Chapter title: You are Freedom

‌Chapter title: You are Freedom‌

11 November 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

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[A sannyasin who is leaving for the States: For the last three or four days I feel very lost. I don't know what my position is. I don't know what my role is or anything.]

There is no need to know it and nobody knows exactly. And it is better that you don't know it. If you know who you are, if you know what your role is, you will lose all feeling. You will be fixed: you will be a 1/08/07

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thing and not a person. That's the difference between a thing and a person. A rock is a rock. A man? --

nobody knows what a man is. A man is all possibilities. A rock is an actuality -- there is no possibility. It is simply a rock, absolutely certain of what it is. Its role is predictable: it is a rock.

Man is a potentiality, he can be anything -- he can even be nothing. All doors are open, and each moment you have to decide who you are. Each moment by

acting, you decide who you are -- but that decision is only for the moment, it cannot go beyond the moment. If it goes beyond the moment, you destroy all beauty in your life -- you become a thing, you are no more a person. To be a person means to be a freedom. A thousand and one alternatives are there. And you can choose any -- it is your choice.

There is nobody who has fixed your role. When you came into the world you were not given a script to live up to. You have been thrown into the world, absolutely free, to find out who you are -- it is not a given thing. And by doing things, by being a million and one things, you will feel by and by who you are. But when you come to know who you are, again you will not be a thing. Then too, you cannot define yourself.

Then you know that you are a nothing. You know that you are a freedom.

That's what is meant by nirvana, moksha. The word moksha means freedom, absolute freedom; all possibilities and nothing actual. Nothing defines you.

Definition is ugly because definition is a prison. You can define a tree because it has a fixed role, and you can define a dog because it has a fixed role -- but you cannot define man. Man is indefinable -- as indefinable as God. That's the dignity... that's the grandeur. But ordinarily... I can understand your problem

-- it comes to everybody. Everybody has to encounter it some day or other.

If you know who you are you will feel at ease. There is a full stop and the sentence is complete; you can relax. Then there is no growth... there is no journey. You can feel that you have arrived. This search to be certain of who you are is a search for security -- a search to be dead and dull. To be constantly moving is difficult -- certainly difficult, arduous -- because again and again each moment you are faced with emptiness. Again you have to do something to know who you are. Each act defines you, but only for the moment. That's why one should never look into the past of any man.

Somebody says, 'Don't go with that man because he is a thief.' What is he saying? He is saying that he has been caught stealing -- but that is past. That definition no more applies. That act defined a certain moment in the past, but now it is no more a definition; that man is out of that moment. Don't call a man a thief, because he may have turned against stealing by now. He may have become a saint. Then you say that somebody is a saint. Don't call a man a saint, because

what do you mean? You mean some acts that he has done in the past? They define his past but they cannot define his present. A saint can become a sinner.

And this is beautiful! That means that even a saint is free. A sinner can become a saint, a saint can become a sinner. Freedom remains untouched -- no definition covers it. But people try to cover themselves with definitions. They feel protected by a definition. Behind a definition they feel perfectly okay, complacent, comfortable. Life is no more an adventure. They are dead people -- they are already in their graves. In fact when a man dies, only then can you define him -- never before.

If you want to know the definition, go to the graveyard, and there on the tombstones you will find definitions. Now those men who are in their graves cannot do anything to be changed; they can be defined.

They are now almost like rocks. But you are alive -- and remain alive! Nobody has given you any role. The whole idea that somebody has given you a role, that you have a fixed purpose, that you are here to do something in particular, is very humiliating. That means that you are born with a script and you have to follow that script. Then life will not have enthusiasm: it will be a very dull and monotonous affair.

No, this is good. This is the right space I would like you to be in. This is the space that I am creating for you here. I am trying to take all the definitions away. You are a Christian, you are a Hindu, you are a Jew --

I am trying to take away all your definitions. You are a man or a woman -- I am trying to even take away that. You are young or old, educated, uneducated I

am trying to take everything away from you so that you remain just an openness... a freedom to be anything you wish to be in any moment. Nothing holds you, nothing prevents you.

