Hallelujah Chapter - 11

When one's whole Being is in Celebration...

Prem means love, nityo means eternal. Love is the only phenomenon in life which has the quality of eternity in it. Hence even a single moment of love takes you beyond time, takes you into timelessness. A single moment of love is a moment of eternity; it is not an ordinary moment. It is not horizontal, it is vertical.

All other moments are horizontal. You are eating, you are sleeping, taking your bath, earning your bread - these are all horizontal. One moment is followed by another in a sequence; it is a chain.

Each present moment of the ordinary life is surrounded by two other moments: the one that is disappearing and becoming the past, and the one that is just coming on the horizon, the future.

The ordinary present is sandwiched between past and future; but love knows no past and no future.

It is a very extraordinary moment; it is vertical. It is not part of our time process. And that is the meaning of the Christian cross: one line is horizontal, the other line is vertical. It is not just a symbol of the crucifixion; it is a symbol of time and eternity. Eternity penetrates the river of time only when you are in love. Jesus is a man of immense love, hence he could say 'God is love.' He represents love.

So remember it, that the more you become loving, the more you transcend death.

That's why a lover is never afraid of death. Only the people who don't know how to love are afraid of death, because the people who don't know how to love remain in their egos. And they know only one kind of time. They know everything begins and ends; they don't know the beginningless and the endless, they have never tasted of it. They have lived only in one-dimensional time; eternity has remained completely unknown to them. They are afraid of death - they know that they are going to die. And they are going to die, because time is a process that begins and ends.

Hallelujah Chapter - 10

Love is a Jumping Board

Prem means love, mouna means silence. So learn two things: be loving to everybody - to people, to trees, to animals, even to the rocks - and the second thing: learn to be silent. Whenever you have time just sit silently with closed eyes. If these two things are attained you become a sannyasin!

Deva means divine, vasant means spring - divine spring. Sannyas is divine spring, and the colour orange is traditionally the colour of spring in India, because it is the colour of flowers. I have chosen it as a symbol of becoming yourself, flowering into your being. And the ultimate goal is that one should become what one is carrying within oneself as a potential. One should become that, the seed should become the flower. It is possible and it is within our grasp; it is just by the corner. One simply needs to go on an adventure - an adventure to find oneself.

The only problem is that we have been taught to imitate. If we imitate, we miss, because you cannot be anybody else except yourself; you can flower only as yourself. A rose has to become a rose - it cannot become a lotus; and the lotus has to become a lotus - it cannot become a rose. But when both bloom to their uttermost, it is the same flowering. The joy is the same, the benediction is the same. You cannot become a Jesus or a Buddha - there is no need to either - you can only become yourself. In trying to become somebody else you will miss becoming that which you are; that is the only trouble.

Once that trouble disappears from the mind there is no hindrance. The river starts flowing and reaches the ocean of its own accord.

Hallelujah Chapter - 09

Sannyas is Initiation into Light

Love is a breakthrough; a breakthrough from the ego, from all boundaries, from all limitations. Hence love becomes the sky, the inner sky. And the outer sky is nothing compared to the inner; the outer is just a pale reflection of the inner. Once one has looked into the inner then for the first time one feels that even this sky that we have known always is not so unlimited; it has its own limitations. And modern physics says that it is limited. But the inner sky has no limitation.

That inner sky has been called by many names. Buddha called it 'nirvana': cessation of the ego.

Mahavira called it 'moksha': absolute freedom. Jesus is more poetic about it; he calls it 'the kingdom of god'. But they all indicate the same thing: the moment ego disappears there is freedom, and that freedom is unlimited. The moment the ego disappears the kingdom of god descends in you. When the king dies, the kingdom arrives. If the king lives he remains a beggar.

One can have either one: either you can have the king - the ego, which wants to dominate, wants to possess - or you can have the kingdom. But nobody can have both; that is not the nature of things.

And millions decide to have the king although in deciding to have the king they remain beggars, because a king without a kingdom is nothing but a beggar. And a kingdom without a king is a real kingdom. Even that interference of the presence of the king is no more there.

Hallelujah Chapter - 08

To become a Song is to become a Saint

Anand means bliss, astika means one who trusts, one who believes, one who trusts in bliss; and that's my definition of a religious man. I don't say to trust in god, because that is very far-fetched.

God is very abstract - it is only a word; you don't have any experience of it. To believe in it will be dishonest. You cannot honestly believe in god. It will be deceiving yourself - a kind of self-deception, creating an illusion around yourself. And if you start with illusion you cannot end with truth. If you begin in dishonesty, you will end in dishonesty. The first step has to be very true, authentic; only then can the last step be in ultimate truth. Otherwise it is not possible. That's why so many people believe in god - millions of people believe in god - but only once in a while does somebody come to know him. Why this disparity? When so many people believe, many more should attain. Because belief is dishonest, to begin with it is to go astray.

