Chapter #3

in fact a relaxed person can move can make better effort and a man of efficient effort can be better relaxed there is no intrinsic contradiction the contradiction exists only in words, language and in the mind

the experience of bliss is one of the most paradoxical paradoxical in the sense that you have to manage two logical contradictions together you have to be effortlessly effortful because both effort and relaxation are needed for the experience to happen but it can be managed because the contradictions are only superficial deep down they are complementaries

one should try a few experiments for example, you can run: there is effort but still you can remain very relaxed you can bicycle: there is effort but at the same time your whole body can remain very quiet calm and relaxed you can move your hand: there is effort but you can move the hand with such grace with such a relaxedness that there is no effort at all then it becomes the very foundation for bliss to descend

this is the whole art of sannyas one has to make tremendous effort yet one has to remember that bliss is a gift of god

so, just by your effort it is not going to happen and without your effort it is not going to happen either

man has fallen into both extremes there are people who think it is a gift of god

so nothing can be done we just have to wait it will never happen, just waiting is not enough through waiting with great effort through doing whatsoever you can do to the uttermost and then waiting it happens

the other extreme is: if it happens through our effort then we will make every effort

what is the need of prayer what is the need of god’s help? if it is going to happen through our effort then we will manage we will do all kinds of yoga, austerities, practices we will have a discipline, a character a morality. virtue and it will happen

it does not happen because whatsoever you can do will remain trivial it prepares you to receive the gift but it does not bring the gift itself it makes you receptive, welcoming, but that’s all when the guest comes it comes just by your opening of the door there is no intrinsic necessity for the guest to come

keep the door open, remain alert, watchful doing everything that you can do so it cannot be said that you have not done anything don’t leave a single stone unturned on your part everything should be fulfilled in that very instant when you are finished and you cannot do any more the miracle happens: bliss descends

it is one of the most paradoxical experiences

hence millions of religious people have missed it they were searching, seeking but they still missed it

there are two kinds of religions in the world one believes in prayer christianity, islam, hinduism – they believe in prayer because they think bliss is the gift of god all that you can do is pray ask and it shall be given unto you knock and the door shall be opened all that is needed on your part is prayer

the other kind of religiousness is that of jainism, buddhism, yoga they believe in effort, not in prayer because there is no need for prayer jainism and buddhism deny the very existence of god if there is no need for prayer there is no need for anybody to pray either man is enough unto himself

the first kind of religion creates a lethargy and the second kind of religion creates ego my sannyasins have to avoid both extremes

i am teaching a totally new vision a vision in which your effort is basically needed but it is not enough it takes you to ninety-nine point nine degrees

it is very essential without it that point one degree won’t happen but it takes you only up to that then you have to wait, trust, relax, hope, pray

that point one degree happens through prayer ninety-nine point nine per cent happens through meditation point one per cent happens through prayer and then religion has a totality only the person who has experienced bliss can be a helper of others otherwise alexes tend to become alexanders rather than helping mankind they start destroying mankind

a miserable person with all the good intentions in the world cannot help anybody we can give only that which we have already got helping somebody means you have got a nourishing energy in you a benevolent, compassionate love in you that you are radiating bliss that your presence is a healing force only then can you help otherwise you will become a do-gooder and they are the most dangerous people in the world the most mischievous

humanity has suffered much from the do-gooders missionaries, reformists, public servants these are the enemies

and i don’t suspect their intentions their intentions are good, but they are not good it is like darkness trying to enlighten people it is like a dead man trying to give life to others it is like an unlit lamp gathering people around itself so that they can be enkindled it is absolutely, fundamentally wrong

hence i don’t teach public service and i don’t teach you to become missionaries reformists, great servants of the people i teach only one thing be blissful then everything else follows of its own accord

a blissful person cannot contain his bliss that is not possible in the very nature of things a blissful person intrinsically radiates his source of joy just as light radiates rays and the flowers radiate their perfume the blissful person radiates compassion, love, benediction hence the first duty is not towards anybody else but towards yourself

help yourself remember the ancient proverb physician, first heal thyself and then you can become a healing force and without any effort, without any ego simply, naturally, spontaneously

so learn to dance, sing, celebrate learn to enjoy life in its multi-dimensionality and that will make you an alex and prevent you from becoming an alexander

god is not a separate entity god is not somewhere outside you god is your interiority, your innermost core hence the search is not for a god somewhere else god is nothing but a name for your own centre and the search for god is nothing but a self-discovery and the moment you discover yourself you also discover blissfulness because that is the nature of the self so both things happen simultaneously they are two sides of the same coin

either meditate and discover your innermost core that is one way or dance and sing to abandonment

lose yourself in joy so totally that you are no more there only the dance is, the song is that is another way of discovering you will discover the same coin but from different aspects

buuddha discovered through meditation meera discovered through dance these are the two fundamental roots because these are the two sides of your inner being and one is as valid as the other i have no special preference for either so i leave my sannyasins to choose it is not very difficult to choose either one has just to ponder over one’s likings

if you love silence if you love aloneness if you love just to be within yourself if you want and desire to forget the whole and all its worries if you feel the world is too much with you then meditation is your way

if you enjoy people, relationship, love company, friends, music, dance, celebration if you enjoy the vast universe around you and it makes you rejoice; it is not tiring it is not exhausting, but rejuvenatinq then bliss is your way

