---
section: Library
booktitle: "Nirvana now or never"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "NEVER"
dategiven: "22 February 1980 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #22"
chaptertitle: "None"
acode: "8002225"
shorttitle: "NEVER22"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "Nirvana now or never: Chapter #22"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
<!--This file is automatically generated. Do not edit!-->
> [!info]
> Note
>
[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been copy-typed. It is for reference purposes only.]


This is your name: Swami Deva Peter. Deva means divine. Peter means a strong spirit, a rocklike spirit.


God is not for the cowards. God is not for the weak. God is only for those who have guts and a joy in adventure. God is for the gamblers, the people who can risk all for something unknown. It is not for the calculating ones. The calculating ones say that one bird in your hand is better than two bird in the bush. But the gambler thinks just in the opposite way: whatsoever is in his hand he is ready to risk for that which is not in his hand. Hence only he comes to know the unknown and the unknowable -- and that's what god is all about.


These are the two steps in entering the world of god. The first step is from the known into the unknown, and the second step is from the unknown to the unknowable. A strong spirit is needed.


It is not without any reason that very few people have experienced god. Millions have believed but only very few have experienced, and belief is of no value at all. It is a question of knowing, experiencing, living.


Sannyas means getting ready for being a gambler, getting ready for an uncalculated jump, getting ready to go beyond the cunning mind, and trusting the adventurous heart.


This is your name: Ma Anand Margit. Anand means bliss, Margit means a child of light.


The crowd lives in darkness and the child of darkness is missing. The crowd lives unconsciously and the child of unconsciousness is missing. but man is capable of living in light, he has the potential, but the potential has to be transformed onto a reality. He has the seed but the seed alone is not enough; the seed needs a soil, the seed needs a gardener, the seed needs care, watering, protection till it becomes strong enough, then only one day when the spring comes it will blossom, it will burst forth into thousands of songs.


The flowers are songs of the trees. They were all lying fast asleep, dormant in the seed and the same is the situation of man. Man has the potential seed of becoming full of light, becoming enlightened, becoming a Buddha or a Christ or a Mohammed, but it is only a seed. Much work is needed. Sannyas means that you have found a soil: rejoice, risk, and let the seed die into the soil of sannyas. Sannyas means that you have found a gardener; now, if you trust then the seed can open up, if you cannot trust the seed will remain closed.


The closedness simply indicates one thing: mistrust, doubt, fear. And opening shows trust, love, readiness to go with the master, not knowing where he is taking you, because there is no way to know it beforehand. In fact the master cannot even convince you that there exists something beyond the matter. It is a love affair. He can take your hand in his hand and lead you to the window from where you can look towards the beyond. And just a glimpse of the starry sky is enough, and tremendous joy arises! Just a small ray of light penetrating your innermost core like an arrow is enough: the night is over and with the night the misery is over. And the same energy that was involved in a misery becomes blissfulness.


Bliss is a child of light; hence those who try to be blissful without becoming light-full, are searching in vain. They will find only frustration and failure, because bliss can be found only if you have found the light. It is a by-product of light, a child of light. Every body longs for bliss but very few people try to find out the science.


It is just like this: everybody wants a child and nobody takes care that first you need a mother, you need a womb. If the world continued to look for a child everywhere -- in the mountains and in the moon and on the Mars, everywhere -- it won't find a single child. you have to find the mother, because child will be born out of the mother and light is the mother of bliss.


Those who have looked for light they have found both, light and bliss; those who have looked only for bliss have found nothing, neither bliss nor light. Their life remains a darkness, a long, long misery, a nightmare. From cradle to the grave it is sheer tragedy and nothing else. It can become a dance, it can become a festival of lights, but it all depends on you. One has to search in the right direction.


This is your name: Swami Prem Anughosh. Prem means love, Anughosh means declaration.


Sannyas is a declaration of love, that 'I love the world,' that 'I love life,' that 'I love existence,' that 'Love is going to be my very lifestyle, my approach to everything.'


The so-called religions have been talking about love but teaching hatred. They have followed a very cunning strategy: talk about love but teach hatred.


