29

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‌CHAPTER 29

29 August 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[To a sannyasin couple who are leaving Osho says:]

Manage to come forever; become a part. I will be calling all of my people to stay with me now, so prepare...

Because now it will be needed. The work has to take on a totally new dimension and I will be working now on deeper planes. Many people are ready to dive deep, so now there is no need to collect a big mass. Now I can start working on a few chosen people. And that will be far more meaningful finally, because once you are ready I can throw you into the world; then you can start working on your own.

It is just like coming close to me: once you are really close your unlit candle is lit, but to light that candle a real closeness is needed. It happens only at a certain point of closeness. Once it has happened then I am you. Then you can go anywhere and you can start working and that will be my work. That is going to be my way of sending myself to millions of people. And that is the ancient-most way – because the modern media has never existed before, but christ did perfectly well without any printing, without any newspaper, without any books, without any television, radio; he did perfectly well. With a small group of people buddha did perfectly well. Although he never went outside a small part of the country, bihar, the whole Asia turned buddhist. This is the ancient-most way to work, and it is still relevant.

Rather than people seeing me on the TV it is far more alive if you are lit by me and they see you. It will be more live than seeing me on the tv or seeing me in a newspaper or listening to me on the radio. If I can light you then you are exactly me; then you can go on. This will be the shape of the work, so get ready, mm? Within a year prepare.

[A sannyasin, a psychiatrist, leaving. He’d like to know if it would be good for him and for others to work as a therapist. Osho checks his energy.]

Good! Very good. The energy is there... and you can develop it as much as you want. It will be good for you and good for other people, so get into it. And get into it as a love affair – less than that never satisfies. When your work is your love affair, only then does something start happening to you and to others. When your work is your love affair then there is a magic quality in it, and a therapist needs to be a magician. It is pure magic, white magic; it is no ordinary work.

But your energy is there, the basic energy is there; you can build a great temple on it. But go into it whole-heartedly as a poet writes poetry or a painter paints, as a singer sings or a dancer dances... be a therapist like that!

Don’t think of it as a kind of job. Think of it as a vocation, as a fulfillment, as a great involvement and commitment. So learn the art!

[The sannyasin then says he feels blocked in the front of his body, especially his sexual energy as he had a catholic education.]

You suffered a lot by being a catholic! It is a kind of calamity that happens to a few people... but you survived; nothing to worry about. You are still alive so something is possible!

It is a wrong kind of education, this catholicism, because it is life-negative, because it does not respect life. It is death-worship. That’s why instead of christ becoming the symbol, the cross has become the symbol. They would not have bothered about christ at all if he had not been crucified. It is a death worship, and because of death worship it poisons life.

But about your energy this is my feeling – that if you can start moving towards therapy your problem will change. It is not really a block. You just have energy and you don’t know how to use it – hence the block is felt. No block has to be removed, a direction just has to be given in which the energy moves. This is a totally different thing, not a block. It is just that the energy is there and you have not yet found your vocation.

Once the energy and the vocation meet, your problem will disappear.-

About sex, this is my observation – that if a person has found his way, his style, his life, then sex problems disappear. Sex problems exist only because your life energy is moving in a direction where you don’t enjoy its movement.

For example, you go on doing a certain kind of work and you don’t like it; on the contrary you hate it from your very guts. And this becomes chronic, because every day you go on doing the same work that you hate. Then suddenly, if one day you start doing the work that you love, you will be surprised by the ecstasy that will arise in you. It is as if a reservoir is broken and the water starts overflowing from all sides. And when everything starts flowing – love, prayer, meditation, relationship – everything!... Sex is symbolic; it simply says your life is stuck in a routine which is not your destiny, which you are not meant to be.

So become a therapist, mm? and that will dissolve all your problems. And next time come for a longer period so much will become possible! Good.

[A sannyasin is returning to the West to her work with handicapped children. She wants to know how to work with them and yet not lose energy. She tends to get too involved, she says, and to lose herself.]

The work can become good, can be used as a meditation, because compassion will be needed. You just have to change your focus. Don’t think about it as work but think about it as service. Think of the handicapped children; don’t think of your salary. Don’t think about your bond and don’t think about other things. Think of those small children who are suffering. You can be of some help to them – you can make their lives a little better. Take it as prayer, worship, and the quality will immediately change. You will start flowing and you will start enjoying it... you will be thrilled.

