Chapter title: Life is a Lovesong
24 April 1979 am in Buddha Hall Archive
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7904240
ShortTitle:
FISH14
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Yes Video: No Length:
102
mins
The first question Question 1
OSHO, I KEEP THINKING OF MY LIFE IN TERMS OF GOAL OR DESTINATION, WAITING TO WAKE UP SOME DAY AND FIND MYSELF ENLIGHTENED, AND I WORRY THAT OTHERS WILL REACH BEFORE ME. TODAY IS A TENSION.
WHY IS ETERNITY SO DIFFICULT TO FEEL AND REMEMBER? YOU KEEP
REMINDING ME BUT I KEEP FORGETTING AND LOSE PATIENCE. WHY
AM I SUCH A FOOD? AND THEN I THINK 'SO WHAT?' AND THEN I WANT TO
SCREAM 'NO MORE!' BUT GO ON.
Tao Sudas,
MAN HAS BEEN CONDITIONED DOWN THE CENTURIES FOR GOALS,
destinations, purposes, meanings -- that's how man has lived hitherto, with the goal-oriented ideology. Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, communist, it doesn't matter -- all ideologies are goal-oriented. It is always tomorrow that you have to look to, or the next life. It is always somewhere else: the goal, the meaning, the bliss, the paradise -- it is never now here.
Because of these ideologies you cannot allow yourself to relax in the moment. They go on goading you... you have to attain something, you have to achieve something. Your whole education system is a strategy of poisoning your consciousness; it is a strategy of driving you crazy after goals, it is a strategy of creating ambition in you. And ambition is neurosis. But this has been done for so long that it has become part and parcel of the human mind.
That's why you go on thinking in terms of goal or destination. It is not you: it is the society that goes on thinking in you, through you; it is your parents, it is your priests, it is your politicians, it is your pedagogues, who go on thinking through you, and you are identified with them. You don't know that you are separate.
The first thing that you will have to learn is to be a witness to all that goes on in the mind, because the mind is a social phenomenon -- it is not a God-given gift. It is social exploitation; it is society that makes a mind in you, and through that mind controls you, keeps you imprisoned, chained, reduces you to a slave. And you are not the mind! You are the witness who can see the mind very easily. You can see the thoughts moving in your consciousness -- those thoughts are the content of the consciousness but they are not consciousness itself.
And this is what meditation is all about: creating a distance between you and your mind.
Once the distance is there, you will be surprised that the whole mind structure is your imprisonment -- you are free from it because you are separate from it. Once
you start enjoying the freedom from the mind all goals will disappear, all destinations will disappear.
Mind can only live in goals, because mind can only exist in the future. Mind cannot exist herenow -- try to be herenow and try for the mind to continue. You will find it impossible. Either the mind continues, then you are not herenow; or, you are herenow and the mind is no more there. Mind has no present tense at all; either it is past or it is future -- it is always in the non-existential. And God is that which exists. God is not a goal, nirvana is not a goal, enlightenment is not a goal, it is not an achievement -- just the contrary. When you have forgotten ALL goals, when you have dropped the whole achieving mind, enlightenment is -- enlightenment is a state of no-mind.
And enlightenment is nothing special. It is the most ordinary, natural phenomenon. It looks special because you make a goal out of it. Buddha is the most ordinary human being -- ordinary in the sense that he has no mind, he exists in the sheer present. He has no ego, how can he be special? He cannot compare himself with anybody else, he cannot be inferior or superior.
In the present moment, he is not -- but a totally different kind of presence happens, which does not belong to the person; it is only a presence, not a person at all. And how can he be special? -- because in the present moment he finds that there is no purpose in life. The whole purpose is mind-imposed.
The trees are there for no purpose at all, and the stars are there for no purpose at all.
Purpose is a man-created concept. Rivers are not flowing for any purpose, and the oceans are there not for any purpose. Except for man there is nothing like purpose anywhere else. Life simply is. Existence utterly is -- it is not a means to some end; it is an end unto itself That's what I mean when I say there is no purpose.
I am not saying that it is purposeless, because to use the word 'purposeless' brings the purpose in. It is simply transcendental -- neither purpose nor no purpose, neither meaning nor no meaning. It is not going anywhere. There is no goal to life, and if you have a goal then you are going against life, and you will suffer -- because you will be trying to go upstream. You will have to struggle, and all struggle is dissipation of energy, and all struggle is stupid, because all
struggle is destructive. It simply destroys you. You cannot win against the whole. Relax... there is no goal to be achieved. Simply, there is no goal!
I am not telling you, "Don't try to achieve goals" -- I am telling you there is no goal whether you try or not. If you try you will be simply wasting your time and energy. If you don't try you will start feeling ecstatic, because the whole energy that is wasted in struggle becomes available to you. And energy is delight. Just to have it is enough to be full of joy. When there is energy, overflowing energy, you are a dance, you are a celebration.
There is no meaning in life. Life is utterly beyond meaning. So don't bother about the meaning. Don't ask the question, "What is the meaning of a roseflower?" -- there is none.
"And what is the meaning of the sunrise?" -- there is none. There is beauty, but no meaning. There is immense beauty, but no meaning at all.
Life is not a logical process. It is poetry, it is a lovesong -- without any meaning, yet it is utterly beautiful. In fact, when something has a meaning, it can't be beautiful -- it is utilitarian. The rose is beautiful because it has no utility at all. Its sheer being is enough; it need not have any other significance. But a hundred- rupee note has no beauty; it has utility, it has meaning, it has purpose, it is a means to some end.
Live a life which has no idea of purpose, which has no search for meaning. Live a life of sheer joy and ecstasy -- that is the only way to live. Every other way is only to commit a slow suicide.
That's what happens when you are too much interested in goals: today goes by without being lived, and tomorrow remains important -- and tomorrow never comes. Whenever it comes it is today. And you learn a wrong habit of losing that which is and of thinking of something which is not. Every day it will happen: each tomorrow will come as today, and you will not be interested in it and you will be interested in the tomorrow, and the tomorrow is never going to come.
This is how people are simply wasting away. Their lives could have become great oases, but they remain deserts. And the basic reason for people's dryness is goal-orientation.
You say, Sudas: I KEEP THINKING OF MY LIFE IN TERMS OF A GOAL OR
DESTINATION, WAITING TO WAKE UP SOME DAY AND FIND MYSELF ENLIGHTENED.
WHY 'SOME DAY'? Why not now? Why postpone it? Is it not a trick of the mind to avoid it? Postponing is a way of avoiding. Don't you want to be enlightened right now, Sudas? If you look deep down, if you watch, you will see the point -- you don't want to become enlightened right now.
If I say to you I can make you enlightened right now... you will say, "Just give me a little time to think. I will come tomorrow, because I have to do many more things before I become enlightened. My girl may be waiting, my children, my shop has to be opened.…
So many investments -- let me finish things first! Yes, I want to be enlightened, but not right now."
In fact you don't want to become enlightened. It is a very diplomatic way of avoiding, so that you can go on deceiving yourself that you are interested in becoming enlightened, that you want to be enlightened, but not today. It is only a question of time. Not that you are not interested in enlightenment... tomorrow, when all other things have been finished, completed, when nothing else is left.
But do you think a day will come when all your invest-ments and all your worries and all your acts are complete? Will there ever come a day when you are finished with the activities of your so-called life, and you can come and say, "Right now I am ready"? It will never come, because life is such a complexity. It never begins, it never ends. You are always in the middle.
It is like reading a novel from the middle. The beginning part is missing and the end part is missing -- you know only the middle. That is the mystery of life! Try some time reading a novel from the middle and you will find that even an ordinary novel becomes very mysterious. Intrigued you will be, and many times you will be tempted to look back:
"What is the beginning?" But resist the temptation, go on reading in the middle.
That's how it is: we are always in the middle of life. Life has been there before you ever entered into the stream, and life will be there when you are gone. You will know only a few glimpses in the middle. You come suddenly into the film-
house, you see a few scenes on the screen; the film was going on before you entered, you will be gone and the film will continue. You will never know the beginning and you will never know the end because there are none. There is no beginning, no end. Life is an eternal continuum.
Hence you cannot ever complete things, but you want to avoid.
You are afraid of enlightenment, Sudas, just as everybody else is afraid. But nobody wants to accept that "I am a coward." Nobody wants to accept the fact that "I would like to sleep a little longer because I am seeing beautiful dreams, colourful dreams." Nobody wants to accept that "I am so stupid that I don't long for enlightenment." So everybody goes on saying, "Yes, I would like to become enlightened -- but tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in my old age."
How to postpone? The best way is to become goal-oriented. That is the most beautiful deception that you can give to yourself Hence you say, "Some day I hope to find myself enlightened." Why 'some day'? The river is flowing now... you can drink.
You are thirsty and you say, "Some day I will drink." If you are thirsty, drink right now.
Nothing else is more important. And because there is no goal, all goals are private dreams, life will not support you in your goal-orientation. Life will try in every way to destroy all your goals.
You will have to learn ways of relaxing in the present. Enlightenment is not an effort to achieve something. It is a state of effortlessness. It is a state of no- action. It is a state of tremendous passivity, receptivity. You are not doing anything, you are not thinking anything, you are not planning for anything, you are not doing yoga exercises, and you are not doing any technique, any method -
- you are simply existing, just existing. And in that very moment... the sudden realization that all is as it should be. That's what enlightenment is! Enlightenment is not an experience in which you will see great light and kundalini rising up and God standing in front of you telling you, "You can ask any three wishes and I will fulfill them." Don't be foolish.
