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‌CHAPTER 8

28 August 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A visitor said she had trouble becoming involved in the meditations here, adding that she could not stay much longer as she was a psychiatrist and had patients to see.]

A psychiatrist needs to be meditative more than anybody else – because your whole work is dangerous in a way. Unless you are very calm and quiet, unless you can remain unaffected by things that happen around you, it is very dangerous.

More psychiatrists go mad than any other professional people and more psychiatrists commit suicide than any other professional people. This is something to be pondered over. The proportion is really too much. Twice as many people commit suicide. That simply shows that the profession is full of dangers. It is – because whenever you are treating a person who is psychologically disturbed, in a mess, he is constantly broadcasting his vibes. He is constantly throwing out his own energy, his negative waves upon you, and you have to listen to him. You have to be very attentive. You have to care, you have to love and be compassionate towards him; only then you can help him. He is constantly throwing negatively charged energy – and you are absorbing it. In fact the more attentively you listen, the more you absorb it.

Living continuously with neurotic and psychotic people, you start thinking, in an unconscious way, that this is what humanity is. We become by and by like the people we live with, because nobody is an island. So if you are working with sad people, you will become sad. If you are working with happy people, you will become happy, because everything is infectious. Neurosis is infectious; suicide also is infectious.

If you live around people who are enlightened, very aware, then something in you starts responding to this higher possibility. When you live with people who are very low, abnormally low, in a perverted

state, in a morbid state, then something morbid in you starts corresponding and relating to them. So to be continuously surrounded by in people, is in a way dangerous, unless you protect yourself.

And there is nothing like meditation to give you protection. Then you can give more than you are giving and yet you will remain unaffected. You can help more than you are helping, because the higher your energy, the more is the possibility to help. Otherwise the psychiatrist, the healer and the healee are almost on the same ground; maybe a little difference of degrees, but the difference is so small that it is not worth considering.

The psychiatrist can go into madness very easily – just a slight push, some accidental thing, and he can move into the condemned territory. People who are neurotic were not always neurotic. Just two days before they were normal people, and again they can become normal. So normality and abnormality are not qualitative distinctions – just quantitative: ninety-nine degrees, one hundred degrees, one hundred and one degrees – that type of difference.

In fact in a better world, every psychiatrist should be trained deeply in meditation, otherwise he should not be allowed to practise. That is the only way that you can protect yourself and not be vulnerable – and you can really help. Otherwise even great psychiatrists, great psychoanalysts, even they become in a way very hopeless about humanity... even Freud. After a whole life’s experience he finally said that he could not hope for man; he felt hopeless. And it is natural – forty years of being with people who are in a mess, the only experience of humanity being of people who are mad. By and by it started to look to him as if abnormality is normal... as if man is bound to remain neurotic, as if there is something natural in man which drives him towards neurosis.

So at the most the healthy person is one who is a little more adjusted to the world, that’s all. Adjustment becomes the standard of health, but it cannot be. If the whole society is mad you can be adjusted to it and you will Still be mad. In fact in a mad society, a person who is not mad will be maladjusted. And that’s what is really the case.

When a Jesus walks in this world he is maladjusted. We have to crucify him. He is such a stranger – we cannot tolerate him. His very presence becomes unbearable. We have to kill him. We are not concerned with him, we are simply concerned with ourselves. Because of his presence, only two things are possible either he is mad or we are mad. Both cannot be healthy. We are many and he is alone. Of course we kill him; he cannot kill us.

When a Buddha walks, he looks strange a healthy man, a really natural, normal man, moving in an abnormal society. So Freud came to conclude that there is no future for humanity. At the most we can hope that man can be adjusted with the social pattern, that’s all. But there is no possibility for man to be blissful. It cannot be by the very nature of things. Why such a pessimistic conclusion? – because of his whole experience.

Freud’s whole life is a long nightmare of mad people, of working with them. And by and by he himself became abnormal. He was not really healthy. He was not a blissful person. He had never known what wholeness is. He was afraid of small things – so much so that it looks absurd. He was afraid of death. If somebody talked about ghosts, he would start perspiring. Twice he fainted because somebody started talking about death! This seems to be a very unbalanced mind, but in a way it can be accounted for. Even this is a miracle – that he remained sane for his whole life.

One of the most penetrating psychiatrists, Wilhelm Reich, went mad. And the only reason that he went mad and others have not, was because he was really penetrating. He had a really deep talent to go into the roots of things – but it is dangerous. Freud or Reich or others’ whole life shows one thing – that had they been trained in deep meditation, the whole world would have been different. Then these neurotic people would not become the standard.

