---
section: Library
booktitle: "Om Shantih Shantih Shantih"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "SHANTI"
dategiven: "27 February 1988 pm"
place: " in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #4"
chaptertitle: "Life itself prepares the ground"
acode: "8802275"
shorttitle: "SHANTI04"
audio: "Yes"
video: "Yes"
esttime: "62mins"
displaytitle: "Om Shantih Shantih Shantih: Chapter #4"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
WHEN I FIRST SAT IN FRONT OF YOU I HEARD YOU SAY TO ME, "BRING LIGHT INTO THE UNCONSCIOUS."
EIGHT YEARS HAVE SINCE PASSED AND I FEEL MORE SILENT AND LOVING THAN EVER BEFORE AND YET SENSE THAT THERE IS MUCH MORE.
DOES THE LIGHT WHICH ENTERS THE UNCONSCIOUS COME THROUGH EFFORTS AND DETERMINATION, OR IS IT AN EXISTENTIAL GIFT, REQUIRING PATIENCE, OPENNESS AND RECEPTIVITY?
COULD YOU SPEAK ON WHAT IT MEANS TO BRING LIGHT INTO THE UNCONSCIOUS?</p>


Raymond, every step on the path reminds one of the utter poverty of language. I may have said to you, "Bring light into your unconscious," because in that moment you would not have understood what you can understand now.
You can only prepare the ground.
Light comes on its own accord.


And that is happening in all these eight years by your becoming more silent and more loving. But you feel a lingering sense that there is something more -- there is much more. Now I can say to you: Relax in your silence so it can become deeper. And relax in your love so it is no longer a solid thing but becomes more liquid, more flowing in all directions.


In short, learn the art of let-go. The light will come not according to your expectations or by any effort. Every effort will be a great hindrance and every expectation will create distance between you and the light.


In fact forget all about light.... Just listen to the sound of rain, the sound of wind and enjoy it with such intensity that in every enjoyment you disappear. Slowly, slowly one day you will find you are not. That is the greatest moment in a man's life, because the moment you find you are not, light enters in you. It waits until you vacate your innermost being. You are too full of yourself; there is no space for the great light to descend in you.


In a certain sense you have to die to be reborn, you have to be no more to be authentically yourself. This is logically very contradictory language, but I am not responsible for it. The whole responsibility is on the poverty of language. It has not been made to express the richer and higher experiences of consciousness. The descending of light is the ultimate, then the lingering sense that there is more will disappear.


That does not mean that there is not much more -- there is -- but what you have received is too much even to believe in it. You don't deserve it, you are not worthy of it and it is so vast that it is inconceivable that there can be much more beyond it. But there is no need to be worried about it. Just as the light has come it comes as a ray entering into your unconscious darkness, and soon it becomes thousands of suns, light exploding all over in all dimensions. Because of this fact the experience has been called enlightenment.


You are on the right path. Eight years ago if I had said these things to you, you would not have understood. I had to prepare you before I could say things which are unsayable. And there are so many things to be conveyed to you, but they will have to wait until you are prepared. When you are prepared just give me a hint, "I am ready."


Then I can forget logic, language. Then I can talk directly about the essential experience -- whether it is grammatical or not, who cares? One thing is certain, it is existential.


So from now onwards remember, stop bringing light into the unconscious -- please! From now onwards wait for the light to come. Wait with a throbbing heart, with a welcome, doors open -- because who knows when the light comes; there is no pre-information. It comes so suddenly, you have to be awake all the time, waiting by the side of the gate, keeping it open -- because the host can come any moment.


It is really the relationship between the guest and the host. You have to disappear and just become a waiting, utterly pure and silent, not waiting for something, simply waiting. The moment you can simply wait without demanding anything from existence and without desiring... Because behind every desire and behind every expectation and demand there is a complaint, "Why am I still in darkness? Why have you not come yet?" You may not say it clearly, but deep down you know.... Your heart cannot be grateful in such a situation.


