---
section: Library
booktitle: "God Is Not For Sale"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "SALE"
dategiven: "16 October 1976 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #5"
chaptertitle: "None"
acode: "7610165"
shorttitle: "SALE05"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "God Is Not For Sale: Chapter #5"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
<!--This file is automatically generated. Do not edit!-->


[A visitor says: I've been here for five days and have been running the gammit of feelings from thinking you're a phoney, to laughing at you. Now I'm at the point where all I have to say is -- good, lord!
Osho had recounted a joke at the morning discourse that went like this:]


A man went to a ranch to buy a horse, pointed at one and said, 'My, that' s a beautiful pony right there. What kind is it?'
'That's a palomino,' said the rancher.


'Well, any friend of yours is a friend of mine. I would like to buy that pony,' said the man.


The rancher replied, 'I gotta tell you sir, it was owned by a preacher man. If you want the horse to move, you say, "Good Lord!" If you want the horse to stop, you gotta say, "Amen!" '
'Let me try that horse,' said the buyer. He mounted and said, 'Good Lord!'


The horse promptly moved out and was soon galloping up on the mountains. The man was yelling, 'Good Lord! Good Lord!' and the horse was really moving. Suddenly he was coming up to the end of the cliff and panic-striken, he yelled, 'Whoa, whoa.' That did not work, and then he remembered and said, 'Amen. '


The horse stopped right on the end of the cliff, and, wiping his brow with relief, the man said, 'Good Lord!'


Mm (chuckles). Good! Very good. But before you say it, orange will be good. Then you can say 'Good, Lord', and jump into the abyss! Get into tune in things here. And that's what you have been doing your whole life, so you can easily get into this community, very easily. You are ready, absolutely ready. So should I give you sannyas today? (she nods) Close your eyes!


This will be your sannyas name: Ma Deva Varta. Deva means divine, varta means tidings, divine tidings. And tremendous is the possibility.

[VARTA: My hope is to work with alcoholics and help them in some way.]


Mm, you can work, and you will be ready to work in many things. The basic problem for the alcoholics is that they have somewhere missed love in their life; that is the basic problem. Alcohol is not the problem, never! It is just a symptom. The problem is they wanted to be loved and nobody loved them.

[VARTA: Most of them are searching for God.]


Yes, they are searching. In fact, the search for love is the search for God. They are not two different things... only two different names. And love is a better name than God because it is less theological, more human. Jesus says, 'God is love,' and I say, 'Love is God.'


... In fact they are one, not interchangeable. They are not two things. If they are two, they can be interchangeable. They are not two at all -- just two names for one phenomenon. A person goes into drugs or alcohol or things like that; he has not loved, and that's why he could not love. Then the whole life is futile and meaningless. He wants to drown himself somewhere; he wants to commit suicide. This is a slow suicide. He simply avoids life. He wants to drown, he wants to forget everything. His search is for the meaning of why he is here. He would like to become part of some context where meaning becomes possible, where he feels relevant. That's what happens when you love: suddenly you become relevant in this irrelevant existence. Suddenly you are needed. and your need to be needed is fulfilled. Suddenly you are not just uselessly here, not accidentally here. Somebody needs you. Without you the world will not be so beautiful.


The moment you can feel.... Even if a single person will miss you, the world will miss you. If somebody will be crying and weeping for you when you are not there, even if a single person -- a woman, a man, a child, a friend, a mother, a father; anybody -- even if a single soul will feel the gap, then you were needed; you were not just accidental here. You were essential to existence and you were significant. Once a person starts feeling significant these problems start disappearing.


So you can work. Help them to find their love. Love them. That is the only way to help. And help them to meditate. My meditations can be of tremendous value to such people, because just telling them to sit silently won't help. They need something very active that can bring them up from their morose state. They need something very dynamic, like a whirlwind, so that they can be pulled up from their dark holes in which they have settled. They need something wild. Civilised things won't help much, because in fact it is civilisation that has put them in their dark holes. So civilised measures are of no use at all.


In fact the more you talk in terms of civilisation, the more you make them feel guilty and alienated. And that's what religious people have been doing to them.


It is sprinkling salt on their wounds. You are the culprit... the religious people are the culprit They have driven them to that comer and now they come like missionaries to help. Now they become the people who are to solve your problems. Mm? First they throw you down into the hell and then they are ready there to help you, to serve you. The whole thing is a game and a very ugly game at that.


So these dynamic methods can be of tremendous help. Catharsis will be very helpful. If they can shout and scream and they can jump and dance, suddenly they will start coming out of their slumber, out of their unconsciousness. Music can be of tremendous help -- wild music. It can stir them. Sophisticated music cannot be of much help because they have gone too far for that. The sophisticated music goes only skin-deep. They need wild primitive music which can stir their souls again and can become a challenge to their being. And love.... Love them. Love can do miracles!


[A seeker says: I don't know about sannyas. I have been with Baba Muktananda. Also before that, another. I never surrendered.]

Mm. But now the point has come!
And you cannot escape!


Surrender happens. It is not a question of doing. You can go to a thousand and one masters but it will happen only with one. And you cannot do it; it is nothing that you can do. If you do it it is not of much use, because you're doing.... How much use can it be? It simply happens. It is a love affair. And it is natural that a seeker has to go to many people. Somewhere something clicks; it can click anywhere. It depends on the type of the energy the master has and on the type of energy that you have. If they meet, if they are of the same wavelength, then surrender happens. Then suddenly you feel pulled.


... Good, you have come home. And this will be your new name -- so forget the old name, forget the past, forget all those wanderings -- Swami Sudhananda. Sudha means pure, and ananda means bliss, pure bliss. Sudhananda means pure bliss. And you may not be aware of it but it is very close by, this pure bliss. You may be aware of only the dark night, but the dawn is very close by. The darker the night, the closer the dawn. I can see it just on the horizon.


This is what surrender is. It has nothing to do with your beliefs. It is a blind love affair. You fall in love with a woman -- not that you manage, not that you do love; you simply find yourself in love. The same thing happens on the spiritual path also. Suddenly you are in love with a god and there is no escape. Even if you want to escape, there is no escape. Suddenly your whole life up to that moment becomes just a progression towards this point. You may have gone to this master, to that -- all that has helped you to come to me. So be grateful towards all of them; they help in their own ways. Otherwise you may not have been here. Now be grateful, but forget the past.
			

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