CHAPTER 22
6 April 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
[A sannyasin said that she had not been meditating for the past few months as she felt the presence of a force almost like a person’s presence when she started to meditate, and in fear she would have to open her eyes.
Osho checked her energy.]
It is nothing to be worried about. Rather you should be happy that it is happening... but fear comes.
Nobody is there. It is just your expansion of consciousness that you feel around you – and particularly near the shoulder Sometimes it happens in deep meditation that your body aura becomes bigger than ordinarily. Ordinarily it is close to the body, clinging to the body like clothes. When you are deep in meditation – and it will happen particularly in Dynamic meditation because much energy arises, and so much is flowing inside – the aura becomes bigger. The aura becomes so big that you almost feel as if somebody else is present. It is your own presence that you are feeling for the first time; nobody else is there. But I can see that near the shoulders it is too big – and near the head also.
When for the first time you come to realise your own aura, you always feel as if somebody else is present. That is an interpretation of the mind, because something new is present, something unfamiliar is present. The mind can only think that somebody else is present. And of course when somebody else is present, you have to open your eyes.
There is no need to be afraid, mm? If you enjoy it.Whenever you feel it, be happy. Be happy and
allow it more and more. It is your own energy that is moving around you, almost touching you. Soon you will be able to see it and feel it. It will always be felt as if somebody is at the back and you would like to look at the back. There is no need to be worried. If you look, you disturb the whole thing.
[Recently I’ve been feeling that I’ve just been storing everything inside me, that I’m closed and locked. I feel that I’m holding myself all together inside.
It’s like I don’t have the courage to be authentic and just let things flow through me.]
That is not the problem. The problem arises because of the choice. In the old days people were taught to hold themselves. That was the idea – to hold oneself... to remain centred, in control. That has been the ideal for all the ages past: the controlled man, the disciplined man, the man who holds his energy in himself; is not leaking from anywhere. That was the ideal for centuries. That was a choice.
Energy needs both: it needs to flow, it needs to be disciplined also. If you hold it too much it will become stagnant.
So now the modern mind has moved to the other extreme – not to hold at all. ‘Flow’ has become the slogan of the day. But if you flow too much you will become poor, impoverished. If you flow too much you will lose yourself; the centre will be lost. You will live on the circumference. And this is how it goes on in the human mind – from one extreme to the other. Then people get fed up with the other extreme, so they move to the first again, finding no other way. And the real way is not to choose between the two, but to allow both together, choicelessly.
So when the energy is storing, you need not be worried. Don’t hold... don’t try any control on your part, that’s all. If energy itself is storing, that’s the moment to store, that’s the moment to conserve; that is the moment to become a reservoir of energy. When the reservoir is full, it will overflow. Then don’t hinder it when it overflows – that is another moment, the other extreme of sharing, of going out, moving on the periphery, living in the world, meeting, relationships, and a thousand and one things. But allow the energy to have its own way.
To be authentic does not mean just to flow. To be authentic means whatsoever is happening, let it happen. If holding is happening, let it happen. If you are trying... and you are trying, that’s why the problem arises. Whenever energy is moving in one way and you try to force it in another way, you create a problem, a contradiction. The energy is going in and you want to force it out, so the problem arises. When the energy is going in, ride on it and go in. Go to the very end, to the very core of your being... Let the whole world disappear. There comes a moment when only you exist and nobody else. Only the centre exists and all of the periphery is so far away, it is so distant... like stars which you cannot see. They are – but so far away... almost as if they are not. That is one extreme, one polarity of energy. There it becomes a seed. That is the seed time... one conserves. Returning to the source. One turns into oneself... turning in. Enjoy it.
That has been the goal for ages. For centuries all the religions have been trying to do it, but they missed because they were afraid of flow. They thought flow was a leakage. Now the opposite thing has become the fashion of the day. People think to be in is frozen. To be in and not flowing is condemned. People say you are closed. No.
