---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Diamond Sutra"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "DIAMON"
dategiven: "26 December 1977 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #6"
chaptertitle: "Bodhisattvahood"
acode: "7712260"
shorttitle: "DIAMON06"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "81mins"
displaytitle: "The Diamond Sutra: Chapter #6"
---

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The first question:
<p class="question">BELOVED OSHO,</p>
<p class="question">WHAT IS ALL THIS STUFF ABOUT BODHISATTVAS? I DON'T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT. THERE IS NO SUCH THING.</p>


Yes, Somendra, it is all nonsense. But you will have to understand the word nonsense. It is beyond sense. You need not believe it, you cannot believe it -- you can only experience it. It is a nonsense experience. But it is true, it is absolutely true. It happens. Till it happens there is no way to believe in it, and there is no need either. Buddha is never in favor of any kind of belief. Whatsoever he says, it is experience, it is existential. It is something beyond the mind.


Ordinarily we use the word nonsense for that which is below mind. But there is something beyond mind too -- that too is nonsense. The mind cannot make any sense out of it. Unless your mind disappears you will not be able to see what this bodhi-being is. It is not a thing, true. It is an experiencing.


You know desire, you know passion, you know sex, you know love. Try to explain it to a child in whom the sexual desire has not yet taken form, and he will say it is all nonsense. Just try to explain it to a four-year-old child -- that you have fallen in love -- and he will look at you with unbelieving eyes. What are you talking about? What is this stuff 'love'?


And all your romance and all your poetry and all that is throbbing in your heart is impossible to relate to a child. He has not tasted of that experience yet, he is unaware of it. The desire has not arisen in him. Buddha calls that desire WASANA. That wasana has not arisen in him. And unless it arises there is no way to communicate anything about it.


The same wasana, the same energy that is involved in desire, in sex, in love, one day is freed of desire. One day desire drops. Just as one day it arises, one day it drops too. Anything that is born will die, anything that begins will end. And if life goes very very naturally and spontaneously then there is a certain stage which can be demarked.


Sex arises at the age of fourteen -- sexual maturity -- and the child is thrilled with something unknown and new. The child has got the wind of desire, a great passion and fire is arising in him. Now never again will he be that innocence that was there before this desire. He will never look at things with that innocence again.


If life moves spontaneously, naturally, then exactly fourteen years before your death the desire will disappear; exactly fourteen years before your death sex will become irrelevant. Suddenly again you will find that dream is no more there, that passion has subsided, that storm has disappeared, and there is silence, utter silence. But your energy was involved in the desire, the desire has disappeared, where will the energy go?


You are still creating energy by food, by breathing, by exercise, by living. You go on transforming divine energy into human energy. Where will this energy gO? The old path is no more available; it cannot move into the direction of sexuality. Where will it move? Buddha has another word for it. He calls it KARUNA, compassion.


Passion is no more significant. Energy is available, great energy is available. It needs somewhere to move, because energy cannot be static, its very nature is to be dynamic. It starts overflowing from you in compassion. That is the state of a bodhisattva. When sex disappears, desire disappears, future disappears. When you are suddenly herenow and you have that great energy in you and you cannot contain it, it starts flowing, it starts overflowing your cup. It is compassion.


This is the state of a bodhisattva. It is not a thing. And it does not happen ordinarily because people have become unnatural. That's why in all the languages of the world, when an old man is interested in sex it is thought to be something dirty -- the dirty old man. Why dirty? The young man is not thought to be dirty, but why the old?


The phrase has come down the ages from the ancient past when it used not to happen. It was an ill state of affairs. It was not normal, it was abnormal -- something had gone wrong. Otherwise, before your death the desire has to disappear. Otherwise, what have you been doing in life if you have not even come to that point where desire disappears? You have missed the opportunity of life.


And remember, I am not against desire. I am all for it. When it is time, go into it. And go into it so totally that when the time comes to get out of it, you can get out of it totally too. Only one who goes totally in it will be capable of coming totally out of it. One who goes lukewarm, halfheartedly, partially, in a repressed way, will never be able to get out of the entanglement, will never be able to see the stupidity of it, will never be able to see the illusoriness of it.


So I am not against desire. I am all for passion: go into it, and go totally and wholeheartedly. While it is time, see whatsoever is possible to see. That very seeing will make you free of it, and one day the fruit is ripe to fall down. When the ripe fruit falls down, the tree is unburdened. In that unburdening, what will you do? The energy will still be there -- more so, because before it was involved in so many things; now it is not involved at all. Relaxed, you will become a reservoir of energy. This energy will start overflowing you, for no reason at all.


