Chapter #6

mind is never pure by its very nature it cannot be pure its whole strategy is of cunningness, calculation mind is fear-oriented, it is a defence mechanism it cannot trust existence, life, love it cannot trust anything it only doubts, it is suspicious and the suspicious, doubting one can never be pure purity is the quality of the heart

just as mind is intrinsically cunning the heart is intrinsically innocent mind can be knowledgeable, heart can be wise mind can be learned the heart can be childlike, innocent and all that is great happens in the heart not in the mind

sannyas is initiation into the ways of the heart it is getting out of the imprisonment of the mind and entering into the freedom of the heart it is a simple process all that is needed is a little courage to trust a little courage to put doubts aside a little courage to risk and then miracles start happening and they go on happening each moment life becomes just incredible a long, long, orgasmic ecstatic joy

mind stinks it cannot avoid it, its very functioning is rotten it lives on the old, the dead, the past it feeds on corpses hence there is no possibility of fragrance as far as mind is concerned and all people are living in the mind hence life has become a chaos a very muddy, confused affair it has lost all the celebration no flowers grow anywhere as far as human consciousness is concerned only thorns, bloody thorns

but hidden behind the thick layers of the mind and its crap is a beautiful source which we have brought from the beyond our heart it is still beating its beat goes on becoming farther and farther away because the mind goes on accumulating junk

you cannot hear its beat, you cannot taste its joy its fragrance is ready to be released the hindrances have to be removed and the only hindrance is the mind all other hindrances are part of the mind greed, jealousy, desire, possessiveness, anger, ego these are all aspects of the mind

rather than fighting with each aspect separately which is an unnecessarily long process maybe unending the best way is to cut the whole mind in a single blow that’s what sannyas is all about beheading yourself

and the moment you put the whole mind aside and it is only a question of decisiveness immediately something new which has never been felt within you starts arising a fragrance life starts becoming a light unto itself life starts taking the colours the rainbow colours of love festivity, music, poetry, creativity, sensitivity the same energies which were involved in greed, anger, possessiveness, jealousy are released and the same energies start moving into a totally different terrain, into a new dimension

all that is needed on the part of my sannyasins is to shift their energies from the head to the heart trust the heart, try to live the heart wherever it leads go with it without any doubt, without any fear follow the heart and you will be following true religion follow the mind and you will be following christianity, hinduism, mohammedanism all untrue religions

the true religion is basically individual and the untrue is collective mind is part of the collective and the heart is your individual source

people are living a life of curse and nobody else is responsible for it that is the strangest thing about it they themselves are responsible they have got caught in a pattern, a vicious circle they go on moving in the wheel clinging tightly to the wheel and the wheel is crushing them

mind is a wheel with many spokes but exactly in the centre of the wheel there is something unmoving unless we touch that centre that unmoving centre of all movement we can never feel the benediction of existence

it is always there, within our reach any moment we can dive deep into it but we cling to the wheel and the faster it moves the more afraid we are and so we cling more tightly we cling to our doubts not seeing a simple fact that a person who lives in doubts cannot be blissful doubt can only create misery because it is negative

it is darkness it is not light it can create suspicion, it can create fear it can create a persecution-mania it can create violence but it cannot create bliss

but still people brag about their doubting mind they think it is something great they talk about their scepticism they think it is something philosophical it is sheer stupidity but they make much fuss because they have made it an investment of their life

they cling to their greed knowing perfectly well that it is unfulfillable and when you cling to something which is unfulfillable you will remain miserable wherever you are misery will haunt you you will be asking for more and more and whenever you ask for more you will feel frustrated because it is never coming even if it comes your demand grows the demand grows in the same proportion so you remain as hungry, as beggarly as ever and this is the case with everything anger, pessimism always seeing the negative side of life

there are people if you take them to a rose bush they will count the thorns first they will count the thorns roses don’t matter; what matters is thorns and then their fingers are bloody and they are hurting and then they become so angry and their eyes become so antagonistic towards the rose bush that it becomes impossible to see the roses a thick fog of anger surrounds them

this is our doing

a sannyasin has to be aware of all this nonsense if you go to a rose bush, dance around it look at the roses rejoice in the roses see the miracle amongst thousands of flowers a rose has blossomed what more mystery can there be? jesus walking on water is nothing compared to it in fact if you walk on water you will only look silly a rose growing in the thorns is really a miracle and once you have seen the rose, the positive you are shifting your gears from the mind to the heart from cunningness to innocence from negativity to positivity and then life becomes an eternal song

the purest experience in life is that of love

sex is not love, it is biological prayer is not love, it is theological the first – sex, which is misunderstood by many as love is below human consciousness it belongs to our past, it is just a hangover the second is only a fiction – the prayer that, too, really belongs to our past out of fear man started praying to god in fact, out of fear he created god god is nothing but fear personified

so one is biological another is just religious, superstitious between the two is the golden mean something of immense value that is love it is more than sex and more than prayer it is the fragrance of human consciousness it is the flowering of consciousness itself hence i put love as the highest expression of all that is great

