Osho,
Is there any definition of the ultimate experience other than satyam shivam sundaram: truth, godliness, beauty?
The experience of the ultimate is always the same, but the expression can be different. The expression depends on the mystic; the experience does not depend on him.
The first definition I gave you is the definition by the poetic, aesthetic, sensitive individual for whom satya – truth – can come only as beauty; truth and beauty create the ultimate peak of godliness. The poet cannot imagine that beauty will not be a part of the ultimate unity. His eyes are receptive to beauty. In his expression, truth comes to him and is transformed as beauty. Beauty is the god of the poet, of the painter, of all creative artists.
So the first definition was the definition from the artistic soul. Most of the mystics have been poets – not ordinary poets, concerned with the mundane, but poets of the sacred. This sensitivity of the poet is essential to arrive at the definition of the ultimate experience as truth, godliness, and beauty.
But there are also other mystics, who are not poetic because to be a poet takes a certain talent. Everybody can be a mystic – the mystic is our very being, the unfolding of the mystic rose within us – but not everybody can be a poet. Poetry is a talent, though it comes very close to mysticism. So either the poet becomes the mystic – then comes the definition satyam shivam sundaram – or the mystic suddenly finds himself filled with tremendous beauty and out of his spontaneity starts singing and dancing. He may not be linguistically right, but that is not his concern.
Meera, Kabir, Farid were not poets from the very beginning. They became poets when the experience happened. As they opened their hearts to the universe, perhaps a talent that was dormant in them suddenly became active; everything opened. An immense poetry started flowing through them, a poetry no poet can write, because the poems are not compositions but their heartbeats, their very life.
There are other people who have attained the ultimate, for example, Gautam Buddha or Socrates or Pythagoras or Lao Tzu. They were not poets. They didn’t have the talent of being a poet, either at the beginning or at the end of their experience. Their definition is bound to be different. The experience, remember, is always the same, but the expression will depend on the individual.
The second most important definition, which is in the same category as satyam shivam sundaram, is sat-chit-anand. Sat means truth; chit means consciousness; anand means bliss. Certainly, in any definition, truth is going to be the essential part that cannot be dropped. It is the experience of ultimate truth. In the second definition – just as in the first definition – sat remains the most prominent. But two new things have come in: consciousness and blissfulness.
Although the first definition is beautiful – tremendously beautiful – it will not be many people’s experience because the talent to be a poet is rare. The second definition is going to be the experience of many more.
Meditation brings you to the final peak of consciousness – that is chit, exactly in the middle. On one side is truth; on the other side is bliss. As meditation flowers, you will find that on the one hand truth has revealed to you all its mysteries and on the other that blissfulness is showering all its treasures on you. It is as significant a definition as the first, but you can see the difference: there is no place for sundaram, beauty. The person has no sensitivity toward beauty, but the person is absolutely alert and conscious of great blissfulness overflowing in him and a feeling, an indubitable feeling, that he has arrived home. That is his truth.
In Sanskrit, unlike other languages, words can be joined together. Sanskrit has an approach, and perhaps this approach has come from the enlightened ones. So many people have become enlightened in this country and they have left their impact on Sanskrit, on the language. They will not say sat-chit-anand the way I have explained it to you. I have cut one word into three, just to explain it to you, because in English there cannot be one word for all three. You cannot join truth, consciousness, blissfulness into a single word. The Sanskrit word is sachchidanand. All three words are joined together. Sat is there, chit is there, anand is there, but they are not separate and there is no gap: sachchidanand.
It is significant to remember that the experience is one orgasmic, organic, unitary experience. It does not come in parts as sat, as chit, as anand. It comes into existence in totality, and that totality is sachchidanand. To denote, to emphasize, the unity – neither sat can exist without chit, nor can chit exist without anand – they have used a joined word: sachchidanand. It is not only a question of language. Deep down it is an experience that they all come together. In fact there is no way to create demarcations: this is truth, this is consciousness, this is bliss. Suddenly they are all within you. In other words, truth is consciousness and bliss; or vice versa, bliss is consciousness and truth.
The division I made was just to make you understand. Now I want you to be aware that in the experience itself there is no division. It has the fragrance of blissfulness, it has the light of consciousness, it has the revelation of truth – all simultaneously and together. They are not steps to each other. It is not possible to drop one of them and experience the other two; they are an intrinsic unity, an organic unity.
This is also a very beautiful definition, and is applicable to more mystics than the first definition. Gautam Buddha would never have defined the ultimate experience in terms of beauty. Beauty somehow carries a sense of our ordinary life. You may say it is a much higher beauty but still something of the ordinary remains. The moment you say “beauty,” you come down to the body, you come down to the flowers, you come down to the sunset. The beauty the mystics are talking about is not the beauty of these small experiences but the beauty of the whole – a beauty of which we have no idea, of which we have not even dreamed.
The second definition I am giving to you today is absolutely a unity. Nothing of it connects with our unconsciousness and its world – neither truth, nor consciousness, nor bliss. In a way, it is purer; in a way, it simply makes it clear that you have gone beyond the mundane and entered the sacred. The whole vision has changed, not even a trace of the mundane is left. It can be said to be a more authentic definition than the first, and more mystics have defined their experience with the second definition.
Naturally, most probably, if you ever experience the ultimate, you will come to the second definition. Very few of you may experience beauty as that is a minority definition. But I respect minorities, so I took it first.
This is the majority definition: more logical, more perfect, but less sensitive, less human. The first was more human – at least there was a connecting link between our ordinary world and the extraordinary experience. In this definition, all bridges are broken. You are no longer part of the ordinary. You have simply transported your consciousness to the extraordinary which is not visible to the eyes, which is not tangible: you cannot hear it, you cannot see it, you cannot taste it.
But in the first definition, the word sundaram, beauty, gives a sense that your eyes are capable of seeing it; perhaps your hands can feel it, perhaps your ears can hear the beautiful music in it. The word beauty functions almost as a bridge. In the second definition there is no bridge but a quantum leap. You simply jump from mind to no-mind. Only no-mind can be aware of truth; only no-mind can be filled with consciousness; only no-mind can be showered with thousands of flowers of bliss. Nothing relates to your ordinary world, so in this way it is purer.
Both have their pros and cons, and I want you to be aware of them. But remember: don’t choose the definition. First choose the experience, then the definition will come on its own accord. If you choose the definition first, it may not fit your individuality and the definition itself may become a hindrance.
Go deeper into meditation. Experience is the thing that matters. Then how you express it is dependent on you. Most probably you will define it as sat-chit-anand: truth, consciousness, bliss. It is more universal; very few people are poets.
I am reminded of Rabindranath Tagore. He absolutely insisted that there is only one definition of the ultimate experience, and that is satyam shivam sundaram. He could not conceive of the ultimate experience not having beauty in it. He could drop anything but beauty. His poetic soul was even ready to say that you can drop truth, you can drop godliness, but please save beauty.
It happened that Mahatma Gandhi wanted the temples of Khajuraho… These are some of the most beautiful creations of man; there is nothing comparable on the whole earth. The temples of Puri and Konark, which are similar, have not achieved the perfection of Khajuraho. There must have been at least one hundred temples, very big temples, and you cannot find even a single inch which has not been carved, which has not been made beautiful. Naked men and women in different postures of love…
Naturally Gandhi was very much annoyed, and at first he wanted to demolish those temples. Seventy temples had already been demolished by the Mohammedans because Mohammedans have a fanatical attitude that God cannot be represented in a statue, a picture, or anything. This is perfectly okay if it is your idea, but to interfere with somebody else’s idea is idiotic. Somebody wants to represent his god in a statue – who are you to interfere? But every religion thinks it is responsible for the whole of humanity and wants to impose its idea on every human being. So when the Mohammedans came they could not believe it; they destroyed seventy temples of tremendous value.
But thirty of the temples were hidden in a thick forest, so they were saved. Gandhi wanted to do the same as those Mohammedans had done. He wanted to demolish them, but for a different reason. He was afraid that the temples would show the whole world that the Indians are not very moral people, that they are not puritans.
What kind of temples are these, in which each temple has thousands of couples carved in stone? Full-sized men and women, so beautiful that once you have seen a Khajuraho temple woman, a statue, no woman will look beautiful to you. Every woman will seem just a faded memory of something real. Those stones are so real…
I used to go to Khajuraho. It was very close to my university, just a hundred miles away, so whenever I had time I would drive there. The guide, who finally became a sannyasin, was himself ashamed to show them to people, but I told him, “You don’t understand. You need not be ashamed. These pictures, these statues, these sculptures are not obscene. There is not a single hint of obscenity, even though they are absolutely naked, in loving embraces, making love. There is not a hint of obscenity, unless your mind is full of obscenity.”

