Yoga Sutra 43 Quality Of The Heart

Osho wrote – A sannyasin came to me, a very good man, but he was feeling very, very happy because I had given him a beautiful name. I give beautiful names to everybody. He had made an ego trip out of it. He said, “Osho, you are wonderful. You have given me such a beautiful name – it exactly represents me.” Your names don’t represent you. These are my hopes, not realities. These are my dreams, not realities. I called that sannyasin “Satyananda” – the bliss that arises out of the experience of truth. Hmm?… That is the ultimate. But he said, “Osho, ‘Satyananda’ – you have exactly, exactly got me. I am so impressed by your understanding.”

Now I became alert that this had been very, very wrong. It had been a misunderstanding.

I should not have given him this name. I wanted to pull him down from his euphoria, so when after a few minutes he started saying, “I don’t want anger, greed, this and that; these are all animalistic”; I said, “Don’t be a coward.” Immediately he exploded: “Coward? You call me a coward?” He was almost ready to hit me, screamed – completely forgot about satyananda – and he started defending himself. “Why have you called me a coward? I am not a coward.” And I told him, “If you are not a coward, then why are you defending? Then simply you can say, ‘You are wrong.’ Or even that is not needed. You are not a coward; why are you worried about it? Why have you got so red hot? Why are you screaming at the top of your voice? Why have you got so mad? I must have touched something.”

Now everybody who was present became aware that the man was defending something, and defending very fanatically; but only he could not see it.

In a group, if you work for a longer time, by and by you have to become aware that the whole group is seeing that you are doing something foolish, stupid, contrary to your own wishes – against your own fulfillment, against your own growth. You are clinging to a disease and you go on saying, “I want to get rid of it.”

Almost everybody knows where you are doing wrong – except you. Everybody knows that you are an egoist – except you. Only you think you are a humble man, a simple man.

Everybody knows your complexity. Everybody knows your double bind. Everybody knows your madness except you. You go on defending it. And because of politeness, etiquette, formalities, in society nobody will tell you. Hence, the group is helpful – because it is not going to be polite. It is going to be truthful. And when so many people say that this is your problem, and pinpoint it and finger it, and put their fingers on your wound and it hurts…. It is very difficult to make you alert, individual to individual because you can think this man may be wrong, but twenty persons? The possibility of twenty people being wrong is less, and you have to fall back on yourself and see the point of it.

That’s why Buddha created a great sangha, a great order of monks – ten thousand monks.

It was the first experiment of group therapy. It was a great experiment.

That’s what Osho has done. Sixteen thousand sannyasins – one of the greatest experiments in therapy. A community, a commune, in which you have to become aware because, otherwise, you will not be part of this commune, where everybody is understanding and seeing your error and showing it to you. Because sannyasins are not meant to be polite or formal. None of that rubbish. A sannyasin is here to transform himself and become a situation for others’ transformation.

See, whenever somebody points at some fault about you, don’t get angry. That is not going to help you. Don’t get mad. That is not going to help you. Try to see the point.

Maybe the other is true; and there is more possibility for the other to be true because he is so detached from you, he is so far away from you. He is not involved – in you. Always listen to people, what they are saying about you. Ninety-nine percent they will be right; there is only one percent possibility they may be wrong. Otherwise they are not wrong.

How can they be wrong, because they have a detached view about you?

That’s why a Master is needed: to show you your wounds. And it is possible only if you have deep respect and trust. If you get angry and you start fighting, then there is no trust and no respect. If you are here to defend your illnesses and diseases, then it is for you – don’t be here. What is the point of wasting your time here?

If I say that you are a coward and you cannot see the point, rather you have to fight and prove to me that you are not, then, simply there is no point; of being here. The relationship is finished with me. Now I cannot be helpful to you. When I say something to you, you have to look into the facts. Why should I call you a coward? There is no investment with you, and I have not invested anything in your cowardness. I simply said so because of compassion, because I see the illness is there. And unless you know it, unless it is diagnosed, how are you going to get rid of it?

If the doctor puts his hand on your pulse and says that you have a fever and you jump on him and start fighting, “What are you saying? How can I ever have any fever? No, you are wrong, I am perfectly healthy,” then why in the first place had you gone to the doctor?Just to get a certificate of health?

You are here – remember it – you are here not to get recognition for your illnesses and certificates that they don’t exist. You are here to be diagnosed, dissected – destroyed – so that your real nature can arise, bloom. But if you are defending, then it is for you to defend. It is none of my business; defend it. But then you will suffer. Then don’t come and tell me, “I am suffering, I am tense.”

