16

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‌CHAPTER 16

16 January 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin mother says: I’ve had a really hard time with the children here... If I want to go to meditate, they don’t want me to go and then I feel very torn.]

Children can be very very manipulative. And one has to be very alert not to be a victim of one’s own children, because that way you don’t help them; that way you destroy their future. They learn wrong strategies and then they will repeat those strategies for their whole life: with their wife, with their husband, with their children. Once they have learned that there are tricks which can be played upon people and that people can be forced to do things that they don’t want to do, they have become politicians. It is for their sake that you should not yield.

I’m not saying to be hard on them, be very loving to them, but make it clear to them that these strategies won’t help. If they cry and weep, nothing is wrong in it. Soon they will understand. And children are very sensitive – they know, they know when to stop, they know how far to go; they have immense common sense. Later on they will lose that common sense but when they are children they have immense common sense. Trust their common sense.

Once you allow them to manipulate you, next time they will do even more. They know that you are under their power. And everybody wants to enjoy power, everybody wants to be the boss.

You should have told me before.

They can weep, they can cry. Let them cry, they have to be left alone. And they will learn something out of it: the respect for others’ freedom.

A mother is also a woman, an individual. The motherhood is not all, it is only a part of you. That’s why many women in the world, particularly in the west, have become very afraid of being mothers.

It seems almost like a slaughter. A woman is killed the moment she becomes a mother; she is no more herself. She has no more freedom. She is finished once she becomes a mother, entangled, and so burdened by the problems of the children that she cannot have any space of her own. And children want to possess; possessiveness is very inborn. That disease we bring from the very birth, to possess and grab and to hold and to cling.

Many women are afraid of becoming mothers. This is ugly, but the reason is there. This is not the way to solve the problem. The way to solve it is to see that motherhood is part of you. It is not synonymous with you; you remain an individual. So is your being a wife just a part of you. It is not synonymous with you; you remain an individual. And the individuality should not be sacrificed for anything, whatever it is – motherhood, wifehood, husbandhood, fatherhood; the individuality should not be sacrificed, because there are great implications in it.

Once you sacrifice, you will take revenge with the children later on because you will always be angry; you will never be able to forgive. You will know that these are the people who murdered you, and now you are old, you cannot live. Now you are free – the children have gone to the university, you are free and you can live – but life is gone. While you were alive and young and wanted to meditate, paint, dance and sing, the children were there and they wouldn’t allow it. Now they are gone, and with them your life is gone. You don’t have long life, it is a very short life, and by the time they are strong enough to stand on their own, you are finished. But then you will never be able to forgive them; you will remain angry. And they will not be able to forgive you either, because they will know your anger, they will feel your frustration, and deep down they will feel guilty too. These are the implications.

It is better to be very clear-cut from the very beginning. Make it clear to them: ‘I am going, this is what I want to do. Now it is up to you – if you want to cry, you can cry but I am not going to change my decision.’ And my understanding of children is this, that once they know that it is going to happen, they simply start playing; then there is no point. Their common sense should be trusted; they should be respected. You don’t respect them when you yield to them. You think, ‘They are children.’ You don’t respect them as grown-ups. They are far more sensitive than the grown-ups.

My understanding is that they are very very alert about things that are happening around them and they are practical people, very practical, because they are primitive. They are not speculative; they don’t go into the head. They simply see what works; whatsoever works they grab. Don’t allow them to learn any strategy that will be harmful to them in the future.

Next time you come, or at home, make it a point that when you are meditating you are simply meditating. Then you don’t have any children, you are no more a mother. Motherhood is not a twenty-four hour job. Tell the children ‘When I am mothering, I am mothering, and when I am meditating, I am meditating. And I don’t want these things to overlap.’ You will help them to become strong and to see ’the point. And in their life, when they are grown-up, they will feel grateful to you and you will never feel angry. That was something wrong that you did; you should have told me. But start working on those lines slowly, slowly. Children are fragile but very very strong too. And they will insist, they will not easily give way, because they know you – you have been surrendering to them, so they will not easily give way. But within two, three weeks they will understand that this woman has changed; this woman is no more the same. Make it clear to them.

