Hafiz is a
sufi name for God. It means the one who preserves all -- the preserver, the sustainer, the
nourisher.
It is not only that God created existence in the beginning. He continuously creates it,
the creativity is a continuum. It has never stopped. In fact there was no beginning and
there will be no end. God is more creativity than a creator. Each moment He is at work.
There has never been a holiday, and the christian myth -- that for six days He created and
on the seventh day He rested -- is just a myth. His creation is His play. He is not tired.
The very idea of six days work makes sense only because we think of it as work. Then on
the seventh day one needs rest.God's creativity is
continuous; there is no rest. If He rests for a single moment life will stop. He is our
breath. If your breath goes on a holiday, you are gone. Even if for a few minutes your
heart does not beat, you are gone. God is the heartbeat of the universe. There has never
been a holiday and there will never be. And He is constantly nursing you. The very idea
that somewhere in the past He created the world, creates a distance. He becomes almost
invisible, inconceivable. When you think that millions of years ago He created the world,
it doesn't seem relevant to you, you don't seem to be related to Him. He may have created
Adam but He has not created you. You don't feel connected.
No, God has not
only created Adam -- He is continuously creating: He has created you. And not that He
stopped one day when you were born; He has been continuously creating you. He has been
your childhood, He has been your youth, He will be your old age. He is your life and He
will be your death. He is all! He is the breath going in and He is the breath going out.
He is within and He is without and He is continuously nursing you.
Once this idea
takes form in your being, God becomes very close. It is a continuous contact. Even when
you are asleep, He is breathing in you. Even when you never think of Him, He thinks of
you.
There is a sufi
saying, that if God stops thinking about you for a single moment you will disappear.
Because you are a thought in His cosmic mind, you are His dream. He maintains you.
Let this idea sink deep in your heart, and suddenly you will
see that God is not far away, He is very close by. And when you are eating, you are eating
Him; when you are drinking, you are drinking Him. When you are in love, you are in love
with Him, He is in love with you. Then there arises a kind of intimacy, a dialogue. That
dialogue, that intimacy is prayer.
A sannyasin says:
I feel myself closing down as I'm getting ready to leave... my energy's all going back in.
Osho checks her
energy.
I can see, mm? --
it is closing. You are afraid of going back. You have a very paradoxical mind: you want to
go back and yet you don't want to go back. You want to be here and yet you want to go.
Because of that paradox you are pulled apart. And whenever energy is divided it starts
closing. Energy remains open only when it is non-contradictory.
That is one of the
fundamentals to understand about energy: energy flows when there is no contradiction, when
whatsoever you are doing, you are totally in it. What it is does not matter -- if you are
totally in it, your energy will be open. You will feel like a lotus opening to the sun.
Once your energy is divided, split -- one part wants to do this, another part wants to do
something else -- you close immediately. All contradictions inside are destructive to
openness.
It is true -- you
have felt it rightly: it is closing. One thing that can be of immense help is to go
totally. Enjoy going. Feel that I am sending you, not that you are going. And that's true,
that I am sending you. Whenever I want somebody to stay, whenever I feel that staying will
be helpful, I manage it so it happens. I manage it from your inside, so you never come to
know, mm? -- you always think you have decided to stay. When I feel that going will be
helpful, I again manage from within you, and you think you are deciding it. Just drop the
idea that this is your decision and immediately you will feel opening again and the energy
will start flowing. Go totally happy. I am sending you. It is going to help your growth,
and next time when you are back you will be deeper in me.
This going away
will bring you closer to me.
To take a long
jump, first one has to go back a little and then one has to run and create the momentum.
That's what is meant by your going. Just go and go happily.
A sannyasin had
previously written to say she was very afraid of Osho and the ashram, after meeting a
christian missionary who said Osho was satan and people visiting the ashram went crazy.
The mind creates
many problems, and one of the problems and the greatest problem that the mind creates is:
it asks for the impossible. Naturally, you cannot manage it -- you become miserable. For
example, all love contains the opposite in it; that is natural. But the mind says 'Let
love be absolutely pure.' Now this is impossible, and because it is impossible you cannot
manage it and so you become miserable.
Love contains the
element of the opposite in it as does everything else. There is no life without death and
there is no love without hate. Once you see the point then you are not worried about the
hate, you accept it. But you don't feed it, you don't nourish it. It is accepted. It is a
necessary evil that goes with love. You nourish love, you pay attention to love, you live
love, and you accept the hate part of it. It is its shadow.
Once you see that
it is its shadow there is no need to be worried about it, because the shadow is impotent.
The shadow becomes very very potent if you pay too much attention to it, because attention
is food. And if you pay too much attention to the shadow, the real looks like a shadow and
the shadow starts looking like the real. Then hate becomes more important because it is in
the focus and love becomes secondary because it is no more in the focus. All that is
needed is to focus yourself on love and accept the hate part.
Whenever love
happens, hate always happens. Yes, one day there is a kind of love where all duality
disappears, but you cannot even call that love. Love can only be called love if it is
surrounded by hate -- that is its definition. That love which is not surrounded by hate is
a totally different phenomenon. Even to call it love is to misuse language. That kind of
love will also happen, but right now just pay attention to, care about, the love that is
growing in you, the trust that is growing in you. Doubt is contained in it.
Trust is
significant only because there is doubt. If there is no doubt left, trust will be useless.
For what will it be needed? Trust is so valuable because of doubt. Doubt is destructive,
trust is creative. When a person loses all doubt, trust also disappears, remember --
because there is no need for the medicine when the illness is gone. So don't ask for total
trust, mm? because in total trust there will be no place for doubt, and again you have
asked for the impossible and you will fall short and will be in pain, in agony.
