---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Open Secret"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "OPENSE"
dategiven: "25 November 1977 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #24"
chaptertitle: "None"
acode: "7711255"
shorttitle: "OPENSE24"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "The Open Secret: Chapter #24"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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Gypsy means a vagabond. Do you know that Gypsies originally belonged to India? They are Indians but they reached Europe through Egypt, hence the name Gypsy, from 'Egypt'. They were coming from Egypt so they started being called 'Gypsy' but their original land is India.


The language they speak is almost fifty percent Hindu. They don't call themselves Gypsies; they call themselves 'Roma'. It comes from the Indian word 'Rama'. Roma means the people of Rama. They are beautiful people. They have never settled and that is their beauty. They are sannyasins! They live in insecurity, and to live in insecurity is the only way to live.


The moment you settle for comfort, convenience, security, you die. So always be on the go then the whole earth is yours. The Gypsies now belong to no country, to no race; the whole earth is their home! They are the only international people. And their whole philosophy of life is insecurity.


When one is insecure there is constant challenge and that challenge keeps life energies burning. There is always something unknown lurking around. Tomorrow is never predictable; what is going to happen nobody knows. And when life is unpredictable, it is alive. So ... become a Gypsy!


[A sannyasin newly arrived, shows Osho some photos of his children and gives Osho a drawing his eight-year-old daughter made.]


This is really beautiful -- she can grow into an artist. These lines are really very very dynamic, very mobile. Help her to understand more about drawing, painting; she has something. Good! Blessings for them.

[Osho checks the sannyasin's energy saying:]


Just come close to me. Close your eyes and just start feeling as if you are behind the navel, the solar plexus. Just be there, be concentratedly there, as if there is the centre of your being. Go into it, be utterly there. If something starts happening in the body, allow it -- anything, shaking, trembling, swaying. Crying or laughter, whatsoever comes, just go into it but go on keeping yourself centred in the solar plexus.
A few things to be understood about you....


It is very rare in modern times to have such an alive solar plexus as you have. Man has lost contact with the solar plexus because of the fear of sex, because of the repression of sex, because of life-negation.


The solar plexus is the centre of life and death both. That's why Japanese call it 'hara'; hara means death. And the Indians call it manipura. Manipura means the diamond, the most precious diamond, because life comes from there. In the solar plexus is your seed. It is the first thing that is created in the womb of the mother; then everything else grows around it.


In the solar plexus your father's seed and your mother's seed are both present. The life cell from the father and the life cell from the mother create your solar plexus. That is your first blueprint; from there everything grows and it remains the centre forever and ever. You can forget about it, you can become oblivious of it, you can repress, you can start hanging in the head but it remains the centre. You just become less and less alive. The farther away you go, the less and less alive you become and the farther you are from the solar plexus. You live more on the periphery; you lose centering, you lose grounding. It is very alive. Start living more and more.


That is the primitive mind, the most primal mind. The Primal therapists are not yet aware that the Primal scream comes from the solar plexus. It is the first mind. Then the second mind arises -- the heart, feeling. Then the third mind arises -- the head, thinking.


Solar plexus is being, heart is feeling, head is thinking. Thinking is the farthest, feeling is just in the middle; that's why when you feel you are more alive, just a little more alive than when you think. Thoughts are dead things; they are corpses: they don't breathe. Feelings breathe, feelings have a pulsation but nothing to be compared with the first, primal mind. If you reach the solar plexus and be there and live from there, you will have a totally different kind of life -- the real life.


The few moments you feel that you are real are the moments when you are at the solar plexus. That's why sometimes people seek danger, they go mountain climbing, because when danger is very real you simply go into the solar plexus. That's why whenever you are in a shock your solar plexus has the first pulsation. In a shock you cannot think, you cannot feel: you can only be.


If you are driving and suddenly you feel an accident is going to happen, your solar plexus is hit. That's the reason why people like speed in driving, and the speedier your car becomes, the more alive you feel, thrilled. You are coming closer to the solar plexus. That's why there is such attraction in war. People go to the cinema to see a murder story. It is creating a situation in which you can feel your solar plexus again. People read detective novels and when the story really comes to its peak they cannot think, they cannot feel: they are!


Try to understand it. All meditations lead to it. It is your elan vital, it is the source of your vitality. Go into it, and you can go easily, that's why I am saying to go into it. Whenever you are sitting silently, be there. Forget the head, forget the heart, forget the body: just be a throb behind the navel.


