[Osho explains the meaning deva aukash. It means divine space.... ]
Create more and more space within yourself. Remove all furniture, remove everything from the inside; let there be just pure emptiness. When nothing exists, god exists: nothing is synonymous with god.
When you cannot find anything within yourself, not even yourself, then god is... that very space is divine. To be is to be cluttered, to be is to be part of the junk, to be means to be occupied. Thoughts occupy, feelings occupy, memories, dreams, desires; a thousand and one things are clamouring within you and they don't allow the space to exist in its purity.
This has to be remembered: whenever you are sitting, just sit silently like a statue. Just feel spacious... that you are space. I am not saying that from the very beginning thoughts will disappear or feelings won't arise. They have their momentum, they have been always there, so they will continue for the time being, but you remain indifferent, unattached. If a thought arises let it be so but keep your space undisturbed. The thought will arise like a bubble on the surface of your space and will be gone because no thought can stick for long; it is very momentary.
So no need to be antagonistic; if a thought arises just watch it very indifferently, as if you are utterly unconcerned. If it arises, okay; you don't have any prejudice, you don't have any liking, disliking.
When you like and dislike, you invite, you attract, you rebel, you react. When liking and disliking is no more there, a thought will arise out of the old momentum. The old habit dies hard... it will come because of the old habit; you remain unconcerned. It will come and it will go. You will see it coming, confronting you, waiting for your attitude of being friendly or antagonistic, or something. The thought will wait and look at you, but don't be concerned at all. If it stays, good, if it goes, good: don't have any say, don't say anything, and you will see it going.
When it has gone there is again silence. Again a thought will arise, but if one remains indifferent by and by bigger intervals will happen: a thought will pass and another will not be coming. There will be a bigger gap and the gap widens and by and by and slowly, slowly, one day one is simply surprised: minutes have passed and not a single thought has arisen, no desire has arisen, no dream has flashed. Then you will have for the first time the taste of what I mean by space, spaciousness, emptiness.
And once you have tasted it, it is incomparable. No life experience can be compared to it; not even the orgasm, the sexual orgasm, has anything in it compared to that inner space. It is very orgasmic, it is tremendous joy and at the same time very cool - great ecstasy without any excitement. And that is the beauty of it: when excitement comes, ecstasy is disturbed.
When the mind is no more there - when the tiny mind has disappeared, that tiny self is no more there, when nothing defines you and you are infinite - you are out of your small self, you are standing as if out of yourself, out of the old self and just watching the thoughts unconcerned. This is going to happen.
So give more and more time to it. Whenever you have any time, just sit silently; this way is perfectly good. So your name is your meditation too.
[Deva veda - divine wisdom. These words are tremendously significant, Osho says. Both deva and veda consist of the same four letters just arranged in a different way.... ]
'Veda' means wisdom, knowing, seeing; the literal meaning is the capacity to see. The English word 'video' comes from the sanskrit root 'veda': the capacity to see, the clarity to see, the transparency of seeing. And when one is absolutely transparent, whatsoever is seen is called 'deva'. 'Deva' means that which arises when there is capacity to see. That's what god is: when you have the right eyes god immediately arises in vision.
It is not really god who is hiding, it is we who don't have the right perception. It is almost like a radio: you have to tune it to a certain station. The station was there, the vibrations were there, the radio waves were there, the message that was delivered on that particular wavelength was passing through the room. The radio, the mechanism was there - all that was needed was to put the mechanism into a certain state, to tune it to a certain wavelength, and immediately you start catching that station.
That is exactly the case with humanity: we have all that is needed to see god, nothing is missing.
God is present, ever-present, around us: not for a single moment is he absent, he cannot be by the very nature of it. That which is is god so how can it be absent? And we have the capacity to receive; just the tuning is needed.
So 'veda' means tuning yourself rightly. Through meditation, through prayer, through love, through devotion, worship, one brings one's needle to the right place. The moment this capacity to see is attained, immediately god is known.
'Deva' means god - the literal meaning of the word is: the shining one. The English word 'day' comes from deva, the shining one.
But if your eyes are closed, even if the sun is there you cannot see it. The shining one is present, but you are keeping your eyes closed. Open the eyes and it is there - it has always been there. So all that is needed is to learn how to see. [These words carry] both the polarities: the seer and the seen....
Start meditating and start mixing with people. That is one of the most essential things: to start meeting, mixing, becoming friendly, participating in all that goes on around here. That creates many possibilities, so don't remain aloof.
One can come here and can remain aloof. One can go on keeping a subtle armour around oneself; then it takes unnecessary efforts to break that armour. There is no need: this is your home and my people are your people now, from this moment. Mm? this is your orange family, so mix with people, be friendly, be loving, participate in all that goes on here. Mm? just lose your... that quality that everybody carries of being an island. Lose that quality and become more and more continental.
That will be of great help and within two, three weeks, things will start happening. Good!
[A sannyasin asks Osho to forgive her for having thrown her mala. It happened at the end of a group when she went crazy: The thing that I loved the most in the world, I threw... ]
Good! Nothing to be worried about. When you love me sometimes you become angry also... that's natural. You can throw that mala - nothing to be worried about....
