---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Razor's Edge"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "RAZOR"
dategiven: "11 March 1987 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #29"
chaptertitle: "The answer is you"
acode: "8703115"
shorttitle: "RAZOR29"
audio: "Yes"
video: "Yes"
esttime: "120mins"
displaytitle: "The Razor's Edge: Chapter #29"
---

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<p class="question">BELOVED OSHO,
WAIVERING BETWEEN BOLD ACTION AND PARALYZING DOUBT, SILENT ACCEPTANCE AND USELESS SABOTAGE, I STRUGGLE...
WAITING. PLEASE COMMENT ON SILENCE AND DEATH.</p>


Anand Nirvana, it seems you are not clear about what you want to ask. The question seems to be out of confusion.


You are saying, "Waivering between bold action and paralyzing doubt, silent acceptance and useless sabotage, I struggle... waiting. Please comment on silence and death." The first thing you have to remember is, no bold action is expected of you here at least. We are not preparing warriors, we are preparing peaceful, loving human beings -- not violent, not destructive, not murderers. The question of bold action does not arise.


You have created the problem yourself. First, you think that a bold action is needed, which is a pure fiction of your own. I have been telling you to relax, I have been telling you to be easy, to be natural, to be spontaneous. There is no question of any bold action. In fact, there is no question of any action at all.


My whole teaching is how to be effortless. Even when you are doing something, you should not be the doer. Even when there is action, it should be almost non-action. It should come as a spontaneous flowering, not out of willpower.


But these are the diseases given to every human being by the whole past. Willpower has been taught to everybody as a great value. Every child is told to have willpower. And willpower is something against your spontaneity -- then you cannot be at ease, restful. Do you think flowers have to do much to blossom? Are trees taking bold action to grow? There is no action at all.


Lao Tzu used to say, "Look at the trees, look at the rivers, look at the stars, and you will understand 'actionless action.'"


Certainly the river is flowing towards the ocean but you cannot call it action because there is no will forcing it to go towards the ocean. It is very easy-going -- no hurry, no haste, not even the longing that it should reach, no competition with other rivers that perhaps they may reach ahead of it. It is simply going, singing and dancing its dance through the mountains, through the valleys, through the plains, not worried whether it reaches to the goal or not. Every moment is so beautiful and precious that, who cares about the tomorrow?


Willpower has been used to create a false personality in you. Willpower is another beautiful name for the ugly entity called ego.


One of the great psychologists of this century, Alfred Adler, based his whole psychological analysis on this simple fact -- that all man's problems arise out of will to power. He wants to become somebody, somebody special, somebody higher than others, somebody holier than others. It does not matter whether he is in the marketplace or in the monastery; the struggle is to be on the top.


The more you fight and the more you succeed, the farther away you are from your own being, because you become more and more tense, more and more worried. Your life becomes a constant agony -- the fear of failure. Even if you have succeeded, the fear that somebody may throw you away from your position.... Just now ask Ronald Reagan about the tremendous anguish he must be in. A man who lives to achieve something can never be peaceful.


So on the one hand you have created this fiction of bold action. Perhaps you think meditation needs a bold action? or sannyas means a bold action? It needs only relaxation. It needs dropping the very achieving mind, forgetting that there is any future, allowing this moment to be enough unto itself, rejoicing it, and the next moment will take care of itself.


If you can rejoice in this moment, you will be able to rejoice more in the coming moment because you will become more and more expert in rejoicing, in dancing, in singing. And you will become more and more confident about yourself -- that you need not be somebody else. Whoever you are, you are capable of enjoying the ultimate ecstasy without being rich, without being in power, without being world famous, without being a celebrity.


You can be just a nobody and yet all the treasures of existence can be yours -- because they are not outside you. You are unaware of your own inner richness.


There is no need of any bold action. And with that need disappearing, the paralyzing doubt will disappear. They are two sides of the same coin. First you create the idea that you have to take a bold action and then the fear comes of whether you are capable of taking such a bold action: do you have enough energy and guts? Then a paralyzing doubt arises and you are in a fix. Drop both together, because they are not separate and they are not separable.