A bodhisattva is one who has so much that he needs to give it, who has so much that when you accept his love, his being, his enlightenment, you oblige him. He is like a flower full of fragrance... and the fragrance wants to be freed to the winds. Or he is like a cloud full of rainwater... and is searching a thirsty earth which can welcome it, which can absorb it. So is a bodhisattva... a cloud full of rainwater, moving hither and thither in search of a thirsty soul, in search of somebody who will wel-come. The bodhisattva is obliged to you when you accept his gift.


Bodhisattvahood is a state of consciousness. It is nonsense, true. It is not a thing, true, Somendra -- but it happens. It is very illogical. It is illogical, it looks absurd, because it does not relate to your experience yet. But soon many of you are going to enter into that realm. I see many of you just standing on the threshold. You cannot see. I can see that you are on the threshold, getting ready to take the ultimate jump. When it has happened then you will know what Buddha is talking about.


The Diamond Sutra is not preached to the layman, it is preached only to the sannyasins, only to those who are coming to bodhisattvahood or those who have come. In fact it has to be preached before one is coming to bodhisattvahood, because in that moment of bodhisattvahood, if you don't know anything about what to do, if you are not aware that there is a way to unburden -- that you can release your blissfulness, that there is no need to contain it -- if you don't know anything about it, it will be difficult for you, very difficult. Your very blissfulness will become a pain in the chest, will become an ache in the heart. Rather than becoming a dance and a song it will become painful.


Do you know, when bliss becomes very intense it becomes painful. When light is too intense it is too dazzling, and you almost go blind. When love is too much you cannot bear it. When joy is too much, your heart can stop; it can be too painful. And you don't know anything. When bodhisattvahood happens, the joy is such, the magnitude of it, the blissfulness is such, the intensity of it, that you can die just out of it or you can go mad.


Buddhism is the only tradition in the world where bodhisattvas have not been known to go mad. Why? In Sufism they go mad, in Hinduism they go mad, many of them go mad. Sufis have a special name for them -- MASTAS. But there is nothing like that in Buddha's tradition. Why? Buddha is so aware of all the possibilities and is preparing the path so scientifically that he goes on giving you indications, directions, suggestions, for those moments which are going to happen.


Down the ages, in these twenty-five centuries, never a Buddhist saint has been known to go mad, it is rare. In Sufism many go mad, in Hinduism many go mad. The reason is that Sufis and Hindus have nothing compared to bodhisattvahood; no instruction is given. And in the West the problem is even more complicated. Christianity has no idea about it. So in Christianity it has happened that ordinary people who were not in any way saints, have been worshipped as saints. and those who were saints have been declared mad, or possessed by the devil.


In many Western asylums there are people who are not really mad but because of bodhisattvahood they have gone mad. They don't need psychiatric treatment, they don't need electric shocks, they don't need tranquilizers. They don't need unnecessary torture, they don't need psychoanalysis. All that they need is a compassionate Buddha around them. The presence of a Buddha -- all that is needed is that. Just the presence of the Buddha will bring them back, will become a great pull, a magnetic force, and will bring them back to their consciousness. But they are being tortured, they are being put through unnecessary things, because once you think they are mad you start treating them as mad.


Buddhism is one of the most scientific religions of the world. It has all the maps that are needed for the growth of consciousness. And bodhisattvahood is very essential. Before one becomes a Buddha one is bound to pass through bodhisattvahood. But, Somendra, it is nonsense, that is true.

The second question:
<p class="question">BELOVED OSHO,</p>
<p class="question">WHERE DOES CARE FOR OTHERS BECOME INTERFERENCE?</p>


The moment ideology enters, care becomes interference, love turns bitter, becomes almost a kind of hatred, and your protection becomes a prison. The ideology makes the difference.


For example, if you are a mother, take care of the child. He needs you, he cannot survive without you. You are a must. He needs food, he needs love, he needs care -- but he does not need your ideology. He does not need your ideals. He does not need your Christianity, your Hinduism, your Islam, your Buddhism. He does not need your scriptures, he does not need your beliefs. He does not need your ideals of how he should be. Only avoid ideology, ideals, goals, ends, and then care is beautiful, then care is innocent. Otherwise care is cunning.


When there is no ideology in your caring -- you don't want to make your child a Christian, you don't want to make your child this or that, communist or fascist, you don't want your child to become a businessman or a doctor or an engineer.... You don't have any ideas for your child. You say, "I will love, and when you grow up, YOU choose -- and be whatsoever is natural for you to be. My blessings... whatsoever you are, my blessings.
"And whatsoever you will be, from my side you are accepted and welcome. Not that only when you become the president of the country will I love you and if you become just a carpenter then there will be no love, then I will feel ashamed of you. Not that only when you bring a gold medal from the university will there be a welcome and if you come a failure I will be ashamed of you. Not that only when you are good, virtuous, moral, this and that, will you be my child and otherwise I am not related to you, you are not related to me."