Maybe it is very difficult to become a Buddha, but he is the norm. And a normal person is one who comes closer to the norm. It has nothing to do with adjustment. One comes closer to the idea of wholeness, happiness, health.

Start a little meditation. And whenever you can come, for at least six, seven weeks, be here. It will be helpful in your work.

[A sannyasin says: I’ve been feeling very dissociated lately from people and just from the world – and feeling good inside.]

That’s the only thing to care for. If you are feeling good inside, then there is nothing to be worried about. And soon you will start feeling good with people and with the world also, because a person who is at ease with himself cannot remain in any way out of the world and far away from the world. That at-easement starts overflowing. It needs just a certain amount to collect. Then you will be overflowing because you cannot contain it any more. When you overflow, you connect with people – and that’s beautiful.

So never enforce. Just wait for the right moment. It happens on its own. If you are not feeling good with yourself, then there is a problem. You may be feeling good with others and not feeling good with yourself. Then the problem is there, because it is impossible to feel really good with others if you are not feeling good with yourself; then it may just be an escape. Because you don’t feel good with yourself, you go and mix and mingle with people – to forget. Then it is just a trick, a game, a gimmick – and dangerous.

You don’t want to face yourself and you don’t want to face your emptiness; you don’t want to face your inner uneasiness. So the easiest and cheapest way is to forget yourself somewhere in some activity, some occupation, society, friends, this and that, so by the time you come home you are ready to fall asleep. In the morning you again rush into the world, into the marketplace, so again you need not look into your own self. A person who is not feeling good with himself is always escaping from himself, avoiding colliding with himself; avoiding his own company. That man is always afraid of being left alone.

If you leave him alone, he will do something. He will turn on the radio or the TV or he will start reading the newspaper. Maybe the same newspaper which he has read twice, thrice, he will start reading again, knowing that he has read it, but unable to remain without activity. He will start doing something or other because that is his only way to avoid his inner emptiness. So people go on being engaged in a thousand and one things. They are all ill people.

The basic thing is to be at ease with oneself. Then everything will follow on its own accord. So just feel good and don’t bother to enforce anything; don’t try to go and mix with people. This must be a seed time. So just become a seed and remain in yourself, happy, alive. The seed cannot remain

in itself for long – it has to sprout. When you are too full of at-easeness, you will start sharing it. One has to share, otherwise one’s own energy becomes a burden. But then it is beautiful when you have to share. Then you are not avoiding and you are not obliging anybody. You are simply so full of energy that you would like somebody to share it. You feel grateful when somebody accepts you in any way; you feel grateful because you had so much that it was throbbing, and it has to be released.

So just wait. The first step has happened. The second will happen of its own accord; you need not be worried about it.

[A sannyasin says:... when I talk to people, I feel my eyes drawn upwards. Osho checks her energy.]

Good. Allow it. The energy is pulling your eyes upwards towards the third eye, and it is a very good indication. It will feel a little strange and sometimes even embarrassing because when you are talking to somebody and suddenly your eyes go up, it feels difficult, it looks awkward. But you have to allow it. I think it will be there for not more than three weeks. But if you don’t allow it, it will linger on for a longer period.

So for three weeks, simply allow it. When you are simply sitting, just close your eyes and try to look inside in the third eye, just between the two eyebrows. I have marked the place exactly where it is. Do that twice, thrice a day, and within three weeks it will calm down. Then you will feel suddenly as if a great tension has disappeared from your eyes. You will start feeling some trembling in the third eye – which is tremendously beautiful.

And have you tried that meditation I gave you – moving like a dog and panting? [see Beloved of my Heart, May 24th, 1976]

[She answers: Yes, sometimes. If I built up a lot of energy I would do it.]

This has happened because of that. Animals have more energy moving into their third eye because their whole body is horizontal. Man is standing vertically. The energy moves against gravitation and it is very difficult for it to go higher. It even goes up to the eyes only with great difficulty. For the third eye to open, a tremendous rush is needed. That’s why many yoga schools use shirshasan – standing on the head – to create a rush of energy. But I don’t like that very much, because the rush can be too much. It has to be suggested only in rare cases, otherwise it can destroy many very subtle nerves. And once they are destroyed, it is very difficult to reproduce them; they are gone forever. A person can attain to the third eye insight but he becomes dull as far as other kinds of intelligences are concerned.