You have heard beautiful words but you don't understand their meaning. You say, "... silent acceptance and useless sabotage..." If there is silent acceptance, how can there be useless sabotage? And if the useless sabotage is there, then what do you mean by "silent acceptance"? And apparently, absolutely unrelated, suddenly you ask, "Please comment on silence and death."


From "bold action" to "paralyzing doubt," from "silent acceptance" to "useless sabotage" -- and suddenly the question arises about silence and death!


You must be very much split in your mind, schizophrenic. But this is not only your disease, so don't feel bad about it. It is the disease of almost all human beings, more or less... just you are courageous enough to expose the disease. The others are not so courageous -- they keep it down, repressed within themselves. They don't tell anybody; they repress it so deeply that even they themselves become unaware that it exists.


But because you have asked, I would like to say a few things to you. Silence knows no death, it is only the mind that is not silent which falls into the fallacy of death. Have you ever died in your life? You have always seen somebody else dying, but you have never seen yourself dying -- although you have died many times, in many lives. But because you don't have a silent mind, each time when death came to you, you became so disturbed that you fell into a coma. You died in unconsciousness; that's why you don't remember your past lives.


If you had died in silence, peace, consciously, you would have been amazed to know that it is only the body that is dying, but not you, not the witness. You would have witnessed your own death. Just as others are witnessing from the outside, you would have witnessed it from the inside.


If a man dies consciously, then he is also born consciously, because death is one side and birth is another side. Death is the beginning of a new life. Within seconds, you will be entering a new womb. And if you die peacefully, without any disturbance, you will enter a new womb with the same silence, with the same awareness. The nine months in the mother's womb will not be of unawareness. And the birth out of the mother's womb will be in full silence and joy, because now you know that neither death matters nor birth; you belong to eternity.


Birth and death are small episodes. But silence has not to be just a word, it has to become your experience, and it will give you a tremendous intelligence.


Right now, all your intelligence is being destroyed by your conflicts, struggles, indecisiveness -- bold actions and a feeling of paralysis. You want to accept whatever is happening and yet, deep down, you don't want it, you want to change it; hence, the sabotage.


You are a battlefield. You are not one but a crowd, and not only a crowd, but a crowd which is fighting and you don't know who you are.


Silence will bring you great gifts. And the most precious and the first gift is intelligence. A clarity of vision, a deep understanding of yourself, and almost all the problems start disappearing -- not that you get answers for your questions, but just that the questions disappear. You don't find the answer because you are the answer.


Just be silent, and all questions disappear. Millions are the questions but there is only one answer, and that is you, in your crystal clear, silent awareness.


But man has been behaving so stupidly. He somehow manages outside to look intelligent, but if you look inside in him.... If the God who created the world was a little more intelligent, he would have made a small window in every head so that others can look at what is going on inside. It would have been really a great entertainment. And you would not be able to hide anything.


I have heard.... Two police officers are having coffee and chatting about their new recruits.


"You won't believe how dumb my new constable is," says one. "Oh, I bet mine is worse than yours" says the other.


So the first officer calls his constable. He comes in and salutes, "Yes, sir!" "Here is a dollar, go and buy me a Rolls Royce." "Yes, sir!" says the constable and he goes out.


"That's nothing," says the other officer and calls his constable. "Go immediately to my house and see if I am there." "Yes, sir!" says the constable and he goes out.


The two recruits meet in the corridor and one says, "Boy, you won't believe how dumb my officer is. He gave me a dollar to buy him a Rolls Royce. Doesn't he know it is Sunday and the shops will be closed?"


"That's nothing," says the other. "My officer told me to go to his house and see if he is there. Can't he just make a phone call himself?"
<p class="question">BELOVED OSHO,
I WAS DRAWN TO YOUR COMMUNE AT RAJNEESHPURAM LIKE TO A MAGNET ABOUT THREE YEARS AGO, NOT UNDERSTANDING WHY I WAS THERE, JUST KNOWING SOMEWHERE INSIDE OF MY BEING THAT THERE WAS NO OTHER PLACE ON THIS PLANET TO EXPERIENCE LIFE IN ITS TOTALITY. I HAD NEVER READ ANY OF YOUR BOOKS, NOR ANY OTHER BOOKS ON THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH, AWARENESS, OR RAISING CONSCIOUSNESS. I WONDER HOW I KEEP COMING TO YOUR WELL WHEN I DON'T EVEN FEEL THIRSTY, OR AT LEAST I DON'T EXPERIENCE THIS THIRST.</p>