jesus says god is love; i say love is god because when you say god is love that simply means god may have many other qualities love is only one of the qualities of god god is important, love is only one of the aspects

to me love is god love is the real thing godliness is only one of the qualities of love

my message is beyond biology and beyond theology my message is simply that of expanding human consciousness and love is nothing but sharing of your consciousness with as many people as possible not only with people, with animals, with trees with birds, with clouds, with stars the whole emphasis is on sharing not with whom the address is not important sharing the sheer joy of sharing your being is love and that is the purest phenomenon the holiest of the holy the most sacred and it is hidden in the very ordinariness of our lives so we are not to go anywhere to search for it

we have to dig it now and here and within ourselves

the heart is naturally contented it never asks for more whatsoever is, is more than enough mind is naturally discontented whatsoever is, is never enough more is needed hence mind lives in a constant struggle with existence never at ease, always tense always anxious, worried anguish has become its very centre

just the opposite is the case with the heart there is no conflict, no struggle as each moment unfolds the heart lives it with joy with gratitude, with immense thankfulness because it is a gift of the whole we don’t deserve it at all if next moment i die there is no court of appeal for it i cannot say to anybody why why could i not exist for a few minutes more?

we all know it still we go on taking for granted

whatsoever is given to us this is one of the ugly traits of the mind it never feels grateful hence mind can never be religious gratefulness is the core of religion, the very core

move from the discontented world of the mind to the contented world of the near and small things are so blissful just a cup of tea just sipping the tea, savouring its taste and flavour is as great an ecstasy as any buddha has achieved in his samadhi there is no difference at all the question is not whether you are sitting underneath a tree and meditating or sitting in your room and sipping tea

the question is of the heart if the heart is contented in the moment then whether under the tree, in the mountains or in the room, it makes no difference the contented heart knows the beauties of existence the mysteries of life all the doors open for it existence is closed for the mind open for the heart existence is closed for the cunning open for the pure

god to me is not a person but only a presence, an experience like love, like joy, like beauty you cannot encounter joy you cannot meet joy and say, hello how are you? you cannot because joy is not something separate from you joy is an experience, so is the case with joy

so my expression for god is godliness linguistically, gramatically, it does not look right so i go on using the word god but whenever i use the word god i mean godliness

purity is godliness and by purity i don’t mean a moral purity following the ten commandments you become pure that is not purity; that is sheer cunningness those ten commandments are basically jewish it is a business proposal, it is pure business it is arranging for the other world creating a bank balance there if god wants these things to be done only then you will be allowed in so okay, we will do these things but it is only a doing not your being at the core of your being you remain the same following all the commandments and the real purity is not of doing but of being

one has to be innocent in the being then who cares about the heavenly pleasures and who cares about paradise? then paradise is herenow then it is not a question of tomorrow so i don’t teach the purity of so-called moral disciplines

i only teach one purity the purity of changing the gestalt from the mind to the heart becoming more heart-full is becoming pure becoming less mind-full is becoming more pure the moment mind is completely gone and there is only heart – throbbing, dancing you have arrived home and that is the moment the presence of godliness is felt not something outer to you but something within your very soul a flame of your own consciousness

purity is a light mind is always a dark night of the soul there is no dawn in it the night continues, it is an eternal night darkness is its very nature the heart lives always in the dawn it is always light there so it is not a question of bringing light to the mind the question is changing the altitude of your existence changing the plane, the dimension

if one remains in the mind

one will remain in darkness if one changes from the mind to the heart suddenly the light bursts forth it is like standing in the sun with closed eyes you are in darkness and there is light everywhere you are creating your own darkness by closing your eyes

just open the eyes and you start laughing you see the ridiculousness of it all that you were the cause of your darkness that light was always there and you were unnecessarily missing it it was showering on you, available but you were preventing it from reaching you

mind is a barrier to light and we are making great efforts to make this mind bigger and bigger the whole educational system consists only of making this mind bigger and bigger one-third of a human life twenty-five years are wasted just puffing the balloon of the mind bigger and bigger and it is an empty balloon, there is nothing in it nobody has ever achieved anything in it not a single human being in the whole of history has said, i have attained contentment through mind blissfulness through mind

immortality through mind truth through mind, love through mind not a single statement, without any exception. mind has proved utterly impotent but still we go on carrying the old, rotten tradition of making it bigger and bigger

that man is almost crushed underneath it the mind has become mountainous and man is not even able to crawl out of it but because we have created it and because it is only an empty balloon just a pinprick is enough nothing else is needed

sannyas is that pinprick and the balloon bursts and suddenly there is rejoicing as the air goes out of the balloon the hot air – and it is very hot – suddenly a cool breeze starts arising in you instead of darkness, light instead of a burdensome life, a dancing quality instead of living for tomorrow the joy in the moment the freshness of the moment the beauty of the moment, possesses you and to be possessed by the moment is all there is nothing more to it