Let me hold your mala - that will do.
Next time if you feel like sometimes throwing it, you can.
And if you will get disturbed, kiss it (the locket) and that will do! Right? But don't tell everybody otherwise they all will start throwing!... I wanted to drive you crazy and it happened...
[Osho gives a seeker sannyas.]
This will be your name: Swami Prem Avdeepa. It means to burst out in a flame of love - prem means love, avdeepa means to burst out in a flame.
Love is a flame; wherever life is, love is. If love is not there then life is not there. It is the flame of love that makes life really alive, otherwise the lamp is there but unkindled. And it happens exactly like a bursting forth. Love is not a gradual process; either it is or it is not; you cannot have it in small installments. It comes totally - the whole descends. That's the meaning of bursting forth into a flame. It is sudden... in a single instant it happens. Just a single moment before it was not there, a single moment afterwards it is there... and it is a total revolution.
Just a moment before there was darkness and darkness and nothing else, and once the flame is there all darkness disappears and it is light and only light; one cannot even imagine that there was darkness just a single moment before it. So it is going to happen to you like a sudden flame - that's why I am giving you this name....
There are two kinds of people: a few people grow very gradually - step by step they go; they go in a very calculated way - and there are a few other people who simply take a jump, a plunge. They don't go slowly, they don't go gradually, they don't go calculatingly. These are the gamblers, they are not business-like: they risk.
You belong to the second type, that's why I am giving you the name, 'prem avdeepa'. So keep it in mind, remain alert about it. Meditate, do growth groups here, and wait for the moment - it will happen suddenly. Suddenly you will become aflame with a new kind of life-energy. It is there like a bud, mm? I can see it, it is there like a bud.
If you cooperate the petals will open and there will be great joy in your being... and that's exactly what you have come here for....
[A visitor says, I'm worried about the misery of the world - people who are poor, who don't know how to get out of their misery. I wonder what I can do. If I become a sannyasin I will be only for me and not for all the other people.
Osho asks him, you don't have any problems about yourself?
The visitor answers, Yes, a lot of problems.
First solve them, Osho suggests... because this is one of the basic problems in the world - that people, to avoid their own problems, start solving others' problems. It is one of the most ancient strategies of the mind to protect itself.
What you say looks relevant, true, things are there, but meanwhile you are missing your own problems... and those are the only problems that you can solve. Other problems are too big, almost eternal, and you will be here only for a few years.
You are part of this world: if you can drop your problems one millionth of the world has gone beyond problems... that much the world has improved. And if your mind is transformed you will have, the clarity to see how to help people. Once you have clarity you can decide how to use your life. I am just here to help you be aware and alert and meditative. Each person is so unique that he will find his own way to help.... ]
My work is with individuals - I am not concerned with the society and the world. That is how it feels good to me, mm? I'm not saying that this has to be your life also, no. This is how I feel good, this is how I work. This is how it has happened when I came to my own being... this was the way I started functioning.
One never knows.... When you come to your being, what you do will be decided by that moment.
And right now there is no need to worry about it, right now you cannot do anything. Right now you can get worried, troubled, you can become anxious, you can go crazy - the problems are big - you can become a politician or you can become a missionary but you remain yourself, blind .... and a blind man leading the blind is a dangerous man.
That's what is happening all over the world: people who don't know who they are are trying to help the whole world to come to a state of peace, silence, bliss. They are mad people, and whatsoever they do, notwithstanding their good wishes... I'm not suspicious about their good wishes - the good wishes are there - but adolf hitler was also full of good wishes, joseph stalin was also full of good wishes, and the path of hell is paved with good wishes.
And I'm not suspecting.... But these people have been trying to improve the world. In fact it is because of these people the world is not improving - it cannot improve because of these people.
They don't know who they are, they don't know where they are standing; they have not even an inkling of their consciousness. They are unconscious, intoxicated with utopian ideas and trying to force those ideas on people.
I am not a political man, I am very very apolitical. I am not in any way interested for or against. I simply help my people who come to me and then I make them free. I don't say to my sannyasins:
don't go into politics. If you feel like going, go; that is your freedom.
But my feeling is that a man who has a quality of meditativeness will do good wherever he goes; bad cannot happen through him. And I trust his meditativeness, so whatsoever he chooses is right.
Different people naturally, choose different things to do; they have different personalities. You cannot become a singer suddenly, but if you have that capacity to become a singer and meditation happens, the first thing will be that you will start bursting into song. Because the capacity is there and meditation has happened, the capacity and the meditation will join together and immediately you will become a singer - or a dancer or a painter or a social reformer, a revolutionary... it depends.
And the world is rich because there are so many kinds of people. Meditation does not make all people alike, in fact. just the contrary: it makes everybody absolutely individual... it gives you uniqueness.
Right now, get out of your personal neuroses. First clean your heart and clean your mind; that can be done and that is more feasible. It is not such a big project as you have in the mind: your project is almost unfulfillable - my project is something which can be fulfilled.