Forget all about light, because it does not come by your remembering it, so what is the point of remembering? It comes by your deep relaxation, silence, peace, love, meditativeness and utter let-go. And one day you will suddenly find your whole being full of light, transformed from mortality into immortality, transformed from misery into blissfulness, into a blissfulness that knows no end.
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
YOU ALWAYS SAY THAT ONE BECOMES A SANNYASIN BECAUSE ONE IS SEEKING FOR TRUTH. WHEN YOU SAY THAT I ALWAYS FEEL VERY GUILTY, BECAUSE I KNOW I DIDN'T BECOME A SANNYASIN FOR THAT REASON. I BECAME A SANNYASIN BECAUSE I WANTED TO BE HAPPY, I WANTED TO GET RID OF ANGUISH AND TO LIVE ALL THE JOY MY HEART CAN CONTAIN.
PLEASE TELL ME SOMETHING ABOUT IT.</p>


Divyam Sabena, you are guilty! -- because what you call happiness is nothing but a by-product of the experience of truth. You may be seeking happiness, you may be seeking the ultimate, you may be seeking yourself... it doesn't matter, you are seeking the same thing. You are seeking to get rid of your ignorance, your misery, your anguish, but that happens only when you come face to face with the truth of your being.


You are guilty of misunderstanding. Now, no longer feel guilty. The energy that you are putting into feeling guilty, put it into searching for happiness, and you will find that your search for happiness is another name for what I have called the truth.


"Quick," yells little Ernie as he rushes into the drugstore, "my Dad is hanging upside down by his pants leg in a barbed wire fence!"


"What do you need?" asked the druggist. "Help or first aid supplies?"


"Nothing like that," says Ernie breathlessly, "I want another roll of film for my camera!"

Just misunderstanding is not guilt....


Two old black ladies are about to get their picture taken. As the photographer pulls the black cloth over his head and starts to adjust the lens, one lady asks the other, "What is he doing?"
She answers, "He is going to focus!"
The other lady looks at her friend in shock and says, "Both of us?"
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
SEX IS DISAPPEARING, IMMENSE CREATIVITY IS OPENING UP, LOVE IS HAPPENING. IT FEELS LIKE A COOL BREEZE INSIDE, UNEXCITED AND VERY ALONE. THEN THE MIND COMES IN AND SAYS, "YOUR HEART IS NOT OPEN," AND TRIES TO DOUBT THIS SPACE OF COOLNESS.
COULD YOU PLEASE TALK ABOUT THIS?</p>


Turiya, again a German...! It seems I am going to make the whole of Germany enlightened! Knowing perfectly well what happened about Nandan, still you say, "Sex is disappearing, immense creativity is opening up, love is happening." My God! "It feels like a cool breeze inside, unexcited and very alone. Then the mind comes and says, 'Your heart is not open,' and tries to doubt this space of coolness. Could you please talk about this?"


How many times have I to remind you that this kind of enlightenment will happen many times.
Sex will disappear -- and will appear again.
The heart will open -- and will close again.
It is the natural process.


Your mind is not creating a doubt. Your mind is simply reminding you not to get caught into great words, "cool breeze... unexcited and very alone...."
Wake up and become unenlightened again!


Enlightenment needs many times of waking up from the dreams. Because you are all listening continuously about enlightenment, and everybody is talking about it, naturally you start thinking it is happening to everybody. It has happened to Nandan -- and Turiya is a princess! What kind of enlightenment happens to a commoner and the royal blood is still unenlightened? Jump up... you have to be ahead of all...!


But then the cool breeze brings with it the boyfriend, unexpectedly. You were not hoping that he would come so soon! And then everything becomes hot. Mind reminds you -- it will remind you again. But you say, "Wait, this boyfriend is going to go back again in three weeks." It is only a question of three weeks then you can become enlightened again: "Just for three weeks don't be miserly. Open your heart, let love flow."


And these boyfriends are such -- and particularly in this temple, if one boyfriend disappears, another appears. We don't make much fuss about asking, "Who are you? What is your name?" When love knocks on the door you open it and receive the guest. Even if he is not German, it will do -- at least for the time being until the German returns! And everybody has a spare boyfriend; it is intelligent always to have some spare parts. In this technological age you cannot simply depend without having spares.


So if the real does not appear the spare comes -- and this will happen many times until you are really fed up. Then sex does not disappear; then you simply transcend it. It remains where it is. How can it disappear?


Everything remains the same. You are just more mature, more centered, more happy for no reason at all. For the first time your happiness is independent. It does not depend on anybody. For the first time aloneness has a beauty, a tremendous beauty, the beauty which only roses know or the stars.


That day will also come, Turiya, but before it comes these kinds of things will happen many times. Just be a watcher; enjoy these too. It is perfectly good to feel once in a while that sex has disappeared, one feels so clean, as if you have just taken a cool shower. It is beautiful to feel a creativity arising in you; nothing is wrong in it. The trouble is that these are only your dreams, not your realizations. So when they surround you they look as if they are real, but when they disappear leaving you in a dark ditch, you understand that your mind has destroyed everything, doubted. If the mind had not doubted, everything was going so good.


