Osho – Visarjan means dissolution, dissolution into the divine, immersion in the divine, the state of being lost…. One has to learn how to disperse oneself, how to come to a point where one is not. Only then god is. You and god cannot exist together; that’s not possible. That’s why so many people go on missing god – because they are asking for the impossible: they want to remain themselves and they want to see god. God can be seen only when you are not. That nothingness can encounter god, not you.

So the whole process of sannyas is the process of visarjan, dispersion. Slowly, slowly, one loses, goes on losing, goes on losing. The more one loses, the more one understands how beautiful it is not to be. Then more courage arises, a little bit more. One goes a little deeper and a little deeper, and one day the final risk, the final gamble: one simply jumps and disappears. In that very moment there is god. That moment is god.

Deva means divine, rasila means juice, juicy. And the juice that runs through our veins is divine, the blood that runs through our veins is divine. Dust is divine… all is divine. One has to start enjoying this; then more juice comes. One has to start sharing it. The more you give, the more you are given. Another name for that juice is love. When you give love, new energies start flowing in you. That’s why whenever somebody falls in love they start feeling young again. Whenever love is stuck and the doors are closed, one starts feeling old.

Let love flow more… and don’t be a miser. Because this is the paradox of life: the economics of the divine is just the reverse of the economics of the world. In the ordinary economics if you don’t hoard you will not have; m the divine economics if you hoard you will not have. In the ordinary economics if you don’t give you will have; if you give you will lose. In the divine economics just the opposite is the truth: if you give you will have; if you don’t give you will lose. That’s what jesus means when he says: Those who try to save their lives will lose them. The loser in the divine game is the winner… the defeated is the victorious. And he who is nobody is all. Nothingness is fullness.

So go on giving to everybody and anybody. There is no need to make any conditions. Never say that you will give only when this is fulfilled: never give with conditions. To give with conditions is to destroy the whole beauty of it. It is immensely beautiful when it is unconditional. When you enjoy giving, when you are not giving in order to get, you get, you certainly get; you get a thousandfold.

That is another story…. So let this juice that you are carrying in yourself, flow. And don’t confine it to your husband, to your children only. Give them as much as you can but don’t confine your love; there should be no limit to it. Don’t confine it to your race, religion, colour, the country. Don’t confine it! Love is god’s gift: it should be given to all. It should be given not only to persons but to things too. Once you have learned the secret – that the more you give, the more it comes, and you go on becoming younger and younger and you go on becoming fresher and fresher, and you go on becoming livelier and livelier – then you have stumbled upon the greatest secret of life, the key. It can open the door of the ultimate. Love is the key for the door to god.

And in India we call it ’ras’ – juice – because it is really the sweetest taste possible. And it is not only a taste on the tongue… it is the taste that spreads all over your being, to every cell of your being. You become suffused with it. Every hair on your body starts tingling with it. It is a thrill that goes through and through. Every fibre of your being starts dancing in it. That’s why we have called it ’ras’, juice.

Let sannyas be your resurrection. Come here! This will be your new name… and a new beginning; a new birth. Forget the whole past as if it has never existed – as if you have seen it in a movie or you had heard about it from somebody else. Disconnect yourself from it. Yes, it will remain there in the brain cells as a memory but let the psychological memory of it disappear. And those two are two totally different things….

Source – Osho Book “Only Losers Can Win in This Game”

Osho – God is always ready to give. He is always ready to share his being, his bliss, his truth, but we are unavailable, we are very closed. We don’t give him any way into our being, we don’t open even a single window. Out of fear we keep all the doors and windows closed; hence the wind and the sun and the rain… nothing can reach us.

God comes in many ways, in thousands of ways, but he just remains standing outside. And he is so polite that he will not even knock on the door, he will not ring the bell. He is so silent that you will not hear his footsteps. He will wait, and he can wait because he has infinity. But we lose much because our life is short, our time is very small and it is slipping out of our hands every moment.

And the older we grow, the more closed we become because the more afraid we are: death starts knocking on the door. Death is not polite. It is very noisy, it is not silent. If you don’t open the door it will force the door open, it will pull you out. So as we grow older we become more and more afraid, we become more and more enclosed, encapsulated, and god becomes farther and farther away.

He is always close but we are not available. He is near but we are far, far away from him. The strange phenomenon has to be understood because much depends on that understanding. He is very near but we are very far away; he is always available, we are never available.

The whole effort of all the masters down the ages has been to help you to become available, to help you to gather courage so that you can open your doors and windows and you can allow him — not reluctantly: you can welcome him. The moment you are ready to welcome him he immediately transforms your being. And that transformation is bliss. His grace showers on you, cleanses you, purifies you.

