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‌CHAPTER 1

13 March 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin asks about his work in the West and his relationship:... it’s crazy that I should ask you these things... I’ve got my own mind.]

No, you ask... that is a way of making up your mind, mm? Now you are part of me and I am as much involved in you as you are – even more. So don’t think that you are crazy. Just tell me. Even telling me will be of much help.

I cannot decide for you, but I can help you to decide. These two things... something else? There must be a third thing also.

[He answers: Well... I have a tendency to be negative, critical, low energy... ]

Mm mm... because that third is the most basic, and these two are coming out of it.

If you feel a basic low energy, then you cannot make any decision. That is the problem for a low energy person, mm? You cannot decide – you go on thinking and thinking and wavering your whole life. But remember one thing – whether you decide or not, a decision is continuously being taken. Even if you can’t decide – that too is a decision.

For example, if you don’t decide to leave this woman, you are deciding to be with her. The other is also as much a decision. Sometimes for a low energy person, the decision that looks like a no-decision becomes the only decision in life.

So what I will suggest is that you don’t think that you have to change your profession.

Rather than think whether you have to do it, decide whether you are to remain a dentist. Do you want to remain a dentist? Don’t decide the other thing... decide this.

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And if you are not decisive, don’t continue in it. Sit and meditate, and if you cannot decide, remain suspended. You follow my point? If you cannot decide this, then the same has to be done with the other – because it is the same problem. The problem is the third.

That’s why I insist that there is a third problem, more basic. These two are just off-shoots. And it always happens that off-shoots look like real problems. The real problem – that you cannot face this reality of your being low energy, that you don’t want it, that you don’t like it – is hiding somewhere else.

If you cannot make a decision, remain suspended – and that suspension will help. It will help you to come out of it, or end it. Either way it will help... but you will have to take a decision.

What I am insisting is that it is going to be a very healthy exercise for you to decide. If you remain a dental surgeon, then it has to be your decision, not otherwise. It should not be like a no-decision... that’s bad. You have been asking the question from the wrong side, and that’s a trick of the mind. So always remember that a no-decision is also a decision.

For nine years you have continued to be a dental surgeon and you don’t like it. That’s suicidal. Nothing is wrong with dentistry. If you like it, it is beautiful. If you don’t like it, it is poisonous. Anything that you don’t like and you continue against yourself is going to create a very suicidal situation. And the more you remain in it, the less you will be capable of coming out of it, because habits become stronger and stronger. You will become more and more involved in it. And you will lose courage – because the more you are in a profession, settled, comfortable, the more risky it becomes. For a dentist to become a musician after nine years is difficult.

After twenty years it will become impossible, because then the risk is too much; then you are moving onto the streets. So don’t waste time!

If you don’t like anything, whatsoever it is, to remain in it even for a single moment is suicidal. Then whatsoever the risk, come out of it. Because it is not only a question of coming out of it – it will release your energy, and you will be able to commit it somewhere else. When you close one door, another opens. If you don’t close this door, no other door opens – because it is the same energy which has to open the other door.

If you go on clinging to one woman and you don’t want her and you don’t feel good, it is a constant trouble. It is not only poisonous to you, it is poisonous to her. If you are not kind to yourself, at least be kind to her; at least be human to her. Because it is not only that you are crippling yourself; you are crippling her also.

Any relationship that becomes miserable is going to cripple both the participants. Not only this relationship... if you remain in it too long it will cripple your future relationships also. It will affect them because it will become part of your past... it will hang around you. There is every possibility that you will again find the same type of woman – and you will again get into trouble and go on repeating the same pattern.

So whenever you feel a relationship is not going well, I don’t say come out of it – I say jump out of it! Don’t waste a single moment. There are millions of other women... one door closes, all other doors open. And the moment you move, another door will become possible for her also.

If you don’t fit, that doesn’t mean that you will not fit with anyone else. If she doesn’t fit with you, that doesn’t mean that she will not fit with anybody else. But you can be related to a person who doesn’t fit. Neither you nor the other person is wrong. You simply don’t fit... you are not made for each other.

You cannot do anything which will make you fit. If you try too hard to, you may start adjusting – which is not fitting.

That is the greatest calamity that can happen to a relationship – when two persons settle for adjustment. And if you are long enough in a difficult relationship, what can you do? You have to adjust. Then you settle for something that is not worthwhile. You drop all the romance of life and all poetry. Your life will lose all significance and grandeur. It will become very ordinary, very mundane... in fact, profane. It will lose the dimension of the sacred.

The sacred exists with the romantic, with the poetic. The sacred is adventure. It is risky – but there is no other way to live. Danger is the only dimension.

Both your relationship with this woman and your profession come from your deep-rooted inability to decide. So you go on clinging; whatsoever the case, you will cling. But still, there is a possibility – you have not settled yet. That’s good. You are not yet adjusted... that’s good... that gives hope.

