---
section: Library
booktitle: "Is the Grass Really Greener...?"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "GREENR"
dategiven: "23 December 1980 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #23"
chaptertitle: "None"
acode: "8012225"
shorttitle: "GREENR23"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "Is the Grass Really Greener...?: Chapter #23"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.]


Prem Lorenzo. Prem means love. Lorenzo literally means laurel; the laurel symbolises victory and immortality.


It is only through love that one becomes aware that the real treasure is not in ego possessions, in ego trips, in ego numbers; the real treasure is in surrendering the ego.


It simply means you are relating to somebody without the ego being present. When the contact with somebody is without the ego, it is love. And then it can go on spreading. One can relate to the whole existence -- the secret is the same. Whether you relate with one person or with the whole universe, it is the same key -- that the ego has not to be there. And it is a simple arithmetic; when you have known bliss by relating to one person egolessly, you know how much ecstasy is possible if you relate in the same way with the whole universe -- it will be immeasurable, it will be infinite.


Love gives you the first glimpse of your real treasure. That is the victory. And those moments of love when the ego does not exist, does not function, are also timeless moments. They are not moments of time but moments of timelessness; they are part of eternity. In those moments one also becomes aware that there is no death, that there has been no birth in the first place, that one has always been here and now. Birth and death are just episodes in the eternal celebration of life. One does not begin with birth, one does not end with death.


That clarity also arises out of egolessness, out of love. And these two can define the whole of religion: to know that 'I am immortal,' and to be victorious. One has come home. Now there is nowhere to go, no need to go anywhere. The begging bowl simply disappears. One becomes an emperor... but this is a kingdom not of this world.


Jesus was very much misunderstood by people because he continuously talked about the kingdom of god and the politicians thought that he was talking about the kingdom of this world; the political mind cannot think beyond this world. As his influence started growing the politicians became afraid that this man was going to conquer power because he was talking in terms of conquering the inner world, of being victorious. They misunderstood him completely, totally.


The religious establishment became afraid, the political establishment became afraid and both conspired to kill this simple, innocent man. His only crime was that he was using words which could have both meanings. But that problem has always been there because the words basically are meant to be for this world, so whatsoever words you use, you will have to choose from these words, these languages. You may try to give them a new meaning and a new colour but people will go on understanding them according to their conditioning.


But these are the basic elements of a true religion: victory over darkness -- and ego is nothing but darkness -- and the experience of immortality. You can call it god, you can call it nirvana, but the basic thing is that you have experienced something which is beyond time. Whatsoever name one wants to use one can use.


Lao Tzu says 'It has no name, hence I will call it tao.' A very beautiful statement, because it has no name some name has to be given -- xyz. Tao means xyz -- it does not mean anything at all. He says 'So any name will do. I prefer to call it tao. If your preference is different, that's perfectly okay!'

Gyanveeto. Gyan means knowledge. Veeto means going beyond.


One of the most significant statements in the Upanishads is that ignorance is not as dangerous as knowledge. The ignorant person falls into darkness but the knowledgeable person falls into deeper darkness. The ignorant can find the home more easily, but the knowledgeable person is lost in the jungle of words, theories, hypotheses, ideologies, philosophies -- there is no end to it.


The first step in sannyas is to get rid of knowledge and the second step is to get rid of ignorance and the journey is complete. But first one has to get rid of knowledge because it is knowledge that covers your ignorance, protects your ignorance. It gives you a false notion that you know, when in reality you know nothing.


But people are even afraid to ask the question 'Do I know? Do I know god? Do I know truth? Do I know love? Do I know what this universe is? Who am I?' People are afraid of asking these questions, afraid because they will bring you to your ignorance, you will have to encounter your ignorance, and ignorance is very shattering to the ego.


