7

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‌CHAPTER 7

22 March 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[An indian visitor, who is a professional dancer, asked what meditation technique would be right for her, and then went on to ask about love and relationships.]

There is no need to find any other meditation. Dance itself becomes a meditation if the dancer is lost. The whole point is how to lose oneself. How you do that, or where, is irrelevant. Just lose yourself. A point comes where you are not, and still things go on... as if you are possessed.

Dance is one of the most beautiful things that can happen to a man. So don’t think about meditation separately. Meditation is needed as something separate for people who don’t have any very deep creative energy; no direction for their energy to get so deeply involved that they can be lost

But a dancer, a painter, a sculptor, need not have any other meditation. All that they need is to make their dimension so deeply penetrating that a point of transcendence comes. And there is nothing like dancing.…

[She answers: It’s a little difficult in classical dancing because it is so set.]

No, I know.… But once you know it, there is no need to follow any pattern. The technique has to be known and then forgotten, otherwise you become a technician and not a dancer. Know the technique, because without knowing that you will be unable to go deep in it. Know the technique; know as perfectly as possible. Become as efficient as you can. Then one day drop all technique, and let the dance happen.

All that you know will be involved in it, but now it will not be a directing force. You will be using it but it will not be using you. Only then one becomes a dancer – otherwise one remains a technician. And to be a technician is very ordinary. You can know everything about painting and can be technically

perfect, but still the painting will not be a real painting, a real creation, unless you forget technique. Then things start happening on their own.

Unless a painter becomes a child again, he is not a creative painter. A musician who only knows about his instruments – the ragas and the rhythm and everything – doesn’t become a musician. He can become, at the most, a composer. But a moment can come when he forgets everything, and something greater than him possesses him.

So for at least one hour every day, forget all technique.

That will be your meditation. Every night, make it a point to simply dance to God. So there is no need to be technical – because He is not an examiner. You will simply dance as a small child... as a prayer. Then dance will have a totally different quality to it. You will feel for the first time that you are taking steps that you have never taken before; that you are moving in dimensions which have never been known to you. Unfamiliar and unknown ground will be traversed.

By and by, as you will become more and more in tune with the unknown, all techniques wi!l disappear. And without techniques, when dance is pure and simple, it is perfect.

If you really know something, you need not remember it. You need to remember because you do not really know it and you have to continuously remind yourself that you have to move this way and that way. Forget all knowledge and start moving like a small child, on the spur of the moment. Whatsoever happens, allow it. Don’t be a doer – rather, let things happen to you. Let yourself be possessed, and by and by go with it as vigorously as possible. It should become a whirlpool of energy, because there is a certain intensity at which the doer disappears. If you move very slowly, the doer will not disappear.

If somebody runs very fast, as fast as he can, and even faster than that, then the runner disappears. For example, if the house suddenly catches fire and you run out of it, you are not a runner. When you have run out, only then you will remember that you ran outside – the running happened. It was spontaneous; nobody was managing it, manipulating it.

So by and by go whirling, and make it so energy-full, make the energy move so fast, that you cannot keep pace with it, so that the ordinary ego which can control, drops, lags behind, forgotten. First knowledge goes, and then the ego.

And the third thing is: dance as if you are deep in love with the universe; as if you are dancing with your lover. Let God be your lover. Dance as if you are not alone; as if He is constantly with you holding your hands. If the first two steps become possible, the third will come automatically. And then all your loneliness will disappear.

There is no loneliness, but because we are not in tune with the divine, again and again loneliness comes into our lives.

[Osho went on to say that the person you seek love with is, like you, lonely, so when you meet it is two lonelinesses meeting. You are both seeking someone in whom to lose yourself. Initially things go smoothly because you only expose your good side. By and by, once things have settled and you

marry, you begin to take each other for granted and to expose the darker sides of your nature. Then conflict, struggle and divorce follows]

Only a marriage which has not known love is beyond divorce. Arranged marriages will not be shattered on a divorce, because in the first place there has been no peak. It has been business-like from the very beginning. But if you have been in love, then the struggle is bound to arise; it is natural. But now, don’t waste time over it – rather learn something from it.

So in this third step just start feeling that you are in the hands of God, or whatsoever image you like. If you like Krishna... he is a perfect dancer; just have a picture of him. Dance together, so much so that you almost have a sexual orgasm. Your whole body almost throbs as it should with a lover, and you pass through an orgasmic stage, mm? You may faint. Faint – don’t be worried. You may fall down – fall down.

