6

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‌CHAPTER 6

24 September 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A visitor said she had never meditated before.]

Never? Then you can become a very good meditator! People who are never interested are very clean, and there is no loadedness in their mind. They can simply go into it. People who have been interested in meditation, who have been doing this and that, reading and philosophising, going to this guru and that, become too confused. They receive so many contradictory messages that their whole being becomes fragmentary. They lose unity, simplicity; they lose humbleness. So if a person who has been in many religious groups, who has done much reading and much searching comes to me. it is very difficult to help him to meditate. His whole past functions as a barrier.

There is a story about a very famous musician who would ask, whenever somebody came to him, ‘Have you learned music somewhere else before?’ If the person had not, he would charge just half of the usual fee. If the person said, ‘Yes, I have learned much,’ he would charge double the fee saying, ‘First I have to wipe and wash your mind – that is an unnecessary trouble.’

Unless your slate is completely clean, the new cannot descend on it. So it is a good thing that you have never been interested. But now start getting into it. It will be of tremendous benefit. Unless we meditate, we never know what life really is. We go on doing things as others are doing. We go on moving with the crowd; whatsoever the fashion, we go on doing it. Whatsoever others are doing, we go on doing but we never become aware of the great opportunity we are missing. It is a tremendous opportunity to know what existence is, what life is.

Socrates is reported to have said that a life that is unaware is not worth living. You simply live as if in a dream. You live only for the name’s sake. It has no depth.

Meditation is nothing but bringing a depth to your life. If you love, you will love in a deeper way. If you are angry, you will be angry in a deeper way. If a meditator dances, he will dance in a more total

way. Whatsoever he is doing, he will bring a new quality of depth to it. His life will become more three-dimensional.

Ordinarily life is flat; it is two-dimensional. We move on the surface. The height and the depth are missing. To introduce meditation into life is to introduce height and depth... a new dimension – the dimension of the vertical. Otherwise we live horizontal, flat.

And it is difficult to say what you are missing, because unless you come to experience it there is no way to even feel that you are missing it. Just think of a person who has never seen a sunrise, who is blind; who has never seen colours... the rose, the lotus, who has never seen the stars, the moon... who has never seen because he is blind. You cannot make him aware of what he is missing. How to make him aware? To make him aware you will have to talk about form and beauty, and he cannot understand because they don’t exist for him. He may listen to you out of politeness. but he cannot understand unless somebody opens his eyes, some treatment is found, his blindness is cured. Then he will see what he is missing.

He was living only through the ears, and through the ears you can live only twenty percent. Eighty percent of life is through the eyes. All beauty is through the eyes. Through the ears you can hear only one beauty – that of sound. Everything else will be missed – sculpture, painting, calligraphy, trees, clouds; the whole of life will be missed. And with sound it will be monotonous.

The same is the case with a person who has never meditated. He does not know what he is missing. He is missing the vertical. The vertical is ninety-nine percent, the horizontal only one percent. The world is only one percent and God is ninety-nine percent.

So start working a little in that direction. And don’t think that it is a renunciation. Don’t think that it is escaping from life.

I don’t teach escape. I teach you how to live more fully, how to live more deeply, how to live in deep celebration.

I am not against life, and my sannyas is not anti-life at all. It is life-affirmative. It is something absolutely new on the earth, because the religions in the past have been life-negating, they have been other-worldly. I am absolutely this-worldly, because I know that the other world is hidden in this world. The other shore is hidden in this shore. This moment contains all that is possible – and all that is impossible too. Everything converges on this moment.

I was waiting for you.… So don’t just go and travel round. Just try to make a little contact with meditations. I can see a potential sannyasin. For me, you have already become a sannyasin – for you it may take a little time!

[A sannyasin, the brother of the previous visitor, says: I have been in a very negative space. I’ve been very nasty – putting people down, and grumpy. It takes me back to my childhood. I’ve been like that with my sisters... It has been coming out with my girlfriend.]

Brothers are like that – nothing to be worried about.

... Become a little more watchful. Don’t repress it but don’t express it either – just become watchful. If you are feeling negative, that is your problem. you have to solve it – it is pointless to throw it on somebody. It is absolutely pointless because the problem is yours and this is no way to solve it. In fact you are trying to find a scapegoat so that somebody else becomes responsible and your burden is no more there. You can feel that [your girlfriend] was doing something and that’s why you are nasty. You can find a ‘why’ – then you are relieved.

If you cannot find a ‘why’, you simply have to face the fact that you are nasty – and that is very ego- shattering. So whenever you feel negative, go into the room, sit silently and be negative. Be negative in the void. Be grumpy – but in deep loneliness, not against anybody – simply grumpy. Then you will be facing the problem directly. Otherwise it becomes via – via [your girlfriend], via [your sister] or via somebody else. Than when it comes back home, it has changed its quality because it has become entangled with other’s energy. It is no more pure. In fact it is no more your problem – the other has become involved in it.