Knowledge is a nourishment to the ego, so everybody wants to remain knowledgeable. People go on accumulating knowledge, degrees, only in order to hide the fact that they are ignorant of the fundamental things of life and all their knowledge is based on that ignorance. The whole edifice of their knowledge is fundamentally wrong. It will collapse any moment, anybody can destroy it. That's why people don't want to argue, don't want to listen to anything new. Afraid, their house starts trembling, shaking; they start feeling that any moment their whole structure can collapse -- it is better to be deaf, it is better to be blind. So they see only that which helps to keep their ego intact and they hear only that which nourishes their ego, they see only that which fits with their knowledge and they hear only that which becomes more and more of a support of their knowledge.


By becoming a sannyasin one has to change the whole process. All supports have to be withdrawn, all props have to be removed, so that your knowledge collapses. Its collapse is a great achievement, because when you suddenly discover your ignorance you have discovered your childhood too.


When you discover your ignorance you have discovered your innocence too. And it is very easy to so beyond ignorance because ignorance is a natural phenomenon. It is not arbitrary, it is not ego-fulfilling.


The difference between ignorance and knowledge is like... if you are chained with golden chains, studded with diamonds, that is knowledge. You would cling to your chains, to your slavery because it seems it is so precious. You would not like anybody to tell you that these are chains and you are imprisoned. You would like people to think that these are ornaments, not chains. golden chains become ornaments. Ignorance is like just ordinary steel chains, nothing precious in them except their ugliness; there is nothing to protect, there is nothing to brag about, one wants to get rid of them.


The real problem is to get rid of knowledge because we have put so much effort into accumulating it. Our schools, colleges, universities exist and almost one-third -- and the most important one-third -- of our life is wasted in accumulating information. By the time one is an M.A. or a Ph.D., one has lost one-third of one's life, twenty-five years -- and the most precious time, the most alive time. One will never be so alive again, one will never be so daring again, and all these beautiful years are wasted in accumulating stupid facts geography and history, which are utterly meaningless.


But if one is ready one can get rid of knowledge in a single blow, and suddenly your beautiful ignorance arises. It is beautiful because it is natural; you have not gone to any school, to any college, to any university, to learn its you are born with it. It is a gift of god.


Hidden inside it is wisdom, it is a seed, the shell of the seed. If you put it into the soil and the seed disappears into the soil a plant will arise and soon there will be flowers and fragrance.


Ignorance is like a seed and when you put your ignorance into the soil of meditation your life becomes full of roses.


So these two steps are the whole journey of sannyas, first get rid of knowledge and then second, in the soil of meditation let your ignorance disappear. Then whatsoever potential you have got will start growing of its own accord. You are really born the day your potential starts becoming actual.

Deva Dhirjo. Deva means divine. Dhirjo means patience.


There are things which can be achieved by our effort and there are things which are achieved only by effortless waiting. Things that can be achieved by effort -- money, power, prestige -- are mundane. They are worldly things, not really valuable, because according to those who have known the definition of the valuable is that which will go with you when you die. When you leave your body, that moment will be decisive about whether you have anything valuable with you or not. Your money will be left, your power, your prestige -- everything will be left behind, you will go empty-handed. As far as these things of the world are concerned you cannot carry any with you so they are valueless.


But there are a few things which will go with you, which are intrinsic love, meditation, awareness, freedom. They are not on the outside, they are on the inside; they are part of your being, they are flowers of your being. These are the really valuable things but they cannot be achieved by effort, will; they can only be achieved by opening up to existence, by just being vulnerable, waiting, not being in a hurry. If one has to wait forever one is ready to wait forever -- such trust is patience. And the miracle is that if one is ready to wait forever it can happen right now.


The more you are in a hurry, the less is the possibility of its happening, because when you are in a hurry you are closed. You are not available to the present; your mind is somewhere in the future -- expecting, desiring, rushing to get it. You are not here, you are not now. But when there is no hurry and when you know that it is not going to happen through your effort, it is going to be a gift from the whole to the part, from the universe, just a gift... If life is a gift... You have not earned it. You suddenly found one day that you are alive, breathing, suddenly one day you find that love is arising in you, suddenly one day you discover that there is a deep longing to know the truth of it all. These are all gifts!