Enlightenment is not an experience at all. It is not that you will be able to walk on water, that you will be able to raise the dead back to life, that you will be able to cure the blind and the deaf and the dumb, that you will be able to do miracles.
Enlightenment has nothing to do with any such thing.
Enlightenment is a simple realization that everything is as it should be. That is the definition of enlightenment: everything is as it should be, everything is utterly perfect as it is. That feeling... and you are suddenly at home. Nothing is being missed. You are part, an organic part of this tremendous, beautiful whole. You are relaxed in it, surrendered in it. You don't exist separately -- all separation has disappeared.
A great rejoicing happens, because with the ego disappearing there is no worry left, with the ego disappearing there is no anguish left, with the ego disappearing there is no possibility of death any more. This is what enlightenment is. It is the understanding that all is good, that all is beautiful -- and t is beautiful as it is. Everything is in tremendous harmony, in accord.
The stars are in accord with the grass leaves, the earth is in accord with the sky, the rivers are in accord with the mountains. Everything is in such accord that existence is an orchestra. Everything is rhythmic, in tune. Existence is music. That experience is enlightenment. And you are not separate from it like an observer, like a spectator. The observer and the observed are one, the seer and the seen are one -- you are it!
It is a great participation. You have fallen into she whole and the whole has fallen into you. The drop has dropped into the ocean and the ocean has dropped into the drop. It is impossible to say anything more about it. It is impossible to say, in fact, anything about it. It can only be experienced.
But, please, Sudas, don't go on postponing it, because it is available now. Now or never, remember.
I know you have been taught continuously -- this is a kind of hypnosis in which you are living; you have been hypnotized by the society -- you have been made goal-oriented, you have been forced to become ambitious, you have been taught to be competitive, so you are afraid. You are afraid:
I WORRY THAT OTHERS WILL REACH BEFORE ME.
You are not much concerned with your own enlightenment; you are much more concerned that "Nobody else should reach before me." Now, in the world of enlightenment such a competitive mind cannot even enter, will remain thousands
and thousands of miles away. It needs a non-competitive spirit. It needs that you drop all comparisons, because when you become enlightened you will be totally alone, nobody else will be there -- not even your beloved, not even your friend. Nobody can be there; you will be utterly alone.
And it is not a question of who attains 'before', because enlightenment has no before or after. Those are time pheno-mena. Enlightenment is always now -- why think of before and after? THIS very moment... let it sink in you. And all that is needed on your part is total receptivity. Fling all doors open, let the sun come in, aud the wind and the rain.
Enlightenment is not like money, is not like political power. It is not like anything that you know in life -- it is absolutely unlike anything that you have known or will ever know. It is unique in the sense that nothing like it exists in existence. It is just itself; it cannot be compared with anything. It is its own comparison.
But the problem is: how to drop this hypnosis? how to drop this conditioning? Watch it.
See how it is torturing you, how it is making you more and more miserable every day, and how it is creating barriers between you and that which is. Just go on seeing it!
No other positive method is needed -- just an insight that your whole mind is a misery-creating factory, that it manufactures misery and nothing else. Once you have seen it through and through, that very seeing becomes a transformation. You simply turn in. You drop the mind, or it drops of its own accord because you have seen the futility of it. And even if for a single moment the mind is not there, enlightenment is there.
In the beginning it will come only in moments, but those moments are of eternity. Then, slowly slowly, more and more moments will be coming, because you will become more and more a host. And one day the guest and the host disappear into each other -- then it never leaves you. And on the outside you remain just the same old person: doing your work, chopping wood and carrying water from the well You remain just the same, and yet nothing is the same any
more.
I teach you this relaxation. I teach you the way of non-action. I don't teach you
arduous efforts, because they are all ego-gratifying. No effort can help you to become enlightened; it will be a distraction. Only an effortless silence -- JUST SITTING, DOING
NOTHING, AND THE SPRING COMES, AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF.
The second question Question 2
OSHO, PLEASE, I WANT TO COME HOME.
Gyan Bhakti,
YOU HAVE COME. I AM YOUR HOME. Yes, it takes time to recognize it. It takes years sometimes to recognize that you have come home. First, because you don't know what your home is -- so how to recognize it? Second, it is so against your ingrained habits of the mind that the mind wants to ignore it rather than take note of it. The mind wants to ignore it because if it takes note of it, that taking note is very disturbing. It disturbs its whole edifice.
To recognize that you have come home means now no more effort is needed, means now there is nowhere to go, means that your old kind of life and all its activities are finished!
Suddenly you will feel empty. Suddenly you will feel nobody, a nothingness -- that frightens. Hence one goes on repeating:
OSHO, I WANT TO COME HOME.
You HAVE come, Gyan Bhakti! To be here with me is TO be at home, because my whole approach is not that of improving you but just of shaking you, shocking you into awareness that you have never left the home in the first place.
The biblical story says Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. I would like to tell you: they have never been expelled. You have heard a wrong rumour. They have only fallen asleep -- they ARE in the Garden of Eden, because there is no other place to be. The whole existence is God's, the whole existence is his garden. To where can he expel anyone?
Once a Christian missionary was talking to me and I asked him, "Where can he expel Adam and Eve to? Where?" And he was at a loss to answer -- because this whole kingdom is his. Yes, an ordinary king can expel his son, because his kingdom has a limitation. There are other kingdoms too; the son can be thrown out of the kingdom, out of the boundaries.
You can be expelled from India, from Germany, from Japan -- that is possible because there are other places available. But to where is God going to expel you? There is no other place. The Garden of Eden has no limits -- the whole existence is his garden.
Then the Christian missionary asked me, "Then what happened? How do you interpret the story?"
I said, "They have fallen asleep. By eating the fruit of knowledge they have fallen asleep, they have become minds -- and when one becomes the mind, one falls asleep as far as consciousness is concerned. By eating the fruit of knowledge, by becoming knowledgeable, they have become minds! The story is so simple and so significant. God told them not to eat from the tree of knowledge; that was the only order that was given to Adam and Eve: not to become minds, to remain innocent, not to become knowledgeable.
But they could not resist the temptation. They became knowledgeable.
"Once you become knowledgeable, your consciousness goes through a shift: it moves from the heart to the head. The heart falls asleep and the head becomes awake. The head cannot know the mystery of God; the head is incapable of understanding that you are already in God, that you cannot be anywhere else."
Just descend from the head, come back to the heart, and you are back in the Garden of Eden. Hence my insistence on renouncing knowledge. Don't renounce the world -- the world is beautiful. Don't renounce your wife -- she is your life. That's exactly the meaning of the name 'Eve'.
The story is:
Adam was alone and felt very lonely, and God created Eve -- out of his ribs. That too is beautiful, that man and woman are only separate from the outside; deep down they are one. And then God asked Adam, "What are you going to call this woman? This new creature?"
And Adam said, "I will call her 'Haavvah', 'Eva', 'Eve'" -- these are all different names in different languages, but they all mean life.
And God asked, "Why?"
Adam said "Why? Because she is my life. Without her I was dead."
You need not renounce your wife -- she is your life. You need not renounce your husband, you need not renounce your children. But one thing you need to renounce -- that is knowedgeability. One thing you need to renounce -- that is your mind. And see the irony: people renounce the world, but they don't renounce their minds.
A Jaina renounces the world, becomes a naked monk, but still remains a Jaina. I have asked many Jaina monks, "This is ridiculous! You renounce the society, but you have not renounced the knowledge that the society has given to you. How can you still call yourself a Jaina?"
The Christian Catholic renounces the world, moves to the monastery, but remains a Christian Catholic. He carries the society with him in his mind and all that the society has put there. What kind of renunciation is this?
I tell you: Renounce being a Christian, renounce being a Hindu, because this is renunciation of the mind. And don't renounce the world -- the world belongs to God. The world is beautiful, and it is tremendously beautiful if you can see it without the mind interfering.
Gyan Bhakti, you have come home, but you are still not able to wake up, you are still fast asleep -- you are still in the mind. Descend into the heart. You don't know how fortunate you are. You don't know how blessed you are. It is rare to find a home, because it is rare to be with an alive Master.
Yarkoni and Danberg, two Israeli soldiers, were bemoaning the years of hardship and fighting against the Egyptians.
"What we should do," suggested Yarkoni, "is declare war against the United States. They will beat us, and like they always do with all the countries they defeat, right away they will give us billions of dollars, plenty of food, houses, cars and factories."
"That's no good," sighed Danberg. "With our luck, we would win!"
You don't know how lucky you are. You have already won -- but it takes time to recognize the fact, it takes time for the news to reach from the heart to the head. And the distance is vast. Physiologically it is not much, but spiritually the distance is very immense. Maybe these two points are at the greatest distance in existence -- the heart and the head. Spiritually, not physiologically. Physiologically just one foot, two feet, but spiritually the distance is almost infinite. It takes time for the news to travel.
Your heart knows, Gyan Bhakti, that it has happened, but your head has not heard about it yet. And you live in the head. When I look into your heart, I can see that the heart has recognized.
This is what my experience is every day when I touch you, when you come close to me, when you allow my energy to melt into your energy -- this is my experience! that I see your heart has understood, but your head is still unaware. Your head is still resisting, your head is still fighting, your head is still persisting in its old routine, and your heart has already been transformed -- the flower has bloomed there.
Gyan Bhakti, start learning the language of feeling and forget the language of thinking.
Start being more and more silent, because the chattering mind will not allow you to know that you have come home. The inner talk has to stop. In those gaps, in those intervals, the still small voice of the heart will be heard.