But after my project is fulfilled you can go and choose your direction in life. Yes, one has to do something; after one has attained to meditation one will have to do something. In fact you will feel more, you will become more sensitive. Right now this whole idea of helping people may be just an ego trip. Then it will not be an ego trip, the ego has disappeared. Then you will be really helping and you will not enforce anything upon anybody... otherwise good people sometimes become do- gooders, and that is dangerous.
The first thing first: become a sannyasin, meditate, clean your heart. The world can wait - don't be worried! Don't be worried that by the time you become cleaned the world may not have any problems and then what will you do? Don't be worried! They will wait and by the time you have really become a meditator the problems will be more than they are now; you will have enough opportunity to serve.
Prem means love, avadhyan means meditation, mm? and these two qualities you have to grow by and by: be more loving and be more meditative. And for the time being forget about the world. When these two qualities have really grown, then I will send you into the world - then go into the world and do whatsoever you feel like doing, but then whatsoever you do will be right because you will be right.
It is not a question of right action, it is always a question of right being.
There is a very old egyptian saying: Even the right thing becomes wrong in wrong hands. And the contrary is also true: Even the wrong thing becomes right in right hands.
Ultimately things are decided by the quality of your being - not what you do but what you are; that has to be remembered....
[A sannyasin says on two occasions he's had the experience of being sucked down into a whirlpool of energy. He went through it both times, felt he 'died', but then nothing happened afterwards; he came back and he was himself again. He says he is afraid of the point at which he dies, and wants to overcome this fear.]
It is something beautiful, nothing to be worried about, but it is not happening in its totality; that's why you are missing. You just go only so far and then you slip out of it.
You are not really going to the very bottom of it, otherwise you will come out of it totally changed; you will come out of it rejuvenated, fresh, a new being. It is something very important this is what happens in deep meditation - but you are not going into it fully because you don't know how to go deeper into it; it is just happening and you don't know anything about it. It takes you in only a little bit because you are not prepared to go deeper. And that preparation is needed: once you are ready to go deeper it will take you deeper.
This is the hole one has to go into but we slip out from the middle. It will be frustrating and you can become a little worried and scared also because it is something that is happening without your will and you are not in control so it is scary and strange. But when you come next time, remind me again, and be here for at least two, three months; then things will clear.
It has to be total, that's all. And once it has been total it will never happen again. Unless it is total it will happen again and again, and to stop it is not good.
[He answers: It felt total already.]
No, if it were total there would have been no problem. It is not total; you don't know what total is.
If it had been total then there would have been no problem; all problem about it would have gone.
When it is total you will be able to compare; you will be able to see that it was not total.
The total will be really a death and you will start again very new, discontinuous with the past; there will be no link between the past and you. Right now the link remains: you come back to your old self; you don't come back to a new space. You go into it and then it is new, but when you come back you come back to the old space again. If it is total you will never be the same again: you cannot find the old man anywhere. Even if you search, you will not find.
This is what the zen people call satori: the old simply disappears as if it was a dream and it is no more. You are awakened to a new reality....
[The sannyasin is leaving and will return in a year. Osho suggests that he visit the centre near him, and when he returns, to be here for at least three or four months, and then things can be done... ]
And you are on the right track. You are fortunate that it is happening on its own. It must have something to do with your past life: you must have meditated or done something. But when you come we will go deeply into it; right now it will not be good, mm?
[A seeker has been undecided about taking sannyas for a year. He explains, my heart wants it and my mind is against it.
Osho advises, Whenever there is a conflict between the head and the heart, listen to the heart. The very decision to go with the heart will start a change and then many more things will happen.
Nobody has ever attained to ecstasy through the head; the intellect is very barren. No life is born out of it, no love, no celebration. So choosing between the head and the heart is really choosing between death and life: the best of the heart is the best of life. So whatsoever you say! - if you choose the heart, become a sannyasin!]
[Another sannyasin asks whether she should return to the West to do a probationary officer's course.
Osho asks about her feelings, then agrees that it is better not to do it. He says, Choose something else... choose something joyful. This is just nonsense - drop out of it! There are born social workers; you are not. You can easily become a happier person than a social worker!]
[A nine-year-old sannyasin tells Osho that some years before, in Germany, his mother had walked out on the family, his father and brother and himself. Sometimes she visits them, but he misses her and would like her back.
He is crying. Osho holds his hand and touches his head.]
... We will try! Nothing to be worried about. I am your mother!
Whenever you need your mother, just remember me, and I will take care of you... and you are coming finally to stay with me here in India! You want to stay in Germany or come here?
[The child replies: Come here!]
So then why bother about the mother! Soon you will be coming here, mm? And next time your mother comes to see you, tell her about me and tell her to come here and meditate and become a sannyasin!
Give her some books and give her one of my pictures - then I will start haunting her!
Mm? and I will pull her here; don't be worried. What is her name?...
You enquire of your father, if you have a picture here, next time bring it. I will start working on her, mm? Don't be worried - be happy. Good!
[The young sannyasin asks for groups to do.]
Groups you want to do? Mm! Next time we will be starting a small group for children. I will make you the leader - you wait!