Prem means love, omkar means the sound of aum. And the sound of aum is the most significant

sound, the most fundamental, the most elemental; it is the source of all sounds. It consists of three sounds, a, u, m, and those three sounds are the basic sounds behind all sounds.

It is very symbolic in the east; it is the trinity. A, u, m: those three sounds are the three energies in life. Christians call them father, son and holy ghost. The whole life consists of three energies: scientists call them electrons, protons, neutrons. Whenever you go deep you will always find a trinity and behind the trinity you will find one; that one is the sound of aum.

It is a very strange sound; it has a few special things about it. For one: it is the only sound that can be uttered with an open and closed mouth; no other sound can be uttered with a closed mouth. Or, if you try to utter any other sound with a closed mouth, from the outside it will be heard as aum. One can try any word, any letter, any sound, but from the outside it will be always heard as aum. So it is the sound that joins the outer and the inner. It is the sound that joins the body and the soul. And those three – a, u, m – have been used as metaphors for many things. The east cherishes metaphors very much.

The first use that has been made is that those three sounds represent respectively: the state of wakefulness, a; the state of dreaming, u; and the state of dreamless sleep, m. When all these three sounds, the whole aum, becomes silent, then arises the fourth sound, the soundless sound called turiya, the fourth. That is the sound Zen people call ‘one hand clapping’. When aum has become silent you hear silence. That is the beauty of aum: if you repeat it, if you hum it and you become completely absorbed in it, when you stop for the first time you will know what silence is.

Before that experience, whatsoever you call silence is not positive silence. It is simply a negative state, an absence of noise; that’s what people call silence. When there is no noise they say, ‘It is very silent here.’ That is absence of noise, this is not positive silence. Positive silence is when you have hummed aum, the aum disappears and you are left in soundlessness; then you hear something positive – the still small voice of Christian mystics. That can only be experienced, that cannot be expressed.

These three have also been used as three bodies: the physical body, the psychological body, the spiritual body. And when you go beyond the third you have the cosmic body: the body of god or the body of Buddha.

This sound will be of great help to you to find your path, to move towards the unknown. Ride on this sound. This is your mantra, and this is your name. Let this become your constant companion. Whenever you have time, simply repeat ‘aum’ – sometimes loudly when it is possible; when it is not possible, silently. Befriend this sound, and immense will be the benefit.

[A sannyasin says: I’m a poet... in fact a mystical poet. But I’m sick of it... I want to stop and do something else but I’m not sure what that something else is.

Osho checks his energy.]

I don’t see that you are a born poet. No, not at all.

You have chosen something which is not your vocation, and to be a mystical poet is even more difficult. Out of thousands, one is a born poet. And out of a thousand poets, one is a mystical poet;

it is a very very rare quality. If it is there, it is there; you cannot produce it. If you try to produce it you may succeed in making a few poems but you will not be satisfied; you will feel you are wasting your time.

Choose something else; it is time. And you have felt that it has to be changed; choose something else... anything will do. Don’t be in a hurry, don’t be in a hurry to choose. Wait. Otherwise it happens sometimes that you can simply choose out of a reaction. Start playing with a few things. Not that you have chosen – just playing around something may click. But mystical poet, you are not. Don’t waste your time.

