Fear — Love — Orgasm — Health

“Deep sexual orgasm gives body at-homeness. A very, very deep health happens in the body because the body feels whole.”

Fear is darkness. It is absence of love. You cannot do anything about it, and the more you do, the more you will become fearful because then the more you will find it impossible. The problem will become more and more complicated. If you fight with darkness you will be defeated. You can bring a sword and try to kill the darkness: you will only be exhausted. And, finally, the mind will think: Darkness is so powerful, that’s why I am defeated.

This is where logic goes wrong. It is absolutely logical that if you have been struggling with darkness and you could not defeat it, could not destroy it; it is absolutely logical to come then to the conclusion that darkness is very, very powerful. I am impotent before it. But the reality is just the opposite. You are not impotent, darkness is impotent.

In fact darkness is not there — that’s why you could not defeat it. How can you defeat something that is not?

Don’t fight with the fear otherwise you will become more and more afraid: and a new fear will enter into your being, that is: fear of fear, which is very dangerous. In the first place fear is absence and in the second place, the fear of fear is the fear of the absence of absence. Then you go into madness.

You have taken a wrong step. Fear is nothing but absence of love. Do something with love, forget about fear. If you love well, fear disappears. If you love deeply, fear is not found.

Whenever you have been in love with someone, ever for a single moment, was there any fear? It has never been found in any relationship — if even for a single moment two persons are in deep love and a meeting happens, they are tuned to each other, in that moment fear has never been found. Just as if the light is on and darkness has not been found. There is the secret key: Love more.

If you feel there is fear in your being — love more.

Be courageous in love, take courage. Be adventurous in love, love more, and love unconditionally, because the more you love the less will be the fear.

And when I say love I mean all the four layers of love: from sex to samadhi. Love deeply. If you love deeply in a sexual relationship much fear will disappear from the body. If your body trembles in fear, it is the fear of sex; you have not been in a deep sexual relationship. Your body trembles, your body is not at ease, at home.

Love deeply — a sexual orgasm will dispel all fear out of the body. When I say it will dispel all fear I don’t mean that you will become brave because brave people are nothing but cowards upside down. When I say all fear will disappear I mean there will be no cowardice and no bravery. Those are two aspects of fear.

Look at your brave people: you will find that deep inside they are afraid, they have created just an armor around them. Bravery is not fearlessness, it is fear well-protected, well-defended, armored.

When fear disappears you become fearless. And a fearless person is one who never creates fear in anybody, and who never allows anybody to create fear in him.

Deep sexual orgasm gives body at-homeness.
A very, very deep health happens in the body because the body feels whole.

Then the second step is love. Love people — unconditionally. If you have some conditions in the mind then you will never be able to love — those conditions will become barriers. Because love is beneficial to you why bother about conditions? It is so beneficial, it is such a deep well being that — love unconditionally; don’t ask anything in return. If you can come to understand that just by loving people you grow in fearlessness, you will love! For the sheer joy of it!

Lovable You — Warts ’n All!

I feel caught up in deep shame feelings about my body. I have a hormonal imbalance which makes it quite hairy, and I don’t like my weight. Before, I was thin — I still didn’t like it.

Nothing is wrong in being hairy, mm? And nothing is wrong in being fat! They are just ideas that have been put in your mind by others.

In fact all human bodies are hairy; it is an unnatural state that they are not hairy. It is because of clothes that hairs have disappeared. Naturally, it is not an imbalance; you are more natural than other people!

It is just as animals have hair — that is their only protection from cold. When man was nude and in the caves, he had that as protection. The body is still the same. Just because of clothes, shelter, the need is not there, but sometimes a few people’s bodies function in a very natural way, so those hairs come.

I don’t take it that you are in some way abnormal — you are simply normal. In fact, it is how it should be. The body’s inner hormone system has not changed just because we have started using clothes. The body has not changed its hormonal system; it is still there.

And if people start remaining more and more nude — on the beaches, in the rivers.. and by and by in the future centuries when people will be more nude.... Because to be nude is so beautiful and so healthy, and such a joy, that next century is going to be of nude humanity — and again hairs will start coming.

So I don’t think that there is anything wrong, or that you have to worry about the hormones.

I don’t think that you are fat. There are ten times more fat women than you! — this is nothing. In fact in India, at least this much fat is thought to be beautiful. The West has a very different notion. Have you seen Indian film actresses’ pictures? They are all fat. You will not find a single woman who can win the world contest in the west— not a single film actress. In India, unless a woman is full of fat, nobody likes her! And my feeling is that they are right...natural.

When a woman is skinny and bony, and the fat is not there on the body, that simply shows that she is not yet able to become a mother, that’s all. A woman gathers more fat than a man. It is a natural thing because when the child is in the womb, the mother needs some reservoir of fat — the child takes too much fat out of the body. By and by, as the pregnancy grows, the mother will not be able to eat much. So it is a natural protection for nine months. So women gather more fat than men — they have to; that is simply natural.

In the West, women who are trying not to become fat, not to become weighty, and who are continuously on a diet, are doing very unnatural things. They are constantly torturing themselves; their dieting is a torture. They cannot eat what they want to eat, and they have to eat what they never want to eat. They have continuously to fight with their body. Again and again they relapse, and again they eat something. and again the weight grows. All nonsense! One should be simply natural. And I don’t think that you are overweight or anything.

Drop your ideas — these ideas are simply nonsense! Start enjoying yourself! And if you have these ideas, they are dangerous. If you feel that you are not beautiful and you are not this and you are not that, then even if somebody comes and falls in love with you, you will not trust him. You will say, “He must be deceiving; how can he love me?” Even you cannot love yourself, so this man must be a cheat! He must have some other design, some other trick — you are not going to be trapped! And you will try to prove that you are right. You will try to destroy the relationship in every way so your whole idea can be again protected — that “Yes, I am not beautiful. Look! That man has left me.” You will create such a situation that he has to leave you!

This is a very suicidal attitude. Drop all nonsense! Start loving yourself. If you love yourself, only then can somebody else love you; otherwise you won’t allow anybody to come close to you. If you are so afraid of your body, how can you tolerate somebody else adoring your body? You cannot tolerate! Either he will look a stupid man or like somebody who is trying to deceive you. Drop this!

It is a simple understanding. The world is so vast, and everybody has a different body...and they have to be different! You fall in love with your body! Mm? There is nothing wrong.

...But you drop this nonsense — it is simply just nonsense! It is nothing much to be made a fuss about. Don’t make it a big problem. It is nothing. Drop it...and once you have, you will suddenly see that doors have started opening, and some fool is going to fall in love with you! (chuckling)

Blessed Are the Ignorant

...and some jokes, to keep you light...

The concerned doctor is trying to convince the patient that he is overweight. “Now just step on the scales,” says the doctor. “There...you see? Now look at this chart and compare your weight with the average weight for your height. You are way overweight.”

“No, I am not,” says the patient. “I am just six inches too short.”

The Invitation

Big Olga, Kowalski’s overweight wife, is getting enormous. So she goes to Doctor Gasbag to see if she can get some advice.

“You need much more exercise,” says Gasbag. “And you eat far too much. You must exercise every day.”

“But doctor,” complains Olga, “what exercise should I do?”

“It is easy,” replies Gasbag. “Begin slowly. Just strip off, lie down on your bed, and try to sit up and touch your toes. Then lift your legs back over your shoulders. Keep doing this until you start sweating off those pounds.”

