Osho - Dance
Your Way to God
Chapter 1.
Darshan 28 July 1976
A sannyasin says: I'm not sure which
direction to take - whether to go out more to people or to go inside myself
more. I'm not sure which is best for my growth.
Osho checks his energy.
Good, come back. The energy is
really good.
You have to do both. Choosing
won't be good. These are not alternatives - whether one should go out, meet,
mix with people, or should go in. Both are needed together. If you move towards
one, you will become lopsided. So sometimes go out, mix with people, forget
yourself. Then really go out.
And make it part of meditation
that going out is good. Balance is needed; choice is not needed. All choice is
wrong, because these are are not alternatives; they are complementaries.
Together they make the whole, and together they make you holy and healthy.
Together they will heal you.
Osho went on to say that people who are
like monks could not be whole and healthy because they were living just half
lives, were rejecting life and other people...
Even if they are silent, their
silence is very poor. It is the silence of beggars. It is empty. It is simply
negative. It is not a fulfillment, it is not a benediction. It is not an
overflowing ecstasy. They cannot dance... they cannot sing.
And unless you can dance your
way to god, you can never reach.
So this is what I would like to
say to you: dance your way to god. And dance comes by balance. One cannot dance
on one leg; both legs will be needed. And one cannot dance by choosing the
inward or the outward, by becoming the introvert or the extrovert. Dance will
need continuous coming and going. It is a movement. You have to reach others.
And it is helpful; it is not contrary to meditation.
When you go to somebody and you
are lost in the world, suddenly a need arises to be alone. It is an appetite.
Then you come home and you sit alone, and now you can enjoy. Now this is not
loneliness, this is aloneness. If you don't go out and you sit there, it will
be loneliness,. not aloneness, and there will be no appetite. You will be bored
by it. It is as if one is full and still sitting at the table and trying to
eat. It will create nausea. You need a few hours in which not to eat - six,
seven or eight hours fasting - then suddenly you are hungry again.
So when you go into the world
you become hungry for aloneness. It creates an appetite for meditation. When
you are alone it creates an appetite for relationship. These are like two
wings. No bird can fly with one wing, and no dancer can dance with only one
leg.
So balance is my whole message,
summum bonum. Always remember, never choose anything which is going to disrupt
your balance. Do whatsoever can be done to bring more balance into your life.
Whatsoever brings balance is good, healthy, and whatsoever makes you lopsided
is unhealthy and dangerous. So sometimes go out and enjoy it. Don t go
reluctantly. Don't go because I am saying. Go in deep delight because outside
god is also waiting for you in so many forms.
Find, search for him there
also. And when you are tired of the outside and tired of relationship, tired of
people, come home,.close your eyes, sit alone, meditate, go in. There also, god
is waiting for you as your own self. He is everywhere so there is nothing to
choose. One has to be choicelessly aware. So just try balance.
It will take a little time. It
is very easy to choose one because then there is no problem. It is simple
arithmetic. If you choose one, you drop out of the world, you forget all
relationship; you close all your doors and windows and you shut yourself in.
Simple - no polarity, no challenge - but by and by you will shrink and die.
Or you can choose relationship
and the world, and never come home... always being with others. If nobody is
there, then in fantasy, but still with others. If nobody is there, then put on
the radio or the TV, but never be alone. There are people who are alone only
when they are fast asleep, and then even it is not certain that they are alone;
they may be dreaming of people. These are both wrong attitudes.
I am neither for the world nor
against it. I am neither for a monastery nor against it. Hence I have made this
monastery deep in the world. We could have chosen the himalayas, but that would
have been unbalanced. This noise of the railway, the aeroplane and the traffic,
is enriching. It gives polarity, it gives shape and sharpness. It gives tone.
Anand means bliss and sahajo
means spontaneous; spontaneous bliss. And sahajo is the name of one woman
mystic, a great indian saint; one of the very rare woman mystics.
I give you the name so that you
can remember continuously that you have to be spontaneous. Live moment to
moment. Don't think of the past and don't think of the future. Both are
non-existential.