The moment you bring any idea, you bring poison in the relationship. Care is beautiful, but when care has some idea, then it is cunningness, then it is a bargain, then it has conditions. And all our love is cunning, hence this misery in the world, this hell. Not that care is not there -- care is there, but it is with too much cunningness. The mother cares, the father cares, the husband cares, the wife cares, the brother, the sister -- everybody is caring. I'm not saying that nobody is caring -- people are caring too much, but still the world is hell.


Something is wrong, something is fundamentally wrong. What is that fundamental wrong? Where do things go wrong? Caring has conditions in it: "Do this! Be that!" Have you ever loved anybody with no conditions? Have you ever loved anybody as he or she is? You don't want to improve, you don't want to change; your acceptance is total, utter. Then you know what care is. You will be fulfilled through that care, and the other will be helped immensely.


And remember, if your care has no business in it, no ambitions in it, the person you cared about will love you forever. But if your care has some ideas in it, then the person you cared about will never be able to forgive you. That's why children are incapable of forgiving their parents.


You go and ask the psychiatrists, the psychoanalysts -- all the cases that come to them are the cases of children whose parents cared too much. But their care was businesslike; it was cold, it was calculated. They wanted some of their ambitions to be fulfilled through the child. Love has to be a free gift. The moment there is a price tag on it, it is no more love.

The third question:
<p class="question">BELOVED OSHO,</p>
<p class="question">WHY DON'T YOU ALLOW NONVEGETARIAN FOOD IN THE ASHRAM?</p>


The question is from Swami Yoga Chinmaya. There must be some idea in Chinmaya's mind to eat meat. There must be some deep hidden violence. Otherwise the question is coming from a vegetarian and there are thousands of nonvegetarians here. This looks very absurd, but this is how things are. The vegetarian is not a true vegetarian; he is just a repressed one. Desire arises.


But why I don't allow nonvegetarian food in the ashram has nothing to do with religion, it is just pure aesthetics. I am not one who thinks that if you take nonvegetarian food you will not become enlightened. Jesus became enlightened, Mohammed became enlightened, Ramakrishna became enlightened -- there has been no problem about it. You can take nonvegetarian food and you can become enlightened, so there is no religious problem about it.


To me the problem is that of aesthetics. Because Jesus continued to eat meat, I have a feeling that he did not have a great aesthetic sense. Not that he is not religious -- he is perfectly religious, as religious as Buddha, but something is missing in him. Ramakrishna continued to eat fish; just nonaesthetic, it looks a little ugly.


Enlightenment is not at stake, but your poetry is at stake, your sense of beauty is at stake. Your humanity is at stake, not your super-humanity. That's why it is not allowed in my ashram -- and it will not be allowed. It is a question of beauty.


If you understand this many things will be clear to you. Alcohol can be allowed in this ashram but not meat, because alcohol is vegetarian -- fruit juice.... fermented, but it is fruit juice. And sometimes to be a little drunk gives rise to great poetry. That is possible, that has to be allowed. In the new commune we are going to have a bar -- Omar Khayyam. Omar Khayyam is a Sufi saint, one of the enlightened Sufis.


But meat cannot be allowed, that is just ugly. Just to think that you are killing an animal to eat, just the very idea, is unaesthetic. I am not against it because the animal is killed... because that which is essential in the animal will live, it cannot be killed, and that which is nonessential, whether you kill it or not, is going to die. So that is irrelevant, that is not a point for me to consider.


The question is not that you have killed the animal and killing is not good, no. The question is that you have killed the animal -- you. Just to eat? While beautiful vegetarian food is available? If vegetarian food is not available, that's one thing. But the food IS available. Then why? Then why destroy a body? And if you can kill an animal, then why not be a cannibal? What is wrong with killing a man? The meat derived from a human body will be more in tune with you. Why not start eating human beings? That too is a question of aesthetics.


And the animals are brothers and sisters, because man has come from them. They are our family. To kill a man is only to kill an evolved animal, or to kill an animal is just to kill somebody who is not yet evolved but is on the way. It is the same. Whether you kill the child when he is in the first grade or whether you kill the young man when he has come to his last grade in the university, it does not make much difference. The animals are moving towards human beings, and human beings had once been animals. It is only a question of aesthetics. Why not kill your wife and eat her? She is so beautiful and so sweet....