Man alone, on his own, cannot do that. It is impossible for man to cleanse his own heart, to purify his own being. It is like pulling yourself up by your shoestrings. It is impossible. You can try to jump a little bit but you will be back on the same earth again. You may even fall and have a few fractures. Man has to learn the secret of let-go.

Source – Osho Book “Fingers Pointing to the Moon”

Osho – The law of inner victory is very strange. In the outer world if you want to be victorious you have to be violent, aggressive, you have to be ready to fight. In the inner world just the opposite is the case: if you want to be victorious you have to forget fighting, you have to drop the very idea of fight. You are not to be violent, you have to be loving, non-violent, compassionate. In a single word, if one is capable of surrendering then only does one become victorious in the inward journey. Victory comes through surrender, through a deep let-go.

That’s what sannyas is all about: a deep let-go, dropping all struggle, fight, aggression, ambition. And when you drop all these things suddenly you become aware that the ego has evaporated, because the ego needs all these things as supports, as nourishment. The outer victory is nothing but an ego trip. The inner victory is the victory of egolessness.

Man appears to be a mortal — he is not. Death is the most false phenomenon in existence, because nobody has ever died. Nobody can die in the very nature of things. Nothing ever dies, death is not possible at all. Life is eternal, beginningless, endless. But this can be known only through the grace of God. You cannot know it through your own efforts, your efforts will be small. You cannot know it by your own mind, your mind’s reach is small. But if God is gracious it can happen.

So what is needed on your part is to be worthy of receiving God’s grace. And that’s what my whole teaching is, to be receptive, to be grateful, to be open, to be vulnerable, so that when God knocks on your door the doors are not closed, so that when he comes your eyes are not closed, so that when he comes in your heart he finds you waiting, expectant.

Man’s efforts are small. They are good as far as the world is concerned, man can do many things in the world. But as far as the beyond is concerned, man’s efforts are absolutely irrelevant. We can only allow God to take possession of us, we can allow him to do whatsoever he wants to do. We can be in a let-go. That surrender is sannyas, that trust is sannyas, that infinite love is sannyas. One can surrender only and love only if there is infinite love.

I don’t say to believe in God. I say experience. Any belief not rooted in your own experience is false. It is dangerous. It hinders your true experience; it prevents your search. It does not allow you to be open to the truth, because you are already carrying many conclusions.

So let this birth of sannyas in you be a discontinuation with the past. Unlearn all that you have learned up to now. Forget your past, disconnect yourself, don’t look back. Look in the moment, in the present, and be in a totally relaxed state, available. That availability makes you worthy. God comes only to those who are available to him. To be available is to be prayerful. To be open and receptive is to be really religious.

Source – Osho Book “If You Choose to be With Me”

Osho - Acceptance is one of the most beautiful words. Buddhists, the followers of Buddha, have a term for it which is even deeper than the English word ‘acceptance’; it is tathata. tathata means saying ‘yes’ so totally that in your being there is no division. You become one in your yes. You say ‘yes’ so totally that there exists no ‘no’ inside you, no denial.

Tathata, or total acceptance, is not a majority decision. It is not parliamentary, it is total. It is not that the major part of your mind, the major part of your being decides, and the minor still goes on saying ‘no’. Then it is conflict — then who knows? Any day the majority may become a minority, and the minority may become a majority. It is bound to be so, because sooner or later the majority will be tired of saying ‘yes’ and will relax more and more, and the minority which says ‘no’ without doing anything will gather force and momentum. By and by the majority will be exhausted and the minority will collect energy. Not doing anything, sooner or later it will become the majority.

There is an inner politics. Acceptance, total acceptance, tathata, means without any political decision — total. There is nobody who says ‘no’ within you, not even a fragment, because even a fragment can be destructive. And even if part of you says ‘no’ you cannot receive the true teaching.

People come to me. They say: We surrender, and they don’t do what they are saying. If I say to them: Okay, change your dress to ochre, they say: It is difficult, I am not ready for it. Just the dress, and you are not ready to change it — and you are thinking of changing your soul, your being! And just a moment before the person was saying: I surrender to you. He does not know what surrender means; he does not know what he is saying, he is fast asleep. In his sleep he may have used the word ‘surrender’, but the moment I say: Change something, your dress, your name, he says: It is difficult, I love my name. Let my name remain the same. My name is beautiful, don’t change it. Even the name, which is nothing but a word — and you don’t come with a name when you are born, you come without a name, a nameless being; this is just a label attached to you — and you cannot even change the label. You are not ready for any change at all.

People ask me: Why do you change people’s name and dress? That is just the beginning. That’s how I start taking hold of you. That’s how I feel whether you are ready to change anything or not.

