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‌CHAPTER 29

13 January 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin says: My mind is doing a beautiful job of driving me crazy! But I feel that mostly I’m witnessing, rather than doing anything about it.]

Just be a witness. Don’t do anything about it, because anything that you do can never be very deep.

It can be at the most a temporary arrangement. All that man can do is going to be on the surface. So if a problem arises and you do something, temporarily it is solved, but the same problem will arise again in some other way. If there is an indecision, you can patch it up by doing something, but somewhere else the division will bubble up. And this goes on and on. Problems change but the problem goes on and on.

The basic thing is that the problem should dissolve, and that only happens when you simply don’t do anything. By just watching it, a distance is created, and the distance goes on becoming bigger and bigger and bigger. One day the distance is so great that suddenly you realise that the problem does not belong to you; ii is as if it has never belonged to you. Just distance is needed, and that comes only through witnessing.

All else that man can do is, in a way, self-defeating. For example, if you are feeling a certain doubt or an indecisiveness, in that indecisiveness you try to create a decision. How can decision be born out of indecision? You can only decide that yes, a decision has been reached, but deep underneath a current of indecision goes on growing. There is just a thin layer of deception, a very thin layer, which can be broken any moment by any situation.

In the East this has been one of the basic things – that no problem can be solved by doing anything. In fact the problems arise because man has become a doer. If man can remain with the being only and can drop the doing, problems disappear. In a witnessing consciousness there are no problems.

Only in a doer’s consciousness do problems arise. So the whole thing is to change the emphasis from doing to just being.

So just watch. Sit aloof and go on seeing the games that the mind goes on playing. One day suddenly, when the distance is right – and you cannot manage it, it just happens – and the perspective is clear, you and the problem are far apart. And there is no bridge: the problem is there and you are here. In fact in that moment you cannot even comprehend how it was bridged before, or how it was that you were so worried about it. It is somewhere in some other world, belonging to somebody else, and it has not even left a scratch on you. The truth of this experience becomes the key to dissolve all problems. So whenever a problem arises, just watch.

It is difficult because the whole western training is to analyse. (Amitabh was a psychotherapist in the West.) Witnessing is a totally different dimension. It is not analysis. The western training is to analyse, to understand it, to find out the cause of it – but you can never come to any end. You can find a cause for one problem, and then you try to. find out another cause for that, and it goes on ad infinitum. Every cause in its own turn is an effect. You can go on and on, just like peeling an onion, layer upon layer. An onion is finished sooner or later but the onion that is the human mind is never finished; it is non-ending. It goes on creating its own layers continuously.

In the East we have never tried analysis, because one of the profoundest insights has been that analysis is not going to end it. At the most it can force it backwards, it can put it away, but it can never end it. It is going to be there somewhere, and just forcing it away cannot help.

In the West you try to force the problem, you reduce it to the cause. In the East we try to put consciousness back to its source, and we don’t touch the problem at all. You try to force the problem away, and we try to bring consciousness home. We don’t touch the problem, but rather remove ourselves from it.

For example, you are there, and you are the problem. In the West, I become interested in you, and I try to force you to go away from my consciousness, and that’s how the unconscious is born. In the East, you are the problem, I am the consciousness. I leave you where you are and simply move myself away; then no unconscious is created, no repressions. I move; I don’t touch the problem. Just by moving myself into my own core, the necessary distance is created.

The West is also trying to create a distance – by forcing the problem away – but then it creates more problems, because they can never be forced away. In the very effort, in the fight with it, you remain close to it. When you analyse, the same mind that is creating the problem is also analysing it. It is trying to pull you by the shoe strings. You can jump a little, but it is not going to help much. You will be back on the earth again. It is like trying to catch your own tail.

So just watch, and by and by a deep unconcern arises. In that unconcern, everything dissolves. Nothing needs to be done. Simply sit, enjoy, be, and just watch. By and by when the problem understands that Amitabh is not interested in it, it will go.

When a guest is uninvited, unwelcome, and the host does not bother about him, doesn’t even say hello, how long will the guest go on knocking at the door? One day he simply goes. Each thought, each problem, is a guest. Don’t do anything with them, but remain a host – unconcerned, indifferent, and centred.

[Several weeks ago Osho had talked to a sannyasin about the beauty of a love that was given time to mature, about the need to nourish love, and not allow one’s affections and energies to be distracted by vague attraction to others.

He told her to set aside a time each day in which she could fantasise whatsoever she wanted to do in reality. He asked her tonight how this was going. She said the feelings still persisted, off and on.…

]

Let it come and go, but don’t be worried about it. When it comes, take note, that’s all, and in a very indifferent way.

In Buddhism they have a particular method which they call taking notice thrice. If a problem arises – for example, if somebody suddenly feels a sexual urge, or greed, or anger – they have to note three times that it is there. If anger is there, the disciple has to say inwardly three times: anger, anger, anger. Just to take complete note of it so that it doesn’t miss the consciousness, that’s all. Then he goes on with whatsoever he was doing, mm? He doesn’t do anything with the anger but simply notes it thrice.