That night, Olga decides to give it a try. Naked, lying on the bed, she can hardly see her toes. Still, she pushes forward, and tries to grab her feet. Then she lifts her legs back. But she gets stuck with her bum sticking out and her legs pushed back over her head.

At this point, Kowalski stumbles into the bedroom, utterly drunk.

“Jesus Christ, Olga!” he shouts in shock. “Comb your hair and put your teeth back in! You look like your mother!”

Nansen: The Point of Departure

There is this old Italian, see, who runs a pasta factory, and his three daughters work for him. One day they are all sitting around making the pasta, and he says to the eldest, “Agnesa, eef-a you were not here making the ravioli and the spaghetti, who-a in all-a the world-a you would like-a to be-a?”

“Oh Papa, I would like-a to be-a Sophia Loren-a. She ees so beautiful! All-a the men are after her.”

“Very good-a,” says the father. “And you, Maria, tell-a your Papa, eef you were not-a here, een steenking old Napoli, making the spaghetti, who-a in all-a the world-a you would like-a to be?”

“I would like-a to be-a Gina Lollobrigida. She ees so beautiful! All-a the men are after her. She has-a the Alfa Romeo and-a the Cadillac!”

“Very good-a,” says the father. Then he says, turning to the youngest, “Lucia! Bella! Well-a, tell-a your Papa, eef-a you were not-a here-a up to your elbows een the raviolis, who-a in all-a the world-a you would like-a to be-a?”

“I would like to be...Veectoria Pepeleena!”

“What?!” cries the father. “Who een the hell-a ees Veectoria Pepeleena?”

She pulls a newspaper cutting out of her bra and shows it to him: Victoria Pipeline to be Laid by 400 Men in Two Weeks.

The parable of the farmer and the wheat

Misery only means that things are not fitting with your desires--and things never fit with your desires, they cannot. Things simply go on following their nature. Lao Tzu calls this nature Tao. Buddha calls this nature Dhamma. Mahavir has defined religion as "the nature of things." Nothing can be done. Fire is hot and water is cool.

The wise man is one who relaxes with the nature of things, who follows the nature of things. And when you follow the nature of things, no shadow is cast. There is no misery. Even sadness is luminous then, even sadness has a beauty then. Not that sadness will not come--it will come, but it will not be your enemy. You will befriend it, because you will see its necessity. You will be able to see its grace, and you will be able to see why it is there and why it is needed.

I have heard an ancient parable--it must be very ancient, because God used to live on the earth in those days. One day a man came to him, an old farmer, and he said, "Look, you may be God, and you may have created the world, but one thing I must say to you: you are not a farmer. You don't know even the ABC of farming. You have something to learn."

God said, "What's your advice?"

The farmer said, "You give me one year's time, and just let things be according to me, and see what happens. There will be no poverty left!"

God was willing, and one year was given to the farmer. Naturally, he asked for the best, he thought only of the best--no thunder, no strong winds, no dangers for the crop. Everything was comfortable, cozy, and he was very happy. The wheat was growing so high! When he wanted sun, there was sun; when he wanted rain, there was rain, and as much as he wanted. This year everything was right, mathematically right. But when the crops were harvested, there was no wheat inside.

The farmer was surprised. He asked God, "What happened? What went wrong?"

God said, "Because there was no challenge, because there was no conflict, no friction, because you avoided all that was bad, the wheat remained impotent. A little struggle is a must. Storms are needed, thunder, lightning is needed. They shake up the soul inside the wheat."

This parable is of immense value. If you are just happy and happy and happy, happiness will lose all meaning. It will be as if somebody is writing with white chalk on a white wall. Nobody will ever be able to read it. You have to write on a black board, then it comes clear.

The night is as much needed as the day. And the days of sadness are as essential as the days of happiness. This I call understanding. Once you understand it, you relax--in that relaxation is surrender. You say, "Thy will be done." You say, "Do whatsoever you feel is right. If today clouds are needed, give me clouds. Don't listen to me, my understanding is tiny. What do I know of life and its secrets? Don't listen to me! You just go on doing your will." And, slowly slowly, the more you see the rhythm of life, the rhythm of duality, the rhythm of polarity, you stop asking, you stop choosing.

This is the secret. Live with this secret, and see the beauty. Live with this secret, and you will be suddenly surprised: How great is the blessing of life! How much is being showered on you every moment!

 

 

 

Zen says: Think of all the great words and great teachings as your deadly enemy. Avoid them, because you have to find your own source. You have not to be a follower, an imitator. You have to be an original individual; you have to find your innermost core on your own, with no guide, no guiding scriptures. It is a dark night, but with the intense fire of inquiry you are bound to come to the sunrise.

Everybody who has burned with intense inquiry has found the sunrise. Others only believe. Those who believe are not religious, they are simply avoiding the great adventure of religion by believing.

Osho Zen: Turning In Chapter 10

Commentary:

The figure in this card has taken on the shape of an arrow, moving with the single-pointed focus of one who knows precisely where he is going. He is moving so fast that he has become almost pure energy. But his intensity should not be mistaken for the manic energy that makes people drive their cars at top speed to get from point A to point B. That kind of intensity belongs to the horizontal world of space and time. The intensity represented by the Knight of Fire belongs to the vertical world of the present moment - a recognition that now is the only moment there is, and here is the only space.

When you act with the intensity of the Knight of Fire it is likely to create ripples in the waters around you. Some will feel uplifted and refreshed by your presence, others may feel threatened or annoyed. But the opinions of others matter little; nothing can hold you back right now.

I want my people to know the peace, to know the silence, to know the beauty of their inner being, the blissfulness and love and light, and spread it. And spreading it is not going to be a missionary thing — you are not to convert anybody. J...ust your very presence, just your loving eyes, your peaceful existence — the charisma that arises with enlightenment, a certain different wavelength that the enlightened man starts radiating around him, changes people’s hearts without their knowing.

 

 

OSHO: Something Which Never Dies
http://www.oshoteachings.com/

Desires, dreams and hopes – the future disturbs you and divides you

If the mind is filled with dreams you cannot see rightly. If the heart is filled with desires you cannot feel rightly. Desires, dreams and hopes – the future disturbs you and divides you. But whatsoever is, is in the present. Desire leads you into the future, and life is here and now. Reality is here and now, and desire leads you into the future. Then you are not here. You see, but still you don’t see; you hear, but still you miss; you feel, but the feeling is dim, it cannot go deep, it cannot be penetrating. That is how truth is missed.

People keep on asking: Where is the divine, where is the truth? It is not a question of finding the divine or the truth. It is always here, it has never been anywhere else, it cannot be. It is there where you are, but you are not there, your mind is somewhere else. Your eyes are filled with dreams, your heart is filled with desires. You move into the future, and what is the future but illusion? Or, you move into the past, and the past is already dead. The past is no more and the future has yet to be. Between these two is the present moment. That moment is very short, it is atomic, you cannot divide it, it is indivisible. That moment passes in the flicker of an eye. If a desire enters, you have missed it; if a dream is there, you are missing it.

The whole of religion consists of not leading you somewhere, but bringing you to the here and now, bringing you back to the whole, back where you have always been. But the head has gone away, very far away. This head has to be brought back. So God is not to be sought somewhere – because you are searching somewhere, that is why you are missing him. He has been here all the time waiting for you.