You would like to receive the true teaching without any change. You would like to receive the true teaching as you are. That is not possible. It is not possible because of the very nature of the true teaching. I cannot do anything about it, nobody can. It is in the nature of the very phenomenon; you receive it only when you accept it.

God is available, Truth is available, Light is available, but you are such a miser in receiving. You are not only a miser in giving, you are a miser in receiving also. A miser has to be a miser whatsoever he does. You cannot give; you cannot receive. What type of life have you got? Giving and receiving are two aspects of the same coin. If you can give, you can also receive. Hence, so much insistence on giving — giving to people whatsoever you can give — giving in love. There is so much insistence from all the religions to give; give more and more. Why? — so that you can become capable of receiving more and more.

Remember, it is just like inhalation and exhalation. If you exhale deeply, automatically you will inhale deeply. If you want to inhale deeply, you will have to exhale deeply — there is no other way. And life is a balance between exhalation and inhalation. If you are afraid of exhalation your breathing will become shallow. Then your inhalation cannot be very deep. it is impossible. Exhalation is giving, giving whatsoever you can give. And the more you give, the more you become capable of receiving. And when you give completely, utterly, totally, that is the moment of acceptance.

Source – Osho Book “Returning to the Source”

Question – Beloved Osho, Why does everyone want to pretend to be what they are not? What is the psychology behind it?

Osho – Narendra, everybody is condemned from his very childhood. Whatever he does on his own accord, out of his own liking, is not acceptable. The people, the crowd in which a child has to grow has its own ideas, ideals. The child has to fit with those ideas and ideals. The child is helpless.

Have you ever thought about it? — the human child is the most helpless child in the whole animal kingdom. All the animals can survive without the support of the parents and the crowd, but the human child cannot survive, he will die immediately. He is the most helpless creature in the world — so vulnerable to death, so delicate. Naturally those who are in power are able to mould the child in the way they want.

So everybody has become what he is, against himself. That is the psychology behind the fact that everybody wants to pretend to be what he is not. Everybody is in a schizophrenic state. He has never been allowed to be himself, he has been forced to be somebody else that his nature does not allow him to be happy with.

So as one grows and stands on his own legs, one starts pretending many things which he would have liked in reality to be part of his being. But in this insane world, he has been distracted. He has been made into somebody else; he is not that. He knows it. Everybody knows it — that he has been forced to become a doctor, to become an engineer; he has been forced to become a politician, to become a criminal, to become a beggar.

There are all kinds of forces around. In Bombay there are people whose whole business is to steal children and make them crippled, blind, lame, and force them to beg and each evening to bring all the money that they have gathered. Yes, food will be given to them, shelter will be given to them. They are being used like commodities, they are not human beings. This is the extreme, but the same has happened with everybody to a lesser or greater extent. Nobody is at ease with himself.

I have heard about a great surgeon who was retiring, and he was very famous. He had many students and many colleagues. They all gathered, and they were dancing and singing and drinking — but he was standing in a dark corner, sad.

One friend came up to him and asked, “What is the matter with you? We are celebrating and you are standing here so sad — don’t you want to retire? You are seventy-five; you should have retired fifteen years ago. But because you are such a great surgeon, even at seventy-five nobody can compete with you, nobody comes even close to you. Now, retire and relax!”

He said, “That’s what I was thinking. I am feeling sad because my parents forced me to become a surgeon. I wanted to be a singer, and I would have loved it. Even if I was just a street singer — at least I would have been myself. Now I am a world-famous surgeon, but I am not myself. When people praise me as a surgeon, I listen as if they are praising somebody else. I have been given awards, doctorates, but nothing rings a bell of joy in my heart — because this is not me. This being a surgeon has killed me, destroyed me. I wanted to be just a flute player, even if I had to be a beggar on the streets. But I would have been happy.”

In this world, there is only one happiness and that is to be yourself. And because nobody is himself, everybody is trying somehow to hide — masks, pretensions, hypocrisies. They are ashamed of what they are.

We have made the world a marketplace, not a beautiful garden where everybody is allowed to bring his own flowers. We are forcing marigolds to bring roses — now from where can marigolds bring roses? Those roses will be plastic roses, and in the heart of hearts the marigold will be crying, and with tears, feeling ashamed that “We have not been courageous enough to rebel against the crowd. They have forced plastic flowers on us, and we have our own real flowers for which our juices are flowing — but we cannot show our real flowers.”

You are being taught everything, but you are not being taught to be yourself. This is the ugliest form of society possible, because it makes everybody miserable.

I have heard of another great man, a great professor of literature who was being retired from the university. All the university professors had gathered, all his friends had gathered, and they were rejoicing. But suddenly they became aware that he was missing. One of his friends, an attorney, went out… perhaps he in was the garden. But what was he doing there? He was sitting under a tree.