If you go deeper into it it will become possible for you to understand the real concept of trinity -- because your father is there, your mother is there. If you are also there, the trinity arises. That is the basic idea of the trinity -- not God and the Son and the Holy Ghost. If you are there, then the trinity, a triangle. The father and mother are already there. If you are also there then the Christ is born, the Son is born. And when the Son is born there is real unity.


Two cannot meet: the third is needed to bridge the two. So your father and mother are there, consummated but not consumed, in a kind of union but not yet a unity. The feminine and the masculine are there but still not bridged, and that is the whole trouble of man, the whole conflict --  that he is two, dual. He is bound to be two: something has been given by the father and something has been given by the mother. They are both there, flowing together like two currents but still there is a subtle separation.


If your presence reaches there, if you become more and more aware of it, your very awareness will become the catalytic agent: the two will disappear and there will be oneness. That oneness is called 'Christ consciousness'. It does not happen outside, it happens within your being.


So watch, and many things will be revealed through that observation. If you come across something which you feel you would like to say to me, just write. After one month you have to tell me how you are feeling. This very observation will bring subtle changes in your life: you will not need to do anything else.


So meditate, do the groups, but this is your meditation, this is especially for you.


[A visitor says that he comes to Osho as a patient to a doctor and wants a diagnosis. Osho checks his energy.]


There is no specific problem -- just the universal problem of being a human being. There is no specific problem particularly, individually, but just to be a human being is a great problem. It is not specific to you, it is so of all human beings, and that is the most fundamental thing to understand -- that a human being is just a passage between the animal and the divine. You cannot make your house on the bridge, you should not make your house on the bridge. The bridge has to be passed.


Man is just like a bridge, between two shores, just a link between animal and divine.


[Man is not at ease until he has surpassed himself, Osho continues. A dog cannot be doggier but man has a notion, albeit very vague, of what he can become, how high he can rise.]


Physical problems are different. Psychological problems are not so different. Spiritual problems are not different at all. The deeper you go, the closer does the universal come. On the periphery there are differences: you have a different kind of body, somebody has a different kind of body... he may have some other problems, you may have some other problems, or may not have, but there are differences.
In the psychological, lesser differences; in the spiritual no differences.


You don't have any physical or psychological problem as such, but the spiritual problem is there. And when there is no physical and no psychological problem then only does the spiritual problem become very predominant. There is a kind of hierarchy: the physical needs, the psychological needs, the spiritual needs. The lowest are physical needs, the highest are spiritual needs, in the middle are psychological needs.


Become more consciously a seeker. Become more and more alert of the situation in which you are, and use the Situation to create more awareness, more consciousness. If you look, then the whole evolution is nothing but an effort of consciousness to become more and more. The rocks have no consciousness, not at all; they are completely asleep. The trees have a little bit, a very little bit. Animals have a little more; man has a little more than the animals. And a Buddha or a Christ goes higher than ordinary human beings. They have more concentrated awareness, they are awareness. They are the highest evolved points.


Unless you become that -- and everybody becomes that -- misery will remain. One can be lost in comfort, luxury, pleasures, but again and again one is thrown back to the basic problem.


While you are here I will suggest you do a few groups. They will give you some taste of more consciousness....


[A visitor who spent a year in a Thai monastery doing vipassana, says that he relates strongly to Krishnamurti. He tries to use thought a lot. He has a tension on the right side of his head.]


Krishnamurti himself suffers from headache too much! For years, his whole life, he has been suffering very severe headaches... because the whole approach is just reason. Yes, there is a possibility that somebody can enter from that door but it is very rare: it is not a well-trodden path. Once in a while a Krishnamurti, an Astravakra, people like that, have entered through that door.


You will get into trouble, and unnecessarily. It is better to move through the heart than through the head. It is more fun, more joy, and the goal is closer from there. You can go dancing; why go with a headache? If you go with a headache even God will avoid you! (laughter) You can go singing, dancing.


Krishnamurti is desert-like. I'm not condemning him; what can he do? There are deserts too and they have a kind of beauty of their own. A desert has a beauty -- the vastness, the silence, the infinity of it. Yes, it has a beauty of its own but it is better if you don't make a house there. Once in a while it is good to go and see a desert but it is better not to make a house there. When one can live with trees and with roses why unnecessarily choose something arduous?


Yes, there are people for whom that is the only way; for them it is perfectly okay. They cannot do anything else, they have to go through that. But I don't think that you have to go through that. That may be causing your headache: you may not be the type for that. But it is difficult to leave once you get hooked because each logic has its own persistence and once a certain logic appeals to you, it is very difficult to get out of it; it is a kind of imprisonment.


