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‌CHAPTER 1

21 August 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin says: When I’m in London working, I am very involved in my work and I feel how could I possibly leave it? So I’m really finding things difficult.]

Your work is good. You are doing good work there, but your own growth is far more important than your work. It is good work; if you continue, there is nothing wrong in it. But for your own growth, if you can stay a little longer, it will be helpful. And it will be helpful for the work also in the end, because you can help people only to the extent you yourself can go – never beyond it. You can take people only so far. How can you take them beyond you? That’s impossible.

So if you grow, your work also grows with you. Your help becomes deeper, goes to the very root of problems, and does not only solve other people’s problems, but gives them a new direction, a new meaning. It is one thing to solve people’s problems. Then you help them to become adjusted again. You make them normal again. You make them capable of being in the work.

But to help them to grow is totally different. In fact to help them to grow is to make them abnormal. To help them to grow means to make them rebellious. To help them means to take them beyond the society, beyond the rotten structure. To help them means to give them the hope for the impossible. They live surrounded by the impossible. They never think of the impossible.

God is the impossible. Religion itself is nothing but a passion for the impossible, the passion for the impossible.

So if a person only lives with the possible, he lives lukewarm. He lives only for the name’s sake. Yes, he may be a good citizen, a healthy person, doing his job, not creating any trouble for his family or the society; he may not be a mischief-maker, may not be a troublesome individual, may be perfectly

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adjusted – but what is the point? One simply lives and dies and never knows anything beyond that which goes beyond death.

So unless you can help a person to have a glimpse of the impossible, and you create a desire in him to long for the impossible, to desire the impossible, to be passionately, intensely in love with the impossible, you have not helped. If you can create this desire, he has a meaning. He starts growing. Then his growth is neither economic nor political nor social. His growth is religious. His growth is real. He is neither a Christian nor a Hindu nor a Mohammedan. For the first time he has taken possession of his whole being. He is himself, and nobody else..

And now he has a direction... some meaning that he has to uncover, some destiny that he has to fulfill. You can see that passion glowing around him. Only that passion brings real health, otherwise everything in the world is just ordinary. It simply bores one. The more intelligent you are, the more you will feel bored with the world. Only stupid people are not bored, because to be bored one needs to be a little intelligent. Buffaloes are not bored, donkeys are not bored; stupid people are not bored. Stupid people never search for anything. They simply vegetate.

The impossible never opens its doors to them, and they never knock, never knock at the door of the impossible. If you talk about God, they will laugh. They will say that it is impossible; it can’t be. God is dead, they will say. It never existed. They are simply trying to defend themselves. They are saying, ‘Nothing like that happens, so why bother? Just be as you are. Just live a good life. Go to the movies, to the club, see the TV, have a few children, a so-called happy family, and just wait for death... or sometimes go to the church, have a sunday visit. Maybe there is a God, so keep some account open there also; keep some bank balance in the other world also. Maybe – who knows?’

They go to the church as part of their calculating mind, as part of their cunningness, but not through any passion to search, to seek, to desire to know the truth, with no desire to know themselves. How can they be happy? And how can they be healthy? How can they be whole?

So if you really want to help them, it will be good to be here a little longer. If you can be here for one or two years, tremendous possibilities will open. Then you can go and help them.

[The sannyasin said she could not leave her patients immediately, but she could come back later. Osho suggested when she returned she should stay longer.]

I say one or two years because then you will be completely at home and at ease here. If you are here for three months, again the mind continuously works, thinking that after three months you have to go and do this and that. If you can drop that, there is no point in planning for two years. Just be here for as long as you like, but then don’t go on planning inside the mind that after two months you will go. Then those two months are wasted. You should drop the idea of going.

There is no bondage that you have to be here for two years. I say two years because two years seems to be exactly the time beyond which people don’t ordinarily plan.

[A sannyasin asked Osho about her father who is an artist, and had been diagnosed as schizophrenic.]

I don’t think it is schizophrenia, and I don’t think it is an illness. This type of thing happens many times to talented people. A talented person is almost always in trouble. His very talent is a struggle. A talented person is almost always somehow abnormal, not normal. The more talent you have, the more difficulties there will be in your life, because the mind has a certain capacity, but the talent can be more than the capacity of the mind. Then you cannot contain the talent in your mind; the strain is too much.

It is as if a two hundred watt current is running in a one hundred watt bulb. Everything starts going crazy. Meditation can be of tremendous help to him.

[The sannyasin answered: He jokes about it!]

Nothing to be worried about. People almost always joke about something to which they feel a certain attraction. Write to him about the Nadabrahma meditation. It will be very very helpful. It will be very soothing to his mind.

... he can do it lying down. And when you go home, you can just sit by his side and do it. Tell him to participate.

The very sound, the humming sound, is very relaxing, very soothing to the inner brain. It will be very helpful. When you go, remind me again, and I will give a special meditation tor him too. We will do something... don’t be worried.