If you say something to [your girlfriend], she will say something, she will react. Now your negativity is not simply yours. It has rebounded on you, but it has also brought with it many things from [your girlfriend’s] negativity also. Now it is very difficult to sort it out – what belongs to whom. You were already in trouble; now you will lose all track. Now you think that she is being nasty, so you become nasty. This can go on ad infinitum. That’s how people live their whole life. Never do that.

Whenever you feel negative it is a beautiful moment to watch the negative energy, because it is another aspect of the positive energy. Nothing is wrong in itself. Negativity is as much a part of life as positivity. Night is as much a part of life as the day, and darkness is needed as much as light. So negativity can be used in a very creative way.

Buddha has called his path ‘via negativa’ – through the negative – because all negativity, if watched, observed. starts changing its quality. The same energy that looked destructive becomes by and by tender and soft, mellow. You can see by and by that the intensity, the fire of it is lost. There is no more fire – only light has remained. It may take a little time, but there is no hurry – and there is no need to be in a hurry.

When you want to be nasty, just sit silently and be nasty in fantasy. Do as much as you want to do – destroy the whole world. Why poor [girlfriend] when the whole world can be destroyed? Destroy the whole world – but in fantasy. And watch what you are doing. I’m not saying to evaluate that this is not good, you should not do it. There is no need for any ‘shoulds’, because all ‘shoulds’ are repressive. Simply see what is happening.

Hindus call it the destructive element of the divine. Just like Christians, Hindus have their own trinity – and a better concept of trinity. They call it ‘Trimurti’ – the three images of God. The christian concept is not very meaningful; the father. the son and the holy ghost is not very meaningful. It is not even a complete family – the mother is missing. The father is there and the son is there. but there is no mother.

It seems to be very male chauvinistic and has no very cosmic meaning. It simply says that people are retarded and are always in need of a father, so they project a father in heaven.

But the hindu concept of trinity is tremendously beautiful. These three they call the images of God – Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh. Brahma they call the creative aspect, the creator of the world. Vishnu they call the sustaining aspect, The sustainer of the world. And Mahesh is the destructive aspect, the destroyer of the world. So with one hand God creates the world, with another hand He maintains the world, and one day with another hand, God destroys the world.

It is His game, and all these three are His aspects. The creator is as divine as the destroyer. In fact there is no possibility of any creativity if there is no destruction. You have to destroy much before you can create. One has to be very destructive; only then can one be creative.

When you paint a picture on a canvas, you are destroying the canvas, the purity of it. You are creating a painting, but you are destroying a canvas. Whatsoever you do, you will always find that there is always something destructive in it. You are taking your food.It is very creative because it

gives life, but you are destroying the food. What are you doing when you chew the food? You are destroying it, crushing it. But that very destruction is needed. It will become your blood, your bones, your very marrow.

So nothing is wrong in any destructive attitude, but become alert and use it in such a way that it goes beyond that, so that the destructivity leads to some creation.

So when you feel nasty again, just sit silently and in fantasy become Mahesh, the destructive aspect of God. Then see – just by destroying, just by becoming destructive in fantasy, you will start feeling a tremendous compassion arising in you. The negative will be receding and the positive will be arising.

Relate to people only when you are positive. That should be one of the basic disciplines in life. Relate to people only when you are positive, when you are flowing and loving, when you can share something. When you are negative, be alone, meditate. Make negative moments meditative and positive moments loving and relating. Relate when you are positive, meditate when you are negative, and you will see that both become part of a new rhythm in your life. Then nothing is bad.

[A sannyasin says: In the Tathata group I was aware of a tension in my third eye, and when I breathed into it – into the third eye – it was burning. Then I had a catharsis. I went inside and the rest of my body was relaxed.

Osho checks her energy.]

Really good. It is something very beautiful and meaningful so don’t get scared about it. Allow it to happen. The energy is reaching the third eye centre. When it reaches there, many manifestations happen in the body and you will feel almost as if it is burning. Sometimes the spot will be actually burned. There is an old woman here – she actually got the whole spot burned.

When the energy is too much and too intense – it is electricity, body electricity – it can burn easily. But don’t be worried; its being there is a great step towards growth. By and by your third eye will be able to absorb it, then the burning sensation will disappear. Suddenly, one day you will feel an almost ice-cool spot there: then the energy has settled. That ice-cool spot continues and that keeps you cool in any sort of circumstances. Somebody insults you – you remain cool. You fail in something – you remain cool. Then nothing can distract you once that third eye centre becomes cool.

But it can become cool only when the energy moves there, works there, and settles there. In the beginning it will be really hot and fiery. The whole body will be relaxed – that’s the beauty of it. Deep down inside you will feel relaxed. Nothing is happening there, everything is happening in the third eye.