the greatest experience in life is the experience of being nothing, nobody people are trying to be somebody in some way or other in worldly ways, in other-worldly ways through money, power, prestige, knowledge, austerities but the desire is the same to be somebody in particular, to be at the top

it is such a childish game the politicians are involved in it the saints are involved in it the politicians can be forgiven because they are basically stupid people but how to forgive the saints? they are also on the same trip of being somebody special

when jesus was leaving his disciples the last question they asked was now that you are leaving us you are being caught and you may be crucified we have only one enquiry that in the kingdom of god, of course you will be at his right hand but who will be next to you? do you see these fools? their desire, the whole ego trip

sannyas is seeing the foolishness of the ego trip and the very seeing is transforming the moment you see that it is utterly stupid there is no point in being somebody one is perfectly beautiful as one is and the more you are a nobody the more you are at ease, relaxed the more you are a nothingness the less there is any possibility of worry, anxiety, anguish nothingness cannot be stirred into a worry for what? there is nothing to lose there is nothing to be afraid of there is nothing to miss

the man who has achieved nothingness is really the richest man in the world he is really in the kingdom of god he is really an emperor and we are all entitled to achieve it we just have to be a little more clear about the whole trip in which we have been forced by the society, by the parents by the people who have surrounded us by the people who have conditioned us we just have to see the point that we have been dragged into an unnecessary turmoil then drop out of it and drop in

drop out of the game of the ego and drop into your pure nothingness and suddenly a revolution, a sudden transformation we have called this experience enlightenment buddhahood, awakening the ego trip is a dream the moment you are ready to be nothing the dream disappears and then each moment has such a crystal clarity to it such immense truth in it that one cannot feel cheated by existence one cannot doubt even for a single moment that life is meaningless life becomes so full of meaning

so brim-full, overflowing that for the first time consciousness starts growing flowers for the first time the spring comes hence i have chosen the colour for my sannyas the colour of the spring in the east

mind can compose many songs but they will be only compositions not creations words can be arranged in a certain rhythm, in a certain metre but that is only the appearance of a song that is not the way to arrive at the real song it is a plastic flower, put together it has not grown, it has not blossomed

in the east we have two words for the poet one is kavi which literally means the poet another is rishi which means a seer

the poet belongs to the mind he composes songs, music creates dances, sculpture, painting the seer moves to a different centre of his being from the circumference to the centre and when he is at his own heart the purest spot in his being, the virgin spot where nobody can enter except oneself

which is absolutely private uncontaminated by any influence from the outside there is no way to condition it no way even to touch it when one reaches that purest virgin spot of one’s own being then creativity erupts then one does not compose a song one simply sings it, hums it it comes of its own accord

then the dance happens you are just a witness to it, not a doer then creativity becomes your very life then whatsoever you touch starts changing into gold you may be appreciated or not – that is irrelevant people may understand, may not understand there is every possibility that you may not be understood you may be misunderstood more often than understood because you will be speaking a totally different language and people understand the language of the mind and you will be speaking some foreign tongue to them of the heart

mind is all sound, sound signifying nothing a tale told by an idiot, much ado about nothing but mind creates much dust, so much that in the clouds of mind-dust one tends to forget everything it is very clever and efficient in creating fuss for any reason or no reason at all – it is fussy

if there is some reason – good if there is no reason, it can always invent it is very inventive but it goes on making noise if you watch your mind you can see how much noise it makes continuously, day in, day out, year in, year out it starts kicking in the mother’s womb till it kicks the bucket, goes on kicking but just close by it there is a small spot which is absolutely silent which makes no fuss, no noise and that is your heart and that is your purity that is your innocence and out of that innocence is the experience of godliness

out of that innocence the celestial music is born

the Sound of one hand Clapping

there is no conflict hence there are no hands clapping there is no clash, otherwise it will also create noise it is absolute silence, but silence is not dead

the silence has its own rhythm its own vibe its own music its own beauty and its own blessing hence in the east it is called anahat nad anahat nad means unstruck sound

the Sound of one hand Clapping

one hand clapping does not make any sound but it indicates something tremendously significant there is no clash, no noise but there is music, great music here is a dance in the heart the very heartbeat starts having a subtle rhythm to it

you cannot share it with anybody else it is unsharable it is a secret you can experience it, you can live it but you cannot say it you can show it but you cannot say it hence my sannyasins will feel embarrassed everywhere in the world

whenever people ask what has happened to you why have you gone crazy? they will not be able to answer it is impossible to answer they have tasted something, they know the taste it is on their tongue, but it is inexpressible they have fallen into a certain dance they have enjoyed a certain silence

but it is not possible to put it into words all words are inadequate but who cares? when somebody asks you what has happened to you? sing a song, dance, laugh, roll on the ground do something rather than saying, show something show your bliss, show your benediction maybe, if somebody is still alive something in him may respond something may be triggered in him something may start synchronising with you maybe your laughter can trigger a belly-laughter in him maybe your song can hit a new space in his being you may become a catalytic agent that’s all sannyasins can do

my sannyasins cannot be missionaries they can only be catalytic agents

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