and each person has to decide for himself i don’t impose anything on anybody i simply give you the whole perspective so you can choose and both are valid means one is not higher than the other both reach the same goal so it is only a question of individual liking before one starts the journey one should decide which is one’s way because sometimes it can happen in fact it happens many times it happens more often than it should happen that people choose the opposite because the opposite has a certain attraction it is just as a man is attracted towards a woman a woman is attracted towards a man the negative and the positive electric poles are attracted towards each other the opposite has a certain attraction beware of that because if you choose the opposite you will be in trouble, you will never be at ease

so rather than looking at the attraction of the opposite look at your own liking your own nature your own functioning

watch yourself what is it that gives you more juice? that should be the determining factor the decisive factor that is the only criterion and once you have taken a right step the journey is half-complete because the first step is also the last step

in india we have one thousand names for god there is a whole scripture, vishnushastranam devoted only to the names of god nothing else is written in it only one thousand names

madhav is one of the most beautiful of all those names it means the sweet one it is a very different vision than that of the jewish god the jewish god says i am a very jealous god remember, i am not nice, i am not your uncle a very stern father this is not a right concept of god, a jealous god? god and jealousy cannot go together jealousy is perfectly okay for the devil and god saying i am not nice then who can be nice? and god saying i am not your uncle what does he mean? he means i am not the loving one i am not the compassionate one be afraid of me, i am cruel, i am hard, i am violent

it is not accidental that because of this judaic concept of god all the religions islam, christianity and their sub-sects have always murdered each other so much bloodshed has been done by the christians and mohammedans that it seems absolutely unbelievable that in the name of religion there is so much hatred but if god is a jealous god, if god himself is not nice then how can the representatives of god be nice? then how can the pope be nice? he may pretend but all those pretensions are of no use in reality they will talk about love and they will teach hatred they will preach love and they will kill in the name of love

madhav is a far more sophisticated vision of god the sweet one

you can see the difference jesus was worshipped by the christians not because he was a loving person but because he was crucified

hence the cross has become the symbol not a rose flower that would have represented jesus more accurately

and you see krishna with a flute standing in a dancing pose with peacock feathers in his crown

with bells tingling around his waist with long hair – the original hippie it is a totally different vision of god

madhav is one of the names of krishna the sweet one he sings, he plays on his flute, he gathers people and they dance and they celebrate it is a totally different kind of world a different dimension even hindus have forgotten all about it they have been contaminated by christians and mohammedans they have forgotten their own vision that’s why they are against me

what i am doing here is really giving people songs again, dances providing flutes which have disappeared changing crosses into flutes – that’s my work and of course crosses can be made into flutes it is the same wood – why make crosses? my only desire is that we are able to transform all the crosses of the world into flutes and that every church starts singing, dancing, swinging and every church loses its seriousness that jealous god has to be said goodbye to forever we have to create a new kind of religiousness of sweetness, of love, of friendship, of joy

so my message is contained in the word bliss because it is bliss that will make you sweet not only you but it will spread sweetness all around you be blissful and you are religious be blissful and you are a sannyasin

the experience of ecstasy is the only truth worth seeking and searching for when i talk about the truth i don’t talk in a philosophical way not the way immanuel kant will talk about it or bertrand russell, or wittgenstein they talk about truth as a concept not as an experience they talk about truth as a conclusion of the mind

i talk about truth as joy in the heart

it has nothing to do with logic nothing to do with philosophy it has something to do with a transformation of your innermost core when your very being starts throbbing, pulsating in tune with existence when there is no discord between you and the whole when you are so synchronised with the whole that you are no more but only the whole is that is the moment when truth has been experienced

but the taste of truth is that of bliss when you drink truth your whole being is full of the taste of bliss and ecstasy and that taste never leaves you it is eternal it comes, it never goes it is forever

so i talk about truth the way jesus talked, buddha talked, lao t~u talked but not like aristotle not like the long tradition of the so-called philosophers kierkegaard, sartre, buber they are all talking about it philosophically it is like a hungry person philosophically thinking about food he can go on thinking and he will go on dying because while he is thinking he is starving he may think beautiful thoughts about food he will have tremendous fantasies about food all kinds of dishes chinese and japanese and italian but that is not going to help what he needs is some real nourishment

but it happens only when you enter the innermost shrine of your being and that is the moment of truth when you experience bliss

it can be very easily done the way of philosophy is long and unending and the way of mysticism is short if one is courageous enough one can attain it instantly this very moment

the dimension of bliss is the dimension of absolute silence the same silence that prevails on high mountains on higher altitudes on virgin peaks – undisturbed

bliss is not to be made synonymous only with silence it is silent but it is a silence with a difference it is a dancing silence it is a singing silence it is not dead and that too you will feel at the altitudes of the mountains the silence is there but the silence has a totally different quality it is not the silence of the cemetery when you go to the graveyard there is silence but something is dead and stinking we can hide it

we can make beautiful graveyards with marble, with trees, bushes, roses but those corpses are there howsoever we hide them they jump out they show their faces with all the facades we cannot deny death death has happened death prevails there in the graveyard there is no song in it, there is no dance in it there is no music, no poetry it is a negative kind of silence

but the silence that prevails on the himalayan peaks where snow never melts for millions of years the snow has never melted where no footprints are left that virginity, that silence, that purity that crisp coolness is not dead; it is very much alive you can hear the heartbeat of it you can hear

the Sound of one hand Clapping

the same happens within when bliss is attained you are silent yet your silence is a song and that has to be constantly remembered if silence alone happens it is not worth much if song alone happens it is not worth much silence alone is dead, song alone is feverish when silence and song meet then the deadness and the feverishness both disappear and there is immense health, wholeness i call that wholeness, holiness

that has to be the flavour of my sannyasins their perfume

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