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‌CHAPTER 2

14 February 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A seeker said that he had an experience following Kundalini meditation that had given him a great sense of joy. He had gazed at a tree and had become so filled with its beauty, so full of joy, that he felt he could not contain his feelings, and he became afraid.

Osho said that one’s capacity is limited in the beginning, but it increases as the joy increases. He said that just as the stomach gradually expands to accommodate more food as you increase the input, so the capacity to hold joy increases, and then the joy itself increases, and so on... they are interrelated.]

It is good to come to a point where your capacity is less than the joy. One should be grateful for it. If the capacity is more and the joy is not that much, you are poor, and you will always feel unfulfilled...

A small seed goes on holding a very big tree. A big oak is hidden in a very small seed. Only the seed needs to die, and then it becomes infinitely capable, and a big tree arises out of it.

Each person is potentially a god – nobody is less than that. The seed just has to dissolve into the earth – and by seed, I mean ego – and then you have no end to your capacities, no limitations. The whole universe comes within you. Stars, galaxies upon galaxies, are within you, and the sun rises within you – you can hold the whole universe. That is the possibility. Potentially everyone is entitled to claim it, but we never claim it. We remain hidden behind the hard shell of the seed, and we remain afraid, afraid to die.

Unless you die, you cannot hold the infinite within you. So learn to die. That is what I am teaching here how to be capable of dying. In the very moment of death, abundant life happens to you. Fear will come many times. It is natural, but don’t be afraid of it. Accept it and go on.

[A sannyasin says: Since I came back from Goa I’ve found my energy really drained. I find it difficult to do the meditations.]

First people want to go to Goa, and if I say don’t go, they feel I am preventing them. If I allow them, always something or other goes wrong. It is a constant problem. So, rest for a few days.

You don’t understand. Here you are moving into a certain atmosphere – so many meditators, so many sannyasins. A different quality of energy is released and it is very nourishing. When you go away from here, it is as though you have taken a plant out of the earth... an uprootedness happens. And Goa can be a very dangerous place.

Once you are settled in your being you can go anywhere; there will be no trouble. But while you are just settling and roots are going deeper into the earth, at that moment it is dangerous. So you just rest for a few days. But when I say rest, I don’t mean don’t come to the meditations.

Come and let others meditate, and absorb the energy. Sit by the side and dose your eyes, and just feel that a cloud of meditative energy is surrounding you, showering on you. Feel as if every cell of your body is being bathed, nourished, mm? Within three or four days you will be completely healed. And then start meditating.

And next time rememberIt is not good.

[A sannyasin reported back to Osho tonight after three days of wearing a sign around her neck which said: I AM SAD PLEASE REMIND ME Osho had suggested that this technique would help her to face her sadness which she said she was not in touch with. (see ‘Above All, Don’t Wobble’) She said that it was very good.]

Sadness is also energy, and if you know how to transform it and to use it, it is a blessing. This has to be understood very deeply: that you can change energy from one mood to another mood.

For example you are feeling angry. Relax, and start smiling. Go deeper into smiling. Start laughing – and just watch what is happening. You will immediately find that the anger is changing. It has come to a turning point from where it suddenly takes a jump and becomes laughter; it is the same energy. After a deep laughter, you will see that there is no need to be angry now; the anger has disappeared. Not only have you overcome the anger, but you have used it creatively. If you had been angry you would have been impoverished. It was a dissipation of energy.

When you feel sad, just feel that sadness, and start moving to the opposite polarity of laughing, enjoying, dancing, swaying. And soon you will see – click! – something changes suddenly. And you will be able to hear the sound of it – it is almost like a click – and you will see that the climate has changed. It is no more night.

And once you come to know the knack of it, you have come to know the meaning of inner alchemy. Then you are the master, and whatsoever happens, you can transform it into whatsoever else you want. Then there is no need to be in sadness when you don’t want to be. If you want to be in sadness that is perfectly okay. Sometimes one wants to be sad; it is very relaxing – but then it is not negative at all. It is your choice. If you don’t want it, you can come out of it.

The problem arises when you don’t want it, and you cannot come out of it. The problem is not sadness. The problem is that you cannot come out of it. The problem is not anger. The problem is that when it takes possession of you, you become helpless. You understand me?

The problem is to do with your incapacity to come out of these moods. Then one feels a slave, in bondage, imprisoned, and that imprisonment hurts. One feels walled in from everywhere... so helpless. The whole of life seems to lose meaning.

If you can come out of your imprisonment, it becomes a home. And there is no problem – you have the key in your hands. You can open the door and come out. That is the only difference between a home and a prison. The prison is a house, the home is a house, but the keys of the prison are not in your hands. You are not there of your own will; you are forced to be there.

