27

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‌CHAPTER 27

11 January 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[An Indian sannyasin had come before darshan to talk to Osho about a frightening experience he had had recently while meditating. As people arrived for the darshan Osho was saying:]

... one gets really scared. Really, it came too early and you weren’t yet ready. It can happen that suddenly a key fits, and then the experience of deep meditation is exactly like death.

The problem is created because one gets scared. Meditation leads you deep into yourself. Beyond a certain point it is felt like drowning, sinking, suffocating. If you accept it and cooperate with it and simply say that you are ready to die, then you don’t create the opposite process of trying to come out of it. Then there comes a peak where all disturbance disappears. Something has happened – but you are still there. In fact for the first time you are there – and everything becomes blissful.

Before it comes to the peak there is pain and anguish, and it is natural that one starts thinking about how to get out of it somehow. In the getting out, that cooperation is broken, so you are moving now in two ways. Something you have done in meditation is taking you deep, while you are trying to cling to the surface. In that confusion and conflict the whole body can feel in turmoil. It was not really because of the experience, but because you created this conflict.

This phenomenon has to be faced one day by anyone who is moving into meditation; there is no way to avoid it. When it happens one naturally becomes afraid to meditate again. So, don’t do this method for a few days; do something else. Humming is good. It is very slow, and will subdue the energy.

Do a camp, and if something happens then I am here, so you rely on me more easily. You could rely on me there too... but it was for the first time, so you were not aware of what was happening.

Next time it happens simply take the locket in your hand, and leave it to me. Simply say that you are ready to die, and relax; sink, and allow it. Once you allow it, the whole of the energy is moving in one direction so there is no inner conflict; and because there is no conflict there is no anxiety. The whole body will feel rejuvenated. Otherwise you create a disturbance.

It is just as when you are driving a car. You go on pushing the accelerator, and at the same time you brake: the whole engine feels the shock because you are doing two contradictory things – racing and braking simultaneously. That’s what you have done. The meditation turned the energy inwards – and it is a tremendous experience, deeper than any death.

We are accustomed to live on the surface, and we think that that is life. We have forgotten our own depths completely. So when we encounter death for the first time, it is like an abyss, and fear takes over – because if one falls... it is bottomless.

This is the point where a master is needed. He is not needed in the beginning because one can start on one’s own, but when this experience comes then someone is needed who can give assurance, who can give you confidence again, who can put you back on the path.

In a way it has been a blessing. It is rare, because usually people work for years before it happens. If you have worked for years there is not so much fear, because by and by you are gradually being prepared. Little glimpses of it come and go, so you know something of it and that it is going to happen.

When it happens so suddenly, then either the body suffers or the mind – which is worse; some people can go mad. So both are possible. But you have to understand that it happened not because of the meditation but because you started fighting; you started to come up, to surface.

If you are in the river and you are caught in a whirlpool, the natural tendency is to somehow fight it. But this is wrong. Masters of swimming will tell you that if you are caught in a whirlpool, you should cooperate with it. If you go with it, if you give all your energy to it, there is no conflict, so no energy is wasted. At the rock-bottom of the whirlpool it is so small that it cannot hold you, so there is no need even to come out of it; you will be simply out of it. But if you start fighting it on the surface you are wasting your energy, and you will lose it before you get to the bottom; you will be gone.

[The sannyasin said that it was just like an explosion.]

Yes, it was an explosion! People long for it all their lives! The opportunity was very close, mm?.but

it will come again. That method is your method, and you have found the key!

[A sannyasin describes an experience which happened during the Gourishankar mediation: Something cold was rising up, and something was happening here. (indicating his third eye).I

was screaming for thoughts to come because there were no thoughts at all... I got very frightened... After it was over I was very ashamed that I didn’t go through it.]

Yes, that too is right. It was good, mm?

It is such an unknown state when thoughts stop. We have always lived with thoughts – that is the known, the familiar; we are moving on a well-trodden path. When you stop thinking for the first time,

then the wildness of existence opens its door. It is chaotic. The greatest fear that can come to a man is to not be able to think. When you cannot think, you cannot be, for without thinking you disappear.

The father of modern western philosophy was Rene Descartes. His whole philosophy was based on three words: Cogito ergo sum – I think, therefore I am. If this is the mind: ‘I think, therefore I am’ – and it is – then when thoughts stop, you are not. One simply looks crazy, as if in an insane world, because what is happening is beyond control. You cannot even think – which was always so easy!

In fact it was difficult to stop thinking! But when it does stop, fear takes over. It is bound to happen the first time. The next time it will be easier. Don’t try to do anything when it happens again. Just remain in it.

[The Vipassana group came to darshan for the first time. Osho said in a previous darshan, that after everything has been brought up – through encountering and other techniques – Vipassana gives one ‘a resettlement, a new pattern to one’s being’.

The groupleader says: I seemed to find it extraordinarily easy. I have done groups like this before with Buddhists who have been meditating a long time, and they were so much more restless, and fidgety. I don’t understand it at all!]

Everything has been good. Buddhist monks have made something ugly out of it. No meditation should be a strain, because then it isn’t going to help. It should be a play.