[A sannyasin who is leaving said: Two months ago, you said you might give me a special healing meditation. I’ve been going to all the divine healings (that happen at each monthly camp) and they did much.]

You would like to become a healer?

... You will be able. It will be good for you. It will be good for others. Healing is a beautiful communication, deeper than any other communication. You can talk verbally, you can say to somebody, ‘I love you,’ but words are just words empty. If you can simply shower your energy on the other person, you say in a very much deeper way ‘I love you’. That really heals. That’s what I mean when I say that compassion is therapeutic.

So just start... and there is no need to be worried about technique. Whenever vou feel that you have the energy to share, just share. A few things to rememberThe person should be lying down

whenever you heal, because when a person is in a lying posture there is more possibility of entering his deepest core. When a person is lying down, he is more like a child. When he is sitting, he is less like a child; when he is standing, even less like a child. When he is lying down he feels relaxed automatically, because lying down is associated with sleep and with childhood when he was not capable of sitting, not capable of standing. So sleep and childhood – these two things are deeply associated with lying.

So let the person lie down and tell him to relax. The best way to help him to relax is to tell him to first do the opposite – to become as tense as possible, to tense all over the body so that he deliberately becomes tense and every fibre of the body is stretched. Tell him to come to almost a mad climax

of tension, and then when he cannot go any more, tell him suddenly to relax. Then he will fall into deep relaxation.

Ordinarily if you say to somebody to relax, he listens to the word, he tries, but nothing happens, because how to relax? In fact if you say to a person to relax he becomes more tense than he was before because now he tries to relax. He does not know what to do – because you cannot relax. You can become tense, but you cannot relax. Relaxation is a by-product, is an after-effect, a consequence of utmost tension.

So tell him to tense; that he knows how to do. That is not a problem – everybody knows how to become tense. Tell him that he is facing his enemy or facing death and he has to escape, so become tense. Tell him to let his whole body become tense, vibrating with tension, and then suddenly tell him to relax. With this created tension, he can relax now. He will fall into deep relaxation. Just two, three minutes of great tension will help him to relax. And when he is relaxing, start pouring your energy on him.

It is good not to touch the body. In the beginning it is good not to. Just keep at least two inches away from the body, because if you touch the body suddenly, the modern mind has become afraid of touch so much that it becomes tense. People are very touchy about touch. If you touch them they become tense. The modern mind knows only one touch, and that is sexual. All touch has disappeared. We don’t touch people ordinarily.

If you see two men holding hands, you think they are gay, queer or that something is wrong with them. Foolish! They may be just friends. Nothing is wrong in touching each other’s body, but two men touching each other become afraid. You feel embarrassed if somebody embraces you. If he is a man you feel embarrassed. If she is a woman you feel sexually aroused. But in both the ways touch loses security, innocence.

Even fathers and mothers don’t touch and cuddle and hug their children. The only touch that children have come to know and associate with is when the father becomes angry and hits and slaps. That is the only touch. So when you touch somebody, you touch wrong associations – sexual, homosexual, or somebody slapping and the other becoming afraid, scared, defensive, tense. So in the beginning, never touch.

When you are healing a person, so much energy is pouring out that if you touch, it will be almost as if you are touching him with a live wire, a live electric wire He will become so afraid that his doors will close – and if the doors are closed, you can go on showering and nothing will happen. Healing is possible not only because of your energy – it is possible only when your energy enters the other person and becomes his energy. If it comes up to the door and returns, no healing happens.

That’s why if a person does not trust you, never try healing – never try, because it is not possible. If a person has doubts about you, forget about him. It is possible only in deep trust, and if you try on persons who won’t trust you, you will become unconfident about your own energy. If you fail many times, then by and by you will think ‘Nothing is happening. I don’t have the energy.’

In fact every person has the energy to heal. It is something natural. It is not that a few people are healers and others are not, no. Every person born is a healer but has forgotten the capacity, or has never used it, or has used it in wrong associations and has come to feel that it never works.

So in the beginning never try on just anyone. It is a very tempting thing, because people who don’t believe say, ‘Okay, now try on us. We are ready. You can show us how you can heal.’ Never make it an argument, because that will be very destructive to you, and when the person is not receptive, you will feel very tired. When the energy comes back, unwelcomed, unreceived, and falls back on you, you will feel very tired because you have exhausted your energy with no result, with no fulfillment. You have exhausted the energy but it has not been creative.

So never try it on somebody who challenges you. It is not a challenge. If somebody is ready to participate, to go with you, then it is a beautiful experience.

So in the beginning never touch. When the person is relaxing more and more and you feel... and I am saying feel – not that you think. If you feel an urge arises to touch the person – for example he has a stomach ache or a headache or something and you feel that just touching the head will be helpful – then touch, but first let him get in tune with you. First just give an energy massage, not touching the body.