Sometimes it takes just a small change of gear, just looking at it from another angle, and things are totally different. One angle is that you are just doing a job: you get your salary, you get your benefits and you are finished. Then those handicapped children will look like enemies. Then you will think many times, ‘Why does god create handicapped children? If there were no handicapped children you would have been saved from being a teacher. Why, in the first place, are handicapped children there? And how can one be happy with such a miserable lot?’ One becomes sad, depressed; seeing the injustice, one starts doubting even god. This is one standpoint – the negative, the ordinary.

There is another standpoint – the positive, the extraordinary – that this is an opportunity for you to grow because you can show compassion. If your compassion cannot arise with handicapped children then where can it? If your heart cannot start throbbing for these children where will it be possible? You are in one of the most potential situations where much can happen. And if you can be in compassion then your work is no more work. It is your way towards god.

Start seeing in those handicapped children not your enemies but your friends. Start looking into those eyes, feel their hands, hug them, and feel the god in them! They are god’s children.

And if you can be happy serving them you can never be unhappy anywhere else. That will become a great foundation for your life. And once in a while, whenever you can have a few days’ holiday, come here, mm? – so you can again regain heart. And use these three years; these three years will become of tremendous value later on.

There are only two things that are meaningful: one is meditation, another is love. Either meditate so that love can grow in your life, or love so that meditation can grow in your life; it works both ways. Now, this is a love situation. Love those children. Be a mother to them not only a teacher! Think of those children as your children.

This time go with this new perspective, with this new vision. Let it be an adventure into compassion, love, service, and next time you come here you will have a totally different energy, and then it will be very easy to go into meditation. At home continue to meditate; at school continue to be compassionate.

One never knows from where god is going to happen to somebody. God comes in unexpected ways. This may be his way of approaching you, of challenging you, of provoking you. Don’t miss it!

All opportunities are opportunities to move towards god. This should be the basic attitude of every sannyasin. Wherever you are situated this should be the basic, tacit understanding – that from here

you have to work out your way. And I don’t know a single space from where a way cannot be worked out towards god.

Every place is as good as any other – it just depends on how you work it out... and this is really a beautiful situation. Go with this new vision.…

[Two sannyasin men had been working as therapists together and were in a homosexual relationship. They separated in their relationship and Osho advised them not to work together either. One of them says he is unsure what to do because they were planning to return to the West to earn money to stay in Poona.]

That’s why I suggested this – that for these few months you cooperate as far as the groups are concerned. There is no need for any relationship. Forget about the relationship; that has been destructive to both.

And you are both happy about it. I was a little worried about [your partner] – not about you because you were ready from the very beginning to get out of it He was a little too attached, but he has also got over it – and he is happy.

So just remember: don’t get into the old pattern, don’t allow it to become a relationship again, that’s all. And that will be a good challenge to your awareness. You will be together so every possibility will be there of getting into a relationship, but you are not to get into it. So this will keep you very very mindful, attentive to not fall into the old trap again.

And it will be easier for you and for [your partner] too, to finish work there and come back; that’s why I suggested you work together. Because he was also worried – alone he would find it difficult to do groups. Alone it will be difficult for you to earn money... so that seems to be the most feasible and practical thing.

And there is something more in it, plus – that is that you both have to be very very mindful that you don’t get into it. And you have to be more alert, because there is every possibility of [your partner] slipping back. From the very beginning you were ready to get. out of it. In fact that was the first thing that you told me when you had come, years before.…

So from that very day you have been thinking about how to get out. Then you were getting into it again, then out again. He was very much against your going, he depended too much on you, but this time something has happened to him. I was very considerate towards him – that’s why I used to tell you to just continue in the relationship – but now something has happened; there is no need.

So be very alert! If you feel that a situation comes where now it is a question of either you falling into the old relationship again or leaving cooperating in the group, then leave cooperating in the group... the relationship at no cost – that has to be kept in mind. Without relationship it is perfectly good that you cooperate, be friends... as far as the work is concerned, that’s all. So you can come soon.

And I think it will be possible; it will not be difficult. You have also become more integrated, more alert. My fear was about [your partner] but he is also happy. I have never seen him so happy and so surrendered, because his only fear has disappeared. He was afraid of me too because of your

relationship. He was continuously afraid that one day or other I would separate you. He had never said it, he has not said it yet, but that was his fear of coming closer to me too. And I was waiting for the right moment when I should hit!

This time it became possible, mm? You are divorced! He has survived and perfectly well. He is happy and has come closer to me too because now there is no fear. All that I could have taken from him I have taken so now there is nothing to take, mm? So just go happily, mm? Good.

[A sannyasin who is leaving says she feels she has understood what Osho has said to her about her practice of archery but expresses fear that she will ‘escape on the way’.]