When the energy is moving in, on its own, you are not closed. It is night time and one needs rest. One cannot sit in the marketplace the whole day, twenty-four hours. One closes one’s doors, puts off the light and goes to bed. After the day’s hard work one needs that. You have been in much turmoil
– the relationship and the whole turmoil of it – so you need rest. It is rest. Don’t use wrong words for it. Don’t say ‘I’m closed’, because the moment you say ‘I’m closed’, you have already started a contradiction. You would like to be open. Don’t say ‘I am holding’. You are not holding; the energy is moving in. It is becoming a seed. When the right season comes, it will sprout and will become a tree again.
If you make a contradiction right now and try to bring yourself out.You can bring with hard effort,
but that is a sheer wastage and you will create great trouble for the future because you have been half-way, and the centre will miss energy. The centre will be pulling you in and you will be pulling out. Who are you to go against the energy? It is just an idea.
Always follow the energy. Trust energy. That’s what I mean when I say trust. Trust God means trust energy, trust vitality, trust life. Wherever it leads, go... with a deep trust in your heart. It is leading you to the right thing. Don’t make your own judgements.
Soon you will be flowing. Then again remember, because when you start flowing, you will feel that you are missing that silence, that inward peace and stillness. Then you will become afraid of the flow. You will talk of leakage and say ’I am wasting my energy and it is too much. I don’t want relationship – and this and that.
Because of half-heartedness, this problem arises. If you really go to the centre, the centre itself will throw you back to the periphery. If you go deep to the periphery, the periphery itself throws you back to the centre in the right moment. It is a natural flow.
It is just like rivers that go and drop into the ocean. They evaporate and then they become clouds. Again they come onto the hills and pour down.and again the river flows. It goes on that way. The
river goes on pouring into the sea; the sea goes on pouring back into the river. The continuity is never lost.the circle continues.
The centre goes on pouring in the periphery, the periphery goes on pouring in the centre. Don’t you come in.don’t get in the way. Just allow the energy and put yourself aside. That’s all that
meditation is about – to put oneself aside, not to interfere. It takes much courage not to interfere, because the mind tends to interfere. It is a trespasser.
But I see that everything is so good, mm?
[A sannyasin says: The last six months I’ve been in relationshipand now I’m going back to the
West. It’s putting me through an attachment trip.]
... East is the centre and West is the periphery. One gets attached to one extreme.
Never get attached... always be a wanderer between East and West. If [your girlfriend can go, take her. If she is not going then go alone. Enjoy aloneness – nothing wrong in it. When one enjoys a relationship, one has earned aloneness. If you loved somebody, I say you have earned now to be alone. And it is going to be beautiful. It is going to be a rest from relationship, and then you will be ready again with more energy, vitality, to move into a relationship. Nothing is wrong in it.
It is always good to be separate from people you love so that you can love again, because every departure is an arrival. And if you never depart, then you will divorce. Departure is not a divorce. That’s what’s happening, mm? One feels love and feels not to go. Good. When one feels like leaving someone, things have become ugly. Always get up from your lunch or supper when you would still have liked to have been there a little more; get up a little hungry.
It is good to get up when you are still feeling a little hungry. Fill the stomach three-quarters, rather than feeling nauseous and stuffing yourself, and having to be carried out by others. That is not good. And directly from the table to the hospital is not good (laughter).
That is the rule, the law for everything. When you are still feeling good in a relationship, it is very very helpful sometimes to go away, to give a gap. You can be alone, your beloved can be alone to sort things out; then come back. Why be afraid? If there has been love, there will be love. Love will wait for you.
Love never dies through separation, never. If it dies at all, it dies through too much togetherness; never by separation. To be together too much is almost suffocating to love. That’s why husbands and wives kill love; they murder it. They are together so much that the very appetite disappears. Gaps are needed. And that’s what is happening in the West: marriage has become almost an ideal. It is disappearing – it will have to disappear. The East knew better.…
[Osho went on to say that because in the East families are joint, with many people living together husbands and wives seldom had a moment together. During the day it was not possible, and at night they could only communicate in whispers. Hence, their love was kept alive, vital.]
Now in the West, joint families have disappeared and man and woman are left alone so they can have as much togetherness as they like. They can make love in the night, they can make love in the morning, they can make love in the afternoon. And soon they are finished. There are no barriers. Both are available to each other too much... the appetite disappears. Soon they are looking tired, bored. There is no awaiting.
