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CHAPTER 4
7 June 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
[A sannyasin says: Since I’ve been doing Zazen, I find I’ve been resisting the body wanting to move... I’ve been wondering if I should go on with allowing the movements or should resist them ?]
Both are good, so make a synthesis out of both. First for twenty minutes allow all movements. Whatsoever happens – sway, move, let the energy have its play. Then for forty minutes sit silently. That swaying is very significant. It helps the energy to melt and rise. It helps your blocks to be broken.
But if you continuously do it and you never sit silently, then too you will miss something. When the energy has started moving, one should become absolutely silent, otherwise the movement remains gross. The body movement is good but it is a gross movement, and if the whole energy remains in the gross movement, the subtle movement will not start.
One has to come to a point where the body is completely still like a statue, so all gross movements stop but the energy is there ready to move and there is no opening for it in the body. It seeks a new opening inside that is not of the body. It starts moving in the subtle layers.
But the first movement is needed. If the energy is not moving, you can sit like a stone and nothing will happen. The first thing is to help the energy to move, and the second thing is that when it is really moving, stop the body. When the energy is throbbing so much and ready to move somewhere, then it will have to move into the subtle layers because the gross is no more available.
So first make it dynamic and then let the body be still so the dynamism will go deeper, to the very roots, to the very core of your being. Make a synthesis: twenty minutes of body movement, and after twenty minutes, suddenly stop. You can have an alarm, and when it goes off, suddenly stop.
Not a single moment is to be lost. Come into the middle and freeze. The body is full of energy but now when the body has frozen, the energy will start finding new ways.
This is the method to work inwards. It is good that you told me.
[A sannyasin who is leaving says he will return whenever Osho brings him back.] Mm! That’s good. But don’t resist me. When I call, come immediately.
Because sometimes it is very difficult. The ego always goes on resisting in subtle ways. Sometimes it will say that now there is no need to come, or it will find other excuses. Sometimes it may say that this is not Osho calling you, it is just your own mind.
Make it a point for at least two minutes every day to sit silently and put this box on your head. [Osho hands him a small wooden box.] Just say, ‘Osho, do you have any message for me?’ And then simply listen. If there is no message, there will be none. If there is a message, you will be able to know immediately that it is not from you. The voice will be mine, not yours. It will have an absolute certainty, but one has to learn how to listen to it. There will never be any doubt as to whether it is your own mind playing tricks on you or not.
The doubt arises because you have not learned the art of how to listen. So every night just before you go to bed, do this. Listen in a deep passive mood. Any activity on your part will be a disturbance. Just listen as if you are a thief and you are entering somebody’s house. Remain very alert, because if there is any noise you have to get out of the house and run !
Listen just like a cat when he is ready for the mouse and just waiting – alert, listening, ready to jump any moment at a small hint. So be a thief, be a cat, and listen. By and by you will understand what I mean. By and by the passivity will deepen and you will start feeling something that is not of you. You will be able to feel my presence – and don’t be scared if it happens.
If you suddenly become aware of me surrounding you, in just the same atmosphere that is here right now this moment, if you are transported into a different space, don’t be scared, mm?
[To a sannyasin, who had just arrived from the States, Osho recommended the Tathata group, describing it as ‘suchness’ – just being totally in the moment... ]
... as if all bridges are broken and there is no past and no future. Time is only this moment, herenow. And whatsoever happens is the only way that life can happen to you. There is no ‘should’, no ‘oughts’, no goal, no ideal... just being existential, almost like an innocent animal: not knowing any memory, any imagination. Animals don’t know that they have been yesterday and they don’t know that they are going to be tomorrow. They just live this day. The only life they have is of the moment.
Tathata is a group in which you have to live like an animal, in the immediate, in the pure present, and without any ‘should’, because all ‘shoulds’ bring in the future. Have no idea of improving yourself, as if there is going to be no improvement.
In fact that’s how it is. There is no possibility of improving. The whole effort to improve oneself creates much anxiety and tension. It disturbs one’s energy and destroys much.
Once ‘shoulds’ have been dropped and you don’t live in a utopia, in an ideal in the future of your having to become this and that, once you simply accept whomsoever you are or whatsoever the whole wills you to be, once you don’t want to change a single thing and you have no complaints, but you simply want to live and enjoy and delight in it, whatsoever it is, then suddenly a totally new dimension opens. Then you are not moving in linear time – from past to present and from present to future. Suddenly you start dropping, sinking, drowning in the present.