So one has to wait for the gifts. One has not even to ask, not even to pray. Without any expectation one simply waits. A great silence descends when one learns how to wait, a tremendous silence, abysmal, a bottomless silence. In that silence one can hear one's own heartbeats.


In America in scientific labs they have made an absolutely soundproof room. There are soundproof rooms all over the world but this one is absolutely soundproof. It is a space research centre -- because when the astronauts go into space they will have to encounter one of the most difficult things: profound silence.


We are accustomed to noise. we may even sometimes complain about the noisy world and the traffic and the trains and the aeroplanes, but you don't know, if all this noise suddenly disappears and you are left in silence you may have a heart attack! You may simply sink! It will be too much -- you will not be able to take it in.


So before the astronaut goes into space... because the space is absolutely silent. No music, no radios, no televisions, no loudspeakers -- there is nothing. In all the directions as far as you can imagine it is all silence, because there is no air so sound cannot travel. The air surrounds the earth only for two hundred miles; beyond two hundred miles sound cannot travel. The moment the spaceship passes that barrier at two hundred miles, it is in absolute silence. So the astronaut has to be prepared, otherwise he will not be able to encounter it; he may die, the shock may be too much. For that this room has been created.


Slowly slowly, first for a few seconds, then for a few minutes, then for half an hour, then for an hour, then for a day, then for two days, then for a week... slowly slowly the person who is getting ready to go into space prepares himself.


A musician went to visit this absolutely sound-proof room. When he entered it he could not believe what was happening. They had told him it was absolutely silent, but he heard two sounds very clearly, absolutely clearly, and they were not whisperlike -- they were so much that he enquired of the director of the lab 'What is the matter? From where are these two sounds coming?'


And the director laughed; he said 'They are not coming from anywhere. One is your heart beating, the other is the sound of your blood circulating. They are not coming from anywhere, you are hearing your own sounds; they are inside you and you are inside the room. Nothing can be done about it unless your heart stops, your blood circulates no more...' Out he could not believe it at first that the blood circulation also makes sound; and the heart was beating like a drum -- the noise was so loud! The absolute silence became a contrast.


The meditator also has to be ready. He is also a kind of astronaut, astronaut of the inner world, of the inner space, which is far bigger than the outer space and far more profoundly silent. And the best way to taste it is just to be herenow, available, with no desire, no expectation; just being -- that is patience. And I call patience divine because god comes through it God is experienced only by those who are ready to wait forever!


Nishabdo means wordlessness. That's what meditation is all about. We are full of words, a constant stream of words goes on flowing inside. You may be occupied with any kind of work on the outside but inside a subtle undercurrent of words continues.


The Old Testament says in the beginning was the word and god was with the word and god was the word. This cannot be the true beginning, because if the word was already present that presupposes mind, so god already had a mind. And when you have a mind then you cannot just live with one word. Words don't believe in birth control one word creates a thousand words. They are very reproductive.


Just take any word and think about it, ponder over it and you will be surprised, it brings up other words immediately. You may not even be able to find out what the association is. For example, the word 'dog': just ponder over the word 'dog' and you will be puzzled that it brings up so many things, strange things that you would have never thought the word 'dog' could trigger within you. You may remember your girlfriend who had a dog and your girlfriend may have been a communist (laughter) and you may remember Karl Marx -- who has nothing to do with the dog. And then DAS KAPITAL and the Communist Manifesto and Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung... It starts and then it never stops! Any word can trigger a process in you and it will go on and on.


So to say that in the beginning there was the word, is not right. If in the beginning the word was there then it could not be alone. Whatsoever the word was it would bring other words in, it would create the whole world of the mind, the whole atmosphere of the mind. It would create the climate, all kinds of associations; multi-dimensionally it will bring things. God would already be going insane -- and the world is a proof. He must have got very insane, only then could he have created such a world -- so crazy, so miserable.