A friend came to a cannibal and the food was prepared and the friend had never tasted anything like it. He had never even dreamed that food could be so tasty, so delicious. When he was leaving he said to the cannibal, "I loved the food. I have never loved food so much. When I come next, prepare the same dishes."


And the cannibal said, "That is difficult, because I only had one mother."


Why can't you eat your mother? Why can't you eat your husband or your child? -- so delicious. The question is not religious, I would like to remind you again, it is a question of aesthetics. An aesthetic man will see that life remains beautiful it does not become ugly and nightmarish.


But the question has arisen in Chinmaya's mind, that shows something. In India people who are vegetarian are not really vegetarian; it is just because they are born in a vegetarian family, so from the very beginning the vegetarianism has been imposed on them. And naturally they are curious, naturally they want to taste other things also, and naturally the idea arises, "The whole world is nonvegetarian; people must be enjoying." The vegetarian feels that somehow he is missing much. That's why the question has arisen.


It has nothing to do with meditation. You can eat meat and you can meditate. You can eat meat and you can love. It has nothing to do with love either. But you will be showing one thing about yourself -- that you are very crude, that you are very primitive, uncultured, uncivilized; that you don't have any sense of how life should be. It was out of an aesthetic sense that vegetarianism was born. It became entangled in religion and got lost. It has been taken out from the religious context.


People come to see me and they ask, a Jaina asked me, "How can you say that Jesus was enlightened? -- because he was a meat-eater...." His question is relevant because he thinks that meat-eaters cannot become enlightened. Meat-eaters can become enlightened, just as people who are not poets can become enlightened. That is not a barrier. People who don't have any sense of beauty, who will not see any beauty in a rose, can become enlightened... who will not see any beauty in the moon, can become enlightened... who will not have any taste for Beethoven's music, can become enlightened. But Jesus shows something crude. Maybe it was not possible, maybe he lived amongst people who were all meat-eaters. It would have been difficult for him to be a vegetarian. It would have been almost impossible for him. But still, that trouble has to be taken.


But remember that here my whole approach is an integrated approach. Meditation is needed, so is poetry, so is aesthetics, so is religion, so is music, so is art. Man should evolve in many dimensions in an integrated way. Then comes the ultimate flowering when all your petals have opened. And you will have greater joy and greater benediction in life.


Saint Francis is far more aesthetic than Jesus. Naturally there are stories about Saint Francis that birds would come and sit on his shoulders, that fishes would jump out of the river to see him. He had a kind of affinity with the animal kingdom. He would talk to trees and would say 'sister' and with birds 'brother' and with the sun and the moon. That would not happen to Jesus, that would not happen to Mohammed. That cannot happen.


And still I say they are enlightened people, but their enlightenment misses one thing -- aesthetic sensibility. Why miss it? Why not have the whole of it. Why not become enlightened in all the possible ways? in your totality?

The fourth question:
<p class="question">BELOVED OSHO,</p>
<p class="question">WHAT IS IT TO BE SURRENDERED TO YOU?</p>


Savita, that which you don't have and you think that you have, has to be surrendered to me. You don't really have the ego, the I, the self. You don't have it really. You are living in a kind of illusion that you are separate from existence. That separation is not there. You cannot live for a single split moment as separate. You cannot live like an island. You are part of the whole. The whole goes on participating in your being, the whole goes on showering you with its energy, but you have the idea that "I am separate."


That 'I' has to be surrendered to me. And you don't have it, so you will not be really surrendering something to me, just an illusion. Let me repeat: that which you don't have, I want to take it away from you. And that which you have, I want to give it back to you. Your reality I want to give back to you; you have forgotten about it. And your unreality I want to take away from you.


Remember, when you surrender your ego you don't lose anything, you gain -- you gain reality. It is as if you were sleeping and you were dreaming and then I come and wake you up. Your dream is lost. But have you lost anything? The dream was not there in the first place, it was not a reality. It was a dream, only a dream, and now you open your eyes and it is morning and the sun is rising and the birds are singing and the trees are happy with the new day.


I give you that which is and I take away that which is not. I wake you up. You don't lose anything. And remember, I don't gain anything because of your surrender. So don't be miserly. Don't think that I will be gaining anything out of your surrender -- I don't gain anything. When I wake you up, your dream is lost but I don't get your dream. Otherwise I would never have said to surrender your egos to me; otherwise I will be almost crushed, killed.


A very boring man came to see his friend. The friend was very afraid because of his past experiences with this man. He bored him and bored him and talked and talked, hours and hours, and then when he was leaving he said, "This is strange. When I came I had a headache, now it has gone."


And the sufferer, the victim, said, "Don't be worried about that -- I have got it now. It has not gone anywhere."


