10

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‌CHAPTER 10

23 December 1975 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin says: I’ve been really rebellious and resistent to you. Whenever you say something in the lecture that I don t like, I cough. It is not as deliberate as all that, but I’ve discovered there’s a very close connection.]

Very good! This is a good discovery! [The sannyasin continues: And I like you]

Very good. When you like me, what do you do? [He replies: Well, I’d like to lick you!]

That’s good. Nothing to worry about..

[He went on to say that he wanted to feel in contact with Jesus, but his perfectionistic attitudes and fear of ‘the wrath of God’ were stopping him from entering wholeheartedly into life and into sex, and therefore he was miserable.]

It is good to feel rebellious sometimes; it is part of growth.

It is natural and human sometimes to feel disagreement, to sometimes feel you would like to say no. But that is good; that is the way the real yes is born. If you say yes too easily, without saying any no, your yes will be impotent. So when a rebellious person becomes obedient, there is real obedience. When an obedient person becomes obedient it is nothing much. So that is very good. Don’t be worried about it and don’t suppress it. It’s okay, it’s okay. It will go.

If you can agree with me one percent, then you cannot escape. Ninety-nine percent you may disagree with me, but that’s not the point. If I can get a small space within you, just one percent, that’s enough. Then I will enter deeper, and you cannot do anything else. Then that one percent will become two percent, and two percent, three percent – and by and by you will see you are gone.

Christianity creates condemnation – and condemnation has to be dropped. One has to drop it, and to drop it without any effort. If you drop it with effort, then something of it will go on clinging, a hangover will remain. To drop a thing perfectly, just to understand it is enough.

You need to understand that you are body: bodyrooted, body-oriented, living in the body. You may not be the body but you are living in it, and the body has its needs which have to be fulfilled. A religion that does not accept the body is only a half religion, and can only give you a half mutation. Half of you will remain undeveloped and that half will function as a rock around your neck.

One has to grow as a total unity. And if one has to grow as a total unity then everything has to be accepted, nothing can be denied. Of course, everything has to be used for a higher harmony. Sex is not to be left just as sex – that is vulgar. Sex has to be transformed for a higher harmony, and then it becomes love, and love becomes prayer. It goes on and on; more and more refined forms of energy. And ultimately sex itself becomes the energy we call God.

Sex is the lowest denominator of the same energy we call God. It is the first step to the same temple. And if you deny the first step, you can never reach to the second – then you can never enter into the temple. Sex has to be accepted, used, and left behind; not renounced – left behind. And remember, the distinction is great: not renounced, not dropped – left behind. You go on growing, and by and by you go so far away that the first step is left behind and you are in the innermost shrine. But that first step helped you to reach there, and you are grateful.

[The sannyasin says: But I neither totally truly accept the first step nor am free of it. I’m hung up on it.]

I understand. I understand – because still, deep down, the condemnation continues. You just have to understand.

For example, someone tells you for thirty years continuously that if you take the road on the left you will reach the station. And for thirty years you have believed that. Now you travel the road and you don’t reach the station. You meet someone who says that this road doesn’t go to the station at all; you have to go back to the crossroad and take the road that goes to the right.

What will you say? Will you say that for thirty years you have believed this was the right road to the station, and now you can’t leave it; that you are hung up? You yourself can see that the station is not there. You will simply say,‘Yes, you are right. Someone has wrongly informed me.’

And this much understanding is needed. Someone wrongly conditioned you about sex and about other things. Now you have become more aware. The people who conditioned you may themselves have not been aware, they may have been immature, may have been conditioned by others. They may have been in the same misery as you; they simply transferred the misery to you. Now please – don’t you transfer it to anybody.

There is a temptation in the mind to unburden, to teach, to convince others, to argue.

If you need to, for three days close your room and sit silently facing the wall and look deep within down into your conditioning. Just see it – that it has not lead you anywhere, that you are simply split, divided. So one decides. One sees that the path has been wrong; one simply drops it. And once you have dropped it, start moving in the opposite direction. Because, in fact, action is needed to uncondition you, to recondition you.

So start moving in sex, in love, in relationships. Move, and just see where the condemnation is. It is all foolishness; there is nothing wrong. And, by and by, the more you see that there is nothing wrong, the old conditioning, the old habit will disappear. You will be freed. Just try, mm? It is going to go.

[He answers: But I’ve tried for so long.]

Because you try wrongly. You are still clinging to the old concepts. Because of those concepts you go on saying no to me. You disagree because you have certain ideas.

[The sannyasin says: I’m afraid that if I surrender to you, you will turn out to be just like the Jesus i knew.]

You have to try. There is no other way. You have to try me...

Mm, so move deeper into me. And disagreeing won’t help because that means you go on clinging to your old ideas.

See the point that your ideas have brought you here where you are – in a miserable state, in a conflict, a divided mind. Now you are clinging to these same ideas and then you disagree with me because of them. And you ask me how to go deeper! You go on clinging to the bank when you want to go deeper and further away, to the other shore. Just see the point!

If you want to be with me then you will have to surrender and it is a risk. I may turn out wrong. No guarantee can be given – because who will give it? I will – and if I am wrong my guarantee is useless! I can give you a thousand and one guarantees; it will make no difference. You will have to try me. Give me a try!

[A sannyasin from Ethiopia said that he found he was still repeating a pattern that he had adopted as a child. Whenever his parents scolded him or said anything about him that he could take as being negative, he would just shut off, run away and console himself, saying that he could do without people, he could manage alone. He found he reacted to his friends just the same way.]

