---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Open Secret"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "OPENSE"
dategiven: "06 November 1977 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #6"
chaptertitle: "None"
acode: "7711065"
shorttitle: "OPENSE06"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "The Open Secret: Chapter #6"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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Deva means divine, and vihan means morning. And let this be your divine morning. Forget the night that you have been in and forget all those nightmares. Once we are able to forget them they disappear. By remembering them again and again we go on watching; that is a kind of nourishment for them. So one should be capable of forgetting things. That is far more important than the capacity to remember things. Remembrance is very ordinary; forgetfulness is unique. And many people suffer from remembrance. Remembrance is like going on playing with your wounds so you never allow them to heal. The healing comes through forgetfulness. Forgetfulness is healing -- and if you can forget the past you are forgiving the past...


[The new sannyasin says she feels to study Naturopathy in Berlin. That's very good, Osho says. Anything concerned with nature is always good....


Osho then says not to make a fad out of being natural, to be natural but in a relaxed way. If one takes it to its extreme, one finds it difficult to remain part of society. Then back to the jungle!]


Naturopaths go on praising the jungle, and it was not a good place to live ! Wild animals were there and poisonous snakes were there, and life was impossible in the jungle. It was not as good as they go on saying. And if not wild animals, not snakes, then mosquitoes!


Life should be taken in a very relaxed and easy way. I am all for nature but always against faddism because that is an ugly phenomenon. That is man not in his senses.


So learn Naturopathy but never become a naturopath. It is good as a life-style but that too has to be taken in small doses. And to keep balance it is always good to go against nature sometimes, beyond nature. That brings variety to life. To be ill is not always bad because sometimes illness brings things which health can never bring.


So once in a while it is good to enjoy illness too. It makes people more meditative, more prayerful, helps them to see that the body is going to die, helps them to see the reality of the body, gives them a gap, an interval in which to slow down, and time to think about things for which there is ordinarily no time.


I am not saying remain ill; I am saying that once in a while it is good to fall ill.


Deva means divine, anil means the element of air, the air element. It is a metaphor to indicate that God is like the wind: invisible and yet surrounding you from everywhere, invisible, but you cannot live without it. You are continuously breathing him in and out.... It is he who goes on rejuvenating you each moment, awake or asleep. If for just a single moment your bridge with the air is broken, you are gone.


In a similar way, on a deeper plane, God is pouring his energy into your spirit too. Just as the wind, the air, keeps your body alive and functioning, that invisible god-element keeps your soul alive. Hence, so much emphasis on breathing in all the schools of Yoga, because once you have understood the mechanism of breathing you will be able to understand the deeper mechanism of breathing -- that is that God is continuously breathed in and breathed out. It is the same process -- running on exactly the same lines, parallel. If we can understand breathing perfectly we have understood all. That's why in India breathing is called 'prana'; prana means life.


The wind is invisible, so is God. The wind is invisible but goes on touching you; it is not untouchable. It is so with God too! Just a little more sensitivity is needed and you will start feeling his embrace from everywhere. So don't look for God through the eyes, because he is invisible. To be hidden is his nature. It is his intrinsic quality to be hidden just as it is the intrinsic quality of air to remain invisible; it is not accidental.


God is not hiding, God is hiddenness. So there is no way for God to appear before you. And if sometimes you feel that God is standing before you, remember: this is just an hallucination, your imagination playing games with you. You are in a dream, you have fallen asleep. It is a projection of your mind.


If you see Christ or Buddha or anybody standing in front of you, this cannot be the real Christ and cannot be the real Buddha. Even when you are facing the real Buddha you cannot see him; you only see the body, which is not the Buddha. You hear the words, which are not the Buddha. Buddha is silence, utter silence and utter hiddenness.


So there is no way to see the Buddha but there is a way to touch the Buddha. That's why in the East touching the feet of the master became very symbolic. You cannot see but you can touch! Christ used to put his hand on people. The laying on of hands became very very symbolic; that is giving a touch.


And remember, eyes are very small, ears are very small, so is the nose, and in fact they are all parts of the skin, specialized parts of the skin. The nose is nothing but skin; it has become an expert in smelling. And as all experts become narrow, so the nose has become narrow; it can only smell. The ears can only hear; they had to lose much to become specialized.


Mm? It is as a man becomes more and more specialized in a particular branch of science. First he specializes in medicine; then he cannot go into philosophy and poetry and mathematics and physics and chemistry. Those doors are closed. Then he starts specializing in eyes. He has to drop the whole body, he has to become forgetful about the whole body; he will think only about the eyes. And I have heard a futuristic story about a woman who enters a doctor's office and says 'Look at my eyes, there is something wrong with them.' The doctor says 'which one, right or left?' And the woman says 'Right.' He says 'Sorry, I am only an expert on the left eye. For the right eye just go ahead a few buildings and you will find the right doctor.' Yes, specialization can go; it is going that way.


The specialist is one who knows more and more about less and less. And a specialist is one who becomes more and more knowledgeable about tiny things, and naturally in the same proportion he becomes ignorant of many more things. An expert is ignorant about a thousand and one things and knowledgeable about one thing. That's what has happened to the eyes, to the nose, to the ears.


Only touch is the unspecialized sense in your body. And this is the biggest sense; it covers the whole body. It is the primordial sense. In the mother's womb the first sense that comes to the child is touch; other things evolve later on. But the first thing that the child starts feeling is touch; that's why there is a great hankering for touch. If your loved one does not touch you, you will feel unsatisfied. There is a need to hug, a great need because that is our primordial sense, the fundamental sense. All others are specializations.


God cannot be seen but can be touched. The master cannot be seen but can be touched. Remember these two things about your name: the invisibility and the touchability. So the process is to become more and more holy and total. The eyes are very small, they are partial -- we cannot see God; but we can jump into him. We cannot hear him, but we can penetrate him and he can penetrate us.


[A sannyasin who is leaving says the encounter group helped him feel very blissful and ecstatic. Osho suggests he do more groups at a centre in the West.]


... Do a few groups first then start helping. and by helping you learn. Within a few months you will be ready; there is no problem, mm? And it will be good; it is one of the best things to learn and do!


[A sannyasin had done a meditation camp in the west, remaining blindfolded and in silence throughout, after which he became sick and felt as though something was not functioning in him. Osho checks his energy.]


Good! Things are perfectly good. And much more is going to happen. Things are changing, but for the better. No problem.


... When something starts changing then many things stop because the energy will be needed for the new. The old cannot function, and between the old and the new there is a time gap -- what I was talking about this morning, 'catalepsy' -- because the energy takes time to move from the old structure to the new structure. And when it starts moving, the old no more functions, cannot function. It goes out of function and the new will take time. The energy has to be absorbed, the new structure has to start growing. It will take a little time, but things are moving for the better. Just enjoy !


[A sannyasin said that after doing office work in the ashram, she has been feeling mentally spastic. Osho checks her energy.]


Nothing to be worried about. You are simply getting rid of unnecessary memories, that's all. Mm? it is not harmful. It is just a kind of cleansing of old dust.


Calculation and money is not your dimension, so you can get disturbed there. You are getting out of the past and out of memories more and more, and falling more in tune with the present; that's what is happening. It is perfectly good, it is what is needed. So don't make a problem out of it, it is not a problem. be happy about it!

[A sannyasin child shows Osho a painting, then whispers: I love you.]


That's right! that's right. Nobody has heard; nothing to worry about! I also love you! Mm?


Whenever you feel like coming, just come and sit here in darshan. Do you want to come sometimes?... So special permission is given to you....
			

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