Once it happened that Mulla Nasruddin came staggering home totally drunk, and knocked many times at his own door. It was already half past midnight. The wife answered and he asked her, ”Can you tell me, madam, where Mulla Nasruddin lives?”
The wife said, ”This is too much. You are Mulla Nasruddin.”
He said, ”That’s right, that I know, but it doesn’t answer my question. Where does he live?”

This is the situation. Drunk with desires, staggering along, you knock at your own door and ask where your home is. Really, you ask who you are. This is home, and you have never left it, it is impossible to leave it. It is not something outside you which you can go away and leave; it is your within, it is your very being.

Asking where God is, is foolish, because you cannot lose God. It is your within, your innermost being, your very core. It is your existence: you breathe in him, you live in him, and it cannot be otherwise. What has happened is that you have become so drunk that you cannot recognize your own face. And unless you come back and get sober you will go on searching and seeking and you will go on missing.

Tao, Zen, Yoga, Sufism, Hassidism, these are all methods for bringing you back, to make you sober again, to destroy your drunkenness. Why are you so drunk? What makes you so drunk? Why are your eyes so sleepy? Why aren’t you alert? What is the root cause of it all? The root cause is that you desire.

Try to understand the nature of desire. Desire is alcoholic, desire is the greatest drug possible. Marijuana is nothing, lsd is nothing. Desire is the greatest lsd possible – the ultimate in drugs. What is the nature of desire? When you desire, what happens? When you desire, you are creating an illusion in the mind; when you desire, you have already moved from here. Now you are not here, you are absent from here, because the mind is creating a dream. This absentness is your drunkenness. Be present!

This very moment the doors of heaven are open. There is no need even to knock because you are not outside heaven, you are already inside. Just be alert and look around without eyes filled with desire, and you will have a belly laugh. You will laugh at the whole joke, at what has been happening. It is just like a man dreaming at night.

When you act in the moment and it has no reference to your past, the action has a beauty

Divine purity reduced to practical life means spontaneity. The spontaneous person is innocent. He has a quality that only children have, and that is the meaning of purity, innocence. He has the quality that animals have and the trees have and which man has lost.

To be spontaneous means not to act out of the past, because out of the past is all cunningness, cleverness, calculation, arithmetic. When you act in the moment and it has no reference to your past, the action has a beauty, a purity – the same as a small child’s act. Whether he laughs or cries or goes into a tantrum or becomes angry, all his acts have purity – it is uncalculated. His anger is hot and not cold. The calculated anger is cold. His anger is natural, a responsiveness. He has not brooded over it, he has not planned it. He is just in the hands of nature – hence the beauty. He is surrendered to his nature; he is not trying to control his life. And that’s what Jesus means when he says ’Unless you are like small children, you will not enter into my kingdom of god.’ And the more experienced we become, the farther away we are from the kingdom of god. Those who know are far away – the ignorant are very close.

So act in the moment, live in the present, slowly slowly don’t allow the past to interfere And you will be surprised that life is such an eternal wonder, such a mysterious phenomenon and such a great gift that one simply feels constantly in gratitude. So this is my message for you: live in the moment, herenow. That’s why I call it divine purity; the human purity is just the opposite of it.

And remember: impurity is not the real opposite of divine purity; but human purity is the real opposite of divine purity. And by human purity I mean people who are evil but who are trying to be pure by calculation – the so-called saints who are trying to be pure so that they can have the kingdom of god. But that is a bargain. How can it be pure? It is businesslike – how can it be pure? They are simply waiting to be rewarded; they are not pure people. If some day they come to know that there no reward, they will drop all their purity. They don’t have any joy in it – they think of it as a sacrifice, as if they are obliging god by being pure They are doing it, they are the doers of it. It is not simple, it is not innocent. It is planned and a very long-range plan, even for after death. They are trying to control not only life but death too… and after death too.

So the so-called saints are never pure, they cannot be; they don’t know what purity is. Their character is just a hypocrisy, cultivated from the outside. And because there is a motivation in it, it is impure. Motivation is the poison that makes everything impure. Only the acts which are without any motivation are pure acts, and a pure act is a liberating phenomenon – it is a moment of truth. That’s why I call it deva punito, divine purity – not something cultivated by the human mind but something received as a gift.

Just live moment to moment and the gift will start arriving, something from the beyond will start descending in you, and the joy of it is infinite. That and only that gives meaning to life, nothing else. Life is a garden of love, and the moment we forget it, we go astray. The moment we forget love, we fall from grace. That’s the original sin. If one can remain loving, and if loving becomes one’s very quality, then there is no need for any other religion. Love is enough unto itself, because prayer grows out of it of its own accord. And one day god arrives – one need not go in search of him. He himself comes seeking the heart that loves.

 

 

 

*The astral body goes on from womb to womb, from grave to grave*

First you have to understand that you have not only this body of flesh and bones and blood, not only this brain which is part of the body. Behind the brain you have a mind — that mind is abstract — and behind the body you have an astral body. The word `astral’ comes from stars; it means a light…. Instead of flesh or bones, only a body made of light. This body of light, the astral body, has the mind in it.

When you die, your physical body and your physical mind are left behind. But the astral body travels with you, with the mind, with all the remembrances of the past life and the body, remembering all the scars and the wounds that have happened to the physical body. This abstract phenomenon travels with you; hiding within it is your ultimate, existential center.

Until you know the center, you will have to travel continuously from one body to another body. You have been traveling already for thousands of lives, gathering more and more memories in your astral mind, more and more memories in your astral body. Although your center is unaffected, it is surrounded by the astral body, and the astral body goes on from womb to womb, from grave to grave. That is your individuality; it has a continuum. But the continuum comes to an end when you become a buddha.

When you penetrate deeply to the center, you are also cutting the astral body apart, making a way through the mind, beyond the mind, through the astral body and beyond the astral body, to the center of your being. Once you have reached to the center of your being, the continuum of your individuality stops. Now begins the universal existence. You will not enter into another womb again, and you will not be burnt on another funeral pyre again. Now you will be one with the whole. Of course, everything has a cost. You will have to drop your long-cherished love of individuality. Millions of years you have loved your individuality, but your individuality at the final stage is a hindrance.

Now take a jump out of the continuum and become one with the whole. You will disappear just like a dewdrop in the ocean. But it is the ultimate bliss, it is the most profound ecstasy to become the oceanic, to become the cosmic. You will never repent that you have lost your individuality.

What was in your individuality?

Have you ever thought?

Your individuality was a light prison, which carried you from one womb, passing through the grave, to another womb, and repeating the same things again and again and again. That’s why in the East they call it the life and death cycle. To jump out of this cycle is the whole purpose of meditation — to come out of this continuum, which has been just a deep anguish, anxiety and angst, and to disappear into the blue sky.

This disappearance is not your death. This disappearance makes you one with the whole. And to be one with the whole is the greatest joy, the greatest blissfulness. Nothing is more significant, more full of splendor, more majestic. Here all the buddhas have disappeared in the ultimate eternity of existence. It is freedom from individuality, freedom from yourself.

You have known freedom from others, but you don’t recognize that you are still a slave of your own individuality. It is a cage… it may be golden. Open the cage and fly across the sun into the blue sky and disappear, without leaving any footprints, any trace behind. This Gautam the Buddha used to call anatta, no self, no mind, no you, no I.

