7

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‌CHAPTER 7

7 January 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Anand Indira. It means god of bliss; anand means bliss, indira is a name of a god. And a few things about you...

There is great potential; you can explode, but you are holding it. You have great energy but it is suffering. You have been repressing and repressing; you don’t allow yourself. You have learned a very dangerous trick of control. You have become a controller, and once a man is a controller he starts losing contact with life. The more control yourself, the less alive you are; the less control, the more alive. No control and life is total. No control and there is freedom.

Bondage does not come from other people; it comes out of our own fear, a fear of life. And life is dangerous so the fear is natural. But still one has to go in spite of all fears, because life is dangerous but infinitely blissful too. The greater the danger, the greater the risk, the more is the possibility of bliss happening. Bliss exists only for the gamblers, those who can stake their life for it. Bliss is not for the businessman. He is too clever for it, too cunning, too interested in survival rather than in living, too interested in the standard of life rather than in life itself, too interested in protecting and defending rather than being open, vulnerable, insecure.

That fear has been exploited, all parents exploit that fear. Every child brings that fear with him and out of that fear parents create a bondage. They teach you how to control yourself, how to always remain in control – in anger, in hatred, in love, in compassion. Then life becomes so-so, lukewarm, and then all the splendour is lost. That’s why god is lost. God is only for those who can live totally, courageously, dangerously, who can go to the very extreme. Only at the extremes do you meet with the divine. You will not find him in the middle; he is always at the extremes, he waits there. We never go into any extreme.

This is your main characteristic: control. Relax – there is no need for so much control. Permit a little

freedom to yourself, be a little more kind to yourself. And everything is possible if you can do only one thing: put your control aside.

Great things are possible... so great that you never could have dreamt about them, so great that you will not even believe that they can happen. You are just sitting on top of them. Allow a little more of a relaxed life to yourself. And it is up to you. If you can relax a little bit, I can take you on a long way; then it is my responsibility. But I cannot take you against yourself, so cooperate!

Prem means love, aikta means unity – unity that love brings. It is not a forced unity, not anything enforced upon yourself, but something that grows from your inner core brings harmony. Love is the bridge between the polar opposites. A man falls in love with a woman, a woman falls in love with a man... What really is happening is that polar opposites are being bridged. Man and woman are polar opposites, as are negative and positive, life and death, earth and sky. Love bridges man and woman and there arises a new being which is neither man nor woman. A real couple is not a couple at all because there are not two, so how can there be a couple? real couple is a unity, a new being which has two hearts, two bodies, but one soul. And this is not only between man and woman; love helps to bridge all kinds of polarities.

Inside your being too it bridges the polarities. There are polarities inside, the positive and negative exist inside too – the left and the right hemispheres of the brain. And deep in the consciousness there is again the same division of man and woman, because every man and every woman is bisexual. If your conscious mind is male then your unconscious is female; if the conscious t mind is female then your unconscious is male. It is a must; that’s how nature functions. Nature functions through dialectics – thesis, antithesis. Nature exists through opposition. Through opposition energy is created, through tension energy is released and through the meeting of the opposites something new, a synthesis, comes out.

Life is not logical but dialectical. If life were logical there would have been only men or only women; there would have been no need for the polar opposite. If life were logical there would have been no need for the polar opposite. If life were logical there would have been only positive electricity, no negative electricity. What for? There is no reason for the opposite to exist; life would have been very consistent. There would have been light or darkness, love or hate, joy or misery. If life were logical then there could not have been any contradiction... but life is dialectical. There is contradiction at each step, on each layer of being there is contradiction. And if love is not there to bridge it, life becomes an anxiety, an anguish; then you are split. If love exists then the polarities meet and mingle with each other and you become one.

That oneness means ‘aikta’ – when you have absorbed all contradictions and all opposites. You have not destroyed them but absorbed them; they have not been dropped they have been used. Both love and hate have been used and now a new quality of energy has arisen in you called compassion. It has something of both and it has something which is beyond both; it is both and it is neither.