[The groupleader says: You said something about it being like a lizard basking in the sun... and because I’d always found it very very voluptuous, I felt guilty about it, as though.It was such a

pleasant meditation!]

Old religions depend on guilt, and they create it. Once they have created guilt in you, you are caught, and then you need their help. First they make you ill, so then you need their help.

But this is my whole point – that you are to learn how to be happy, how to be more playful. You are to learn how to be more ecstatic – and ecstatic in very ordinary ways. Life should be absolutely ordinary, and silent, and playful. All pressure should be removed from life so that the fountain flows freely.

We will create a totally different thing out of Vipassana. So many people want to go into it, so we can have another group.…

[A group member says: It was very good. I can’t really say what has happened, but I feel I can sit now!]

You look more centred, more rooted. Good! That’s how meditation should be – a celebration. Very good!

[Another group member says: I loved it I wanted to do it longer, because I think it started changing after seven days.]

Mm, it takes at least seven days to settle, then another seven days to feel the new dimension, then another seven to be completely at home. Twenty-one days is exactly the time the mind takes to change completely, to move into another direction.

For the first seven days it simply goes on struggling with the old; the old mind goes on interfering a little. After seven days that old is gone and the new is there, but you are unfamiliar with it, so it is a little strange.

After seven days again you become familiar with this.

Now it is no longer new and you are settling in it. So we will make it twenty-one days.

[When participants dozed off in the group an assistant had to gently but firmly hit them with a stick on the top of their head! (in the old zen tradition). Osho asked a participant how he felt when he got hit. He answered: Very good when I got hit.]

Yes it is beautiful. In Zen, they wait, they pray for it. By and by you will wait and pray for it.…

When you are starting to sleep, or dozing, then your energy is moving into another gear – from waking to sleeping. It is moving, changing. You are just at the door, neither alert enough nor asleep enough, and then – a hit on the head, suddenly an awakening inside, a lightning. You have been caught on the door! And that door, and the realisation of your being caught on the door, is something very beautiful.

By and by one starts praying for it. Who else was hit?

[Another participant says: I was hit several times, but for the first three times I thought something was happening inside my head I was not aware that someone else did it.]

(laughing) It happens that way. The energy suddenly comes up. It can be a feeling of something inside happening.

[Osho asks another group member if he has something to say. He replies: Well sometimes I think I have a lot to say, but really there’s nothing. It feels like there isn’t anything to say.]

There is nothing – and that is something, mm? When you have nothing to say that means something has happened. Otherwise one has a lot to say, and it is meaningless; the chattering mind goes on, and to chatter is very cheap. It is a trick of the mind to avoid real problems. The mind goes on creating false problems, and you go on talking about them.

People ordinarily think that when they talk they are communicating. But the reverse is the case – they are avoiding communication, they are creating a wall of words around them. Watch yourself, and whenever you talk too much with someone immediately remember what you are doing. You are creating a wall so that you can hide behind it, so that the other cannot reach you and you become unavailable. It is not communication. It is isolating yourself through language and through words.

When you have nothing to say there is subtle communication. You say something without saying it, and your whole being becomes assertive.

Good! Whenever anybody says he has nothing to say, he has said something. [Members of the Enlightenment Intensive were present.

One participant says: I have these thoughts all the time that I have to do this, I have to do that... ]

You have a habit, and a very deep-rooted habit, of being a doer – something has to be done. Nothing has to be done! Life is a given thing, and nothing has to be done.

All that you need is already given. One has just to enjoy it, to delight in it. You are wasting time in doing things.

[She answers: I think I’ll practically have to become enlightened before I stop doing!]

No, it is going to happen any day. All that is needed small understanding – that everything is given, and nothing is lacking. You just have to start delighting in it, and the more you delight, the more possibilities start opening, the more capacity arises. There is nothing else to do.

In the West the mind is constantly trained to do something, to be active, because if you don’t do anything you will not achieve anything. So a mind to achieve has been conditioned. In the East we have been thinking in totally different terms. We say not to be a doer; you already have everything...

Mm, everything comes and goes. You are just a witness, and nothing really happens to you. You just remain untouched.

It is just like a bird that comes into a room. He flies around in the room, afraid, then he goes out a window. A little fluttering, then he is gone. Your mind is just like that: a small window through which thoughts and emotions come and go. If you simply remain a witness, doing nothing, they go.

Have you sometimes tried to help a bird to go out if he has entered your room? You make him more confused. He may become so afraid that he hits himself, wounds himself. Never try to help a bird if he has entered your room. Just sit quietly, and he will go of his own accord. Your compassion is not needed; it can be dangerous, mm? murderous.

So don’t do anything about what happens in the mind. Just watch. But don’t make it a serious affair; just watch deeply relaxed, because there is nothing to do, so why be tense?

[Another participant says: I feel more attracted to the deeper silent meditations, but I always have the uncertainty about whether there’s something I’m suppressing and should go into. There’s always a doubt.]

I think an Encounter group will be helpful. There is not much there, but even if a little is there, it can become a problem in Vipassana. Vipassana should be done only when you have finished with catharsis, otherwise it will become a struggle.