When you surrender the ego, I don't get it. When you surrender your headache, I don't get anything out of it. So don't be miserly. Don't think that I must be piling up great treasures because so many people are surrendering to me. I don't get anything. What you surrender is nothing. But you gain much out of the surrender. You get reality, you get your authenticity back.

The fifth question:
<p class="question">BELOVED OSHO,</p>
<p class="question">AS I LISTEN TO YOU TALK ABOUT BUDDHA AND SARIPUTRA SUBHUTI, ANANDA, MAHAKASHYAPA, I FEEL MORE AND MORE THAT YOU WERE ACTUALLY THERE WHEN BUDDHA LIVED AND THAT YOU UNDERSTAND AND REVERE HIM NOT ONLY BECAUSE YOU SHARE THE SAME CONSCIOUSNESS, BUT BECAUSE YOU EXPERIENCED HIM DIRECTLY WHEN HE WAS IN THE BODY. IS THIS SO?</p>


Pramod, yes. But don't tell it to anybody. Keep it a secret. And never ask anything about it again.

The sixth question:
<p class="question">WHAT DO YOU THINK OSHO? HAVE I THE SLIGHTEST IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT OR WOULD THE SLIGHTEST IDEA BE THE WRONG THING TO HAVE?

Yes, Subhuti.

The seventh question:</p>
<p class="question">OSHO,
BUDDHA SAYS THAT ALL WE ARE IS A RESULT OF WHAT WE HAVE THOUGHT. IT IS FOUNDED ON OUR THOUGHTS, IT IS MADE UP OF OUR THOUGHTS. IF A MAN SPEAKS OR ACTS WITH A PURE THOUGHT HAPPINESS FOLLOWS HIM LIKE A SHADOW.
HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO NO-MIND FOR WE CAN THINK PURELY AND CONTROL OUR THOUGHTS, WE CAN OBTAIN HAPPINESS, YET NO-MIND SEEMS TO APPEAR TO BE CONTRADICTORY TO CONTROLLING THOUGHT?</p>


The first thing. There are three minds possible. One: the evil mind, which lives in a destructive way, which thinks of destroying, which enjoys creating suffering for people. To such a mind Buddha says misery will follow like a shadow. If you want to create misery for others you will be creating misery for yourself finally. If you are against existence, existence will be against you -- because existence is a mirror, it echoes you.


If you abuse, abuses will come and fall on you. If you sing a beautiful song, the song will come back and shower upon you. Whatsoever you give comes back to you a thousandfold. Whatsoever you sow you will reap a thousandfold. So the evil mind is followed by misery, the evil mind is followed by hell. The evil mind is one who enjoys torturing, destroying, murdering. Tamurlane, Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin -- these are the evil minds.


Then there is the holy mind -- against the evil mind, just diametrically opposite to it. It is creative, it enjoys seeing people happy. It helps, serves, is a great bestower of happiness on others. It loves to see people happy. Happiness follows like a shadow to this mind -- the holy mind.


But there is one thing more that you are not aware of. If happiness is there, then just beyond it somewhere unhappiness will be present. If unhappiness is there, then somewhere on the boundary happiness will be present. They go together. The evil mind is followed by misery, by hell, but somewhere hell is followed by heaven. The holy mind is followed by happiness, but happiness is followed by unhappiness, because they cannot be separate. They are not two phenomena.


How can you be happy if you cannot be unhappy? If you have forgotten what unhappiness is you will have forgotten happiness too. If you don't know what disease is, illness is, you will not be able to feel your health, wellbeing. It is impossible. To keep alert that you are healthy, sometimes illness is a must.


You cannot write with a white chalk on a white wall. Not that you cannot write -- you CAN write, but nobody will be able to read it, not even you. To write with a white chalk you need a blackboard. The blackboard functions as the background. The white chalk becomes the figure. So is life. Your happiness is like the white chalk: it needs a black background. The holy man lives in happiness but his happiness is a figure and unhappiness is there like a background. Without unhappiness there he will never be able to know what happiness is; without contrast there is no way to know.


So ultimately the holy mind and the evil mind are not two minds, they are two aspects of the same coin. The saint and the sinner exist together. The saint can turn into a sinner any moment and the sinner can turn into a saint any moment. They are not far away, they are not distant neighbors. They live very close by, they are very intimate. Their boundaries meet and merge.


The third mind is no-mind -- neither saint nor sinner, neither happiness nor unhappiness. The duality is dropped. Then there is silence, serenity. Then there is peace, all turmoil is gone.


Remember, even happiness is a turmoil, even happiness is a kind of fever. You like it, that is one thing, but it is fever, it is feverish. Have you not watched it? When you are happy, you start getting tired of it. Once in a while it is okay, but you cannot remain happy for long. Sooner or later you become fed up with it. It is tiring.


