13

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‌CHAPTER 13

1 October 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A visiting journalist asked Osho if he could suggest a meditation technique or some hypnosis that would help a person who was conditioned against success, who would do everything to thwart any likelihood of succeeding.

Osho asked him if he had ever meditated, to which he replied that he was a Freemason and was currently involved in writing a treatise on a system of meditations for the organisation to which he belonged. He said he had not done any groups but had read a lot of psychology and philosophy.]

Groups will be helpful... they will be very helpful to you. Right now, as I see in you, you cannot start meditation. There is a gap, and that gap has first to be travelled through cathartic methods – Encounter, Gestalt, Bio-energetics, or things like that. Once you have released your burden, once you have poured out your unconscious content, once you have become aware of your past, then meditation will be possible very easily.

[The visitor says: You mean aware as against...? As experience rather than as a memory? I recognise my past. I recognise what’s happened and why it’s happened and how it’s happened.]

No, it is not a question of how and why and what. That is all a mind trip. You can analyse why it happened; that is not the point. It has to be relived, actually relived again. That will erase it. How and why are not going to help. You have to go back – not in memory, not as a remembrance – but as a reliving.

So if you are going to be here for a few days. do a few groups.

... Primal will be very very good. At your age it can be of tremendous value, because the older you become, the more it is needed to go back to the very source. If you can connect yourself back to your childhood, the circle becomes complete.

... you can start again afresh – and that will be something of tremendous significance.

So Primal therapy is one that I would suggest. and before Primal, to prepare you, there are two groups, Tathata and Tao. They are small groups: Tathata is a two-day group and Tao is a five-day group. Primal is thirteen, fourteen days. So if you can come for one month, much can be done.

And I would like you to really go into it. Mentally you know many things, but that scholarship is of no use. You can write a thesis but it is not going to help you existentially. And that is the problem with all people who are very intellectual – they think too much and by and by they completely forget what real life is. Thinking is not life. They become completely cut off – from their emotions. from their heart, from their intuition. They become more and more of the head. They become very very systematic, logical, rational. They can philosophise well, their syllogism becomes more and more perfect, but it is just syllogism. Syllogism is not life. They become aristotelean, and the mystery of life is missed.

So come and be here for a few days. And when you are here, put your mind aside. Give me at least one month’s chance to work. And don’t you interfere – just do what I say. and let things happen. After one month you will have a new vision, a breakthrough. Then you can use all that is in your head, but then it will be used from a totally different centre. Then you will not be possessed by the head.

You will be the master and the head becomes just a servant. You can use all the information you have gathered; and then your thesis will be not only of a scholar, it can have something deeper in it between the lines. It can have something of the poetry of real life. It can have something which can come only out of experience.

I can assist you. I cannot promise help, because help makes people dependent. I can only assist you. You have to go, you have to do. I can only assist you – and that too if you accept it, if you cooperate. So I cannot promise help. And I make a distinction between assistance and help. Help means that you are dependent on me. Assistance simply means that you are independent. I can show you the way; you have to walk. I can show you how to do it, but you have to do it. I am not going to do it for you.

So help is not possible – only assistance. And that too, only to the extent that you allow me. That too depends on your choice and your freedom. I never interfere in anybody’s freedom, because religion is basically a search for freedom. If a bondage is created out of religion, the whole purpose is lost. Then you have betrayed the whole search.

[To one of the ashram’s resident editors]

... I received your letter.

First I would like to tell you a zen story. Listen to it as attentively as possible, because this is no ordinary story. It is very ordinary, but if you listen to it very attentively you can bring extraordinary meaning to it.

There was a monk, Banzan, who had been meditating under his master’s guidance for many years but nothing was happening. He was on the verge of exploding but nothing had happened and

nothing was happening. He was feeling that it was just there, but there was no way to catch hold of it.

One day he was passing from the market-place and he walked by the butcher’s shop. He overheard a dialogue, a very ordinary dialogue – but it triggered off something in Banzan. It became of tremendous value to him. It became his first satori.