That’s what is happening in buddhist monasteries. They don’t have cathartic methods, they simply teach Vipassana, and then it becomes suppressive. When you try to suppress something it becomes a fight.

That was the difference here – because these people are doing dynamic meditation and cathartic methods; Encounter Groups and Primal Therapy. Their minds are clean, and they-have nothing to suppress, so they could enjoy it tremendously. So I suggest you do Encounter first, and then do Vipassana.

All the methods that are being used in the West are cathartic, and all that have been used in the East are noncathartic. My effort is to bring a new synthesis to them. The western methods should be used in the beginning so that one is clean and has thrown out all repressions. Then the eastern methods should be used, because then they go to the very core of your being. You enjoy them then, and there is no effort involved; they are almost effortless. Things settle by themselves while you simply sit and watch. But right now, if many things are there and you try to sit, they will bubble up, and you will go on thinking and thinking and thinking about them.

Always remember the difference between isolation and solitude. This is the difference. Isolation is a sort of suppression – forcing yourself to be still, being alone, cutting yourself off from other people. Solitude is not isolation. You are not cutting anything, because there is nothing to cut. You are not trying to be alone; you are simply alone, and there is no effort involved.

Vipassana in buddhist monasteries has become isolation, and I would like it to become a solitude. Isolation is negative, because one wants to break all communication with the world. One is fed up with all relationships and with love. One simply wants to withdraw into oneself. The whole thing is negative. You are left in a negative emptiness, a sort of darkness.

Solitude is very positive. It is not going away from society, or cutting relationships. On the contrary, it is not a withdrawal but a dipping into your own being; it is an in-going. In withdrawal the focus is on the other, you are going away from the other. In solitude the focus is no longer on the other, you are simply sinking into your own being. Before you can communicate, you have to enter into your own shrine to bring something to share.

It is just like a well from which you draw water. If you draw continuously and don’t leave any gap for the well to renew itself, to refill, it will become dry. So for a few hours you leave it alone so it is again overflowing.

Solitude is like that. One becomes depleted leading the ordinary life – with the thousand and one problems and anxieties and worries. Solitude is like moving into your own world to become revitalised, to be rejuvenated, refreshed and overflowing, so that you can come back to the world again and share.

Vipassana becomes isolation if you are suppressing something. It is a withdrawal and a fear-oriented thing; basically ill. Vipassana can be very healthy and wholesome if you are not withdrawing but just going in to come back again. It is not a renunciation, a rejection of the world – it is just a rest into oneself.

[the participant continues: This morning when I woke up, I never felt more asleep in my life. I’d done no work whatsoever, and I felt totally asleep! I think that’s because I was more aware of my sleep.]

It can happen, it is possible. In fact if you are not really aware, your sleep becomes superficial. When things deepen, everything deepens, so when you become more aware your sleep also becomes deeper.

It is not the other way around. The higher the awareness, the deeper the sleep. If your awareness is just dim it means that already a little sleep is there, so there is no need for your sleep to be so deep. They are always in proportion. It is just like when you work hard in the day you can rest deeply in the night. If you rest in the day, then in the night there is insomnia.

One person used to be with me for a few years. I had given him a method to work out – a very intense method of awareness. For three months he worked hard, the effort was really hard, and after that he fell into a coma. A coma! – for four days. His family became very afraid and wanted to call a doctor, but I said not to disturb him, otherwise his whole life would be disturbed.

He came out of it as if coming out of death, totally renewed. He had not had a single dream in those four days. The sleep was absolute, as if everything had stopped. He relaxed as if he had not been asleep for many years, many lives.

So it is possible, and there is nothing to worry about. The opposite polarity always happens. If you meditate very deeply, suddenly one day you will find you have fallen in love. If you love very deeply, one day or other, suddenly you will become aware of a new dimension which is opening its door – the dimension of meditation.

If you love deeply, one day or other you will become meditative, and if you meditate deeply, you are going to become a lover. So if somebody is trying to be meditative without being in love, he is just trying to fool existence, and existence cannot be fooled! If anybody is trying to live just a life of love without being bothered about meditation, he is trying the impossible.

[Another participant says: I thought much would come up from my past but nothing came up, but I did not feel I was hiding.…

I understand your situation. This was your first group, so Primal will help you – it goes into the past...

It is there, and you cannot just forget it. It has to be consciously removed, and consciously dropped. You do the Primal, mm? You can forget about the past, but it will go on hanging in the shadow, manipulating you in millions of ways, but you never become aware; you remain a puppet.…

[A sannyasin asks: Please give me a new name... It doesn’t feel right anymore. This morning I woke up and it felt old, like a skin hanging around me.]

Mm, that’s very good, it has been a good experience.

You are not the name. Every name is just a utility, a label to be used – otherwise you are nameless. So I can give you another name, but after two days it will become old. Once it is given, it is already old. It has been a very good experience, because now you know that you are not the name.…

You will feel younger and younger. But it will become difficult to change the name again and again. Others will start coming, and I’m already short of names!

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