If you are too happy you will not be able to sleep in the night. In the same way, if you are too unhappy you will not be able to sleep in the night, you will not be able to relax. Happiness becomes a tension. Both are tiring. When happiness tires you, you move towards unhappiness. When unhappiness tires you, you start moving towards happiness, and that's how the pendulum of life goes on swinging, swaying, from one extreme to another. No-mind is a totally different thing. It has nothing to do with mind, happy or unhappy, holy or unholy.


Do you remember? When Bodhidharma went to China, the Emperor Wu asked him a few questions. One of the questions was, 'I have created many monasteries, made many Buddha temples. I have opened my treasures for the spread of Buddha's message. Don't you think it is holy?'


And Bodhidharma laughed and he said, 'What is holy in it? It is a kind of business. You are planning for the other world, you are hoping for heaven. There is nothing holy in it, it is as unholy as anything else.


What does Bodhidharma mean? He is saying that your so-called holy acts are bound to be followed by unholy things, because deep down the very desire is unholy.


The Emperor was embarrassed, shocked, angry, and he said, 'Then what do you think -- is not Buddha a holy person?'


And Bodhidharma laughed and he said, 'He is neither holy nor a person. He is utter emptiness. How can holiness exist there? It will be a kind of dirt. He is utterly silent, he is emptiness.'


The state of no-mind is neither holy nor unholy. Buddha is neither a saint nor a sinner. He has transcended duality. Buddha is a transcendence.


So please remember, from an evil mind you can become a holy mind but there is not a real transformation. It is only a question of degrees, you have not gone beyond mind yet. Only no-mind can liberate you.


So don't try to become a holy person. Holy persons are unholy. Don't try to become saints because all that effort is nothing but an ego trip -- mind playing a new game, and a very subtle game. Just drop that whole nonsense of being holy or unholy. Saint and sinner, say goodbye to both. Dark and light, say goodbye to both. Heaven and hell, say goodbye to both.


And then arises a totally new world which you have not even dreamed of. Then there is utter serenity, then there is peace, then there is no turmoil, then not even a ripple arises. In that state is Buddha-hood. There is no pain, no pleasure then, because pleasure is not different from pain and pain is not different from pleasure.


Then what is there? Buddha is silent about it, nothing can be said about it, because whatsoever can be said will become part of duality. If you say it is bliss then you will think it is not misery. If you say it is light then you will think it is not dark. If you say it is summer then you will think it is hot winter. If you say it is a kind of flower then you will think it is not a thorn. But you will start thinking in duality.


Buddha keeps absolutely silent about it. The reason is that it can only be expressed in silence. It is silence. How can you express silence through sound?

The seventh question:
<p class="question">A FEW YEARS AGO THROUGH YOGA AND MEDITATION I EXPERIENCED SOME PEAKS OF PRAYER. MY WHOLE BEING FELT THE BLISS OF IT -- ALL WAS DIVINE LOVE, AND THANKFULNESS. FOR SOME REASON I CAME OUT OF IT AND NOW I FIND MYSELF BACK IN THE DARK VALLEY. SOMEWHERE THINGS WENT WRONG. IT FEELS GUILTY AND SO ARDUOUS TO STAND UP AGAIN. PLEASE COMMENT.</p>


If your silence and your bliss is caused by anything, it is bound to disappear. That which is caused cannot be eternal. You managed it through Yoga and meditation, but it was not a natural happening. It was artificial, it was arbitrary. It was as arbitrary as you can manage through chemical drugs, but the drug will wear off.


You have taken a certain quantity of LSD and you will fed blissed-out, and all is blissful and all is joy and life has immense beauty and splendor and trees are more green and roses are more red and every face looks radiant. Life is luminous, psychedelic. But the LSD is going to wear off. The next morning you will look and the trees are dusty again; that greenness is not there, that luminosity is not there. They are not illumined from within. You will see people's faces -- those dull, boring faces again. All is dusty, all is ordinary.


The same can happen through Yoga, the same can happen through fasting, the same can happen through any technique whatsoever. Techniques are good to give you a glimpse, but they can only give you a glimpse; it cannot become your state of affairs, it cannot become your consciousness.


So there is not a problem in it, it is simple. It was going to be lost, nothing is wrong with you. The only wrong thing is your attitude. You were think-ing that through yoga and meditation you would be able to create something eternal. That is not possible. The eternal cannot be created. Anything that is created will fall one day or other, sooner or later.