If you can be here for a few months I will destroy it, because here we don't have any logic. It is the most absurd place you can find, and the more it grows, the more absurd it will become!


But when logic no more has a grip on you, you can relax, your headache can disappear very easily. I don't think that it has anything to do with your physiology. It is just too much tension in the head, too much thinking. Thinking is dry, barren. There is no juice in thoughts, feelings are juicy. And my suggestion is that rather than moving to Buddhism, move to Sufism. Your headache will go and finally you will see one day that your head has also gone. And that is the most beautiful space -- when suddenly one day you look into the mirror and you cannot see your head! It can be possible.... Just be here for a few days and see....


Be here for a while and get into things: dance and sing. In the beginning they will look very absurd because they will not have any appeal to your thought. Mm? what is the point of dancing? What is the point of singing? In fact there is no point, they are pointless. But life is pointless and God is pointless. Existence as such is not going anywhere. It is utterly lacking in purpose. It is a play, a leela, and it is for those who can be playful. Krishnamurti is not playful --  very serious! If he enjoys it is perfectly good for him but people who cannot enjoy become serious with him. Then they have headaches and a thousand and one difficulties arise; they get many knots in their being. Rather than relaxation they become more and more tense. Have you done any groups before? (he shakes his head) Then do a few: they will help, mm?


[Start with Shraddha, says Osho. It means trust; it is absolutely anti-Krishnamurti! He goes on to recommend two other groups.... ]


And don't think of sannyas, mm? Become a sannyasin. But don't think about it, mm?... That headache will go; don't be worried about it.


Anand means bliss, leela means play, dhar means god: god of bliss and play. Leeladhar is one of the names of Krishna. He is the most playful god, the most non-serious; there is no comparison to him. He was totally into life, into all dimensions of life, and he enjoyed everything -- from love to war, everything; there is no denial in him. He can be good, he can be bad; he can be truthful, he can be deceitful. He can sacrifice himself, he can cheat you. He is very spontaneous, without any ideals and without any ideology... just a man living from moment to moment, responding, not with any a priori idea. He has no idea of how things should be. He functions out of his totality, and whatsoever happens out of that totality is good. He has no definition of goodness other than that.


And there is a way when your totality can function. Then there is no tension in your being. It is as when a child is born and immediately starts groping for the mother's breast and not knowing what he is doing because he has never seen mother's breast. He starts opening his mouth, and the moment he comes close to the nipple he starts sucking. It is a total act. It is a spontaneous act with no prior knowledge; it is an existential act. And if one trusts life by and by one's whole life becomes like that. Krishna lived like that.


Contemplate on Krishna -- his dances with the cowherd girls, his songs, his flute. Forget Krishnamurti, remember Krishna and it will be easier for you!
Things are going to happen -- just cooperate with me!


[A sannyasin says his head is working overtime trying to make decisions, eg. whether to go to Goa or not.]


No, your problem is something else. You need some work, you cannot be without work. You need some work that challenges you, otherwise you will feel this confusion about what to do, what not to do, where to go. Those are not real problems; the real problem is that you need challenge so you can sharpen yourself against it.


When there is challenge everything is good with you. When there is no challenge you start dissipating and falling into fragments and pieces. That's why it happens that you want to put something together and when you have succeeded there is no joy in it, because your joy is in the travelling not in arriving. Once you arrive then again the mind starts thinking, 'What to do now?' Then again it starts moving towards another goal.


So success is not your goal -- succeeding is your goal. Once you have attained something you are finished with it; you want something else. Just understand it: it is a creative energy. If you use it rightly you can become very very blissful. If you don't use it rightly it can kill you, it will be destructive; the same energy becomes destructive. It is the same energy, creative or destructive. Put rightly it is creative; if something goes wrong it is destructive. My suggestion is that you can go on this way continuously your whole life. You will be thrilled only for a few days when you are reaching for something. The moment it becomes easier, the moment you see that now it is within grasp, you will lose interest; this is your characteristic.


When people used to go to Gurdjieff, the first thing he always enquired of them was 'What is your chief characteristic?' This is your chief characteristic, and you have to cope with it, you have to encounter it and you have to work it out. You have to get out of this trap of your mind.