I will be taking care of it – you will not be able to escape anywhere! Once trapped by me you are trapped forever! You cannot go. I give enough rope but you cannot go anywhere. In fact because of that rope there is no need to go. People want to escape when they are not free. With me you are absolutely free... so there is no need to go anywhere.

And now, start practising your archery with a more meditative mind. This will be the change which has to be brought in. The ordinary archer thinks of the target, his whole concern is how to reach the target. He is concerned with the other end – there. If he succeeds in hitting the target he is happy. But when archery is to be transformed into meditation you have to think of this end – you! The target becomes secondary; the archer becomes primary. What is more important is in what kind of mind the arrow leaves the bow. It has to reach the target – that is secondary – but in what kind of state, in what kind of mind the arrow leaves you is more primary.

You should be non-tense, utterly relaxed, at rest, with no thoughts in the mind – just empty. Let the arrow leave you in emptiness. And then it becomes a great meditation. That’s how zen people have used archery for centuries.

Have you read one book by herrigel? Read it again, meditate over it.…

Mm, you can read it as many times as you like and you will always be benefited. It is one of the rarest documents. In fact the only book written by a westerner which really represents zen; otherwise all are just bogus. He has got the feel of the spirit, mm? And that has to be your way now. Work it out, slowly, slowly.

[A sannyasin he is not sure if his profession as a gardener suits him because it involves office work, and he feels tense around people. He wonders if he should become a therapist.]

Can’t you be with the trees instead of the office?... I think that is my suggestion. Rather than getting into group-leading, make friends with the trees. They are far more beautiful than the people who participate in groups! And you don’t have that kind of energy: you are a very simple and innocent type of man.

You will not be able to be benefited by a group leadership. On the contrary you may become very much disturbed, because these people who participate release all kinds of negative energies and you will absorb them. You will not be able to protect yourself; you are too open. Yes, if you take a few years training after four, five years you may become able to lead groups but you will never be a

great groupleader. And you will suffer too much through it. You are not the right person to go into that. You can even go mad; it is a very maddening thing.

You are already happy thinking that you are not going into it!

You move more with the trees. Change your work in such a way that the office and file work is less, and move more with the trees and bushes. Mm? Good!

[A sannyasin says her rolfing sessions are very painful.]

Rolfing is painful. In fact, when rolfing is painful only then does it help. This was the right session. Maybe the seventh will be more painful... and the ninth is real hell! But the harder it gets, the more helpful it becomes.

In fact pain means that now the Rolfer has touched in you the real places where you are accumulating pain. You follow me?

We go on accumulating pain in our body; because the pain is not allowed to be expressed we have to dump it somewhere. People dump their pain in different places. The pain has to be dumped somewhere in the body; now it depends on different people where you dump your garbage. So these may be the places where you have been dumping your pain. Now he has touched those pain points so the pain is released and you will feel really disturbed. But it is good! Once the pain is finished you will become lighter than you have ever been. You will become so weightless and the body will have a new release, a new lease of energy.

Do all the ten; if you cannot do them here, do them in Germany. But finish all the ten – howsoever painful. Don’t be worried, because that pain is only for a few hours then it is gone; it is worth it. Never avoid pain; it is through pain that we grow. Because of avoiding pain we have stopped growing, and because we go on avoiding, the pain goes on accumulating somewhere or other.

And accumulated pain can create many psychosomatic problems. If too much pain is there then some disease is bound to erupt because that will be the body’s way to release it. And then again you give drugs to the body to force it back. You don’t help the body. People don’t help the body to release its burden; rather, on the contrary, they go on drugging it. So you can drug one part; then the pain moves to another part. From there it will find its way. It has to get out of the system, and rolfing is one of the most beautiful ways to get rid of pain... but it is through pain.

You can feel confused – because when pain is released it is not only in the body; the pain will hit your mind. It will disturb many things there. And it is out of the blue so one feels empty too. If somebody insults you, you know from where the pain is coming. If somebody hurts you today then you can relate it. Because he has hurt you the pain is there; your mind is disturbed.

Now this pain that has come out of rolfing may not have anything to do with the present, it may be years old, so you cannot relate from where it is coming, why it is coming. You have completely forgotten the reference. It is out of the blue, just out of emptiness it is there. . .as if the rolfer has created it. The rolfer cannot create it, he cannot create anything. He can only release: if it is there he can help it to come out, to surface. So finish the rolfing course and confusion will disappear.

And the other thing that you are feeling – a kind of emptiness – that is very good; that’s what meditation is. In the beginning it looks like emptiness. By and by you will start feeling its other dimension – that is fullness.