A customer was saying to the butcher, ‘Give me the best piece of meat that you have got in your shop.’ The butcher started laughing, and the laughter was very penetrating. He said, ‘It is impossible. You ask for the impossible. I cannot do it because all the pieces in my shop are the best. I never sell anything less than the best. Every piece is the best!’

Banzan heard it just from the street, and it is said that he became enlightened. Now what happened? The last straw... and the camel collapsed.

... Try to understand the whole point of it. Whatsoever happened to Banzan is not related to the incident as a cause is related to an effect. Not that way – because many people were passing. Many others may have overheard the dialogue, and nothing happened to them. Nothing happened to the customer. Nothing even happened to the shopkeeper, to the butcher. So whatsoever happened to Banzan is not related to the incident as a cause is related to the effect, or the effect is related to the cause. It is not causal; it is acausal... what Jung calls ‘synchronisity’. It triggered something, but it is not a necessary outcome of it.

Something was already going on inside Banzan. He was already ready for it, but he was not aware. When it happened, only then he came to know that it was just ready to explode. Just a little more weight and the camel would collapse: it functioned as a catalytic agent.

So nobody knows when things are going to happen. One becomes very miserable because nothing is happening. Banzan was also miserable. You are miserable because nothing is happening, and I can understand – I can understand your misery. But this is the way things happen, and nobody can predict where and when, overhearing what or what not, the explosion will be triggered. It cannot be predicted, so one has to learn patience.

And the second thing.You have been again and again writing to me that you would like to commit

suicide, that the idea comes again and again. So a few things about it.

Firstly, there is no necessity for you to live. You don’t have to live (She laughs). Right?! And you are not obliging anybody by living. That has to be made absolutely clear: the world is not obliged to you, so if you want to commit suicide, it’s okay – commit suicide!

I can assist you. I cannot help you (a chuckle). I can assist you. There is nothing wrong in it. Maybe there are legal difficulties, but that is for those who will remain afterwards – you will be gone. I don’t see that there is any moral or spiritual problem. Legal problems are there but that is none of your business. If you want to commit, commit.

This idea of committing suicide is part of another idea that you have to liveas if the world will not

live without She, as if everything will go topsy-turvy without you. This is foolish, this is nonsense.

Once you drop that idea, the idea of suicide will automatically disappear, because it is your life; you are not obliging anybody. If you enjoy, you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy you simply return the ticket. You simply get out of the train. You say that you are not going.

So nothing is wrong in the idea of suicide itself, but playing with the idea is bad. Either commit suicide or stop playing with the idea, because that is dangerous. Do something! If you want to commit suicide, commit. Why make a fuss about it? But don’t play with the idea. That playing with the idea is very poisonous. It won’t allow you to live, it won’t allow you to die – and that limbo is bad. That hanging in between the two is bad.

Either live or die, but whatsoever you do, do wholeheartedly. I’m not suggesting to you that you die. I’m not ordering that you go and commit suicide. I’m simply saying that whatsoever you want to do, I give you space. Even if it is suicide, I’m not going to interfere, because that is one of the basic attitudes I live with – that one should not interfere.

My mother used to say to me in my childhood.I would be playing close to the fire, and ordinarily

mothers would say, ‘Don’t touch that! Don’t go close to the fire!’ But she would say, ‘You touch and you will be burned.’ She never said to me, ‘Don’t touch the fire. Don’t go there.’ ’.You can touch,

but you will be burned.’ Now this is complete freedom. She is not saying not to touch, she is not ordering me. She is simply saying that if you touch you will be burned – if you want to touch, touch.

That’s what I mean when I say that if you want to commit suicide, commit: I simply give you space to be whatsoever you intend to be. If you want to live, my space is available. If you want to die, okay – my space is available.

This should be understood perfectly by all the sannyasins – that I am not forcing anybody to do anything whatsoever. It is your choice – it is your life, it is your death. Who am I? I have no ‘shoulds’ – not even against death, not even against suicide. I will not say it is bad – nothing is bad. If you feel good, that’s good for you. But my understanding is that it is not really a desire to die.