There is no problem in it. Completely change. It is something you have to do, and the sooner you do, the better Once you live with any misery for long, it becomes part of your mind and habit. Misery is not bad, but to make a habit of it is very very bad. You cannot avoid misery, but you can avoid making a habit of it.

For example, because of this accident you have been miserable for a year. You are paying too much for nothing. Now the trouble is that you may get in tune with it, you may become accustomed to it. A few days, a few months more, and you will start clinging to it because it will become a sort of companionship. Through feeling miserable you will start feeling good. You will start asking for sympathy... and never ask for sympathy, otherwise you will never get love. Sympathy is a poor substitute.

But it happens naturally – when one is in misery, friends start coming, relatives will come, and they will feel sympathy, and you will start relishing it, enjoying it. And you will feel very good. When nobody feels miserable for you, you will feel that something is missing. Never settle for this. Come out of it immediately.

And life always opens another door whenever one closes. Be true to love, and don’t be bothered about lovers. Once you are happy again, somebody may knock at your door. Remain available.

[She asks: What do you mean ‘Be true to love’?]

I mean that one should always be in love with love. People fall in love with persons – that’s a wrong attitude. Do you understand me?

If you fall in love with a person and he dies, what to do? A person betrays you, leaves you, what to do? Find another person. Why be confined to him? Who knows – there may be a better person waiting for you. Maybe it is only because of that better door which is going to open that this door has closed.

But this can be known only afterwards; only retrospectively, one can see how things happen. And it is my observation: that if you look at your life retrospectively, you will see that everything that has happened, happened as it should have. But the future unknown.

Never be confined because of the past. Future is an opening... Let it remain open. Future is greater than anything that has gone in the past. The past is limited. It is already finished and gone, already dust.

And when I say be true to love, I mean be in love with love, and never waste a single moment without love.

Why wait and sit and become miserable? If you become too miserable, you will attract somebody who likes misery. He may fall in love with you – and then if you become happy, he will be unhappy, because he was searching for someone who is in misery.

Be happy, so that you only attract happy people... happiness protects. You attract only people who love happiness, and you think of life in terms of celebration, festivity. Whomsoever we attract, we attract. It has been noted that people fall in love with the same type of person again and again and again. They never learn.

Learn out of each experience. Life is a learning for love. If love succeeds, you come closer and closer to God. If love fails, then too, you come closer and closer to God – because then one starts thinking of meditation. If love succeeds there is no need to think about meditation.

You must have heard – somebody, a young man, asked Socrates whether he should get married, knowing well that Socrate’s wife was a very very nagging, ugly, and cruel woman, who used to beat Socrates.

Socrates said, ‘You should get married. If you get a wife like mine, you will become a great philosopher (laughter). And if you get a good wife – perfectly good! There are only two possibilities, but don’t miss them!’

So for one month dance without any technique. Just go really crazy. This is going to change your complete attitude, your energy quality.

[A sannyasin involved in film-making, said that he would like to use sound and colour in his films in such a way that it created a certain vibration in the audience. He asked Osho if this was a good idea.]

Gurdjieff was working on those lines, particularly with movements.

Everything is connected – just as in your body, the eyes are connected with the ears; the ears are connected with the nose – they are not really separate. There is no airtight compartmentalisation in the body. It functions as a whole. One part of it becomes a specialised, localised, sensitivity of feeling. Another part is for seeing, another for taste, touch, smell – but it is the one body. So they are all connected inside you.

So sound can be used in such a way that it will not only affect your ears, it will affect your whole being. Forms can be used, and movements can be used in such a way that they will not only affect your eyes, but will go deep down into your very chromosomes. Because you are a unity, whatsoever happens to you can become a unitary impact. It can be local... it can become unitary.

Much can be done on it. You will need a small lab and a small group of people – four or five sannyasins, young, and with no prejudices. Then you will have to do some initial research. Much has been done in different fields, you can also collect that data, but you will have to go on your own, because nothing exists in fact as a science. Many possibilities exist in that dimension.

With light a few experiments are being done – how it affects the working of your mind. Because if light goes on changing very fast, it confuses you, throws you into shock. It disorients the mind so that the mind cannot function on its normal course. And once it is unhinged, there are gaps, small gaps where you can see without the mind. The same can be done with sound and with smell. For centuries mos-ques and temples and churches have been using incense. A particular smell affects you very deeply, goes deep down.

Later on you can have a lab and work here. [That would be great!

About meditation... I find I like to do it sometimes, and sometimes I like to sit in the garden, or stare at the stars... just be. I just like the energies to flow wherever they want.]

