The Perfect Master, Vol 1 Talks on Sufi Stories

But the Eastern God is a continuum of creativity. It is play -- LEELA. Then it is possible. Let your awareness be a play. Effortless, relaxed, and then it can become a continuum, it will be there, it will not be lost.

My feeling is that Ratna must be making this effort too much. That's why she says:

Unless your awareness is without will you will be repressing. And repression can be very subtle. Then always, when the awareness is gone, the repressed thing will come, and in a bigger form, with vengeance. It will take revenge.

Ratna, don't force awareness on yourself in any way. Let it grow. Become more relaxed, calm, quiet, accepting One has to accept all -- the good and the bad, success and failure, love and hate ALL one has to accept. In that acceptance, relaxation happens. And awareness is nothing but the fragrance of relaxation. It is the flowering of let-go.

Then problems disappear and disappear for ever....

OSHO, WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

Chapter #7

Chapter title: It Will Devour You Too

27 June 1978 am in Buddha Hall

ShortTitle: PERF107

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 98 mins

IT IS RELATED THAT A DERVISH ONCE STOPPED A KING IN THE STREET. THE KING SAID, "HOW DARE YOU, A MAN OF NO ACCOUNT, INTERRUPT THE PROGRESS OF YOUR SOVEREIGN?"

Trees are not trying to be, they simply are. God also is not trying to be, he is one with isness. Man is just in between the two -- of course tense, pulled apart, torn apart. A part of his being wants to become one with the animals, another part of his being wants to rise high into the sky and become God.

Man remains in this tug-of-war.

Walt Whitman says: "There have been many moments in my life when I had the desire to become an animal again, because they are so free of desire, so free of anguish, so free of competition, so free of ambition."

Look into the eyes of a cow, or into the eyes of a cat or a dog -- all seems to be so quiet and silent. As if THIS moment is all! But look into the mind of man and you will find a maniac. And not one but a crowd, not one but the whole madhouse inside. So many madmen shouting, desiring, asking and asking. And the desires are contradictory. If you fulfill one, necessarily the other becomes impossible to fulfill. If you fulfill the other, then something else becomes the problem.

You cannot satisfy man! There is no communication between his parts. One hand wants to do one thing, another hand may want to destroy it. A part of you is constantly hankering for the past that is lost; another part is striving to reach to the future. How can you be at ease? How can you be at home?

Listen sometimes to what goes on inside your mind.

Just the other night I was reading a passage from Ionesco's play, THE BALD SOPRANO:

At one point in the play, the four characters angrily shout meaningless insults at each other: "Cockatoos, cockatoos, cockatoos.... Such coca, such coca, such coca.... Such-cascades of cacao, such cascades of cacao, such cascades of cacao.... "

When the Martins fall into bored slumber, the maid addresses the audience: "Elizabeth is not Elizabeth, Donald is not Donald. It is in vain that he thinks he is Donald. It is in vain that she thinks she is Elizabeth. But who is the true Donald? and who is the true Elizabeth? Who has any interest in prolonging the confusion?"
Ionesco is telling us in this play that loss of self is the loss of communication, and the loss of communication is the loss of self.

Have you watched inside yourself what goes on? No communication! between one fragment of your being and another fragment of your being. What to say about communion? There is no communication even. You are not one: you are a multiplicity. And you are a multiplicity because of the multiplicity of desires. You want to become so many things.

In the first place, the moment you want to become something you are losing your being. In the clouds of becoming, the being is lost. The moment you start thinking in terms of what to become, you are no more aware of WHO YOU ARE. When becoming is dropped, energy turns back upon itself.

That's what Jesus calls conversion -- returning to the source. That's what Patanjali calls PRATYAHAR -- coming back to oneself. That is what Mahavir calls PRATIKRAMAN -- turning back to one's own being.