And remember that
the question does not arise from the outside; the question is always inside. It is not a
question of there being something in me that creates doubt or that creates trust. In both
the cases -- trust or doubt -- it is something in you; it is always an inner phenomenon. I
am just an excuse. So somebody can choose me as an excuse to doubt and somebody can choose
me as an excuse to trust. And both can find arguments for their choice: the person who
wants to doubt me will find a thousand and one things to doubt, and the person who wants
to trust in me will find a thousand and one things to trust.
Life is so vast --
you can always choose. If you are against God, you can find arguments against God all
over. If you are for God, you can find arguments for god everywhere.Whether god exists or
not is irrelevant -- the real thing is whether you want Him to exist or not.
So the question is
whether trust or doubt is going to help your growth. Trusting me is not the point -- that
is putting the whole question in a wrong context -- but whether doubt or trust is going to
help your growth. Whom you trust is not such a big problem -- you can trust Christ, you
can trust Buddha, you can trust me, you can trust anybody. Trust will help. Whether it is
x, y or z, is not the point.
People always
choose a dead person to trust in because there is less fear. Christ cannot do much, he
cannot disturb you. Christ is all your imagination but once he was not. When he was alive
and walking it was a totally different phenomenon. He created much nuisance, much
trouble... for others, for himself. The people who crucified him had not crucified him for
no reason at all. He was being a nuisance. He was disturbing people's sleep, he was
disturbing their dreams. He was a constant reminder that they were wrong!
How long can you
tolerate such a person? The crowd takes revenge with a vengeance. They killed him and now
they believe in him because now he cannot create any problems; now he is just a symbol in
the church. People were against Buddha; now they worship him -- the same people!
When Jesus was
there, the rabbis were telling people 'This man is wrong, this man is evil.' Now the
christian priest will say the same thing about me: 'This man is Satan.'
Who told you that I
am Satan? -- some bishop?
She answers: A
lady missionary.
A lady missionary?
Good! They have to say that, because either I am right or they are right. Their whole
existence will be in trouble if I go on succeeding. If I go on creating more and more
orange people, they will become more and more angry.
And there are the
same people who were against Christ! They are not different people -- this is something to
be understood: they are the same people. And these are the same people who, when I am
gone, will be for me. This is the stupidity of humanity: the intelligent person is one who
walks with Jesus when he is alive and the unintelligent person is one who worships Jesus
when he is dead. They were saying the same things about Jesus -- that he was possessed by
the devil, that all the miracles he was doing were not God's miracles but that the devil
was doing things through him. They can always find arguments. You can always find
arguments: if you are looking for them you will find. Whatsoever you look for, you will
find.
Be intelligent.
This is your life -- don't be guided by stupid people; be guided by your own intelligence.
Just look into me, just feel me, and you will find the same person that you have been
seeing in Christ. The only difference will be of the form, of the body, of the words;
otherwise there is no difference.
I am not a
missionary! I don't represent anybody -- I simply represent myself. Jesus never
represented anybody; he simply represented himself. A missionary represents somebody else.
His knowing is not his own it depends on the scriptures. I am my own authority. I am my
own scriptures -- read me! And while I am available, don't be distracted by such foolish
people. They are simply foolish.
And remember only
one thing: it is not a question of whether you trust in me or not -- I am not saying to
trust in me, I am only saying trust. If you cannot trust in me, trust in somebody else,
but trust. If you cannot trust in an alive person, then trust in a dead person, but trust.
Trust will help, it will help your Christ-consciousness. It will make you luminous,
capable of seeing, capable of understanding that which is.
And don't listen to
people who have some investment -- christian missionaries, others. They are all
politicians in the garb of religion.
Pour your energy
into trust and don't pour your energy into doubt; pour your energy into love and don't
pour your energy into hate. Soon you will be able to understand. And only your
understanding will help. Don't try to find substitutes for it.
Mm? you opened the
bible and you found the sentence that there will come a very wise and strong man who will
take people astray. Now you became afraid that the bible might be talking about me. Open
the bible tonight and you will find something else. Go on opening it every night and then
you will see it is just coincidence.
It is just like you
go to the railway station and you stand on the weighing machine: the ticket comes showing
your weight and also something about your character. Then weigh yourself again: another
ticket comes and it also shows something about your character which may be even
contradictory to the first. Weigh yourself again, just go on weighing yourself, and you
will be surprised -- after reading ten tickets you seem to be the whole world! All kinds
of characters are yours. This is how people go on consulting the l-Ching. It is just your
imagination, nothing else. But these are unintelligent ways. The intelligent way is only
one and that is experiential, existential.
I am here,
available, with open hands -- look into me! I am just a window. Jesus is a window, Buddha
is a window. And about windows one thing has to be remembered: when they are gone -- when
Jesus is gone -- people think the window is very valuable, so they frame it with gold,
stud it with diamonds and pearls and emeralds. By and by they completely forget that this
is a window -- you have to look through it. It is a medium, not an object of worship. And
then there are so many diamonds and so much gold and so much silver that accumulate on the
window that you cannot see beyond it. It becomes an altar, it becomes an object of
worship; but it was just a passage to see through, it was a medium.
Jesus is a medium,
I am a medium. Those who are intelligent will see through me and will find God. Those who
are unintelligent will wait. When I am gone and when the window is framed in gold, studded
with diamonds and is no more a window, they will worship me.
Be totally with me, as totally as possible. And when I say 'total' I don't mean that there
will be no doubt. In spite of the doubt, be with me. |