The attorney was his closest friend, a boyhood friend. The attorney said, “What are you doing here?”
He said, “What I am doing here? Remember fifty years ago? — I came to tell you that I wanted to kill my wife. And you said, `Don’t do any such thing. Otherwise — fifty years in jail.’ I am thinking that if I had not listened to you, today I would have been out of jail, free. He said, “I am feeling so angry that a desire comes to me — why should I not at least kill you! Now I am seventy-five. Even if they put me in jail for fifty years they cannot keep me there for fifty years. Within five, seven years I will be dead. But you were not a friend; you proved to be my greatest enemy.”

To be what you don’t want to be, to be with someone you don’t want to be with, to do something you don’t want to do is the basis of all your miseries. And on the one hand the society has managed to make everybody miserable, and on the other hand the same society expects that you should not show your misery — at least not in public, not in the open. It is your private business.

They have created it — it really is public business, not private business. The same crowd that has created all the reasons for your misery finally says to you: “Your misery is your own, but when you come out, come out smiling. Don’t show your miserable face to others.”

This they call etiquette, manners, culture. Basically, it is hypocrisy. And unless a person decides that “Whatever the cost, I want just to be myself. Condemned, unaccepted, losing respectability — everything is okay but I cannot pretend anymore to be somebody else”… This decision and this declaration — this declaration of freedom, freedom from the weight of the crowd — gives birth to your natural being, to your individuality.

Then you don’t need any mask. Then you can be simply yourself, just as you are. And the moment you can be just as you are, there is tremendous peace that passeth understanding.

Source – Osho Book “Beyond Enlightenment”

Question – Beloved Osho, Could you please explain the difference between trusting existence and fatalism?

Osho – The difference between trust and fate is very subtle. On the surface it seems they mean exactly the same thing, but in reality they are diametrically opposite experiences.

Fate is a consolation. You are poor, and you see others getting richer and richer — some consolation is needed. You do everything and you do it honestly, truthfully, morally. You never use wrong means; still you are a failure. And you see others being dishonest, cunning, insincere, immoral, criminal, using all kinds of wrong means and succeeding, becoming richer, attaining power, prestige. How to explain it?

It is not new. Since the very beginning man has been puzzled by it. And he had to create some idea as a consolation. Fate, kismet, destiny, God — everything is written in the lines of your hand, in the lines of your forehead; everything is predetermined in your birthchart, you cannot do anything against it. The forces that have determined your life are too big. You are going to fail; it is better to accept your failure as destiny. It hurts less to say it is fate; it gives consolation. It is not your doing, it is not your failure — what can you do against the stars? You cannot determine your birth time and the day and the year.

You come into the world just like an actor, comes onto the stage fully prepared. He cannot change anything. Once in a while actors can change things, because a drama is a drama….

I have heard that in a village… All over India, every year at this time every village is playing the drama of the life of Rama, the Hindu god. And in the beginning… it is just like any film story: a triangle — two lovers, one woman. Sita is the woman, and Rama and Ravana are the two lovers. Rama is a young man. Ravana is very strong.

In those days, the daughters of kings particularly had the right to choose any device for selecting their husbands. Sita had asked… because in their family they had the bow that had belonged to the god, Shiva. It was such a big strong bow that even to pick it up needed a great wrestler; it was not easy for one person to raise it. As a device Sita chose that anybody who could raise the bow, and not only raise it but break it with his hands alone — it was a steel bow — that man she would choose as her husband.

Hundreds of kings, great wrestlers, archers… Rama was also present there. But nobody thought he would be of any use; he was too young. Everybody was worried that Ravana — who was a huge man, dangerous, had ten heads — was going to win. And everybody was worried — Sita’s father was worried, everybody concerned was worried that Sita would fall into the hands of this idiot. Somehow she had to be saved.

So just as the others were coming forward — and they could not even move the bow, raising it was out of question; they were becoming laughingstocks…. Before Ravana stood up, a man came running… it was a device to send Ravana back to his kingdom. He was the king of Sri Lanka. And the man said, “What are you doing here? Sri Lanka is on fire. Your whole kingdom is burning.”

Ravana forgot all about getting married to Sita. He rushed off to see what was happening in the kingdom first. It was a false strategy; there was no problem, Sri Lanka was perfectly okay. But by the time he came back, Rama had broken the bow, married Sita, and gone. This was a conspiracy, and Ravana could not forgive it. He was continuously in search of Sita, to steal her. Finally he stole her, and for three years he kept her imprisoned. That’s how the whole story goes.

In every village it is enacted every year. In this particular village, the man who played the part of Ravana was really in love with the girl who was playing the part of Sita. But they belonged to different castes; marriage was not possible.

