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‌CHAPTER 8

9 March 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Asango means absolute aloneness. It does not mean loneliness. Loneliness is a negative state, it is miserable. You are hankering for the other and the other is not available; you would like to be with the other but you are forced to be lonely. Loneliness is enforced, it is empty. Aloneness is positive; it is not forced. You don’t miss the other; on the contrary, you find yourself. The other is completely forgotten, you rejoice in your being; that is aloneness.

Aloneness makes one an individual, otherwise a person remains just a part of the crowd, dependent, in subtle ways a slave. Freedom is the fragrance of aloneness. And the paradox is that only one who knows what aloneness is, is capable of love too; that is one of the mysteries of life. Only an individual can love: you can love only when you are, otherwise who is going to love? People go on playing the game of love but they ARE not, so those gestures are empty. There is no substance in it; it is just fantasy... sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, but it is fantasy all the time. Only a real person can love, only an individual can love. Love can only come out of your being, never otherwise. And in aloneness the being is found.

So this is the paradox: the person who hankers for the other never finds it possible to commune with the other because he is not; there is nobody to commune. So he goes on rushing from one relationship to another, from one thing to another, from one sensation to another sensation; he goes on hoping and goes on being frustrated at every step. His whole life is just a hope and a frustration, and no hope is ever fulfilled. He chases the other but he never finds the other, because he has not done the homework: he has not yet found himself.

Asango means one who is alone, and out of that aloneness, all that is beautiful is born: love, freedom, silence, communion. So aloneness is not anti-love or anti-relationship: aloneness is the very foundation of love and relationship. And it is a very very ecstatic state of being; it is not empty. So those two words, aloneness and loneliness, appear to be synonymous; they are

not. Linguisticaly they may be, but existentially not; they are poles apart. Loneliness is darkness, impotence; aloneness is light, potence. Aloneness has a power to it.

Sugata means well-gone – it is a Buddhist term of great significance. Buddha calls one ‘sugata’, well-gone, who will not be coming back into the world again; hence he is called well-gone: one who has finished his work here, who has lived in the wheel of life and death and has matured from here, has graduated from the world. Only when one is absolutely ripe does one become sugata, well-gone. Just as a ripe fruit falls of its own accord, the ripe individual disappears from the world of misery. He enters into another dimension, the separate reality, the other shore or god or heaven: those are just names. They all indicate one thing, not to be lost in the superficial. There is a depth to everything: this shore is not the only shore, there is the other shore too. Search for it!

And don’t go on repeating the same things that you have been doing for your whole life, otherwise you remain moving in the wheel: the same spokes go on moving, up and down, up and down. Millions of people have decided to just remain part of the wheel, they cling to it.

One has to see the whole point, that it is repetitive, that it is utterly ridiculous. And with this awareness – that the mechanical is ridiculous, that the repetitive is simply boring and creates dullness and stupidity and nothing else – one becomes more and more alert, more and more aware. One starts living in new ways, one starts searching for new styles of being. That search is sannyas. One is fed up with the ordinary world, one has seen all the games: the game of money and power and ego. One has lived through it and one has seen that nothing is there; it is much ado about nothing. Seeing this, one starts searching for a different quality to life; that is meditation. One starts moving inwards, and when one reaches to one’s innermost core, one becomes a sugata. Remain on the periphery and you will remain in the world; you come back again and again. It is the same kind of world, the same kind of desires and the same kind of miseries.

Friedrich Nietzsche is right about his idea of eternal recurrence... not absolutely right, but ninety- nine-point-nine percent right. Rarely does somebody escape from the wheel; about that person he is not right. He does not know about a Buddha. In fact he closed his doors against Buddhas. He got into the trip of being anti Christ, and he closed his doors. But it is a great insight, that things go on repeating themselves eternally. You are born again, and you live the same thing and the same thing. That’s why people look so dead and dull: they have lived it many times. In this life also they have lived it many times, but they can’t find something else to do so they go on repeating; what else is there to do? You rush after one woman, you are finished, tired, then you start rushing after another woman. You know that this has happened many times and that nothing really happens; you simply keep yourself engaged. It is a pseudo kind of busy-ness... busy-ness without business.

When this penetrates one’s consciousness the search starts: one starts moving inwards. That is the only place we have not looked yet. We have searched everywhere but we have not searched in our own being, in our own selves. If you can reach the innermost you will become a sugata. That is everybody’s possibility, everybody’s birthright too. And that is the whole purpose of existence: to make you a well-gone, to make you so ripe that out of your ripeness you fall and disappear.

Be happy and rejoice!

[A sannyasin returning to the West says that something is happening, or rather not happening, with his energy; the left side is blocked. Osho studies his energy.]

It is not blocked in the left side of the body; it is blocked in the right hemisphere of the brain. The right hemisphere is connected with the left side of the body, so you are feeling it in the left side of the body, but it is not there. Nothing has to be done in the body, no body work is needed: on the contrary you have to do something so that the right hemisphere of the mind starts functioning.

