9

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‌CHAPTER 9

27 September 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin said that he experienced difficulty in concentrating in meditations.]

The first thing – you should not try to concentrate. Concentration is not going to help you at all. Concentration will create a tension in the mind. Relaxation is going to help – not concentration. There are two types of people: there are people who can be helped by concentration, and there are people who can be helped only through relaxation – and both processes are different.

In concentration you have to focus your mind on something. That will not be possible for you. Your energy cannot move that way. In relaxation you have simply to relax, unfocused – it is just the contrary to concentration. So I will give you one method that you start doing in the night.

Just before you go to sleep, sit in your chair. Be comfortable. Comfort is the most essential part of it. For relaxation one has to be very comfortable. So make yourself comfortable. Whatsoever posture you want to take in the chair, take. Close your eyes and relax the body. Just from the toe up to the head, feel inside where you feel the tension. If you feel it at the knee, relax the knee. Just touch the knee and say to the knee, ‘Please relax.’ If you feel some tension in the shoulders, just touch the place and say, ‘Please relax.’ Within a week you will be able to communicate with your body. And once you start communicating with your body, things become very easy.

The body need not be forced, it can be persuaded. One need not fight with the body – that’s ugly, violent, aggressive, and any sort of conflict is going to create more and more tension. So you need not be in any conflict – let comfort be the rule. And the body is such a beautiful gift from God that to fight with it, is to deny God Himself. It is a shrine... we are enshrined in it; it is a temple. We exist in it and we have to take every care of it – it is our responsibility.

So for seven daysIt will look a little absurd in the beginning because we have never been taught

to talk to our own body – and miracles can happen through it. They are already happening without

our knowing it. When I am saying something to you, my hand follows in a gesture. I am talking to you – it is my mind that is communicating something to you. My body is following it. The body is en rapport with the mind.

When you want to raise the hand, you have to do nothing – you simply raise it. Just the very idea that you want to raise it and the body follows it; it is a miracle. In fact biology or physiology has not yet been able to explain how it happens. Because an idea is an idea; you want to raise your hand – it is an idea. How does this idea become transformed into a physical message to the hand? And it does not take any time at all – in a split second; sometimes without any time gap.

For example I am talking to you and my hand will go on collaborating; there is no time gap. It is as if the body is running parallel to the mind. It is very sensitive – one should learn how to talk to it, and many things can be done.

So the first thing. Relax in the chair, have the light dark or dim as you like, but the light should not be bright. Tell everybody for these twenty minutes no disturbance, no phone call, nothing whatsoever... as if the world is no more for those twenty minutes. Close the doors, relax in the chair with loose clothes so there is no tightness anywhere, and start feeling where the tension is. You will find many spots of tension. Those have to be relaxed first, because if the body is not relaxed, the mind cannot be either. The body creates the situation for the mind to relax. The body becomes the vehicle of relaxation.

When you want to be angry, or when you are angry, if the body does not collaborate with you, you will not be able to be angry. A subtle mechanism follows, certain poisons are released into the blood: your face becomes red, your eyes become red, your hands want to beat or to kill or to hit. You want to shout or shriek, and the whole body is ready. Sometimes try – without any bodily symptom of anger, try to be angry, and you will feel that it is impossible. Unless the body gives a base, nothing is possible. So the first thing is to create a body base.

So just go on touching the place. Wherever you feel some tension, touch your own body with deep love, with compassion. The body is your servant, and you have not paid anything for it – it is simply a gift. And so Complicated, so tremendously complex that science has not been able yet to make anything like the body. But we never think about that; we don’t love the body. On the contrary; we feel angry about it. And so-called saints have taught many foolish things to people – that the body is the enemy, that the body is your degradation. that the body is pulling you downwards, that the body is the sin; it is all sin.

If you want to commit a sin, the body helps, that’s true. But the responsibility is yours, not the body’s. If you want to meditate, the body is ready to help you for that too. If you want to go downwards. the body follows you. If you want to go upwards, the body follows you. The body is not the culprit at all. The whole responsibility is of your own consciousness – but we always try to find scapegoats. The body has been one of the most ancient scapegoats. You can throw anything. and the body is dumb. It cannot retaliate, it cannot answer, it cannot say that you are wrong. So whatsoever you say, there is no reaction from the body against it.