A European prime minister was going to visit Khajuraho. One of my friends was the education minister of the state in which Khajuraho lies. The prime minister of India told the education minister, “I am busy and cannot come; otherwise I would have come with the guest to show him Khajuraho. So it is your responsibility to take him there because you are the most educated minister in your state.”
My friend phoned me and said, “I am very much ashamed of Khajuraho; it is such an embarrassing place. And when outsiders who have only seen churches in the name of religion come, they cannot believe that this is a temple, a holy place. And I myself feel guilty, so I cannot explain, and I don’t know what to explain.”
I said, “I will come.” I went there with the guest and the education minister who was shrinking inside. You cannot conceive of any possible loving posture that is not carved there, in such beauty, such tremendous beauty, that it is almost as if the stones have come alive. It seems as though the woman is going to come out of the wall on which the statue is carved. So alive…
The education minister remained outside and I took the guest in. He was amazed at the beauty, that bodies can be made so beautifully in stone, can give such life to the stone, such warmth. He had not known that such a thing exists anywhere in the world. I explained to him, “These are on the outer side of the temple, but you should be aware that inside the temple there are no sculptures, no statues; there’s just absolute silence.”
He said, “This is a revelation, this is strange. Statues should be inside the temple. Why are they outside, and inside there is nothing, just silence?”
I said to him, “These temples were made some three thousand years ago by the greatest psychologists that have appeared on the earth.”
They were called Tantrikas; their whole approach was called Tantra. The very word tantra means expanding consciousness. They made these beautiful temples all around the country. Mohammedans destroyed them; it was just fortunate that these were in a thick forest, hidden. Only meditators used to go there; there is no village surrounding the temples. By a fortunate coincidence they were saved.
I told him, “The secret is, Tantra believes that unless you have gone through all sexual experiences to the point where sex does not matter to you at all… That is a transcendence of your energy. At that point, you are capable of entering the inner sanctum of the temple. You are ready for the nothingness of Gautam Buddha; you are ready for pure silence.”
Meditators used to meditate for months on those statues. It is a great strategy, because looking at all those statues, a moment comes when something in your unconscious disappears. Not just looking – at one time it was months, sometimes years, of training. But they were not allowed inside the temple until they became uninterested in these sexual scriptures. When their master saw that somebody had become completely uninterested – even when sitting in front of the most beautiful woman he was sitting with closed eyes – then he was allowed to enter the temple.
Now, those sexual thoughts are the major thoughts in your mind. Every three minutes the ordinary man thinks about sex at least once, and every five minutes every woman thinks at least once about sex. These are the very subtle mistakes which God made when he created the world; that’s why I say there is no God, to relieve him of all this responsibility. This is a disparity which is dangerous!
When we came out, the prime minister was very much impressed. The education minister was waiting outside. Although he had not been inside, he was still feeling embarrassed. Just to hide his embarrassment, he told the guest, “Don’t take much note of it. It was a small current of thinkers who created these temples, and we are ashamed – they are so obscene.”
The guest said, “Obscene? Then I will have to go back and take another look; I did not find anything obscene.”
Those naked statues look so innocent, so childlike; they are not there to provoke your sexuality. Obscenity is a very subtle phenomenon, it’s very difficult to make the distinction whether something is obscene or not. But this should be the criterion – I think this is the only criterion: obscenity is when it provokes sexuality in you and if it does not provoke sexuality but just a sense of tremendous splendor and beauty, it is not obscene. However, it will depend on individuals. The same statue may look to someone obscene, and to someone else a beautiful piece of art.
I told the education minister, “Your mind is full of obscenity. This guest from the outside is far clearer. He did not raise a single question about the obscenity of the temple.”