We are all rushing -- rushing for somewhere there in the future. We are ALL rushing so fast because life is short and time is fleeting. And we go on rushing, and where do we reach? We reach only our graves. Nothing ever is fulfilled, because those desires are by their very nature unfulfillable.

Try to understand the nature of desire. That is the only deception there is, the only mirage, the only illusion. If one understands what desire is, one becomes a Buddha. Seeing the futility of desire, desire is no more valid for you. That dimension simply disappears. Becoming aware that NO desire is ever fulfilled, cannot be fulfilled by its very nature, it is intrinsically unfulfillable, you need not then renounce it.

Those who renounce have not understood. Those who have understood, they don't renounce -- there is nothing to renounce! Simply, the desire is no more relevant. It slips out of your hands -- not that you renounce it. It simply becomes utterly meaningless. In that very understanding you are free of it.

The whole work of sannyas is to understand the nature of desire. What is the nature of desire?

First thing: it always hankers for that which is not. Now, look into it, meditate over it. This is the very nature of desire: asking for that which is not. How can it be fulfilled? When you have it, your desire will have moved away.

You see a beautiful house, and you desire it and you long for it end you dream about it, and you work hard for years. And then one day the house is yours. But you are surprised, a revelation: the moment the house is yours, the desire is no more there for it. It has already moved. It is never in the present. It can only be in the future. Future is its space, its soil; it grows there. Present is not its soil. In the present it dies -- immediately dies. So when the house is yours, and you have moved into the house, suddenly you are surprised: where are those beautiful dreams that you have been dreaming about the house? House is yours, but where are those dreams? They have flown away.

And he was a beautiful man, talented, a genius. And women are always interested in people who have some kind of talent, some kind of genius. Women are always interested not in the physical beauty as much as in something inner. And Byron had it! that magic touch, that magnetism. So it was very easy for any woman to fall in love with him. But the love would not last for a few days, at the most for a few weeks, and Byron would move to somebody else.

When he fell in love with one woman, she was very very insistent: "Unless you get married to me I am not interested. You say you are ready to die for me -- I don't want you to die for me. I simply want you to get married to me."

Now, that was a bigger demand. It is very easy to die -- it is so poetic, so romantic -- but to live with a woman and to get married is so unpoetic, so unromantic, so utterly meaningless. Byron tried to avoid and avoid, but the woman was also very clever. She had learnt many stories about Byron, that this was happening: "Within weeks, within days, his interest simply disappears. He starts looking at the woman as if he has not known her at all, as if she does not exist."

The more the woman avoided Byron, the more he became infatuated. That is the nature of desire. The more the woman looked unapproachable, the more mad he was. The more the woman created hindrances, the more he was bent upon it to get her. He was ready to do anything -- even marriage. They got married.

The day they got married... Byron and his wife are coming down the steps of the church, the wedding bells are still ringing, guests are still in the church, coming out, Byron is holding the hand of the woman for whom for months he has been dreaming and has not been able to sleep, has not been able to think of anything else. She has been for these few months his whole life.

And suddenly he saw another woman pass by... and for a moment he forgot the woman to whom he had just got married. His hand slipped out of the hand of the woman. The woman saw what was happening. Those eyes were focussed on the movement of some other woman, and she asked Byron, "What are you doing?"

And Byron said, "I am sorry, but I have to be true to you. When I saw this woman, my whole energy moved towards her. I forgot about you, completely. It is not conscious that I have taken my hand out of your hand. You ceased to exist in that moment. And I know I was mad after you, but the MOMENT we were married something disappeared. The oasis is no more an oasis. You are an ordinary woman."

Whatsoever you have is NEVER an object of desire -- how can it be? What you DON'T have is the object of desire. So whenever you have it, the moment you have it, it ceases to be an object of desire. This is the intrinsic nature of desire. Hence desire just drives you and drives you... to NO point! It is a vicious circle. You go on moving, much movement... MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING! A TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT FULL OF FURY AND NOISE SIGNIFYING NOTHING -- that's what desire is.