So I don't say 'Believe in god'; I simply say 'Believe in bliss.' And that's a natural phenomenon - not part of any theology, neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan. One need not be taught to believe in it; one is born with that trust. It is intrinsic, it is built-in. All life is a search for bliss. Even the most unconscious life is a search for bliss. Trees are searching for it, rocks are searching for it, animals are searching for it. The whole existence moves around the centre of bliss. It is so natural that one need not enforce any belief; it is already there.

One has to help it to grow. One has only to remove the hindrances in its path so it can start flowing.

One has to be deliberately in it. One is in it naturally; you have to be in it consciously, because if you remain unconscious in some search it will take millions of years. Then it is very haphazard, then arriving is almost accidental. One can hope for the best but one should be ready for the worst. Unless the search becomes conscious there seems to be no possibility of arriving. The more conscious it is, the straighter you go.

Hallelujah Chapter - 07

Whenever you are Total you are with Me

Prem means love, unmado means madness - a loving madness. And that is the greatest sanity in the world. One who is not capable of loving madness is not even capable of living. He only thinks, never feels. And life is not a thought; it has to be felt, lived. Those who cannot live and feel remain hung-up in the head. Their life becomes only a dream phenomenon - it has no objectivity. It is all thought stuff, and thought is nothing but a form of dreaming. Dreaming is thinking visually, and thinking is dreaming conceptually; they are two aspects of the phenomenon called dreaming.

Real life starts only when you start feeling. But feeling looks like madness to the head. It represses feeling, emotions, sentiments - and they are the real juices of life. Through them one comes closer to god, and only through them. God is not a concept but the uttermost orgasmic experience of love.

When one can feel one with the whole existence, that experience is god. It is making love to the whole, it is being loved by the whole. It is a love experience.

That's why Jesus said 'God is love.' It is literally so - it is not a metaphor.

Veet means beyond, dvesha means jealousy, possessiveness, competitiveness, any kind of conflict.

And to go beyond jealousy is to go into love. It is jealousy that does not allow people to grow into love. And to go beyond possessiveness is to go into god, because god cannot be possessed, and the people who are interested only in possessing remain godless. God cannot be possessed; on the contrary, you have to be possessed by god.

Hallelujah Chapter - 06

Joy is Intunement

[To a sannyasin with his wife and child who is afraid to 'burn all his bridges' in the West in order to be with Osho]

Because of that fear.... Fear always holds one back, keeps the past safe so that one can fall upon it if the moment arises. But then the whole journey remains half-hearted and lukewarm. Better than being cold, but the evaporation comes only when you are totally with me, and to be totally with me means burning all the bridges. That is trust. Otherwise yoU go intelligently. You see, you judge, and you go so far; you follow yourself really. And whenever something arises about which your mind is not convinced, you will immediately stop... and that is the point from where the transformation happens.

Trust means something that is not visible to you, that is not believable... and yet one dares! Trust is daring, it is courage. But the more you trust, the more life happens to you, because life happens only through risk.

It is a risk to be with me. And it is not you alone who are half-heartedly here - there are many. But you will grow as much as you are with me. If you are totally with me then the growth will be a kind of explosion.

But good... better than nothing. You have come - that's good. Next time you may gather more courage. Even this much is good, even this much has changed you a lot. You are softer, you are more calm and quiet. Just see: even this much can help, then more will help more. Nothing to be worried about - a few people take the jump in a few steps. But the jump is going to happen - I am determined upon it!

Hallelujah Chapter - 05

Prayer is the Highest Form of Play

Anand means bliss, vandano means prayer - bliss is prayer. Whether one believes in god or not does not matter. A blissful man is a religious man. A blissful man is in prayer, because out of bliss, gratitude naturally arises, and gratitude is prayer... and out of gratitude, the vision of god.

But the so-called religions start upside-down. They say 'First believe in god, then you can pray, and out of prayer you will find bliss.' This is just a falsification of the whole process.

To start with belief is to start with dishonesty. This is what psychologists call 'the double-bind'.

Religions teach people 'Be sincere and believe in god.' Now this is a double-bind; if you are sincere and honest you cannot believe. How can you believe?you have not known yet. If you believe, you are not sincere and honest. And remember: honesty and sincerity are far more valuable than all the beliefs.

My approach is just the opposite: start by being blissful. Enjoy life, enjoy the small things of life, enjoy each moment of it, let it become an hallelujah, a celebration, and forget all about theology - Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism. Forget all that has been taught. Life is enough. Learn to live, and out of that learning, out of that getting deeper into life, you will become more and more blissful.

Life is made of bliss. It is available everywhere... it is hidden in every atom. We are living in the ocean of bliss. We just have to be here and now, open, available, and bliss rushes into our being from every side; one is flooded with it. And then gratitude is natural. How can you avoid gratitude when there is so much bliss in life? It is a natural consequence. And out of gratitude, the vision of god.

Hallelujah Chapter - 04

Religion: Allowing God to Find Us

Deva means god, svarupo means self-nature. God is our self nature. God is not separate - god is our very being. He has not to be attained, only discovered. He is hidden in us; there is no need to go anywhere else to find him. One has to be silent enough and relaxed enough to feel him. It is not a journey, it is already the case: we are in god, god is in us. And god is not a person - you cannot worship him; there is nobody to be worshipped. The worshipper is the worshipped. The arrow has to turn inwards.

