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CHAPTER 21
10 September 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
[A new sannyasin says: I’m a nursery school teacher, I teach children of four-and-a-half to five years old.]
Very good work. To be with children is one of the most beautiful things. But one has to learn it, otherwise it can be the most tedious thing in the world. One has to love it, otherwise it is one of the most boring things. It can drive you crazy. It can bring a nervous breakdown, because children are so noisy, so uncivilized, uncultured... animals; they can drive anybody crazy. One child is enough to drive anybody crazy, so a whole lot of children, a whole class of children is really difficult. But if you love, it is a great discipline.
So don’t only teach them – learn, too, because they still have something which you have lost. They will also lose it sooner or later. Before they do, learn from them. They are still spontaneous, they are still fearless. They are still innocent. They are losing it faster.
The more civilization grows, the sooner childhood ends. Before, it used to end somewhere near fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Now even a child of seven years is no more a child. He starts becoming mature. Maturity comes sooner now because we know better methods to condition, to structure.
So it is good, with four and five-year-olds, to become four or five years old. And don’t think that you know and they don’t know. Listen – they know something. They know more intuitively. They are not knowledgeable, but they have a vision, a very clear vision. Their eyes are still unclouded and their hearts are still streaming. They are still unpolluted. The poison has not yet started. They are still natural.
So with them don’t be knowledgeable. Don’t be a teacher – be a friend. Befriend them and start looking for cues for innocence, for spontaneity, for intelligence. You will be helped tremendously and your meditation will go very deep.
[A sannyasin says of her first teacher, Oscar Ichazo, founder of Arica: I’m still very attached to my first teacher. I love him very much.]
You can continue – there is no problem in it. Why create any conflict? You can continue loving him, and you can remain attached. There is nothing wrong in it.
Just tell him that this is your new love affair. An american woman can have many love affairs.
... Don’t be worried – it is between him and me. Don’t you worry. You can continue to love both. The wrestle will be between me and him.
I am never against any love. Whomsoever you love, it’s good. Love is always good – unconditionally good. And wherever you can learn something, learn.
[She then says: Osho, with you I feel love, but in the ashram I feel very unloved.]
That’s right – that’s my polar opposite. I have to have a polar opposite. If you love me, you will tolerate the ashram. That’s a price to be paid. One who loves me by and by forgets about the ashram and starts accepting it.
The ashram is part of the world. It cannot be like me... it is not possible. But you should be grateful towards it because it helps my work, that’s all. It makes me comfortable. It helps things to happen, that’s all. But it is just an organisation. Don’t be worried about it. Forget it and just remember me, mm? Good.
[The Tao group present tonight, which comprised thirteen men and one woman.
The group leader said: In the beginning the energy went very high. But after while people went to sleep and were sort of falling out of it. People would go out and then come back, so the energy would go high again.
Then he asked about a personal problem:It’s something like electricity occurring in my body – particularly after the lecture. It comes so strong – as if I was on two-hundred-and-twenty volts.]
Mm mm, it can happen. It is good; nothing to be worried about. Allow it... just relax with it and enjoy the feeling of it. Even If sometimes it is very weird, enjoy the feeling of it. Soon you will become immune to it and you will be able to absorb it.
It always happens when new energy is released and you don’t have the capacity to absorb it. The energy is there, hovering. It is more than you know how to absorb. It is actually bio-electricity, and a human being is a dynamo. It can create tremendous energy.
So just enjoy it, and when it is happening just sit silently, be thrilled by it. Use it, vibrate with it. Let it have its own way. Don’t become an obstacle. Don’t become a controller; don’t try to manipulate it. Don’t try to discipline and tame it. It is untamed energy, and it has to remain that way. Untamed it is beautiful – tamed it becomes ugly. Then it is just like a circus tiger who only looks like a tiger. Once the wildness is lost, everything is lost.
So just allow it. Soon your body will become adjusted to it. There is no need to control it. If you control it, the body will never come to a point of adjustment; the body’s capacity will remain the same. Allow it and the body will adjust automatically. The body has a tremendous capacity to adjust. It can adjust to any situation. Its capacity, its flexibility, is simply immeasurable. So allow it.