Every year it was happening: the moment he would stand up, the man would come out shouting: “Sri Lanka is on fire!”

This time he was determined — because outside the drama they wouldn’t allow the marriage. They were not of the same caste and in India you cannot marry in another caste. And the man who played Ravana was in a lower caste; the girl was a brahmin. This time he thought, something has to be done.

The man came running and he said, “Sri Lanka is on fire!”
Ravana said, “Let it be. This year I am not coming!” Everybody laughed, nobody could believe it.

The prompter was behind the curtain: “What are you saying?”
And he said, “This year I am going to marry Sita!” And he went up — and it was just an ordinary bow, everybody had just pretended that it was so heavy that nobody could pick it up; it was just ordinary bamboo. He took it up, showed it to the audience, broke it, threw the pieces into the audience and told Sita’s father, “Bring your daughter! Enough is enough, and the story is finished!”

Even people who had fallen asleep woke up — “What is happening? Something new!” The director didn’t know what to do. For a moment there was silence.

And Ravana was shouting, “Where is Sita? Now fulfill the promise!”

And nobody could say to him, “You are not following the part that has been given to you” — because that would not be right to say in front of the public.

But the king — Sita’s father — was a very wise man. He said to his servants, “You idiots, this is not Shiva’s bow; this is the bow my children play with. Take it away. Bring the real bow.”

So the servants took away the broken parts. The curtain was pulled down, and they all jumped on Ravana and said, “You idiot, you are going to destroy the whole story.”
He said, “This time I am determined.”
So the police had to be called, and Ravana was sent to the police station: “Take him, because he is destroying our whole drama.”

In a drama it is possible that you can change things. But in life you don’t know exactly what is written in your fate, so whatever happens has to be accepted — “This must be written in my fate.”
The belief in fate is simply a consolation because we cannot accept our failure as failure.

And we cannot accept our failure for another reason — because it has implications for all our moral values: “We were honest, we were moral, we followed right means, we were truthful, and yet we failed. And the other person was dishonest, cunning, insincere, immoral, criminal, and yet he succeeded.”

Now, the whole moral system teaches that truth is going to win, that morality is going to win, that honesty is going to win. But in life we see that all the honest people are losing and immoral people are gaining. The cunning, the clever become powerful. The simple and the innocent are crushed. Our whole value system is at stake.

So it was necessary for the priests and the prophets to find a way in which your failure would not be your failure. “You cannot do anything, it is written in your fate. Your failure is not the failure of your sincerity, morality, honesty. And the other person’s success is not the success of wrong means, dishonesty, cunningness — it is his fate. And as far as fate is concerned, nothing can change it — neither honesty nor dishonesty. Yes, because you have been honest you will have a better fate in your future life. Because he has been dishonest, he will have a bitter fate in his future life.

So this was a beautiful consolation, and a beautiful defense — rational — for our moral system. But it is all bogus. The truth is, the man has succeeded because of dishonesty, not because of his fate. He has succeeded because of his immorality, he has succeeded because he does not care what kind of means he is using.

Existence gives you birth as tabula rasa. No fate is written; there is no destiny such that whatever you do, it has to happen. Existence is freedom. Fate is slavery. Freedom means it is up to you to decide what is going to happen. Fate is a bogus hypothesis. But trust is a totally different thing.

Trust is not fate. Trust simply means that “Whatever happens, I am part of existence and existence cannot be intentionally inimical to me. If sometimes that it feels it is, it must be my misunderstanding.”

I have always loved to remember a Sufi master Junnaid. He was the master of al-Hillaj Mansoor. He had a habit: after each prayer… and Mohammedans pray five times a day. After each prayer he would say to the sky, “Your compassion is great. How beautifully you take care of us, and we don’t deserve it. I don’t even have words to show my gratefulness, but I hope you will understand the unexpressed gratitude of my heart.”

They were on a pilgrimage, and it happened that for three days they passed through villages where orthodox Mohammedans would not allow them even to stay in the villages; there was no question of giving them food or water.

For three days without food, without water, without sleep — tired, utterly frustrated… The disciples could not believe that this man Junnaid, their master, still goes on saying the same things. Before, it was okay — but still he goes on saying, “You are great, you are compassionate, and I don’t have words to express my gratitude.”

On the third evening when he had finished his prayer, his disciples said, “Now it is time for an explanation. For three days we have been hungry, we have not had water, we are thirsty; we have not slept, we have been insulted continually, no place has been given to us, no shelter. At least today you should not say, `You are great, you are compassionate.’ For what you are showing your gratitude?”