It is as if you are continuously sitting at the table and eating and eating and eating. A little fast is needed between two meals. You have to fast for six, eight hours; the longer the better. The same is true for love, because love is also food. Whatsoever applies to food, applies to love. Love is the subtlest food.
You eat it, and it nourishes you. It gives you strength and life – so don’t take too much nourishment. Too much of everything is bad – and particularly sweet things (laughter). They create diabetes, mm? Love creates diabetes. If you love too much, it is too sweet, delicious. Avoid it. A little here and there is good. Mix it with salt – that’s what separation is. If you want to avoid divorce, always enjoy separating.
So you go, mm? And come back soon. And that will be good: waiting there and thinking of [your girlfriend]. That is going to be great (laughter).
[The Primal group is at darshan. The groupleader says: When I meditate in the lecture in the morning, I find myself going very deep into something. I feel a popping sensation... something popping and just showering down.
Then I leave the lecture and I feel really quiet, and it’s difficult when I have to come back to the group, to orientate myself into this other space; to coming out and being active and relating to people. I just want to stay very quiet.]
I understand, mm mm. It always happens that when you are really going in, you can never be sure where you are going, never, because you have never been there. The territory is completely unfamiliar, strange... it is a new space. It can even frighten you sometimes. It can become scary because it feels as if you are being lost in it. But it is good that you are not frightened and scared. Rather you are feeling a showering of energy and something popping in the head. Very good. That will happen only when you accept the new space that is opening for you.
Very rarely people accept it. When they accept, when they welcome it, they will have this popping feeling... something opening; buds opening and becoming blossoms. And immediately they will have the certain feeling of something showering on them, because whenever you open, something showers. It is waiting for you to open. It is showering already; it is just that you are missing because you are not receptive. It is raining already, but your pot is upside-down, so you don’t receive it. You go on missing it. And the rains cannot do anything to put your pot rightside-up. That is what is happening in the morning when you are sitting near me.
Listening to me, and listening to a hindi lecture which you cannot understand, helps tremendously because your mind cannot function. The language is not understood so the mind has nothing to do, to think about, to spin, to decide this way or that. By and by, listening to the sound, you become more and more alert about my presence, mm? because the mind stops. It cannot function. What you hear is more like music... it silences you. And because you cannot understand what I am saying you’re understanding more of what I am... a direct contact.
This is what in Zen they call ‘transmission beyond the scriptures’... a direct energy contact. Suddenly you feel the opening, and in the opening, the showering.
And of course when you go from there, you have to move to the opposite polarity – activity. And it will be difficult, but try to do it; don’t make it difficult. That’s where many people miss. If you become incapable of activity, then your silence can never be total; it will be afraid of activity. Your silence will become escapist.
That’s what has happened in the East. Millions of people became escapists. They experienced this type of silence and they thought, ‘What is the point of going to the market and to the shop and the office? What is the point of carrying on worldly affairs? Drop out!’
The word drop-out is very new in the West. In the East it is one of the most ancient words. A sannyasin means a drop-out... one who has found some inner space and does not care about what is going on outside. So an indifferent attitude arose, such as you will see in Indians. A beggar is there, and an Indian will pass totally indifferent. A Westerner cannot pass easily. He starts thinking... he cannot forget the beggar and what is happening to him – that nobody cares. The road is dirty, and everywhere is dirt and ugliness. An Indian passes completely oblivious.
The reason is that in the past five thousand years many Indians have come to this space of inner silence. Now they don’t get involved in any activity, because if you say ‘Feed the poor’ then they have
to become active. If you say ‘Serve the ill’ they. have to be active. If you say ‘Clean the road and be hygienic’ they have to be active. But they don’t care. This is their escape. They say, ‘The world goes on like that. It has always been like that, and who is going to change it? And who bothers? Why should I waste my time and my being?’
So this will happen to many sannyasins here – I would not like it to. This is the whole misery of the East. And the whole misery of the West is activity. The whole misery of the East is inactivity. Once you become active you forget silence, those inner spaces when you were not in this world, not of this world; when you were not in any way influenced by the gravitation of the earth. You were flying high... almost weightless.
