---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Buddha Disease"
booktype: "Diaries"
bookcode: "DISEAS"
dategiven: "23 January 1977 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #23"
chaptertitle: "You are just part of a big orange ocean"
acode: "7701235"
shorttitle: "DISEAS23"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "The Buddha Disease: Chapter #23"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
<!--This file is automatically generated. Do not edit!-->


Deva means divine, and vasundhara means the earth; divine earth. And I give you this name for many reasons: one, the earth represents the feminine mind -- the sky represents the male mind. The feminine mind is very earthly, and every woman has to understand the meaning of the earth because that is her innermost core of being.


The second thing.... The earth seems to be the least divine thing, but that's just an appearance -- it is the most divine.


In the East we have a very ancient parable. God created man out of the earth and then he breathed into the man and the man became alive, conscious. God asked his angels, 'What do you think about him?' One sceptical angel said, 'Everything is okay, but I wonder, why have you chosen earth to make man? Why not gold, why not silver? At least you could have chosen steel -- but why earth? Why the lowest? And you say that man is your highest creation -- then why the lowest?'


God laughed and he said,'Only the lowest has the possibility of the highest... only the lowest can grow to the highest.' And secondly, god said,'Have you ever seen anything growing out of gold? Only things grow out of earth.'


So earth is a possibility to grow. All evolution depends on the earthly element. Gold may be valuable but it is dead. Earth may not look so valuable, but it is the very source of life.


God said,'Put a seed into gold and the seed will die. Put the seed into the earth and the seed will disappear and a tree will appear instead. There will be great rejoicing, because great beauty will come out of it -- many flowers and many fruits and much fragrance.'


That which was hidden in the seed, the earth helps to explode. The earth is explosive -- and so is man!


Man is not yet... man is a promise. Man is not a being but a possibility. Man is not yet at his peak but only at the beginning. And earth has to be understood because we have to grow our roots in the earth. If you grow your roots in the earth, you grow into the sky. The earth is divine -- the lowest, but the lowest carries the possibility of the highest.


[A sannyasin couple recently returned from the west say that they have been moving away from active meditation towards passive meditation together.]


If you continue both together the results will be deeper. What happens is that when you do the active meditation, you create the possibility to move into an inactive meditation. It is just like a pendulum. The pendulum goes to the left; it creates the momentum to go to the right. It is just like in the day you work hard; in the night you sleep very deeply. Life is very paradoxical -- it is not linear logic; it is dialectical. It goes through thesis, antithesis. It moves from the opposite.


If a person thinks that now he is sleeping very well in the night so it will be good to rest in the day too, sooner or later he will find that sleep has disappeared -- because the need is not there. He will start becoming a victim of insomnia.


That's why insomnia becomes prevalent only when a society attains to a certain affluence -- never before. When people are not working hard and their work is such that they can do it without putting any strain on their bodies, sleep disappears. This seems very illogical.


It seems logical that if they rest the whole day -- the whole day they practice rest -- in the night they should be going deeper into rest... but life does not work that way. And it happens to many people.


When you do active meditations, by and by, you will start feeling that now when you sit silently it is going so well, so why not stop the active? If you stop the active, within a few days you will feel that the passive meditation has also disappeared.


Right now, continue. I only suggest dropping the active meditation when even the passive is not needed. Because they are polars, they are joined together -- they are two aspects of the same coin.


A moment will come.... Just now you have started feeling that the active is not needed -- very good. It is a great step -- the feeling, but if you follow the feeling you will be missing something. Soon you will find that now the passive is not going very deep. Let the passive go deep -- the active you feel is no more needed, but continue it as a primary step towards the passive meditation. Let it be a part of the passive meditation.


Continue it not for itself now but to create your energy so that you can move into the passive meditation, and continue the passive too. More emphasis should be paid now to the passive, but this should be continued like an exercise.


One day when you feel that now even the passive is not needed, you can drop both, but not before it.

[A sannyasin of two weeks says: I feel that I must drop sannyas]

Mm... there is no problem in it.


[The sannyasin answers: It's like greed for enlightenment that you talk about. And it feels uncomfortable -- it feels wrong to get into that pattern again... ]


... But how will you be out of the pattern by dropping sannyas? If you can be it is perfectly good. That's what my effort is -- that people should get out of patterns -- but how will you, by dropping sannyas, get out of the patterns, tell me?


[The sannyasin answers: The point is that I find the same patterns in myself from before.]


Because you are the same -- it has nothing to do with sannyas. Drop yourself if you want to change. By dropping sannyas you will be the same! You were a non-sannyasin two weeks ago. Just think about it -- two weeks ago you were a non-sannyasin. You can immediately drop it and become a non-sannyasin. You were uncomfortable, you were in a pattern -- you will be the same again. So how are you getting out of your old pattern by dropping sannyas?