I can see that everything is going well. In the Tao group it will happen many more times. Allow it. If you become too afraid, remember me and leave it to me. Now I will do – your work is done!

[The enlightenment intensive group is present. A group member says: I’m afraid that I will escape, but I don’t really want to. I really want to go with it.]

Mm! The idea of escaping comes to the mind? But where will you escape to? There is no place. You cannot escape from me. Wherever you go, I will follow you, so that’s not the point. You can try, mm?

How did you feel in the group? Describe exactly how you felt on the first day of the group.

[She replies: I felt that it was all unimportant, absolutely unimportant, and I tried to find out what was important. I felt I should shout like the others but I felt that it was unimportant and I had to laugh about the shouting of the others. I saw myself standing very high up and looking down into a space. I couldn’t really see it – I just felt it. I felt that I had to jump, and that I would jump one day, but not now.]

I understand. Remember one thing – that if you start thinking in terms of importance and unimportance, you will miss the whole of life. What is the importance of love? Or what is the importance of a rose flower? Or what is the importance of a full moon night? There is no importance.

If you start thinking in terms of importance, utility, meaning, you will miss life, because life is meaningless. It is immense benediction, but there is no utility to it. And all that is beautiful is meaningless. What is the meaning of a beautiful face or beautiful eyes? What is the meaning, what is the importance? Once you start asking a wrong question you can become destructive to your whole life.

Life is not economics. And love and meditation and beauty are not commodities. Things have utility – life has no utility. Mechanical devices have utility – persons have none. Values are, in a way, valueless. They have intrinsic value, but intrinsic value does not mean anything. If you ask a rose flower, ‘Why are you here? For what purpose? If you were not here what difference would it make?’ a rose flower cannot answer. There is no answer... it is unanswerably there.

Life simply is... and my whole effort there is to make you aware of the fact and not to ask for meaning, utility, value, importance. Enjoy things as they come along. For example you could have enjoyed this group, but you started thinking what was the importance of shouting. The shout was there inside you and it wanted to come out, but you started thinking, ‘What is the importance? What is the meaning? What to shout?’ You repressed it – that’s why it became a repression.

If it is there, let it be. If it is not, there is no need to shout – but don’t ask why. If the shout is there bubbling inside you, let it be. It wants to bloom in you just like a flower. It is meaningless, it

has no importance, but if you had lived it, it would have relaxed you so tremendously. When the shout is gone out of your being, something like poison is released. You feel unburdened, unloaded, weightless. And when the shout has gone, softer things become possible. You can smile, you can laugh.

If the shout is there deeply repressed in your unconscious and you smile, your smile will not be beautiful. It will be ugly because that shout will go on corrupting it. You can love somebody, but in your very love there will be violence, aggression, because that shout is there, that scream is there boiling within you, wanting to explode. It will affect everything that you do. Allow it... Let it evaporate. You will feel more empty after it is gone. But in that emptiness is purity. In that emptiness is timelessness. In that emptiness you will feel for the first time no-selfness. That shout will release your ego. But instead of releasing it, you started laughing at others. Then you missed the whole group – because the group is for you.

If you start laughing at others, you’re fulfilling your ego more. Rather than releasing your shout, rather than dropping your own ego... and in laughing at others judging that these are foolish people, you are strengthening your ego more. You will become more burdened. And I would like you to become like a child newly born... Like a fresh leaf, virgin, vulnerable. But that is possible only if we learn how to unburden ourselves, how to die each moment and be reborn. That’s what religion is all about.

[Osho suggested that she took part in another group, and this time she should not bother about others. Osho said that to judge others is in bad taste, because one cannot know what is significant for someone else; something very meaningful might be happening for him in his shouting.]

The group is just an opportunity where everybody is releasing his own madness. It is simple for you to release your madness also because when everybody else is doing it, nobody will be judging you. In ordinary life that is not possible. If you are standing on the street and you suddenly start expressing yourself, the police will get hold of you. You will be thought mad, insane; you will be hospitalised or put in a gaol.

The group is a special situation where a few people have gathered together and have created a society. For three, four days, it is a small-group society, where everybody is allowed to have his own being, everybody is allowed to have his own way – with no prohibitions, no inhibitions, no repression, no judgement. That’s what a group is.

You continued to judge, that’s why you felt so miserable. Otherwise you would have felt very high. [She answers: I want to say that actually I didn’t feel like this – I didn’t feel like judging.

No, you were not feeling, but you were judging. It was very subtle – it was there. When you think that your shouting is not important, how can you remain non-judgemental when the other is shouting? Because whatsoever we feel about ourselves, we feel about others. That is the only way to feel.