You miss. You become active... you become heavy. Gravitation starts functioning on you. Then you run from one activity to another, and from another to still another. Your whole life becomes a running; a chasing of something – you don’t know what it is. You just go on changing one activity into another activity. Out of one activity you create ten, and this goes on and on. One day you fall dead. Your whole life just a tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise and signifying nothing.
But both are dangerous if one becomes obsessed and fixated. Both are beautiful if one remains flowing. My whole emphasis is to come to an inner balance, so that you can come into the house and go out of it, and nothing debars you. Neither the outside is an obsession so that you cannot come in, nor the inside so that you cannot go out. One should be so easily moving from in to out and from out to in, as one moves in and out of a house.
When you are shivering in the house and it is sunny outside, why shiver inside? Come out! But then when it is afternoon and it is too hot, then don’t perspire – come in! And don’t make a decision that you have to be out or you have to be in... both create attachments. When you are out, you will see the flowers and the sun and the clouds, and you may get attached. You will say ‘It is worth it. Let the perspiration be there. It is a little hot, okay – but there are beautiful flowers’. And if you become attached to the inside, you say ‘It is so silent, no disturbance. Of course it is a little chilly, cold, but it is worth it’.
Both are wrong attitudes. Partiality is wrong. Choice is wrong, prejudice is wrong. And I call a man really alive who can move from one polarity to another easily; from this bank to another, from this shore to another. Nothing holds him – he’s always ready.
Sol would suggest that immediately after the lecture you go and change the focus. Get into activity, whatsoever the natural tendency of the mind. The mind will say ‘It is beautiful in. Where are you going?’ Don’t listen to the mind, otherwise soon the mind will make the inside ugly also.
I am neither in favour of activity nor in favour of inactivity. I am in favour of flowing, being. Don’t become frozen. If you can remember that, that’s all. So whenever you feel that you are getting attached inside, move out immediately. Don’t lose a single moment. Attachment is bad. Do something. If you are feeling that it is getting too beautiful and you will not be able to come out, jump out of it! Run around. Do something – but get out of it. And when you see that the activity is becoming feverish, neurotic just immediately drop in and go in. Neither be an introvert nor an extrovert. Be a man (laughter)... just flowing, alive.
[The assistant leader says: I hit on something – about needing approval – and I realised that if I stopped wanting that I’d have to face my alonenessIt’s like a performance.]
Always feel that whatsoever you feel good, is good. If you feel good in being after approval, nothing is wrong.
Let it be! If you feel good, then what is wrong in performing? I think you are against happiness or something. What is wrong in performance? Do it well, that’s all. Be a good actor. Always remember that ultimately what counts is your happiness. If you feel good, then why not? If you don’t feel good, then drop it; there is no point. The problem arises because something makes you feel good and you condemn it for some other reason – for example, that it is a performance. But everything is a performance.
The whole existence is a performance... God performing and enjoying it. Otherwise why should He do it? He should have stopped long before; it seems He cannot stop. No – He is enjoying tremendously.
So whatsoever you do that feels good, continue. Good is the real gold. Good is the only value. If you feel good, then who is there to say not to do it? But mind is a trouble-maker. If you are feeling good the mind will say ‘Why are you feeling so good?’ Now the question is there – sadness settles. Then the mind is happy; it has put you in trouble. Now you can be sad and depressed.…
Perform! There is nothing wrong in it. If you love a person you will like to perform many things for him. And of course you will like the approval. If a Picasso is painting, deep down there is a need of approval. If nobody likes the painting, nobody approves of it, nobody looks at it, he will feel hurt. Picasso used to go to his exhibitions and stand at the door to see how many people were looking at his paintings, what they were saying. A poet writes poetry, and he enjoys it tremendously when people are happy. Nothing is wrong in it – he makes people happy; their happiness makes him happy. It is reciprocal. You do something and somebody becomes happy. You become happy that you did it. When you are happy, somebody else feels so good that it was good that he was happy, because he has made you happy. It goes on.mirrors reflecting each other. Perfectly okay.
That’s why when you stop this you feel lonely, because when you stop you are cut from people. If you think that performance is wrong, if you think that approval is wrong, or seeking the approval is wrong, then you are cut. You don’t know how to make the bridge, how to approach people; for what. This performing, the need for approval, connects you, joins you with people.