You will get out of your old pattern by dropping your ego! And that is the meaning of sannyas! In fact you are not a sannyasin -- that's why I am so easily ready for you to drop, because you have never been a sannyasin! For these two weeks you think you have become a sannyasin, but to become a sannyasin means to drop the ego.


If you have dropped the ego, who is there to drop the sannyas now? You have not dropped yourself and you create that problem -- that you have not changed. Unless you drop there is no way to change. And now you are so easily ready to drop the sannyas -- you are not so easily ready to drop yourself. And the reason that you are giving is absolutely bogus!


If that is the real reason, you should think of dropping your ego! You understand me? Because it is such simple arithmetic. The question is not the sannyas or no sannyas -- the question is that you have lived in a certain pattern and you want to get out of it, mm? Now, many things have to be understood


First, this effort to get out of it may be just a part of your pattern. Then it will be very difficult, because who is this one who wants to get out of the pattern? Maybe it is just part of the pattern. Then you will be in a dilemma -- you will be chasing your own tail. And the more you jump, the more the tail will jump. And you will go crazy!


The second thing: you have taken sannyas, but it has not happened. It is not necessarily that just by changing your clothes and taking a new name, you become a sannyasin. Something deeper has to happen -- and that something deeper can happen only if you understand the meaning of it and work it out. The ego has to be dropped!


You are uncomfortable because your ego is feeling uncomfortable; otherwise there is no discomfort. It is the ego that is creating discomfort. You think yourself something, somebody -- and sannyas has effaced that. That is the whole meaning of giving you the same colour and the same dress, the uniform -- so you cannot be somebody in particular, so you are just part of a big orange ocean, just a wave in it, nothing special... and you have the idea to be special. That may have been the cause of your taking sannyas.


When people take sannyas they do it for so many reasons that they may not be even aware of. A few people take sannyas because they think that they will become very important -- they are sannyasins. If a person takes sannyas to feel that he is somebody, sooner or later he will be frustrated -- he will see he has become a nobody rather than becoming a somebody. Then he is ready to drop the sannyas. But then too the mind plays cunning games; then too he is not true and honest.


You cannot say the true thing about why you want to drop it. Maybe you don't even know it -- maybe it is very unconscious and very subtle and you cannot catch hold of it. Now you are finding rationalisations. You say'I have been uncomfortable'. I asked you, you said you were uncomfortable before also, so what is the problem? You say you were in the pattern -- now again you are in the same pattern. So what is the problem? By dropping sannyas you will not be dropping the pattern.


Drop the pattern! That is the whole significance of sannyas. Drop the ego! Just try to be a nobody for a few weeks... just think of yourself as nobody. Efface yourself, be a non-entity for four weeks, and then see whether something happens or not.


And in fact, nothing is needed to happen. If you can just stop thinking about the future and the greed and the longing for the future.... This too is a greed -- to want to drop the pattern. Why For what? Why not be in a pattern and be happy? Then the pattern disappears! Then there is no problem! You accept it -- that's how it is, so it's okay! You have got a certain face, a certain height of the body, a certain weight of the body, certain type of hair, certain type of eyes, so okay -- you have got a certain pattern! How will you live without a pattern?


Everybody needs a certain pattern to live. A language is needed, a discipline is needed, otherwise you will not be able to keep yourself together -- you will start falling apart. The pattern is not wrong -- just remember that you are not the pattern. One has to live in a house -- one does not become a house by living in a house. One need not stop living in the house because in the house one becomes confined. There is no need to feel confined. A house is a shelter, and you don't become a house by living in a house. You use the house and you know you are not the house.


These things have to be meditated upon... but it is up to you. I am not trying to convince you about sannyas. You can simply drop it -- that is not a problem at all. But that is not going to solve anything -- remember it!


If you are really interested in solving, don't try to escape. Then the challenge is there -- try to face it! Do a few groups, meditate.... And two weeks is nothing! You have been a non-sannyasin for many lives, so two weeks is nothing! You must be too greedy...


The day I gave you sannyas, I was aware that I was giving sannyas to a person who is going to betray. Because that very moment you were dishonest; that very moment you were not honest. You had only taken sannyas to see whether there is something in it or not, so why not try it? For two weeks try it, and then if there is nothing you can leave it! That was the idea deep in your unconscious -- even in that moment. And even before you took sannyas, for two, three days you were thinking about whether to take sannyas or not, whether it will be a betrayal to M --  [his former guru] or not....


