19

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‌CHAPTER 19

3 January 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin asked about a friend who was paralysed, and wondered if anything could be done to help. Osho suggested the friend should become a sannyasin, and then continued.]

If you are lying in bed all day and you can’t move, you will continuously want to, because movement is life. Nothing else is so important as movement. Rocks are dead because they cannot move. The trees are a little more alive because a little movement is possible, but they are rooted in the earth. Animals are not rooted in the earth so they are more alive, they can be free.

Man is even more alive, because not only is he not rooted in the earth, he is not rooted in matter. His consciousness is a freedom, a sky with no boundaries. So movement is very essential and basic to life.

When you are paralysed, the very paralysis, twenty-four hours a day, becomes an auto-suggestion. Again and again you remember that you cannot move. Again and again you repeat to yourself that you cannot move – and this repetition cooperates with the paralysis. So just the opposite has to be done.

Whenever he feels that he cannot move, he should close his eyes, and in fantasy go for a long walk, or a run.

While going for a walk, it may be raining – the raindrops are falling on you making you completely wet. The whole thing is that all the senses should participate – smell, touch, vision – everything. This becomes a miraculous cure.

If he loves dancing then it is perfect, because dancing is exactly the opposite pole to paralysis. People who don’t know how to dance are already half-paralysed. Paralysis is no movement and

dance is pure movement. To be really alive one needs to be a dancer. That is the beauty of watching a dancer. Suddenly you feel the ecstasy of the movement, so alive, so delicate, so tremendously moving – as if gravitation doesn’t exist. If he is a real dancer you feel that he can fly.

One of the greatest dancers, Nijinsky, would take great jumps that were thought physically impossible. Scientists observed him and said that such a big jump was not possible with gravitation. They asked him how it happened. He said he didn’t know except that a moment came when he was not; when he felt he could fly.

When he jumped – and the height of the jump was a miracle – the greater miracle was his coming back to earth. He would come so slowly as if... a dry leaf is falling from the tree and comes slowly... not like a stone. It is as if he defies the whole law of gravitation.

So tell him that if he can imagine dancing, that will be the cure.

Many times it has happened that a person has been paralysed for ten years, and the doctors have told him that he will not be able to move for the rest of his life. Suddenly one day the house catches fire and everybody is running out. The paralysed person forgets, and out of fear he also runs from the house.

People see him running and can’t believe it. They say, ‘But this is impossible, you can’t run!’ Then he becomes aware of what he is doing and falls down. How can he run? – one can never go against the experts! But he has run!

Every paralysed person can be hypnotized, and in hypnosis he starts walking. That means that the body is functioning perfectly, it is just that the belief somewhere is not cooperating.

So tell him, mm? And I will be working on him.…

[A sannyasin says: My life seems to be governed by fear. Can you help me?]

(a little chuckle) Mm, I will help, that’s why I am here! Everybody’s life, more or less, is governed by fear, because there are only two ways to live life. Either it can be governed by love, or it can be governed by fear. Ordinarily, unless you have learned to love, it is governed by fear.

Without love, fear is bound to be there. It is just an absence of love. It has nothing positive in it; it is just absence of love. But if you can love, fear disappears. In the moment of love there is not even death.

There is only one thing in life that conquers death and that is love. All fear is concerned with death – and only love can conquer death.

So one thing I would like to say to you is, don’t pay too much attention to fear because it becomes an autohypnosis. If you go on repeating that you live by fear, your life is governed by fear, you are dominated by fear – and fear, fear, fear – then you are helping it. Take note of it: that your life is governed by fear – finished! It simply shows that love has not yet become so powerful that fear disappears.

Fear is just a symptom, it is not a disease. There is no cure for it; there is no need. So it is just a symptom, and it is very useful because it shows you that you should not waste your life any longer. It simply says to you to love more.

So I will not talk about fear. I will help you to love more – and fear disappears as a consequence. If you start working directly on fear you strengthen it, because your whole attention will be focused on it. It is as if somebody is trying to destroy darkness, and becomes focused, obsessed, with how to destroy darkness. You cannot destroy darkness because it is not there in the first place. Note the fact that darkness is there – and then start working on how to bring in light.

The same energy that you are using to fight fear can be used to love. Pay more attention to love. If you touch, touch as lovingly as possible; as if your hand becomes your whole being and you are flowing through your hand. You will feel energy passing through it, a certain warmth, a glow. If you make love, go wild and forget all civilization. Forget all that has been taught about love; just be wild and love like animals.

Once you realise that the presence of love becomes the absence of fear, you have got the point and there is no problem. These six weeks be as loving as possible, for no reason at all – just be loving, mm? And it will go...