Mind is not disturbing and mind cannot disturb anything real, and mind cannot doubt anything real. Mind doubts only the unreal, the belief, the imagination, the dream -- and it is good, it is helpful, it is healthy that the mind by doubting prevents you from falling into the trap of the unreal.


Don't be in a hurry; otherwise you will start clinging to any dream. Be relaxed. Life itself prepares the ground. Its experiences itself bring the maturity and the moment in which you are transformed. Then there is no mind to doubt, then there is no question about it. The real has never been questioned.


Do you think when Gautam Buddha became enlightened his mind said, "Just think over it; it may be just a dream." Not for a split second can truth be doubted once you should encounter it.


Your doubt is perfectly healthy and your experience is perfectly normal. But one day the real will arrive, because you are searching, seeking, honestly and sincerely with your totality. That day you will not find mind anywhere.


But right now it is too early. Listen to the mind; try to understand. You are not yet ripe. Your meditation is not yet deep enough, but it is deepening. So be happy that you are on the right track.


For sixty years Ruthy Finkelstein has lived with her tight-fisted husband Moishe. One fine day Moishe dies and Ruthy has him cremated.


She takes the ashes home with her in a plastic urn. She walks around her home carrying the urn and talking to the dead Moishe. "Moishe," she says, "look at the fridge! All those years you would not give me money for housekeeping. Now look, it is full of champagne and caviar. And Moishe, look at my closet. All the time we were married you never allowed me more than one new dress every two years. Now look, it is full of silk dresses and fur coats and the jewelry box is full of diamonds. And Moishe, all those years you would not let me have anything to do with the business. Well, today I took over as chairman."


Finally, in the bedroom she opens the little plastic urn and shakes his ashes onto the windowsill. "And Moishe," she says, "you remember that blowjob you always nagged me for? Well, here it is... pfft!"


Turiya, don't take things seriously; life is so hilarious. There is no urgency to be enlightened. It is unfortunate that I became enlightened too early! But now nothing can be done about it -- once enlightened, enlightened forever.


Let life and its different dimensions be experienced by you. As you experience life, slowly, slowly you become aware of its emptiness. Slowly, slowly you become aware that this is not your authentic being. In this slow process of experiencing, one day you come home. Then it is not a dream, not an imagination. And the most significant criterion to remember is that you will not find mind in your authentic enlightenment. The question of doubt does not arise, not even for a moment. You simply know what is the case.


I know the trouble of being enlightened. That's why I make you alert. Don't be in a hurry; otherwise you will blame me. I don't want to take the blame. Nobody can say to me, "I am grateful to you that you helped me to become enlightened." I help you to learn and love and live as totally as possible. Out of this, enlightenment is bound to happen some day -- but there is no hurry for it. It is your birthright, so you cannot avoid it long enough. Sooner or later -- and most probably sooner than later -- it is going to happen.


But I am telling you, I don't want to take any credit for it because then you will see that this whole life is utterly futile, meaningless, no action is of any worth -- and then you will search.


That's why I keep myself locked in my room. I don't want people rushing to me saying, "Now it is your fault. You talked about enlightenment and I have become enlightened. Now what do you suppose I should do?"


There is nothing to be done, you have become enlightened, close the door and lock yourself inside! Or if you are really angry, try to make others enlightened: Look what life has done to you.... Do it to others!


No one can persuade little Ernie's great-aunt Esmeralda that she does not possess extraordinary, supernatural powers. Little Ernie believes her when she tells him about one of her visions: "Keep a close eye on your father tomorrow," she says. "I feel it in my bones that he is going to pop off before nightfall."


Little Ernie never lets his dad out of his sight the next day. They go to the office together in the morning and then to the park in the afternoon. Nothing unusual happens all day, but when they get home in the evening little Ernie's mother greets them at the front door.


"A terrible thing happened here this morning," she sobs, "the milkman dropped dead on the kitchen floor!"


Turiya, you cannot find a more hilarious life than this. After enlightenment there is nothing -- to tell you the truth. So manage to do everything before enlightenment strikes! I will try my best to make you enlightened; you try your best not to become enlightened! Don't get caught into my words.


Just look at Nandan, she became enlightened and became unenlightened quickly -- and now she will not become enlightened again so soon!


Most probably by the time I answer the question -- it takes two or three days -- Turiya may have already dropped the idea of enlightenment, "What is the hurry, why not enjoy a few more days of the juicy life?" I can see her sitting just there behind Devageet -- and she is enjoying. That means that the dream of enlightenment is finished!

Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Beloved Master.
			

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