My whole approach towards life is that of creating the bridge between the polar opposites, hence I have so many contradictions. I am not a consistent man; I am too true to life to be consistent. I don’t owe anything to logic. My respect is not towards logic, my respect is towards life. If life is inconsistent then I am inconsistent. If life is divided in polar opposites then I am divided in polar opposites. But life also has a key to go beyond the polar opposites. You need not deny one for the other; you can accept both and use both and go beyond.

So let love become your bridge. It will bridge you with the outside, it will bridge you with the inside. It will be the outer polarities and it will bridge the inner polarities and by and by higher qualities of unities evolve.

You fall in love; one kind of unity comes in. Two persons are no more two persons; they overlap each other, they have started existing as one. Their heartbeat is no more different; it is in rhythm. They think alike, they feel alike and, when there is real love, lovers start feeling things unsaid, untold, unexpressed. If you love a man and he is ill, he may be a thousand miles away but you will become sad. You will start feeling that something is wrong... and nothing is wrong with you! your lover dies somewhere and you are not even informed, you will have a shock, you will miss a beat, your heart will almost come to a stop. If your lover is angry and he has not said anything to you, you will know. If he is happy and he has not said anything to you, then too you will know. Lovers start becoming more and more silent. There is no need to talk, communication happens even in silence. That is one unity between you and the outside; that is love. Then there is another unity that happens inside you; your man and woman inside meet. That is what meditation is; then you start feeling one inside.

When these two unities have happened – the unity of love and the unity of meditation – then the third and the ultimate unity can happen: your unity with the whole, with the total, your unity with god. To me this is my trinity: first, unity in love; second, unity in meditation; third, unity in prayer.

This is the whole of religion! [This name] contains my whole philosophy...

[A sannyasin says: You were just speaking about the opposite. In me they don’t meet; I see both things together – pain, pleasure, both.]

You are on the way; don’t be worried. First they will become very very clear and very very separate, that’s how happens. Ordinarily people are confused; they don’t know exactly what is happening. Their pain is mixed with pleasure, their pleasure is mixed with pain. Maybe they can feel that this is pleasure because pleasure is predominant in it but if they look deep down they will feel pain there also. And when they are in pain, pain is predominant but if they look deep down they will find a little pleasure there also.

People are confused. This is not unity, this is confusion. When you start moving towards unity, first confusion will disappear; things will become clear. Pain will be pain, pleasure will be pleasure, and you will st see yourself as two. This is good.

It is very very disturbing because one starts feeling as if one is split. You have always been split! Just now you are becoming aware of it, and awareness is good because it is through awareness that one day the split can be bridged. That confused state where one never knows what is going on, where all kinds of things go on together – darkness and day, all are together, everything is muddy – is not a good state. That’s how people are.

If you start moving on the path, things become clear. The negative is piled up on one side, the positive is piled up on another side: hell and heaven are separate; and naturally you feel divided and you don’t know who you are. This is a good step; you have to watch it. And you have to remember only one thing, that you are the watcher, neither pain nor pleasure. You are neither this nor that; you are the one who is witnessing this division. You have to be more and more concerned with witnessing.

Don’t choose. If you choose you will bring back the confusion again. If you choose there will be a mess again. Remain choiceless, just watchful. Simply take note: this is this, that is that. And don’t be in a hurry to put things right or to create a unity, because if you create the unity it will be only confusion. The unity has to come on its own; it comes only as a by-product of awareness.

So for you the whole work will consist of being alert, unprejudiced, neither for this nor against that – not for, nor against – just standing there aloof, detached, observing. Things will become even more clear than they are. You will see yourself absolutely clearly as two persons, and when these two persons are perfectly clear, another thing will become clear – that you are the third, the watching one. when these two are mixed you can never be aware of the third; when the two are completely clear and separated then you become aware of the third.