But don’t waste more time in it. Just take the jump out of it. At least at the most you can be a beggar, that’s all (a chuckle). What is wrong in being a beggar? You can play on your guitar, sing, and you will be as happy as a king.

You can become rich by being a dental surgeon, and you can earn enough money to have a beautiful house and a beautiful car... but you will become ugly. Be realistic: plan for a miracle!

So go back, and immediately drop out of it. There is nothing to worry about. At the most one can become a beggar. At the most death can happen – which is going to happen anyhow, mm? Take courageAnd I am coming with you.

Don’t give it a single thought again – just get out of it. All thinking is bourgeois. It is mediocre, middle class. Thinking is always cowardly. So don’t think. Simply go and close all the old doorsand don’t

look back.

And if there is any trouble, come back, mm? This ashram is yours, so come back. Don’t be worried... I can find you one of the best women in the world (laughter). Mm? I manage all sorts of things!

[A sannyasin says: I received a very strange letter today. My father requested that I say hello to you – which surprised me very much.I think that’s his way of asking for your blessing.]

Mm... strange things happen. Life is more strange than any fiction.and more fictitious also.

If one goes on believing and trusting, one comes to encounter miracles every moment. Just because we have lost the capacity to trust, much of the miraculous has disappeared from the world.

So write him a hello from me, mm? (laughter) Good!

[The Tao group was present tonight.The basic idea of Tao is just ‘going with the flow’. One group

member says: It was very good. I got insights into things I had never seen before.] You look good.very positive energy.

Once you feel something inside, not only the mind changes, but the body has a different vibe, mm? One is more flowing, more relaxed, more at home. One feels blessed. Life doesn’t look like a problem.it looks more like a play, a mystery play (a chuckle), mm? Good.

[Another group member says: I feel alone... and just good, but confused. I don’t know what is happening.

Things are changing around inside meSometimes I feel frightened, sometimes it’s floating.]

Mm, it is natural. Whenever you feel frightened, just relax. Accept the fact that fear is there, but don’t do anything about it. Neglect it; don’t pay any attention to it.

Watch the body. There should not be any tension in it. If tension doesn’t exist in the body, the fear disappears automatically. Fear makes a certain tense state in the body, to get rooted in it. If the body is relaxed, fear is bound to disappear. A relaxed person cannot be scared. You cannot frighten a relaxed person. Even if fear comes, it will come like a waveit will not get roots.

And fear coming and going like waves and you remaining untouched by it, is beautiful. When it gets rooted in you and starts growing in you, then it becomes a growth, a canceric growth. Then it cripples your inner organism.

So whenever you feel frightened, the one thing to look at is that the body should not be tense. Lie down on the floor and relax... relaxation is the antidote for fearand it will come and go. You simply

watch.

That watching should not be of interest – indifferent. One just accepts that it’s okay. The day is hot – what can you do? The body is perspiring... one has to pass through it. The evening is coming close, and a cool breeze will be blowing.So just watch it and be relaxed.

Once you have the knack of it, and you will have it soon – that if you are relaxed, fear cannot get attached to you, that it comes and goes and leaves you unscarred – then you have the key. And it will comeit will come. Because the more we change, the more fear will be coming.

Every change creates fear, because every change is putting you into the unfamiliar, into a strange world. If nothing changes and everything remains static, you will never have any fear. That means, if everything is dead, you will not be afraid.

For example, you are sitting down and there is a rock Lying down. There is no problem – you will look at the rock, and everything is okay. Suddenly the rock starts walking – you become frightened. Aliveness! Movement creates fear; and if everything is unmoving, there is no fear.

That’s why people, afraid of getting into fearful situations, arrange a life of no change. Everything remains the same and a person follows a dead routine – completely oblivious that life is a flux. He

remains in an island of his own making in which nothing changes. Mm? – the same room, the same photographs, the same furniture, the same house, the same habits, the same slippers – everything the same. The same brand of cigarettes; even a different brand you won’t like. Between this, amidst this sameness, one feels at ease.

People live almost in their graves. What you call a convenient and comfortable life is nothing but a subtle grave. So when you start changing, when you start on the journey of inner space, when you become an astronaut of the inner space, and everything is changing so fast, every moment is trembling with fear. So more and more fear has to be faced.

Let it be there. By and by you will start enjoying the changes so much that you will be ready at any cost. Change will give you vitality... more aliveness, zest, energy. Then you will not be like a pond – closed from everywhere, not moving. You will become like a river flowing towards the unknown, and towards the ocean where the river becomes lost.

[The sannyasin asks: I have one more thing... my parents – can you do something for them ? Especially my mother, because her body is very ill. I would like to give you their pictures.]

