Osho Rajneesh Book "The Rainbow Bridge"

The Rainbow Bridge

5 July 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Veet Roberta. Veet means going beyond; roberta means bright fame. The full name will mean going beyond all fame.

The ego longs to be famous, to be well-known. The ego is afraid of being nobody, is scared of being

anonymous, because if you are not known you don’t know who you are; if you are not known by

others you don’t know who you are. You know yourself only by what people say about you. The ego

depends on others’ eyes. It is dependent, it is a beggar. It cannot stand on its own, it needs all kinds

of props.

If you are nobody, if nobody knows you, then suddenly the ego starts evaporating. Then the very

earth underneath your feet is taken away. Then you start feeling empty, a nothingness – and that

scares people. In fact that emptiness is one of the most beautiful things that can happen to a person,

because it is only through that emptiness that one enters into God. All name, all fame, is futile: it is a

deception, it is an illusion. But we live in illusions and we create beautiful illusions around ourselves.

To be a sannyasin means dropping the life of being in illusions and entering into reality, whatsoever it

is. In the beginning it is painful because we have become accustomed to illusions. In the beginning

when they are taken away, it is the same as taking away a toy from a child, his teddy bear. He cannot

sleep without the teddy bear, he cannot move without the teddy bear. The teddy bear is his very

soul; he believes in the teddy bear. And people never grow up, they remain childish. Their teddy

bears change but they remain childish. Then they become attached to money, to fame, to name, to

prestige, to power, respectability. Now they are their teddy bears!

If they are not famous they cannot sleep. If they are not famous they feel so hollow, they don’t know

what to do with themselves. They have to be continuously on exhibition. Everybody should know

them and everybody should know who they are. They themselves don’t know who they are, and

because they don’t know they substitute it with others’ knowledge about themselves.

Going beyond all name and all fame is going beyond all teddy bears. It is becoming mature. It

is being ready to enter into inner emptiness. Certainly it is empty, but the door has to be empty,

otherwise you cannot enter through it. It is not a wall, it is a door. The door has to be empty – the

wall is not empty. And each being is a door to God, hence the emptiness.

Sannyas means starting to enjoy this anonymous nobodiness, being happy with one’s emptiness,

rejoicing in it. And then soon the emptiness is no more emptiness. It becomes fulfillment;it starts

overflowing with bliss.

Anandmurti. Anand means bliss; murti means an image – an image of bliss.

The sannyasin has to be a symbol of bliss. He has to be a continuity of joy, an undercurrent of

rejoicing. Even in his sadness there is a joy, because he is capable of enjoying his sadness too.

He accepts it as part of life, he is not resistant to it. He allows it, he befriends it. And that is the

alchemical way of transforming the very nature of sadness; the very nature of sadness becomes

luminous. Soon it is no more sadness, it is transformed into cheerfulness.

Sadness remains sadness if you fight with it, if you deny it, if you reject it. Sadness remains sadness

if you are against it, otherwise sadness is pure energy. If you welcome it, if you embrace it, if you

are not afraid of it, not angry with it, you will be surprised, immensely surprised: you have changed

its very nature, it is no more sadness. Even tears start becoming laughter, and sadness becomes

silence.

All that we have known as negative can be transformed into the positive. And the secret is simple:

acceptance, total acceptance. Nothing has to be condemned, nothing at all. All that comes has

to be received with great gratitude as a gift from God. And you will be able to make flowers out of

thorns and ordinary pebbles turn into diamonds. The very ordinary life starts taking on the flavor

of extraordinariness. Then nothing is ordinary because everything starts having a thrill. Nothing is

ordinary – because you are so ecstatic about it, how can it remain ordinary?

The sannyasin lives in a totally different world, although he moves in the same world, moves with the

same people – but he is not part of it any more. There is a kind of transcendence in his being. Even

death is so deeply accepted by him that death loses all fear, that death itself becomes a dance.

Satyamurti. Satya means truth; murti means image – image of truth.

Man ordinarily lives in lies. He is not only insincere with others, he is insincere with himself too. In

fact, unless you are insincere with yourself you cannot be insincere with others. Whatsoever you do

to others, first you have to do to yourself. If you are destructive to others you have to be destructive

to yourself in the first place. If you hate others, you must deep down hate yourself. So what you do

to others simply shows what you are doing to yourself.

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