BUT FROM MY SIDE, I KNOW, I know absolutely: you have come. Whether you know it or not does not matter; sooner or later you will know. It is only a question of time. And there are many people like you, Gyan Bhakti, who have arrived and are not aware -- you are not alone, and they are still struggling in their heads, fighting, trying to escape, creating all kinds of barriers between me and themselves -- because the head will try in every possible way. It is very cunning: the head is very cunning. It cannot allow you easily to enter into the heart again; it cannot leave its domination over you.
I have heard:
A man and a little boy entered a barbershop together. After the man received the
full treatment -- shave, shampoo, manicure, haircut, etc. -- he placed the boy in the chair.
"I am going to buy a green tie to wear for the parade," he said. "I will be back in a few minutes."
When the boy's haircut was completed and the man still had not returned, the barber said,
"Looks like your daddy has forgotten all about you."
"That was not my daddy," said the boy. "He just walked up, took me by the hand, and said, 'Come on, son, we are gonna get a free haircut!'"
The mind's whole function is to be cunning. It is a strategy developed by you to compete with others, to deceive others, to be clever with others. And by and by, you become so skillful in deceiving others that you start deceiving yourself too -
- and that's what the mind goes on doing: it deceives others, it deceives you.
Now, Gyan Bhakti, your mind is creating this problem. Your mind is saying, "Search for the home, seek God. Make efforts to become enlightened." Now the mind is creating new goals for you. Once the goal grips you, you are in the hands of the mind. If you can say to the mind, "I have arrived -- get lost! Now there is no more to go, nowhere to go. This is home. This is enlightenment," first the mind will look a little confused, because this is not the way you have ever behaved with it. It will look a little shocked. But if you go on saying the same thing again and again -- whenever the mind wants to create a desire to achieve something, you simply say, "Shut up!" -- slowly slowly it will understand that now you are beyond its power. Only then does it start stopping It will make all kinds of efforts. You have to be alert not to be caught in those efforts.
And that's my function of being with you, and the function of this Buddhafield, to remind you continuously that you have arrived, that God is available right now to you, this very moment showering on you. God is in the air and in the sun and in the flowers and in the song of the birds. God is in this silence between me and you, in these words between me and you, in this communion. This silence, this presence, this love that goes on flowing between me and you, is God! This love is the home.
But beware of the mind. In fact, in all the traditions, mind has been given
different names. One tradition calls it 'the Devil', another tradition calls it 'Satan', but it is in fact nothing but a metaphor for the mind.
Jesus goes to the mountains, meditates, and then encounters the Devil. Do you know, who that Devil is? It is not somebody outside you, with two horns popping out of his head and with a long tail and hooves -- these are just stories written for children, for grown-up children of course, but all stories. You have to decode them.
Who is this Devil who tempts Jesus in the mountains? It is the mind. The Devil is an ancient metaphor for the mind. It goes on watching you, what you are doing. If you are nourishing to it, then it is okay; if you are going away from it, it starts creating trouble for you. If one strategy does not work, it immediately changes its strategy. And it is really very clever.
Just the other day you heard Kabir's sutras. He said: I repressed sex and it became anger; I repressed anger, it became greed; I repressed greed, it became pride. It is the same mind! If you start fighting with it, it goes on changing its colours -- just to deceive you.
And, yes, it deceives.
When repressed sex becomes anger, you are at a loss to understand that this is sex and nothing else -- now pretending as anger. Anger looks so different from sex, in fact it looks like the polar opposite. Sex is love: anger is hate -- how can they be the same? The mind has taken just the polar opposite to hide itself You will need great intelligence to decipher, otherwise you will be deceived. And then anger will torture you.
And if you repress anger, it becomes greed. Now who can ever think logically that anger can become greed? They don't seem to be connected at all. Unless you are a real observer of your inner happenings you will not be able to see the connection. Mind jumps to such new faces, takes such new masks! And then you repress greed and it becomes pride, and you go on ad infinitum.…
Mrs. Fleishman and Mrs. Rutkin were rocking on the porch of their Catskill Mountain Hotel.
"Oh, my God! exclaimed Mrs. Fleishman. "Look at that boy. Did you ever see such a big nose? Such a crooked mouth? And look -- he is cockeyed too!"
"That," said Mrs. Rutkin, "happens to be my son."
"Well," said Mrs. Fleishman, "on him, it is very becoming!"
Mind is a diplomat, it is a politician -- it is a devil. Unless you are really alert and watchful, it can go on deceiving you for lives -- it has been doing that for lives; it can go on doing it for lives still. But a little intelligence, just a little intelligence, a little candle of light inside you of watching, of silently watching and seeing what the mind is doing, and slowly slowly your intelligence will become stronger. And mind becomes impotent as intelligence grows.
Intelligence is not intellect; intellect is part of mind, intelligence is part of the heart.
Intelligence is always part of the heart, it is not intellectuality. I don't mean by
'intelligence' your so-called intelligentsia -- it has nothing to do with intelligence. Your intelligentsia is knowledgeable. They may have big university degrees, much knowledge, but they know nothing. All their knowledge is borrowed, all their knowledge is parrotlike, it is mechanical. They go on talking about it, but it does not affect their life. It has no relationship with their own source of being; it does not well up within their own heart. When I talk about intelligence I always mean the heart -- something happening in you, not coming from the outside. If it comes from the outside, it creates intellect; if it comes from within, it is intelligence. Help your intelligence to grow.
And I am creating this context, this opportunity, this space, and I am giving you all kinds of challenges. And as the commune grows the challenges will grow. Those challenges are meant for a certain purpose, they are deliberate -- they are meant to provoke your intelligence into activity, to bring your intelligence above your intellect. Only new situations which your intellect cannot cope with, only such spaces which your knowledge has not heard about, can help to bring your intelligence to the surface.
All that is needed is intelligence, understanding, awareness -- and, Gyan Bhakti, you will know you have come home. And great gratitude will arise in your being, and great thankfulness. That gratitude, that thankfulness, is prayer.
The third question
Question 3
OSHO, WHY HAVE I ALWAYS BEEN IN SUCH A HURRY? TODAY I SAW SO
CLEARLY THAT IT WAS MY WAY OF KEEPING THE DIVINE AT A DISTANCE, AND I FELT INCREDIBLY SAD, AND SAW THE ABSURDITY OF THIS
PATTERN.
Prem Neera,
MAN HAS BEEN TOLD AGAIN AND AGAIN to be in a hurry, because life is short and much has to be done, many desires have to be fulfilled, many pleasures have to be attained, many goals achieved. And life is certainly short, and you have so many desires, and so much to do, and in fact there is not much time to do it.
If you live sixty years, twenty years will be gone in sleep, one third, so only forty years are left. Then another twenty years will be gone in earning your bread and butter, just the routine of going to the office, to the factory, rushing in the morning towards the factory or the office, and rushing in the evening back to the home -- twenty years will be gone in that.
Only twenty years are left. And in these twenty years, almost fifteen years will be lost in such stupid activities: watching the television, going to the movie, playing cards, gossiping with the neighbours -- fifteen years! So only five years are left. And in those five years, you have to manage many kinds of illnesses, and you have to go to friends'
marriages and social functions, and you have to talk to your wife and to your children --
just out of the sense of duty -- and you have to quarrel with your wife, and you have to throw pillows... and a thousand and one things. You can just go on making the list.
Those who have made such lists, they say in the whole sixty years' life not more than a few months are left for you -- and in those few months, all the desires,
millions of desires, are to be fulfilled. Naturally, great hurry arises -- and in the West more so, because in the East we have a beautiful concept that there are many lives, so there is no hurry. If you die this time, nothing to be worried about
-- next time you will be born again, and again and again and again.
In the West, all the three religions that are born outside of India -- Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- they believe in one life. They have all come from the same root, Judaism. In fact, there are only two religions in the world: Judaism and Hinduism. A few religions are offshoots of Judaism and a few religions -- Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism -- they are offshoots of Hinduism. Hinduism believes in many many lives. Hence you find the Indian utterly lazy. His problem is not hurry: his problem is laziness. His problem is that he has no motive to do anything.
That's why India is poor -nobody is willing to do anything, everybody goes on postponing: tomorrow or the next life, and why be worried? There is enough time, infinite time available. This idea of infinite time has helped in one way: it has not created the Western hurry, it has not created the Western speed -- it has not created the Western anxiety and tension, that constant state of remaining tense. It has created another problem, just the opposite, that nobody wants to do anything, that everybody is lazy and lousy.
The reason, Neera, for your hurry, is that you come from the West, from the Judaic-Christian tradition: only one life and so many things to do. Naturally, one has to be in a hurry; always running. People are not even resting in their sleep; in their sleep also they are on the go, in their sleep also they are travelling, to faraway lands. Even in their sleep they are not in their rooms, they are not where they are -- they are always somewhere else.
You ask me: WHY HAVE I ALWAYS BEEN IN SUCH A HURRY?
You are brought up in the Judaic tradition: Do! Doing is respected very much. Be active!
And do it quick and fast.
The Devil had been away from Hades for a couple of months' terrestrial duty. He had been in England and was looking forward to putting his feet up by the fire and having a nice drop of brimstone, followed by a variety of unmentionable after-dinner pursuits.
At last he got home. You can imagine his surprise when he flung the Gates of Hell open to be confronted by a landscape dotted with cool mango groves and fields of nodding corn.
"Those goddammed Jews and their irrigation schemes!" he howled.
Wherever Jews reach, they will bring their planning -- even in hell they will not leave the Devil in rest. That is the Judaic tradition: one life, a short life, and much has to be done, all has to be done.