Patience and Hopelessness on Path

On the path nothing more is needed than patience. Man can do everything that he is capable of, but still there is no necessity that the ultimate happens; it may happen, it may not. We can grope in the dark; the door may open, it may not So if one has not infinite patience, one starts getting tired of the search. There is no short cut to it – and there cannot be because of the very nature of things. The journey is long and many times one starts losing hope.

Those are the moments when patience will be needed. Patience is nothing but a fragrance of trust. The night is dark but one trusts that the dawn is coming. Each moment it is coming closer and closer. Maybe the night is actually becoming darker. In fact it becomes darker before the dawn comes, so the actual may not be helpful to the possible.

The actual may be saying, ’What are you doing? What are you waiting for? The night is getting darker than ever before. The dawn must be going further away and the distance is growing greater. This is simple logic: the night is getting darker so the dawn cannot be very close. You are losing track! There is no point in waiting any more. ’

The mind will try to frustrate. The mind will bring a feeling of hopelessness, because once a person becomes hopeless all search is lost. Then he simply leads a routine life, a mundane, mediocre life. He simply goes on repeating empty gestures which have no significance. One simply goes on doing things because what else to do? One needs to be occupied, so one goes on repeating the same thing again and again and again. It creates tediousness.

Repetition creates boredom. But the base is that once you become hopeless about the dawn, then the night has taken complete possession of you. That is the dark night, and everybody has to pass through it. Patience is of two types – the positive and the negative. Negative patience simply means a sort of lethargy, not doing anything, just waiting for some miracle to happen, waiting for Godot… not doing anything for it to happen; not being in any way creative about it – just sitting, lazing around, and just thinking that some miracle will happen, and knowing well that it never happens.

Then a sort of dullness arises, a sort of stupidity, insensitivity, a deadness. I am not talking about that patience. That is not really patience – it is a dead corpse. The real patience is positive, active, creative. The real patience is not just a laziness. It is radiant with hope. It is throbbing with life and zest and enthusiasm.

Once one starts accepting and respecting oneself, life starts changing

Mm Mm, you are better and you will become better every day. One just has to accept the idea that one can be better and one starts becoming better.

People are very miserly in accepting happiness; nothing else is a barrier. It is just that people cannot believe that they can be happy, this is the barrier. And if you can’t believe that you can be happy, how can you be? People believe in unhappiness, they are great believers in unhappiness; they believe in hell. They talk about heaven but they believe in hell, they talk about god but they believe in the devil.

In fact they talk about heaven only so that they can believe in hell because without heaven there will be no hell. They talk about happiness so that they can feel really miserable; in comparison to happiness they can see how unhappy they are. But they don’t accept this simple truth which can transform their life immediately, instantly – that life is meant to be blissful, that it is just normal to be blissful. Not to be blissful should be a rare thing, a freak-out.

If people could accept happiness, joy, peace, silence, then buddhahood would be the normal course of life; everybody would be a Buddha. Only once in a while a person may not be a Buddha; that can be accepted. Health is normal, disease should not be normal. Sanity is normal, madness should not be normal. And buddhahood is nothing but sanity, utter sanity, sheer health.

But this is the most difficult thing for people to understand, it takes them so long a time to accept a simple thing – that they can be happy, that they are worthy of being happy, that god has created them to be happy, otherwise he would not have created them, that they are already accepted, that this existence needs them, that they are not useless, that they must be fulfilling some function in this vast complexity of life.

Once one starts accepting and respecting oneself, life starts changing, joy arises. There is no need to better yourself, you start becoming better; it simply starts happening more and more every day. And the more it comes, the more trusting you are that it is possible; then it becomes easier. It simply depends on you, on how much you can receive; that much will be given to you. So open your heart. Become a receptacle, an infinite receptacle. Then god becomes a guest in your being. This time something is going to happen!

Don’t try to escape in any way from anything – work or family

When you really do your work it will help you meditate more deeply, because ordinarily the mind goes on overlapping. When you are meditating it will feel guilty about work, and when you are working it will think to go and meditate, and so it goes on. This overlapping has to be stopped. When you meditate, meditate. When you work, work.

Don’t try to escape in any way from anything – work or family. One is to escape from nowhere – because the escapist mind can become peaceful, but it cannot become blissful; that’s the trouble. An escapist mind can become peaceful, because if you don’t work, if you avoid every situation where trouble can arise, where there is challenge, conflict, competition, then of course, naturally you become peaceful. But that peace is bogus and not worth having. The slightest disturbance, and it will be disturbed. 

I would like a peace that is attained amidst flames, a peace which is attained in the marketplace; a peace that is attained where there is no possibility of attaining it. Then you attain to an integration; a crystallisation comes to you. Of course the way is long and hard, but the short-cut is just an escape.

So l would like you to remain wherever you are. Go on working as you are working. Fix a time for meditation, and then the remaining time is for work; work and meditate. Enjoy it, be more meditative, and soon – it will take at least three months – soon you will become settled, and then you will see that a harmony has risen between work and meditation.

Osho

Look! See! Feel! Touch! — you will be nearer. But don’t think

Existence has no language… and if you depend on language there can be no communication with existence. Existence is a mystery, you cannot interpret it. If you interpret, you miss. Existence can be lived, but not thought about. It is more like poetry, less like philosophy. It is a sign, it is a door. It shows, but it says nothing.

That’s why, through mind, there is no approach to existence. If you think about it, you can go on thinking and thinking, about and about, but you will never reach it — because it is precisely thinking that is the barrier.

Look! See! Feel! Touch! — you will be nearer. But don’t think. The moment thinking enters, you are thrown off the track — then you live in a private world. Thinking is a private world; it belongs to you. Then you are enclosed, encapsulated, imprisoned within yourself. Nonthinking, you are no more, you are enclosed no more. Nonthinking, you open, you become porous; existence flows in you and you flow into existence.

But the tendency of the mind is to interpret. Before you see something you have already interpreted it. You hear me: even before I have said anything you are already thinking about it. That’s how listening becomes impossible. You will have to learn to listen. Listening means you are open, vulnerable, receptive, but you are not in any way thinking. Thinking is a positive action. Listening is passivity: you become like a valley and receive; you become like a womb and you receive. If you can listen, then nature speaks — but it is not a language.

Nature doesn’t use words. Then what does nature use? Says Heraclitus, it uses signs. A flower is there: what is the sign in it? It is not saying anything, but can you say it is not saying anything really? It is saying much, but it is not using any words — a wordless message. To hear the wordless you will have to become wordless, because only the same can hear the same, only the same can relate to the same.

Sitting by a flower, don’t be a man, be a flower. Sitting by the tree, don’t be a man, be a tree. Taking a bath in a river, don’t be a man, be a river. And then millions of signs are given to you. And it is not a communication — it is a communion. Then nature speaks, speaks in thousands of tongues, but not in language. It speaks through millions of directions, but you cannot consult a dictionary about it and you cannot ask a philosopher what it means. The moment you start thinking what it means you are already on the path of going astray.

Somebody who had come to visit Picasso, a very learned man, a critic, he looked at Picasso’s paintings and then he said, “They look beautiful, but what do they mean? For example this painting” — the painting just before which they were standing — “what does it mean?”

Picasso shrugged his shoulders and said, “Look outside the window — what does this tree mean? And that bird who is singing? And what is the meaning of the sun rising? And if this whole exists without meaning anything, why can’t my painting exist without any meaning?” 

