The fourth question:

Question 4

OSHO, YOU SAY TAKE LIGHT INTO DARKNESS AND THE DARKNESS DISAPPEARS. YOU ARE THE LIGHT. THEN WHERE IS DARKNESS? AND WHY DO I LONG FOR DARKNESS TOO?

Chetana, when I say bring light and darkness disappears, what I mean exactly is: bring light and darkness becomes luminous. It does not disappear, because nothing can disappear. Bring light in and darkness becomes enlightened. When the light comes in it transforms the very quality of darkness itself. Nothing disappears, things are just transformed. If you allow me in your heart, you will not find darkness. That doesn't mean darkness has disappeared; darkness has been transformed. Darkness is no more darkness, it has become light itself. In fact, darkness and light are not two opposite things as we ordinarily think. The difference between darkness and light is not of opposition. They are the same thing.

It is like hot and cold. What you call cold is only relatively cold; there is no absolute difference. What you call hot is only relatively hot; there is no absolute difference. You can try an experiment. You can keep one bucket of water in front of you. Heat one hand on the heater and put the other hand on an ice cube, and when both your hands are feeling the heat and the cold, dip them both into the bucket in front of you -- and you will be surprised. If somebody asks you, "Say something about the water in the bucket, whether it is cold or hot", you will be in a puzzle, because one hand will say it is hot, the other hand will say it is cold. Cold and hot are not two things, but two relative experiences. So is darkness and light.

You know the owl: he sees in the night, there is no darkness for him. He has different kind of eyes from you. In the day he cannot see. That's why the owl, particularly in the West, is thought to be the symbol of wisdom -- because for him even darkness is light. That's what enlightenment is: when darkness becomes light.

My whole effort here is to transform you into owls, so darkness becomes light.

But I understand your problem too.

"YOU SAY TAKE LIGHT INTO DARKNESS AND THE DARKNESS DISAPPEARS. YOU ARE THE LIGHT. THEN WHERE IS DARKNESS? AND WHY DO I LONG FOR DARKNESS TOO?

You will long for it. It will take a little. while for you to become accustomed to the light. You have lived in darkness so long, for millions of lives, that out of the old habit you will ask for darkness. Light you can take only so far; then you would like to relax and relapse into darkness. And you will feel good in relapsing into darkness -- it will be restful, it will be a kind of sleep. Nothing to be worried about; it happens that way. One has to become more and more accustomed to light. Slowly, slowly your aperture opens more and more, you absorb more and more, and finally one day it happens that you come to know that darkness and light are the same. You can rest in light too. When this becomes your experience, then the need for darkness disappears. But it will remain.

Sometimes you will come very close to me and you will be full of light -- that's what is happening to Chetana. I see her coming very close to me sometimes; then she will be full of light. But soon she will start hankering for the darkness; then she will have to go away from me.

And that is what is happening to everybody here. You go on swinging towards me and away from me. You are like a pendulum: sometimes you come close, sometimes you go away. But this is a need. You cannot absorb of me totally right now. You have to learn, you have to learn to absorb something so tremendous, which looks almost like death. So many times you will need to go away from me.

That's why sometimes you become negative. Sometimes you start arguing against me, fighting with me -- that is PART of the love. You will have to hate me too. So don't be worried about it, and don't pay much attention to it. That is just an effort from your side to go away. You can take only so much, so far, and then it becomes unbearable. Then you want to go away.

Then there are thousands of ways of going away. Look at Sheela -- she is fast asleep. This is a way of going far away. She can only go so far, and then the mind says, "It is better to fall asleep. Now it is getting unbearable." You start thinking of a thousand other things. Sitting in front of me your mind starts going to the market. You are already in Vrindavan: immediately, when I am finished, you will rush. But you were rushing already! Your mind was already there, just your body has to follow. And you will think many things against me -- small things, and you will make much fuss about them. You will make mountains out of molehills. And when you will understand one day, you will be surprised at how you were creating unnecessary things. But they were part of the growth.

Right now, you can be awake only in the day. In the night you will have to fall asleep, and you will need darkness. And with me, both these things will go on happening: sometimes it will be day between me and you, and sometimes it will be night between me and you. Sometimes you will look at me, and sometimes you will close your eyes. Sometimes you will open up, and then you will close your heart. But this is how it happens -- nothing to be worried about.