The left hemisphere is logical, rational; it controls the right side of your body, that’s why the right hand has become very important.

The right side hemisphere can function only in a feeling way. It is irrational, intuitive; in fact, this is the heart. The heart is not there (indicating his physical heart), the right hemisphere is the heart. So anything that is helpful in creating feeling in you will change the situation: a good laugh, crying, tears, singing, music, just watching the stars, love... all that is irrational.

Give a little more attention to the irrational, that’s all, and once the right hemisphere has started functioning, the body will change automatically; you need not do anything about it. The body is in perfect shape.

This is the situation with many people because we have been taught, brought up to use only one part of the mind. Society is afraid to allow both the parts to function because they are polar opposites. Society wants a man to be very consistent, efficient, so it is better to keep only one hemisphere functioning because it is consistent, logical, mathematical. The other part is not reliable, the other part is a danger to many things. For example, if the other part functions well it will be difficult to create armies, it will be difficult to reduce people to clerks. People will start becoming poets and musicians and painters; people will start becoming rebellious. So there has been a conspiracy down the ages to destroy the right hemisphere.

If you look into the whole phenomenon correctly, the right hemisphere is the East and the left hemisphere is the West. The East and the West are not going to meet outside; they are going to meet in these hemispheres inside. When we have become courageous enough to allow both the hemispheres to function totally, in unison, then immediately East and West will disappear and left and right also. Then there will be no rightist and no leftist; man will be one.

So just start moving towards feelings and emotions a little more and it will change. Keep this (a box) with you. And whenever you need me, just put it on your heart and remember me.…

[A visitor asks: I’ve changed my question. I’d like to know why I fear having my navel touched? Osho checks his energy.]

It has something to do with sex. Maybe in your childhood something happened to your sexual energy. The navel is very closely connected to the sex centre. The navel is the death centre; that’s why Japanese call it hara and they call suicide hara kiri. To commit suicide you have just to force a dagger in below the navel, two inches below the navel; and it is really a medically unbelievable thing that man dies immediately, with no pain, with no anguish.

Sex is life, and just close by is the centre of death, hara. It is not exactly at your navel but below the navel that you have become very much afraid. Death and life are naturally connected, connected

deep down. If something goes wrong with the sex centre then something goes wrong with the death centre.

It happens to many people in childhood that sex is repressed; no child is allowed sex, no society allows it. He is not allowed to touch his own genital organs, he is not allowed to play with them. That happens so early that you cannot even remember it. Mm – the child in the crib is playing with his genital organs and the mother comes and takes his hand away. Now, it is a shock to the child, he starts becoming afraid of touching his own genital organs. And it is such a joy to touch them, it is so relaxing. The child really gets non-sexual orgasm through it; it is orgasmic.

In the East, particularly in primitive tribes, when a child will not go to sleep the mother will start playing with the genital organs. Immediately the child relaxes, and relaxes into a very very happy sleep. You can see from the face... so glad!

But just the opposite is the practice in all civilized countries: the child has not to be allowed. And the natural urge is to touch the genitals, to play with them; it is so beautiful. The child has no idea that it is wrong, he has no idea of guilt yet; he simply does whatsoever is natural. Again and again, again and again, he has to be stopped, again and again he has to be condemned. He can see the rejection on the mother’s face, on the father’s face, and by and by the energy shrinks and he becomes afraid.

People are afraid to go below the navel; they are hung up above the navel. The part between the navel and the genital organs is almost a forgotten part. That’s why people are ticklish too. If the child is allowed to play with the sexual organs he will not be ticklish. The tickle simply makes the sexual energy move, nothing else.

But this has to be dropped, and this has to be changed otherwise you will miss something very significant in your being. Just do one thing: whenever you have a friend, lie down and tell them to play with your navel. It will be difficult in the beginning but soon you will start enjoying the sensation of it. The only way to go out of anything is to do it; there is no other way.

Tell them to tickle you; go into laughter and enjoy it. One day, suddenly, that energy that has become frozen there, and of whose release you are afraid, will be released. Once it is released you will become orgasmic; otherwise you will never become orgasmic. Your orgasm will remain a local thing; it will not touch your whole body. It will not be a delight of energy, it will be just local, genital. It will not even go into your navel, it will not even touch your death point, and when the life and death points vibrate together, that’s what orgasm is.

People have orgasm very rarely. Women have it less because they are more afraid of death than man, so they don’t allow their death centre to vibrate with the life centre; they pull it, they hold it, they turn frigid. A man at least can have a local orgasm, but a local orgasm is nothing. It is just like a sneeze – absolutely meaningless. It has no ecstasy in it.

