10

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‌CHAPTER 10

30 August 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin had said at his last darshan (see Dance Your Way to God, August 16th, 1976) that he was too much of an egoist, so Osho had told him to give his ego full play for one week – to set himself up as a guru and adopt some followers etc.

Tonight, the sannyasin reported back : I enjoyed it, but I also felt guilty. All that you say is against the ego. If someone says something against my ego, I take it that he’s saying it to me. I didn’t see it as being towards something separate from me, but you said to see it as a separate thing.]

I am against the ego – and the thing that I told you to do is the best way to get rid of the ego, so there is no contradiction. If you really want to drop the ego, first be a perfect egoist. Just as ripe fruit fan on their own accord, a ripe ego falls on its own accord. An unripe ego cannot fall; it clings. So if you try to be humble, if you make efforts against the ego, it will remain unripe, immature. It will cling to you and it will poison your being.

So the best way to get rid of it from your system is to first be with it. Go the whole way with it. Be a really perfect egoist. Enjoy its pleasure and pain; they are both there. There is pleasure – otherwise why should people be egoists? There is a certain gratification. You feel at the top of the world. But again and again you also feel hurt because nobody is there to support your ego. They are supporting their own. Why should they bother about you?

So when they see that here comes an egoist, they start destroying your ego, because that is the only way that they can support their own. So it is a continuous competition between the egos. They have to keep their flag high. Just to keep their flag high, they force your flag low; they have to put you down. Then it hurts. The ego gives pleasure – that’s why so many people, almost all people, are egoists. And it hurts – that’s why every egoist thinks, in some moments of contemplation, about how to get rid of it. These things both go on in the mind because it is a very ambiguous thing.

It is pleasant... it is painful. It gives you glimpses of both heaven and hell – and to get rid of it, you have to pass through both. You have to see its pleasures and you have to see its pain. Then by and by you will become capable of seeing that it is the same thing giving you pleasure, and the same thing giving you pain. Your ego means hurting others’ egos. It is that that is giving you pleasure. But the same is being done to you by others, because their ego means hurting you. Then one becomes aware of the whole game. With that very awareness, one starts laughing at the whole ridiculousness of it.

Then one does not become egoless, one does not become humble. One simply drops the ego. One is simply aware – neither egoistic nor egoless. One is out of the game; one is no more part of that trip. The humble person is also on the same trip. He is trying to be the most humble man in the world. Now the trip is the same. If you tell a humble person that you have come across a person who is more humble than him, he will immediately feel hurt. He cannot believe that anyone can be more humble than he. Impossible! He is the last. But in saying that he is the last, he is putting himself first. The ego is very tricky. Even in being last you can become competitive.

In India we have many stories about the city Lucknow. It is one of the most cultured cities of the world; in fact cultured too much. People are so polite, so nice, that the whole thing is sickening. So this is part of Lucknow’s etiquette – that if two persons are entering a room, for half an hour they will just say ‘You first’, and the other will say ‘No, you first’. Even on a railway station, waiting to enter the train, you will see people saying to each other ‘You first. How can I be first? I am just nobody’.

It is said that once a woman was pregnant with twins. They were never born – ‘You first’! The woman died. They were so polite and such nice guys! So even the last person can be on an ego trip.

So I tell you to be fully egoistic; deliberately be egoistic. Enjoy both the pleasure and the pain. That will give you a ripeness. That will give you the experience of what the ego really is. Through that very experience one day it will suddenly explode. Then you will not try to be a humble person; you will simply be humble. You will not even be aware that you are humble. Then humility is true. When the person is not even aware that he is humble... and a humble person is not aware that he is humble, because only an egoistic person can be aware that he is humble.

Because of the ego, a true life cannot function, cannot reveal its mysteries to you. The ego goes on covering your eyes. But you are too young. That’s why I say just play the game first. For ten months play the game and suffer – and don’t feel guilty. Even if you feel guilty, do it. That is your meditation. One day you will become aware. You are very sensitive; you can become aware.

[Members of the Tao group were present tonight. One group member sat with eyes closed in front of Osho and then slowly fell back with arms raised.]

Open your eyes and look at me! Good! [a chuckle] Very good. Your energy is flowing really well – as it should flow. Just go with it.

This is what the Chinese call the energy of chi. Once it starts working, you are in a very deep harmony with the existence. Just go with it, whatsoever happens even if sometimes you feel strange, weird. Our whole pattern of life is to fight, and this is relaxing all fight.

In the West only Pythagoras had an insight about this energy, nobody else. He called it a really beautiful name; he called it ‘harmonium’. It is a harmony... a harmony with existence. Everything is already going on its way; we are just to go with it. The river is flowing – we have just to relax and stop fighting.

There are only two ways of being; one is competition and another is cooperation. The West knows only competition. It has forgotten the style of cooperation. Now you can learn the style of cooperation. The energy is available. Just cooperate with it. Wherever it leads go with it. It will lead you to new spaces – far out spaces. Just surrender. It will suck you to the deepest core of your being. Don’t be afraid. And each day, the more you go with it, the more and more harmony will be felt in your being. Soon you will start hearing the celestial music which comes automatically when one falls in harmony.