[A sannyasin says he has a tension in his head and: ‘I am not very loving and... I don’t feel very good about myself’.]

Mm... that may be the tension – because love is a release. If you are loving you remain relaxed. If you are not loving you become tense. Tension means simply that there is some energy that needs to be shared. If you don’t want to share it then it accumulates and becomes a headache. Always remember that the more you share, the more fresh energy will be flowing in you.

I was reading the life story of a poet. He says he used to live in a very old house, two hundred years old. It was in a very primitive condition – no modern facilities, no electricity, no running water. The house had a beautiful well with very fresh water, very pure.

When electricity came to the town they closed the well hoping that if some day it was needed it could be re-opened. After fifteen years, just out of curiosity, the man opened the well, just to see how it was. It was one of the most ancient wells in that locality and it had never been dry. When all the other wells were dry, the whole town had come to drink from this one.

When he looked in, it was completely dry. He couldn’t find an explanation so he asked the experts. They said that if you don’t go on carrying water out of the well, sooner or later it dries up because the small springs that feed it with water become closed. Then by and by the water evaporates leaving the well dry. Each day the well needs to share – then it is always flowing, with new water always coming in.

The same is true for human energy also. Each man is a well of energy. Love means that you a’,low somebody to throw a bucket in you, to draw some energy from you. Don’t be a miser about it, otherwise soon you will start feeling that you are drying up. Then you will become tense and a deadness will gather around you. You become more and more afraid of sharing, because you think that if you share you will become even drier. You are in a vicious circle.

The whole logic is wrong. Whenever you feel something tension-like is gathering, share. Catch hold of any stranger, because in fact all are strangers. Some strangers you have known for a few years, some for a few months, some a few days, some you have just come to know, but aU are strangers. Even your husband with whom you have lived for years is a stranger. Two strangers living together by and by become familiar, that’s all.

Run and share with anybody, but never be miserly. I have been watching; you are becoming a little miserly. And you can like yourself only when you love. In fact when somebody likes you, only then can you like yourself.

Each relationship is a mirror; it reveals your identity to you. Each relationship brings you something of your inner heart which was unknown to you before. Man is such an infinity that thousands of relationships are needed – the father, the mother, the brother, sister, husband, wife, friend. Thousands of types of relationships are needed to reveal you from every corner, from every aspect of your being, so that you know all your faces. Even then, all that you know about yourself will be less than you are. It can never be more than you, and it can never be equal to you because you are such an infinity that all the mirrors of the world cannot exhaust you. Something will always remain elusive.

Share more, and let sharing be the only law. To be a miser is to be a sinner. That is my definition of being a sinner. Mm? We are here for such a short time; why be a miser? Share, and whatsoever you give, give wholeheartedly and much will come automatically. Not that you ask for it or demand it; it just comes. The whole of existence re-echoes you.

So try it for one month. Just be a sharer, and then seeThen you will love yourself, because that

is the only way: if you love others you love yourself. If you don’t love others, by and by you will come to hate yourself.

[A sannyasin says: I feel like I’m getting higher, you know, lighter and more present and better. But each time it happensI find some way to get myself down again and I don’t know how to deal with

that.]

No, don’t try to deal with it – accept it. As it is, accept it. When it goes high, you go high. When you start bringing yourself down, watch that too, with total acceptance. No need to make any interference.

Just accept coming to the height and going down to the valley. Accept both as if you are unconcerned whether it is high or low. Watch as if it is happening to somebody else, not to you. Then immediately it will disappear.

If you go on doing something it will not disappear, because effort cannot help here. There are places in your inner growth where effort is needed, and there are places where effort is a hindrance. This is a place where it won’t be helpful.

For one month accept whatsoever happens, and you will see that your highs are growing higher and higher, and simultaneously your depth will become deeper and deeper – but now you will be able to enjoy both.

If you enjoy only the peak, who will enjoy the valley? If you only enjoy the day, who is going to enjoy the night? Don’t become obsessed with the day. Remain flexible so that you can enjoy both the day and the night – and remain indifferent.

[The sannyasin says: It is difficult to remain indifferent because I feel I am harming myself.]

No, no you are not. By not being indifferent you are harming yourself. Try for one month to just be indifferent. This is something that you have to experience before you can understand what I am saying. These are just moods that come and go; you remain unperturbed, a watcher. Everything is going well. This phase comes to everybody.…

[The sannyasin says: When I’m in a certain space I can’t really handle because it’s new, it’s different and... I become afraid.]

Now there will be no question of handling it. You have to be indifferent. Let it be. Wherever it is leading it is okay. Accept either higher or lower, and just see what happens.

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