Shantam Lani, life is a mystery, and it is not always possible to find explanations for what is happening to you and why it is happening. In the first place, why are you in the world? There is no answer to it. Why does love arise in you, suddenly, without even giving you an advance notice? There is no rational answer for it. Why does the roseflower look beautiful to you? You cannot explain it.


You are saying, "I was drawn to your commune like to a magnet about three years ago, not understanding why I was there." Nobody understands it. You think all these people understand why they are here? Do you think I know why I am here? At the most this much can be said: I am here because of you, and you are here because of me. But that does not explain anything. "... just knowing somewhere inside of my being that there was no other place on this planet to experience life in its totality." That is more than is needed, to be pulled, magnetically.


Everybody is longing in his heart to live life totally, but society does not allow you, the culture prevents you, religion controls you, the family cuts your wings. All around you there are people whose vested interest is that you should not live totally. It is surprising: why are they so interested that people do not live totally? Because their whole exploitation of humanity depends on it.


A man who lives totally will not drink alcohol, or take any other kind of drug. Naturally, the people who are earning millions of dollars out of alcohol and drugs cannot allow you to live totally. To live totally is so joyous that you don't want to destroy your joy by drinking alcohol. Alcohol is needed by miserable people, by people who are troubled, by people who want somehow to forget their problems, their anxieties -- at least for a few hours. The alcohol is not going to change anything -- but even a rest for a few hours seems to be an absolute necessity for millions of people.


If a man lives totally, his every moment is such a fulfillment that you will not see queues before movie halls -- who wants to see somebody else making love? When you yourself can make love, why should you go to the movie house? When your own life is such a mystery and such a tremendous challenge to discover, who is going to be interested in third-class film stories?


The man who lives totally becomes unambitious. Because he is so happy right now, he cannot conceive that there is the possibility of more. The ordinary madness of man's mind -- of desiring for more and more -- is because you are not living totally. There is always a gap, something is missing, you know things could have been better. Out of this partial living, all ambitions arise, and then the whole game of the society goes on: people want to become rich, people want to become famous, people want to become politicians, people want to become presidents and prime ministers.


Up to now humanity has depended on not allowing man to live totally, creating all kinds of barriers, because the total man will destroy so many vested interests in the world. The total man is the most dangerous man to the vested interests. You cannot enslave a man who is enjoying his life in its fullness, in its wholeness. You cannot force him to go into the army to kill people and to be killed. Your whole structure of society will collapse.


With the total man coming in, there will be a different structure of society: unambitious but immensely joyful -- without great men. Perhaps you have never thought about it: great men can exist only because millions of people are not great; otherwise, who is going to remember Gautam Buddha? If there were millions of Gautam Buddhas, millions of Mahaviras, millions of Jesus Christs, who would bother about these people?


These few people have become great because millions are not allowed to live totally. Who will go to the churches if people are not miserable... to the temples, to the synagogues, to the mosques? Who is going to be there? Who is going to bother about God, and heaven and hell? A man who is living each moment with such intensity that life itself has become a paradise, that life itself has become divine, need not be a worshiper of dead statues, dead scriptures, rotten ideologies, stupid superstitions.


The total man is the greatest risk to your existing establishment in the world.


And you can see, Lani, why I am being condemned by the whole world. It is not without reason. If they crucify me, I will not be able to say to God, "Forgive these people because they know not what they are doing." In the first place, there is no God to whom I can say anything; in the second place, I cannot say they are doing something not knowing what it is. I can only say, they are doing exactly what they want to do and they are doing it knowingly. Their whole lifestyle is in danger.


Their lifestyle may not be giving them joy, blissfulness, but it is their lifestyle. Even their misery is their misery. These miserable creatures are in such a vast majority, and they cannot tolerate people who have nothing and yet are so happy and so contented, so tremendously joyous that their hearts are full of songs, and they are ready to burst into dancing any moment.