These are the three angles of your being. When you have become aware of the third, you will be surprised: all is bridged, suddenly bridged. And then there is no mess; there arises synthesis, unity. But you cannot bring it. All that you can do is to help it come and the way to help it come is to be aware.

So while you are away, keep only one thing in your mind continuously: keep aware, choicelessly aware. And I will follow you, I will watch what you are doing!

[Another sannyasin says: You have given me so much here and I fear that when I go back I might lose it... I might fall down somewhere.]

No, I won’t allow that. I will keep an eye on you! It won’t happen. In fact whenever something has really happened, you cannot lose it... and something has happened. You can only lose something which has not happened.

When something has happened it becomes part of your being. Yes; sometimes you can forget about it but you cannot lose it. You can forget in a certain situation but you will remember immediately, you will soon remember. Sometimes you will go astray but that will not be a fall. Going astray is not a fall. You will come back. In fact, going astray will strengthen you, it will remind you. Sometimes it is helpful to go a little astray; sometimes it is good to fall ill so that you can know what health is. If you are continuously healthy you become oblivious to health. So a little illness is always good; it gives you the savour of health again, you start enjoying health again. When health comes back, you are thrilled. But this is not a fall. In fact, my sannyasins cannot fall; my whole work and process is such that I make it impossible – for many reasons.…

First, I don’t give you ideals. If you have ideals you can fall. The greater the ideal, the greater is the possibility to fall. I don’t give you any ideals; I give you only insight. I don’t try to make you perfect. If I try to make you perfect you will fall, because to remain perfect is impossible; the very effort to remain perfect is neurotic. Life is imperfect. I don’t teach you perfection, I teach you acceptance. If you are imperfect it is perfectly good to be imperfect – that’s what I teach you. Rather than teaching you perfection I teach you totality. So wherever you are, be total. If you go astray, go totally astray and you will be with me. You follow me? If you go astray, go totally astray.

For example, if a teacher teaches you never to be angry, there is a possibility of falling because he is giving you something inhuman to do. There will be moments when anger will come. And it is quite

okay to be angry sometimes; in fact sometimes it is a virtue to be angry. Mm? Jesus became angry in the temple and rushed after the moneychangers with a whip in his hand, chased them out of the temple. He was really angry, in a rage, but that rage was beautiful, that anger was good.

The so-called good people who say never to be angry, naturally become anti-revolutionaries because without anger there is no revolution. The so-called good people who say never to be angry, always become part of any kind of society... howsoever ugly, oppressive, exploitative. They become part of it because they can’t be angry, they can’t rebel. And rebellion has something beautiful in it; it is the very spirit of man.

So if somebody teaches ‘Don’t be angry’, he will make you impotent. And there will be situations where you will feel that anger is absolutely needed; it is a protest. It is to say that you exist as an individual, this is your right. And if you become angry you will fall.

What do I teach? I teach totality, not perfection, not perfectionist ideals. I say, ‘When you are angry, be totally angry.’ If you are totally angry you have not fallen. Love, love totally and you have not fallen. In short, if you are falling, fall totally and you have not fallen. If you sin, sin totally. If you go into hell, go totally and by going totally into hell you have transformed the quality of hell. It will be heaven, it cannot be hell because a total man, wherever he is, finds ways and means to enjoy himself and celebrate.

Just think: if I go to hell, what will I do? I will turn it orange!

[A sannyasin says that he feels very tired much of the time. He received different diagnosis from different doctors, ayurvedic, acupuncturist, macrobiotic. The allopathic doctors said he was perfectly healthy.]

I think they are right; I agree with them! (Osho chuckles) You are healthy; I don’t see that there is any problem with you. And don’t go to these people, because there are people who are in search of people like you, (chuckling) who depend on you: the pseudo-ill. Because they are pseudo-doctors and they can only live on you, mm? They will find a thousand and one things wrong, and they will do a thousand and one things. If you are not ill, they will make you ill!