Your mind can be used very creatively. Two are the possibilities: one is that you put your total energy into the commune, forget yourself. Put your total energies into the commune, work for the commune. There is much work and much has to be done; there is no end to it. You will never be without something like a challenge; it will always be there. But for that you will need a complete identification with the commune. If you remain separate, if you start thinking that you are separate -- you are here but you remain separate -- then the commune's problems, challenges, will not be yours. One way is to surrender totally to the commune and to become part of it, start working for it, start solving its problems.... And you will be unburdened and your energies will start moving creatively. This is one way.


If you feel that it is not possible for you then choose some work individually, personally, but work that has some challenge. The second path will give you only temporary relief: again and again you will be in trouble. If you can become part of the commune, you disappear; then you don't have any problems. And this is a beautiful phenomenon: when you don't have your problems and the problems are of the whole group, you work, you work hard, but still you remain out of it. It doesn't create any tension, any anguish, any anxiety. It is a joy, it is a game, because you can remain like an observer, you can be very objective about it. You need not be subjectively troubled by it.
Think about these two things.

[The sannyasin says he was hoping for a breakthrough with this problem.]


Right now you are not at the point where a breakthrough is possible. You will need greater challenges, more anxiety.... It will come one day, it will come one day. A breakthrough is possible only when you are close to a breakdown, never before it. And you are not close to a breakdown. You are going to Goa -- nothing to be.... It is not a breakdown .


If you can surrender to the commune things will change. There will be no need for breakdown or breakthrough: you will simply start looking at things in a different light.


[The sannyasin says one way for him to surrender would be to leave, as a challenge, to do something outside.]


If you surrender that is not your problem; then it is up to me. If I send you, go; if I don't send you, don't go. If you don't surrender then it is your problem; you have to decide what to do. If you surrender then it is not a problem at all for you; all your problems disappear. If I say '... just clean the floors in the ashram,' you clean the floors! Then it is none of your business: you can just be a witness to whatsoever is happening. If I send you out, you go out --  whatsoever is the need -- but that is not a question for you to decide. That is the meaning of surrender -- that you will never be decisive again, that decisiveness will not be required of you.


This is a challenge, this can become your last challenge, because after this you will not be deciding anything. So face this challenge, think it over. Let this challenge be there; it is the greatest challenge. It may become a breakthrough also because it will be the most difficult thing for you -- to surrender. Other challenges will be just small hillocks. They should be like Everest!
Think it over.


[The sannyasin then asks: If the physical body doesn't receive nourishment it dies. Does the spiritual body die if it doesn't receive love?]


No, it is not born. If the physical body does not get nourishment it dies... because it is already born. If the spiritual being does not get nourishment it is not born at all. People live without souls; the soul is not existent for everybody. They have only heard the word; they don't know what it means. They have never experienced anything like the soul; it is just a verbal expression.


Do you know what the soul is? You can define it because you have heard definitions but you don't know anything by your own experience. You know your body, you know your mind, but you don't know your soul and what it is all about.


If love becomes the nourishment then by and by the soul is born. There are a few things.... First, if the body does not get nourishment it will die. If the soul does not get nourishment it will not be born, one thing. The second thing: if the body goes on getting the nourishment it will still die one day. Once the soul is born it never dies. So the problem with the soul is how to bring it into existence. It is just a potentiality, not an actuality. It is just a seed: if you don't give it water and sunrays and manure, it will not become a sprout. Once it is born it never dies. Once it is born its very existence attracts love, its very existence showers love on others. So love becomes just a triggering point for the soul to be born.


And remember, millions of people don't have any souls. When I say they don't have any souls I don't mean that they can't have. They can but they are not yet born. They exist only as the body, at the most as the mind... but not as the soul. A soul is a rare phenomenon, and whenever you come across a man who has a soul you are immensely attracted, there is a great magnetic force.
About this, later on.... First think about the first thing, mm? Good!


[A sannyasin describes an explosion of energy which made her feel out of control, so she stayed isolated from everyone for eight days... ]

There is no need to control....
There is no need to do anything; simply be in it....


There is no need to stay isolated: be with people and remain alone inside....


It has been perfectly good, but next time if it happens you need not go into isolation. Just remain with people and remain alone; it will go deeper. This time it is okay, you have been in isolation, but next time don't be. Continue your work, continue meeting people, continue meditating, and keep it inside. It is there, but don't escape into isolation; then it will be richer.


Things are richer when they are with their polar opposite. When man and woman meet they are richer. When aloneness and communication are together they are richer. Otherwise ten days, then twenty days, then months, then years... One becomes a monk or a nun, and that is a kind of suicide! For a few days it is okay, nothing to be worried about, but next time if it happens you need not go into isolation, mm? And things are good!
			

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