Maybe you don’t make it a very articulate judgement, but deep down, subtly you have already judged that this man is doing something unimportant. Maybe there are no words. I’m not saying that you were deliberately doing it, but it was there, because how is it possible that it should not be there?

When you judge yourself, you judge everybody. When you drop judging yourself, you drop judging everybody else.

In the next group don’t judge yourself, and whatsoever wants to come, allow it. If it is there, it is there; bring it out. Next group you will be able to. There is nothing to be worried about – but go into it completely. Much is going to happen, mm? Good.

[Another group member says: On the third day of the group I felt this sudden change in high, a newness, and I felt that it was a place to start from; it was a beginning. Then I switched, and I said, ‘Am I deceiving myself? Am I just deluding myself?’ And I felt baffled about trusting where I was.]

You were actually in a new space. Doubt your doubt! It was not imagination. But if you doubt it you will not allow it to happen more often. If you doubt you will not allow it to grow. If you doubt it you may even obstruct it completely; it may not come back. When a new experience knocks at your door, welcome it. It is very rarely that it knocks at anybody’s door. And if you doubt in that moment and it feels neglected. rejected, the experience won’t come so easily again. Welcome it!

Even if sometimes you feel that maybe it is imagination, what is wrong in imagination? Nothing. I am saying that it is not imagination. Maybe sometimes you feel that it is imagination – and there is no way to decide whether it is or not. Let it be imagination but welcome it. Even if the guest is imaginary, be a good host. And if the guest is real, you will start feeling that he is. If just through doubting and thinking it may be imaginary, you close the door, then even the real guest is rejected.

And the mind is really masochistic. Whenever there is some happiness arising it becomes doubtful, but it never doubts the misery. When you are miserable you never think that maybe it is just imaginary. No, you simply accept it, welcome it. But when it is happiness happening, doubt arises. The mind is a masochist. It is a suicidal phenomenon. It goes on torturing itself. It enjoys that torture.

Nobody ever comes to me who says, ‘I am very miserable, but the doubt arises as to whether it is imagination or real.’ No, misery is always real; there is no doubt about it. Thousands have told me that whenever happiness comes, they become doubtful. How much we have become accustomed to unhappiness? Unhappiness seems to be just a matter of fact. Unhappiness seems to be just as it should be. Happiness seems to be something which doesn’t happen ordinarily, should not happen really.

It really was something that was knocking at your door. It will be coming more. Accept it. Only later on will you be able to decide whether it was imaginary or real. It is real, but right now if you start thinking about what it is, you will miss the guest.

[The assistant leader of the group said I felt that it was a very powerful group and I think that I enjoyed it more than any other group that I’ve done. I have a question. Can you give me a little advice on how I can help people who are basically not interested in exploring the question of ‘who am I?’?

Many people come as a result of your direction rather than from their own wish to explore who they are. Suddenly they’re confronted with the necessity of having to do it, when basically they don’t want to. What can we do to help them?]

They want to – otherwise I would not send them. They may not know it; they may even resist it. You are not always ready to accept your own wanting. They want it, so the basic problem is not there. It is just that their resistance has to be broken. So you have to go on goad ing them, that’s all. Make the goading so much that they have only two choices and their resistance now seems to be meaningless. Their resistance means that they will be choosing your continuous goading. Make it so hard that they relax into it.

Everybody has a hard crust around his own real wants. That’s part of our upbringing. because no child is really allowed to assert his own desires. Imposed desires are there – the father wants something, the mother wants something, and one has to do it. The child never wanted to – he wanted to do something else, but that something else was not accepted.

Coming again and again across such desires which are not accepted by the parents, the child by and by creates a hard crust against his own desiring self. Then he loses contact with his own desires. Then he does not know what he desires, what he really wants.

When I send somebody to a certain group, he may not be aware, but I am feeling that that is what he needs. So you have to work hard. You even have to force him against himself. And he will be grateful to you. Once his crust is broken, he will feel very grateful that you did so well. So if you have real compassion, then force him even against himself. When I have sent him, that means he needs it. So don’t bother about what he says, don’t bother about what he pretends. Just listen to me and go on goading.

When I say that under this ground there is water, forget everything and go on digging – the water is there. It may take many days for you to dig. It may be sixty feet or one hundred feet deep, you will have to unearth much – many stones and rocks – but the water is there. So don’t listen to him; listen to me.

You are there as my representatives. If I send somebody to your group, you have to work hard. Now this is none of your business to bother whether he wants it or not, likes it or not – because people are in such a confusion that they dislike things that are going to help them, and they like things that are not going to help them. They are suicidal.

So hard work is needed. Go on forcing. First try to persuade them. If they listen – good; first court them into it. If they don’t listen, then force them by other means. (The groupleader) is great at forcing. Learn from [her]. You will by and by. You are new in the group, but you will learn by and by. Nothing to be worried about.

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