Why do you ask what it means? You want to interpret it. You want to give it a linguistic pattern. You want to communicate, not commune. No, it doesn’t mean anything. It is there in its total glory. It is a meaning but it doesn’t mean anything. The meaning is existential. Look, watch, feel, move into it; allow it to move into you — but don’t ask questions. If you ask questions, enter a university — you cannot enter the universe. If you want to enter the universe, don’t ask… there is nobody to reply to you. You will have a totally different quality of being; only then will you be in contact with it.

It is reported of a Zen master — a very rare phenomenon, unbelievable because the mind boggles — that he had done a painting in the king’s palace, and the king was asking again and again, “Is it complete?”

And he would say, “Wait a little more, wait a little more.”

Years passed and the king said, “It is taking too much time. You don’t allow me even to enter the room” — because he would lock the room and then paint — “and I am getting old. And I am getting more and more excited as to what you are doing inside the room. Is not the painting ready yet?”

The master said, “The painting is ready, but I am watching for you — you are not ready. The painting was ready long ago, but that is not the point. Unless YOU are ready, to whom will I show it?”

Existence is there, always waiting, ready. At every moment, at every turn of the road, just by the corner, it is always and always waiting. It is an infinite patience, waiting — but you are not ready. Then it is said that the king became ready and the painter said, “Okay, the time has come.”

They entered the room — nobody else was allowed in the room. The painting was really wonderful. It was difficult to say that it was a painting — it looked real. The painter had done a painting of hills, valleys, and they looked almost three-dimensional, as if they existed. And by the hills there was a small path going somewhere inside. Now comes the most difficult part of the story. The king asked, “Where does this road lead?”

The painter said, “I have not myself traveled yet on this road, but you wait, I will go and see.” And he entered the path, and disappeared beyond the hills, and never came back. This is what a mystery means. It says many things without saying anything.

If you move into nature to find where it leads, don’t stand outside it and ask because then nothing can be done; you have to move into it. If you move you will never come back, because the very movement into existence… and you are losing your ego, you are disappearing. You will reach to the goal, but you will never come back to relate the story about it. The painter never came back. Nobody comes back. Nobody can come back, because the more existential you become, the more you are lost.

Existence opens millions of doors for you, but you stand outside and you would like to know something about it from the outside. There is no outside in nature. I would like to repeat these words: there is no outside to nature, everything is inside… because how can anything exist outside nature? The whole is the inner. And the mind is trying the impossible; it is trying to stand outside, to watch, to see what it means. No, you have to participate. You have to move into it and become one, and disperse like a cloud — whereabouts unknown.

Osho

Osho on Watching Psychic Energies

Question : Can the psychic aberration of the mind be controlled? Can the wanderings of the psychic mind be controlled? I find it difficult...

Osho - It is always better to watch rather than control. If you control something you will have to control it forever. It will become a constant tension in you. You will have to remain on guard, because if you relax the control will be gone. Control is not right and control is a conflict.

Those psychic energies are your energies; if you control them you will have to fight with them. If you control them they will start rebelling against you; they will give a good fight to you. And by control you can never overcome them. They will always be there repressed, and whenever the opportunity arises, whenever you are not on guard, they will assert themselves.

Control is not the right way to encounter one's energies. The right way is to watch them and give them freedom. Let the mind go wherever it wants; let the energies move wherever they move.

You remain centered in your watching, you remain unconcerned -- just a pure witness, just like a mirror, reflecting: whatsoever is happening is good. Then slowly slowly as the watcher becomes stronger it starts absorbing the energies. Then energies are not available for psychic wandering, and those wanderings start stopping on their own accord.

When the watcher is totally into it, all wanderings simply disappear; and that is real control. Without controlling it is controlling, without repression you are the master. And then you need not be on guard; you can be absolutely relaxed because you have nothing to be afraid of.

My approach is: through witnessing absorb the energy rather than through control, fight. Fight is not right, never right: it dissipates energy; it creates division, it makes you split.

So insist on being aware, that's all. Don't judge what is wrong and what is right; don't judge whether the psychic wandering is good or bad. Let it be as it is. Simply remain in deep acceptance that whatsoever is, is good, and through that acceptance a transformation happens and a real mastery arises.

Nobody is defeated and yet you are victorious. That is the real art. Controlling, repressing, fighting is simply stupid. It leads nowhere. It only leads into neurosis, into schizophrenia -- beware of it. The very idea has to be dropped.

 

 

Love is our deepest longing. Just as the body needs food the soul needs love — it is nourishment, spiritual nourishment. Without the food, air and water, the body will deteriorate; without love the soul starts shrinking. And everybody is living with a very small soul for the simple reason that they have not loved.

And why have they not loved? If you enquire into the question you will be surprised, because for the whole of their life everybody is trying to get love. But people are trying to get, not to give, and the law of love is that you get only when you give. Giving comes first, getting is only a consequence.

And people are asking the impossible; they want first: “Give me love.” Everybody, in a thousand and one ways, is saying “Give me love”, but love comes only when you give; you cannot demand it. Hence the whole world is suffering; everybody is full of love, the world can become a very loving place, but it is just the opposite of it — full of hatred, anger, rage, violence, destruction, for the simple reason that everybody is full of love and nobody is giving. They are asking and demanding and trying to force and snatch away.

Now, love is not a thing that you can force, love is not a thing that you can possess, love is not a thing that can be snatched away in any way. It is beautiful only, alive only, when it is given without any demand on your part, when it comes of its own accord. And it comes on its own accord whenever you give; in fact it comes a thousandfold.

So give as much love as possible and you will get so much in return that you will not be able to believe it in the beginning. It is absolutely unbelievable that the whole existence starts pouring love towards you.

You just show the gesture of giving, with no strings attached to it, with no conditions, no expectations, let your joy be in the giving itself — love for love’s sake — and you will be in for a great surprise: thousands of windows suddenly open and the sun and the wind and the rain and the whole existence starts flowing towards you. It floods you, and that flooded life is the life of a buddha, that life is the goal of a sannyasin.

If the whole existence is one, and if the existence goes on taking care of trees, of animals, of mountains, of oceans — from the smallest blade of grass to the biggest star — then it will take care of you too. Why be possessive? Possessiveness shows simply one thing: that you can’t trust existence; you have to arrange separate security for yourself, safety for yourself. You cannot trust existence. Non-possessiveness is basically trust in existence.

 

 

The man of serenity is not disturbed by anything because he accepts. Sadness comes, he accepts it. Joy comes, he accepts it. He has no preference, he has no choice. He lives in a choiceless consciousness: whatsoever happens happens, whatsoe...ver is is, and he is totally open to it. He drinks it, he absorbs it. He has no likes and dislikes, no preferences, no choices. He is not against sadness, he is not against anger, he is not against sex, he is not against love. He is neither against nor for, he is simply serene.

If you choose, immediately you are disturbed. Watch it: whenever you choose you will be disturbed. Choice brings disturbance, because choice means alternatives: to be this or to be that, to be or not to be. Choice means you are standing at a crossroad: now which road to follow? If you go to the right, who knows? It may just lead you into a cul-de-sac. Maybe the left was the right choice. Who knows? How to decide?

The moment you choose, you become disturbed. And you always choose against yourself, against a part of yourself. One part says, “Choose this,” another part says, “Choose that.” Now you have to decide, and in that decision you will be divided. The part that was saying, “Don’t choose this,” has been denied, has been rejected. That rejected, denied part will take revenge. Sooner or later it will say, “Now see what happened: now repent. I told you beforehand not to choose this, that this was wrong, but you didn’t listen to me.”