Mahatma Gandhi’s mind was full of sex his whole life. When India became free, he thought that now was his chance: either dismantle the temples, destroy them, or at least do what he had been insisting on from the 1930’s: if you don’t want them destroyed, cover them with huge hills of mud – the temples are very high. Then they would remain there, and if, once in a while, you want to show them to some special guest from the outside, you can remove the mud, clean the place, and then put the mud back again.
It was Rabindranath Tagore who opposed Mahatma Gandhi’s proposal, saying, “It is sheer stupidity. I have seen those temples; they have inspired me to great heights. Under their inspiration I have written such beautiful poems. And they are the greatest heritage of one of the most significant schools of psychologists, who penetrated into human psychology and life energy so deeply that they found a way, a device, to transform it and make men free of sexuality.” Because Rabindranath resisted, Gandhi could not cover them with mud.
It was Rabindranath who insisted that the only definition that is exactly right is “truth, godliness, beauty.” If something has to be dropped from the definition, you can drop truth, you can drop godliness, but you cannot drop beauty.
Beauty is the sky for the poet, for the painter, for the musician – how is it possible for the ultimate truth to be ugly? It has to be the most beautiful experience. But the definition will be applicable to only very few people. The second definition will apply to a vast majority of people.
There is one more difference that has to be remembered: the first definition is outgoing. Truth is at the center of being, then godliness surrounds it, and then there’s another circle of beauty. But that beauty is not beyond the beauty of the trees and the flowers and human faces; everything that is beautiful in the world is a link to the ultimate.
Rabindranath was the first man in history who said beauty is truth. Nobody has ever said that. There have been people who said truth is beauty, but nobody who has dared to say that beauty is truth, putting beauty on the highest peak. That will be possible only for those who can feel the sensitivity of the beautiful. It is not for everyone. The second definition is not so outgoing – it does not go out at all. Truth, consciousness, bliss – all are inside you. None of these three experiences takes you out.
In psychological terminology, the first definition can be said to be of the outgoing consciousness, expanding consciousness – just as when you throw a pebble into a silent lake, and ripples start moving toward the farther shore. The first definition is expanding, outgoing. Psychologists have a special word for it – they call it extrovert. And certainly the poet is an extrovert because he sees the beauty of the trees and the beauty of the stars and the beauty of the birds singing. He is an extrovert. The second definition is introvert. It concentrates on your very being. It is enough, there is no need to go out: truth, consciousness, blissfulness.
In still other words, it can be said that the first definition is that of the bodhisattvas and the second definition is of the arhats. I have explained to you these two kinds of enlightened people. The arhats simply become pillars of silence, joy, truth, but they never share it. They never bother to initiate anyone, they never guide anyone. The bodhisattvas, the moment they have attained, start spreading like ripples all around to the farther shores of humanity. They want to reach everyone.
Your individuality already contains an inbuilt program for whether you will turn into a bodhisattva or into an arhat. Nothing can be done about it; you cannot change it, you cannot decide it. You will have to pass beyond the mind, and only then will you realize who you are: a bodhisattva or an arhat.
Sat-chit-anand is absolutely inner, introvert – your interior subjectivity. It has nothing to do with anyone else. It is another thing if somebody gets attracted to you, it is another thing if many are magnetically pulled toward you, but the arhat himself does not make a single move to transform anybody or to give him a hand to pull him out of his ditch. If somebody is interested, he can come, but the arhat does not take on the responsibility of being somebody’s master. If you insist, he will say something to you, but as telegraphically as possible.
The bodhisattva functions totally differently: sharing is his joy and he wants this world to become more beautiful. He wants to contribute to the world in some way, so that when he leaves the world, he leaves it a little more beautiful than the world he had come into seventy or eighty years before. The arhat is simply not concerned with anyone. He is just a pillar of consciousness. If somebody can learn something from his lifestyle, that’s another thing. He is not a master; he is only a mystic.
This second definition has to sink deep in you because, finally, most of you will find this definition. Remember this beautiful word: sachchidanand.

