BELOVED OSHO,
WHEN I WAS IN SWEDEN, I FELT MY HEART OPENING UP FOR YOU, FILLING ME WITH A
DEEP FEELING OF LOVE AND JOY. NOW THAT I AM IN POONA, MY HEART SEEMS TO BE
CLOSED AGAIN, RESISTING YOUR LOVE. THIS FILLS ME WITH SORROW. WHAT SHOULD I
DO?
Carina Anderson, the time when you were in Sweden, I was just in your imagination. You were
feeling your heart opening, but there was nobody to enter into your heart. You were feeling a deep
fulfillment of love and joy, but that was all made of the same stuff dreams are made of.
Now that you are here, things are totally different. Keeping your heart open will make you afraid,
because it is easy to let me in, but it is very difficult to throw me out.
I come into you like a guest, and soon you start feeling you are a guest and I am a host – hence,
the fear. Here, you are resisting my love, and you are saying, ”This fills me with sorrow.” It is natural
that it will fill you with sorrow – you must have dreamt so much, imagined so much, hoped so much
and things have not turned out the way you wanted them to be.
You are asking, ”What should I do?” Go back to Sweden, Poona, anyway, is not a good place to
stay. And at least your heart was opening there. Although there was no guest knocking on your
doors, at least you were imagining love, joy; and here you are closed, full of fear, and feeling sad
and wondering what has happened.
So if you are a coward, then the easiest way is simply to go back to Sweden – as you enter the
plane, your heart will start opening again and you will start feeling love for me. But don’t return –
enjoy your dreams. If you cannot enjoy the reality, why unnecessarily feel sad and sorrowful? But if
you are courageous, then Poona cannot do anything to you. Then let your heart be open and don’t
be afraid of love.
In life, the only thing that one should not be afraid of is love.
But people are more afraid of love than anything else, because love is a kind of death. Your ego has
to die. Only then will your heart be spacious enough for love to come in. But I warn you: beware!
I come as a guest and soon I become the host. If you are ready to take the risk.... So many of
the people here have taken the risk, and once they have taken the risk, they are grateful that this
tremendous transformation became possible for them.
Whenever love comes in, it cannot be a guest, because it comes in and never goes. It becomes
your very being, your very song, your very dance.
So either you can go right now back to Sweden and dream your dreams – but they are soap bubbles;
you are simply wasting your time – or be here, take courage and accept the challenge: open your
heart and let me in. Then I will be coming with you to Sweden – and on just one ticket, two persons!
I have been traveling all over the world this way.
The governments and parliaments think that they are preventing me, but they don’t know my ways
– that wherever one of my sannyasins enters, I also enter with him. They can prevent me, but they
cannot prevent my millions of sannyasins.
And I have distributed my love to everyone, deserving or undeserving, because that is my way of
thinking. Everyone deserves love, just as everyone deserves breathing. Everybody is worthy of
love, just as everybody is worthy of living.
Love is the nourishment of your soul.
You can choose... but don’t be saddened, in sorrow. If you want to just imagine things, then you
can imagine anything. It is easy for millions of people in the world to pray to God because it is
all imagination. If by chance it happens that they meet God, then there will be difficulty. Then
immediately they will want to escape, and they will start finding a thousand and one complaints.
They will start laying many judgements upon God.
For example, if you meet God and he turns out to be Chinese, are you going to tolerate him – with
five, six hairs in his beard, with long cheek bones? Or, who knows, maybe He is black. And maybe
there is a possibility he is a woman... a black woman with a chinese face! You will run back to
Sweden so fast. It was good in Sweden, God was your imagination. Whatever you wanted....
In India, the god Krishna, in his temples... there are beautiful temples of Krishna all over India, and
he is one of the most colorful men. He has to be given food two times a day, just as every Indian
eats. Every afternoon he takes a nap. In the night, when he goes to sleep, the doors are closed.
It is your imagination; whatever you want to do.... If you don’t give him food, he cannot lodge a
complaint in the Bund Garden Police Station. The poor fellow is imprisoned already in a temple, and
nobody knows... and nobody has ever thought about a cup of tea in the morning.
Times have changed. If Krishna were alive, he would have learnt to drink tea – it is not such a sin.
But Hindus cannot offer tea to Krishna. They keep him in a swing, and the priest goes on pulling the
rope of the swing so he is completely enjoying the swing. In rich temples, it is a golden swing, or a
silver swing.
In one of the cities where I lived for a few months, there was a very famous temple of Krishna just
in front of my house. So I used to go just to see what was happening there. I told the priest, ”One
thing you should remember: the whole day, keeping the poor fellow on the swing, and the rope is
being pulled – the rope pullers go on changing but that poor fellow... the whole day – I think it will
create nausea. You should be a little more compassionate.”
He said, ”But that’s what the scriptures say.”
I said, ”You follow scriptures? Or do you have some intelligence, too? And if the scriptures say, ‘Go
on pulling the swing the whole day,’ then at least take poor Krishna out for a morning walk outside
in the garden – and go on pulling the swing as much as you want. Where are your scriptures? Is it
written in them that Krishna has to be in the swing?”
He said, ”That is not written.”
I said, ”Then it is your own idea – swing, do whatever you want. And this is idiotic: keeping the
priests changing, now that electricity is available. Just plug the swing into the electricity and it will
keep swinging – Krishna or no Krishna.”
He said, ”You should not say such things. It is irreligious.”
I said, ”I think that what you are doing is irreligious.”
In every country, in every religion, people worship dead saints, because dead saints are very easy.
You tell them to lie down, they lie down. You tell them to sit up, they sit up. They are very obedient.
But a living saint, a living sage, is not going to be obedient to you. You will have to be surrendered
to him. But the imaginary god is surrendered to you – that’s the joy.
So in Sweden, you must have been doing things to me of which I am not aware. Here you cannot
do those things to me – I am not your imagination. But your imagination is not going to give you a
new life. And your imagination is not going to open your eyes to the ultimate truth.
I can help you to be authentic, to be joyous, to be ecstatic, but you will have to pay the price. And
the price is not much – I just want your dreams.
Give me your dreams, and I can give you reality.
Reality is already with you; your dreams are like clouds, hiding it. Just give me your dreams. I ask
nothing from my disciples except their dreams, their lies, their falsities.
And once they are without any falseness, they don’t need anything from anybody. They have
everything within themselves. They have brought it with their birth.
So you can decide. Either you can go alone to Sweden, or if you want me also to be with you, then
you will have to wait a little more, gather courage. If so many people with open hearts have not
died, if so many people are ready and available for my love, for my blessings, for my being, for my
presence.... And no harm has happened to them, except that they have become a little crazy. They
sing more, they dance more, they laugh more, they love more. They are more. So you can choose.
Carina Anderson, be very careful in choosing, because you may not find a man like me again.
Sweden will remain there. I am not going to be here always. And when you have come so far,
just a little more, a little closer.... And you know perfectly well how to open the heart, because you
were doing it in Sweden. You know perfectly well how to be loving and joyful. Give it a try here too.
Nobody is ever harmed by love, and nobody is ever harmed by opening the heart. Everybody has
always become more enriched, more blessed.
But you can choose reality – or your dreams.