[A group member says: Right now I feel sad.

So you started feeling sad just now? Just close your eyes and raise both your hands towards me, and if something happens in the energy, allow it... as if your energy is meeting my energy and I am surrounding you, as if I am just a whirlpool and you are being carried with me.

... You are holding – that may be the whole problem. You don’t trust life. Somewhere deep down there is a mistrust of life, as if if you don’t control, things will go wrong and that if you remain in control only then things can go right, that you have to always deliberately manage things. Maybe your childhood conditioning has helped in that way. That has done much damage, because when a person starts managing everything, his life is lived at the minimum.

Life is such a vast phenomenon; it is impossible to manage it. And if you really want to manage it, you have to cut it to the minimum; then you can manage. Otherwise life is wild. It is as wild as these clouds, and this rain and this breeze and these trees and the sky. It is wild – and you have cut your wild part completely. You are afraid of it – that’s why you don’t open as much as you can, and that is creating your sadness also.

Sadness is nothing but the same energy that could have been happiness. When you don’t see that your happiness is flowering, you become sad. Whenever you see somebody happy, you become sad; why is it not happening to you? It can happen to you! There is no problem in it. You just have to uncondition your past. You will have to go a little out of the way for it to happen, so just make a few efforts to open yourself. Even if it feels a little painful in the beginning.In the beginning it will

feel painful.

Start one meditation in the night, from tonight. Just feel as if you are not a human being at all. You can choose any animal that you like. If you like a cat, good. If you like a dog, good.or a tiger; male,

female, anything you like. Just choose, but then stick to it. Become that animal. Move on all fours in the room and become that animal.

For fifteen minutes enjoy the fantasy as much as you can. Bark if you are a dog and do things a dog is expected to do – and really do! Enjoy it. And don’t control, because a dog cannot control. A dog means absolute freedom, so whatsoever happens in that moment, do. In that moment don’t bring in the human element of control. Be really doggedly a dog. For fifteen minutes roam around the room.bark, jump. Continue this for seven days and then tell me.

It will help. You need a little more animal energy. You are too sophisticated, too civilised, and that is crippling you. Too much civilisation is a paralysing thing. It is good in a small dose but too much of it is very dangerous. One should always remain capable of being an animal. Your animal has to be freed; that is the problem as I see it. If you can learn to be a little wild, all your problems will disappear. So start from tonight – and enjoy it!

[A group member said that he seemed stuck in his throat, as if he wanted to vomit. Osho checks his energy and suggested that for three mornings in a row, he drink as much of a bucket of warm salted water as he could, until he was on the point of vomiting, whereupon he should induce a retching action so that all the water would be as if siphoned out again.]

It is something to do with the throat centre. It happens to people who are not very extrovert. [The group member replies: I am an extrovert.]

You have remained alone. An extrovert is one wo extroverts. You may think you are – you are not.

As far as your deepest emotions are concerned, you have never been able to express them. Deep down you have remained alone. You have never been in any relationship in which you were totally lost. You have never been in any occupation in which you were totally lost. You have remained separate. Deep down somewhere you have remained alone.

An extrovert is one who is very easily lost in anything. An introvert is one who, whatsoever he does, remains alone. Somewhere he is separate, aloof, distant. He tries You may have been trying. And if you try, you can become a good citizen, a good husband, a good lover, a good friend, but that is effort. If you relax, that will disappear. By effort you have become an extrovert, but by your intrinsic nature you are not.

This centre – the throat centre – is the centre of expression, so whenever something starts arising in you and comes to the throat, you will always feel this difficulty, because you will not be able to find ways and means of expressing it. That’s what is choking you. Something really beautiful has happened and the energy is moving, but it cannot pass through the throat centre. So the throat centre needs a cleansing.

This hot water will clean the throat centre. The very process of vomiting is helpful. If it is not working, then on the third day, write a letter [to Osho]. Otherwise it will be gone. Don’t be worried.

[Osho gives another sannyasin an ‘energy darshan’]

Good... come back. You have started the whole thing beautifully. Now if you would like to say something, you can.

... Your energy is flowing very well. Just do one thing before you go to sleep at night. Sit in your room and keep this box in your left hand. Whatsoever happens, don’t leave the box. You can tie it to your hand with a handkerchief because sometimes you may be in such an energy flow that it may be thrown. For fifteen minutes, whatsoever happens, go with it. Go very gracefully, smoothly... as if you are being taken into a different world. And I will be holding your hand, so don’t be worried.

Something very significant is close by. If your energy starts moving in the right rhythm.It is only a

question of rhythm. If you can vibrate in the right rhythm, you will be able to touch it. It is always a question of vibrancy.

Existence is vibrating in a certain rhythm. If we can also vibrate in the same rhythm, there is a meeting immediately, a fusion, melting. We go on missing because we don’t know what rhythm is and how to vibrate in the same rhythm. So close your eyes and start vibrating. You need not worry about what to do. Simply let go. By and by you will see a certain pattern, a certain field of energy arising around you. Do it for ten days every night and every day it will become more and more clear. And some day, something will happen.…

[Another group member had a problem in the group where he felt angry but was unable to express it.]