It is tremendously beautiful. Immediately you become aware of it, take note of it, it is gone. It cannot take grip of you because that can only happen when you are unconscious. This calling thrice makes you so aware inside, that you are separate from the anger. You can objectify it, because it is there and you are here. Buddha told his disciples to do this with everything.

Just try it, and there is nothing to worry about. It is human, and there is nothing to feel guilty about. It is good that you know it comes – don’t repress it. Ordinarily, all the cultures and civilizations have been teaching us to repress problems, so that by and by you become unconscious of them – so much so that you forget them, you think that they don’t exist.

Just the opposite is the right way. Make them absolutely conscious, and in becoming conscious and focusing on them, they melt. So try this, and don’t miss a single moment. Just repeat three times ‘again, again, again.’ You have to repeat it inside, and if you feel it is helpful, you can repeat it out loud, so Amitabh will also know – ‘again, again, again!’

It is going to go, and when it does you will feel really relieved. You already look better When one is unburdened by these vagrant desires and ideas, one feels more innocent and pure. That fragrance surrounds you, and by and by life becomes a totally different song, a totally different dance.

So now start this!

[A sannyasin who is working in the ashram said she was finding it difficult to enjoy her work of typing. She said she knew it should not matter what she was doing, but nevertheless she found herself fighting against herself all day, telling herself that the work had to be done and was useful.

She said she worked without enthusiasm, without passion, and asked that she be helped to find a more positive attitude.]

There is no need to find any attitude. There is no problem if you feel surrendered to me: if I have said to do it, you do. Then it is not a question of your attitude, because that is not going to help. You

can find some positive attitude, but within a week it will be gone because you cannot remain in one attitude continuously.

Only a no-mind can remain in one attitude, and in fact it is no-attitude, that is why he remains in one state. Attitudes are bound to change. So if you are trying to make your attitude about it positive, you maybe able to by much effort, by suffering and forcing yourself, but then again you will slip back.

Simply surrender to me. Don’t think that Purna belongs to Purna. Purna belongs to Osho, and Osho says to type, so type!

Do you understand me? And whenever I see that you are happily typing I will change it! I will give you something more difficult, so don’t be worried, mm?

Everything is, in a certain way, going to help you. If you are really interested in changing yourself, then don’t cling to yourself; otherwise, how are you going to change? If your mind is to be fulfilled then it will become more and more strengthened. If your mind says that you don’t like typing, that you prefer something else, and you do that, then it becomes strengthened.

Precisely because you don’t like it I say that you are to go on doing it – precisely because of that. It is so that you can have a feeling that you are not a mind, or a slave to the mind; that the mind has no business to dictate, that you can by-pass it and be on your own. This is a great learning and a great discipline.

So there is no need to create any positive attitude. Simply drop all attitudes and just function as a vehicle, a passage, that’s all, and you will see everything change.

[A sannyasin who is a lecturer in psychology says he is not sure what to do; if he should change his profession: I like the teaching, and I see myself as a teacher rather than anything else. But it’s difficult to find an aspect within the discipline that I can give my heart to. I’ve been very proud of being professional for years and that’s got to stopBut I like teaching.]

Then continue, because if you like it, it is very creative, and if you really like it you can find ways of being more and more creative in it.

To be a teacher is one of the most creative things in the world, if you have a call for it, an inner quality, mm? It is an art, and teachers, like poets, are born. In a hundred teachers there are rarely one or two real teachers.

As I feel it, you have an inborn quality, so I will not suggest that you drop out of it. This is your vocation, so drop all other alternatives because they are disturbing. Go deep into it, and really become a teacher.

Later I will call you, and you will become a teacher for me. Soon I will need teachers to travel all around the world for me, because I am not going outside this porch

But be creative, and don’t regard it as a profession. Let it become a calling, an inspiration. Don’t do it just as a job; love it. There is nothing like it. A painter works with colours and canvas, a sculptor

with marble and stone, but a teacher works with human consciousness, and that is the greatest thing there is.

So you go on working. I am not going to make you a typist I will make you a teacher soon, but you have to get ready! So go back, continue teaching in the university, and start spreading my message.…

[A sannyasin says: I’m going to be a mother... Yes, I want it.]

Do you understand what it means? If you want it, it is okay, mm? But one should be more conscious about it. To be a mother means a great revolution, and a radical change.

To be a woman is one thing, and to be a mother is totally another. You are entering into a commitment with somebody you don’t know, and you will have to plan your life accordingly. Then your freedom is gone... so just think about it.

If you take the responsibility of the whole perspective clearly, you will not be able to be as free as you have been. The responsibility of the child will be on you – and not as a duty. If it is a duty, it will become a burden, and then one starts to take revenge on the child.

Right now you don’t know, so everything is good, but when the child comes there are responsibilities. Your freedom is cut completely. You have to think about the child first, and then yourself. The child becomes more important than you who will be secondary. Now you can go on changing lovers and doing whatsoever you like, but once the child is there, things will become

different. So think about it because it is a great decision.

If you take it consciously, it is perfectly okay, but don’t move into motherhood unconsciously – becoming pregnant by just drifting into it. Before, it was okay, because there were no methods available and pregnancy was always an accident, but now it need not be.

[She answers: It wasn’t.]

Then it is okay. If you have taken the step decisively, it is okay and there is no problem. You go into it!

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