The United States attorney, addressing a news conference, said, "Our priority was to destroy Osho's commune." One wonders why a great nation with so much power should be worried about a small commune of five thousand people, living absolutely aloof from America, in a desert. The nearest American town was twenty miles away.


Why were they so worried? Why, in every Christian church, were they condemning me? For the simple reason that those five thousand people were living life without any inhibitions. They were living really in total freedom; they had dropped all barriers. They were working perhaps the hardest in the whole world -- twelve hours a day, sometimes fourteen hours a day -- and still they had the energy at night to dance for hours, to sing for hours; and they had the energy in the morning to wake up early and meditate for hours.


This was creating a very dangerous situation. If these people who have nothing are living so joyously, then why are all the Christians of America and all the Jews of America, who have everything, miserable?


We were even celebrating death -- they were not even able to celebrate life. Whenever some sannyasin died, it was an opportunity to rejoice and give him a good farewell, dancing and singing. He is going on an eternal journey and perhaps we shall never meet again; this is not the moment to mourn, to be miserable, to cry and weep.


This became the problem for America. That's why it became a priority for them to destroy the commune -- and they did everything illegal and criminal and unconstitutional. But these five thousand people were helpless. They had never thought that being joyful could be a danger to their lives, that in a miserable world you should behave just as others are behaving. When everybody is crying and weeping you should not laugh; otherwise, those crying and weeping people will kill you.


Lani, you were pulled towards the commune because you had not read any books and you were not burdened with borrowed knowledge. You were not in search of truth; otherwise, naturally, you would have looked into scriptures, gone to the rabbis, to the bishops, to the learned. Because you were not interested in searching for the truth, and you were not reading my books, or anybody else's books, you had an innocent mind... unburdened.


That was the quality that made you feel a pull towards the commune. And when you were in the commune, you could see that life can be lived in a totally different way, in a more intelligent way, that man has been simply wasting a great opportunity: an opportunity in which he can discover himself, can discover new spaces of being, new flowers of blessings, new love -- a love which does not become a bondage but a love that makes you more free than you ever were before, a love that gives you freedom.


And for the first time you must have become aware that five thousand people of all races, of all religions, from almost every country, of all colors can live just like a huge family. Just to see five thousand people eating in one kitchen -- and at festival times there were twenty thousand sannyasins eating together -- and nobody was worried about who is a Christian, who is a Jew, who is a Mohammedan. Nobody even asked, "What is your religion?"


Everybody understood that our religion is to live totally, fully, and allow everybody else to live according to his own way, according to his likings and dislikings -- not to interfere in any way in anybody's life, and not to allow anybody to interfere in your life. Five thousand individuals... yet living as if they are one organic unity.


I was just talking to Niren -- that's why I was late coming to you. He was my attorney, fighting for me in America; and he had tears in his eyes as he said, "Osho, I could not do more to save the commune."


And as I said, "Now that Ronald Reagan and his gang of criminals are going down the drain, try to get the commune back again," he became so happy. He said, "I will go and will start working on it immediately."


Lani, you are saying, "I wonder how I keep coming to your well, when I don't even feel thirsty." You don't feel thirsty because you go on coming to the well! Just try for a few days not coming, and you will feel thirsty.


An Irishman and a Scotsman were taking an intelligence test. "What bird does not build its own nest?" asked the examiner. "The canary," said the Scot. "He lives in a cage." "The cuckoo," said the Irishman.


"Very good," said the examiner to the Irishman. "How did you know?" "Everybody knows the cuckoo lives in a clock," said the Irishman.


Lani, you are neither Irish, nor Scottish. You are an intelligent woman, and only intelligent people can be attracted to my well. The unintelligent person is so burdened with the past that he cannot move an inch. Coming to my well is a long journey for him; he is so blind with prejudice that even if you present him truth on a plate he will not accept it.


You can see it here -- how many Indians are here? I was telling Niren that coming back to India was not a happy choice for me, because the country is not even contemporary. It is thousands of years out-of-date and the gap is so big that it is very difficult to create a rapport with the Indian mind.


