12

< Previous | Contents | Next >

‌CHAPTER 12

25 February 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin asked about watching ’a lot of shit going through his head]

It is natural, so don’t feel in any way depressed by it. If you do, it is impossible to get rid of it because you lose all energy in it. People who become interested in meditation, sooner or later start feeling hopeless, because the chatter of the mind seems non-ending; it goes on and on, and the more you try to finish with it, the more it bubbles up. Don’t be in a hurry, and don’t take any negative attitude about it.

Even shit can be used – it can become good manure. So don’t be negative about it. We are going to use it. There is no better fertiliser than it, and when you see a rose flower coming, it is out of a fertiliser. Meditation arises out of the mind. It is no-mind but it is based in the mind. It is just like a lotus born out of mud, just ordinary mud.

And the second thing: don’t try to stop it. Be loose. Tell the mind to just go on and to finish its trip. Remain unconcerned, as if it is none of your business, as if it is just a traffic noise – and it is. It is an engine that goes on continuously from the time of your birth to your death. It goes on making noises, chattering, rehearsing, projecting, remembering the past, desiring the future. Accept it in aloofness.

By and by you will see that there arises a distance and the distance between you and the noise of the mind goes on becoming bigger and bigger and wider and wider. One day suddenly you realise that it is not there. There is a tremendous silence. For moments you will realise that everything stops, and then starts again, but you remain aloof. Remain aloof even to the slopping, because if you rejoice too much in it you are immediately distracted. The mind will come in again and the whole functioning will start. If it stops that is okay. If it starts again, that too is okay.

But this is how the distance is created – and this distance is meditation. As I see it, nothing is needed. Simply be unconcerned and watch. That word ‘watch’ is a little too positive – watchfulness plus aloofness. Then the danger of that positive watching is avoided – a passive watchfulness.

Much is going to happen. Change to orange and forget the old identity. Now you are part of my family.

This word himalaya is very meaningful. Him means cool, ice-cool, and laya means a house – a house of coolness. That’s why we call the mountain Himalaya – the house, the very abode of ice- coolness. And anand means bliss.

Bliss and coolness go together. If you attain to bliss you will become cool, and if you attain to coolness you will attain to bliss. Bliss has no excitement in it. It is simple coolness, silence. It has no fever, no passion in it. So remember these two things – they are going to help you.

Remain cool – whatsoever the situation, whatsoever the excitement, suddenly remember that you have to be cool, and relax, and catch hold of your inner coolness. If somebody is insulting you, remember that you have to be cool, and this man is giving you an opportunity. Be thankful to him and don’t be distracted by him. If you can remain cool and indifferent where ordinarily you get easily excited and passion is aroused, when anger comes and distracts you and you become feverish, suddenly you will see that bliss is showering all around you.

You manage coolness, God manages bliss. You take one step, and he takes one step towards you immediately. It is fifty/fifty.

This coolness is your meditation.

... It is flowing... it is not deadness. Just remain cool like a cool breeze. The moment that you see that your flowing is becoming feverish, stop, because then you are going out of your being. Flow to the extent that you can retain your coolness, and then there is no problem.

Prem means love and dhyana means meditation, and love is going to be your meditation – love meditation.

Be loving as much as you can. Just go on remembering that you have to be loving – to the trees, to the rocks. Even if you are sitting in an empty room, be loving to the empty room. But whatsoever you do and wherever you move, carry a climate of love around you, and by and by you will start feeling it working.

It is everybody’s capacity. Nothing is to be learned about it. Everybody is born with it, just as we are born with the capacity to breathe. But somehow society has destroyed the capacity to love, because love is very dangerous for the society. It is the greatest rebellion there is. Society cannot exist, or this society cannot exist, if people are really loving. Wars and exploitation and all nonsense will be impossible if people are loving, so society does not want anybody to be loving. But unless you love, God remains unavailable, and unless you move deep in love, you cannot move in God.

So let this be your constant remembrance. Even when you touch things, even a chair, touch them as if they are your beloved. In the beginning it will look crazy, but by and by you will get the knack of it, and everything else will become crazy.

[A sannyasin said she had just recently recommenced meditating and that she was feeling an emptiness.]

Emptiness is good, it is a benediction. But particularly for the western mind, the very word ‘emptiness’ puts you off – it is as if something has gone wrong. It has a negative connotation. It feels as if something has to be done – that one has to stuff oneself with something. Emptiness looks like a vacuum. It has become an unconscious thing in the western mind, so you have to be aware of it.

Emptiness is not necessarily negative. If it comes through meditation, it is positive, the most positive thing in the world. Even God is not more positive than emptiness. If it comes through meditation, it is silence. Then it is more like space than vacuum. It is more like infinity, with no beginning and no end, with no limitations around it... just the open sky. It is full of something which you don’t yet know. It is full of God.

But first everybody encounters emptiness... and the more you become one with it, the more you nourish it, cherish it, the more you delight in it... by and by you will start feeling the flavour of it. You will start feeling that it is not just a vacuum. Something tremendously positive is there, but one needs a little acquaintance with it.

So feel happy. Whenever you feel empty, close your eyes and drop into that emptiness. Drown yourself in it as if it is a river. Don’t swim – drown. Your whole mind will tell you to get out. It will feel as if it is going to be a death. It is going to be a death for the mind – not for you. The death of the mind is your life, and the life of the mind is your death. So the mind will say that this is going to be a death. Tell the mind that that is okay, that you have decided to commit suicide – and then relax and drown... sink into it.