And a group like this can happen again, so you have to learn a few things about it. It was good – it was a new experience. One thing – don’t allow people to fall asleep; keep them awake. Create situations in which they are awake. Chant, or do something so that they cannot fall asleep. If they fall asleep, this will happen – this up and down. It is as if half of the person is asleep, paralysed, and half is awake, alive. If a few people are asleep in the group, part of the group energy is paralysed, one part is soaring high – and that creates a contradiction.
So first try in every way to keep everybody awake. When you feel that now it is impossible, let everybody go to sleep. But maintain a non-contradictory state. That is one of the meanings of the word tao – the energy should be non-contradictory. Don’t allow anybody to go out; that creates disturbance. Once he goes out, he takes much energy out of the room. It becomes a leakage. When he comes in, he brings in some other type of vibration from the outside. That becomes a disturbance and a distraction.
So don’t allow anybody to go out or let them all go out. If it becomes very necessary that people go out, let everybody go out for a few minutes, and then let them all come back in together again. But don’t create a split in the group – that’s what I mean.
In fact, this group could have gone higher than any group with women, because when men and women are together, they are in proportion, they balance. Their energies are different. That’s why one feels the group is more graceful, because man’s aggression is absorbed by the woman’s receptivity. So there is a peace, a harmony – man’s logic and rationality is balanced by the irrationality and intuition of the woman. There is a balance.
So I can understand – it can become very difficult if they are all men. The energy can soar very high, can become very aggressively high. That’s why in militaries, in the army, women are not allowed because the soldiers have to fight. Their energies should not be balanced, otherwise they cannot fight. That was one of the reasons why America could not win in Vietnam – girlfriends were allowed for the first time in the history of the army. So the american soldiers were more balanced, more at home. It is difficult then because you need male energy on the front.
If someone is sexually satisfied, why should he fight in the first place? All fight comes out of frustration. The soldier has to remain sexually frustrated – then he starts fighting. Then even his bullet becomes a sexual symbol penetrating the other’s being. A sword becomes his genital organ, and he uses the other as a woman. Then his sexuality starts becoming destructive. But if the woman is there, he loves the woman and she is following him like a shadow, he will be so at ease that it will be impossible for him to fight.
So when it is an all male group, the energy will soar very high. That can create trouble, but you have to know how to use it. When it is happening, let them all sit, not doing anything. Just let them all sit in a circle. Let them hold hands and vibrate. Let them look into each other. Let energies soar high – as high as it can go. This group could have become one of the most beautiful experiences... they would have attained to a peak. But you were not aware, so not to be worried.
If it happens next time, don’t be worried. You have to work in a different way. Because the balancing woman is not there, the energy has no weight on it. The woman is a weight. She does not allow you to go very far. She pulls you back, absorbs your energy. Man left alone has no anchor, no home base. There is no way to bring his energy back.
So if it is an all male group, first let their energy soar high, and when you feel that it is coming to a climax, a crescendo, and they will burst or explode if you don’t do something, then let them dance, and immediately the dance will bring their energy back. The whole room will become filled, charged.
If it is a female group, you will have another difficulty. The energy will be very relaxing. You will find that there is not any peak possible; only a valley is possible. The woman is a valley. When there are women, allow them. Let them sit – just as the men did – but let them relax. They will reach the very depth of the valley. When you feel that they have touched the very depth of the valley and that now it is difficult to go further, and that if you do, they will dieBecause the ultimate in relaxation is death;
the ultimate in tension is madness. So if a man is allowed to go to the ultimate of his aggression, he will become mad. And if a woman is allowed to relax to her ultimate capacity, she will die. If a man is allowed to go to the ultimate point of energy, he will kill. If a woman is allowed to her ultimate capacity, she will commit suicide.
So when you feel that the energy is really going so deep that everybody has disappeared, then tell them to dance. Again, dance will be helpful. It will bring them back. Dance is a very very balancing act. If you are going mad, it brings you back to sanity. If you are relaxed too much it brings you back to a normal state of energy. It works both ways. So whatsoever the group – male or female – dance can always be used. But first they have to be allowed to go to the very extreme. Nobody should be allowed to go out; nobody should be allowed to go to sleep.
Next time it happens, just try, mm? Nothing to be worried about.
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