Neera, you have to drop that Judaic tradition, you have to come out of it. And I am not saying become an Indian either, because that is moving from one wrong to another wrong. Just come out of all traditions. To Hindus I say come out of your Hindu tradition of laziness and lousiness, and to Jews, Christians and Mohammedans I say come out of your tradition of remaining in a constant hurry and tension.
Enjoy life. Act, but act in a relaxed way. The greatest art in life is to learn how to act in a relaxed way. Action is a must -- you cannot live without action -- but action can be almost inaction. That's what Lao Tzu means when he uses the word WU-WEI. That is very fundamental to Lao Tzu and that is very fundamental to me too: I would like you to learn WU-WEI. WU-WEI means action without action -- doing a thing in such a way that you are not tense in doing it, doing a thing in such a way that you are playful about it, doing a thing in such a way that you are not worried about it, doing it and yet remaining detached, doing it and yet remaining a witness.
Lao Tzu seems to be the way out for Jews and Hindus. And this is strange that no tradition arose out of Lao Tzu, no religion. Jews have created three great religions, Hindus have created three great religions -- all the six great religions belong to these two peoples. Lao Tzu remained an individual. Yes, a few people followed him; down the centuries, a few individuals have moved into the world of Lao Tzu, but only individuals -
- no religion came out of it, because the whole Taoist approach is such that it cannot create fanatics. And unless you can create fanatics, you cannot create a religion. The whole of Lao Tzu's philosophy is such that it gives you such balance, such tranquillity, such serenity, that you cannot become a fanatic -- Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan. It is impossible. These things happen only to
neurotic people.
Hindus create one kind of neurosis, and Jews create another kind of neurosis, and both have created great religions in the world. And I absolutely agree with Sigmund Freud that these so-called religions are nothing but collective obsessions. A Buddha, a Jesus, a Lao Tzu, a Zarathustra, they are not religious people in the sense Christians, Mohammedans and Buddhists are. They are very balanced, they are so whole, they are so tranquil, they cannot become parts of crowds, they cannot fall that low.
People join together in churches just because alone they feel so afraid of their inner neurosis -- they would like to join with people of the same kind so they can feel at ease, that they are not alone in the difficulty. And when there are many people just like you, you forget all about your neurosis.
Humanity lives such a neurotic life that either it moves to one extreme and remains stuck there, or it moves to the other extreme and remains stuck there.
The really healthy person is not stuck anywhere, he is not stagnant, he is dynamic. He can be in great action and yet he can remain inactive -- he knows the way of WU-WEI, he knows the way of action through inaction. You will have to learn that.
Neera, hurry is something very symbolic of the Western mind. And because of the hurry the West has created more and more speedy vehicles. The East has remained contented with the bullock cart. There have been great scientists in the East, but they never worked.
They never worked hard enough to create better roads, better vehicles, aeroplanes, spaceships -- they were not interested in hurry. What is the point? Why rush?
The West is continuously creating more and more speedy vehicles. They have broken the sound barrier; now man is travelling faster than sound. And the whole Western technology is bent upon breaking the light barrier -- man wants to travel faster than light.
And nobody asks, "Where do you want to go? And even if you reach there, what are you going to do there?" You can reach the moon, you can reach some day some star, but what will you do? You will do the same thing that you are doing
in California, because you will be the same person. You will create the same kind of nonsense and nuisance there: you will pollute the poor star, you will destroy its rivers, you will destroy its oceans, you will pile up your junk everywhere. What are you going to do there? And you will create the same ideological wars, both cold and hot. You cannot remain peaceful there either; you will immediately divide: somebody will become communist and somebody will become democratic and the fight starts. And you will create atom bombs and hydrogen bombs, or you will carry them from here.
The West is too much interested in speed, too much in action. And the action is futile, because it is simply the occupation of a neurotic mind. And the East is not interested in action at all; that is again another kind of neurosis, the opposite kind -- people are lazy.
They philosophize very much about their laziness. They talk about renouncing the world; they say, "What is the point of earning, of working? one day one has to go, one day one has to die, so why bother? rest as much as you can before you die." But then what will you do when you die? You can rest when you die.
MAN NEEDS A BALANCE, and that balance is possible only if you learn the art of being active and yet remaining inactive inside. And that's what we are trying to do here, and in the bigger commune you will have more facilities to be active and inactive together.
People who come to the ashram are a little puzzled. Many have written to me,
"Everybody is working but nobody seems to be tense." In the office so many people are working, in the workshops, in the press office... so many people are working. Nearabout three hundred people are constantly working, and with no holiday -- the Sunday never comes. But nobody is tense.
Work is beautiful if it can be done without any tension, if it can be done playfully, if it can be done without any hurry and yet without relapsing into laziness. It is a very subtle and delicate art. Then you are neither Eastern nor Western -- that's what I call the new man. He will not be Eastern, he will not be Western, or he will be both together. It has never happened before: my sannyasin has to prove it. Lao Tzu talked about it and a few people have tried it, but I am making an effort to create such a big space that millions of people can try it. It is such a blessing to know how to act without acting that everybody should have a
little taste of it.
When you are working, remember it; if you have gone for a walk, remember it -- there is no need to be in a hurry. A walk has to be enjoyed. Go slow. There is no goal! Enjoy the trees surrounding the way, and the birds and the sun and the sky and the clouds, and the people that are passing and the smell of the earth -- enjoy everything! Be alert.
A lazy person becomes unalert. The very speedy person is so much in speed that he cannot be watchful of what is happening around him; he is rushing with such force that he cannot see anywhere else, he is focussed, obsessed with some goal. And the lazy person is so lazy, so unalert, so unconscious, that he cannot see. Both are blind.
You have to find a synthesis. Be alert as the active person is, and be relaxed as the lazy person is. And once both these two are there together, you are balanced, and your life will have a new flavour, a new joy, a new ecstasy, which knows no bounds.
Silverstein, the inveterate joiner, came rushing home, proudly holding a membership card to his newest organization.
"Look," said Silverstein to his son, "I just joined the Prostitute Club!" "What?" said the boy. "Let me see that card."
After reading it, he announced, "Pa, that's the Parachute Club!"
"All I know is," said Silverstein, "they guaranteed me three hundred and sixty- five jumps a year."
There are these people who are constantly joining this club and that, and this organization and that. They are simply afraid of being themselves, simply afraid of being left alone.
There are people who are constantly rushing -- don't ask where, they themselves don't know. But in the rush they are occupied, and the occupation keeps them away from themselves, away from looking into their own inner hollowness.
This constant hurry is nothing but an escape from your inner self. And there is a
truth in it of great significance: if you go on hurrying, if you go on speeding, if you go on running away from yourself, if you keep yourself occupied constantly, you will become more and more afraid of looking at yourself, because not knowing what beauties emptiness contains you will become more and more afraid. You would not like to come across your inner emptiness.
In fact, the inner emptiness is the greatest experience of life -- that is enlightenment: knowing that there is nobody, knowing that there is utter silence, not even a word, knowing that there is nothing at all, no person, no ego, no identity, is the greatest experience, the ultimate joy. But if you don't look into it then you are simply suspicious of a certain hollowness, of a certain emptiness inside. And remaining suspicious, you go on occupying yourself People keep themselves occupied the whole day, and then they fall asleep and become occupied in their dreams -- twenty-four hours a day it is constant occupation.
Meditation means giving a few minutes to non-occupation. Neera, start giving at least one hour to non-occupation. Just sit doing nothing. In the beginning it will be very difficult -- the MOST difficult thing in the world in the beginning, in the end the most easy. It is so easy, that's why it is so difficult. If you tell somebody to just sit and not to do anything, he becomes fidgety; he starts feeling that ants are crawling on the leg or something is happening in the body. He becomes so restless, because he has always remained occupied. He is like a car with the ignition on and the engine humming although the car is not going anywhere, but the engine is humming and becoming hotter and hotter. You have forgotten how to put the ignition off. That's what meditation is: the art of putting the ignition of.
For a few minutes, a few hours, as much time as is possible, just sit silently. In the beginning it is difficult. It will take at least three months to six months to be able to sit silently doing nothing -- not even chanting is needed because that is again an occupation.
People sit, then they start chanting "Rama, Rama, Rama" -- that is again occupation, another kind of occupation, a religious kind of occupation. No, not even chanting, no mantra is needed.
The word 'mind' and 'mantra' both come from the same root. They both come from MAN
-- MAN is Sanskrit for mind. And that which keeps mind running is called
'mantra', that which keeps nourishing mind is called 'mantra'. So somebody's mantra is money -- he thinks of money, that is his mantra. Somebody's mantra is politics -- he thinks of politics, that is his mantra. And somebody simply repeats "Rama, Rama, Rama" -- that is his mantra. But every mantra feeds the mind, and mind is the problem, and we have to get out of the mind.
Sit silently, Neera, for three to six months; then remind me again -- if you are left by that time. If you are finished, so far, so good. If you really sit silently for one hour a day for six months, you will not remind me -- because you will have experienced something so tremendous, so beautiful: just your pure being, just the heart pulsating, the breath coming and going... and the music of your inner existence is exhilarating. It becomes overflowing. It is not only that you will be con-tinuously radiant, bubbling with joy --
whosoever comes in contact with you will also be infected by it, your joy will become contagious. And there will be no hurry. There will be a grace, an elegance a peace will surround you.