So go on all over the body and surround it with loving compassion, with deep sympathy, care. This will take at least five minutes, and you will start feeling very very limp. relaxed, almost sleepy. Then bring your consciousness to the breathing: relax the breathing.

The body is our outermost part, the consciousness the innermost, and the breathing is the bridge that joins them together. That’s why once breathing disappears, the person is dead – because the bridge is broken; now the body cannot function as your home, your abode.

So when the body is relaxed, just close your eyes and see your breathing; relax that too. Have a little talk to the breathing: ‘Please relax. Be natural.’ You will see that the moment you say, ‘Please relax,’ there will be a subtle click. Ordinarily breathing has become very unnatural, and we have forgotten how to relax it because we are so continuously tense that it has become almost habitual for the breathing to remain tense.

So just tell it to relax two or three times and then just remain silent.

[Osho said at this stage, to start to say ‘one’ on the exhalation, and went on to describe this stage of the meditation. See ‘The Passion for the Impossible’, September 3rd, where Osho talks about this in detail.

Osho said the sannyasin should see whether it disturbed his sleep or not, because that was possible. If it did, then the meditation could be done two or three hours before sleeping.]

[The sannyasin asks: In between, when the breath goes out and comes in, will there be a little pause where one says, ‘One’?]

No – when it goes out, say ‘one’. When it is coming in, remain silent. This ‘one’ and silence will give you a new understanding between word and wordlessness. This ‘one’ will be the word, and not saying anything will be the wordlessness. This ‘one’ will be part of language and part of mind, and that wordlessness will not be a part of the mind – it will be a part of no-mind, of the beyond.

You will be moving just between these two – the finite and the infinite. Between these two shores your consciousness will continuously move and there will be created a very subtle harmony. So continue thisAnd your energy is moving perfectly well. Much is possible.

[To a metal-sculptor from England]

You can make something here, because I would like to see what you do. Whatsoever we do, it’s part of our being. Each act manifests our being. It cannot be otherwise, because it comes out of you.

And I love creative people, because only creative people are people. Those who are not creative, they are things, not people. And I also work on metal and stone and things like that! (laughter) Right? (a chuckle)

[A sannyasin, present at darshan with her husband, expressed concern over their relationship, saying she had difficulty in communicating with him. Osho talked at length to her about using her energy – of which she has much – creatively, in areas outside her husband and child.]

[The husband said: I have difficulty in relating to people emotionally. I’ve done quite a lot of Vipassana meditation...(maybe) I use the Vipassana meditation as an excuse not to show my feelingsIt’s a fear of coming out and showing myself emotionally.]

Mm mm.… Do one thing – in hypnosis they call it the confusion technique. For example, you are walking on the street and somebody comes and collides with you: he is in a rush or running somewhere in a hurry and he collides with you. The natural thing is to get angry, annoyed – a natural reaction.

Now this technique is to confuse the person, because if you are annoyed, that is natural; he was expecting that. Before he says, ‘I am sorry,’ confuse him. Do something to confuse him. For example just look at your watch and say, ‘It is two o’clock’ – as if he has asked for the time. And make sure it is not two o’clock – you will confuse him more!

Then go on your way. Don’t mention at all that he collided with you and don’t give him a chance to say that he is sorry or anything. After one block stand and see what he is doing. He will still be staring at you – he will be confused. You will have completely messed him around. Play this game for at least two weeks.

And find out new ways, invent ways, and then tell me after two weeks how you are feeling. Then I will talk about it. This will bring you out, it will pull you out, mm? Good !

[The Encounter group is present.

A group member says she is confused about everything.] Then you became more aware?

One thing has to be understood, that confusion is never really the problem. The confusion arises because you believe in certain things. Just now I was explaining to him about the confusion technique. The other person believes that he will react in a certain way – that’s why you can confuse him. You cannot confuse a madman.

The confusion arises out of beliefs. Confusion is not really the problem. It is the belief that is the problem. If a person can learn how to live without beliefs. there will be no confusion at all. Confusion simply disappears; it is a by-product of belief. You must have some belief in your mind of how life should be, and when it is not, there is confusion; how you should behave. and when you do not, there is confusion; how people should relate to you, and when they don’t, there is confusion.

You are carrying a dead pattern of life, and when life doesn’t fit with it – and it is never going to fit with it – there is confusion. Once you drop that dead map, life is flowing and there is no confusion. If you believe that people are good, are supposed to be good. and then they are not, then what to do? You are confused. If you think that people are bad and sometimes they are not, you are confused.