From the world it is very difficult to move inwards because inwards you have been hiding illnesses and diseases. They force you to go out. That’s a way of diverting attention. That’s why so many Masters have been teaching you, “Go in. Know thyself,” but you never go there. You talk about it, you read about it, you appreciate the idea, but you never go in. Because you have only darkness and wounds and diseases. You have been hiding things which are not good, not healthy to you. You have been, on the contrary, protecting them rather than destroying them. Now you open the door… and you start feeling such stinking, such dirt, such ugliness, a hell opens. You immediately close the door and you start thinking, “What is the matter?”

Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, they all have been teaching, “Go in and you will be tremendously blissful, eternally blissful”; but you open the door and you move in a nightmare. This nightmare is created by your repressions. On the surface you are simple; deep down you are very complex. On the surface you have the face of a very innocent man; deep down you are very ugly.

Because of that “repressionness” you cannot look within and you have to continuously divert yourself into something listening to the radio, seeing the TV, reading the newspaper, going to see friends. Just wasting time somewhere till you fall asleep. The moment you are awake you start running again. From whom are you running? You are running from yourself. Give space to yourself to see your being; then suddenly you will see that there is no attachment with things. How can it be? It is absurd.

I have heard one very beautiful story, a Sufi story, “The Golden Door.”

Two men prayed, and went their separate ways. One gathered wealth and power, people said he was famous, but there was no peace in him. The other saw the hearts of men – glowing as lamps even in the darkness of their own secret fears. He too had found richness and power; and his wealth, his power, was love. When simply, kindly, tenderly he touched his fellowmen with all the richness and power of this love, the light within grew clear and bright with courage and with peace.

Both men one day stood before that golden door through which all men must pass to the greater life beyond. The angel in the soul of each asked, “What do you bring with you? What do you have to give?”….

God always asks, “What do you bring with you? What do you have to give?” God goes on giving to you, but finally, the last day before you enter into his innermost shrine, he asks, “Now, what have you brought for me? What’s your gift for me?”

… The one who was famous recounted his exploits. Why, there was no end to the people he knew, and the places he had been, and the things he had done – and the things he had accumulated.

But the angel answered, “These are not acceptable. These things that you did, you did for yourself. I see no love in them”….

If there is ego there cannot be love. Remember this. I am going to discuss it later on, because it is one of the most important things: if there is ego there can be no love.

… And the famous one sank outside the golden door and wept….

For the first time he could see the whole futility of all his efforts. It was almost like a dream that had passed and his hands were empty. If you are too full of things, one day or other you will see your hands are empty. It was dream stuff that you were carrying in your hands; they have always been empty. You were just dreaming that something was there. Because you were afraid of emptiness, you had projected something, you had believed. You have never looked deeply whether it is really there or not.

… And the famous man sank outside the golden door and wept. He had been too busy to be kind….

Too occupied to love, too engaged to be himself, too concerned with futile things to be concerned with the essential.

… Then the angel in the soul of the other asked, “And what do you bring? What do you have to give?”

And he answered, saying, “No one knows my name. They called me the wanderer, the dreamer. I have only a little light in my heart, and that which I have, I have shared with the souls of men”….

The real people look like dreamers in this world of mad people. Always, the sages have been known as wanderers, dreamers, poets, imaginative, living somewhere, lotus-eaters, navel-gazers. These types of labels have been given to real people because the world belongs to paper people. They are not real. Paper people, whenever they come across a real person, call him “dreamer,” “poet.” That is their way of condemning him, and that is their way of defending themselves.

… And he answered, saying, “No one knows my name. They called me the wanderer, the dreamer. I have only a little light in my heart – nothing else, just a little light in my heart – and that which I have, I have shared with the souls of men.”

Then the angel said, “Oh, blessed one, you have the greatest gift of all. It is love. Always and always, there is enough and to spare. Enter”….

That’s the beauty of love: the more you give, the more you have it. Let this be a criterion in your life: don’t accumulate that which by giving disappears; only accumulate that which by giving accumulates. Only accumulate that which by sharing increases and grows. That is worth: which you can share and by its very sharing it grows and you have more than before.

… “Always and always, there is enough and to spare. Enter.”

Then the wanderer said, “But first let me give the extra measure to my brother, that we may both walk through the door.”

The angel was silent; for in that moment a great light shone around the simple wanderer like a radiant mantle, enveloping both himself and his friend.

The golden door was opened wide and they walked through it together.

He shared at the very last moment also. This is real richness. A miser is never rich; if you are attached to things in the world, you are not rich. Richness arises out of the heart.

Richness is a quality of the heart, glowing with love.