This is what I call a real man -- who has nothing to prevent him from doing anything, who has no considerations and who is not bothered to be consistent with his past. Only a rock is consistent with his past, a dog is consistent with his past. You can never say to a dog that he looks inconsistent -- he's always consistent. His life is a routine, a repetition.

The bigger the man, the bigger are his contradictions. The greater the man, the greater are his paradoxes.

Nothing can hold him, he goes on moving -- every time he leaves the past and goes on searching in new fields. He is an explorer.

1/08/07

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So forget about it! There is no need for you to know who you are. Each moment you will know a fragment. In some moment you will be a saint and in some moment you will be a sinner. When you are sitting with your lover, you are a beloved. You are talking to somebody who is just an acquaintance -- you are different, you are not the same person, your very quality is different. Then you go to the office to work, then again you are different. You are sitting alone in your drawing-room and then somebody knocks on the door. A salesman just knocks, and you are different; you change. The salesman enters and you are different.

Each moment brings a new breeze and a new sun and you go on changing. Such is the vastness of a human being. It is tremendous... it has no boundaries. You cannot label it, and the very effort to label it is wrong, ugly. So drop that whole idea. Learn something of what I am saying. And you don't have any role.

You will have many roles but they are your choice. You want to play them -- you play; it is your game.

So take life as an infinite possibility. For man nothing is actual. Man is born completely open... just a great emptiness. You can change him into anything. He is ready to adjust to any act, and all acts are purely games. They are not roles given to you by somebody else -- it is out of your own choice.

A man who is aware becomes his own source of his roles. He is no more an effect then -- he becomes the cause. When you are asking, 'What role have I to play in my life?' you are asking as if the role is to be given by somebody else: you are the effect and he is the cause. Absolutely wrong... that is not how life is.

you are the cause, you are the effect -- you are absolutely responsible. You

cannot throw responsibility on anybody else. Of course if you are not courageous, this will create great fear. Then you feel a nothingness and you cannot cope with it. But I know that you have courage and that you can cope with it.

So even if there is fear sometimes, let it be, but never forget that you are the cause of your life, you are at the very source of your life, and that you can change because nobody is forcing any structure on you. To understand this much is to understand what we mean by liberation, freedom, moksha.

Never get caught in any definition. Then your purity, your freedom, always remains uncorrupted. Have you got a box with you? (She shakes her head)

(Osho passes her a box) Now at this moment you are a receiver of a box!

Dhyana means meditation and ananda means bliss; bliss that comes through meditation. This word dhyana is one of the most significant words. In English you have three words: concentration, contemplation, meditation. Concentration means putting your mind, focusing your mind on one object, centering the mind on one object. That is the meaning of concentration. But it brings tension because you have to focus and narrow the mind. It is a forced state, and I am not in support of it. That is not real meditation.

And this is what is thought by people to be meditation: you concentrate on something outside or some imagined light inside or some mantra, but you concentrate. Concentration is not dhyana, because dhyana is a very relaxed state and concentration is very tense. Concentration is very forced, disciplined, and dhyana is very spontaneous.

The second word is contemplation. Concentration is more of the head and contemplation is more of the heart: that is the meaning of 'temple' in it. Contemplation means to become a temple, 'templum' -- from that root comes the word. So it is more prayerful, more compassionate and one is working through the heart.

Better than concentration but still not dhyana, because whether you concentrate through the mind or through the heart, there is some activity going on -- either of the head or of the heart. Meditation is a state of no activity, no ripples arising. One simply is -- neither thinking nor feeling, neither concentrating on anything nor thinking about anything. One is simply a pool of energy.