When you don’t have any conception, when you simply relate to the fact, whatsoever it is, and you don’t have any prefixed idea about it; only the fact is there – that this man is behaving in such a way – then there is no confusion. You relate to the fact, and there is clarity, tremendous clarity.

So drop your beliefs. Don’t ask how not to be confused, and don’t ask how to solve the confusions: these are wrong questions. They will not lead you beyond confusion – they will create more confusion. Drop all your beliefs – they are creating problems. You are carrying a map, and life

goes on continuously changing. It is as if you are carrying a map of Poona with you, and wherever you go, things are continually changing. Roads are moving from here to there. The crossroad used to be here yesterday, now it is not there today. The station used to be in the south, it has moved to the north . You are carrying a map – and all maps are of yesterday.

Life never remains there. No yesterday can hold life. It goes on moving, changing, so there is immense confusion. You throw that map, burn it, and then suddenly there is no confusion. Burn the scriptures and there is no confusion. Don’t be an idealist and there is no confusion. Then there is clarity, tremendous clarity, because your eyes have nothing to corrupt you. They are simply receptive. Whatsoever is, is.

You love a man and you have certain ideas about how a lover should behave. No lover ever behaves like that. Those ideas are just dead ideas... ideals which have never existed. When this man doesn’t fit with the idea, you are in trouble. You try to fit this man to the idea, so you start killing this man. He feels annoyed, he feels that you are aggressive, and he feels angry; you are trying to put him into a category of the husband, the good husband.

You are creating unnecessary trouble for yourself. There are no categories and people should not be categorised. Life is a process. It is changing. Every moment is a change. It is continuously changing into something else. So if you really want to get rid of confusion, get rid of all beliefs. Never be a Christian, never be a Hindu, never be a Buddhist – otherwise you will be confused. Never believe in any belief systems. Then suddenly all the clouds disappear... there is opening and the sunlight, and everything is as clear as can be; everything becomes transparent.

A man of no belief is a transparent man. He is simply there as he is. And for a transparent man the whole life is transparent, because life is just like the way you are. It is your interpretation. You follow me?

Just look at what beliefs you are carrying, what ‘shoulds’ you are imposing on life, what moral concepts and religious concepts and political philosophies you are carrying in your head. You must be carrying much of a load, much junk; that is creating the trouble.

Life is not confusion at all. It is there in sheer aliveness... it is its very aliveness – that’s why it goes on changing. And you never change your concepts. All those concepts have been put into you since you were a small child, when you were not aware at all, not even conscious about what is happening, what is being taught to you. And not only that dead concepts are in you – contradictory concepts are in you. That creates more trouble, more confusion. You cannot find a single concept in you that has not, side by side, its opposite also.

Your parents, your society, your culture, they go on giving you double-binds. For example a mother says to the child, ‘Be spontaneous.’ Now what nonsense! How can the child be spontaneous? Either he is spontaneous or he is not. If he is, finished. If he is not, that is his responsibility. But how is he supposed to be spontaneous? If he tries to be spontaneous, it will not be spontaneity. If he does not try, the mother is angry. Now a double-bind has been given to the child.

There is a very famous book about relaxation. The name of the book is ‘You Must Relax’. Now the ‘must’... how can you relax with a must? You must relax? Now the must creates a tension and

relaxation will become impossible. You can relax, but must is not needed. And watch.You will

see that all ideas that you are carrying have their contradictions in your mind, so you are pulled in opposite directions.

On the one hand, they go on teaching you that man is good because in each and in every man there is God. On the other hand they go on telling you ‘Never trust anybody. People are very cunning and deceptive; be aware, otherwise you will be cheated.’

Now you say that people are good and God is within them and then you say, ‘Never believe anybody.’ These things you go on carrying within your mind, and through these contradictions you go on looking at life. Once you drop all these contradictory systems and your mind is clean, then only life reflects – and those reflections are beautiful, never confusing.

Try to look at life as it is, just the facticity of it with no condemnation, no justification, no rationalisation. Just look at the fact and don’t go beyond it. It is so – and nothing can be done about a fact – one has to accept it. What can you do about it? Nothing can be done about it.

So just drop beliefs, accept the facts, remain alert. Mm? Good.

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