Ordinarily in the mind, movement is horizontal. When you live in the moment a great revolution happens: your movement becomes vertical. Either you go high or you go low but there is no horizontal, linear process. Then a great intensity arises. One becomes aflame, aglow.
The moment is so intense that one moment is almost like an eternity. It is – but because you have lost contact with it and you don’t know how to make contact with the present, you are continuously thinking about the past – that which is no more – or about that which is not yet. And between these two the real is crushed.
The real is very narrow, atomic. The past is big and the future is also very big. Between these two big rocks, the small aliveness, the atomic plant of life, is crushed.
So Tathata means suchness, to be herenow in the suchness in a deep acceptance. So first do Tathata... and be totally here. That means, leave everything to me. Don’t decide; leave everything to me. The more you grow in trust, the more you will come in contact with your own being.
Every child is born with a deep trust, but then many experiences go against it and destroy it. Still, it is never absolutely destroyed. It remains repressed. Every child comes with the potentiality to trust. He trusts the mother, the father, the brother, the sister; everything that is around him, he trusts. But by and by he comes across many things which are against the trust. He trusts people who are not trustworthy. Then by and by he becomes sceptical, doubtful, uncertain. Then the capacity to trust becomes repressed. That capacity has to be regained, reclaimed.
That’s all sannyas is about: to regain that childhood capacity of trusting. If I can help you that much, that’s enough.
If you can trust me, that is just a device. Your trust, the quality, the mood, will arise, and then you can trust the whole of life. Once you know how beautiful it is to trust.Even when people are not
trustworthy, then too, it is beautiful to trust. Even when people are not trustworthy, then too, to doubt is to destroy one’s own being, because one grows in a climate of trust.
Once you know that the beauty of trust is unconditional.whether others deceive you or not, that is
not the point; that is their problem. If you can trust even when people are not trustworthy, you have come home. Then you start growing.
And this growth is not an improvement. It has no ideals, no ‘shoulds’. You simply accept yourself, and in that acceptance you start sprouting new leaves, new flowers.
[At a previous darshan Osho suggested to a sannyasin that he was too dependent on his girlfriend and that they should have some space to themselves to sort out their feelings for each other. The sannyasin reports back that they see each other very little and when they do talk it is always angry.]
Mm mm... it is good to pass through it. It is hard – and I am making it as hard as I can, because if it remains lukewarm you will never get out of it. It has remained that way for a long time. So this way or that, some decision has to be arrived at.
And all decisions are hard; that’s why people go on drifting. Any decision and the mind tries to escape from it, because decisions mean commitment. People think that if they don’t decide, somehow things will settle by themselves. But then you waste much time. Things do settle by themselves but they take muck time unnecessarily. So it is better to see the whole conflict and to suffer it. There is nothing to be worried about.
The only point is to realise deep down if you love her or not. This will be- the deciding factor; all other considerations are irrelevant.
[The sannyasin replies: I have both voices though.]
Then pass through a little more suffering. Suffering will help you come to the point where only one voice remains. You will have to go a little deeper because at the deepest level, at the heart, it is always one voice. The two voices simply indicate that the mind and the heart are speaking, so you have not gone yet deep enough. You have not yet suffered enough and you are still hoping.
Drop all hope so that you can come to realise the facticity of it. Then decision is simple. If you love her, the whole suffering is worthwhile. Then whatsoever happens is good. If you don’t love her, there is no point. Why should one suffer?
Love makes everything beautiful, even suffering, because there is something to suffer for. But if there is no love and you are suffering, it is pointless, futile. And nobody else can make you realise it. You have to realise it.
I can tell you what is happening but that won’t help, so I will have to wait until you come to the point yourself. If I say something you will start thinking about it, for and against, resisting it. If I say the truth you will be against me. That’s what you have been passing through. The last time I was hard and I was trying to say some truths to you. That disturbed you. People want to listen to lies, and they don’t help – lies don’t help.
People want things to be made comfortable. They come to me for consolations, and truth is not a consolation. But only truth helps... and only truth liberates. All consolations are just postponements. Again today I can console you that everything will be alright, but again tomorrow the problem will be there.
[The sannyasin says: What I really want to do is to break the problem.]
Don’t try to do anything. Simply try to know exactly where you are, what you are, and what your deepest desire is. Because whatsoever you want to do may not be the deepest. It may be again an
effort to avoid the deepest truth. Simply try to see the fact of whether you love. Let this question be there like a mantra: Do I love her?