It was out of compulsion that I had to come back to India. The world has progressed much, and the Indian mind has not even heard the names of Sigmund Freud or Assagioli, or Alfred Adler; and moreover, they are so afraid of what their society will say if they come to me.


It happened almost every day in America that people who live in Poona would phone from some city in America, saying, "I have come from Poona, and I want to see Osho." And I told my secretary to ask them, "Osho was in Poona for seven years -- how many times did you see him?"


They had not come even once. And I am back again, and they have not phoned here to come. And this was not only people from Poona -- people coming to America from other cities in India would phone, "I want to come because I come from India and you should not refuse me; I have come from so far away." But they don't phone here. There it was simple for them, because their society, their community, their religious group, their political party... nobody would know that they had gone to see me.


It is not only ordinary people who are so afraid. Even a courageous woman like Indira Gandhi wanted to see me, wanted to come to the ashram, and at least six times the date was fixed and just one day beforehand, it would be canceled: "Some urgent work has come."


Finally her secretary came and told me, "There is no urgent work. The problem is that her political advisers prevent her. They say, 'Going to Osho can affect your political position; so it is better not to go to him, because the old traditional Indian mind is so much against him that if you go to see him, you may lose votes.'" Even the prime minister of the country is afraid to come and see me -- she wants to, but her own vested interests prevent her.


Many industrialists who often go to America were continually phoning... "We want to come and see the commune and meet Osho." But what happens to these people? They live in Bombay; I was in Bombay for two months and none of them turned up. I am here -- it is just a fifteen minute flight. Such a cowardly mind. Privately they all say that whatever I am doing will be beneficial to the country and to humanity.


Just the other day, Zareen was saying to me that she has been meeting people from the highest society in Poona: "In private they appreciate you, but in public they are against you." Now to live in such an atmosphere, where everybody has a double face... in public, he will condemn me, and in private he is an admirer. In public, he is more concerned with his respectability, less concerned with sincerity.


I have been around the whole world, but perhaps India is more hypocritical than any other country. If people don't like you, they say they don't like you. If they don't agree with you, they don't agree with you. But this is a strange thing: privately they admire and publicly they are against you.


Lani, it is because of your intelligence and your innocence that you have been coming to this well. You have almost become part of me. Wherever you are, you will feel me and my presence with you. And whether you are thirsty or not.... There are thirsts of which your conscious mind knows nothing, they are so deep in your unconscious, but when you come to the well, you will find a great contentment. You may not be aware of the thirst, but you will be aware that something has been quenched in you.
<p class="question">BELOVED OSHO,
BEFORE COMING TO INDIA I WAS YOUR DISCIPLE "IN SPITE OF MYSELF." BUT SINCE COMING HERE I HAVE FALLEN SO IN LOVE WITH YOU THAT I FEEL YOU AS MY BELOVED MASTER AND NOT JUST OSHO. THERE ARE TIMES WHEN I FEEL AWED OR PRIVILEGED OR IN BLISSFUL, PAINFUL COMMUNION. BUT THERE ARE ALSO MOMENTS WHEN LIFE SEEMS SO UTTERLY FUTILE AND HOPELESS, AND I FEEL SUCH DESPAIR THAT EVEN ONE MORE FOOTSTEP SEEMS LIKE TOO MUCH. BELOVED MASTER, CAN YOU PROVIDE SOME INSIGHT?</p>


Anand Mayoori, the observation that you have made in your question is relevant to many people. You say, "I was your disciple in spite of myself." The very phenomenon of disciplehood is so ego-shattering that anybody who decides to be a disciple has to decide in spite of himself, because his ego gives tremendous resistance.


To be a disciple means putting your ego aside. To be a disciple means to be humble, to be open, to be vulnerable, to be receptive, to be trusting. And ego cannot do these things. These things will kill the ego immediately; hence, the ego goes on giving rationalizations why you should not be the disciple.


But there is a basic and essential need in every human being of finding the meaning of life, the significance of being here in existence.


You may be aware or not, but there is a deep longing to know, "Who am I?" And it is possible only through disciplehood. The word disciple is very significant. It comes from the same root as discipline. Its original meaning is learning.