But that is where man is caught. Man is not caught in the world. Don't renounce the world. The world has nothing to do with it. There are thousands of people who have renounced the world without understanding the nature of desire -- they remain the same. They can move to the Himalayas or to a monastery -- Catholic, Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan -- they can go to Tibet, but nothing is going to happen.

In fact, this is again another game of the desire. Now, they are not desiring the things of the world -- they are desiring things of the beyond. Now they desire God, they desire paradise, they desire heaven, they desire Nirvana, enlightenment. But they go on desiring! And desire is the problem, not what you desire. The object is irrelevant. Desire can live with any object. It can live with money, it can live with power, prestige, respectability; it can live with God, it can live with enlightenment. Any object will do.

This is a very unconscious state. You are SUFFERING from desire, but you think you are suffering from things. People think they are suffering from their wives, from their husbands, children, society, people. No. Not at all. You are suffering only from one thing: desire.

Come to the root cause of it, and try to understand the root cause. And my emphasis is on understanding. I am not saying DO something about it. I am not saying DON'T desire -- no, not at all. I will be the last person to say don't desire. I am saying something totally different: Look into desire. Meditate on desire. Go deep into it. SEE it as deeply as possible. Layer upon layer, penetrate into it. Penetrate to the very CORE of it.

In that very penetration there comes a renunciation which is not of your making. There comes a renunciation which is a gift. And because it comes out of understanding you need not cultivate it, you need not practice it. Its very coming is transforming. You go through a mutation.

Let this be your criterion forever: that that which you do is going to remain superficial -- you ARE superficial, how can you do anything in depth? Your doing is not going to help. Your doing has been your undoing up to now. No more of it. Now change the emphasis. It is not a question of doing.

Sannyas is not a question of doing: it is a question of awareness, understanding, observation, witnessing. Witness desire.

Below man, there is no desire. There are no needs. They are momentary. The tiger is hungry, he searches for the prey. When he is not hungry, there is no desire.
One day, a tiger and a hare entered into a restaurant. And the tiger asked for Coca-Cola. The waiter asked the hare, "What would you like? And your friend has asked only for Coca-Cola -- is he not hungry?"

The hare said, "What are you asking? If he was hungry, should I be here? He would have breakfasted long before. He is not hungry -- that's why I am with him."

A little consciousness is needed -- but only a little, because we have seen Buddhas who are fully conscious: again desire disappears. A Buddha again lives spontaneously, like a tree, like a rock, like a river. Of course, there is a great difference the difference is that the Buddha is conscious and the tree is unconscious. But there is a great similarity too: both are utterly in the moment.

Buddha is in the moment because he is fully conscious; the tree is in the moment because it is fully unconscious. One thing is similar, that both are non-dual, a single phenomenon. Buddha is pure consciousness -- consciousness and only consciousness. CHINMATRAM -- just consciousness. There is no duality involved in it. And the tree is unconscious -- ACHINMATRAM -- just unconsciousness no duality involved, purity, one.

When the dual comes, tension comes. With the dual, the tug-of-war. Man is dual. A part has become conscious, and the greater part has remained still unconscious. Man is like an iceberg -- only the tip of the iceberg is conscious, one tenth. Nine tenths is underneath the water, unconscious. Between these two there is bound to be conflict, a civil war.

Man is a constant civil war. The conscious says, "Do this," the unconscious says, "Do that." They are totally different phenomena. They can't understand each other. There is no possibility of any communication. One says one thing, another says another thing. There has never been any communication between them.

Because of this split, man remains in a turmoil, and remains absolutely unconscious of who he is. If he listens to the conscious he is one thing. If he listens to the unconscious he is totally another. That's why man is divided in many ways. Not only psychologically -- biologically, physiologically man has divided himself. The upper part of the body seems to be higher; the lower part seems to be lower -- not just lower, but low in an evaluating sense. You are identified with the upper part of the body; you are not identified with the lower part of the body. The lower seems animal. And you are constantly repressing it.