I think you should continue meditating for six months, and if you feel like being spontaneous and sitting – some other time. But for six months have a particular time that is for meditation. The mind is very cunning. Whenever you want to meditate it will say, ‘Why? Be spontaneous! Look at the stars.’ And for twenty-three hours there were no stars, no spontaneity (laughter). So don’t be deceived!

Give one hour to meditation for six months, and then you will become more capable of knowing how the mind seduces you onto wrong ways. It happens that whenever you want to meditate, the mind suggests a thousand and one things, beautiful things, but tell the mind that twenty-three hours are for you – then you can come and make suggestions!

[A sannyasin says: Quite often I feel very negative, without energy, just dead. It comes and goes, but the energy I do have, goes to my head.]

Mm mm, everything is going well. There is some mechanism of which I am awareFor these six

months that you are away, I would like to give you a small method.

Negativity is very very natural. It should not be so, but it is, because every child passes through many negative moments.

First, in the mother’s womb, the child remains in deep negativity. He has to depend continuously on the mother, on her moods. He has no way of showing his own will. If the mother is ill, he is ill. If the mother is sad, he is sad. If the mother is feeling nauseous, he is feeling nauseous. So he has to follow like a shadow. That gives him one of the most basic negative feelings about life – that he is impotent; that he has no energy, no power.

Then he comes out of the womb. The passage from the womb to the world is very difficult. He passes through something almost like death; a great struggle, trauma. It is as if he is being uprooted.

He is uprooted. He has lived in the womb, is accustomed to it, and now he is uprooted; completely out of it. He is just like a small plant being taken out of the ground. He feels shaken.

Then comes the hazardous life. Now he has to live on his own. And every moment he learns more and more of negativity. He is feeling hungry – he has to cry and weep. Continuously there is the feeling of being dependent, a slave. And this goes on and on and on.

Then as he is brought up, everybody is telling him what to do, what not to do – as if he is nobody. He is a small, tiny weakling in the world of giants, and everybody is trying to manipulate him. Deep inside he goes on saying ‘No, No, No!’ On the outside he has to say ‘Yes, yes, yes’. He becomes a hypocrite.

So try this method each night for sixty minutes. For forty minutes, just become negative – as negative as you can. Close the doors, put pillows around the room. Unhook the phone, and tell everybody that you are not to be disturbed for one hour. Put a notice on the door saying that for one hour you should be left totally alone. Make things as dim as possible. Put on some gloomy music, and feel dead. Sit there and feel negative. Repeat ‘No’ as a mantra (laughter).

Imagine scenes of the past – when you were very very dull and dead, and you wanted to commit suicide, and there was no zest to life – and exaggerate them. Create the whole situation around you. Your mind will distract you. It will say, ‘What are you doing? The night is so beautiful, and the moon is full!’ Don’t listen to the mind. Tell it that it can come later on, but that this time you are devoting completely to negativity. Be religiously negative, mm? Cry, weep, shout, scream, swear – whatsoever you feel like, but remember one thing – don’t become happy (laughter). Don’t allow any happiness. If you catch yourself, immediately give yourself a slap! Bring yourself back to negativity, and start beating the pillows, fighting with them, jumping. Be nasty! And you will find it very very difficult to be negative for these forty minutes.

This is one of the basic laws of the mind – that whatsoever you do consciously, you cannot do. But do it – and when you do it consciously, you will feel a separation. You are doing it but still you are a witness; you are not lost in it. A distance arises, and that distance is tremendously beautiful. But I am not saying to create that distance. That is a by-product – you need not worry about it. After forty minutes suddenly jump out of the negativity.

Throw the pillows away, put on the lights, put on some beautiful music, and have a dance for twenty minutes. Just say ‘Yes! yes! yes!’ – let it be your mantra. And then take a good shower. It will uproot all the negativity, and it will give you a new glimpse of saying yes. And to come to saying yes is what religion is all about. We have been trained to say no – that’s how the whole society has become ugly.

So this will cleanse you completely. You have energy, but all around the energy you have negative rocks, and they don’t allow it out. Once these rocks are removed you will have a beautiful flow. It is just there, ready to come out, but first you have to go into negativity. Without going deep into the no, nobody can attain to a peak of yes. You have to become a no-sayer, then yea-saying comes out of that.

[Some time ago in a lecture Osho was asked why it was that the closer one got to him, the further

away he seemed to recede. He replied that this is how it is – that when one comes close to the master, one is approaching a fire, a death, so naturally one will feel this... ]

I am there and yet I am not there. If you are far away from me, I am there. If you come close, I am not there. Deep within me you will not find anybody there – just a nobodiness, a nothingness, a deep emptiness.

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