We come into the world absolutely ignorant, and there are two ways one can choose: either one can start becoming knowledgeable, accumulating borrowed knowledge and covering one's ignorance.... As the layer of knowledge becomes thicker and people start thinking of you as learned, as a scholar, as a wise man or a wise woman, you will forget that you are still ignorant. And it is so sweet to forget that you are ignorant; it is so consoling. When so many people are confirming that you are wise, they cannot be wrong -- you convince yourself that you are no longer ignorant.


I have been always telling a small story: One journalist died and reached to the gate of heaven. It very rarely happens -- being a journalist and reaching heaven is almost unheard of; journalists go directly to hell. But by some bureaucratic mistake, this fellow reached to the gate of heaven and knocked.


The doorkeeper looked through the window and was very much puzzled because he was not expecting anybody. That day nobody was going to come to heaven. He said, "What do you want?"


The journalist said, "There is no question of wanting. Open the door." Journalists are generally very pushy. And he said, "I must introduce myself, that I am a great journalist. And you should be happy."


But the doorkeeper said, "If you are a journalist then it is absolutely impossible. You will have to go to the other place. It is not far away, just on the other side of the road." But the journalist said, "Why is it difficult for me?"


The gatekeeper explained to him, "We have a quota -- twelve journalists -- and that quota has been filled for thousands of years. Since then, neither has any journalist turned up, nor has the question been raised. Even those twelve journalists are absolutely useless. One newspaper has been started, but only one issue was printed, because in heaven, nothing happens -- no rape, no murder, no smuggling, no riots. Here people are just old saints, sitting under their trees, chanting their mantras, that's all. All their photographs and all their mantras have been published in the first issue, and since then nothing has happened.


"So even those twelve journalists are sitting without any work. And I say to you, believe me, they are very miserable because there is no work, no story to write. Saints don't have any story -- no love affairs, nobody escaping with somebody else's wife... absolutely nothing happens. You will be far happier in the other place, where every moment, so much is happening. All the criminals, all the politicians, all the murderers, all the artists, all the musicians -- everybody is there! And they have dozens of newspapers. You just go there."


But a journalist you cannot get rid of so easily. He said, "Just give me twenty-four hours and I promise you, after twenty-four hours, either I will leave or I will convince some other journalist to leave so your quota remains."


Seeing no possibility that this man was not going to leave, he was allowed in, and twenty-four hours were given to him. Immediately he started spreading a rumor that in hell a new paper is going to be started and they need a chief editor, editors, reporters -- very good salary, free houses, cars, servants. What you are doing here? It looks like a desert and the saints are so old, so much dust has gathered on them, that one wonders whether they are alive or dead.


He met all the twelve journalists and they were all very much excited about the news. The next day, when twenty-four hours were over, he went to the gate and he asked the gatekeeper, "What is the situation? Has anyone left?" The gatekeeper said, "Anyone? All have left. And now you cannot leave. We have a quota for twelve; at least one should be here."


But the journalist said, "I cannot. If twelve journalists have gone then there must be some truth in the rumor. Those twelve people cannot be just idiots."


The gatekeeper said, "You are strange, you created the rumor!"


He said, "That's true, I created the rumor, but it seems it is a coincidence -- my creating the rumor... and there must be something happening; otherwise twelve journalists cannot be convinced so easily. Anyway, I am not supposed to be here. You open the doors; otherwise I will create trouble for you. Why did you allow me in?"


The gatekeeper got afraid and opened the door and he said, "This man is strange. Just out of compassion I opened the door, and the whole quota is gone. And in the future there is no possibility again to fill the quota."


Man is such, that if others believe that you are honest, that you are very kind, that you are very wise, first you may not believe them, but if they go on insisting, soon you will start believing that you must be. Your whole idea about yourself is just the idea others have about you.


So one way is to accumulate knowledge and cover up your ignorance, which is being followed by pundits, rabbis, bishops, imams, all kinds of religious leaders. But their ignorance remains repressed deep down.