The third word is better than the other two but still not perfect. The word meditation comes from the same root as medicine: 'med'. It means to care about. Medicine means to take care of the body, and the medical profession means the profession that takes care of the body. Meditation means to take care of the soul. Just as medicine is good for the body, meditation is good for the soul.

So these are the three layers: head -- concentration; heart -- contemplation; the soul, your innermost core

-- that is meditation. Meditation comes closest to dhyana. Dhyana means just to be doing nothing, just sitting silently... just being. It is the absolute relaxed state of consciousness.

And I am giving you that name because I feel that your energy can very easily relax. You can become a great meditator. It is already there -- you just have to work and help it a little. Not much work is needed. So continue doing meditation, do a few groups, but at least every day for half an hour just sit and do nothing.

Just enjoy sitting. Looking at the sky or looking at the earth, or not looking anywhere, just sit silently --

sometimes with open eyes, sometimes with closed eyes; just exactly as you are sitting right now (The sannyasin was sitting with his legs folded under him, back erect). Mm? the heart goes on beating, the 1/08/07

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breathing goes on, but everything slows down and one becomes quiet; a serenity surrounds one.

This is what meditation, what dhyana is. And become really a the sannyasin -- a blissful meditator.

[A sannyasin, said he had various aches and pains in his body and had them for some time. He wondered if he should do Postural Integration.]

It happens many times that the body and the mind are not in tune. Then you start feeling as if the body is some other person. The body hangs and you have to carry it and it becomes a wound. If the body and the mind are coinciding with each other, fitting with each other, you can forget the body; you don't remember it.

You are almost bodiless. And that's the definition of health: one does not feel that one is in the body. Of course if somebody reminds you, you will remember it, otherwise the body simply does not exist. The mechanism is running so smoothly, so hummingly, that one never feels any distance between the body and oneself.

And it happens many times that when you start growing in the mind there is a separation, because the body was adjusted to the old mind; now the mind has changed -- the body remains the old. The body is a very very slow-moving mechanism, and it has a kind of intelligence but certainly it is not very great. So if your mind moves suddenly into some new space, the body is completely at a loss; it cannot follow so easily and so suddenly -- then there is a gap, and that gap will create hurts and aches. That gap can be filled by Postural Integration or Rolfing or the Alexander technique.

For a different mind a different body is needed immediately. So the body and the mind have to go together. One should always take care of it. If your mind grows a little and you feel that there is a distance and the body is lagging behind, bring the body to the state of the mind, otherwise you will not be able to go too far. The distance will be too much and a conflict will come. One cannot go without the body; the body has to be taken care of. And the body is great when it is with you, it helps tremendously. It is a base, the very ground of all your growth.

In the old days the traditional method of working was first the body, then the mind. That's what the yoga system is: first work on the body, first let the body be ready for the jump of the mind, and then let the mind jump. That was the old pattern, but then many problems came because people got so obsessed with the body that they forgot about the jump. The body is a vast thing, so they were lost in postures and asanas and gymnastics, and they completely forgot that this was just to be a jumping board.

You can find in India great yogis as far as their body is concerned, but their mind is ordinary and very stupid. They have become very capable with the body. They

can stop their breathing, they can stop their heart-beat. They can go underground for months together and remain alive without oxygen. They can drink poison and will not be killed. These things are good -- you can appreciate them and applaud them -- but ultimately they are meaningless. What are you going to do with these things? You become an exhibitionist, you become a circus.

And these people have completely forgotten that with such a great base, now you take the jump. They don't know how to meditate; they don't think about meditation. And these postures were invented to make you so solid in the body that when you take the jump of the mind, the body simply follows you like a shadow. The idea was good but went wrong. Then by and by people moved to the other extreme: they started working on the mind directly because the body proved to be a great jungle. This is called Raja Yoga

-- the Yoga of the kings. The mind has to be changed, but then this problem arises.

