you take three weeks to say this much, "You can do it," The master said, 'because I love sweets myself. So first I had to try, whether I could do it or not, otherwise how can I tell you? That would have been false. And it is hard, I know, it is difficult. I was thinking that one week would be enough but it was not. I could not drop sweets, I love them! It took three weeks for me and I am an old man, so I can understand your trouble but if I can do it, you can also do it -- maybe it will be a little more difficult.'


But the boy became immensely interested in the master, here is a man who could have simply said... nobody knew that he loved sweets, even the woman was surprised. But she said 'You could have told him -- there was no need for you to prove it.' He said, 'I cannot say anything that I have not experienced myself. This is my way, my whole life. I have never uttered a single thing which I have not experienced, because when you utter something which you have not experienced it loses something it has no truth in it. It may be put in beautiful words but it is only words. It may have a beautiful container but it has no content at all. And it is said that the boy was able to drop sweets that very day. He felt, 'If this old man took so much trouble just to say to me, "Yes, you can do it,"' And the next day the boy came and said, 'You are right -- I can do it!"


And the master said, 'When one says by one's own experience it goes deep. I knew it. I had looked into your eyes and I had felt that you would be able to do it. And I am an old man -- I am weak -- it took three weeks for me. You are young, you can do it in one day!'
This is my way also.


Love can be absolutely free from attachment. And the moment it is absolutely free from attachment, it is the greatest thing in life -- because it brings all kinds of truths in its wake. It brings freedom, it brings bliss, it brings great poetry to your heart, great music to your being. It simply makes you available to all that is beautiful, true and great, all that liberates.
			

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