[A visitor said that he felt himself to be like a child inside.]
If one is like a child, many things happen, because one is open, vulnerable, soft, sensitive, and one is innocent.
Innocence is the base of all spirituality. The moment you think you know, you are no more a child.
You are closed. Knowledge kills and poisons. Innocence opens you and makes you alive. That's why Jesus goes on saying 'If you are like children, only then - and only then - will you be able to enter into the kingdom of God'.
A child has nothing to do with age. Childhood is a state. You can be old and yet a child. You can be a child and yet old. Childhood is a certain attitude deep inside you, of your being ready to learn; that from wherever and whatsoever source life comes, you will be ready to receive; that in your heart there is a deep welcome; that you are not afraid; that you are not yet crippled by knowledge, information; that you are still in a flow and not frozen.
So if one is like a child - and I can see that you are - then many things become possible. God is closest when you are in a state of childhood. Then by and by we lose Him. So when one comes to know God it is a rediscovery, not a discovery. You had known Him in your childhood and again you recognise Him. When you become a child again you recognise Him. That's the rebirth. You are reborn; again you start from ABC.
To remain a child means to be in meditation continuously. Otherwise the mind tends to become old.
It accumulates, it hoards, it is a miser. The mind suffers from constipation, so whatsoever comes on its way it hoards it immediately. It does not allow it to go. This moment something happens, and you collect it in your mind. The next moment something else happens and you collect that too. In this way a collection goes on being piled up and you start becoming old.
The art of remaining a child forever is to never collect. When the moment is gone, leave it. Don't collect the past and then you are never old. You are born every second again and again and again.
It is a constant rebirth... a riverlike flow of rebirth. You are renewed, resurrected. Die to the past every moment so it is no more a hangup and is not a burden on your head and on your heart, so that it does not hang like a rock around your neck. Go on dying to the past so you become more and more available to the present. Childhood is a state of consciousness, of purity, of uncorruption, of uncontamination.
[A visitor says: I knew I had to come here, but I didn't know why. Now part of me wants to run away.]
You got the message rightly... and there is no way to escape!...
That's why the mind continuously thinks, because the mind is always afraid of commitment. The mind is a vagabond. It is like a prostitute - afraid of commitment, of love, and always ready to escape wherever there is a possibility of being trapped into a commitment. But then the mind always remains shallow because only through deep love and commitment does one enter into the depth.
The mind is like swimming just on the surface of the river. Commitment is like diving deep. And when you dive deep the mind becomes afraid. The darkness, the depth, the silence, the aloneness - everything feels like death. Now it is a question of whether you or your mind wins. It is not a question between you and me; it is a question between you and your mind. If you allow the mind to take possession of you it can take you away. And the mind is a good servant but a very bad master.
So try to take the reins in your hands. Train the mind, the horse, to carry you to your destination.
Don't allow the horse to take you anywhere he wants. Train it, tame it, discipline it, so that it takes you where you want to go.
Your destiny is not your mind's goal. Your destiny is something bigger than your mind. Your destiny is something higher than the mind can reach. It is beyond the mind's reach. The mind is very small; destiny, vast.
Everybody is destined to become a god, not less than that.
The mind is just a mechanism. It is useful if you are the master, dangerous if it becomes the master.
It is almost like when you are driving a car. If you remain in control, a car is a beautiful mechanism.
But if the car takes control and starts slipping and the brakes don't work and you want to move it to this side and it goes to that, then you are in danger. But this is what continuously happens in the mind. You want to go to the left - it goes to the right. By and by you start following it. Then all that is beautiful and all that is divine and all that is blissful is lost contact with. You lose connections.
You've heard the message rightly. And much is possible... but you are just on the threshold. Enter into the temple. I know it is very difficult right now for you to know for what you are preparing. It is impossible because it is as yet unknown. It is as if a seed has received the message that something is going to happen, but what? How can the seed know? Unless it happens there is no way to know it.
There is only one way to know it - let it happen. If the seed says that 'First I would like to know for certain what it is that is going to happen, and if I don't know how can I proceed?' then the seed will remain a seed. It will never sprout because there is no way to know that which has not happened yet and is yet lurking in the future just like a possibility, a potentiality.
You have just heard a rumour in your dreams... just a slight flickering of the future, a shadow being cast by the future on your present. But that's all; more is not possible. Even that is something tremendously valuable, something that rarely happens. People continuously live in the shadow of their past. Very fortunate are those who receive a shadow from the future. That means they are called forth. They are invited to something bigger than themselves.
[The visitor answers: I feel that, but I don't want to miss it.]
There is no fear of missing it. The only fear is that if you listen to the mind, you can escape. The mind is very very clever, cunning, rationalising; it can rationalise its escape. It can almost convince you that whatsoever it is doing is right.
That's how the future is, in a way, very fragile. The past is very solid and the mind is nothing but the past - hence the conflict. The mind is that which has already happened, and you are that which is going to happen. This is the conflict.
The mind is a dead thing. It knows only the known. It knows only the experienced. It knows only that which has already happened, which cannot be changed. It is solid like rock; absolutely solid - and more solid than rocks, because rocks can be changed but the past cannot. There is no way to undo it. The mind stands on the rocks of the past. It is very strong. And you? You are just a fragile potentiality. Your consciousness is just a shadow. That too, in the future, somewhere near the stars... lurking somewhere in your dreams.
Sometimes in very romantic moods you become alert about it; otherwise you lose contact. It is a window which rarely. opens. It is just like lightning - suddenly you see it and it is gone. By the time you become aware that you have seen something, it is no more there. It is a poetic vision.
So the question is: past versus future, mind versus consciousness, the dead versus the alive. Life is always a potentiality. It is always going to happen. That which has happened is dead. That which is going to happen and is always going to happen, is life throbbing, getting ready to take the jump.
Listen to it. Get more and more in tune with it. And whenever there is a conflict between the mind and the unknown, go on the unknown path.
On each step of life, two paths diverge. One goes to the known. It is simply a repetition of the past in a modified way; a little bit polished, painted, changed, renovated, but still the past. It is a second-hand car. You can paint it and manage it and it looks like new, but it is never new. Another path diverges which is the unknown.
People who go on following the known move in a circle. Their life is not an evolution. People who go on choosing the unknown, the unfamiliar, the strange, are on the path of life. It is dangerous.
Insecurity is there and one never knows what is going to happen; one is continuously apprehensive - but it is the path of life. It is linear, not circular. Every day you go on choosing the new again and again and again. By and by you become attuned to the unknown. Then each moment you go on dropping the past and diving into the unknown.
This is what religion is. This is what God is all about. To live with God is to live with the unknown. To live in the world is to live with the past and the known.
So take the jump and become a sannyasin! Move into commitment.
[Osho gives him sannyas.]
This will be your name, so forget the past and the old name: Swami Vigyanand Deva.
Vigyanand means consciousness and deva means god; god of consciousness. Always remember that your fight is going to be between consciousness and the mind. So whenever you see, immediately choose the unknown, the future, the possible. Even if it looks impossible, choose it.
And you will grow... you will grow tremendously.
Live dangerously!