Junnaid laughed. He said, “My trust in existence is unconditional. It is not that I am grateful because existence provides this and that and that. I am — that’s enough. Existence accepts me — that’s enough. And I don’t deserve to be, I have not earned it. Moreover, these three days have been of tremendous beauty because I had an opportunity to watch whether anger would arise in me, and it didn’t arise; whether I would start to feel that God had forsaken me, and the idea did not arise.

There has been no difference in my attitude towards existence. My gratitude has not changed, and it has filled me with more gratitude than ever. It was a fire test, and I have come out of it unburned. What more do you want? I will trust existence in my life and I will trust existence in my death. It is my love affair.

“It is not a question that somebody is rich and somebody is poor, that somebody is successful and somebody is not. It has nothing to do with anybody. It is my personal, intimate contact with reality. And there is great harmony. I am completely at ease and at home.”

Trust is the outcome of deep meditation. Fate is the outcome of your failures, and a mind consolation. They are totally different.

Source – Osho Book “Beyond Enlightenment”

Question – Beloved Master, What is Tathata — Total Acceptance?

Osho - Dharmesh, tathata is one of Buddha’s most significant contributions to the world. Tathata means total acceptance: whatsoever the situation is, don’t fight with it. Accept it wholeheartedly, because it is through total acceptance that transcendence happens. If you fight with it you will be unnecessarily wasting your energy. Accepting it you preserve your energy. Accepting it you become capable of understanding it, because only one who accepts can understand; one who rejects cannot understand.

Anything that you reject, anything that you become inimical to, you become incapable of understanding — because we avoid that which is rejected. We are really afraid of it so we keep it at the back and we escape from it; we find ways and means to escape from it. And if you try to escape from something, how are you going to understand it? And without understanding there is no liberation, no transformation.

Buddha says “tathata” — accept it totally. Whatsoever is the case, accept without denying, without condemning, and in that acceptance many things happen, many doors open. The first is: your energy is preserved, which is a great blessing. In fighting you dissipate energy, your energy leaks, you remain always energyless. And to go to the heights you will need great energy, you will need vitality. If you want to reach to the sun, the journey is long and arduous. You cannot go to the sun, you cannot fly that far away, without energy in you.

The man who is fighting his sex, anger, greed, jealousy, possessiveness — and there are a thousand and one things to fight — remains entangled in his fight; he cannot go anywhere. He is constantly disturbed and distracted by these things. He fights with one, represses one, something else raises its head — because he is one and the enemies are many. You fight anger, you will become greedy. The whole energy you repress from anger turns into greed. You fight greed, you will become very sexual. You fight sex, you will become very angry. You repress one thing, and the same thing with a new face, with a new mask, arrives from the back door. You will go insane.

That’s how the whole of humanity has gone insane. The insanity is so pervasive, that’s why we don’t think that people are insane. Everybody is insane! It is very rare that there is a sane person. To be sane in this insane society is really a great work of understanding, courage, rebellion.

If you drop all the conditionings that the society has imposed on you, only then will you be able to remain sane. Otherwise society turns everybody into an insane person. The society turns everybody according to its own mode, mold, pattern, structure. It gives you ideas, ideologies, religions. It poisons you from the very beginning; when you are in your mother’s womb the poisoning starts.

Now they are finding scientific ways of conditioning the child which is in the mother’s womb. Yes, certain things can be done to condition the child. For example, they have tried using a certain type of tight belt on the mother’s belly; that belt is made in such a way that it keeps the child in a tight situation. And they have discovered that these children are very obedient; when they are born they are more obedient than other children, because for nine months they have lived almost in a tight corner, in a prison.

In Soviet Russia they are trying the belt on many women. Now, the poor child who is not even born yet is already being conditioned, prepared for a certain society. He will be obedient. Certain music can reach to the womb. A soothing kind of music which lulls the child is helpful to create a slave. And so many drugs are available which can drug the child even before he is born — he is born drugged. He will live his whole life in a kind of unconsciousness; but that’s how the society wants him to live. Conscious people have proved dangerous; a Jesus, a Buddha, a Zarathustra, these people have proved dangerous.

The story is that the first thing that Zarathustra did when he was born was, he laughed loudly. Can you think of a more rebellious child? Children are not supposed to laugh when they are born; they are supposed to cry, but not supposed to laugh. He must have shocked his parents and the neighborhood and the people who had heard his laughter. Why did he laugh? And such a person is not reliable, not reliable at all — this is a dangerous man! He has done his first act of rebellion. He has already said that “I am not going to be a part of the crowd — enough is enough. Many children have cried, I don’t follow them. I will start my life with laughter.”