I would like you to become a hedonist... and you seem to be a little sadistic or masochistic. You enjoy being sad and you create your sadness out of nothing. Drop all this. Just make one thing a criterion: happiness is the criterion.
Do whatsoever is going to make you happy – whatsoever it is – but be happy for three months. And if you are not I will make you an ascetic! (laughter) Follow this for three months and we will see. You may be a born ascetic!
[The co-leader of the Primal group says: I’m beginning to really enjoy the groups now. I’m beginning to explore myself, and I can see now that thinking is always the barrier.]
That is a barrier. It hinders your eyesight. It clouds your vision and you cannot see what is the case. You interpret it, and all interpretations are wrong. Uninterpreted fact is the truth... naked, bare, as it is. You are not mixing yourself in it.
... Keep alert, because the mind tends to fall into old habits again and again and again. Whenever you feel that something alive has happened, protect it, feed it. Play with it from many directions so you become more acquainted with it and you cannot lose it. Go to it from many places so that if you forget one path, you know another. If you forget another path, you know still another.
And taste it in different moods – when you are sad, then; when you are happy, then; when you are angry, then – so you become more and more certain about it. It is as if it is almost in your hands. Whenever you need, you can open your hand and find it.
Otherwise many times it happens that a person has a glimpse and then things become cloudy again, and he does not know how to find it again. Then he starts becoming suspicious. When he cannot find it again, he thinks ‘Maybe I just dreamt about it. Maybe I just imagined it. Perhaps it has never been there and I was just thinking about it’. And once you suspect that, you are cut from it totally. Then it will take years to get into it again, until another situation, another fortunate moment when you can get into contact with it again.
Many people fall into places which are tremendously valuable, beautiful, but they miss them again and again. They are like wanderers who have stumbled but they don’t know where they are, and they will go far away again.
So catch hold of it... keep a thread in your hand. And whenever you have something which you feel has made you more alive, then make it a part of your being so that you don’t lose it again.
[Another co-leader says: In the group when I work with people, the more I like them, the more helpless I feel. I don’t know what to do then.]
... It is not really helplessness. You want to be too helpful – too helpful, beyond your capacities, so you feel helpless. It always happens when you would like to do too much and you cannot. It never happens to miserly people, but to people who want to share. But there is a limit.
Love knows no limit. But humanity is limited, so that becomes the barrier. Love would like to fly on and on. But suddenly you have a body and you cannot fly, so you are rooted in the earth. So if you want to love too much you feel helpless. Nothing is wrong in it. Accept that helplessness... it is good. Don’t be crippled by it. Rather be happy that you wanted to love so much, you wanted to give so much, that you felt that nothing was enough.
It is almost like a mother. A mother never feels that she is doing all that she wants to do for the child. That’s the difference between the secretary of an organization and a mother. A secretary will claim things that he has done; he will make a great annual report of what he has done. If you go to a mother and ask about an annual report, she will shrug her shoulders. She will say ‘What to say? I have not done anything. In fact I feel so incapable and helpless. I wanted to do this and that and that and I couldn’t do it. The child is so lovely and I am so incapable’. Almost all mothers feel inadequate because all love likes to do much – more than is humanly possible to do.
So nothing to be worried about, mm? They all feel that you have been helpful, tremendously helpful, and too loving. Helplessness enters, but don’t become sad about it; rather be happy. Miserly people will. never feel that.
I have heard about a woman who died, and when the angels came to take her, they enquired ‘Have you ever done any good deed? Otherwise you will have to go to hell’. She thought and thought, and then she remembered the one good deed she had done. Once to a beggar she had given a carrot – just one carrot. But God is compassionate and. the angels were very very helpful. They said ‘Okay, this will do’.
So they called for the carrot... it appeared. They told the woman, ‘Hang on to the carrot and it will fly like a rocket and take you into heaven’. So she started rising high... she felt very happy. An old beggar appeared. He clutched at the hem of her torn dress and was elevated along with her. A third candidate for mercy began similarly to be uplifted being suspended from the foot of the beggar. A long series of persons, one below the other, began to be drawn up by that single carrot. Strange as it may seem, the woman felt no weight from all these souls hanging from her!