The past is gone, the future is
not yet. Only the present is.
So to be in the present is the
only way to be. Be responsive to the moment. If somebody asks something, don't
answer from your mind. Put the mind aside - because the mind can never be
spontaneous, and that which cannot be spontaneous is not you. When you put the
mind aside, your spontaneous being surfaces. So don't bother to be consistent;
there is no need. There is no need to have a character because character means
that the past decides the present. You have been doing something in the past,
now you have to be consistent with it; that's what character is.
The society wants you, and
everybody, to be with character, because a man of character can be manipulated
very easily. A man of character is predictable. A spontaneous man is
unpredictable because he is basically freedom. One never knows what he is going
to do next. Not even you know what is going to happen in the next moment. If
you know what is going to happen in the next moment, what you are going to do,
you are already dead. Then that moment cannot be alive, fresh, young; you have
already prepared for it. So, no preparations. Just wait for the next moment to
come, and respond with your totality, whatsoever the consequence.
To think about the consequence
is to be worldly. And to drop thinking about consequences is to become a
sannyasin.
You follow me? That will be the
meaning, and it is not only going to be your name - it has to become your very
being.
The new sannyasin says she has been
studying music since she was a child and has been giving big concerts playing
the organ, but now she has some conflict. She doesn't know whether to continue
or not.
Music is such a beautiful thing
that one should never leave it - it is a sort of meditation. So rather than
leaving it, go deeper into it. I will help you to go deeper into it. I can
understand where the problem is. The problem is not in the music; the problem
is in being a performer.
... that performance is the
problem. There are a few things which cannot really be performed. If they are
deep in you, you cannot do those things before others unless a very
sympathetic, loving audience is available - which is not. Doing a concert
before the public is like making love on the street. It is so intimate, and one
feels embarrassed to bring that soft heart to such a public gaze.
... The deeper you go in
meditation, the more the quality of your music will change. Your capacity will
change; you will feel more rooted in it. So right now, meditate here, do a few
groups. We have a music group here also, so participate in it. And it is not a
performance; it is a meditation.
(to radha) And one day she has to come and play here, just
whatsoever she wants, so that I can feel where she is. And playing here before
me, (to sahajo) forget yourself completely. For half an hour you just go as
deep as you can so that I can feel where the block is and then things can be
done.
A sannyasin says he practiced the mantra 'I
am not afraid' until his fear disappeared. Then he felt very fragile and shakey:
I have been crying a lot.
Enjoy crying...
Tears are one of the most
beautiful things in the world, so enjoy them and remain fragile, because if you
are fragile then you are available to god. You are soft, you are porous. You
function like a sponge and god is soaked in. When you are hard, nothing enters
- and we have been taught to be hard so that nothing enters. The hardness is
part of our defense. We are afraid: that's why we are hard. So when you start
feeling not afraid, you become fragile.
It is fear that has made people
like rocks - very stiff, hard, non-vulnerable - because they are afraid that
somebody may enter, somebody's love, and some tenderness may surface. They have
been taught not to allow anything to enter, because if something enters, you
are no more in control. You become pregnant, so you protect yourself.
By and by, because of fear and
continuously defending ourselves, we have shrunken. Drop the fear and you start
expanding. Become fragile and you start expanding. When there is no fear, there
is nothing else but god. When there is no fear only love is left, because there
are only two orientations - fear or love. If fear is there, love cannot exist.
If fear is not there. Love suddenly erupts, explodes, and then you will sing
out of love and you will dance out of love. You will cry and you will laugh.
You will be almost mad with love. And this love is unaddressed... not to anyone
in particular.
In fact it is not a
relationship. It is a state of mind. When you are afraid, you are simply
afraid. It is not that you are afraid of this man or that woman, or this night
and this darkness. You are simply afraid; all others are just excuses. When you
are loving, you are simply loving. Then you love whatsoever comes on the way.
So allow it and continue that meditation.
Each night it will be very
good. Do it just before you go to sleep. At least in the moment when you are
falling asleep, if you are completely unafraid it will give a totally different
quality to your sleep.