Keep about two inches distance, because the person’s body aura is about six inches away from his body. Keep about two, three inches away, so in a way you are touching his energy aura. You are not touching his or her physical body, but you are touching his subtle body – and that’s enough. For the energy to penetrate, that’s enough. You have really touched him, but he will not be afraid about that. When you feel that the person is participating tremendously, when his trust is immense and you can see that he is flowing with you, and you can feel that your energy is being absorbed – it is not rejected; he has become like a sponge and is soaking it up – then you can touch. Then the touch becomes very very helpful; then it becomes a pinpoint. On that point the whole energy showers and enters deepest.

After each healing it is better that if you can take a shower, do so. If it is not possible, then at least wash your hands immediately and shake them. It always happens that when you are passing your energy into the other person, his or her energy also sometimes passes into you; they overlap. Sometimes the person can be very very strong, even stronger than you. Sometimes the person may not be strong, but his illness may be very strong, so those vibrations of illness can enter you and can be destructive. They can make you m, tense. Healing is good but not at your own cost, because then it is foolish and you cannot heal much. Sooner or later you will become ill, badly ill, and your body will be confused very much.

So it you can take a shower, good. If it is not possible, then just wash your hands immediately. Cold water is very good – it helps your energy to shrink back, and then the contact is lost from any influences, impressions, vibrations, that could get into it. Then shake your hands. If you feel sometimes that you are really too full of the energy of the other person, jog, jump. Two or three minutes jogging will do. Then all the impressions and vibrations will fall away from you.

Only this much... and you will be able, mm? Good.

[A sannyasin who is returning to the west says she is afraid about meeting her old friend who is a marxist: He is in search of truth and I too. He has found something and I have found something. He has known me for so long and has given me so much love... ]

I know .… A few things you have to remember if you want to help anybody: the help can only be indirect; it can never be direct. If you try to convince him, you will simply create much argument; that will not help. He will become more defensive and egos are very argumentative.

When a person is involved too much in something like marxism, he simply lives through the intellect. His whole training is of the mind. From the very beginning he has a negative belief that nothing else exists; he is already prejudiced. It is very difficult to bring news to him that something that he has always believed does not exist, exists. It is easier for him to think that you have gone mad rather than to think that he has always been wrong. That is not easy.

But if you try to convince him intellectually on his own grounds, you will not be able. First he will become defensive. He will become very argumentative – and when somebody is argumen-tative, then there are many barriers and communication is lost.

And the second thing: whatsoever you have attained, whatsoever you have glimpsed is something beyond the mind. It is something of the heart, something concerned with love, and you cannot propose it like a syllogism. It is not a process that can be analysed. It is an event which cannot be analysed... a simple event. It is not a continuity. When there is a process, you can analyse it. And marxists are very efficient in analysing processes. Their whole methodology is of dialectics; to analyse a process into divisions – thesis, antithesis, synthesis – very simple.

But this is something not part of any process, because the innermost being is not a process at all. It is already perfect. It is not moving towards perfection – it has already arrived. It has never been away. It has never gone on any journey. The innermost being is absolutely perfect, and when it is, it is felt as an event, a simple event; nothing behind it, nothing ahead of it – an atomic event. You cannot divide it; it is indivisible. You cannot argue about it. You cannot manage proofs for it; you cannot collect evidence for it. You can be a witness but in a very indirect way.

So remember it, otherwise you will mess up the whole thing and you will not be able to help him. It is very possible that he may be able to harm you, rather than you being helpful to him. So be alert, because you carry something very fragile. A marxist is like a stone a rock, and you are flowering like a flower. The clash between a rock and a flower is never going to destroy the rock. The flower may be destroyed.

So it is good not to be a victim of any clash. Avoid clash. The flower can win, but the ways of the flower are very different. The way is not a direct clash. It is an indirect persuasion. What I mean is this – go there and love him more than you have ever loved him before. Don’t talk about what has happened to you. Even if he provokes you, avoid it, laugh about it. Say it is all nonsense, madness, and that he will not be interested so why waste his time.

But be loving, be meditative, move in grace. Let him feel it. That is your responsibility. Be very very alert so he can feel that something has happened to you, that you are no more the same. Bring a new breeze with you. Open some new window. Don’t argue about the window; simply open it and leave it there. He will become curious. You just have to be very alert. If you really want to help him, you have to be very watchful not to be argumentative.

In fact one should never argue about religion. And certainly never argue with a communist, because it is useless, it is pointless. And once you accept his categories, you will be defeated – not that

you are wrong, but your experience is more fragile. Your experience is higher. Your experience is deeper. When you bring it to the surface, much of it is lost. It can never be brought to the surface whole and total because it is part of your inner depth. It is an organic part to your inner depth. The moment you bring it out, much is lost. And when you make it an argument, again much more is lost. When the other tries to comprehend it through his logical structures, then it is almost murdered. This is the way to butcher a truth of experience.

So laugh more; that will be helpful. That will be the argument. Smile more... dance. Invite him to dance, and dance as lovingly as you can. Go in trance and let him watch. Meditate and let him watch. Meditate in your room and leave the door open so he becomes curious and wants to see what is happening.

He is in search so there is every possibility of his coming towards me, but all depends on you. You will be my messenger so you have to be very careful.

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