When she was just near the gate, she looked down. It was such a big line – almost touching the earth. She said ’Hey! What are you doing? This is my carrot! Be off! ’She waved her hand to keep them away – and the carrot was lost, mm? – and she fell with the whole queue! (laughter)
So misers will come back from the gate of heaven, because of their very claim ‘This is my carrot’.
But if you are really giving and if you really enjoy giving, you will always feel ‘What is there that is mine? It is all theirs. One comes empty-handed, goes empty-handed, so what am I giving? Just returning gifts of God to his infinite forms around’.
Love always feels inadequate. Be tremendously happy about it, and next group you will feel helpless and happy. And always remember, never tell anybody ‘This is my carrot’, mm? All these people are going to hang with you!
[Another group member said that she had been told she should try to be more womanly.
Osho said to listen to her own feelings, and that it was perfectly okay to be boyish, if that is how she wanted to be... ]
A real world will be bi-sexual. It will not be divided into man and woman. Every woman is also a man and every man is also a woman. It has to be so, because half of you comes from your mother, and half of you comes from your father. So you are both; everybody is both.
This is your choice that you decide in favour of your father; perfectly good. It is the others’ choice if they decide in favour of their mother. But you are neither and you are both. So don’t be worried about it. There is nothing wrong in being a boy in a girl’s body.
[A group member said: I’m a little bit ashamed because I don’t know if I trust you or not. I’m not sure. People would ask and I would say ‘I don’t know’.]
If you don’t know, you don’t know. What can you do? Don’t be worried about it. The truth is that you don’t know. Trust will come out of this authenticity. If you say that you trust and you don’t, then trust will never come. If you say that you don’t trust.And it is not true because negativities are never
true. One cannot live in a ‘no’. One cannot live in an unbelief, distrust. Impossible.
So it is good that you say ‘I don’t know’. If this is the case, you have to say it. Then wait and go on working. One day out of this innocence – it is not a denial, it is simply innocence, not knowing – trust will come. It is already on the way.
I am trying to find a way to enter you, mm? That’s my problem, not yours!
[A group member says: I was surprised to hear that people got the feeling from me that I was cold and mean and selfish. I feel just the opposite.]
No, don’t be worried about what idea people have of you, because ultimately what is significant is what you think about yourself.
Others’ opinions are just opinions; because they are outside, they look at your face. They cannot see you – they can only see the outer shell. They cannot enter you.they cannot touch you.
So whatsoever they think are just impressions gathered from the body, from the outside; they are inferences. Don’t be worried about them. Just listen to what they say. If you feel they are right, then thank them. If you feel they are not right, then thank them then also, and tell them that somewhere they have inferred wrongly. But don’t get excited about it. It has nothing to do with you.
Sometimes a person may say that you are mean, and he himself may be mean, and sometimes a person may say that you are selfish, because he wanted something from you and you couldn’t give it to him. Now he is throwing the whole responsibility on you. When people say something about somebody else, it is more possible that they are saying something about themselves.
But listen, because it happens many times that you may not be able to observe yourself as accurately as others can, because they are far away and you are too close to yourself. You have too many vested interests in yourself, and they have none. They are impartial observers. Maybe they are right. Listen to what they say, but always judge it according to your inner feeling, and whatsoever you feel inside.
[A group member says: It took me much closer to pain that I didn’t know about. My sexuality, my difficulty with relationships came up.
I have this tremendous block with my mother who died nine years ago. I haven’t been able to go into it yet but I got a lot closer.]
This group will be very very helpful. It will clean you and make you clear about many things.
Man’s problem, more or less, is concerned with the mother. The mother is such a significant person, such an important person, that it is difficult not to be entangled with your own mother in many ways. Healthy, unhealthy, natural, perverted; in a thousand and one ways, one is entangled with the
mother. The sexuality particularly is bound to be entangled with the mother, because she is the first woman you came in contact with.