And sleep is a small death, so
in fact we are afraid of it. That's why sleep is not so deep - disturbed.
People go on turning from this
side to that. In fact it is nothing but fear, because in sleep you are not in
control. You don't know what is happening, you don't know who you are, you
don't know where you are.
All the control of the world
that you had while you were awake is lost. Some people turn and toss, and again
and again sleep is broken. When people become too much afraid, insomnia is
natural.
When you are not afraid,
insomnia disappears. You sleep so deeply - as if you had really died. And in
the morning you come back from the world of death. You resurrect every morning.
The Tao Group is present. A group leader
says:... can a leader die in the group? I think it would be hard for me as a
participant, but it's especially hard for me as a leader.
No, it is the same. The problem
is arising because the dying of you is not really the dying of the leader. In
fact the more you are, the less you are capable of leading. The less you are,
the more you are capable of leading. When you completely disappear, there is
only a function of leadership; you are not there.
The leader is not going to die.
In fact the leader will be more there when you are not. It is the ego of the
leader, it is the doer, that disappears. When the doer disappears then the
leader is in tremen-dous spontaneity. The leader becomes a vehicle, a vehicle
of the unconscious forces of the participants. Then the leader becomes a mirror
and reflects those depths which the participants
cannot penetrate themselves.
Then the participant is not really being led by somebody else - the participant
is being led by his own unconscious forces, and the leader has just became
instrumental in it.
Everybody is carrying his own
inner searchlight, but nobody is aware of it. The whole effort is to make the
participant aware that all that he's seeking is already the case, that it is
not really that he has to solve problems; the only problem is to understand
that he has not to create them. And life is not a problem. To look at it as if
it is a problem is the beginning of stupidity. Life is not a problem. It is a
mystery to be lived.
So when the leader is not a
doer, he himself becomes a mystery Suddenly he will feel that when he was there
people were resisting, the participants were in a sort of resistance, because
when you are there the participants feel defensive. There is a subtle
underground fight between your ego and the ego of the participant. He does not
want to surrender. Why should he surrender? Who are you?
On the surface he may try, but
deep down he goes on resisting. Even if he tries, he tries reluctantly, and
that dissipates much energy unnecessarily. When you see a leader who is not
there at all, immediately the resistance in the participant disappears -
because there is nobody to surrender to, so now you can surrender easily. There
is nobody who is going to enjoy your surrender, who will feel very enhanced in
his ego by your surrender, so what is the point of resisting?
In your bathroom you don't
resist. In your drawing-room you don't resist. Even small things make a
difference. When you go to a psychoanalyst in his office, you resist more
because it is his territory, it is his kingdom, and you have to be alert
because otherwise he will simply gobble you up, he will swallow you. That's why
psychoanalysts don't like to go to the patient's house - because there they
will not be so powerful. It will be the patient's home and they will have to
fit in. When the patient comes to the psychoanalyst he has to fit, but a subtle
conflict continues.
So when the leader is not
there, he has become a guru. That is the difference between a leader and a
guru. It is a very subtle difference. If the leader is there, he is a leader.
If the leader is not there, he is a guru. Then there is nobody to whom you are
surrendering. He is simply symbolic. In fact you are surrendering to yourself.
Via the guru you are coming to your home.
So the problem is there because
you think that if you are not there, then how will you be able to lead?
You need not be worried about
it. Only then will you be able to lead - and the leadership will have such a
beautiful quality. It will have no violence in it. Otherwise there is violence
- when you look at somebody as being a participant and you are a leader, there
is violence. Then you are to interpret, you are to judge, you have to show the
way. He is the ignorant one and you are the know-all; then you have the upper
hand. It is you who is going to decide whether he is moving rightly or wrongly,
whether he is following the right path or not. It is you who is going to
evaluate. The patient is just nobody and you have to put a label on him. You
can call him a schizophrenic, you can call him a neurotic or a psychotic or
whatsoever you like, and he is just to comply with it. He has no say in it.
If he tells a dream, you are
the interpreter. He's just an object. The person is reduced to a thing.
