The second and third questions are connected:
Question 2 – Do you have some sort of contraption in your room with which you control or alter the moods of everyone in the ashram, putting everyone into the same or similar mood at the same time? It seems that everyone goes through the same cycle or phases, not as individuals but as a community. What’s up?
And the third:
Question 3 : Is there a collective unconscious at the ashram? Every other question i have thought to ask has been asked by someone else, or you have answered it anyway
Osho – The second is from Big Prem and the third from Anand Samatha. That is the meaning of a commune. A commune slowly, slowly grows a soul. And if the soul is missing, the commune is not a commune. then it is a crowd. A crowd has no soul. When a crowd has a soul, it is a commune. Then there is a centre where all meet.
I am your centre. You are here because of me. You are all here because of me; each of you is deeply involved with me. I am functioning as a centre to you all. Prem is involved with me, so is Samatha involved with me. And when you all are involved with me, naturally you become involved with all. Each becomes involved with all.
I am your space, your bridge, from where you move into each other. If you really love me, this is going to happen more and more. Before you have asked the question, it will be answered. Before you have asked the question, many will have asked it. You need only to wait a little.
And there will be moods — when the whole commune will pass through a phase and a cycle simultaneously. This is going to happen. The closer you come to me, the more it will be happening. Yes, something is up. And Prem has felt it rightly. You are disappearing as separate units.
This is the meaning of a church, really. This is the meaning of a church, a commune. We pool our consciousnesses into one space and then each affects each other. Then great energy is released. Alone you cannot go very high. Alone, you are alone. Alone, you have all kinds of limitations. When you are one with many, infinite energy is available. And many things will start happening which cannot happen alone.
For example, a solo guitar player is one thing. An orchestra is totally different. Yes, it is beautiful, a solo guitarist is beautiful, but there is a kind of limitation. It cannot be very rich, because it will not have many dimensions to it. It is solo. The orchestra is far more rich. Many dimensions, many directions, meet in it. Many kinds of instruments and many artists pool their energy and a harmony arises. This is what a commune is — an orchestra.
You are pooling your energies with me. and, naturally, you will start feeling the same kind of rhythm, the same moods passing through the whole commune. If you are alone it is difficult to keep awake. But if you are with a few people — laughing, talking, joking — you can keep awake the whole night very easily. It would have been difficult for each to remain alert the whole night, but together it is simple. The total energy is so much — laughing, joking, singing, talking — that it keeps you alert.
And this whole experiment is to bring a kind of Buddhahood into the world. This commune is not an ordinary commune. This is an experiment to provoke God. You may not be aware of what is going to happen. You may be aware of only your prob-lems. You may have come to me only to solve your problems. That is secondary. I am cooking something else.
I am trying to create a space where God can descend more and more. This commune will become a connection. The world has lost the connection. God is no more a reality. As far as this century is concerned, Neitzsche is right that God is dead. The connection is broken. God can only be through the connection. God will be there, we are here, but there is no bridge. So how do we know?
This commune is an experiment to create the bridge. Fall more and more in harmony. Pool your energies. And remember, a small stream cannot reach the ocean. It will be lost somewhere, it is so far away. It will be lost in some desertland, some wasteland. But if many small streams pool into one, they become a Ganges. Then it can reach the ocean. Even the Ganges cannot reach alone.
If you go to the source of the Ganges it is just drops dripping. In Gangotri, the source of Ganges, there is a marble cow mouth and the Ganges comes out of it. So small. How can you hope it will reach the ocean? But millions of tributaries, millions of small streams and rivers, pool their energies and the Ganges becomes a great river. then nothing can hold it. Then it reaches the ocean.
A commune is an effort to create a Ganges of consciousness. It is happening. And it will be happening more and more if you become more co-operative and more conscious of it. Don’t create any conflict here. Don’t be resistant about small things. Relax, co-operate. Even if you have to lose something, don’t be afraid — because your losing will be a gaining in the end.
Don’t bring your egos in, otherwise you destroy my work. Throw your egos away. Something far more valuable is happening here. And soon many will be coming, and you will become the precedent, you will become the pattern of what will happen to them. Soon many will be coming, in thousands. Before they start coming you have to prepare the orchestra, otherwise there will be a great noise.
Have you watched it? If thirty persons are singing in rhythm, in harmony, and you join in, immediately you start falling into rhythm and harmony. But if they are just noisy, and there is no rhythm and no harmony and there is just chaos, you also become a chaos.
I am working slowly — slowly I am adding more people to your commune. Soon there will be thousands. I want to create a small city, sooner or later, where people will be living totally egolessly. And the more people there will be, the greater is the possibility for happenings, for miracles — because God will be more available. The sky will come more close to you.
Remember it always — whenever your small ego comes in as a conflict. When a small river comes to meet the Ganges, naturally the ego will come in. The ego will say, ‘What are you doing? You will be lost. You will no longer be yourself. You will lose your identity. If you move with the Ganges you will be called Ganges — your name will be lost.’
That’s what sannyas is. The moment you take sannyas you are part of me; you are lost. You will be known by me, you will not be known by yourself. That is courage. By taking sannyas you are simply merging into a totally different kind of existence because you are merging into me. Sannyas is your death, and a rebirth — death as an ego, and rebirth as a consciousness.
But if the small river thinks, ‘I am not ready to lose myself in the Ganges,’ then the river will be lost in a desert. And that will be suicide. With the Ganges it is not suicide. With the Ganges, the river becomes the Ganges. It is only a question of how you look at it. If you look poSitively, the river becomes bigger. It is no longer small, no longer confined to its own small banks. Now the Ganges is what she is, now the Ganges’ being is her being. That is another way of looking at it. And that should be the attitude.
When you join me as a sannyasin, you are dropping yourself, disappearing. When you join the commune then you have to utterly efface yourself. If a little bit is hanging there, then you will be a trouble to yourself and to the commune too. And you will not be benefitted by me. This is happening, and this is going to happen more and more. Be prepared for it.
Source – Osho Book “Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2”