Whether it really happened or not is not the question. In fact it is difficult to laugh immediately after you are born, but the story is significant because it says something about Zarathustra’s whole philosophy of life: it is that of great rebellion. Zarathustra is one of the greatest teachers of the world — he has accepted life in its totality. He is not a renunciate, he is against renunciation. That’s why the few Zarathustra followers that have survived had to escape their original motherland, Persia. They had to leave, because Mohammedans were coercing them, converting them; they converted Persia into a Mohammedan country. Persia is now known as Iran.

A few people escaped who were not ready to accept this coercive violence. They came to India; they live in Bombay and around Bombay — the Parsis. They are the only followers of Zarathustra; they are very life-affirmative people. Hence many Parsis have become interested in me; to them I have a great appeal because I also affirm life. I am not in favor of escaping. It is because of Zarathustra’s total affirmation of life that Friedrich Nietzsche loved him tremendously and wrote his great book, THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. He wrote the book to appreciate life and the love for life. He could not find any other master so life-affirmative as Zarathustra; a man who begins his life with laughter, whose whole life is a laughter. There is no pessimism, not even a strain of pessimism in him.

That’s exactly the meaning of tathata — accept the whole of life as it is. In your acceptance you will be preserving your energy, and you have inexhaustible sources of energy if you accept. Secondly: when you accept everything, your life becomes cheerful. Nobody can make you miserable, nothing can make you miserable.

A man with three hairs on his otherwise bald head came into a hair saloon and asked to get his hair shampooed and braided. The hairdresser got on with his job but just as he was about to finish combing it, one of the hairs fell out.
The hairdresser was very embarrassed but the man only said, “Well, what to do? I guess I will have to part my hair in the middle!”
The hairdresser very carefully put one hair to the right side and was about to put the other to the left side when that one fell out too. The hairdresser could not apologize enough but the man took it really cool.
“Well,” he said, “I guess now I will have to run around with my hair all ruffled up.”

This is tathata, this is total acceptance! You cannot disturb such a man. He is always contented, he always finds a way to be contented. It is a great art. And a man who is always contented and always finds a way to remain contented has the capacity to see things transparently.

Discontent clouds your eyes and your vision; contentment makes your eyes unclouded and your vision clear. You can see through and through, you can understand things as they are.
Tathata is also translated as suchness; that too is one of its meanings. You see things as they are in their suchness; you don’t impose any idea of your own on them.

And that is a miracle, a magic key. If you can see anger as it is, without any judgment, you will be surprised: seeing anger without judgment, without condemnation, without saying it is bad or good, should be or should not be, without bringing any “shoulds” in… if you can see your anger as it is, with no prejudice for or against, a miracle happens: anger disappears and its energy becomes absorbed in you. Just by pure insight you transform anger, greed, jealousy. And all that goes on dragging you hither and thither, keeps you running, never allows you rest and relaxation, is absorbed; more energy becomes available to you.

And slowly slowly, when there is no anger — not that you have rejected it but you have absorbed it, digested it — no greed, no jealousy, no possessiveness, no sexuality… you have digested all these phenomena in you. You are becoming greater and greater and you have energies available to rise higher; you have fuel enough to keep your fire burning bright and without smoke.

Dharmesh, tathata is a method of transforming your energies into your friends. Ordinarily you are taught such stupid ways that your own energies become your enemies and you are constantly fighting with yourself. Now there can be no greater stupidity than this; this is the most stupid act in the world that people go on doing — fighting with themselves. You cannot win, you cannot defeat. You will remain quarreling with yourself, you will destroy yourself in quarreling your whole life. You will die, and you will never know what life was. You will never know the glories of life, the grandeur of life and the tremendous gift that life was, and could have been if you had lived with right mindfulness, with tathata, with acceptance.

Source – Osho Book “The Dhammapada, Vol4″

Question – Beloved Osho, I have heard you say, “Let Go — no Effort is needed.” but i am afraid of letting go because then i slip into my old patterns. please comment.

Osho – It is one of the difficulties. Letting go, one can slip into old patterns, old conditionings. Still, take the risk.

The fear has some validity; you can fall back into your old patterns. But don’t be afraid, just remain watchful; and meanwhile, if it happens that way…. It is not necessarily so that it will happen to everybody, to fall into old patterns. Only those friends who have forced themselves into the new discipline will find it happening, that if they let go they will become their old selves.

But it will be good, because that will show you that whatever you were thinking you had become, you have not become. It was just an enforced, controlled, suppressed, inhibited phenomenon. Letting go will make it clear to you.

So it is going to help both kinds of people. Those who have grown up into the new lifestyle by letting go, they will go higher. Those who have forced themselves into the new lifestyle, and in whom there has been a resistance somewhere, a part fighting against it — if they let go, that part is going to take over. That too is good. You will become aware that what you were thinking you are, you are not.