You are the manipulator, and
you have to cut and change and polish and repolish, and make a man out of it;
to make him adjust, to make him grow or whatsoever, but you become a
manipulator.
When you are not, you don't
judge. You are not an observer and you have no authority. When you don't have
any authority you help tremendously - because authority is destructive. You are
simply love, not knowledge - that is the difference. When the leader is, he is
knowledge. When the leader is not, and only a function of leading is there,
then there is simply love. Then you go on showering your love.
People grow through love, not
through knowledge.
They are not mechanisms - they
are people, real people, as alive as you. They are hidden gods.
One should approach them with a
deep reverence. It is sacrilege to call a person a patient. To say of a person
that he needs psychoanalysis, or he needs this or that, is to degrade the
person, is to humiliate him. And that is the difference between a guru...
The guru is an eastern concept,
a feminine concept. A guru is one who is not. It is a very paradoxical
function: one who is not, is a guru. A slight ego and the guru will be
poisonous - no ego, then he is nectar, he is simply nectar showering on you.
You can surrender to him because he is not. You are surrendering to yourself
via the guru.
And it is going to be totally
different here because these are sannyasins - they are not patients. And they
are in an authentic search. They are devotees. They are not just fooling
around. They are not just curious about what this tao group is, they are not
just curious, they are not onlookers. They are involved, committed.
When you do a group in the
west, there are twenty participants, and they are all just participants; there
is no inner link between them. When you are doing a group here, there are
twenty sannyasins.
I am the inner link running
between them and through you, so you are all part of a garland. And that thread
which is not visible on the surface, is a deep connection, gives you a deeper
intimacy and makes many more things possible.
So by and by let the leader
disappear. Just be a leading function and allow me to work through you.
Whenever you are in trouble, whenever you are facing a problem you cannot
solve, there is no need to become tense about it. Just close your eyes, relax
and remember me. Hold the locket and suddenly you will see you are full of me
and something has started.
You were surprised by the
spontaneity of the participants - sooner or later you will be surprised by your
own spontaneity and your own unpredictableness. Some answers will start flowing
through you which you were never aware were there.
The group leader says that she feels her
resistance is in the limitations of her body which she has neglected.
No, nothing to be worried
about. Nothing is ever lost. Even if the body is neglected, you can again
reconnect it. There is no problem, not at all. Nothing is ever lost. You may
have forgotten it - it can be revived. You may have forgotten the meaning - it
can be decoded.
We have such tremendous
reservoirs of energy that one is never, in any way, limited. If we believe we
are limited, we function as limited human beings. Once we drop that foolish
belief, we start functioning as unlimited beings. It is just a belief. You have
drawn your own circle. It happens with gypsies...
Gypsies are continuously moving
- they are wandering people. So when the older people go into the town, they
draw circles around their children and tell the child, 'Sit here. You cannot
get out of this. It is a magic circle.' And the gypsy child cannot get out of
it - impossible! Then he grows and grows and becomes an old man; and even then,
if his father draws a circle, the old man cannot get out of it. Now he believes
- and when you believe, it works.
Now you will be surprised at
what foolishness this is and will say that this cannot be done to you.
Somebody draws a circle and you
will immediately jump out of it; nothing will happen. But an old gypsy man
cannot even get out of it. From the very childhood he has been conditioned for
it. It functions for him, it is a reality for him, because reality is that
which affects you. There is no other criterion for reality.
So limitation is a concept.
Nothing is wrong with your body, nothing is wrong with any body. People have
wrong beliefs and then they function wrongly. When they function wrongly they
search for a reason as to why.
They come across the belief and
go on emphasising it: 'I am functioning wrongly because of this.'
This becomes a vicious circle.
Then they are more limited. Drop that idea completely. It is just a circle that
you or others have helped you to draw around yourself.
That is the whole function of
my being here - to make you unlimited, because you are.
Limitations exist only in your
belief. It is a suggestion, an auto-hypnosis. It is very real when it is there,
but drop it and suddenly you will laugh. It is very ridiculous. Start working
and soon it will disap-pear. Don't be worried about it.