Nothing to be disturbed about. You have learned a mechanism, and that mechanism has become very ingrained. The mechanism is that you go only so far and then you simply withdraw. You become angry only so far and then you withdraw because you are afraid that if you go beyond that, you may not be able to withdraw. You may go mad or you may do something which should not be done,

So that fear has become ingrained, and that functions like an automatic thing. It is not you. You try; you do whatsoever you can. If they say, ‘Be angry’, you try, but by the moment the anger comes to the point where the mechanism exists, immediately something goes flop and you withdraw.

[Osho said that Rolfing would be helpful, because the mechanism had gone into the body, so groups alone could not help]

... because the group works only with the mind energy. You must have learned it your whole life. It has really gone into the body structure. Even your musculature has become repressive. It is not streaming. It is not vibrating. It has become a little stoney.

You have controlled too much. But that happens to many people because all the cultures, societies, religions – they all teach you to be dead. You have been trying to be a very very good man, a gentleman. You have succeeded in that – that’s your trouble. You have succeeded in your effort and the thing has gone into the body armour. So it has to be broken there, in the musculature.

[Osho said that apart from Rolfing (which is available here in the ashram), he should begin some kind of physical exercise – like going for a long walk, but briskly, almost running. He said the emphasis should be on exhalation rather than inhalation, which the body would do automatically .

Secondly, he should make a habit of doing something absurd whenever he was alone in the bathroom – pulling a face, making a nonsensical sound.]

That will relax many things in you. You have managed too well, so some spaces are needed to create some holes in your personality. You have a well-guarded personality, well polished. So this is my way of sabotaging it. Do these three things and after ten days, tell me. It will go. There is nothing to be worried about.And continue meditating.

[A group member said: This group was really the most incredible experience I ever had... energy just flowing over... ]

Mm, you are still vibrating with the energy. Very good.

People don’t know how to live with vibrating energy, otherwise the whole world would be fun of love. People have so much to give, and it is rotting inside them. They have so much music and it is just lying there. And death will take everything away. People are misers. They have completely forgotten their treasures of energies. So remember it. People are unnecessarily living in poverty. They can live like emperors because that much energy is already there. It just needs a little stirring, a little challenge, a provocation and a little courage.

You can stir so much energy around you that you can create a whirlwind of love, and wherever you go, people will suddenly feel that a new breeze has passed. Everybody can do that; everybody has the potential. But people live at the minimum; they live poor – they have decided to live that way.

A religious person is one who is trying to live at the optimum. Why live at the minimum when one can live at the optimum? Why live in the dark valley when you can live on the Himalayan peak?

So learn that. And always remember to vibrate. If one vibrates, the others start responding. It is a chain. That’s how it happens sometimes in groups. If one person is really vibrating, he will start a chain. Then another starts vibrating, then the third; then everybody is overflooded. Then people who are very very dull and dead, even they start feeling that something is stirring them.

That is the beauty of a group experience. Alone it may be difficult for you. In a group it becomes very easy. Even one alive person can make the whole group alive. And once you know it is there, you can create your own.

Just try it. Sitting in your bed in the night, just fill the whole room with your energy and you will feel a throbbing, a beating. You can almost feel it filling the whole room, and the whole room will feel it. It will have a different quality of radiance. You can sit in a dark room and create it and soon you will see a bluish glow surrounding you in the darkness.lt is exactly like electricity.

Try. It has been a beautiful experience.

[A group member said: I couldn’t become angry, but I got in touch with some very soft things, and I feel very happy about that.]

Good, very good. You did well.

For you, one thing has to be remembered. This soft space can become a permanent thing with you, but you have to learn one small thing to make it permanent – and that is to develop a soft eye.

We can look at things in two ways – hard and soft. When you look at something with a hard eye, you look at it directly; you focus on it. Then every line is clear and you see it as separate from other things. For example, if you focus on one tree, then it is separate from other trees, separate from the house, separate from the people passing by, separate from the clouds roaming around. You focus on it and all its separateness, its indifference, its individuality.

When you look at a thing in a soft way, with a soft eye, you look unfocused, not at it exactly but through it. Then you don’t pay much attention to its distinctiveness. On the contrary, you see the tree as part of the whole scene – many trees, the clouds, the sun, the birds, the people passing – and you also included. Then the tree is not focused and taken apart from the whole gestalt. It is just part of it.

So try to develop a soft eye. Look, but in a soft way. It will be a little vague, dim, not so clear-cut... as if you have taken a photograph from the camera and it was not rightly focused. It will be unfocused, but it will help your soft space. People who look with a hard eye become hard. People who look with a soft eye become soft. Poets look with soft eyes, mathematicians with hard eyes. Painters look with soft eyes, scientists with hard eyes. If you look with a hard eye, life is like prose. If you look with a soft eye, life is more like poetry – everything meeting and merging into each other.

So just try to be soft. Move softly, look softly, talk softly. Just try to grow softness all around you. That will become a support for the inner space that you have just glimpsed, and that soft space will become more and more available to you. By and by it will become your abode. It has been really good.…

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