I will do something... I have got their thread from you. You are part of your parents, mm? When a son is converted, half the father is gone! (laughter)

[Another sannyasin who had done the Tao group, said that she felt a sense of frustration, because although things seemed to be happening, she felt she was still just standing on the same spot. She added that she felt a sense of expansion in herself.]

The feeling is meaningful. One is really on the same place – because the change is not outside you... it is inside.

The journey is inner. Everything remains the same, and yet not the same. So you feel both together – that the journey is going very fast, and yet you are standing on the same place. That paradox is very significant. Don’t be worried about it... it happens to everybody who starts changing inwardly, mm? Because the trees are the same, the houses are the same, the people are the same... the world is the same. And yet something has changed which is very elusive, and you cannot put your finger on it. You cannot say exactly what has changed. If somebody insists on knowing what has changed in you, you will not be able to say.

The change is in the layers of consciousnessIt is as if you have been to the mountains. The path

moves round and round and round, and after walking for miles, again you come to the same spot where you had been a few hours before – just a little below. Everything is the same – the same scenery, the same trees, the same rocks – and you have walked so much.

The journey is innerand as when moving towards a mountain peak one ultimately arrives at the

peak, one suddenly comes to know that one is standing in the marketplace. Nothing has changed – and everything has changed. That’s the paradox of religious consciousness. Hence all religions speak in paradoxes, in contradictions. They have tothere is no other way to speak.

Feel happy. Don’t feel puzzled.I know in the beginning one feels puzzled.

And the second insight is also good – that you are feeling that you are expanding. Naturally, in the beginning you will feel that your problems are expanding – because everything will expand. Your anger will expand. Your insecurity will expand. Your sexuality will expand. Your love will expand. Everything will expand, because it is all part of you. So don’t get scared about it.

If you go on expanding, by and by you will see that a qualitative change happens later on after a certain expansion; that a few things, if you expand them too much, become very thin. It is just like a balloon that you go on puffing at... it becomes bigger and bigger, but at the same time it is becoming thinner and thinner also. Soon a point will be reached when it will explode and the whole balloon will disappear.

This is the balloon of the ego, this sense of ‘I’, that expands. And this sense of ‘I’ implies all that you have: your problems, your anxieties, your nightmares, your good things, your bad, your days and your nights – all are involved in this ‘I’. This balloon of the ego has everything that you have. When the balloon expands, they all expand.

Let them expand. The balloon will get thinner and thinner and thinner, and a moment... a sudden explosion... and all is gone – balloon and all. Then you are left – you as you are without the ’I. Pure space... almost non-being.

Wait, and go on. Don’t be afraid, mm? Good.

[Another sannyasin says: I would like to ask you... I’m requesting about being killed.] Mm mm. That I will do... don’t request it! (a chuckle)

That I will do without request (laughter). Don’t be worried about it. That’s the only thing I know how to do, mm? (more laughter)

[A visitor who participated in the group says: I think it was very good for me. I felt uncomfortable at times, but I was very pleased and happy afterwards.]

Discomfort is natural. Anything that can be of any help is also uncomfortable. Each growth is uncomfortable. Only death is comfortable... life is uncomfortable.

So one should learn how to put oneself again and again into the new and novel, into discomforts, mm? That keeps one open and growing and fluid.

Do a few more groups... it will be good, mm? Because they are more uncomfortable. Tao is the most comfortable (laughter). Do Tathata or Aum... do something really uncomfortable !

[Another member of the group said he had a query about meditation and trying to watch thoughts. He said he tried to watch, but that it became repetitive – ‘watching the watching, like a mirrored cabinet’.]

Do one thing – don’t strain too much in watching. If you do, it can become like a mirror-cabinet, and you can go almost crazy, mm? First you are watching your thoughts. Then you can slip out and

watch your watching. Then you can slip out again and watch your watching... and this can go on and on.

You can never watch yourself. You are the watcher – so whatsoever you watch is something which is not you. You are always standing further away. Your reality can never be objectified. You cannot see yourself – because who will see you? You will always remain irreducibly the witness. So however far you go, you will always remain at the back of everything. You can never put yourself in the front of everything – that’s impossible.

So don’t strain or you will become bored. Let it be a simple watching of thoughts. Don’t watch the watcher, or you will be moving into a trap which is non-ending, that can lead you on ad infinitum.

If you feel the idea arising to watch the watcher, forget about thoughts also. Do something else, and again when you have forgotten, come back. Let it be a very playful thing... don’t gt serious about it. mm? People can go crazy. and then they lose all their identity – then they don’t know who they are. So don’t do it too much.

Just relax. and enjoy it. When you feel it is becoming like a strain, too heavy, forget all about it. Jerk your body and dance, or run around the house, or do something with the body so that you can get out of the mind, mm? Good.

