1 October 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Tao Devam. Tao means the way – not the way to any goal, but the way things are. Tao has nothing
to do with goals; it has no future-orientation. It is the present moment and the things that are in the
herenow. It is the totality of existence in the present and the law that holds it.
Tao does not believe in any cause and effect. It does not say the seed is the cause and the tree is
the effect. It says the seed is the tree and the tree is the seed. They are not two so how can they be
divided into cause and effect? It is not that the seed causes the tree but that-the seed becomes the
tree. And the beginning also is not something new. It is just unveiling that which already was. It is a
discovery, not an invention.
All already is. Sometimes it is hidden and sometimes it is manifest, but there is no division in
existence. Tao is that indivisibility. And to understand tao is to become divine. To live in tao is to live
in god.
Tao is a far better word than God, because the very idea of God creates the desire to worship... or
to deny. So a few become worshippers and a few become antagonistic to it. Tao does not create
the desire to worship, because it is not a person; it is simply an impersonal law, like gravitation.
And because it does not create worship it does not create antagonism either. So one cannot say ’I
believe in tao’ or ’I don’t believe in tao’. Tao is so vast it can contain belief and disbelief both. That is
the beauty of it.
The word ’God’ is a little small, tiny, narrow. It cannot contain the disbeliever. It is arrogant, it
immediately becomes jealous. Tao accepts all. Whether you know it or you don’t know it does not
matter; any way one lives in it. If you start living consciously in it, you become divine. If you don’t
live consciously in it, you remain worldly..
Sannyas is an initiation into tao. It is a tongue-tip taste of tao. It is a beginning... a beginning of
something that never ends. You are entering a path, the way, tao. But remember again: tao is not
the way to some goal; it is the way things are. Trees are green – this is tao. Rivers are flowing
towards the ocean – this is tao. Children are becoming older this is tao. An old man is dying – this
is tao. This whole complexity, this totality is tao.
[A sannyasin who is going to the West says: I’m really scared of leaving. Osho asks: What is the
fear? He replies: I don’t know.]
That’s a good kind of fear if you don’t know what exactly it is. That simply means that you are on the
verge of something unknown. When the fear has some object it is an ordinary fear. One is afraid of
death – it is very ordinary fear, instinctive; nothing great about it, nothing special about it. When one
is afraid of old age or disease, illness, these are ordinary fears... common, garden variety.
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