But these things were in your mind -- that's why the sannyas has not happened. So I say you can give it back. I have to say this because you have never taken it. So never think that you have given it back, because one who has taken it can never give it back....
Perfectly good. Tomorrow go to laxmi and give the mala back. Very good!

[Osho gives a seeker sannyas.]


This will be your name... and let this not only be a change of the name -- let it be a radical change in your very lifestyle. Sannyas should be a break, a complete break with the past and a fresh, clean beginning, unburdened by the past. The only problem -- and I say the only problem -- is how to remain unburdened with the past. By the very nature of things, the past becomes accumulated again and again.


Just as you travel on the road and you collect dust, the mind collects memory. It is nothing but dust, but when a mirror collects too much dust it loses its mirror quality. Then it does not reflect things as they are -- it starts distorting them, the dust becomes a barrier. Then the reflection is not true, then one starts seeing things which are not, and one starts not seeing things which are -- hence the whole confusion.


If the mind-mirror remains clean there is no problem at all. Nothing else has to be done -- just one thing: keep your mind-mirror clean. Never allow any dust to accumulate.


And sannyas means the beginning of this process -- a decision, a declaration that from now, henceforward you won't collect dust -- you will keep alert. Old habits are there and the mind, through its mechanical routine, automatically collects, so one has to be very alert. If one is alert each moment one slips out of the past, because each moment becomes the past. Each moment you are again and again in the grip of the past -- and you have to slip out of it.


The slipping-out-of should not be done with effort. If you do it with effort, your mirror gets scratches. It has to be done very smoothly, like a snake slipping out of the old skin -- not with effort, because effort can again be very destructive.


And there is no need to fight with the past, because to fight with the past means fighting with phantoms. You can never succeed, you can never be victorious, because in the first place those phantoms are not there -- they are only shadows.


So never fight -- just slip; this is the whole art of sannyas. And my whole teaching is to be effortlessly spontaneous. Just remember that this is gone, so gone is gone. Now there is no need to be bothered by it, this way or that, for or against. No need to think about it, no need to fight with it. In fact, the gone is gone. Slip out of it so that you become available to the fresh moment that is waiting at the door. Welcome it and welcome it with your totality. Face it with your mirror clean, and you will be surprised when everywhere you find god and nothing else -- because nothing else exists.


We are seeing the whole world of millions of forms because of the dust that has collected on our minds -- it is a distortion, just as on a full-moon night you can look for the full moon in a lake. It is there, but distorted by the waves. It is spread all over the lake -- you cannot find where it is exactly, and the waves are continuously disturbing the reflection.


If the mind accumulates the past you go on being distracted by those accumulated thoughts, memories, ideas. Just remember that from this moment you will not accumulate, you will not hoard the past, you will not be a hoarder of the dead memories. That's all sannyas is!


Ananda means blissful, and mahant means a saintly man, a saint; a blissful saint.


And to me the most saintly quality is blissfulness, cheerfulness, delight, joy. A serious man can never be a saint, although down the centuries serious men have pretended to be saints. But a serious man cannot be the saint -- he lacks the basic quality: cheerfulness, joy, celebration. He is pathological... he has not understood the mystery of life. He has not yet become a participant in this great celebration that goes on and on. God is a celebration, and when you participate in it you become a saint.


Once you know that god is a celebration, your whole quality changes. Everything brings a new joy -- small things. Food brings joy. A friend comes and brings joy. Nobody is there, you are sitting silently, and a breeze comes and surrounds you and there is joy. You look at the tree and there is great joy. You look at the sky and suddenly you are no more on the earth. Small things -- holding the hand of a beloved person, or looking into the eyes of a child, or into the eyes of a cow or~ a dog.... Doing something small or not doing anything at all -- just breathing is enough. Each breath brings such joy. One is alive -- what more can one ask for?


One is capable of love, one can love and be loved -- what more can one ask for? One is able to see the rainbows and flowers... one is able to listen to the birds. What more can one ask for? There is tremendous joy.... And this joyousness is to me the basic quality of a holy man, a saint.


Seriousness I call a sin. So don't be serious -- that has to be avoided. I want my sannyasins to be madly in love with life! I would like you to go dancing towards god -- in no other way!


When you enjoy anything, that thing becomes sacred... it becomes a sacrament. So wherever you are, if you are happy, thankful for your happiness, grateful for your life, you are in prayer... and you are my sannyasin! Let joy be the goal and create your life in such a way that more and more joy becomes possible.


Infinite joy is possible -- we are missing. We are living at the minimum. When you live in an optimum way, with maximum joy possible, you explode into divinity -- you become a saint.
			

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