And the same would have happened if you had chosen the other. The man who chooses remains disturbed. Serenity means a state of choicelessness. Just like a mirror, it simply reflects, with no choice. An ugly man comes, it reflects. A beautiful man comes, it reflects. It has no choice; there is no question of choice. Just reflecting.

Sadness comes, and the man of serenity says, “I am sadness. This moment, this is how I am. This moment, this is my reality.” He does not compare either: “The last moment was better, I was joyous. Now I am sad.” He never compares two moments, he never hankers for something else in the future. Whatsoever is, he is totally relaxed with it. This is serenity — and out of serenity comes real knowing.

Functioning consciousness and a pure consciousness

We all think we are aware; that is one of our unawarenesses. We are only functionally aware. We have learned to do things, to go to bed, to get up early in the morning, to go to the job. Everything has been learned. Even a robot can do the whole process. You are not needed. And that’s exactly what has happened to humanity. It is a robot humanity. You have learned everything that is necessary and given it to your robot mind who goes on doing things on your behalf. And giving the charge to the mind you have gone to sleep.

The whole effort of the buddhas is to bring out your consciousness and to make you clearly aware of the distinction between functioning consciousness and a pure consciousness which has no function, just a mirror. The mirror has no function, it has utility, but even while you are looking in the mirror, the mirror does not do anything. The reflection is spontaneous. Even if you don’t want the reflection, still it will reflect – and the mirror is not in need of you to stand before it.

The way Zen expresses it is this: The full moon shines in the lake. Neither the full moon desires to be reflected – but it is reflected – nor does the lake want to reflect it, but it does reflect it. Both are not at all doing any active work in this reflection. Both are just being themselves and the reflection comes on its own accord. You do your things and only in doing your things can you separate the functioning consciousness and the pure consciousness.

When you walk, do you know you are walking? When you are silent, are you aware that you are silent? When you are eating, is there any awareness standing by the side, watching your function of eating? That awareness is the great enlightenment. It has no function, it has no utility, it is not a means to some end. It is enough unto itself. It is such a contentment, such deep satisfaction with oneself and the cosmos, such a strong let-go, that you don’t have to do anything. Just being is more than you can have conceived – the joy of just being, the blissfulness of just being.

I pass every day Mukta’s pond, and those two swans are just twenty-four hours a day enjoying, doing nothing. And they look so dignified, so utterly contented… not even a shadow around them of any desire or any ambition, or of any position, of any success. All those are stupid things. They are enjoying every moment, just sitting in the pond.

A consciousness is just like what Basho calls, ”Sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself.” What he is saying is, ”As far as I am concerned, I am not doing anything, neither am I desiring anything. The spring comes on its own accord, uninvited. The grass starts growing without any effort on my part. I am just a watcher, sitting silently, doing nothing.”

This non-doing awareness, which has no function in the world but is simply a blissfulness, an ecstasy, a drunkenness utterly centered in the present moment… That is the whole idea of the buddhas: to make you aware that something is hiding inside you. But because it is of no use, you don’t care about it.

The world consists of utility, and your consciousness is of no utility. You cannot earn by it, you cannot sell it, you cannot do anything by it. It is not a doing energy. It is simply being – a being energy that stands just like an Everest, silently, for centuries.

 

 

Zen — Sex — Health
    
Zen has no belief-system about anything, and that includes sex too — Zen says nothing about it. And that should be the ultimate thing. Tantra has an attitude about sex. The reason? — it tries to redress what the society has done. Tantra is medical. The society has repressed sex; Tantra comes as a remedy to help you redress balance. You have leaned too much to the left; Tantra comes and helps you to lean to the right. And to redress the balance sometimes you have to lean too much to the right, only then the balance is gained.
Have you not seen a rope walker, a tightrope walker? He carries a staff in his hand to keep balance. If he feels he is leaning too much to the left, he immediately starts leaning to the right. Then again he feels that now he has leaned too much to the right, he starts leaning towards the left. This is how he keeps in the middle.

Tantra is a remedy.

The society has created a repressive mind, a life-negative mind, an anti-joy mind. The society is very much against sex. Why is the society so much against sex? — because if you allow people sexual pleasure, you cannot transform them into slaves. It is impossible — a joyous person cannot be made a slave. That is the trick. Only sad people can be turned into slaves. A joyous person is a free person; he has a kind of independence to him.
You cannot recruit joyous people for war. Impossible. Why should they go to war? But if a person has repressed his sexuality he is ready to go to war, he is eager to go to war, because he has not been able to enjoy life. He has become incapable of enjoying, hence has become incapable of creativity. Now he can do only one thing — he can destroy. All his energies have become poison and destructive. He is ready to go to war — not only ready, he is hankering for it. He wants to kill, he wants to destroy.
In fact, while destroying human beings he will have a vicarious joy of penetrating. That penetrating could have been in love and would have been beautiful. When you penetrate a woman’s body in love, it is one thing. It is spiritual. But when things go wrong and you penetrate somebody’s body with a sword, with a spear, it is ugly, it is violent, it is destructive. But you are searching for a substitute for penetration.

If society is allowed total freedom about joy, nobody will be destructive.

People who can love beautifully are never destructive. And people who can love beautifully and have the joy of life will not be competitive either. These are the problems.
That’s why primitive people are not so competitive. They are enjoying their life. Who bothers to have a bigger house? Who bothers to have a bigger balance in the bank? For what? You are happy with your woman and with your man and you are having a dance of life. Who wants to sit in the marketplace for hours and hours and hours, day in, day out, year in, year out, hoping that in the end you will have a big bank balance and then you will retire and enjoy? That day never comes. It can’t come, because the whole life you remain an ascetic.
Remember, the business people are ascetic people. They have devoted everything to money.

Now a man who knows love and has known the thrill of love and the ecstasy of it will not be competitive.

He will be happy if he can get his daily bread. That is the meaning of Jesus’ prayer: “Give us our daily bread.” That is more than enough. Now Jesus looks foolish. He should have asked, “Give us a bigger bank balance.” He asks only for the daily bread? A joyous man never asks for more than that. The joy is so fulfilling.
It is only unfulfilled beings who are competitive, because they think life is not here, it is there. “I have to reach to Delhi and become the president,” or to the White House and become this or that. “I have to go there, joy is there” — because they know here there is no joy. So they are always on the go, go, go, go. They are always on the go, and they never reach. And the man who knows the joy, is here. Why should he be going to Delhi? For what? He is utterly happy herenow. His needs are very small. He has no desires. He has needs certainly, but no desires. Needs can be fulfilled, desires never. Needs are natural, desires are perverted.
Now this whole society depends on one thing and that is sex repression. Otherwise the economy will be destroyed, sabotaged. War will disappear and with it the whole war machinery, and the politics will become meaningless and the politician will no longer be important. Money will not have value if people are allowed to love. Because they are not allowed to love, money becomes the substitute, money becomes their love. So there is a subtle strategy.

Sex has to be repressed, otherwise this whole structure of the society will fall immediately.