They teach you hatred for the world because they say 'Unless you renounce the world you will not be able to know god.' Now this is sheer stupidity! If god has created the world then renouncing the world is renouncing god himself, condemning the world is condemning god himself. It is his creation. When you love the painting you are showing appreciation and love for the painter, when you appreciate music you have appreciated the musician. If you condemn the music how can you appreciate the musician? -- That's impossible. If you renounce the dance then you have also renounced the dancer, because they are one phenomenon, inseparably one.


So religions talk about love but teach hatred -- hatred for the world, hatred for the material existence. And material existence is a absolute necessity; without it nothing is possible. Without the body you are not possible. Just take the matter out and the whole tree disappears, the tree is not possible. Take the matter out and the beauty and the flower both disappear; they needed matter to exist. Certainly they are more than the matter, but that does not mean that you have to denounce the matter and the material.


And the religions have been teaching hatred for each other: Christians have hated Mohammedans, Mohammedans have hated Hindus, Hindus have hated Buddhists -- everybody has been creating hatred and on the surface they all go on sermonising about love...


Sannyas is really not only a declaration of love, but living it too. And the beginning is love existence, love life, love all that life implies and destroy all beliefs that are deep-rooted in you which carry the seeds of hatred. Don't be a Christian, don't be a Hindu, don't be a Mohammedan; just being human is enough. God created you as a human being, not as a Catholic, not as a Protestant, not as a witness of Jehovah. What kind of things people have created? He has simply created you just like a small innocent human being, and all these stupidities have been imposed upon you.


Throw them all away! If you want to love, to grow, remove all the barriers, because love is the only way towards god. In fact love is the first experience of god and the last too. In the beginning it is just a ray, in the end it becomes the whole source of love. The beginning and the end cannot be separate, they cannot be qualitatively different. The only difference can be of quantity.


In the beginning it is just a dewdrop of love -- of course it is a beginning -- but the dewdrop goes on becoming bigger and bigger; it becomes a stream, a river, and finally the infinite ocean.
I teach only one thing and that is love!

This is your name: Swami Dhyaneshar. Dhyaneshwar means god of meditation.


There is no other proof for god except meditation, because meditation gives you the taste of god. All other arguments about god are empty, containers without any content. Philosophers have been arguing for centuries, for and against, and nothing has been decided by them yet and I don't think they will ever come to any conclusion. Philosophy basically is bound to remain inconclusive, because it is trying to find arguments for something which is not a question of logic at all.


For example, how can you come to a conclusion through logical reasoning whether sugar tastes sweet or not? The only way to come to a conclusion is to have a taste of it and then only you know.


God is a taste, is an experience, and meditation is only preparing you so that you can avoid the whole complexities of logic, mind, thinking and you can dive deep into the ocean of god. Just a single experience and everything is settled forever. One can go on arguing for lives and one arrives to no conclusion, and just a single moment of meditation and everything is absolutely clear. And only that certainty, that absolute certainty, transforms life -- not belief -- because belief is always a cover-up for your doubt. Deep down there is doubt and nobody wants to be in a doubt because it hurts, it creates shakiness, trembling, one feels one does not know, one covers it up with a belief.


This is your name: Ma Premshanti. Premshanti means peace and love; two sides of the same coin.


The heart full of love is out of necessity peaceful, or vice versa is also true: when one is peaceful one is loving. From the other side also it can be said: when one is full of hatred, anger, violence, jealousy -- which are all aspects of hate -- then one cannot be peaceful. That's impossible. Or if one is not peaceful then one will be full of hatred, because the energy cannot remain unused. Either you have to use it positively or it turns sour and becomes negative. Either you use it creatively or it becomes destructive.


Hate is destructive, love is creative. You can start from either end, either from being peaceful or from being loving or you can start simultaneously -- there is no contradiction in them. Be lovingly peaceful, be peacefully loving and forget all about religious jargon, forget all about esoteric nonsense. Be simple. Truth is very simple.