The eternal comes to you uncreated. The eternal happens, is not done. When you have gone beyond techniques and methods, when you have dropped all techniques and all methods, when you have come to see one thing -- that just to be is enough, nothing else is needed, that there is no need to make any arrangement, that all beings are Buddhas from the very beginning.... When you have understood this -- that you are not to grow into something, that you are already there, it is already the case -- then you relax.


And the relaxation should not be a method. You should not relax through a Yoga posture. This very understanding is relaxing, this very understanding is relaxation. You relax, effort disappears. You live your ordinary life -- you chop wood and you carry water from the well and you cook food and you eat and you sleep and you love and you live ordinarily with no hankering and no desire for anything extraordinary.


And then one day it is there, not of your making. One day it is suddenly there. One day you open your eyes and it is there -- and then it never leaves. But it has to come on its own. Otherwise, managed by you, it will come and leave; it will be only a glimpse.


You ask: "A few years ago through yoga and meditation I experienced some peaks of prayer." They were created peaks, they were dreams and imaginations that you managed to have. "My whole being felt the bliss of it." But you were there. You felt the bliss of it but you were there. You had not disappeared. "All was divine." This is an interpretation. The mind was functioning, the mind was saying, "All is divine". You must have heard, you must have read. Your mind was interpreting -- all is divine love and thankfulness. These were ideas floating in the mind.


But you were there, the memory was there, the past was there. Otherwise who would say 'All is divine'? If all is really divine then what is the point of saying all is divine? If all is divine all is divine, there is no need to say even. Saying simply says that you know that all is not divine. Saying simply says that you are posing, imposing.


Yes, there must have been a kind of happiness created by meditation and yoga, there must have been a kind of joy, and on that joy you imposed your whole philosophy -- that this is what God is, that this is divineness, that this is love and thankfulness. And for a few days you enjoyed your dream -- it was a dream.
"For some reason I came out of it." Not for some reason, it is very simple. You had to come out of it, you could not have lived in a dream forever -- nobody can live in a dream forever. A dream is never forever, otherwise what will be the distinction between reality and dream? A dream is only for the moment. Sooner or later you wake up, you open your eyes and the dream is not there and the ordinary life is there.
"I came out of it and now I find myself back in the dark valley." You were there at those sunlit peaks and you are there in the dark valleys. One thing is similar : you. Dark valleys or sunlit peaks, it does not matter; all that matters is you -- the ego is there. The ego is in the dark valley, the ego is at the peak, and the ego goes on creating dreams.


Let me tell you one thing : even the dark valley is your dream and your imposition, your idea. There are no dark valleys. If all is divine, how can there be dark valleys? And if there are dark valleys, how can all be divine? There are neither dark valleys nor sunlit peaks; it is just the game of the ego. It goes on moving in polarities, from one point to another. When you see it -- that the sweet dream is a dream, so is the nightmare, both are dreams -- wake up and drop both the dreams. Then for the first time you have contact with reality.


But remember, in that moment when reality is there, you are not. That is the only criterion to understand, no other criterion exists. The only criterion is, if the experience is of reality you will not be found there, you cannot be found there. You will be utterly absent. Bliss will be there but you will not be there. There will be nobody to say "I am feeling bliss." God will be there but you will not be there. There will be nobody to say "All is divine." Let that be remembered.


And this can happen only, this cannot be done. You cannot produce it. A produced thing is artificial, it goes only so far, then it disappears. A produced thing is cheap. Just think what you are doing. When you do yoga, what are you doing? Standing on your head -- how can standing on your head make you enlightened? How? Just standing on your head? So cheap?


Standing on your head may give a shock to your head, maybe a kind of shock treatment. Too much blood rushing to the head may give you a moment of stoppage -- thinking stops. Too much blood has rushed so suddenly, mm? -- because you are standing on the head so the gravitation is pulling all your blood towards the head. And the head cannot manage it, it is a kind of flood. So for a moment there is a stopping of thinking. In that stopping you will feel, "I am joyous, I am blissful, all is divine." But how long can you stand on your head? And even if you learn to stand a long time, the mind will also learn how to go on continuing thinking with that flood of blood. There is no problem, mind will also learn by and by. Then you can stand on your head and you can go on thinking.


When I was a child I used to stand on my head very very long. It became such a habit that one day I fell asleep. That is almost impossible. When I told one old man, who was a kind of yogi in my village, he said, "This is impossible, this has not even happened to me. To fall asleep standing on your head..." Because for sleep to happen, the head needs less blood flow than ordinarily. That's why we use pillows in the night to put the head a little higher so blood does not go too much in the head; otherwise the head continues functioning. The more intellectual a person is, the bigger the pillow he will need -- two, three, four pillows. Otherwise just a little blood and the thought process starts. So the food supply has to be completely cut.


