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‌CHAPTER 20

4 April 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[Osho gave an individual meditation to a newly-arrived sannyasin.]

Start doing one meditation in the night before you go to sleep.

Put off the light and just stand in the darkness. Then start shaking from the head, just the head. Enjoy the shaking and feel how it feels from inside, mm? Then shake the upper part of the body – the head, the hands, the torso; don’t shake the lower part.

When you feel and enjoy that, then shake the lower part. Then when you feel and enjoy that, shake the whole body. So in three parts: first the head, just the head, second the torso, third the whole body.

Start with the head because you can feel it more easily there in the beginning, because the consciousness is very close and witnessing is easier – and enjoy it.

When you are shaking the whole body, just find which posture feels to be the most graceful, where you feel very very beautiful. After three minutes take that posture – any posturehands raised,

body leaning forwards or sideways, or whatsoever, and freeze in it for four minutes.

This is a ten-minute meditation: one minute shaking the head, two minutes shaking the torso, three minutes the whole body, and for four minutes just freeze as if you have become a statue.

Go on feeling all the four steps. Shaking, you feel the energy stirred.then the whole body becomes

a turmoil of energy, a cyclone. Feel it – as if you are just in a cyclone. And then freeze suddenly and remain like a statue – and then you will feel the centre. So you reach to the centre through the cyclone.

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Do this every night, and after ten days come and tell me how you are feeling, mm? Much has to come up.

[She passed Osho a copy of a book that her boyfriend had written. Osho asked how long she had been with her boyfriend, to which she replied three years.]

Good. I always feel happy when people have been together for a longer period. In the West, things have become very momentary... two years almost looks too long (laughter). But deeper layers of love start functioning only when you have been really too long together. When the togetherness has become so deep that you can forget that the other is present, when you can be in the presence of the other as if you are alone, only then the very core of love is touched, the very rock bottom. Otherwise we go on playing with the circumference, the periphery.

So a love that ends very soon, as it is happening in the West, only touches the body; it never reaches the mind. And it almost never reaches the soul. The deeper you are together, and the longer, the more things you will come to know in your own being. They need a certain deep commitment to come up. They need a certain depth of intimacy and then they come up.

Ordinarily when you meet a new person, a stranger, you just show your good side... you never show your bad side. That’s okay... just etiquette. What is the point of showing your bad side to a stranger?

When you fall in love with someone, first you show the good side, then by and by your bad side comes up. Those are the troublesome days... then one moves in troubled waters. If you can pass those troubled waters, then neither the good nor the bad comes up – which is really you; which is nothing to do with good or bad – which is simply you. It cannot be evaluated as good or bad. Being is neither... it simply is.

Good is an evaluation of the society. Bad is also an evaluation of the society. Good is that part of you that society accepts and appreciates; bad, that part which the society denies, rejects. But you are neither. This third layer of simple existence arises only when good is exhausted and bad also. It needs time, just as trees need time to be planted.

A sexual affair is just like seasonal flowers. You sow the seeds and within weeks the flowers are there, but within weeks they are gone also. If you long for a big tree which is going to remain for thousands of years, then deep roots are needed.

[A sannyasin said that he was aware of much tension in the whole of his body, particularly in his hands and face, which would ‘seize up’ on occasions. Osho suggested he try the meditation similar to that he had given in darshan on March 22nd, where he sat alone in his room and first induced sadness and then happiness]

These are the only two directions the energy can move – misery and bliss. First move it towards misery so you are finished with misery, and then move it towards happiness. And after misery it is very simple to move towards bliss.

The misery becomes the background and it helps like a blackboard. Whatsoever white lines you draw on it, they show perfectly clearly. You can draw those white lines on a white wall, but they won’t

show. Hell is needed to experience heaven. Darkness is needed to see the stars. They are here and there in the day also... they don’t go anywhere, but you cannot see because darkness is not there; the background is not there. The right situation is not there. In the night as darkness descends, stars start appearing. They are already there, waiting for the darkness to come; darkness reveals them.

So first create misery, anguish, and then shift immediately towards happiness. It is just as if you have been feeling hungry and you have been fasting for a few days, and then suddenly delicious food is served to you. You have an appetite. If you are full, even delicious food not delicious at all; it may even give nausea.

So a person who really enjoys food needs fasting. At least for a few hours he has to fast, otherwise he cannot enjoy food. If you go on eating the whole day, you are finished; there will be no appetite for food.

So remember always the law of the contraries: if you want to enjoy food, fast. If you want to enjoy love, fast. If you want to enjoy relaxation, work. If you really want to be blissful, create hell. This is one thing.…

And the other thing to be remembered: when you create something, you remain the master. When you can shift so easily from hell to heaven, suddenly you will have a tremendous power; you will feel it. Immediately you will feel, ‘I am the master. I can shift from suffering to bliss very easily – just like changing a gear in a car.’

First do it in imagination, then some day try it in reality. Some day you are feeling miserable. Feel miserable – let that be the opportunity. Go deep... sink deep into it... Let it exhaust you. Then immediately change to happiness. First try it in imagination, because it is all imagination. When you are really suffering, then too it is imagination. So if you are capable of changing in imagination, you are capable of changing in reality also because reality is nothing but your imagination. You make it so, that’s why it is so. As a man thinketh, he creates the world.

So for ten days try it and then tell me. After ten days, try it in reality. You can move both ways. Sometimes you are feeling very happy; shift the gear and become unhappy. And see, you can do it. Once you know that you can do it, you are free of the mind, gone beyond. Now the mind cannot control you. Now you know that the mind is a mechanism, and the gear is in your hand. You will feel a tremendous release of power within you. Then nobody can make you miserable. You can laugh even in hell – nobody can prevent you. Try it, mm?