The moment the mind feels suffocated is the moment when something is going to happen. Don’t get out of it and don’t start doing something to occupy yourself. The temptation will be there – it comes to everybody who feels emptiness. But if you are doing something and you feel the emptiness is coming, drop doing so that it can totally take possession of you. Close your eyes and blissfully drown in it. It is going to be a great experience soon. It shows on your face too – something is getting ready but you will have to relax into it.

[A sannyasin, who is a textile designer, expresses doubts about wearing orange, especially when he returns to the West.]

Don’t be afraid about your sannyas, orange. This fear comes to everybody, it is natural, but once you go back home, within three days everything will settle. It is only a question of three days. All that you are thinking is ninety-nine percent imagination. Not even one percent is going to happen that way; it never happens like that.

One thing is certain – that people will ask, and they will think that you have gone a little crazy. If you can accept this much, there is no problem. Rather than allowing people to say that you have gone a little crazy, you yourself say it.And it is really crazy. You have gone a little crazy, otherwise why

should you take sannyas? But this craziness is good.and this is just the beginning of something

really great.

This is just the beginning of dropping the fear of public opinion. The more you think about what people think about you, the less you are concerned about your own well-being. That’s how we create false images. We go on smiling so that people will think we are happy, rather than really being happy – we choose a very poor substitute. But just by people thinking you are happy, can you be happy? Forget about what people think happiness is. You be happy, and if they think it is good, good. If they don’t think, that too is good.

Everybody has to live his own life. People go on thinking whether others think them intelligent or not. In the same time and with the same amount of energy they can become intelligent. But people are not worried about that – they are worried about what others think. That’s a very cheap substitute.

If you are hungry and everybody thinks that you are well-fed, is it going to help? And if you are well-fed and everybody thinks that you are hungry, then who bothers?

So don’t be worried, I will take care. I will be coming with you!

[A sannyasin said that he became very afraid while doing the Gourishankar meditation, because once when he was doing it, he saw his father dying – and his father did die two days later.]

You should be happy about it because it is very good. It is good that the son is meditating and the father dies. In fact the whole family should be meditating.

In the East, and particularly in Tibet where people have been meditating for centuries, this has been the rule. When somebody is dying, the whole family gathers – friends and relatives and the whole clan – and meditates. And while they are meditating they say that they drop all attachments towards the dying person. And they encourage him to drop his attachments towards them, so that he can be free and can move easily into another world without clinging to this one. It helps tremendously.

So don’t be worried about it.

[The Encounter group was at darshan tonight. The groupleader said that many participants had done groups before and he had difficulty pushing people beyond the deeper blocks.]

This is possible. It is possible that in a similar situation people react differently. If somebody has done many groups, one possibility is that he may have learned all the tricks, so he can remain superficial, just doing the things that are expected, and he will never move deeper. This will become a defence measure. This type of person has to be told, and he has to be pushed. Hard work will be needed on him.

Another person may have done so many groups that now there is no question of gross layers, they are finished, and he uses techniques to move deeper and deeper and deeper. Help that person too. The first needs forceful pushing, and the second needs very delicate helping, very delicate. No pushing is needed because he himself is ready to go – just give him an indication. If you force this type too much he will again become gross. He just needs your help and confidence that he is moving rightly. Encouragement is enough.

So forceful energy is needed for those people who are stuck. And for those who are floating on their own, just very subtle help and encouragement, that’s all. They need just the shadow of the whip – the first need the real whip.

But it is going to be so, and it has to be faced in every group as more people do more groups. [A participant said he felt very stuck. The groupleader commented that he was very elusive.]

Elusive, mm? Surround him from everywhere, and hit him hard! And (to the participant) don’t give them an easy job. You resist as much as you can. (laughter) Let it be a challenge... otherwise if you allow them too easily then you will again be moving on the surface.

So give a good fight. If you really fight, they will be able to force you, mm? If you simply say okay, I will come, you will not go far.

[Osho told the participant to join forces with the next sannyasin who said she was feeling very resistant. Osho told her to be as resistant as possible, because only through the tension of resistance would a peak come, and then a relaxation ]

[Another group member says: I discovered a lot but I would also forget a lot by the next moment. Is it important to remember everything?]

Don’t be worried about forgetting. The mind needs to forget as much as it needs to remember. If you remember everything you will go mad.

You have to forget many things each moment, because only then you can learn new things. The mind has a certain focus, and if the past continues to surround it, you will not be able to learn anything new. There are millions of things happening every day, and if you remember them all you will not be able to remain sane.

And in fact whatsoever is not important is forgotten naturally. You may think that it was important but your total being knows better. Whatsoever is important is always remembered. In fact the definition of ‘important’ is that which is not forgotten.

Whenever something is needed it will come back to the memory. What you forget is never thrown out. It simply goes into the reservoir, your memory pool. It remains there, and has tremendous capacity. One man’s brain can have all the libraries of the world in it. That much information can be stored in the brain. Whenever the need arises, the information will bubble up to the surface. It is as natural as blood circulation.

So don’t be worried about it... just relax.

[A group member says: I’ve been feeling a fear of breaking out of my role, my image.]

Mm, fear is natural, but still allow it. Go through the breakdown, because if you go through it properly, The breakdown becomes a breakthrough. So help the process – accept the fact that the fear is there, but also remember that in spite of the fear, the image has to be broken. Only then will you be able to know what is your reality, your truth.

The false has to be dropped for the true to be found. Fear is natural because you have lived with the false for so long. It is familiar, convenient, and one feels good about it. Even though it creates many miseries, still one feels good because it is such an old thing.

Every divorce is difficult, and this is the greatest divorce – when one is divorced from one’s old identity and image. It is not like taking your clothes off. It is like peeling your skin. But accept it. Once the old skin is gone, the new will start coming.

< Previous | Contents | Next >