When joy is inside the heart, when silence is inside, peace surrounds you, grace surrounds you, God surrounds you.…
The last question Question 4
OSHO, PLEASE, ONE DAY IN THIS SERIES CAN YOU FINISH THE LECTURE
ON A SERIOUS NOTE SO THAT I CAN SEE YOU LEAVE? EVERY DAY WHEN
YOU END WITH A JOKE, I LAUGH SO MUCH THAT TEARS FILL MY EYES
AND YOU BECOME JUST A WHITE BLOB DRIFTING THROUGH A SEA OF
GREENERY.
Deva Tulika,
IT IS VERY DIFFICULT FOR ME because today I have chosen really a very juicy joke.
But I will resist the temptation.… The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty Chapter #15
Chapter title: Disappearing you will feel such Freedom 25 April 1979 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7904250
ShortTitle:
FISH15
Audio:
Yes Video: No Length:
101
mins
The first question Question 1
OSHO, I AM AFRAID OF DEATH, YET AT THE SAME TIME IT HAS AN
INCREDIBLE ATTRACTION FOR ME. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Prem Shreyas,
DEATH IS THE GREATEST MYSTERY OF LIFE. Life has many mysteries, but there is nothing comparable to death. Death is the climax, the crescendo. One is afraid of it because one will be lost, one will dissolve in it. One is afraid of it because of the ego --
the ego cannot survive death. It will be left on this shore when you start moving towards the other; it cannot go with you.
And the ego is all that you know about yourself, hence the fear, great fear: "I will not exist in death." But there is great attraction too. The ego will be lost, but not your reality.
In fact, death will reveal to you your true identity; death will take away all your masks and will reveal your original face.
Death will for the first time make it possible for you to encounter your innermost, interiormost subjectivity as it is, without any camouflage, without any pretense, without any pseudo personality.
Hence, everybody is afraid of death and everybody is attracted. This attraction was misunderstood by Sigmund Freud and he thought that there is a death-wish in man -- he called it THANATOS. He said, "Man has two basic, fundamental instincts: one is EROS
-- a deep desire to live, to be alive for ever, a desire for immortality -- and the other is THANATOS, the desire to die, to be finished with it all." He misunderstood the whole point because he was not a mystic; He knew only one face of death -- that it ends life --
he knew only one thing: that death is an end. He was not aware that death is also a beginning. Each end is always a beginning, because nothing ever ends totally, nothing can ever end. Everything continues, only forms change.
Your form will die, but you have something formless in you too. Your body will not be there, but you have something in you, within your body, which is not part of your body.
Your earthly part will drop into the earth, dust unto dust, but you have something of the sky in you, something of the beyond, which will take a new journey, a new pilgrimage.
Death creates fear if you think of the ego, and death appeals to you, attracts you, if you think of your true self So vaguely one remains attracted towards death; if you become clearly aware of it, it can become a transforming understanding, it can become a mutant force.
Shreyas, try to understand both the fear and the attraction. And don't think that they are opposites -- they don't overlap, they are not opposites either; they don't interfere with each other. The fear is directed in one direction: the ego; and the attraction is directed into a totally different dimension: the egoless self And the attraction is far more important than the fear.
The meditator has to overcome fear. The meditator has to fall in love with death, the meditator has to invite death -- the meditator has not to wait for it, he has to call it because death is a friend to the meditator. And the meditator dies before the death of the body. And that is one of the most beautiful experiences of life: the body goes on living, on the outside you go on moving the same as you were before, but inside the ego is no more, the ego has died.
Now you are alive and dead together. You have become a meeting-point of life and death; you contain now the polar opposites and the richness is great when polar opposites are contained. And these are the greater polar opposites, death and life. If you can contain both, you will become capable of containing God because God is both. His one face is life, his other face is death.
Shreyas, this is something beautiful -- don't make a problem out of it. Meditate over it, make it a meditation, and you will be benefitted immensely.
The second question Question 2
OSHO TODAY IN THE SAMADHI TANK I COULD HAVE SWORN I FELT YOUR
PRESENCE FOR A FEW MOMENTS. I BECAME QUITE FRIGHTENED. OTHER
PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN OF FEELING YOUR PRESENCE EVEN AS FAR AWAY
AS ENGLAND. WHAT IS THIS? IS IT IMAGINATION? OR PROJECTION? OR
SOMETHING ELSE?
Frank,
IT CAN BE A PROJECTION, it can be imagination, but it can also be something else...
it depends on you. And only you can decide what it is. For example, were you thinking about me before it happened? Were you desiring that it should happen? Was there imagination functioning somewhere inside you? Were you fantasizing? Then it is imagination, then it is projection.
But if it was out of nowhere, you were not thinking about me at all, you were taken by surprise, you were shocked, you could not believe it, then it is something else. And that's what has happened to you.
You say: I BECAME QUITE FRIGHTENED.
If it had been your own imagination, you would not have become frightened at all -- you would have known that it was your imagination. If it was just a projection of your mind, you would have known. You became frightened only because it had nothing to do with your mind at all.
You say: I COULD HAVE SWORN I FELT YOUR PRESENCE FOR A FEW MOMENTS.
Such experiences happen, and it can happen more easily in isolation. It happens to many people when they are alone in the mountains. It happens to many people when they are in a certain strange space in which they have never been before; the very strangeness of the space makes them aware of certain things to which they have remained always asleep.
It happens to runners. If you run for a few miles, a moment comes when
suddenly the runner disappears and only running remains. At that moment you become aware of many things you have never been aware of: subtle fragrances in the air -- your senses are very alert, very alive -- certain presences around you, even certain presences so tangible that you can touch or you can be touched by them.
It happens to people in many situations, but those situations have to be something extraordinary -- because we have become so accustomed to the ordinary situation that things go on happening around us and we remain unaware. The samadhi tank gives you a very special space: darkness, isolation, no sound, and you are floating in water. You are back in the mother's womb; the samadhi tank is just a scientific way to have the experience of the mother's womb again.
The foetus in the mother's womb floats in liquid. In the samadhi tank you float in the same kind of liquid, with the same chemicals. Hence, you cannot drown in it. And the darkness of the womb, and it is so out of the ordinary -- no sound, no light -- you are thrown into such a new space that your sensitivity, your awareness, your intuitiveness, all start functioning. You become as intuitive as the small child in the womb, you become as innocent as the small child in the womb. and in that innocence something can happen which is not part of ordinary time and space.
Space and time, both can disappear. Yes it is possible you can feel my presence -
- in fact I am surrounding each of my sannyasins. You may feel it, you may not feel it. In a certain moment of attunement you will feel it. Then it doesn't matter whether you are in England or in Japan -- it does not matter: space, distance, make no difference.
By giving you sannyas I am making you entitled to feel me wherever you are. Now all depends on you. My presence will be with you, surrounding you; in life, in death, I will be with you just by your side. But you may see, you may not see. You may remain unconscious.
Frank, something beautiful has happened. Remain available to strange experiences in life, and don't try to deny the strange experience, because that's how many people go on denying tremendous opportunities.
For example, one day in the night you are suddenly awake, alone in your room,
all is silent and dark. And you become aware of a certain presence... maybe a dead friend, maybe one of your ancestors, maybe your dead mother. But you become so frightened --
in that fear you lose that perceptivity, that perception. The presence remains there, but you are dis-connected. You put the light on, you become occupied in doing something, you start reading a book, or you turn the radio on,Just to disconnect yourself from the strange experience that was happening.
Don't be afraid! This existence is yours. This existence is very friendly and there are immense mysteries waiting for you -- to be known, to be experienced.
This was a beautiful moment for you. Now that it has happened, you can make it happen again and again -- and there is no necessity to go into the samadhi tank. It can happen in your room in the night when you are alone. It can happen anywhere if you ALLOW it to happen.
One of the greatest calamities that has befallen the modern man is that he has become very very mundane. He takes only that which is explainable, he accepts only that which is definable, he accepts and recognizes only that which can be scientifically and objectively proved. But then you remain on the lowest rung of existence, because the higher the rung is, the more indefinable it becomes, the more unexplainable, the more and more elusive --
you cannot catch hold of it, you cannot have it in your fist, and you cannot show it to somebody else. It becomes more and more intimate, less and less public, more and more private.
Many people experience such things but they don't tell others, because others will think they are crazy. That's my own observation: many people have told me their experiences and they have said that they have never told anybody else before, because they have always been afraid that they may be thought crazy, or people will think that they hallucinated, or people will think that something is wrong -- their nuts and bolts are a little loose. And not only will others think this
-- they themselves think, "Something is wrong with me, because this is not ordinarily experienced by others, then why me?
Some-thing is wrong with me -- deny this experience, forget about it!"
If you ask people sympathetically, lovingly, many people will reveal mysteries to
you.
The mystic experience is not as rare as people think, and the mystic experienCe has nothing to do with religion as such. It happens in many spaces which are not thought to be religious at all.
It happens to mountaineers, many times, because climbing in the mountains, alone, in a dangerous situation, suddenly the mountaineer becomes aware of a presence by his side --
not only that but mountaineers have talked and the presence has helped and the presence has said, "I am a friend, don't be worried. I am protecting you. There is no danger -- go on climbing."
Sometimes a man is lost in the jungle and after one or two days, or three days -- no food, no possibility seems to be available to get out of the jungle, tired, exhausted -- suddenly he becomes aware of a presence, a very protective presence, which says, "Don't be afraid!
You are on the right track, you will get out -- don't be worried."
But these people never say these things to others. In sports many times mystic experiences happen; runners and joggers particularly have known many experiences. In the new commune there are going to be facilities for runners and joggers. I would like hundreds of sannyasins to run for miles every morning -- just completely abandoned into running.