The same place becomes your home if the keys are delivered to you. Then you may not even want to go out. It may be too hot outside, too noisy, and you would like to relax inside. Just a moment before, you wanted to go out, and now the keys have been given to you and you are in no hurry.

The problem is not the prison. The problem is that the keys are not with you. Sadness becomes a prison if you cannot transform it. Once you know the knack of how to transform it, then it is for you to decide. If you want to enjoy it as sadness, you enjoy. If you want to change it, you change it.

And energy is neutral. The same energy can move into a different mould. Have you watched sometimes a small child laughing, madly laughing? – and then suddenly he starts crying; the laughter becomes crying. The opposite is also possible – the crying can become laughter.

In India, in villages, mothers say to their children, ‘Don’t laugh too much, otherwise you will cry.’ It has much wisdom in it. If you come to the very end of laughter, what will you do? You start crying. If you cry to the very end, you will start laughing. It is a circle, and once you know it, you can relax.

So let this become a very great insight for you, and use it. Always play with your moods. Change the climate, and by and by one becomes the master.

Good. It has been good.

[A sannyasin says: I just wanted to come closer. Osho gives her energy darshan.]

Good! This is the way to come closer. Not by coming closer does one come closer to me, but by going into oneself. The more in you go, the more close you are to me – wherever you are. Time and distance does not matter.

Whenever you want to be close to me, first have a picture of me, look at it for one minute, and then close your eyes and allow the movement – whatsoever happens. This will happen again and again, and deeper and deeper you will go. If somebody is around, tell him to rub the third eye, or you can rub it yourself, mm?

[A sannyasin asks about shaving his head.]

Shaving of the hair won’t help... cutting off of the head! (laughter from the group) If you really want, then tell me. Cutting of the head is worth doing. Shaving of the hair is useless and won’t help much!

[A sannyasin who is doing all the meditations in the camp says it is so much energy it is almost painful.]

It can become painful when it is too much and you don’t know what to do with it. When do you feel the energy most in the day?...

And with the energy, enjoy it, delight in it. Just sitting, sway, sing, dance a little, jog, or run around the house. Do it not as a work but as a fun. When there is too much energy it has to be used as fun. Just a playing around, almost fooling around – just as small children do.

If meditation goes well, much energy is created. One is always at a loss as to what to do with it because our whole mind has been conditioned for centuries for utility, because the world has lived in scarcity, scarcity of everything.

Now for the first time many parts of the world are getting out of that poverty. A greater problem has arisen now – of what to do with that energy. All the old values are useless now. Humanity will have to learn to play. They will have to drop all utilitarian ideas, and will have to use energy as fun – a simple delight in it. Not that something comes out of it – no result should be sought in it. You just release energy, and the very release is a tremendously beautiful experience.

Then you are going beyond economics. Then you are no longer living in scarcity. Otherwise they have been teaching people in the old days that work is worship. Sooner or later we will have to change it, because ‘work is worship’ will become a very dangerous thing.

Fun is worship – just enjoying. This is a moment of affluence in your inner economy. The same can happen to the whole society, to the whole nation. If you have too much energy and you don’t know what to do, where to use it, and your mind is old fashioned, it will tell you to use it rightly.

No, when energy is too much, one has to be a spendthrift; miserliness won’t help. So now please, don’t be a miser. Just enjoy throwing the energy, and it will become such a deep orgasmic experience. In fact if energy is too much and you can simply delight in it, by and by you will see that you have become capable of an orgasm that is non-sexual.

Sexual orgasm is one orgasm of many – and not the greatest. And in a way sexual orgasm is local, it is not total; only part of your being is involved in it. But if you can delight like a child, jump and move and dance for no particular reason – just like a madman – then you will have a different type of orgasm spreading all over the body. Each cell will become involved in it.

And you will come out of it so relaxed and quiet and calm, that you cannot even dream about it, cannot imagine. It is a sacred bath – in your own energy. So try this, mm?

[A sannyasin says: I keep feeling as though I’ve reached the point where it’s time to jump, but then fear comes...

He asks Osho to push him.]

I will not allow you to go in so soon! Many other things have to be done first. And this is also a temptation, a desire – to go in. This temptation has also to be dropped, and suddenly one day you will find that you are in – because in you are. How can you go more in?

You are in. Your very being is what we call ‘in’. So this very effort to go in is a barrier. Just accept it and relax. Just leave it to itself. You are not to do anything. Up to this moment everything else can be done, but when this moment comes, nothing can be done. You have to accept this. You can delay it – this acceptance can be a delayed acceptance, that’s all – but one day or other you have to accept that nothing can be done.