Now the world is living under the Raja Yoga impact. So all these group processes around the world are all Raja Yoga techniques. But then there are problems -- problems like this. Hence Bio-energetics, massage, deep massage, Rolfing, Postural Integration, and things like that are being developed, because that is a must now. People will be taking great trips into the mind and the body will be lagging behind. The body has to be helped. So good -- take Postural Integration.

[A sannyasin says: After the last darshan with the Encounter group I started seeing colours coming from people. I saw feelings as colours and it made me a little bit afraid. Then I began to fight... to fight with the energy... It has gone. I became more and more dead inside and then I became very ill for four days.]

No, you created something wrong. You should have enjoyed it. You are not seeing colours now?

[She answers: No. Now I feel very light and very good.] 1/08/07

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Good, but never stop any processes. If something like that begins, just enjoy it. They look very outlandish and eccentric and a little crazy. When you see somebody coming and you see a red light coming from that person, you become afraid and you think that maybe you have gone crazy. Then you see a woman and a green light and you start feeling that something is wrong with you. You have never seen these lights, but in fact those lights are there. You have not seen them before because your eyes were not clear. People have their lights.

The world is really colourful. It is not so black and white as we think. The black and white colour is man-made; the black and white world is man-made. We have divided everything into two -- black and white. Everything is very colourful -- all the colours of the spectrum. And it is not that a person is always green or always blue or red: each moment the person goes on changing, because when the inner energy changes, the colour changes.

It was really a very meaningful experience, but naturally one becomes afraid. Next time if something like this happens, allow it. It will go on its own, it will disappear. That's why you became ill: something was happening and you forced it back. Out of fear you cramped your being and you shrank. That very cramping brought the illness -- never do it again. If it is too frightening or something, come to me. For what am I here? Just come to me or you can write a letter. But never stop anything that is happening. Let it go to its end -- then it will finish. When it does you will feel very very cleansed, purified.

[A sannyasin asks: I have a problem because I am very ungrateful, and I would like to know how I can enjoy being ungrateful... ]

Then you must be having some idea that it is wrong; that will not be allowing you to enjoy it.

[She says: It feels like it creates misery -- the ungratefulness.]

Mm, it does -- that's true. It creates misery, because when you are ungrateful, you become closed to the universe. You are no more open, you are no more flowing because you don't respond. You don't say 'thank you'. The universe goes on giving so much to you and you don't even say 'thank you', so the process stops and you will be miserable.

If you want to enjoy ungratefulness, you will have to enjoy misery too. It is the same package; they go together. If you don't want to enjoy the misery, start being a little more grateful and you will never lose anything by it -- you will get more. By being grateful you will get much more, because when you become able to say 'thank you' to the universe, the universe pours itself into you more happily. Then more flowers will flower for you.

So this is for you to decide, I'm not saying to drop it. I am simply saying that if you want to enjoy ungratefulness, then in the same package misery comes to you. If you want to enjoy blissfulness, you will have to learn the ways of being grateful. And what is the trouble in being grateful? The trouble is the ego, because to be grateful means to be humble.

So whenever you don't feel grateful, that simply shows that you are very egoistic. You take things that the universe gives you for granted and you say 'That's already my right. If you don't give, I will complain. If you do give, there is no "thank you" coming.' But then you will be miserable. Just learn to say 'thank you' --

and it is so easy.

From tomorrow morning just start saying 'thank you' for small things. Somebody smiles -- say 'thank you' and see how good it feels. Then if you start enjoying and cherishing it, even when somebody insults you, say 'thank you' and see what happens, how beautiful it feels. You have come across something meaningful, but you will have to work it out.

From tomorrow morning for ten days just try to be grateful for each and everything, even if sometimes it looks crazy. If the sun is coming and the rays are beautiful, just say, 'thank you... thank you'. Have a little talk to the river, to the sky, to the dewdrops in the morning. For ten days don't miss any opportunity to feel grateful.

1/08/07

Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

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The Shadow of the Whip

Chapter #5

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