We are focussed outwards, so god has fallen in the shadow, and the obvious has become impossible and the impossible has become our very search. God is very obvious. 'One does not even have to go outside one's room,' says Lao Tzu, 'to find him.' And I say 'One does not even have to go outside one's body.' One is it. That is the meaning of svarupo: it is your very nature, your very ground. 'Thou art that' - when this recognition arises, all misery disappears and all darkness, and one is transported into a totally different kind of reality. With the change of vision, the whole world changes.

So don't look for god in the churches, in the temples, in mosques; he is not there. Look for him within. And god is not a goal somewhere in the future. He is our very source. We have just to be a little calmer to feel him. The turmoil in the mind does not allow us to feel, the noise in the being does not allow us to hear the still, small voice within.

Hallelujah Chapter - 03

Love is The Introduction to The Book of Bliss

Deva means divine, dharia means patience - divine patience. God is not available to those who are in a hurry. God is not instant, and the more you are in a hurry, the less is the possibility. Patience is a very basic requirement... infinite patience. Only when you are in a deep state of patience are you silent; otherwise the mind is tense. When there is hurry, there is tension. Then the mind is constantly longing, and because it is not happening the mind feels frustration.

For those who are not patient, frustration is their lot. One can choose between frustration and patience. In frustration you become a hell; in patience heaven descends in you. In fact nothing else needs to be done. If one can silently wait everything happens in its own right time. We cannot make it happen sooner, but if we are in a hurry we can delay it, certainly. So all that man can do is to delay.

It is not a question of our doing; our doing is our Undoing.

It is a question of being. And that is the meaning of patience: one simply is, waiting, waiting, waiting.

And then one day suddenly a door opens, and all the darkness disappears. It happens naturally - it is not produced by your effort. It is a grace, a gift. It flows out of god's love.

Deva means divine, veeresha means courage - divine courage. And the greatest courage in life is to accept oneself as one is. And I say that this is the greatest courage in life; very few people are so courageous. Hence the hankering to improve upon oneself: to be this, to be that, to have this, to have that. Either a person becomes interested in having more and more - that is one way of desire, and it leads into more and more frustration - or one becomes interested in being more and more, not having but being more and more; that too lands one in frustration.

Hallelujah Chapter - 02

The Night is over

Prem means love, devayan means divine vehicle - love, the divine vehicle. Love takes you to the ultimate and love also brings the ultimate to you; it is a double-edged sword. It is like a ladder: you can go up and down by the same ladder. And the meeting happens somewhere in the middle. Man starts moving in love, god starts moving in response to man's love, and just exactly in the middle, somewhere half-way, the meeting happens. Man disappears into god and god disappears into man.

Then there is no 'I' and no'thou'; then there is only one.

And the search is for that oneness... the longing is to be one with the whole again. The suffering is that we cannot find the way; the suffering is that whatsoever we do fails. But love has never failed. Very few people try love. They try everything else but nothing else can succeed. With love everything is possible; without love nothing is possible.

Prem means love, shaila means the peak of the mountain. Prem shaila will mean the peak of the mountain of love. And love makes available the highest peak possible - what Abraham Maslow calls'the peak experience'. It is possible only through love. All other experiences are mundane, ordinary; only love takes one into the beyond. All other experiences are earthly, earthbound. Only love has wings... it can take you above the clouds. And that is not only a metaphor - literally it is so.

Man is an ambiguous being - half earth, half sky, half matter, half mind, half animal, half god. That is the agony of man and also the ecstasy. The agony is that man is always divided - to be this or to be that, to be or not to be. The animal pulls him backwards, and the god in him goes on calling him forth, to come out: Surpass yourself! Just a little more and you will have arrived.

Hallelujah Chapter - 01

Sannyas is The Apprenticeship in Bliss

[to a sannyasin returning to her husband in the West]

Just be there and be totally there. It is not a question of where you are; the question is always of being total or partial. Whenever you are partial, something goes on missing. But my feeling is that you will be partial there too - because you could not be total here, so how can you be total there?

Here you have been thinking of somebody who is there; there you will think of me and things that are here.

Partiality is the way of the mind. The mind can never be total in anything, because to be total means to commit suicide; as far as the mind is concerned, it is a suicide. The mind is very clever in creating new fragments. You are thinking that there you will be total, but you will be there - nobody else - and this mind will be there - no other mind. If it cannot be total here, how can it be total there? Just by changing places, nothing is changed; the mind remains unaffected by changing your place. The mind has to be changed. If you had been total here then there would have been a possibility: you could have hoped to be total there too. But try. Who knows? It may happen there.

And it is always so that whenever you are not with your lover great romantic ideas arise, and when you are with your lover then all simply falls flat.

When you are not with your lover your heart is simply longing to be together, and when you are together suddenly you find the whole stupidity of it. What is there? All those dreams look childish.