But moving like an animal is very beautiful. Then there is not too much of a rush of energy – neither too much nor too little. It is exactly proportionate. And when you are moving like a dog and panting, panting helps the throat centre. The throat centre is just near the third eye centre; the third eye centre is just above the throat centre. So once the throat centre starts functioning, energy starts moving from the throat centre to the third eye centre. So whenever you feel like it, continue. It is very very significant. It will bring many changes of which you may not even be aware, but they will come by and by.

Animals live in a totally different world, and the whole reason that they live in a totally different world is because of their horizontal spine. Man has become separate from the animal world because of his vertical spine. It is good sometimes to become an animal again. It again gives you a deep contact with the whole past, with the whole heritage. Then you are no more something apart. You are part of the whole animal kingdom.

It releases many spontaneous energies in you, and you will start being less worried. You will think less, you will be more just like animals. They are just there – not thinking of the past, not thinking of the present, not thinking of the future. They are just there, right now... perfectly alert, ready to respond, but with no idea.

So don’t be worried. Continue the dog exercise, and once that centre has got enough energy, then the eyes will come back. Good.

[A sannyasin says: I’m losing my expectations. I expected to be very different here. I expected great progress to be made... to be more meditative. I thought great things would happen to me, but I feel, if anything, that I have more bad habits, more problems. In fact bad habits I haven’t had for three, four years, have come again.

I feel those expectations are going to go if I can drop them – and maybe I can.]

This is the great thing that has happened – that you are ready to drop the expectation. That is the greatest thing that can happen to a person, the greatest progress that can be made.

The human mind is so stupid, it goes on expecting. It exists through expectations. It is a great moment if you can really drop all expectations. And when all expectations are dropped, then anything that you have repressed in the past will come back. You call them bad habits. Your very word, the choice of the word, says that you must have repressed them. You may not have been able to accept them, so you rejected them.

Now when expectations are falling and you are becoming natural, all those rejected, disclaimed parts will again claim. They would like to be absorbed in your being. They are yours. You have been trying to forget them. You have been throwing them into the basement But now, when you are becoming natural, they will say ‘Let us also come back home.’ So please don’t call them bad any more, otherwise you will again repress them.

I’m not saying that they are going to remain with you. If they are really bad, they will disappear. You need not call them bad. A man who has no expectations cannot be bad. He can only be natural – and whatsoever is natural, is good. To be natural is to be good. They are synonymous to me. I don’t have any other idea of good beyond being natural. If your goodness goes against nature, it is bad. If your badness goes with nature, it is good. That’s what my morality is. That’s what my whole standpoint is.

Somewhere you have been wrong in your interpretations – calling something bad. If it goes with your nature, it is good – whatsoever it is. If it does not go with your nature, there is no need to repress it; it will drop on its own accord. Just be natural. By and by you will see that it is disappearing. Maybe it was there because you were repressing it.

This is the greatest thing that can happen to a person. It has happened. Your expectations are fulfilled. Now drop them! And just be natural. Love and enjoy life. There is no need to fight. And nothing is bad – maybe small human weaknesses, but nothing is bad.

This is my observation – that people who have a few human weaknesses are very good people. If you live with them, you will enjoy them. People who are inhumanly good are unbearable. You cannot live with them – they will crush you. Their very presence is ugly, heavy. They will turn you into a thing. Their very gaze will reduce you, and you will feel like a worm because their whole mind will be condemnatory.

It is very difficult to live with saints. It is very good to remain far away and pay your respects and say goodbye, but never come too close. And if you cannot live with a saint, what type of sainthood is this?

The real saint is one with whom you can be, and not for a single moment are you reminded of your weaknesses. In fact you tend to forget that he is a saint. He is so human, so accepting, so non- condemning, that you think that he is just a friend, a brother at the most a companion, but not a saint sitting high in the heavens and looking at you, trying to reduce you to something condemned.

I would not like you to become a saint. Be human – with all the human weaknesses. And love it! You will be more relaxed and God will love you more because He will enjoy you more. I have been trying very hard but I cannot think how God can enjoy all those so-called saints. He must be bored to death! [laughter] Just think of your saints all surrounding God. If He is not dead, then He must have committed suicide. He would like to love with human beings.

So just be human. That’s a great enough goal. And accept small things. Nothing’s wrong. And this is very good that expectations are disappearing. So you are coming home.

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