It is as if a room is full of furniture. When you remove the furniture the room looks empty, naturally. You have become accustomed to the furniture in the room. Suddenly the furniture is removed; it looks empty. But there is another way of looking at the room. Now it is more full of room. Now it is more full of space, now it is more spacious: there is more room to move, to be. It is bigger now than it was before because all that furniture was occupying space. Now the furniture is out it has more space.

And it is exactly the case with the mind: when you start meditating, going through groups, you release many things from the mind; the furniture, the junk is thrown out. By and by you will stumble upon the other aspect of the energy – that you are not becoming empty; you are becoming spacious. You have more room inside you to contain bigger things. You can contain more love now because the furniture is removed. You can contain more god now because the furniture is removed.

[A sannyasin who is returning to the West says he is unsure whether he is a real seeker or not. He has been learning acupuncture for three years from a sannyasin who runs a sannyas centre in london. He feels very much in the shadow of this person.]

First, don’t be worried about what kind of sannyasin you are. This is how things are: in the morning you can be one kind, in the afternoon you can be another kind; by the evening you can be the third type. The mind goes on changing so you cannot decide, and there is no need to decide. The mind has to disappear. When all wavering disappears then you will be the real sannyasin, but before it disappears it is there, so nothing to be worried about.

And nothing is wrong in being curious. Just being curious is meaningless. If one sometimes becomes a sincere seeker – even sometimes; for a few minutes in twenty-four hours – that’s more than enough. If even for a few minutes in twenty-four hours you are surrendered to me, that is enough; that will do. There is no need to be devoted to me for twenty-four hours. 1 don’t demand impossibles... just the humanly possible. Even if for a single moment every night when you go to bed you can remember me and are surrendered to me, that will do the miracle! So don’t be worried about that.

And with [the acupuncturist].… This acupuncture thing is such that if you can learn, it is good. You have already wasted three years in it. You don’t feel that you are capable enough to do anything on your own now?...

My feeling is that by and by you start being on your own, and only then will you learn. I think my feeling about you is that you know the essentials. Once you have known the essentials then everything can be learned through being yourself, practising it. Those other planes don’t come by verbal knowledge. They will come only by going deep into it... they will come by experience.

So there is no need to go on continuously hanging around [the acupuncturist]. If it feels that it drains your energy, then why? – there is no need; start being on your own. And sometimes the best way to learn is to teach and the best way to know is to practise – because these are practical arts.

Acupuncture is not a science but an art. It is not like mathematics; it is more like painting. If you know how to mix the colour and how to put it on and where to put the canvas and you know how to paint – the essential – then all you need is there; you just have to work it out through your inspiration. Now you have to go into your imagination and let it happen!

By and by you will feel your way and things will become more clear. Otherwise you will become more and more involved in the theoretical kind of knowledge – and that will never make you confident. Confidence comes only by doing it. It is as if a man goes on and on reading and speculating and thinking about swimming and never goes to swim. The more he knows, the more he will become afraid.

Three years is enough, more than enough. Start being on your own. And you will have to find your own knack. Acupuncture is a knack, an art, and there is no need to follow anybody like a rule. There are none, rules don’t exist... just insights.

So start working on your own. And [the acupuncturist] is a powerful man and has a strange kind of energy; he can be too powerful over you. But you have learned enough from him, so be thankful and say goodbye and start doing something.

In the beginning you will feel a little unconfident and you will be worried many times about whether you are doing the right thing or not, but that’s how one has to begin. It is a kind of groping, but sooner or later you will find the door. Once you have started finding the door then less and less groping is needed. Then you know the door.

Start working!

[A visitor who has participated in the kyo group, says she wants to surrender but her mother wants her to earn money and be conventional, not spiritual.]

But my sannyas is very materialistic. I don’t divide spirituality and materialism in any way. Matter is as good as spirit, and when they both meet and there is a synchronicity between the two, there is joy.

The spirit alone is not capable of giving joy; the body alone also is not capable of giving joy. Joy is a harmony between the body and the soul – the meeting of the opposites, the meeting of the polarities. That orgasm is joy. So I am neither materialist in the sense marx is materialist; nor am I a spiritualist in the sense that the so-called spiritualist people are spiritual – Sri Aurobindo or Mahatma Gandhi. I am not a spiritualist in that sense. I am a totally different kind of phenomenon. To me, all is welcome and everything is good.

So about that you need not be worried. If your mother is really a materialistic person, she will also become my sannyasin, mm? I have a certain appeal for materialists!

Don’t be worried about that. If you want to become a sannyasin, become a sannyasin. If you want to surrender, you surrender!

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