Because of these repressions, there has arisen a China Wall and you are not one. And without being one, there is no possibility of peace.

The animals are in peace, in utter peace. The Buddha is in peace. Man? Man is just in misery.

Sometimes man decides, as Walt Whitman says, just to become an animal. That's why there is so much attraction in drugs: they help you for a moment to lose your consciousness. You are again one. It may be alcohol or it may be modern drugs, but they give you a release -- a release from the tense life. You relax, you become calm. Suddenly you are one again. And life seems to be no more a continuous fight in which failure is absolutely certain.

When you are drunk, you can dance again, sing again, be loving again. There is no more competition, no more politics. But how long can you remain in a drugged state? You have to come out of it. It cannot become a permanent state. And when you come back, those worries those anxieties, are waiting for you -- and they jump upon you with a vengeance. Then it becomes a vicious thing: when you become too tired of the worries, you fall into a drugged coma; and then you come again and the worries are there -- they have grown meanwhile. When you were fast asleep in the coma, they were growing, they were multiplying. They don't wait for you. When you come back they are there to be taken care of.

Man constantly wants to fall back but cannot. All his efforts, at the most, can succeed for a few moments. But this is easier -- to fall back. It is always easier because it is downhill. The other way to be blissful is to become a Buddha, but that is an uphill task; one has to grow, grow in consciousness. That is the only growth, remember! To grow in consciousness is the only growth. To transform your dark continent inside into an eternal light, to fill your whole being with light and awareness -- that's what growth is.
JUST WATCH YOUR LIFE, HOW CONSCIOUS YOU ARE. You will be surprised -- it is negligible, it is almost zero. It is very fragile, your consciousness. It is not even skin-deep. Somebody insults you and the consciousness is gone, and you are boiling with anger, mad. Somebody praises you, and the consciousness is gone, and you are puffed up and your ego becomes huge. Just SMALL things!

Just two persons standing by the road when you pass by start laughing, and you are hurt. They may not be laughing at you -- there are millions of things to laugh at. You are not the only person to laugh at. They start whispering something, and you start thinking they must be whispering against you, otherwise why should they whisper? Why can't they talk loudly? And suspicion has arisen. And you are in a turmoil. What is your consciousness?

"But, miss, this is your sixth child by the same father," said the clerk. "Why don't you marry him?"

"Are you jivin'?" replied Rena. "I don't even like the sonuvabitch!"
Then why do you go on making love to this man? But you should not ask the question. People go on doing a thousand and one things, not knowing why they are doing them, for what. They are simply doing them because they have nothing else to do; they are simply doing them to keep themselves occupied.
A man was getting married, and his friends asked him, "How come? Because you were introduced to this woman only two, three days ago. Have you fallen in love or something?"

And he said, "Nothing of the kind! We were dancing in the club and after a few minutes I could not find what to say to her, so I proposed."

And just because something has to be said, you say it, and then it creates trouble. Ninety-nine percent of your troubles will disappear if you stop talking too much.

I have heard:
A hunter went into the jungle. He found there a skull. He was just sitting by the side of the skull, underneath the tree -- he was tired and exhausted. Nothing else to do, and there being nobody else he just said "Hello!" to the skull -- just by the way.

But he was surprised: the skull said "Hello!" He was shocked too. He said, "Can you talk?"

The skull said, "Yes!"

And the man asked, "What brought you here, to this situation?" The skull said, "Talking, too much talking."

He was scared. He ran away from the place. He could not believe it. He immediately went to the king, because this was a miraculous phenomenon. And he told the king, "Something one will not believe I have seen, I have heard with my own ears a skull talking! I said 'Hello!' because there was nothing else to do and there was nobody else either. Just the skull was Lying by the side of the tree. I never thought... but the skull said 'Hello!'"