Tantra has worked very deeply on the death and the life centres and on how to vibrate them together, in harmony. When they vibrate in harmony great joy arises. In fact the first experience of samadhi comes from there. One has the first glimpse of god from there. God is not a theological phenomenon; god is a sexual phenomenon, it is the uttermost in sexuality. But man is so stupid that the thing has gone just topsyturvy: god has become anti-sexual. God is the peak of sexual orgasm.

There are many layers of orgasm. First, it can be just local, genital. Second, it can be total in your body. Your death and life centre both vibrate together; it has great depth. But if the woman you are making love with is also vibrating in the same way as you, her life and death centres also vibrating in the same way as yours are, then you will have a new depth which you cannot attain alone.

Then there is a third phenomenon which is attained only if you go very very deeply into each other, when you drop all fear. Two persons start functioning almost as one person; then the third depth is attained. The fourth and the final depth is attained when this unity of two persons, this couple, vibrates with the whole of existence. That is turiya, the fourth state of samadhi.

So start working on it. Just tell your friends to massage the navel. Sometimes in the beginning it will be painful and very fear-creating, but soon that will disappear. There is no other way to let it go. Only experiencing it again and again will prove to you that there is no need to fear, it is so beautiful. But it has to be dropped, and with its dropping, in many things your depth will go very very... profound layers will be touched.…

Keep this box with you... It is an empty box, mm? – just a symbol that I share my emptiness with you. And that is the goal: if one can become empty, fullness happens out of it. To be empty is to become available to the fullness of existence.

Sometimes just put it on your navel so I can work on your navel too. And come back! Good.

[A sannyasin says she feels pulled off centre in relationships, so she doesn’t know what she wants. Osho checks her energy.]

Just raise your hands, close your eyes, and feel like a tree in a solitary field. It is raining and the tree is delighted. It is windy and the tree is swaying. Forget the human body; become the body of the tree, and do whatsoever the tree will do when it is raining and it is windy.

Good, mm? You need not worry about it; it is a natural process. When you fall in love you have to go off centre, otherwise you cannot fall in love. Falling in love means you are going out of yourself to meet the other, to reach the other. You cannot remain in yourself, you will have to go out. Love is an outward journey so you cannot remain as centred as you are when you are not in any relationship. Then you are centred. You can’t be as centred in love as you are in meditation. But nothing is wrong: sometimes to go off centre is perfectly beautiful.

To become too centred is also dangerous. To become too centred means to become too self- centred, and much ego can arise out of it. That’s why monks are the most egoistic people in the world, because they always remain in their centre; they never go out, they don’t need anybody. So great ego arises. Love is good to kill the ego.

Between love and meditation the real thing happens; moving between these two, the real thing happens. It is neither in centering nor in relating. It exists just between the two, in that balance – when the pendulum is not going to the right and not going to the left, just in the middle. But that is not centering either; it is beyond both.

So don’t be worried about it; it is a natural phenomenon. Whenever you are alone, meditate, become centred again, and whenever you feel the urge to move, go off centre. Remember only one thing: when you are centred, become absolutely centred and when you go off centre, go absolutely off centre. Mm? try to reach to the extremes, because only if you move in the extremes do you flow, and flow is life, is aliveness. Don’t make a problem out of it, it is not a problem.

[A sannyasin says: It has been a very strange experience to be here. I have been alone a lot and simply enjoyed that – walking around, sitting and everything, just doing nothing.]

Good! In fact there is no need to do anything. If we can just enjoy being, all happens. Continue the way you are there, back home too.

Remember, man cannot do much, and whatsoever man can do will never satisfy him. Something from the beyond has to happen as a grace, as a gift. All that we can do is to become receptive to that gift. So enjoy being, walking, swimming, sitting. Slow down!

In the beginning it seems almost as if you are becoming lazy, mm? because so much has been put in the head:‘Be active, do this, do that. Time is money – don’t miss it. Life is short, so rush. It is a great competition and struggle, and if you are just standing there like that you will miss all.’ So everybody has been forced to run and rush and compete and to always be in speed. Go fast: Even if you don’t know where you are going and for what, go fast!

That has taken all joy out of our life. It has created very very strained and tense beings on the earth. The whole humanity is living under a great mountain of stress, and for no reason! So that has to be understood.

Relax, cool down, slow down. There is nothing to be achieved and there is nowhere to go. Delight in this moment, and slowly slowly you will feel everything is falling in tune with you and you are falling in tune with everything else. A great melody arises; one starts listening to the celestial music. You cannot show any results, any tangible results to anybody, because those are not tangible things. And the result-oriented people, anyway, won’t understand them even if you show them. They are not commodities: they are such subjective experiences, so private and so intimate, that only one who loves you tremendously will be able to have a little glimpse of it, otherwise not. But you will know that things are changing and god is entering you.

So keep this slow pace. Never become a race horse; remember to remain a turtle. Race horses never reach and turtles have already reached, that’s why they are not in any hurry!

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