It is a mind thing. It is not in the blood and it is not in the liver; it is just an idea. So when you come next you have to take a few sessions with the hypnotist; he has to hypnotise you and uncondition you, that’s all. Nothing else is there. You can do it yourself too. From tonight, try; if you can do it yourself, that will be far better. Every night before you go to sleep just repeat seven times ‘This is all nonsense! I am not ill, I am perfectly healthy... and these fools!’ (laughter)

Just repeat that seven times and feel perfectly healthy and go to sleep. In the morning, immediately you feel that the sleep is. gone, don’t open your eyes – first repeat seven times, ‘All these people are fools and I am perfectly okay!’ Just go on repeating this and within three, four weeks, the fever will disappear. You are creating it. Man can create anything – the mind is such a force.

Have you not heard of people walking on fire?..

It is just a mind thing; they just have to believe it, and once you believe, the body simply follows. If you can walk on fire, why can’t you create a little fever? It is simple, very simple.

One of my professors was very against hypnosis, so I tried one experiment on him. I went and talked to his wife, who has always liked me, and I told her, ‘We are doing an experiment on your husband; be a little cooperative. Tomorrow morning when he gets up just look at him and say, “What has happened to you? You look so pale.” And whatsoever he says you simply write it exactly. I will come and collect it.’

Then I said to his driver ‘When you see him, just say, “What is the matter with you? Have you been ill? You can’t even walk!” And whatsoever he says immediately write it down.’

And so I arranged things with at least twenty people on the route up to the university department. By the time he arrived at the university he fell on his sofa. I was there and asked, ‘What is the matter?’ He said, ’I am feeling very very tired. I couldn’t sleep the whole night and I’m feverish too. Come and see! I am so hot, and I will not be able to take the classes today. I am going. When the head of department comes, just tell him that I will not be able to teach for at least two days, three daysIt

has never been so!’

Then I collected all the twenty slips. To the wife he had said, ‘What are you talking about? Have you gone mad? I am perfectly okay.’ To the driver he had said, ‘Yes... sleep was not good. I couldn’t sleep; there were so many dreams.’ And then to the postmaster on the way he had said, ‘Yes, I am feeling a little feverish’ and so on and so forth. Just within one and a half hours he was ill. By the evening when I went there he was under the blankets, shivering! His wife said (Osho chuckling here), ‘What are you doing to him? Now it is enough; finish the experiment! He has a temperature of one hundred and three!’

When I showed him all the slips of paper on which were written what he’d said to people, just reading them he got up and started laughing and said, ‘This is so foolish of me!’ And the fever disappeared! (laughter)

That’s what is happening to you.…

From tonight start this experiment and within three weeks you will be out of it. There is no need to go to anybody; you are not ill, you have simply believed it. But it has been for so long that the belief becomes strengthened every day. It is self-fulfilling; only you can drop it. If you cannot drop it, then when you come back [the ashram hypnotist] will hypnotise you. But it needs hypnosis. Or if you can find some hypnotist there (in Belgium, where he is returning), there too it will be perfectly good; go to the hypnotist.

Whenever doctors’ opinions are different and whenever allopathic doctors say that you don’t have any disease, it is better to go to the hypnotist than anywhere else, because that is the most scientific approach towards the body. Ayurvedic and acupuncture are good but very ancient, mm? five thousand years old. They have not been developed since then; they are primitive, crude. Insights are there but undeveloped. Just think of allopathy five thousand years ago – how crude it was. So is acupuncture, so is ayurveda.

Only one medical science has been developing – allopathy; all others have been left behind and they don’t have much of a future. Even if they have any future, that will be with allopathy. For example, allopathy may come to find that acupuncture has something; then it will be absorbed into allopathy.

That’s what I am intending to do in the new commune; the hospital will have all the branches: ayurvedic, homeopathic, naturopathic, acupuncture and all kinds, but all as part of allopathy.