[A sannyas couple present. The man says: Things are much better... 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 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.

Conciousness, 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.

[The woman said that she was in love with another man in Canada and was in a conflict because she felt also very much in love with her 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 Prakash, 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 Prakash, 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 and Prakash 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 centred.

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 Prakash – 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.

[A sannyas says: I feel very self-critical. After social encounters I’m always thinking about what I said, what I could have said.]

Mm... that’s a bad habit. Self-awareness is good, but self-criticism is not good, because it is never to the point. When the moment is gone, then you criticise yourself. Awareness is in the present and

criticism is about the past. You cannot undo it, you cannot re-do it. It is gone, and gone forever; nothing can be done about it. It is simply foolish to waste even a single moment thinking about it, because again in thinking about it, you are wasting the present, again doing the same. Be aware in whatsoever – relationship, work, meditation... whatsoever it is.

When something is there, when something is happening, be aware; never be critical. Because in that moment of awareness, something can be transformed. If you are alert, you may not do many things; you will do other things. If you are aware, you will not be able to make the mistakes that you go on criticising. Awareness has never been anything for which there is any possibility for repentance. A man who is aware, never repents. Whatever he could not do, he has not done. There is no point in pitying oneself, in criticising oneself, feeling sorry for oneself; they are all diseases. So drop that.

And it is an ego-trip. You do something and then you start improving on it in the mind. That simply shows that you have done something which falls below the image of your ego. You have been angry and you always think that you are a very very good person, and you are never angry – and now you have been angry. Then later on you see that your self-image has fallen down. What to do? Now in your own eyes you feel condemned.

How are you going to show your face to others? And you have been broadcasting so much that you are a good man and you are never angry, this and that. Now what about that advertisement that you have been making? You cannot say that you have been angry or greedy or a miser or whatsoever. There is only one way: pulling yourself up by your own shoestrings, you straighten yourself, repent. You say ‘This was wrong. I should not have done this. I should have done something else’. Now you are painting your image. You are saying ‘Maybe I was angry, but it was just a moment’s error. I am repenting for it. Look – there are tears in my eyes. I am not a bad man at all’. You may even go to the person to whom you have been angry and ask his pardon – but that too is an ego-trip. You will again start feeling good, a very good man! You have retained your respectability again. Your self-image is again enthroned.

If you really feel that anger was wrong, then forget about the past. .Now whenever anger is there, remain alert. That is real repentance. Remain alert. I’m not saying don’t ask people’s forgiveness. Ask – but not in repentance. Not for anger but for your unawareness. Can you see the distinction?

If you have been angry, go to the person and say ‘I have been unaware. I behaved like a fool, a drunkard. I was unconscious, drugged. I have done something but I was not there’. Ask forgiveness for your unawareness, not for your anger. And remember the real problem is not anger. The real problem is unawareness.

So next time be more aware. Whether it is anger, hatred, jealousy, possessiveness, a thousand and one things are there... but the real disease is one – unawareness. These are all facets of the same thing. So if you try to change that – these problems – you will never be able to cope, because they are millions.

[The sannyasin answers: I sort of feel I’m being a miser with my energy.]

Then be aware... be aware. Don’t condemn; condemnation is not going to help. It will make you more guilty, and a guilty person becomes more miserly.

Just try to understand it. If you are miserly in your energy, then try to understand ‘I am a miser in my energy. I don’t share’. Let this fact be there. Now move again in relationship, with people, and remember this fact. Let this fact be always there reminding you.

And do something which is not miserly – because these are habits. Just do something which is not miserly. Once you do something which is not miserly, you will say ‘What foolishness I was doing!’

Just today I was reading about the life of an american millionaire. He never gave a single paisa to any donation. Beggars wouldn’t come to his house, and people who wanted donations would never ask because they knew he would say no. His no was absolute.

When one friend was asking for donations for a college, he came to the millionaire and said, ‘I don’t want any donation from you because I know you are not going to give it to me. Just give me a false cheque, and I will return it to you in two days’ time. But that cheque will help me. Give me a cheque for ten thousand dollars – a false cheque – and I will be able to show the whole town that you have given ten thousand dollars, and then others will give. When I have collected others’ donations, your donation will be returned.’

The millionaire thought there was nothing wrong in it and that he could trust the man, he was a friend. He gave the money, and the whole town started talking about it. For two days continuously, people phoned. People came to him and said, ‘We were thinking that you were a miser. We were wrong.’

After two days the friend came... he had collected thousands of dollars. He said, ‘This is your cheque. Take it back. We are very thankful; because of it we have got much.’

The miser started crying. He said ‘Keep it with you. And I am giving you ten thousand more, because I never knew how happy it makes one feel to give. So many people phoned and so many people came. For the first time I saw a totally different dimension. I have been hoarding and hoarding and hoarding, but I have never felt so good as I have felt these two days. Now I am going to give. Tell the whole town that whosoever needs, should come. Even in the middle of the night, I will be ready to give. I have tasted it...’

So the only thing you can do is to do something which is not miserly, and taste that dimension of sharing. If it feels good, then there is no problem; you will do it again. If it doesn’t feel good, there is no problem. You can fall back on your old pattern. Nobody is hindering the path.

But don’t repent and don’t condemn. Simply become more alert about your ways and functionings and how the mechanism of the mind works, mm?

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