Watch the old pattern, and now don’t try to repress it. It has to be dropped — not repressed. Repression is through discipline, and dropping is through witnessing. Watch the old pattern as a witness. Don’t get identified with it.

And as you move from the new lifestyle that you have forced, if you continue to watch and remain in a let-go, even when you see the old pattern emerging, that too will disappear, because that too is forced, forced by society. That too is not natural. And when everything forced has disappeared, only then are you your natural being.

To me, to be natural is to be spiritual. All the religions have been teaching something very idiotic: to be natural is against spirituality. So everybody has repressed the natural self and has been pretending to be a spiritual self — which he is not. All the religions together have conspired against humanity to create hypocrites.

My effort is to create the natural man — human, with no guilt, accepting all the frailties, failures the human being is prone to. In this deep acceptance of your natural being is the seed of your transformation. And when it comes by itself then it is a growth. When you force it, it is not a growth, it is just wearing a mask. And even before a mirror you can befool yourself wearing a mask: you can start thinking that this is your face. Letting go means your masks will slip down, your personality will slip down, your ego will slip down.

Go on till all these things disappear, till the moment you find a crystal-clear naturalness, a spontaneity of being. So there is no need to be afraid. Most of you will find that whatever you have does not go — it is growth. A few of you will find that you have just managed something — it has not been a real growth; you have been pretending. Then you will fall into the old pattern.

This time don’t make the same mistake again. Remain watchful and go on in the same process of letting go. Your old patterns are also false; they will also disappear. If the let-go is complete it will leave you in your natural self, in your authentic being. And to me that is the beginning of self-realization, the beginning of your enlightenment.

But it can begin only when you have found the natural source of your being. Your pretended selves, your hypocrite patterns, your masks — they cannot become enlightened. Only your original face can become enlightened. So to be original and natural is the most important thing for a traveler on the path.

Source – Osho Book “Light on the Path”

Osho – The man of understanding is in a total let-go. He allows the law to function. If you want old religious language, non-buddhist language, you can call it surrender to god. Then the devotee says, ‘Now I am no more, only you are. I am just a flute on your lips, a hollow bamboo. You sing; the song will be yours, I will be just a passage.’ This is old religious language. Buddha is not happy with the old language. Buddha is not happy with the poets’ language. Buddha likes the scientific language more. He talks the same way as Albert Einstein, or Newton, or Edison. He talks about the law. Now it is for you to decide. The difference is only of language, but the basic thing is letting go, a total surrender.

Question – On the path of surrender, How does the Seeker come to the right technique out of One hundred and twelve methods?

Osho – On the path of will there are methods – these one hundred and twelve methods. On the path of surrender, surrender itself is the method, there are no other methods – remember this. All methods are non-surrendering, because a method means depending on yourself. You can do something; the technique is there, so you do it. On the path of surrender, you are no more, so you cannot do anything.

You have done the ultimate, the last: you have surrendered. On the path of surrender, surrender is the only method. All these one hundred and twelve methods require a certain will; they require something to be done by you. You manipulate your energy, you balance your energy, you create a center in your chaos.

You do something. Your effort is significant, basic, required. On the path of surrender only one thing is required – you surrender. We will go deep into these one hundred and twelve methods, so it is good to say something about surrender because it has no method.

In these one hundred and twelve methods there will be nothing about surrender. Why has Shiva not said anything about surrender? Because nothing can be said. Bhairavi herself, Devi herself, has reached Shiva not through any method. She has simply surrendered. So this must be noted. She is asking these questions not for herself, these questions are asked for the whole humanity. She has attained Shiva.

She is already in his lap; she is already embraced by him. She has become one with him, but still she is asking. So remember one thing, she is not asking for herself; there is no need. She is asking for the whole humanity. But if she has attained, why is she asking Shiva? Can she herself not speak to the humanity? She has come through the path of surrender, so she doesn’t know anything about method.

She herself has come through love; love is enough unto itself. Love doesn’t need anything more. She has come through love, so she doesn’t know anything about any methods, techniques. That is why she is asking.

So Shiva relates one hundred and twelve methods. He also will not talk about surrender because surrender is not a method really. You surrender only when every method has become futile, when you cannot reach by any method. You have tried your best. You have knocked on every door and no door opens, and you have passed through all the routes and no route reaches. You have done whatsoever you can do, and now you feel helpless.

In that total helplessness surrender happens. So on the path of surrender there is no method. But what is surrender and how does it work? And if surrender works, then what is the need of one hundred and twelve methods? Then why go into them unnecessarily? – the mind will ask. Then okay! If surrender works, it is better to surrender.

Why go on hankering after methods? And who knows whether a particular method will suit you or not? And it may take lives to find out. So it is good to surrender, but it is difficult. It is the most difficult thing in the world.