If the ayurvedic doctors think that they can be of some help, then use them, otherwise they are like bullock carts – a kind of vehicle but no more relevant. And if you want tO go tO new york, you can’t go by a bullock cart!

Go back, and there, if you feel that after three weeks things are not changing... Even if you feel a slight change then there is no need to be worried, just go on; the change will be coming. If you feel nothing is happening, you go to the hypnotist.

[For his meditation Osho tells [him] to create a womb-like atmosphere around himself – comfortably cuddled in a warm blanket and pillows – and to feel he is actually entering into his own womb. He should do this for one hour each day. Don’t have any expectations about it, Osho adds... not saying what will happen. Whatever happens, note it down, keep a diary.]

[Another sannyasin says: Last night I was trying to do the technique you talk about – staying awake as you go to sleep. At three o’clock I woke with such unbearable pain in my head.]

No, don’t do it. It will not be right for you, not at this moment. Don’t do it; you will disturb your sleep. It cannot be done right now. It is better not to disturb the sleep. If you want to try awareness, try it in the daytime between sunrise and sunset but never in the night; it won’t suit you. If you try to be aware in the night then sleep will be disturbed, your body will be tired, pains will be there and the next day you will feel shaky. That will not be good for you.

In fact, for women love is enough, more than enough. Awareness is very rarely needed. And love suits a woman very easily because it is a heart method; awareness is a head thing. It goes against the grain and is very disruptive. Don’t try that.

If you enjoy it then try it in the day time but not in the night. If you don’t enjoy it then there is no need. Just be loving and things will happen. Love will go deeper and will be easier.…

[A sannyasin says: I don’t know if I should be really in the relationship, attached, watching and waiting to see what happens, or if I should break out and be not so much focused on one person.]

Be in relationship but there is no need to be attached. People find both easy: either they will not be in relationship, that is easier, or they will be in relationship but then they become attached. Both are not good. If you are not in relationship you will feel alone, you will feel meaningless, you will feel empty. If you are in relationship and get attached, then you will feel jealous and angry and nagging and a thousand and one things, so in both ways you remain miserable.

What I am saying is: be in relationship and don’t be attached...

It is such a simple thing! There is nothing much to it; just float! Just have a few more love-affairs; why one?

[She answers: I don’t know – I don’t feel like having more!]

That’s just a trick... just a trick, because if you have more then you cannot be attached and without attachment how will you be miserable? You can be miserable – either with attachment or with no relationship. You are set for either because you cannot drop your misery. Your misery is your soul. So if some misery is possible you are perfectly ready. And you find it very easy to do because you are saving your misery.

What I am saying is: be blissful. That is impossible, that feels difficult. What is wrong in being in a few relationships? There are so many beautiful people; why become focused on one? With that focusing comes attachment; then you are afraid: if he is gone then what will you do?

If you have twenty friends and one is gone, then there will be only one-twentieth of the misery. If you have only one friend, then one hundred percent misery. If you have one hundred friends and one is gone, nothing is gone, only one percent. If you have one thousand then not even one percent! Then it becomes more and more diluted and then it disappears.

If we want to create a world without misery, we will have to teach people to have as many relationships, as many involvements, as many loves as possible. The old human mind has remained miserable because of focusing, fixation: ‘I will love only one person.’ Then the person dies; you are utterly in misery.

If you want to remain miserable, both these things that you are suggesting are perfectly good: either attachment or no relationship. These are perfectly right means to attain to misery; they are sure, you will never miss. If you follow what I am suggesting you will never be miserable.

Just think of a man who can eat only one thing and cannot eat anything else and that thing goes out of market. He will die; he will be miserable, he will say, ‘I have got attached.’

