Think in Terms of Play, Prayer…

Close your eyes and just listen to the sounds. If something starts happening in the body, allow it. If laughter comes, laughter; if crying comes, crying… anything.

Jan, twenty years a
psychiatrist in Holland,
and an author, dissolves into laughter
that verges on the brink of weeping
but turns about
and becomes silence instead.

Come… come close to me. Drop all fear and come close to me.

White-haired
(his stubbled face
testifying to
seven days Encounter grouping)
he looks up,
little as a child.

This will be your new name… and the new name is a new birth. It is the beginning of life again on a different plane, in a totally separate reality. Life is multi-dimensional, and we live only on one plane, the mundane. That’s why life becomes tedious, a boredom, because sooner or later one finds that it is just all senseless, it makes no sense. Even existence seems to be meaningless, because meaning does not exist on the plane of the mundane; meaning exists on another plane, the sacred.

He nods,
breathes deep
and loverlike.

You can call it anything – the holy, the sacred, the divine, the religious. Meaning is a phenomenon of a totally different dimension. You cannot find it in the mundane. It is not in the marketplace: you cannot purchase it, you cannot sell it; it is not a commodity. You cannot create it, because all that you can create will be false.

One has to become receptive. One has to be open in a totally new way from what one has been before. One has to open a window that one has never opened. Maybe one has not even thought that there is a window; one has not become aware of the fact. Sannyas is an effort to open another window.

The ordinary life is always a life of motivation. The life of a sannyasin is a life which is not one of motivation – it is festive. And that is the name of that dimension: the festive dimension. One dances because one enjoys dancing. There is no profit in it, there is no purpose in it, there is no motivation beyond it.

The life of a sannyasin is the life of play – what in the East we call ‘leela’ – not of work. In the ordinary life even play becomes work. To the sannyasin the work becomes play. He simply plays with so many things. He is a child on the seabeach running hither and thither, collecting seashells and coloured stones, as if he has found a treasure. He is utterly lost in the moment. He has forgotten the whole world.

The sannyasin lives in a life of play – all is play for him. He is not serious; sincere, certainly, but not serious. He is festive. He enjoys each opportunity that comes his way, lives it in its totality… not thinking of any profit, not thinking of gaining anything out of it. Not that he does not gain – only he gains, but he is not concerned with that. His gain is great, but that is a natural by-product; it happens of its own accord.

So from this moment think of life as a play and then it will have meaning.

He’s beaming broadly
as if he’s going
to burst with joy.

Think of life as a holiday, a rest, a play, a drama, but don’t think in terms of profit, motive, gaining, reaching somewhere, finding something. There is nothing to be found, there is nothing that can be reached – we are already there. From the very beginning we are that which we are going to become, so there is no need to worry about it. Relax and enjoy.

This will be your new name: Swami Deva Amrito.

Deva means divine, amrito means immortality: the source of immortality, the juice of immortality, nectar, elixir. The secret is in being festive… and suddenly nectar starts showering on you, it pours down in torrents. Life becomes a multi-splendoured phenomenon. Just forget the ideas that have been given from the world and become a child again.

Jesus says ‘Unless you are a child, you will not enter into my kingdom of god.’ And to be a child is to be a sannyasin – to be a child again so that you can destroy all that has been forced upon you by the society. Your freedom has been crippled, you have been surrounded by walls upon walls from everywhere. Destroy all those walls, jump out of them, be a child again and start playing with life. And to be playful is to be prayerful. Prayer is the highest form of play, and if you understand it, immediately a new meaning to prayer arises. It is the highest form of play – playing with existence. Somebody is praying, talking to the sky. Mm? Just listen to Jesus calling god ‘Abba.’ There is no god like a person there, but see the immense play of Jesus calling existence ‘Abba’, relating to it, communicating with it.

To an outsider it is nonsense, it is neurotic. Psychologists say that, that Jesus is neurotic, because with whom is he talking? This is a monologue and he thinks this is a dialogue. There is nobody there! Jesus also knows that there is nobody there but the sheer joy of calling ‘Abba’ to existence…

Amrito’s hands clap
together once
and silently.
He nods his head
hanging, drunk
on very word.

…. the sheer joy of relating to our own original source. It is a playful activity.

Jesus is not worried about whether god is there or not. God is not the point – he is enjoying praying. There is no other motive in it. The motivated person will think ‘If there is somebody, then there is meaning in praying. If there is nobody, why are you praying? For what purpose?’ He cannot understand that prayer can be its own purpose. See the tears flowing from Jesus’ eyes and the joy that’s there on his face, and the aura of delight. You are thinking of god and you are not seeing the joy. That is the reality, and it is created by the prayer. God is not the point at all. The point is to be prayerful, to be playful.

So think in terms of play, prayer, and don’t think in terms of getting anywhere, reaching anywhere, attaining something. All that is nonsense. We are already there. We have never for a single moment been anywhere else, so that is not the point. We are in paradise. Adam has never been expelled; he has just fallen asleep because he has eaten from the tree of knowledge. Knowledge makes people serious. He is no more a child – that is the whole meaning of the parable – he has become mature, adult.

We say to people ‘Don’t be childish’; in fact we should be saying ‘Don’t be adultish.’ Adam has become an adult and lost the joy of a child, the innocence of a child. Now he is hiding his nakedness; he has become cunning and clever and calculating. He has not been expelled. God cannot expel you, because there is nowhere else to expel you to. It is all his existence, it is all paradise. But if you become too cunning you have expelled yourself; you live in it and yet you have forgotten where you are. Become a child and suddenly one remembers; suddenly eyes open and the wonder, all the wonder is there, and paradise is there.

So let sannyas be the beginning of a new dimension, a rebirth.

How long will you be here?

Amrito: As long as you wish.

Good. Be here.

Amrito: I wrote a little note about the complexity of my situation. My luggage is in London and I have not said goodbye to anyone in Holland – my mother and everybody. But I would like to stay here, forever.

It’s all very complex now.

We will make it simple. Nothing is complex. If you want to stay, it will happen. Nothing is a problem!

Osho, Hallelujah! Ch 11