After half an hour or one hour, even if you are tired, tiredness disappears. It is strange, very strange, very illogical. You wanted to go to sleep, you were so tired, but you went for a six-mile run. After the second or third mile, suddenly all tiredness has disappeared and you are so full of energy -- as you have never been. You are so weightless, air-borne.
And you start feeling that it is not you who are running now -- some other energy has taken possession of you.
And the experience of unity with existence, and the experience of a deep, warm, orgasmic energy surrounding you.… It happens to surfers, it happens in many sports, even in wrestling. That's why in Japan particularly, many martial arts were developed by meditators. It looks strange: why should meditators develop
martial arts -- judo, aikido, karate, and so many others? They were developed for a certain reason.
If you really go deep into them, the ego disappears and you enter into a new space --
unknown to you, unexplored by you. And suddenly you are not functioning on your own but as if possessed by God.
One thing I would like to emphasize: whenever such things happen, accept, don't deny them; don't start calling them imagination, projection, hallucination, deception. These are tricks of the mind. And I am not saying that there are not hallucinations -- there are -- and I am not saying there are not people who suffer from neurotic illusions -- there are -- but just because of them, just because there are false coins, don't deny the real coins. In fact, false coins only prove that the real coins exist.
Remain available to the dimension of the strange, the mysterious, and that will help you tremendously. If you remain available, more and more experiences of this kind will start happening.
A man went into a bar and ordered a beer. After he had been served, he reached into his breast pocket and lifted out a perfectly formed little figure four inches tall. Then he produced a thimble. "A beer for my friend Paul, here, too," he requested, "and go easy on the head."
Is he for real?" asked the bartender. "He is," said the man.
"Can he talk?" persisted the barkeep.
"He can," replied the man. "Paul," he went on, "tell this guy about the time we were on that expedition and you called the witch doctor a black son-of-a-bitch."
Don't think that life ends with arithmetic -- there is magic too. And by 'magic' I simply mean that the strange also happens. 'Magic' is now a condemned word, because we have forgotten the magical dimension of life. The word 'magic' comes from a very great mystic; his name was Magi. Before Christianity, Magi's religion was the greatest religion spread all over Europe. That religion was
called 'Magic'. Christianity destroyed much that was valuable. And one of the most valuable things that Christianity destroyed was the tradition of the Magians
-- the tradition of Magic.
I would like you to be magicians again.
Arithmetic is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. Logic is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough -- and there is much more to life than logic. Don't be satisfied with Aristotle. The modern mind is much too satisfied with Aristotle, and because of it there is so much boredom. People look very dull, because the sense of the mysterious is no more there which goes on keeping you fresh, young, which goes on keeping you wondering.
And if a man is capable of wonder he is capable of knowing God; if a man is capable of awe, he is capable of knowing God.
The third question Question 3
OSHO, I HAVE TRIED TO THINK OF A QUESTION I COULD ASK YOU THAT
WOULD SHOW SWAMI PREM CHINMAYA THAT I UNDERSTAND MORE FULLY THE LOVE HE SHARES HERE AT THE ASHRAM.
SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING TONIGHT AFTER DARSHAN?
The question is from Bea, Chinmaya's mother. Bea,
FOR MANY MANY YEARS I HAVE NOT DONE A SINGLE THING --
before darshan or after darshan. For many years I have ceased to exist, I have died. I no more function as a person. Things happen, certainly, but they are not doings -- I am not a doer.
Hence I am not even concerned about the consequences -- why should I be concerned about the consequences? I am not the doer in the first place. I am not
concerned with the results. I am simply a vehicle, a hollow bamboo, offered to God. Now he can sing any song he wants to sing. And if he does not want to sing any song, it is for him to decide. I am perfectly happy with song or without song. Sometimes he sings, sometimes he is silent, and I don't interfere. I am simply relaxed with existence as it is.
And that's my teaching here -- that's what I am teaching to your son, Chinmaya. And I am happy to tell you that he is progressing, and progressing in a very different, more difficult situation than others. But he has evolved greatly.
He is suffering from cancer. He knows death can come any day, but I am happy to say to you that it makes no difference any more to him. Life or death -- he will remain a witness. That much integrity has happened to him, that much centering has happened to him. He was very much afraid in the beginning when he had come here -- very much afraid of death. Naturally -- anybody would be. It was expected. But, slowly slowly, being here with me, with my people, in this Buddhafield, he has learnt one thing: that we are not doers. Sometimes life happens, sometimes death happens -- we have to be witnesses of both. And we have to be thankful for both.
So I know now: whenever he has to leave life, he will leave with tremendous gratefulness, with a prayer on his lips, with a deep thank you in his heart. And that is the right way to die, and that is the right way to live too. In fact, because he has become so accepting of death he is alive, otherwise he would have been dead long before. Even the doctors are a little puzzled about him -- they can't see why and how he is still alive, and very much alive.
The body has all the symptoms that he should be here no more, that he should be dead by now. But something deep in-side him has become so relaxed that that relaxation has gone deeper than the cancer itself, and that's what is keeping him alive. He may live long --
one never knows. Miracles happen. If he remains relaxed he may live long.
Doctors are ready to give him a death certificate any day, but if he remains relaxed, meditative, happy, contented... and he is. It is difficult in his situation to be contented, but he is. Even breathing is difficult, but he has accepted everything.
Bea, if your son lives he will be growing -- growing towards more spiritual
maturity; if he dies he will be growing in his death too. He has found the path, and the path is of non-action, or action through non-action -- WU-WEI.
The fourth question Question 4
OSHO TODAY I OVERHEARD SOMEONE SAY THAT YOU HAD PROBLEMS --
DO YOU?
Deva Layo,
NOT ONE BUT MANY -- you are my problems, one hundred thousand problems! And as sannyasins will be coming more and more, the problems will go on growing. Each sannyasin brings many problems. And I am here: you can surrender your problems to me.
I can take all of your problems because I have none of my own. And because I have none of my own, you can drop your problems into me and they disappear. They have no place to cling to. They simply disappear into the abyss that I have become.
The fifth question Question 5
I COME FROM CALIFORNIA AND I DID NOT LIKE THE WAY YOU USED THE
WORD CALIFORNIA YESTERDAY.
Navino,
I HAD SIMPLY SAID THAT EVEN IF YOU ARE ON THE MOON or on some
star, you will start doing all the things that you are doing in California. I have used the most mild term possible. Moksha has suggested a far more suitable word for it; his suggestion is: "Rather than saying, 'You will be doing the things that you are doing in California,'
you should say, 'Wherever you are you will californicate"' -- what else will you do? This is the right word. California simply means where people are 'californicating'.
The sixth question Question 6
OSHO, SOMETHING IS HAPPENING THAT I CANNOT EXPLAIN. IT IS NOT
EVEN SOMETHING I KNOW, ONLY SOMETHING I SENSE.
Yoga Nirmal,
THAT'S WHAT I AM HERE FOR -- to help you to be aware of things which cannot be explained but yet experienced, which cannot be expressed but yet felt. No word is adequate to indicate them, but they can be sensed.
Man can know much more than he can say, and man can sense much more than he can know, and man can be much more than he can sense. And you have to be aware of all these layers.
That which can be said is the most superficial; much more can be known. That which is known and cannot be said i, deeper, but much more can be sensed. That which is sensed and cannot be known is even deeper, but one can be much more than one can sense -- and that is the deepest layer.
The effort is to help you to go into your interiormost core so that the gestalt change, from knowing to the knower, from the seen to the seer, from the object of consciousness to consciousness itself.
Man can live a life either of doing or of having or of being. Doing is the most superficial; better than doing is having. The poor person lives in the world of doing, the rich person lives in the world of having. But the best is the world of being. The poor person can also reach the world of being without passing through having, but it will be very difficult --
very very difficult, because you can renounce only that which you have. If you don't have it, it is very very difficult to renounce it. Only a rare man like Kabir
can do that miracle: he can renounce that which he does not have. He can understand even that which he does not possess.
Great intelligence is needed to move from the world of doing to the world of being. If somebody moves from poverty into spirituality, he has great intelligence. And if someone remains in richness and still does not move towards spirituality, he is just stupid and nothing else. Being rich and not being aware of spirituality is stupidity. Being poor and not being aware of spirituality can be forgiven, but the rich person cannot be forgiven --
because he HAS -- can't he see that he has everything and yet he has nothing? Death will be coming and it will take all that he possesses.
Doing is a means to having. When doing succeeds, you have. But when you have, everything starts failing, everything starts looking futile, everything starts looking childish. And to know that everything in this world is futile is the beginning of turning in, of conversion.
Yoga Nirmal, something beautiful is very close by.
You say: SOMETHING IS HAPPENING THAT I CANNOT EXPLAIN.
You are fortunate. There are poor people who can explain whatsoever is happening to them -- that means nothing special is happening to them. All that is happening is so superficial that language is adequate to express it. The deeper the happening, the more dumb you will feel.
Lao Tzu says: "People can say whatsoever they want to say -- except me. Compared to them I look a little muddle-headed. People are very clear, but I am vague." People are clear because they don't have any experience of the mysterious.
Lao Tzu is joking. Lao Tzu is saying: "You are poor because you can say everything that you know and you are so clear about your life -- how can you be so clear about the mysterious?" The mysterious remains in the mist. One only feels it, but one cannot grab it. It is very mercurial. If you try to grab it, you distort it; it falls into pieces, it disappears.
Nirmal, you say: SOMETHING IS HAPPENING THAT I CANNOT EXPLAIN.