The other way is not to allow your consciousness to be contaminated by anyone. Keep one thing as a criterion: unless I know something, it is not knowledge; unless I encounter truth -- Jesus may say it is true, Krishna may say it is true, Buddha may say it is true -- it does not matter. It may be truth for them but not for me, because truth is an individual experience, just like love.


Millions of people in this world have loved. Do you think their love is in any way helpful to you? You need not love because so many people have loved? Do you think you will know something about love because millions of people have loved? Unless you love, you will not know anything.


This second alternative is the alternative of the disciple. He goes in search of learning on his own.


You say, "Before coming to India I was your disciple 'in spite of myself'. But since coming here I have fallen so in love with you that I feel You as my beloved master and not just Osho. There are times when I feel awed or privileged or in blissful, painful communion. But there are also moments when life seems so utterly futile and hopeless, and I feel such despair that even one more footstep seems like too much."


It is one of the significant things to understand: as you understand light more, simultaneously, by the side, you also start understanding darkness, because they both go together. Darkness is only the absence of light; without light there will be no darkness.


For example, you may have never thought about the blind people. Do you think blind people live in darkness? They cannot, because even to see darkness eyes are needed. And because they cannot see light, they cannot see darkness. Blind people live in a totally different space, which is neither light nor darkness. They don't have eyes at all; hence they cannot see anything. But once their eyes are cured, they will see light, and they will see beautiful flowers and colors and rainbows and the sun and the moon, but they will also see the dark night.


The same happens on the spiritual path, on the path of disciplehood. As you become more and more aware of blissfulness, you also become aware of a despair of which you were never aware before -- because the blissfulness cannot remain twenty-four hours a day in the beginning. At the stage of a disciple it comes and goes, so when you are blissful you are immensely happy and joyous, but when it goes you fall into despair.


There is communion with the master, a heart-to-heart meeting which you call "love," but it cannot be for twenty-four hours a day at the stage of the disciple. So it comes like a breeze, and there is coolness and there is fragrance and then it is gone. Then suddenly you feel life is futile, meaningless -- of which you were never aware before. To become aware of despair, futility, meaninglessness, you have to be aware of meaning, bliss, love, joy.


But this is only the beginning of the journey. As you go on growing, there are three stages: first, is the stage of the student; second, is the stage of the disciple; third, is the stage of the devotee.


At the stage of devotee your blissfulness becomes just like your breathing, just like your heartbeat. Then there is no despair and then there is no meaninglessness; then you will not feel that even one more footstep seems like too much. No, you will dance madly -- so madly that the dancer disappears in the dance, the devotee disappears into the master. Only in this disappearance of your ego is there the ultimate fulfillment that cannot be taken away from you.


One has to be very intelligent and alert not to stop before one has reached to a twenty-four hour continuous, ecstatic state. The journey is not long, only intelligence is needed -- that you should not stop in the middle somewhere, because there are beautiful spots, very scenic. One would like to stop there, thinking that one has arrived -- what more can there be? But if your state of consciousness goes on wavering, then remember, this is not the place to make your home. You can stay overnight, but in the morning you have to go on.


Just be intelligent, and remember a simple criterion: unless blissfulness becomes my nature, my very being, there is no way for me to stop.


A pretty blonde is driving along in the countryside in her new sports car, when it breaks down. Luckily, she happens to be near a farmhouse. She walks up to the door and knocks. When the farmer answers, she says to him, "It is getting late and my car broke down. Can I stay here for the night and then go for help in the morning?"


"Well," says the farmer. "You can stay here. But I don't want you messing with my sons, Jed and Luke." She looks behind him and sees two strapping young men in their twenties. "Okay," she says.


But after they have all gone to bed, the woman begins to think about the boys in the next room. So she quietly goes into their room and says, "Boys, how would you like me to teach you the ways of the world?" They say, "Huh?"


She says, "The only thing is, I don't want to get pregnant, so you have to wear these condoms." They agree and the three of them go at it all night long.


Forty years later, Jed and Luke are sitting on the front porch. Jed says, "Luke, do you remember that blond woman who came by and showed us the ways of the world?" "Yeah," says Luke, "I remember."


"Well, do you care if she gets pregnant?" "No," says Luke.


"Me neither", says Jed, "let's take these things off!"

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.
			

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