The old man said, "This is impossible." But it happened to me. Not only did I fall asleep but I fell from my SHIRSHASANA. It had become so habitual. Not only thoughts, but sleep and dream are possible. So if you stand on your head too long you will be accustomed to it and the joy that has happened for the first time will never happen again.


And what do you do when you meditate? How can you manage enlightenment through meditation and yoga and fasting and dieting? No, the thing is far beyond -- beyond the stars. All these small things are very earthly. Yes, they can purify you, cleanse you, but they cannot give you enlightenment. They can give you a few moments of joy, but that joy is not to be interpreted as bliss, because you are there. They can sometimes fill you with great light, but that light is not the eternal light. For the eternal you can only be feminine, you cannot be a doer. You have to be in a kind of inactivity, passivity. You have to wait patiently. Be ordinary and wait


And I am not saying don't do yoga exercises; they ARE good for the body. And I am not saying don't do meditations; they are perfectly good and cleansing. But don't think that by yoga and meditation you will produce God. God cannot be produced. But you will be cleansed, and there will be more possibility for God to happen.


But God happens only when you are unawares. When you are not even looking for him, when you are simply sitting, not doing anything and there is no desire -- not even a small fragment of desire in the mind to be anything else, to be somebody else, to become enlightened and all that -- when you are just there, sitting and doing nothing, suddenly it happens. It is always sudden. It descends on you. But then you are no more, enlightenment is and you are not. God is and you are not.

The last question:
<p class="question">OSHO,
FOR TWO MONTHS I LIVED IN THE COMMUNE AA AND FOR TWO YEARS IN SOME COMMUNES IN FRANCE. THEY HAVE ALL FAILED -- HATE BECOMING STRONGER THAN LOVE.
I FELT THAT I COULD BE MORE TOTALLY MYSELF LIVING IN A GROUP WITH COLLECTIVE DECISIONS AND PROPERTY AND FREE SEXUALITY. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE WAY OF LIVING IN COMMUNES?</p>


The problem is not where you live, the problem is you. You can go to a commune and you will carry all your problems with you. And others who have come to live in the commune have also come just like you, with all their problems. Sooner or later those problems will surface. These outer things cannot help. They are distractions.


The real change has to happen in you, commune or no commune. The real change has to happen in the deepest core of your being. If it happens there only then will life be different, otherwise it will not be different.


You say: "They have all failed." They have failed because you are the same. They have not failed really. Their failure only proves that you are frustrated, they have not fulfilled your expectations. And what were your expectations? You were thinking that just living in a commune would do. And your problems would be solved.


Neither can a commune help, nor can going to the Himalayas and living in a cave help. Life has to be tackled very realistically. You have to see into your problems, you have to go to their very roots, you have to burn the very seed of those problems, and only then -- then it can happen anywhere.


You were searching for a heaven, mm? That's what people have been doing down the ages. They don't change themselves, they hanker for a heaven, but wherever they go they will create hell. They ARE hell -- it is not a question of finding heaven somewhere. Unless you have it already in you, you will not find it anywhere.
Anubodhi has sent me a beautiful parable:


Once I knew a man who had won an all-expenses-paid trip to both heaven and hell. He was asked where he would like to go first. "I would like to visit hell first," he replied, and so it was arranged.


Upon arriving in hell a great sight met his eyes. He found himself in a large banquet hall in which long tables were laden with every imaginable kind of food. The people sat along the tables, forks poised above the food, which steamed deliciously and filled the air with the most tempting smells, but no one was eating.


The man was puzzled, but when he looked closer he noticed that the people were all suffering from a strange paralysis of the elbow. Try as they might, they just could not get the food to their mouths.
"So this is hell," the man thought. "To live in a bounteous universe, abundant with all that one could need or desire, but to starve in the midst of plenty, unable to feed oneself."


Turning away, the man asked to be transported to heaven. In heaven he saw the same large banquet hall, filled with the same long tables, laden with the same delectable food. Looking closer he noticed that the people were all suffering from the same paralysis of the elbow. "This is heaven," he cried, almost aloud. But upon even closer inspection he noticed one difference. He saw that between heaven and hell there was one small difference which made all the difference. What he saw was that in heaven they were feeding each other.


They were paralyzed just the same, but they were feeding each other. It was impossible to bring the food to their own mouths but it was possible to feed the other, and the other was feeding them.


This is the only difference, but the difference is inside -- compassion has arisen. Unless you are a bodhisattva, wherever you are you will be in hell. When passion is transformed into compassion....


Then, wherever you are, you are in heaven. That is the only paradise there is.
Enough for today.
			

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