I had one friend who was a fanatic Hindu and he would only drink white cow’s milk. It had to be a white cow. Once he travelled with me. It was such a problem: if he could not get cow’s milk then buffalo milk wouldn’t do, goat’s milk wouldn’t do. Even if he could find a cow if the cow was not white he would not take the milk. He would remain miserable and would create trouble for me because he was sitting there continuously miserable. You laugh at him but that is the situation in which you are; that is the white cow!

He says he only likes cow’s milk. He has some fear of a black cow, as if with the black cow the milk becomes black or something; something evil or something devilish enters into it! Now you will think he is neurotic. He is, but that is the situation of the whole of humanity.

And I am not saying to have many relationships, I am not forcing you. I am simply saying if you can have one relationship without attachment perfectly good, but you cannot remain unattached if you have only one relationship because you start leaning and depending on that person too much. You invest too much, you invest your whole being in it. Then you are afraid: if this man leaves, then where will you be standing?

If you can remain unattached, one relationship is good, but remain unattached. If you cannot remain unattached then it is better to have a few relationships so you can always fall upon others. And it is not a problem; a problem arises only if you don’t want to drop your misery. And you are dramatic

about your misery; you enjoy it. Whenever you are not miserable, you are not so happy. I have been watching you: whenever you are happy, you are not so happy; whenever [you] is miserable, she is great! (chuckling) Then she has some problem to solve and something is happening.

Be a little kind to this poor [boyfriend] and share your love with people. Love should be like friendship; you can have many friends, you can have many lovers. It is your life; to enjoy and to be happy should be the only thing to be thought about. Anything that creates misery has to be dropped.

But if you don’t want to drop misery, then don’t ask again and again how to drop it. Then be perfectly happy, happy in your misery! Think about it.

[A sannyasin says: I became disturbed about one of the groups you assigned for me, rebirthing... When I first started doing groups about a year ago, the first thing that happened to me was rebirth... I thought, ’Well, Osho doesn’t know what I’m doing... I feel like I need some kind of trust.]

There is no need, because what can you do about the trust? It will arise only slowly, slowly. And don’t make conditions, otherwise it will never arise. You have certain conditions; that’s why you got disturbed. You were thinking that I should know this about you and I should know that about you and I should decide this way and I should decide that way. You can’t have any conditions about me, otherwise you will be continuously disturbed. I go on on my own. Sometimes I do things just to disturb you and if you don’t get disturbed, then only will trust arise. But I have my own reasons and I never talk about my reasons because to talk about them is to miss the whole point.

I am an absurd man. And if you want to have rational explanations as to why I suggested this and that to you, then you will never get in tune with me; then you will be in constant difficulties. Every day something or other will happen and you will start doubting. In fact to say ‘start doubting’ is not right: you are doubting – any excuse and it will bubble up in your consciousness. Otherwise why should you doubt? You should have thought that rebirthing must be needed.

If you know what is needed and what is not needed, then you can decide about your groups; I will not decide. If you think that I have to decide about your groups and think about you, about what you should do, then even if I say to do the rebirthing three times, you have to do it! What are you going to lose by doing it? You can only get trust that way.

Trust does not mean a rational thing; it is not. It you want a rational trust then you will never attain to it; trust is necessarily irrational. There is no reason to trust me. It is a love affair.

So don’t be worried about it. That doubt was inside you. It has been just brought to the surface and it will be coming again and again. Simply watch it and go on doing what I am telling you to do.

[The sannyasin answers: I think the main doubt was that I didn’t think you had read my letter, at least... ]

Don’t be worried about that. I never read anybody’s letter; let it be finally settled... not yours, nobody’s. I have not read a letter for many years!

[She asks: Somebody reads them to you?]

Don’t be worried about these things! This is a very mad thing that goes on here (laughter) and I cannot give you the trade secret! (laughter)...

So you just become part of this mad thing. And those doubts are okay. Leave them aside; they will go by themselves. Don’t feed them, that’s all. And don’t make any conditions on me, otherwise you will never come in deep contact with me. And only deep contact can create trust. It will happen; just wait!

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