Only love released into the world will bring revolution. Communism has failed, fascism has failed, capitalism has failed. All ‘isms’ have failed because deep down they are all sex repressive. On that point there is no difference — no difference between Washington and Moscow, Beijing and Delhi — there is no difference at all. They all agree upon one thing — that sex has to be controlled, that people are not to be allowed to have innocent joy in sex.
To redress the balance comes Tantra; Tantra is a remedy. So it emphasizes sex too much. The so-called religions say sex is sin and Tantra says sex is the only sacred phenomenon. Tantra is a remedy. Zen is not a remedy. Zen is the state when the illness has disappeared; and of course, with the illness, the remedy too. Once you are cured of your illness you don’t go on carrying the prescription and the bottle and the medicine with you. You throw it. It goes to the dustbin.
Ordinary society is against sex; Tantra comes to help humanity, to give sex back to humanity. And when the sex has been given back, then arises Zen. Zen has no attitude.

Zen is pure health.

Cruisin’ For a Bruisin’
    
 
    Things are much better between me and my wife. Our communication is really good. Everything’s a joke...even our fights!
 
    If you understand, conflicts naturally disappear, start disappearing. Sometimes you will catch yourself again in the old pattern, and then you will laugh. If you can laugh in the middle of a fight, the fight is no more there...it is already dead.
The fight needs a very unconscious mind. If you are a little conscious, you cannot fight, because the whole thing seems to be absurd, destructive, helps nobody in any way. And by it you are not only destroying the other, you are destroying yourself, and you go on destroying all possibilities of a happy, harmonious relationship. It is very easy to get angry and fight, but it is very difficult to throw that poison from the system, because it creates poison. That poison lingers on. Each fight has a hangover, and the hangover will again create some situation in which you start fighting again. So fight generates fight; one conflict creates another conflict. They are very very reproductive. They don’t believe in any birth control.
Consciousness, awareness, has no children. It is enough unto itself. But unconsciousness creates many children. So just remember more and more...just catch yourself red-handed. And then don’t feel embarrassed, don’t feel shy. Immediately drop it then and there. Even if you are in the middle of a sentence, stop then and there and have a good laugh.
Laughter is very medicinal. There is nothing like laughter...it is very therapeutic. If people can laugh more, the world will certainly be better. And if people can laugh in situations when laughter does not come easily, the world can become tremendously different...a very happy world indeed.
So try. It is going very well, but remain alert.
[His partner says]: I am in love with another man, in Canada, and am in a conflict because I also feel very much in love with my husband.
That simply means that you still want some type of conflict and discord to continue. It may not be love for the other man; it may just be love for conflict. We love conflicts because we feel powerful.
When everything is going well, one suddenly feels nothing is happening. One feels as if life is empty. If life is really harmonious, one feels empty...no excitement, no kick, no thrill. So people say that they would like a very peaceful life, but nobody really longs for it; otherwise, nobody is creating any barrier. So they go on talking about, and they go on searching for a peaceful life — and they go on creating disturbances. So beware, watch out. If you love your husband, there is no need for any other man.
In fact that division shows something divided in you. When someone loves two persons, it simply shows that somewhere there is a division inside; you are not one. Hence the insistence that if you can love one it is going to help, because it will make you one.
If you cannot love your husband totally, drop him. I will take him out of your life — but then be totally with the other man. There is nothing wrong in it, but be with one so that you can be one, mm? Just think — a woman loving many persons becomes fragmentary. That’s the misery of a prostitute.
I come across many prostitutes, and my feeling is that it is not really that society has forced them — there are a few cases where society has forced them — but basically it is their own psyche. They have so many persons inside them. Not one woman, but many women, a crowd. And that crowd cannot be satisfied by one man. And if you cannot be satisfied with one man or one woman, you cannot be satisfied with a thousand. Because if it is difficult to get in harmony with one, two will be more difficult, and three will be still more difficult. The greater the number, the greater will be the difficulty to create harmony.
So if you are really interested in peace, harmony, love, then settle for one...even if it is hard in the beginning. It is hard because of the habit. It always gives a very very good feeling to have two lovers, because then you can create a conflict between them; a triangle is created. The woman feels tremendously happy. She may be living in misery because these two persons are in constant conflict, but she feels good that she is desired by two men.
That is not going to help. It will give you a feverish excitement, but that fever is going to be destructive to your being. I will not suggest that. So choose. Decision is good because it makes you decisive. Don’t linger on because that too is a decision...a decision to remain indecisive. Choose.
If you think that you want the other man more, think, ponder over it. But if you want to be with your husband, then drop the other man. It is as if you are making love to your husband and the other man is always in between you. It will be there; you’re your husband will not feel any privacy. He will be holding your hand and there will be a third hand in between you and the intimacy will not flower. One has to decide.
Life is a continuous moment to moment decision. You cannot go in all ways. If you want to come to India, you have to leave Canada. If you want to live in Canada, you have to leave India. You cannot live everywhere. One cannot spread oneself thin, all over the earth. One will lose one’s being totally. One has to remain centered.
So not only with love; about everything, be decisive. I know, I understand that it is hard. Sometimes it is just fifty/fifty. It feels hard how to decide, but then too, one has to decide. Toss a coin or consult the I Ching, but still decide. To remain in an indecision longer is very very dangerous. It gives you a quality of being indecisive. And if one learns that trick, then one wastes one’s whole life. Then in small things also one starts becoming indecisive. One lingers, lingers, lingers...hesitates. And if too much lingering and hesitation is there, it will be difficult, very very difficult, to take the final jump into God, into the divine.
Love is a learning...the first lesson of religion. It helps you to decide. And if you can decide, in that very decision something within you crystallises. You will see it. Otherwise you will become bifurcated, you will become a schizophrenic: one part going this way, another part going that way. A house divided is always in danger. Any moment it can collapse.
So you decide. I don’t say decide for your husband — I’m not saying that — but decide. If you really want to be happy, be decisive. It takes courage to decide, almost a gambler’s courage, but this is how life is, mm? Nothing is cheap in life, at least not love. It demands. And that is the beauty of it — that it demands. That very demand gives you a tone, a spirit...integrity, individuality.
And things are going so well between you two. Just help them...they can go even better. There is no end to it.

One can get bliss only if one deserves it, if one is worthy. and the way to deserve it is to disappear, not to be. To be is a hindrance.

The ego is the root of all misery. When the ego is not, from every nook and corner of existence bliss starts reaching you as if it were just waiting for the ego to disappear. Ego is a closed state of consciousness: all window, doors, are closed. You are living almost insulated, encapsulated; ego surrounds you like a capsule. Ego is like the egg: there is not even a small window to allow anything to enter. Ego is very much afraid; out of fear it closes itself, it shrinks into itself. That is how we create misery. Bliss is to be in the flow with existence, to be totally with it.

Ego is like frozen ice and egolessness is melted ice. Then you become part of the ocean. Then you don’t have any private goal, you have no destination. Then each moment is so blissful, so incredibly ecstatic, that the mind cannot comprehend it, cannot conceive it. Mind is part of the ego. It knows how to close, it does not know how to open up.

To be a sannyasin means that now your whole effort will be to open up to existence — to the flowers and to the bees and to the stars; how to open to this beautiful music that fills the whole of existence; how to open to this beautiful music that fills the whole of existence; how to open up to this celebration that goes on and on — flowers dancing in the wind and trees enjoying the wind and the stars, always in a state of bliss. Except for man everything is in harmony. Man falls out harmony because he has consciousness.

