14

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‌CHAPTER 14

14 March 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Anand means bliss, blissful, and shailendra means god of the mountains. God of the mountains of bliss; this will be the whole meaning. And bliss is a mountain because it is a peak, it is a peak experience. Ordinarily we live in the valleys... the valleys are dark and dismal: we live on the lowest rung of our consciousness. Bliss happens only when we start rising upwards, when the energy moves upwards and reaches to the highest climax. That is the peak, the mountain. One has to become the god of that peak, only then is there fulfillment.

In the East we have divided the whole map of consciousness into seven layers, seven planes. The first plane, the lowest, is of sex; that is the valley where we live, dark and dismal. And the highest is sahasrar – when the energy moves and becomes absolutely non-sexual.

On one extreme it is sexual, on another extreme it is non-sexual, and just in the middle of these both it becomes love and the heart is just in the middle of these two. So these are the main chakras: the sex chakra, the heart chakra and the sahasrar, the ultimate.

Sahasrar means a one-thousand petalled lotus – when your consciousness moves upwards and comes to the head at the very peak, beyond which there is nothing... when something almost like a blossoming happens within you. In that moment you have become a god of the mountains.

The Himalayas have always been symbolic, symbolic of the inner Himalayas. Mythology has it that the god of the Himalayas lives on the highest peak, Kailash, but that is just a representation of the inner into the outer, a projection: the real peak is inside you.

So the movement is through sex towards love and then beyond sex and beyond love. When the energy becomes pure one is not in any need of the other. When there is no desire for the other,

when one is enough unto oneself, then one has become the mountain – self-sufficient, self-rooted, self-centred.

[The new sannyasin says: I’m a doctor and I would like to be a therapist.]

Just wait... do a few groups, mm? and then I will watch you. And after three, four groups ask me, then I will see how your energy is flowing.

Therapy is not so much a question of expertise, it is more a question of how your energy is flowing. Even not knowing much a person can be a great therapist if his energy is therapeutic, if he can shower energy and share energy, can be loving, can have compassion for any and all. Then therapy is possible, because therapy is a function of love: if you can love, therapy happens.

Expertise is secondary. It is good if you know, you can use that knowledge in the service of love, but just knowledge is not of much use.

There are born therapists just as there are born poets. And it is very important for man to seek that for which he is born, then there is fulfillment. If you are not a born therapist you can become a good therapist but you will never become a great therapist.

Just a few days ago I was talking about good horses and great horses (in the lectures on Lieh Tzu). You can become a good horse, but the real thing is to become a great horse. And you can become the great horse only if you are already. There is no way to become: a great horse is born; it is a question of being. And everybody has something great in him, god never sends a single person without some intrinsic greatness. The only question is to find it, to find where it is.

If you are not a great mathematician no need to worry; you may be a great poet. If you are not a great poet no need to worry; you may be a great therapist, and so on, so forth – but somewhere every being brings some greatness into the world.

So the most fundamental question is to find where it is. If you don’t find it you can move in a thousand and one wrong directions, because there is only one right direction and millions of wrong directions. Hence so many people miss, because wrong doors are many and the right door is only one.

It is very very difficult to find the right door. Once you have found it things start flowing... things simply start happening.

Just the other day I was reading.A young man asked Ezra Pound how to write great poetry. Ezra

Pound said, ‘It it’s very easy! You need a copy and a fountain pen.’

The man became a little uneasy because what nonsense was he talking? – ‘To write poetry you need just a copy and a fountain pen and a chair to sit comfortably in, and then start!’ The young man said, ‘I have tried many times but it never starts.’

Ezra pound said, ‘Then it is impossible to help you because these things are needed! If poetry is there inside you, you take the fountain pen in the hand, start writing, and it occurs! If it doesn’t occur nothing can be done, but that occurence is not in any way in your hands.’

So wait, just enjoy a few groups, allow your energy to flow. Maybe you have some potentiality, we will see! But don’t impose any direction on your life. Just first grope in the dark and feel, have the feel, and once you have the feel things become so easy.

Yes, Ezra Pound is right: nothing much is needed if you are a poet... then that’s enough. If you are not a poet then nothing is enough!

Just wait, mm? Good!

[A sannyasin says: I can’t make love properly: I have a premature ejaculation.]

It will change... nothing to be worried about. Do these groups and then book for tantra, mm?

Premature ejaculation is really not a sexual problem at all; it is more a psychological problem. Physiologically there is nothing wrong but psychologically you are in a hurry; that very hurry creates premature ejaculation.

In the West almost seventy percent of men suffer from it. It is not a small problem, seventy percent is a great majority. In fact there are a few people who have started thinking that premature ejaculation is normal because seventy percent... it must be normal. In fact those thirty percent of people must be having something wrong; the normal means the average.

And these seventy percent will become eighty percent, ninety percent soon; their number is growing. Never before in the history of man has premature ejaculation been such a problem as it has become in the West – and particularly more so in America. Because for the first time a civilisation is in a hurry, for the first time a civilisation is too time-conscious. In the East people have never suffered from premature ejaculation because things move so slowly and nobody is in a hurry. There is enough time, more than enough; eternity is available.

The eastern concept that after you die you will be born again and again and again, gives a very long time, great duration. The western idea that there is only one life makes you very feverish. Just one life? – so you have to make everything out of it immediately, otherwise it will be gone! So everything has to be fast, quick.