You may become a mystic but a mystical poet you are not. And to be a mystic is totally different. All mystics are not poets and all mystical poets are not mystics either. There is a possibility that you may become a mystic, but it will be your experience; expression will not be possible. So don’t unnecessarily drag yourself into any direction that is not happening spontaneously;

I have a feeling that you love poetry, but you are not a poet. You love mystical poetry too but you are not a poet. Out of love, you have started doing it, but these things cannot be done out of love. They happen only when you are possessed by them, possessed by the demon... when the demon drives you mad. It is almost feverish; a real poet is possessed. There are moments when he is possessed by some unknown energy. He suffers, he goes into great agony, because something is using him as an instrument. No great poet has ever lived happily; that is not a poet’s fate. Every poet’s life is tragic, and the reason is that he has to surrender to some unknown energy. That unknown energy possesses him and goads him and forces him to produce something which he is not even aware of exactly what it is and for what it has to be produced. Very rarely will you find a poet ecstatic. Mad, in anguish, thinking of suicide, going insane – these things happen to poets. And the greatest of them ail almost live in hell; they are not happy people.

So don’t be worried about that; simply forget about it. Rather be a mystic; meditate and be a mystic. And start playing with a few things – painting, music, anything that you have any fancy about. But try many things and whatsoever clicks with you, go with. For at least two years completely forget poetry and for two years wander into other fields.

First become a mystic... and that is the real thing, because that will give you the taste of mystery. If out of that taste something starts flowing, that is another thing. But then it will not be an anguish to you; it will not have any effort, it will be effortless. And one never knows... because that mystical experience can be expressed in a thousand and one ways. Zen people have been expressing it through painting, through poetry, through writing, through dancing, through pottery; one never knows! But one need not decide about it.

It is good that you have not succeeded, because sometimes it happens that something may not be your vocation but you succeed in it; then your life is gone. You can become famous and then there is investment; then you cannot change it. I know a poet who hates poetry. Whenever he comes to me he is always condemning poetry. I asked him, ‘Why don’t you stop?’ He said, ‘I can’t, because I have become famous. Now this is the thing for which I am known, and I cannot stop; that’s why I hate it even more. This is not what I wanted to do in the first place! Slowly, slowly, I got into it; slowly, slowly I became skillful in it. I have succeeded too, but deep down it is not flowing.’

It is a good insight that you have come to, that it is better to stop and change. It is never too late. How old are you exactly?

[The sannyasin answers: Forty-six.]

This is the time – forty-two to forty-nine – when people come to this insight, when people take a backview of their life, when they start looking at what they have been doing with their life. Great changes happen between forty-two and forty-nine; one considers things again.

One phase almost ends by forty-two, the phase that was created by the age of fourteen, the sexual phase. And by the time one is forty-two, the drive, that phase, starts cooling down. Another type of consciousness arises, the religious consciousness; one starts thinking of different things. One may have been in money, in business, in power trips, in poetry, in literature, in this and that. But by the time one is forty-two one has to reconsider. Now half the life is gone, and the other half... the downhill part, mm? This was the uphill task; now one will be going downhill; now one has to prepare for death.

People become interested in meditation at this moment. They become interested in prayer, in religion, they become interested in the beyond. And all that they have been doing starts looking childish; they were toys. Find something else!

[The vipassana group is attending darshan. One participant said that during the group he saw himself inside a coffin: I was so afraid... ]

Yes, it can be frightening, but it was a good experience! You should make a meditation out of it. It has happened naturally to you; it is an indication. That’s the way to find one’s own meditation. Now every night before you go to sleep, just close your eyes; again start seeing those people, the grave, the coffin, and yourself inside. And then inside the coffin, fall asleep. Soon you will be surprised to see that great changes are happening in your energy: you will become very calm and quiet.

Death is beautiful if you can go into it on your own. And something very very significant has been broadcast by your unconscious to the conscious – that death is to be your meditation, that what you are doing through vipassana will happen only through death meditation. That was the message.

But fear is natural, I understand. Whenever it happens one becomes very much afraid. Nobody wants to die, although everybody has to die. And if you can accept death joyously, with no disturbance, then you will never die; the body will die but you will never die. Start it from tonight.

Just five to ten minutes will do. Visualise it and go slowly, one step at a time, so every day things become more and more clear. And there is no hurry, take your time. When you have entered the coffin, lie down there, feel you are in the coffin. Feeling that, fall asleep.

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