Osho,
Is it true that you make things happen to us according to our needs in this very moment, or does your aura cause us to choose the happenings ourselves?
My mother is suffering from cancer and multiple sclerosis, and has been feeling strong healing energy in the last weeks. She thought you had been sending it. How do you manage to arrange all these learning situations and send all the necessary energy to your sannyasins all over the world?
There are a few things I would like put on record. First, I never do anything. Second, if you want, all my energies are available to you, but that is your doing. Third, it is possible if you are in deep trust and love with me to unconsciously become a transmitter to your mother of a healing energy.
But please don’t make me responsible for anything. This responsibility is very dangerous – it is walking on a razor’s edge. Today you find your mother is healing, and you praise me and love me and trust me. But no mother can live forever. The day she dies, your whole love, your trust in me, will simply disappear because I allowed your mother to die, because I did not give her the healing energy. That’s why, from the very beginning, I want my hands to be completely clean.
I don’t accept praise because I know that behind every praise there is the possibility of condemnation. All over the world I am already so condemned, at least leave a few people who don’t condemn me! But you may not be aware that this is how things go wrong. People start expecting, and if by some coincidence their expectations are fulfilled, they are immensely grateful. But it is only a coincidence. If they are not fulfilled, then I am “the god who failed.” They make me a god, only to declare later that I am the god who failed. I am simply enjoying my energy. It is overflowing and enough for anybody who wants to share it. But the whole doing is theirs.
So remember: it is your trust, it is your love, it is your devotion that may become a transmitting medium to your mother. Because you love me and trust me, because you love your mother and want her to be healed, it is possible for a subtle energy to reach her. But you are the doer – that is my emphasis. I am not the doer.
What you are saying is beautiful, and it will be difficult for anyone other than me to reject it. Just go to any so-called guru – India is so full of them – and if you say such a thing, he will reply, “That’s perfectly right. I am taking care of the whole world.” But as far as I am concerned, I cannot even take care of myself! I am certainly a lazy guy. I will not take such trouble to reach your mother. Otherwise it will become difficult for my sannyasins to die. And just as a symbol, I have made samadhis for the sannyasins who have died. So remember, I am not going to protect you.
When death comes, it is perfectly good. Let it come. I may even help death rather than you, because death will relieve you of all pain, all stupidities, all diseases and particularly the fear of death. Once you are dead, you are no longer afraid – even of death – and you will rest in your grave for eternity. So why should I prevent you? But if you go and say these things to somebody else, he will be immensely happy. These are the people who go on creating wrong concepts in people’s minds.
My thing is very clear: I am available. If you trust me, you can draw as much energy as you want. If you don’t trust me, you have closed the doors yourself. But it is always your doing, it is never my doing. I cannot take the credit for it; the credit goes to you. You must be in deep love with your mother and because you are in deep trust with me, you can become a medium for a healing energy to reach to your mother.
As far as I am concerned, my whole teaching is doing without doing, action in inaction. But this kind of misunderstanding happens.