And everything else is irrelevant. If you love then it is okay. Even if she is hard, tough, even if she misbehaves and there is conflict and she nags and never leaves you in peace, then too it is okay. Because if love is there, all these things do not matter, and love is capable of surviving them. But love must be there.
If it is not there, you are believing in a gun which has no bullets and any moment you are going to be in trouble. The gun is empty, so the sooner you realise that, the sooner you can make some other arrangements. Otherwise it will be too late.
Come to a point where you can be absolutely clear and certain about whether you love or not. If you don’t love there is no point in being together: separate. Other considerations should not be brought in; they are all cowardly arguments.
You are not here to suffer for your whole life and she is not here to suffer. So why create suffering for each other? It is pointless. Separate – and separate in a friendly way. What is the point of continuously fighting?
Since you have been here there has been continuous fighting. I have never seen you happy, and I have never seen Arya happy. I know that she is unhappy; you are unhappy. When happiness happens, it happens to the couple. It does not happen to one person. When you are in love, happiness happens to the couple; they are both happy. If one is unhappy, the other is bound to be unhappy. Unhappiness happens to the couple. People can be happy alone, but when you are in a relationship you cannot be unhappy or happy alone.
Whatsoever happens to the other is going to affect you because you are vulnerable, open, and you are continuously exchanging energy with the other person – so if she is unhappy, you become unhappy. When you are unhappy you make her unhappy, and then this unhappiness accumulates. Then it bursts and explodes. Even if it doesn’t explode, it is there like a wall. You have both been unhappy but somehow you go on clinging. There is every possibility you are clinging to the unhappiness itself.
If you are clinging to the unhappiness itself, you are in a morbid state, a perverted state. One has to come out of it, otherwise this state will become a permanent thing in you. And the danger is there that even if Arya leaves you and you leave her, whenever you find another woman you will repeat the same pattern because it will become habitual. You will know only one way to relate to a woman – by being unhappy. You will force the other woman also to be unhappy and the same thing will be repeated again.
This happens to millions of people: they go on repeating the same pattern, they go on playing the same record. So stop playing that tape. If you really want to be happy, you have to be truthful.
If you love her, be happy and don’t allow any unhappiness, at least from your side. Let her be unhappy. Then it is her problem and if she cannot be happy with you, she leaves.
If you don’t love and you have other considerations – economical, political, formal, egoistical – then you will suffer. It is difficult. You have lived with someone for so long and it is difficult to just get out of it – but a man of insight is always ready. If he sees that the whole point is missing, he gets out of it.
It will be a compassionate act for her also because she will be able to live her own life and you will be able to live yours. If you feel like being alone, it will be good for a few months to be alone so that the whole of the old pattern is washed away.
Then you can find another girlfriend. There is no problem. The world is vast, and whenever one door closes, another opens. Why cling? Life is very precious. But this you have to decide about.
One thing that one should always retain – and it is the only duty – is to be happy. So make it a religion to be happy. If you are not happy, then whatsoever you are doing, something must be wrong and some drastic change is needed. Let happiness decide.
I am a hedonist. And happiness is the only criterion man has.
There is no other criterion. Happiness gives you the clue that things are going well. Unhappiness gives you the indication that things are going wrong; so some great change is needed somewhere.
[Osho said couples can go on repeating the same argument again and again, for years. As soon as they are with each other, something is triggered off and they mechanically begin arguing about the same issues.
Osho said he could explain the situation as he saw it, but then the sannyasin would regard him as inimical to him. He had to discover the situation for himself.]
And you can go away and cathart; there is nothing wrong in it. Let the sexual energy accumulate. It will help, because that too becomes almost a release of anger, violence, conflict. It almost always happens that couples will fight and then make love, because when anger is too much, what to do? So they throw their fire, and their sexual orgasm becomes just a relief. It is not orgasm; it is just releasing energy. Rather than being an orgasm it is more like a leakage, a safety-valve. So that there is not too much energy, you release it; the vapour is released and you feel a little relaxed. Again tomorrow you are in the same boat.
Try not to release it. That will bring a built-up state inside and it will bring up many things and help you to see them. Let it be there and don’t be in a hurry.
Because of this constant conflict, your growth has been continuously postponed. I have never found you in a situation where I can start working on you. It seems that you are always completely preoccupied with Arya and she is preoccupied with you. One hundred percent of your energy is engaged there. So if that problem is solved, I can start working with you; otherwise that has become a barrier.