A sannyasin says: For the first I find that
I'm not dependent on the care of a woman. But there's a small boy inside me who
doesn't like to be shouted at, who doesn't want to be blamed.
... tell the hypno-therapist
about your problem so he can work on it. Then we will decide. It will go; there
is nothing to be worried about.
One day one has to become
independent of a constant need of being cared for by a woman. That is the day
that one becomes mature. That is the day when you are finished with your
mother, and that is the day you can start loving a woman. Otherwise in every woman
you will go on searching for your mother. Then it is going to be false love. It
is going to be political. Because you need the care, you pretend to love, but
that is not mature love. You are like a child hanging onto the mother's skirt.
If you continue that you will
never know what love is.
One has to finish with this
dependence. When you are finished with it, for the first time you will be able
to decide whether you love this woman or not, because now there is no need; now
you can share. When there is no need, love flowers.
Love flowers only when needs
have disappeared. A love happens only between a king and a queen - neither is
in any need.
Love is the most luxurious
thing in the world. It is not a need - it is the last luxury, the ultimate in
luxuries. If you are needing it it is just as other needs; one needs food, one
needs shelter, one needs clothes, one needs this and that. Then love is also
part of this world.
When there is no need and you
are simply flowing with energy and would like to share with somebody, and
somebody is also flow-ing with energy and would like to share with you, then
you both offer your energies to an unknown god of love.
And it is sheer luxury because
it is purposeless. It has no business to do. It is intrinsic - it is not a
means to anything else. It is a great play.
A sannyasin says: I enjoyed the group very
much. I feel that I'm becoming more soft. My sexual energies seem to be drying
up since being in poona.
Just let it be, allow it. When
energy is rising upwards, many changes happen and one should not disturb those
changes. Simply allow it. Just be with the energy wherever it is going,
whatsoever is happening. Don't force anything against it, that's all. Accept
it, trust it.
I can see that it is going
beautifully - you need not worry.
A sannyasin says that he has separated from
his girlfriend but The other night we spent the night together, and we didn't
have intercourse but just lay together. The energy that moved between us was
much deeper than it has ever been before.
Mm, it happens sometimes.
Particularly for the modern man it has become almost impossible to lie down
with the woman you love and not to make love. People have forgotten completely
that sex is nothing compared to that merger which happens when you are simply
Lying together in deep love, in deep reverence, in prayer.
When the physical energy is not
sexually involved, it rises to higher altitudes. It can reach to the very last,
to samadhi. But people have forgotten completely. They think that sex is the
end. Sex is only the beginning. So remember it.
Whenever you love a woman, make
it a point to first lie together in deep love, and you will reach to higher
orgasms, subtler, deeper. That's how, by and by, real celibacy arises. What we
call in india 'brahmacharya', real celibacy, is not against sex: it is higher
than sex, it is deeper than sex. It is more than sex. Whatsoever sex can give,
it gives, but it gives more also. So when you know how to use your energy on
such a high level, who bothers for the lower spaces? - nobody. Then it is not
against sex.
I'm not saying to drop sex. I
am saying to sometimes allow yourself pure loving spaces where sex is not a
concern. Otherwise you are pulled back to earth and you can never fly into the
sky.
That's what happened. It has
been a good experience. Remember it and feel grateful to her. Don't create any
problem out of it. If she loves, she will come to you, you will go to her. If
we love each other we come again and again to each other. If we don't love, it
can't be helped. Then we say goodbye. There is no need to make it a permanent,
enforced relationship. No need to make love a marriage unless it itself becomes
a marriage; then it's okay.
A sannyasin says through a translator: She
says that she has difficulties because she doesn't speak any english, but
nevertheless she feels and she understands.
She says she feels much freer to express
herself since being here in the ashram.
Very good. In fact language is
not needed too much. It is not always a medium of communication. It more or
less hinders communication. If you can feel, that's good. Don't be worried
about language.
Move by feeling.
Feeling is the universal
language. And particularly to understand me. No language is needed. I can find
a way in from the back door!