The problem arises because a boy loves his mother non-sexually; his first love is non-sexual, and his first love is a woman. Now, next time he falls in love with a woman, the trouble can arise. Again the woman is there, and love has to be sexual. Now there is trouble. If it is going to be non-sexual again, then there is no problem; everything will fit together.
Every man would like the woman he loves to be his mother, deep down, so the problem is not there. Every boy falls again and again in love with his own mother. Again and again you go on finding in women your own mother. Something clicks: the face, the eyes, the nose, the way she walks, the body structure, the colour of the hair. Something clicks in you and suddenly you are impressed by the woman. That’s why people say ‘I don’t know why I love this woman’. You must be loving your mother. Try to find out. Somewhere you will see a glimpse of your mother in this woman. Now the problem arises because the mother is a non-sexual love object.
Every man making love to a woman, if he loves her, will feel guilty. If she is a prostitute there is no problem. With a prostitute you will never feel guilty because you don’t love her; she is not your mother. But if you love a woman and then you make love to her – a deep guilt. What are you doing? Not conscious, in the unconscious, making love to your own mother. It is impossible to even think about; a great inhibition, a vast taboo. Some day it is going to be dropped, but it is still there.
So this has to be tackled. You have to untangle a few things with your mother, and you have to become mature enough to love a woman sexually, and not ask her to be your mother. Ask her to be your children’s mother! Don’t ask her to be your mother, otherwise there is going to be difficulty.
Once you have settled accounts with your mother, almost ninety percent of problems are solved. This simply shows the importance of the mother in one’s life.
You learn everything from the mother. The first contact with the world is your mother. The first contact with the breast of the woman is your mother. And it is very difficult to find a man who is not interested in womens’ breasts, impossible. Rarely, sometimes a Buddha, otherwise not.
When you see a woman, immediately the first thing you see is the breast, not anything else. Again, you are searching for the mother. The breasts are just symbols of motherhood. So if a woman has small breasts, nobody is interested in her, because mothers have big breasts. Of course when the child is born, the mother has big breasts. The child comes in contact with big breasts – swollen, full of milk, ready to feed. And when you see a flat-chested woman, she is immediately repulsive to you. She is not your mother.
Otherwise nothing is wrong – a woman is a woman. But somehow deep down in the unconscious, the beauty of the breasts has entered. And the bigger the better, because the child feels more confident. The breasts are so full that there is no need to be afraid of the future. Tomorrow also they will be flowing, and the day after tomorrow they will also be flowing. The mother is there. When you see a woman with small breasts, something creates a barrier. Small breasts? That woman doesn’t look like a woman.
So women have learned the trick. They go on falsifying their breasts; stuffing their breasts with things just to make them big. The whole human literature is involved with breasts. Poetry, drama, novels, films, old and new – all media are involved with breasts, because every man has been a child and it is difficult to get rid of the mother. It goes On influencing you, it is a deep imprint, and all problems surround it.
Take courage; get insights and work them out in your life. Next time you love a woman, don’t love her as your mother. Be an adult – love her as your friend, as a girlfriend, as your wife, but not as a mother. Search for the woman, not the mother. If you can put your mother aside and can face the woman directly, all sexual problems will disappear.
Many people have come to me with the problem of impotence, premature ejaculation, and a thousand and one things, but deep down I always see that the problem is the mother. They become so afraid of the woman... premature ejaculation. They become so apprehensive, scared, in such a turmoil and fever... premature ejaculation. Or they become so afraid of the woman, feeling – it is in the unconscious; they don’t know – that they are going to make love to their mother, that they become impotent. That impotence is not real.
Out of a hundred impotent persons, almost seventy-five percent are just psychologically impotent. With the prostitute they are not impotent; when they go to a prostitute they are perfectly manly. When they come to the woman they love, they are impotent. It is something mysteriousBecause with
the woman they love, the mother enters.
This is my understanding, that prostitutes are not going to disappear from the world unless the mother problem is solved. They cannot disappear – they fulfill a certain necessity. They give you sex without love; that is their necessity. And with sex, no love has become involved.
[A groupmember says: I’m glad you told me to carry on the group (see darshan March 31st). But I feel I’ve missed.]
Yes, you did miss. But I will give you other opportunities, don’t be worried. I am never a miser about opportunities.