[The groupleader, Amitabh, says: I’m a hopeless schizophrenic... The group was very beautiful. They just kept making the energy come, and they used it beautifully.

When the group was over I was so high that I was beyond the cliff already. Then I looked down – and went all the way down... depressed, negative... didn’t want to do anything didn’t want to give anything to anybody... just wanted to stay in my room. It’s exhausting.]

[Osho said that if one goes to the peaks, then one will fall into the valleys too. Some people remain in the middle – they never experience the lows, but they never experience the highs either.

Osho said to Amitabh that he should not disturb the natural flow between the two points, and that he was trying to remain on the peak all the time, and that is not possible... ]

So I will not suggest that you fix yourself somewhere in the middle. Rather, accept the valley also.

The valley has its own beauty. Somehow you have a wrong attitude about the valley. Energy is beautiful – but who has said to you that no-energy is not beautiful? Positivity is good – but who has said to you that negativity is not good?

The whole of the mind has been conditioned to become perfect in one direction – at the cost of wholeness. My whole insistence is that the night is as beautiful as the day. Somehow you have a wrong notion about the night. In the day you feel good, but by the time the sun starts setting, you start feeling afraid. You are at the bank, the very edge. Now sooner or later the sun will set and the night is coming... the darkness, the negative.

But night is needed, otherwise the day will disappear. And nothing is wrong in the night. Nothing is wrong in the dark... it is life-giving. When you go to a peak, your whole energy is in an excited

turmoil – beautiful, but excited; beautiful, but feverish. Because there is so much excitement that you cannot contain it, rest will be needed. And the greater the peak, the deeper rest will be needed.

So the natural flow, the body, is being perfectly natural. Your mind is creating the trouble. You are not schizophrenic – the mind is too much attached to one polarity. You think the problem is with schizophrenia, that you are divided – no. Life knows no duality. Life knows complementariness.

There is no problem anywhere with the night or with the day. Existence is as happy in the day as in the night. In fact the whole night, existence prepares for the day... rests in. the womb of darkness... gets ready again. The whole day vibrates with a thousand and one things, gets excited, moves to the climax, then gets tired, exhausted, spent, and moves into the night again.

Rest is part of the energy phenomenon. But you are not taking it as rest – you call it negative. The very word negative gives it a condemnation. Not that negative is wrong, but the association in the mind is wrong.

There are moments when you give, and there are moments when you don’t want to give. Otherwise where will you get the energy to give? There are moments of complete enclosure when all your windows are closed and you rest. All curtains drawn, all windows closed... you simply rest into yourself. Even love will not be a welcome guest in that moment. One simply wants to be oneself... it is a sort of death. One doesn’t want to move out.

One becomes like a seed – closed. Gone are the days when the flowers flowered and the fragrance was flying to the winds. Gone are those moments. Now everything has come to the seed, resting. It will be ready again... again the sprout will come and flowers will be there. But right now it is not the moment.

So accept it. The denial is bad, the rejection is bad. As you accept the peak, accept the valley. There is no schizophrenia in it. That’s how life functions. This is how the dialectic of life is.

So whenever you feel these things, just tell Anupama (Amitabh’s partner) – because we hide these things. We don’t want to say anything to anyone. We have expectations of everybody, and with ourselves, that each moment we should be available. That is foolish, simply foolish. That is not possible. You are putting unnecessary demands on your being... those demands are wrong. The moment in itself is perfectly as it should be.

So whenever you have a high moment, know well that you will be back. Move to the valley – and let it be known. Then even lovers should not interfere. If somebody loves you, he will understand, she will understand... love is understanding. And these are the moments when understanding is needed.

This is a seed time. It is the same with all energies. Just accept it, happily, joyfully... blessedly, mm? Because it simply shows that you are alive; that you are not yet dead, stuck anywhere. Your swing is free and you move. This is how the flow should be.

There are moments when we share. There are moments when sharing will be dangerous. When energy is flowing low, sharing will be suicidal. When energy is flowing high, overflowing, if you don’t share it, that will be suicidal. So for each thing there is a time.

And never stretch yourself against the natural – then you create trouble. I don’t see that there is any problem or any schizophrenia. Just a wrong attitude – of perfection, of one-sidedness.

As far as I see, we create problems. If you listen to the body, if you listen to the energy, they never lie. It is the mind which goes on commanding impossible things, in fact stupid things. And when the energy and the body cannot follow, it seems a problem.

So next time you just enjoy it. Once you accept the rest, soon your energy will be revitalised. This is my observation – that even a few minutes of total acceptance of the valley revives one completely. But the acceptance should be total, mm? One should become an island... one should cave in, and forget that the world exists.

This will make you more alive. And next time you go to a high peak; if you accept the valley, you will go to a higher peak.

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