And once this penetrates deeply, suddenly it happens; not that you do it – suddenly you find that you are in. Not only that – you find you have never been out. So please forget about it. Do other things; I have many things for you to do! And when it happens there is no need to even watch. That too becomes a tension. Simply laugh at the whole thing, enjoy it. It seems ridiculous, a nightmare.

Let this settle down so deeply that it reaches your very core of being – that there comes a boundary beyond which doing cannot be of any help. And do other things that can be done: meditate, enjoy life, eat, walk, run, dance, sing. Whatsoever you feel like doing, do. Do everything else that can be done, but remember, the ultimate cannot be done. There, one is totally helpless; there, one is totally impotent.

If you can do something, you will feel happy. Whether something happens out of it or not, is not the question. You will feel better because the mind will still be manipulating, it will still be doing something. The mind drops only where it cannot do anything, where doing becomes absolutely impossible. The very nature of the thing does not allow any doing. Then the mind falls flat.

That is where you are. It is a very rare situation and comes only to a few fortunate people. But then one feels very miserable and frustrated because again and again it comes, and is so close that you could have got it. It was just within your reach. When you miss it, again you start thinking that it was so close. Just a jump, a knock on the door and you would have entered.

I know it is very close, but you cannot do anything about it. It will be repeated many times. Many times you will perspire, will feel frustrated almost to the point of death. But by and by a new understanding will arise. The frustration is not coming from the experience that comes so close; the frustration is coming because you are. The frustration is coming because you cannot do anything whatsoever. If you do something – chant a mantra – the illusion is prolonged that you can do something. But that illusion is the ego.

So I am not going to say to you that anything has to be done. And even I cannot push, because any push and you will go further away from the experience. You will have to live this moment, this critical moment of predicament, this dilemma that is so close, and yet so far away. Just a single step and the journey is over – and you cannot move your foot. When the goal recedes again, you do everything you can, and then the moment it comes again, you cannot move a single step. It is tremendously frustrating.

But this frustration is needed. When you have become completely soaked in it, one day the experience will be there just by the comer, and you will not be bothered. You will not even be trying to get it. You will simply say okay, I’m not worried.

In Maharashtra, this province of India, there is a temple which is one of the most holy places in India. The temple is called Vithoba temple. Vithoba is one of Krishna’s names. The story is that a devotee of Krishna became so deeply meditative that Krishna had to come to him.

When he arrived, the devotee was massaging the feet of his mother. Krishna came and knocked on the door. As it was open, he came in and sat just behind the devotee, who for many lives had been crying and begging Krishna to come to him. Just by turning his head the devotee would be fulfilled; his long effort would come to a fulfillment.

Krishna said ‘Look, I am here. Look at me.’ And the devotee said to him to wait, because he had not come at the right moment – he was massaging his mother’s feet. He was sitting on a small earthen brick, so he took it out and pushed it back telling Krishna to sit on it. He never turned to look at him, to welcome and thank him.

Krishna stood on that brick and waited the whole night, because the mother could not go to sleep, she was dying, and the devotee could not leave her. God could wait. The morning came and the town became awake. Krishna became afraid in case others saw him, so he became a statue.

And that statue is there in that temple. Krishna is standing on that brick waiting for the devotee who never turned around!

The story is... something. Only in such deep moments of renunciation – not even the desire to see God – and the devotee attained.

Many times this experience will come, but allow it, and don’t even try to catch hold of it.

[The sannyasin replies: Well I don’t do meditations any more because I see that it is just more effort. And quite frankly, to me enlightenment is just nonsense, because it’s a concept. All my beliefs about it have fallen flat.]

Enlightenment is nonsense, but not in the sense you think. It is nonsense because it is beyond sense. It is higher than sense, superior to sense.

One can call it nonsense, but that attitude can only be of the intellect, can only be an intellectual understanding that all concepts are mere concepts. But to call it nonsense – that too, is a concept; it is nothing more than a concept. This too I call nonsense – to call enlightenment nonsense.

I also call it nonsense because it is transcendental to sense; it is more than sense can understand. It is an experience, existential. So when I call it nonsense, it is not a condemnation. It is a great appreciation. I am praising it when I call it nonsense. You may start condemning it when you call it nonsense, and then you will miss the whole point.

Let things be as they are. It is not because of you that you cannot do anything. The experience is such that nothing can be done. It is not because of you; nobody can do anything. One day when it has reached to the very core of your being – that nothing can be done – not in frustration but in understanding – then suddenly it happens. It can happen any moment; just the doer has to go. It will go, but it gives a good fight before it goes!

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