You want to live, and you want to live terrifically. And because that is not happening, the idea arises. You are too much in love with life; that’s why the idea arises. You want miracles to happen in life; that’s why the idea arises. They are not happening, so commit suicide.

A man who is really fed up with life will not even think about committing suicide. Who bothers? Even life is not worthwhile, then why death ? One who is completely finished with life is finished with death also.

It is a clinging to life. You have too many expectations about what should happen and what should not happen; how things should be and how you should be; how people should love you and how you should love people. You have many ‘shoulds’ on your head. They are crippling you, and because they are not going to happen.… And they are not going to happen ! ‘Shoulds’ are never fulfilled. Then the reverse idea arises – ‘Then why not commit suicide when nothing is happening?’ And you cannot commit suicide either because the fear will always remain – maybe it was going to happen tomorrow and I am committing suicide today! Wait for tomorrow – maybe it is going to happen.’

You cannot commit suicide and you cannot live. And this is your trouble. I would like you to become completely clear about it. A clarity, a transparency is needed. Life is very ordinary and if you expect

great things to happen, you will be miserable. I’m not saying that great things don’t happen. I’m saying that if you expect great things you will be miserable. Great things happen, but they happen only to people who live an ordinary life.

This is the paradox: those who live an ordinary life and don’t expect great things, mm? – when they feel hungry, they eat, and when they feel tired, they sleep; when they feel hot they sit under the shower, and when they feel like talking they talk to people and gossip; when they don’t want to talk they simply sit and meditate – these are the people to whom miracles happen, because to such ordinary people anxiety is not possible, anguish is not possible, frustration is not possible. So all the barriers disappear and suddenly the whole sky is open, because the barriers are no more there. The sun shines clear... the whole sky is available.

These barriers – that great things should happen and you should become enlightened and all sorts of nonsense – come in the way and don’t allow you to see that which is already there. The miracle has already happened! It is not in the future. It is just happening this moment. It is the nature of life to be miraculous, to be fabulous, to be fantastic – but for that one has to be very ordinary.

So just start living a very ordinary life without any expectations. Just enjoy small things – and when you start enjoying small things, they become sacred. One person can eat in such an innocent way that it becomes a sacrament. One can take one’s bath in such a beautiful way, in such a worshipful way, that it becomes a prayer. It is the quality that you bring to it that is important – not the act in itself. You can go in a church and you can do prayer, and it may not be holy at all. It may be just a mechanical repetition, a gramophone record.

So just start living ordinarily. You have many great expectations – that you should become a great lover, and a great lover should come to you. That is creating trouble in your mind so you are never at ease. And there are great lovers, but you are not at ease so you cannot look at them. You are waiting for great lovers so you cannot see them. They are already there! They may be living right in your room.

Always remember, life is great. That’s what I mean when I say to live in an ordinary way. Then the extraordinary starts happening to you.

But I’m not preventing you from suicide. I can only say this much – you can commit suicide if you like, but you will be missing a great opportunity that was just close by. And I cannot promise you that in your next life I will be there to see you or to meet you – that’s not possible. So it is for you to choose.

And what are you going to gain out of suicide? Why this constant thinking about it? You will be born into another womb and will again start the same cycle.

[She replies: I was thinking about a vacation!]

There is no vacation, that’s the trouble. There is no vacation. Here you die and people may not even reach to the burning ground and you will be reborn. There is no vacation.

So use this opportunity. Much is possible. This has always been so – people never realised what was possible when Buddha was there, and when he was gone they started repenting and crying

and weeping. You don’t realise what is possible while I am here. You talk about committing suicide. When I am gone you can commit suicide!

It is always so – that people never realise when the opportunity is knocking on the door. They talk nonsense. Still. you are free, mm? but don’t talk about suicide. Next time you want to commit, commit suicide. No use thinking about it. That thinking is a luxury. Do something. Either live or die, but do something! Good.

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