Just be peaceful and loving and there is no need tot go to any church, to any temple, no need to carry the load of scriptures, theologies, no need to be a victim of priests and the popes; you can be absolutely independent, free from all this oppressive exploitative mechanism that has been sucking the very soul of man for centureis. You can get out of this, and getting out of this is very essential. Only then you will feel for the first time the fresh air, the sun, the moon, the stars. And from that fresh experience one can borrow the belief -- there are so many people selling the beliefs all around the world. In fact one need not borrow it: parents give it to every child without even asking the child. 'Whether you like it or not, whether you want it or not.' In fact they force him to swallow their beliefs.


My purpose here is to help you to get rid of all systems of thought. Howsoever beautiful they are, they are impotent, howsoever appealing they are, their appeal is only to the head and head does not count at all. All that counts is the heart, the opening of the lotus of the heart -- and that happens in meditation.


Meditation simply means becoming silent, utterly silent, thoughtless mindless, reaching to such a profound stillness within yourself where nothing moves, not even a ripple in the lake of consciousness, where the whole lake of consciousness is so still that it functions like a mirror. When the consciousness functions like a mirror it reflects god, inevitably, without any exception.


Those who have been silent, they have know god -- whatsoever their country, whatsoever their colour, whatsoever their race, makes no difference, whatsoever their time, age, makes no difference. the basic requirement fulfilled and suddenly god is reflected in the lake of your consciousness. And that very experience transforms you from time to eternity, from death to deathlessness, from misery to bliss, from darkness to light.


One of the most famous prayers of Upanishadic seers is: Tamso ma Jyotirgamaya -- oh my lord, lead me from darkness to light; Asto ma sadgamaya -- oh my lord, lead me from the untruth to the truth; Mrityorma amritamgamaya -- oh my lord, lead me from death to deathlessness.'


These three small sutras can be said to contain all the religions of the world, the whole religious quest.
How long you will be here?
(I have no idea)
That's good. That's what I like! Good

Ma Gyan Viten


This is your name: Ma Gyan Viten. Gyan means knowledge. Viten means transcendence.


Knowledge has to be transcended. Knowledge is a hindrance on the path of wisdom. Mind is a barrier for the meditator. The more you know, the less you know; the less you know, the more you know. And to bring it to its logical conclusion: the moment you can say "I know nothing," you know all. That's what Socrates is reported to have said at the very end of his life. He says "I know only one thing that I know nothing." This is the ultimate state of wisdom: all knowledge has been transcended. Just there is a little flaw in it.


If sometimes I meet Socrates I am going to tell it to him. This flaw was possible because he was not in India, he was in Greece, and he had to speak the language that Greeks understood -- the language of logic. Had he been in India he would not have done that.


The Upanishads say "The person who says 'I know', knows not; one who says 'I know not,' knows." The flaw is in Socrates statement when he says "I know only one thing" -- that much ignorance is still there, that one thing, that he thinks he knows. He should have simply said that 'I don't know anything.' Why make it this way that 'I know only one thing'?


When Bodhidharma, one of the great mystics of India, was asked by the Emperor Wu of China, "Who are you?", he simply stood there and said "I don't know." That is the most profound statement ever made.


This is transcendence of knowledge; the moment you transcend knowing you experience being -- and that is true wisdom, wisdom that liberates, wisdom that brings a thousand and one blessings to you, and through you to the whole existence.

This is your name: Swami Shantideva. Shantideva means god of silence.


The experience of silence is the most profound experience in life -- not the silence of the desert and the mountains. That is not your silence. You can go to the Himalayas and you will feel tremendous silence, but that is the silence of the Himalayas. The moment you start coming down from the mountains you will start losing track of it. Back in to the marketplace you are the same person, in fact in a worse condition than before, because now you will hanker for that silence, now the marketplace and its noise, in contrast, will look very crazy, mad. That's why for centuries so many religious people have been escaping to the deserts, to the mountains, to the monasteries, to find silence. but what they were finding was something that was not really theirs.


They were really cheating, themselves. The only criterion is the marketplace; they should have come back to the marketplace and they would have found immediately it is gone.