It is just an old habit which has become rigid. Try to do the opposite of it. Whenever you feel like closing – open yourself. If you want to go, don’t go; if you want not to talk, then talk. If you want to stop the argument, don’t stop but jump into it with as much vigour as possible.

Whenever a situation arises which creates fear, there’ are two alternatives – either you fight or you take flight. A small child ordinarily cannot fight – particularly in countries like Ethiopia. In America,

a child will fight so much that the parents will take the flight! But in old countries, in tradition-bound countries, a child cannot fight. The only way is to close, to wrap oneself inside oneself as protection. So you have learned the trick of flight.

Now the only possibility is that whenever you feel you are trying to escape, stick there, be stubborn, and give a good fight. Just for one month try the opposite and then we will see. Once you can do the opposite I will tell you how to drop both. Both have to be dropped, because only then a man becomes fearless – and because both are wrong. Because one wrong has gone too deep in you, it has to be balanced by the other.

So for one month you be a real warrior – about anything. And you will feel very good, really good, mm? Because whenever one escapes, one feels very bad, inferior. This is a cowardly trick – to close oneself. Become brave, mm? Then we will drop both, because to be brave is also, deep down, to be cowardly. When bravery and cowardice both disappear then one becomes fearless. You try it!

[A sannyasin said that she had been experiencing a lot of fear, and felt some connection between this and the fact that she did not like herself very much – something she had just recently discovered. She said she kept judging herself through the eyes of others and was unhappy with herself.]

What can you do? You are yourself whether you like it or not. You will not become someone else, you will remain yourself, so it is simply foolish, absurd. Whether you like yourself or not is not the point; no one is asking you if you do. So you will remain yourself; there is no way to get out of it. One has to accept it.

And there is nothing wrong in being oneself. The problem is there because you go on comparing. What is the point of comparing? Every individual is so unique that comparison is simply meaningless. Comparison is possible only if everybody is like everybody else. You don’t compare a rose with a lotus; it is pointless – a rose is a rose, a lotus a lotus. Every human being is a different flowering, and you cannot be compared with anyone else. So drop the comparison and while you are here, enjoy. Why waste time I

And let the fear be, and by and by it will disappear. If you try to do something it will take longer to go. Fear is natural in a way, because man is going to die, and unless you know something within you that is immortal, unless the deathless is encountered, fear will follow you like a shadow. So simply accept it; it is part of humanity.

And rather than wasting time in these futile problems, start living! Relate with people and start enjoying small things, because this is how one comes to like oneself. If you dislike yourself you don’t move into enjoyment, and because you cannot enjoy yourself you dislike yourself more. Then it becomes a vicious circle.

So get out of it! There is nothing to it. In a single moment, with a single decision, a man can be transformed – immediately. It is not a gradual process. This very moment, if you want toAnd that

is the point, because if I want you to, that will not help. If you want to come out, this very moment you can, because the misery is created by you and is absolutely false.

Misery comes because you don’t like yourself. Somebody must have given you this opinion – your mother or father, your family – that you are worthless, and you have accepted their opinion.

Who are they to decide? Nobody except you can decide for you who you are. All judgements about you are just stupid, superficial. Nobody can look into you. They all look on the surface, and then they make a judgement – and you accept that judgement!

Then you start liking or disliking yourself. Both are nonsense. Life is to enjoy. And people go on preparing for some day when they will enjoy it, and they waste it. You try.

[A sannyasin said that through meditating he had lately come to experience how his mind just went on and on, how impossible it was to still it.

Osho said that there was no need to try to still the mind, to stop the thoughts. He said that just as the traffic goes by and one remains on the sidewalk, unaffected, just a watcher, so one should simply witness the thoughts as they went by. We are not our thoughts, and recognising that we are the witness is enough.

The very acceptance of the thoughts makes one more relaxed. The relaxation helps to create a distance, to separate oneself. To evaluate a thought as good or bad means that you are attached to your thoughts – so one should not put labels on them.]

... put yourself aside, sit under a tree, and just watch the traffic. Soon, one day, the traffic disappears and the road is empty. Suddenly there is an interval and in that interval is meditation. But that interval cannot be created or cultivated. You cannot still the mind – you can simply wait in deep watchfulness and mind stills itself.

[Another sannyasin, this time a woman, asked if the suggestions Osho had given to this man also applied to her. Osho said that for her, witnessing would not help.

He has said before that the method of witnessing only suits a certain type of person. For others, total involvement is more helpful.

Many people who were followers of Gurdjieff and tried to adopt his method of witnessing simply went mad, because it is a tension, a strain for some people. Women tend to find it easier to adopt the method of total involvement; it is more akin to their nature. For men, usually witnessing is more useful.

Osho told her to be totally involved in the traffic of whatever she did, adding,‘Your enlightenment is to come in the marketplace!’

A third sannyasin, also a woman, asked if she should try the method of witnessing, but added that she didn’t think she quite understood what witnessing was.

In reply Osho said:]

You just start one thing: every day for one hour sit in front of a wall, and look at the wall with half- closed eyes; just so you can see the tip of the nose. Sit very close so there is nothing else you can see.

Be relaxed, and if some thoughts come, just go on seeing that they are passing between you and the wall. You need not be concerned with whatever they are – fantasies, dreams, anything, nonsense. But you go on feeling that they are just between you and the wall. By and by, after two weeks, you will become aware of what witnessing is.

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