There is no need, and don't try to explain it otherwise it will stop happening -- because explanation is done by the head and the happening happens in the heart. And the head is very clever in interfering; don't allow the head to interfere. Accept the unexplained as unexplained -- there is no need to explain it. Live it! Experience it! Taste it! Be drowned in it! There is no need to express it.
You say: IT IS NOT EVEN SOMETHING I KNOW ONLY SOMETHING I SENSE.
Yes, that's exactly how it happens. Knowing means clarity; and if you know, you can explain. Knowing means you have already explained it to yourself -- if you can explain it to yourself, why not to others? Sensing means that you are not even able to explain it to yourself; it is just a feeling. And if you try to grab it, it disappears.
The greater truths have to be approached indirectly, you should not attack them directly; you should be very delicate, very indirect.
Have you seen in the night? -- if you look at the small stars directly, they disappear. Try tonight: if you look directly, if you focus on the small star, it disappears. It is not available to the direct gaze. Then what is the way to see the small star? Look sideways, look just around -- not exactly on the spot. Look at other stars and suddenly the small star starts appearing. It is available only to an indirect gaze, not a direct gaze.
So is the situation with inner experiences: don't look directly -- the inner experiences are very shy. If you look directly they start hiding. And there is no need to know; sensing is enough. Why this obsession with knowing? And when you are obsessed with knowing, you will also be obsessed with explaining. You don't owe explanations to anybody.
Buddha used to declare wherever he would go... his disciples would precede him and they would declare to the town, "These eleven questions are not to be asked of the Buddha -- you can ask everything else except these eleven questions.
Those eleven questions were known as AVYAKHYA -- unex-plainable. But if you observe those eleven questions minutely, you will be surprised: nothing is left out of them. All that is important is included in them, all that is of any significance. Why was Buddha so insistent -- "Don't ask"? Because he cannot explain, and your very asking puts you on the wrong track.
you can ask something, you start expecting an answer. Remember, just by formulating a question, there is no necessity that the answer will be coming from existence. Existence has no obligation to fulfill your questions.
And absurd questions can be formulated -- they look very good, very logical, very grammatical. Language-wise they are perfect, but in existence they are just absurd. For example, somebody can ask, "What is the colour of sound?" As a question it is perfect, nobody can find any fault with it -- linguistically: "What is the colour of sound?" But sound and colour are not related at all.
Somebody can ask, "What is the taste of the colour green?" The question is right as A question, but no answer will be possible. And such are your questions. When somebody asks, "Who created the world?" it looks very significant, it looks very philosophical. It is simply absurd, because the world was never created -- so the whole question is nonsense.
It has always been there.
God is not the creator: God is the world. He has become the trees, he has become the rocks, he has become the river, he has become you and me. There is no other God except this existence. God is not separate from existence; he is not like a painter who paints on the canvas, and then there is a picture and the painter. God is like a dancer who dances, and the dancer and the dance are always the same -- they cannot be separated. You cannot have the dance separate from the dancer, and you cannot have the dancer separate from the dance, because when he is not dancing he is no more a dancer.
God is the dancer, and the world is his dance -- and you are part of his dancing gestures.
But you can ask the question, "Who created the world?" And then there are foolish people who will try to answer you.
The question is absurd in the beginning, in the first place, and then there are foolish people who are ready to answer. Because the question is there, it has to be answered -- so
"God created the world." Just ask them, "Who created God?" and then you are falling into an infinite regress and there will be no end -- because the question will always remain the same. A created B, B created C, C created D... but the
question remains the same, "Then who created D?" And the question will never be answered.
There are people, even great philosophers have asked, "Who is first -- the egg or the hen?" The question looks perfectly right -- one must be first! But can't you think that things can be standing in a circle. If you think that everybody is standing in a queue, in a line, then somebody is first and somebody is last. But if people are standing in a circle, then who is the first and who is the last?
The mystics say the world moves in circles and they really seem to be hinting at a deep truth. Stars move in a circle, the earth moves in a circle, the sun moves in a circle, the seasons move in a circle, life moves in a circle -- everything moves in a circular way. The straight line is man's creation. In fact, Euclid's whole geometry is wrong!
And now, in the world of higher mathematics, Euclid is no more valid. Something totally different has come into force: non-Euclidean geometry. Euclid believes in a straight line, but non-Euclidean geometry says you cannot draw a straight line -- how can you draw a straight line? If you draw a straight line on the floor, it is not straight because the earth is round. It only looks straight because it is part of such a big circle -- it is an are, not a straight line. If the earth is round and you are sitting on the earth and drawing a straight line, go on extending it from both ends... one day it will become a circle. So it was part of a circle.
Everything is part of a circle. Who is first -- the hen or the egg? Now the question is so patently foolish that only philosophers can ask it. And they argue, and there are people who say the hen is the first.
I used to know an Indian philosopher, a Buddhist philosopher, Rahul Sankrityayana. He believed that the egg came first. He has written many articles to prove that the egg is the first. But how can the egg be the first? Some hen will be needed; and how can the hen be the first? Some egg will be needed. Those who know, they say something else. They say the hen and the egg are not two things -- the hen is the egg's way of producing more eggs; or vice versa: the egg is the hen's way of producing more hens. They are not two but one process: the egg becomes the hen -- so how can one be first and the other second? The hen becomes the egg.…
But these questions have persisted down the ages, and people think they are doing great work when they are thinking about such stupid questions. Buddha was right: "Don't ask such questions. Be practical."
Each Buddha is pragmatic. If you asked a question of Buddha, he would ask, "First answer a few things: if I say yes or no, is it going to change your life? You ask, 'Who created the world?' If I say, 'God,' how is it going to change your life? If I say, 'No one,'
then is it going to change your life?"
In fact, if you look at the atheist and the theist you will not see any difference in their lives. Both go to the same movie, both see the same TV programme, both eat the same food, both are members of the Rotary Club... you will not see any difference, atheist or theist. Can you tell about somebody, just by seeing his behaviour, whether he is an atheist or a theist? You cannot see any difference. They remain the same person.
So Buddha used to say, "If it is not going to make any real difference in your life, forget about the question -- it is meaningless. Ask me something which will help you to go deeper into meditation; ask me something which will bring enlightenment to you -- ask me something which will make you free from all imprisonments. Ask me something which will take you beyond all misery and death. Ask me something which will take you beyond all time and space, and will make you part of eternity."
There is no need, Nirmal, to know what is happening -- let it happen, don't interfere. And there is no need to explain it -- be quiet. Keep it inside you as a secret. Remember, great things need secrecy. Just as the seed goes into the earth and remains there, then the great tree is born; just as the child has to grow in the mother's womb These are great secrets.
When they start happening to you, keep them deep down in your heart, let them grow there.
Yes, one day when they have become a great tree, with great foliage, and flowers and fruit, people will become aware of them, and many people will be benefitted, many people will rest in your shadow and many people will quench their thirst and their hunger, and many people will be made aflame by your flowers, and many people will start moving towards God -- just by seeing you,
just by feeling you, just by being close to you.
But nothing has to be said, nothing has to be explained. And even if you try, it is not possible. And trying to explain and trying to know may disturb the whole process --
something that is going to happen may be stopped. The seventh question
Question 7
OSHO, ARE THE POLITICIANS REALLY AS STUPID AS YOU SAY THEY ARE?
Govind, THEY ARE MORE STUPID THAN I SAY. In fact, unless a person is stupid he cannot be a politician. It is not that the politicians are stupid -- in fact, only stupid people are attracted towards politics.
What is politics basically? The desire to dominate others -- and that is the most stupid thing in life. The intelligent person tries to be a master of himself, and the stupid person tries to be master of others. And how can you be a master of others if you are not a master of yourself?
If you are not a master of yourself, then trying to be a master of others is just a substitute to befool yourself, to deceive yourself, and that is what the stupidity consists of.
Two politicians were sitting on a park bench in New Delhi. "I will tell you the truth," said one. "I am afraid to fly. Those airplanes ain't too safe!"
"Don't be a baby," said the other. "Didn't you read last week there was a big train crash and three hundred people were killed?"
"Three hundred killed on a train -- what happened?" "An airplane fell on it!"
Overheard in the market by Deeksha: I am in favour of putting a statue of Morarji Desai in the middle of the square."
"For what?"
"It will give us shade in the summertime, shelter in the winter-time, and the birds a chance to speak for us all."
The eighth question Question 8
OSHO, A FEW DAYS AGO IN LECTURE I REALIZED THAT WHEN I AM
RELAXED THE BODY GOES INTO A MOST COMFORTABLE POSTURE OF ITS
OWN ACCORD. IT MUST BE JUST THE SAME WITH LIFE. IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF TRUST?
YES, MUKTI GANDHA, this is the beginning of trust, the beginning of yea- saying, the beginning of a great understanding that all that is going to happen is going to happen, and you are not to do it. You have to be alert and passive, you have to be watchful and receptive. This is the whole secret of life.
Small things need to be done -- if you want more money, the money is not going to come on its own; you will have to run after it. If you want political power, it is not going to come to you on its own -- you will have to fight for it, you will have to struggle for it.
Small things are those which never HAPPEN, which never come from God. Man has to struggle and do them. And great things are those which if you try to do them you will miss. Great things happen only when you are in a total relaxation.
That's what must be happening. This is happening to many people who are here. You are not here just to listen to me: you are here just to BE with me. Talking and listening is just an excuse to be here. It will be difficult for you to sit still, silently for one and a half hours if I am not talking to you. If I am talking to you, your mind remains engaged and your whole being becomes relaxed.