Consciousness can do two things: it can create ego, it can create egolessness. If it creates ego you live in hell, if it creates egolessness you are in paradise. The whole world is in paradise without knowing it. When man enter paradise he will be entering with full knowing. That is the grandeur, the beauty of man — and that is the danger also, because out of thousands of people only once in a while does a person enter; others simply go on falling into the trap of the ego. Be egoless and all the grace of God is yours. Bliss is by the grace of god.

Your world has to be dropped; that is the only renunciation I require of you. I don’t say leave your wife, I don’t say leave your job, I don’t say leave your money; leave your anything, no! I simply say leave your private worlds of dreams. ...That is sannyas for me. The old sannyas was leaving this world, the visible. One goes to the Himalayas, leaves the wife and children; that is not the point at all. That is not the world to leave. How can you leave it? Even the Himalayas belong to this world. The real world which has to be renounced is the mind, the private dreaming world. If you renounce it, sitting in the market you are in the Himalayas. If you don’t renounce it, in the Himalayas also you will create a private world around you.

 

 

Everybody can be freed from nightmares, from sufferings, from miseries, but of course not directly. The problem is that you cannot be freed from your suffering directly because you are clinging to it. It is not the suffering that is the problem, it is you who are clinging which is the problem. You don’t want to leave it. You brag about it, you talk about it. You even talk about how to get out of this misery. But one who has eyes can see that you are clinging to the misery as hard as possible. Just the presence of a master can help you to see whether the misery is clinging to you, or you are clinging to the misery. That is a very decisive point. Once you see that you are clinging to the misery, you are freed. Just the seeing of it, the very understanding, is freedom.

 

 

 

 

Holier-Than-Thou?

If you repress sex you will become angry; the whole energy that was becoming sex will become anger. And it is better to be sexual than to be angry. In sex at least there is something of love; in anger there is only pure violence and nothing else. If sex is repressed, the person becomes violent — either to others he will be violent, or to himself. These are the two possibilities: either he will become a sadist and will torture others, or he will become a masochist and will torture himself. But torture he will.
Do you know, down the ages, the soldiers have not been allowed to have sexual relationships? Why? Because if soldiers are allowed to have sexual relationships they don’t gather enough anger in them, enough violence in them. Their sex becomes a release, they become soft, and a soft person cannot fight. Starve the soldier of sex and he is bound to fight better. In fact, his violence will be a substitute for his sexuality....
I pulled back my sexual longings,
and now I discover that I’m angry a lot. (Kabir)
A great observer he is, a very minute observer. This is what awareness is. He is watching: he represses his sexual desire and watches — “Now what is happening inside?” Soon he finds that he becomes more angry — for no reason at all, just angry, irritated, ready to fight with anybody, any excuse will do.
And remember, sex can be transformed because it is a natural energy; anger is not so natural, one step removed from nature. Now it will be difficult to change anger. First anger will have to be changed into sex, only then can anything be done — that’s what my work here is. And that’s what I am being condemned for all over the world.
I am trying to change your anger into sex — first that has to be done. That is the way of inner change. First all your perversions have to disappear, and you have to become a natural human being. You have to become a natural animal, to be exact. And then only can you become divine. The animal can be transformed into the divine, but your animal is also very perverted, your animal is not sane — your animal has become insane. First the insanity has to be transformed, changed. Change anger!
I gave up rage, and now I notice
that I am greedy all day.
So he repressed his anger — that’s what one will logically do. You repress sex, anger bubbles up; you repress anger. But he is a close observer, a very minute observer. He says: The moment I repressed my anger I became greedy.
This too is proved: if you watch human history you will find a thousand and one proofs for it. For example, in India Mahavira taught non-violence, and the result has been that all the followers of Mahavira became the most greedy people in the world — they are the Jews of India. The Jainas are the Jews of India. Why did they become so greedy?
Mahavira taught them to be non-violent. Obviously, they started repressing anger; that is the only way that seems possible to the stupid mind: Repress anger! Don’t be violent. And they tried really hard; in every possible way they tried not to be violent. They even stopped agriculture because it is a kind of violence: you will have to pull the plants and cut the crop, and that is violence because plants have life. So Jainas stopped agriculture completely.
Now, they cannot go to the army, they cannot be kshatriyas — they cannot become warriors — because of their ideology of non-violence, and they cannot even be agriculturalists, gardeners; that is impossible. They would not like to become sudras — the untouchables — who clean the roads, the sweepers and the cobblers, because that is too humiliating. And brahmins won’t allow them to function as brahmins — brahmins are very jealous about that. They have been in power for centuries and they don’t allow anybody: nobody can become a brahmin; one has to be a brahmin only by birth. You may become a great, learned man — that doesn’t matter — but you can’t be a Brahmin. There is no way of becoming a brahmin; you have to be born one only. You have to be very careful when you choose your parents; that is the only opportunity to become a brahmin.
So Jainas could not be brahmins, would not like to become sudras were not able to become warriors — then what was left for them? Only business — they became business people. And all their repressed anger became their greed. They became great money-maniacs. Their number is very small; in India their number is so small, not more than thirty lakhs. In a country of sixty crores thirty lakhs is nothing. But they possess more money than anybody else. You will not find a Jaina beggar anywhere; they are all rich people.
Mahavira wanted them to be non-violent, and what really happened was totally different: they became greedy. Repress your anger and you will be greedy....
I worked hard at dissolving the greed,
and now I am proud of myself.
So he repressed his greed and the ultimate result is: he has become a great egoist; he finds himself being very proud. “Look! I have repressed sex, repressed anger, repressed greed — I have done this, I have done that. I have done impossible things!” Now a great ‘I’ arises, the ego becomes strengthened.
That’s why you will find the most crystallized egos in the monks and the nuns. You will not find such crystallized egos anywhere else. The more a person renounces, the more he represses, the more egoistic he becomes. Indians are very egoistic and the reason? — they have all tried in some way or other to be religious. And the only way seems to be repression — and repression brings ego.
A non-repressed person becomes a non-egoist; he cannot carry the ego. There is no prop to support it. He becomes humble, he becomes simple, he becomes ordinary, he has no claim — he knows he is nothing. This whole process that Kabir is describing is beautiful.
Repression is not the way: transformation is the way. Don’t repress anything. If sexuality is there, don’t repress it otherwise you will create a new complexity — which will be more difficult to tackle. And if you repress anger, greed is even more difficult then, and if you repress greed, arises ego, pride, which is the most difficult thing to drop.
Move back: from pride to greed, from greed to anger, from anger to sex. And if you can come to the natural, spontaneous sexuality, things will be very simple. Things will be so simple that you cannot imagine. Then you energy is natural, and natural energy creates no hindrance in transformation. Hence I say: from sex to superconsciousness. Not from anger, not from greed, not from ego, but from sex to superconsciousness.
The transformation can happen only if first you accept your natural being. Whatsoever is natural is good. Yes, more is possible, but the more will be possible only if you accept your nature with totality — if you welcome it, if you have no guilt about it. To be guilty, to feel guilty, is to be irreligious. In the past you have been told just the opposite: Feel guilty and you are religious. I say to you: Feel guilty and you will never be religious. Drop all guilt!
You are whatsoever God has made you. You are whatsoever existence has made you. Sex is not your creation: it is God’s gift. Something tremendously valuable is hidden in it — it is just a shell of your samadhi. If the seed is broken, the shell is broken, the flower will bloom — but not by repression. You will have to learn inner gardening, you will have to become a gardener, you will have to learn how to use dirty fertilizers, manure, and transform manure into roses.
Religion is the most delicate art.