Be courageous and come to realise what is the real fact inside you. Don’t try to deceive yourself. Am I am here. If you cannot, then I will bring the fact to you. It is already there. I can see it; there is no hesitation about it. But I will wait.
The Soma group was present tonight.
[A group member says: After one of the meditations I felt vibrations of so much joy and happiness coming right up through my body. It felt so fantastic... just vibrating and vibrating. I’m just so full of love and gratitude towards you.]
Very good. This has been a breakthrough. But make it a point to relive it again and again. Just sitting silently, remember it; don’t remember it, relive it. Again start feeling the same. Let the vibrations surround you. Move into the same space and allow it to happen so it becomes by and by very natural to you. You become so capable of bringing it that any moment you can do it.
Many valuable insights happen in the groups but they need follow-up. Otherwise they become just memories and you will lose contact and will not be able to move into the same world. By and by, one day you yourself will start disbelieving them. You may think that it was a dream or a hypnosis, or some trick of the mind. That’s how humanity has lost many beautiful expriences.
Everybody comes around some beautiful spaces someday or other in his life, but we never try to make a path to it so that it becomes natural, so that it becomes just as when you eat every day, you take your bath or go to sleep, and whenever you close your eyes you can be in it.
[Osho gives him an energy darshan.]
Very good. You will be able to get into it easily. It has been tremendously valuable. So every day, just sit and try to bring this. Do it for ten minutes and you will be completely drowned in it.
[A sannyasin said: I feel that I’m stuck in a space which is neither pleasant nor unpleasant but which seems like a limbo.
Osho suggested he simply go on being a witness, saying that by and by this would go. He said he should not judge it as stupid but maintain a pure, unjudging, uncondemnatory witnessing. If what was happening was of any significance, useful, it would remain; otherwise it would naturally drop away sooner or later.]
And the second thing is very significant. You are still not aware of the meaning. You call it limbo, but it is one of the most beautiful spaces, better than the space you call pleasant.
The state you call pleasant cannot be permanent; it has to be lost again and again. It has a certain excitement, a certain tension. One cannot remain in that tension forever. It can only be momentary. The state that you call painful is also momentary; one cannot remain in it permanently.
The only state in which one can become a permanent dweller is the space which is neither this nor that. It is a quality of silence and calmness, tranquillity.
Of course in the beginning it feels very tasteless because there is no pain and no pleasure. But all pain and all pleasure is just excitement. The excitement that you like you call pleasure. The excitement that you don’t like you call pain.
Sometimes it. happens that you can start liking a certain excitement and it may become pleasure, and you can start liking another excitement and it may turn into pain. So the same experience can become pain or pleasure; it depends on your likes and dislikes. But this space that you are feeling is the best.
Don’t call it a limbo. Calling names is bad, because the moment you call it limbo you have condemned it and you are already trying to get out of it, you are hankering to get out of it. No, relax in it. That’s the most natural state of relaxation. Once you start being in it, feeling it, you will learn the taste of it. That I call the taste of tao.
It is just like wine. In the beginning it will be very bitter. One has to learn. And it is the deepestthere is, the greatest alcoholic beverage of silence, of tranquillity. One becomes drunk with it. By and by you will understand the taste of it. In the beginning it is tasteless because your tongue is too full of pain and pleasure.
You know only two tastes – pain and pleasures – and you don’t know anything beyond that.
It is not a limbo state. It is a beyond state. So enjoy it, delight in it. Feel happy and grateful about it. Then it will grow and you will come to see that pleasure is nothing before it. It is very blissful; not pleasant but blissful. And it does not know any pain because it does not know any pleasure. They are two aspects of the same coin. This is beyond both.
So feel happy and move into it more and more. Whenever you have time, simply sit and enjoy it... delight in it.
[The sannyasin adds: I seem to want to be alone most of the time. When I have people around me, I somehow resent their presence.]
That resentment is again a choice. A few people are only happy when they are with others. Then one gets fed-up with people and wants to be alone; then one feels happy. But these are polarities. Soon you will get fed-up with your aloneness if you are left alone. You will hanker for relationship, for friends and people. I will suggest that you simply drop the resentment.
When you are with people, enjoy them. When you are alone, enjoy aloneness. When you can have both, why choose one? You can keep the cake and eat it too, mm? And that is more jewish.
... I am an old Jew and I know [laughter]. Enjoy both and don’t make a choice; there is no need. You can have both – this world and that. Try! It will happen.
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