This is a meditation! This is not a discourse. I am not preaching, I am not a preacher; and I am not teaching, I am not a teacher either. I have no philosophy
to impart, no knowledge to transfer. It is a device; talking to you is simply a device.
This is another kind of meditation. I go on talking, your mind remains occupied with my words, and your whole being relaxes with me -- the real thing is that relaxation.
You say: A FEW DAYS AGO IN LECTURE, I REALIZED THAT WHEN I AM
RELAXED THE BODY GOES INTO A MOST COMFORTABLE POSTURE OF ITS
OWN ACCORD.
The body has great wisdom -- allow it. Allow it more and more to follow its own wisdom. And whenever you have time, just relax. Let the breathing go on on its own, don't interfere. Our habit to interfere has become so ingrained that you cannot even breathe without interfering. If you watch breathing, you will immediately see you have started interfering: you start taking deep breaths, or you start exhaling more. No need to interfere at all. Just let the breath be as it is; the body knows exactly what it needs. If it needs more oxygen it will breathe more; if it needs less oxygen it will breathe less.
Just leave it to the body! Become absolutely non-interfering. And wherever you feel any tension, relax that part. And slowly slowly... first begin while you are sitting, resting and then while you are doing things. You are cleaning the floor or working in the kitchen or in the once -- keep that relaxedness. Action need not be an interference in your relaxed state. And then there is a beauty, a great beauty, to your activity. Your activity will have the flavour of meditativeness.
Yes, Mukti Gandha, it is exactly so with your whole life -- this is the secret. But people go on making unnecessary efforts. Sometimes their efforts are their barriers; their efforts are the problems that they are creating.
There was a lot of confusion downtown during the big snow-storm. Mulla Nasruddin went over to help a fat lady get into a taxi cab. After rushing and shoving and slipping on the ice, he told her he did not think he could get her in.
She said, "In? I am trying to get out!"
Just watch.… There are things where if you push, you will miss. Don't push the river at all, and don't try to go upstream. The river is flowing towards the ocean of its own accord
-- just be part of it, be part of its journey. It will take you to the ultimate. Go relaxed, dancing, singing, to God.
There is no need to make any effort. Why? Because God is our intrinsic nature. We ARE
Gods already. If we relax, we will know; if we don't relax, we will not know. Relaxation becomes the door to that great knowing -- enlightenment.
The ninth question Question 9
WHY DO I MISUNDERSTAND YOU, OSHO, CONTINUOUSLY?
Dharma Das,
THAT IS NATURAL. Understanding will be a surprise -- misunderstanding is not a surprise. You are bound to misunderstand me because you ARE. You will understand me only when you are not. That 'I' is the cause of all misunderstanding. [t remains between me and you. It do- i not allow me to say what I am saying -- it interprets, it colours it, it distorts, it chooses, it adds, it deletes -- it docs a thousand and one things, and only then does it allow it to go in. And by the time it reaches you it is something totally different. It is not what was said to you: it is something that your mind has made out of it.
You will have to disappear if you want to understand me. Less than that won't do.
Lorenzo was extolling the virtues of his newly adopted homeland. "This is-a great-a country." he declared. "Look-a at Sinatra -- where else could a piece of spaghetti wind up-a with a-so much-a gravy!
Everybody is carrying his idea, his conditioning, his knowledge, his past with himself.
That's what your 'I' consists of.
The Ozark farmer's wife had a baby each year for the past twelve years in a row. He finally went to a doctor for some advice. "Here's a gross of rubbers,' said the doctor. "Just read the instructions on the label."
A year later, the hillbilly brought his wife in, pregnant again. "Did you follow the instructions on the box?"
"Yep, Doc! Sure I did! The only thing was I didn't have no organ so I put them on the piano."
Your understanding is going to be your understanding. How can it be my understanding?
If you disappear, if you put yourself aside, then there is no barrier, then there is no censor between me and you, then the communication is immediate. Then it is not even a question of words: it is a question of energy.
If your mind is put aside, my vibe will start stirring your heart, my being will touch your being, will trigger something that is fast asleep in you -- will awaken it.
And the more I see that my sannyasins are dropping their egos, the more and more my work will change -- it will become less and less concerned with words and will become more and more concentrated on energy. That's exactly what is slowly slowly happening.
I will be speaking less and less to you. If you are not there then I can just enter in your being, can just call you: Friend, wake up!
One night Mrs. Mantoni got into a taxi. After riding a while, she realized she had forgotten her pocketbook and had no money to pay the fare. The meter now read
$7.50.
"Mista driver," she cried. "You betta stop. I no canna pay you!"
"Oh, that's all right," said the cabbie. "I'll just pull down a dark street, get in the back seat with you, take off your panties "
"Mista, you gonna get gypped," said the Italian lady. "My panties only cost-a forty-nine cents!"
Please, Dharma Das, disappear, don't come in between me and you. Let the contact be immediate, direct, heart-to-heart, not mind-to-mind. Yes, it is good in the beginning -- it is good in the beginning because there is no other way. I have to talk to your mind, I have to seduce your mind, but once the mind is seduced, once you have become a sannyasin, then the second step is: put the mind aside -- now let me have a direct contact with your heart.
And finally even the heart has to be put aside. Then you will not find any difference between me and you; then my understanding will simply be your understanding, without any transfer, without any communication, because then we will meet at the center. And your center and my center are not different. Your body is different from my body; your mind is less different from my mind than my body and your body. Your heart is even less different than my heart. But your being and my being are the same; they are not different at all.
If the disciple is ready to drop mind, heart, everything. then immediately he becomes the Master, he has arrived. Then there is no more to learn, no more to know, no more to experience. And life continues as it was before, but now there is nobody inside to suffer, to dream, to be anxious, nobody there to live or to die. Then one exists in God and God exists in one.
The last question Question 10
OSHO, I KNOW THAT SEX REPRESSION IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF ALL NEUROSIS, BUT THEN WHY DO I GO ON REPRESSING IT?
Narayana,
YOU HAVE BEEN TAUGHT to do it from the very beginning. It has become part of you, your conscience. Listening to me now you understand that sex repression is the root cause of all neurosis, but this understanding is very new. And 'sex is dirty', and 'sex is sin', is very old, it may be fifty years old. And this understanding is very new. The weight of the old is too much.
So you understand intellectually that sex repression is the root cause of all neurosis, but deep down, even in your body, even in your chemistry, the idea has penetrated, from the very moment you were given milk, you have been poisoned about sex, that it is sin. It is such a long long hypnosis that it will take time for you to be awake.
It is a good beginning that an intellectual understanding Is happening, but it is only intellectual -- it has to become existential.
Mother is explaining the facts of life to Cynthia the day before the wedding.
"Now, my dear," she tells her, "I am afraid Bertie will often want to be beastly to you after you are married."
Cynthia, shocked, is quite unable to believe that her beloved Bertie would ever do such a thing.
"Yes, it is so," mother insists, "and I want you to remember: whenever he wants to be beastly, grit your teeth. clench your fists, and think of England!"
These things have been given to everybody, and everybody is carrying a big load of all kinds of nonsense. Sex is a natural phenomenon -- it has to be accepted, lovingly; it has to be respected. It is life's source. Not to respect it is to disrespect Life; not to respect it is to condemn God. Respect it, love it, be prayerful with it, and one day you will transcend.
But transcendence is not against sex: transcendence is through sex. Sex has to be used as a stepping-stone. And when you have used it as a stepping-stone, be grateful to it.
If you really want to understand me, or Kabir, this has to be the very foundation: that life has to be loved because it is divine, life has to be affirmed with your total being because God is hidden in it. God is another name for life, another name for love. Life is to become your God -- then whatsoever LIFE implies becomes divine.
But it will take time. Slowly slowly, chunks of your old conditioning have to be dropped.
If you can remain here. Narayana, for a few months, the miracle is possible. It is
happening to others. Thousands of my sannyasins have started accepting life -- not accepting out of any helplessness but out of great joy, with a rejoicing heart.
I am all for rejoicing. am I am all against, deadly against renouncing. I am all for transformation and absolutely against repression. If you repress, remember Kabir: repress sex, it becomes anger; repress anger, it becomes agreed; repress greed, it becomes pride...
and so on and so forth. It goes on and on. And the farther you are away from nature, the more complex is the journey, the more difficult it is to come back home.
Come closer. Lose your pride, let it become greed; lose your greed, let it become anger; lose your anger, let it become sex. Sex is the original energy. And from sex there is a possibility of transformation, because sex gives you the first glimpses of samadhi. Sex lived totally, sex loved totally, will make you aware for the first time of the peak moments, of the climaxes.
And on those sunlit peaks, great silence prevails; the ego has been dropped far behind in the valleys, time has disappeared somewhere on the way. You are no more separate; you are not a person but just a pulsation, a presence. Sex gives you moments of that experience when you are simply pulsating in rhythm with the whole. That pulsation is what orgasm is all about, and orgasm is the window to samadhi.
Narayana, what is happening intellectually now, allow it to happen existentially too. Only then the long long tradition of centuries can be dropped. It is an arduous effort, it is difficult, but it is worth it.
And once chunks of your conditioning start disappearing you will feel such freedom, such buoyancy, you will feel so weightless, you will start feeling wings are growing in you. You will start feeling that you can do anything; you will start feeling that you are entitled to do miracles.
And, yes, that's how it is: man is entitled to do miracles. But the beginning has to be a deep love for all that you are, a deep acceptance of what you are -- no denying, no rejection, no repression. Transformation has to be the key.
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