Two cannibals, a father and son, are walking through the jungle checking their mantraps when they find a beautiful white girl who is in distress. The son, an impulsive boy, exclaims, “Look, Dad! A white girl. Let us eat her right now.”
His father, who has had more experience in the world and has been to the mission school, pauses thoughtfully and says, “No, son, let us take her home and eat your mother.”

Different people take different approaches…

When an Englishman does not get on with his wife, he goes to the pub; a Frenchman goes to his mistress, a Greek goes to sea, a German goes to war, an Australian goes to a cricket match, an Indian goes to the Himalayas, an American goes to his lawyer and a Japanese goes and commits hara-kiri.

Just different people, different understandings. But here with me… This one is for all of you.

Rubin Moskowitz went to one of the best restaurants in New York and treated himself to a huge meal with all the trimmings, finishing up with a Havana cigar.
Finally, the waiter brought the bill on a silver tray. It came to ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, so Rubin paid with a hundred dollar bill.
About five minutes later, he called the waiter back and asked for his change. Without altering his expression, the waiter left but returned a moment later with his silver tray. On it sat a penny and a packet of condoms.
Rubin was shocked and demanded an explanation. The waiter lifted his nose in the air and said, “Sir, it is the policy of our restaurant to encourage customers like you not to reproduce.”

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