If I were to write the Old Testament then I would start: in the beginning was silence -- it cannot be the word -- and at the end again there will be silence, because the beginning is always the end too. If in the beginning was the word then at the end also there will be the word. So there will be no end; you will continue, you will go on thinking, you will go on philosophising.


Meditation means reaching to the very beginning or to the very end -- which is the same: it is silence. There is no word, no thought, no ripple in the lake of consciousness. And the lake functions like a mirror; it reflects all the stars as they are without interpreting, because there is nobody to interpret. There is only clarity, sensitivity, awareness.


So beware of words. They will not go easily because we have been tending them for so long, for thousands of lives. They will not so easily. When you are becoming silent suddenly a word will comes 'Look, Nishabdo, this is the thing!' But these are words and they have disturbed the whole thing, even if you say 'Right, this is silence' -- finished (laughter), then the word has come in and with the word comes the whole world. Immediately you will say 'I have disturbed it,' and the train has started moving, shunting.


One has to be so silent that there is not even any idea of silence -- just silence, no labelling, not even 'aha!' otherwise it is finished! So one has to be very alert, very watchful of words. They will come in from any possible way; from the backdoor, from the windows they will jump in, from the ceiling suddenly they will come in. They are tricky fellows! (laughter) You may be silent and you may not have said anything and then suddenly you will say 'So they have not come' -- finished! They are there. They were just watching from around the corner.


But if one is aware, slowly slowly one learns all their tricks, strategies, diplomacies. And the more one knows how the mind functions, the more out of it one is. A day certainly comes when silence prevails without any interference, any interpretation. In that very moment one becomes enlightened. To be wordless is to go beyond the word.

Anand Rupen. Anand means bliss. Rupen means beauty.


The only beautiful experience in life is that of bliss. And whenever, wherever, you experience beauty there must be something of bliss present. Looking at a sunset you see great beauty -- that simply means the sunset has been so stunning that your mind stopped, that its constant whirling suddenly disappeared. Suddenly you were silent and in that silence you tasted bliss. That is happening within you. Because you are focussed on the sunset or the starry night and you are lost in the grandeur of the stars, you have forgotten your ordinary mind and ordinary worries and anxieties. You are taken farther away from your ordinary existence; for a moment you are no more the same person as you ordinarily are. The starry night was too much, the stars pulled you like magnets.


In those moments the juices of bliss start flowing inside you. Of course because you are not aware you think it is the starry night that has given you bliss or the sunset or the flower or the beautiful woman o the beautiful music; you find some rationalisation because you felt so good, such a well-being. But you are really putting the horses behind the cart. It is not beauty that creates bliss; it is blissfulness that gives you the sense of beauty.


Once you have known this you can put the horses in front of the cart and then the journey starts -- because with the horses behind the cart the journey is impossible; the cart will block the horses. You may go on sitting in the cart forever, complaining about every kind of thing, that the road is not good and that the horses are mad, and what to do and what not to do and you are not going anywhere and what is this all, what is this life all about? The whole thing is that you are sitting in the cart and the horses are at the back; they need to be put in the front.


Bliss is the first experience in our being, then we feel beauty outside. Beauty is just the reflection of a blissful heart. So the person who is blissful finds beauty everywhere. When bliss starts flowing in you twenty-four hours a day you are surrounded by beauty twenty-four hours a day. Then everything is beautiful, then suddenly the whole universe is immensely beautiful. Each moment brings great surprises, great gifts. And bliss not only beautifies the universe, it beautifies you too. It is very alchemical; it changes your very chemistry.


It gives you grace, it gives you love, it gives you courage, it gives you both a kind of drunkenness and a kind of awareness together. And that is the most beautiful experience in life: to be alert and drunk simultaneously. And that's what my sannyasins have to be, drunk and alert and awake simultaneously.
			

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