My effort with my sannyasins is that you should remain in the marketplace and yet be silent so there is no possibility of losing it once you gain it. Of course gaining is going to be a little bit difficult, but then losing will be impossible. Gaining it into a monastery, into a mountain retreat will be very easy, very cheap but losing it will be also very easy and very simple.


And the time that you wasted believing that you have attained it is simply gone out of your hand.


Once a Sufi fakir was brought to me -- he had many followers. Few of his followers had become interested in me and they wanted their master to see me and meet me. And they were continuously praising him. They were saying that for thirty years he sees god everywhere -- everything. He talks to the trees, to the rocks, he stands in ecstasy by the side of a tree, tears of joy flowing from is eyes -- he experiences god everywhere.


I said 'You bring him to me;' they brought him to me and I told all the disciples that 'You disperse. Leave him alone with me for three days.' They said 'But why?' I said 'That is something to do with me and him.' And I asked him 'Are you willing to be here for three days?' He could not say no because he had to see god everywhere, in everybody, so he had to see god even in me. I said 'Do you see god in me?' He said 'Yes.' And I said 'You have to follow me. Be here for three days.' He could not say no. How can you say no to a god? He looked a little puzzled and afraid also, because being three days with me, who knows what will happen? And I am dispersing his disciples... I dispersed the disciples and I asked him only one question that 'Now you will be three days with me -- I ask you only one thing: how this started, your experience of seeing god in everything? It started on its own or you practised it?'


He said 'How it can start on its own? For years I had to practise.' I said 'That's okay. Now you have stopped practising or you are still practising?' He said 'It has to be practised continuously otherwise one starts losing it.' Then I said 'You do one thing: for three days you stop practising. Thirty years you have practised, three days you stop practising it. If it is real after three days it will be with you; if it is not real but just a constant hypnosis, then after three days it will be gone.'


He said 'It is real.' I said 'That, perfectly good: then stop practising.' He had to agree for that too, because he was insisting it is real. In fact the way he was insisting was enough a proof that it was not real. He was over-insisting that it was real -- that was compensation. he was afraid himself, I could see the fear in his eyes, and after three days he was very angry with me, because for three days I didn't allow him to pray, I was constantly watching him, I didn't allow him to go to the trees and talk, I was always with him and he had to talk with me, not with the trees. And in three days I destroyed whatsoever he thought he had attained in thirty years. After three days he was really angry and he said 'What have you done to me? -- My thirty years practise destroyed.'


I said 'You just think: if not practising three days and something disappears, that simply means it was phony. You were just hypnotising yourself. It is good that now you will be able to see the foolishness of it. Thirty years are wasted but whatsoever is gone is gone. You are still alive and there is still life ahead: you can use that opportunity. No more practising of it. Don't befool yourself by talking to the trees and the rocks; you know deep down they are rocks and they are trees, because I don't see you talking with the donkeys and the buffaloes. If you see god everywhere, why not donkeys and buffaloes? You always talk to the roses... It is a choice, you are practising it. Those tears are phony, they are not true, they are crocodile tears.'


He was angry but he understood the point. He said 'But you have made me very ordinary.' I said 'I have done my work -- that's my work: making people ordinary, bringing them down from their holier-than-thou heights which don't exist really but are only in their beliefs.'


For my sannyasins this is a basic, a fundamental to be understood: peace has to be attained, silence has to be experienced, but in the world. It will take al little longer because there are so many distractions, so many problems, so many worries and so many challenges, but it is worth because once you attain it, then wherever you are silence pervades you very being, it moves with you.


Once Buddha was asked 'What happens when a meditator dies -- does he go to heaven?; He said 'No, but wherever he goes it is heaven.' That seems to be a real, authentic statement: wherever he goes there is paradise.


And only when you know silence in the noise, you will be able to experience god, otherwise not, because if the silence itself is phony -*-(words missing)-*- Christian god, Hindu god, Mohammedan god -- phony, synthetic, plastic. But when the silence is real then you will know a certain quality of godliness which has nothing to do with Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, which has nothing to do with any ideology. It is your experience, your flowering, your blossoming -- you have come home. It is your home, it is not a church.

How long will you be here?
(Till tomorrow)
That's great! Come back again.
			

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