That mind brings this problem, so that mind is working there and making everything quick. It goes on giving directions from deep within: to do it quickly, be fast, finish soon. There is this constant hankering for things to be instantaneous. It makes it appear as if the only thing in life is how to do a thing with great speed. But all great things need slowness, patience, otherwise you miss. They need time so that you can get saturated.

Now, sexual orgasm needs time – the longer, the better because then it will go deeper into your being, into your mind, into your soul. Then it will spread from the toe to the head... every fibre of your body will be throbbing with it. Your whole body will become an orchestra and it will come to a crescendo.

But if you are in a hurry the orgasm becomes just an ejaculation, it is no more an orgasm. It is local and very tiny, almost meaningless. In fact you will feel tired, frustrated, depressed after it, because the energy is lost and it has not given you a bath, so it was just meaningless.

You remain the old – a little more tired of course, with less energy of course, but you remain the same. It has not been a cleansing process, it has not thrilled you from corner to corner, from end to end. It has not vibrated you, because in that vibration you lose much dust, and in that vibration there comes a moment where thoughts disappear and sex becomes almost ecstatic.

When thoughts are not there it is meditation, and that is the whole beauty of sex, that is the very centre of sex. Otherwise there is a periphery and the centre is missing; then you are just making empty gestures, empty motions.

People are making love and their minds are full of thoughts; it is not possible to attain to a deep bliss through it. When thoughts completely disappear, for a moment everything stops: time stops, mind stops. For a moment you don’t know who you are, for a moment you don’t know what your boundary is, for a moment you don’t know where you are. You are in a nowhere! For a moment you have fallen into eternity. The past has suddenly been cut off, there is no future and this moment is all!

Ordinarily our situation is that the past, the whole load, the whole train of the past, is following and the whole projection of the future is there. The present moment is so tiny, so small.

Sex is one of the natural ways to enter into the now, the nowness of things. If you miss that, certainly you are missing something very essential, something very significant and it is not possible to substitute it with anything else.

A man who moves deeply into sex can attain to meditation very easily. A man who is not moving deeply into sex will find it very difficult to move into meditation because the problem is the same! If you cannot vibrate in a natural state of sexuality, it will be very difficult to vibrate in a deliberate state of meditation. Sex is nothing but creating meditation in a natural way.

So first do these groups and don’t be worried! Mm? it will disappear – don’t pay much attention to it. Just do a few groups, then tantra and then a few camps. Simply forget it, as if it doesn’t exist.

[An indian sannyasin says he cannot cope with many social situations he finds himself in. He thinks he needs the help of a psychiatrist.]

Your mind is perfectly okay. In fact, this situation happens to everybody who has a certain intelligence. It is not that you are lacking something, it is that you have more than average intelligence. This problem is not because of lack, this problem is because of something plus: you have more intelligence than average.

When the mind is a little more intelligent it is never satisfied because it can always imagine better situations; that is the problem. If you have one thousand rupees and you are stupid you can he satisfied! But how can an intelligent man be satisfied? He thinks of two thousand, three thousand, five thousand; whatsoever he has he can always imagine more.

You have a beautiful woman; a intelligent person starts thinking of more beautiful women, he goes on fantasizing. An idiot is satisfied because he cannot imagine... he cannot even imagine a better situation, so why be unsatisfied, how to be unsatisfied?

So psychiatrists cannot help because you don’t have anything wrong! They cannot put anything right because there is nothing wrong. You have more than average intelligence. Now, you will have to put this intelligence to your problems more deeply. Rather than asking somebody else’s help, you will have to put your own intelligence to your problems.

For example, when you are unsatisfied with a certain thing become very aware of why you are unsatisfied, see the whole unsatisfaction, go into it deeply. Layer by layer, open all the doors, examine every situation, every mood. Awareness is going to help you because you have intelligence and intelligence can be converted into awareness.

Just sermons won’t help – somebody saying ‘Just be satisfied’ is not going to help you; that you cannot do. You will have to go into deep analysis of your own moods.

So whenever you are feeling unsatisfied, nothing is wrong – the first thing to be understood: nothing is wrong! You should feel fortunate because you could have been stupid! Stupid people never have this problem, idiots don’t have any problems. A problem is a good indication.

And when you think about life, when you become aware of life, life is meaningless, so how to be satisfied with it? If you go deeply into this, by and by you will start feeling that in life there is no possibility of any satisfaction. Then you have stumbled upon the first basic truth – that life is meaningless.

Then one can turn within-wards; then there is no need to go outside, because outside there is no meaning possible. There is only anxiety and anguish.

And people like you commit suicide. When it becomes too heavy and everything is unsatisfactory and nothing brings happiness, one starts feeling, ‘What is the point of going on living? – then destroy!’

People of your type either commit suicide or they become great sannyasins; both are the possibilities. If they don’t destroy themselves they start turning inwards and they create a new life. The life that is available through the senses is meaningless but that is not the only life: there is one more life, far greater, far more glorious, and that is the life of an inward consciousness.

So now you are becoming a sannyasin, you are on the door of it, so please don’t think that you are ill. If you think in those terms you will start feeling ill: you will hypnotise yourself into believing that you are ill. You are not ill at all. Completely drop that idea! Never go to a psychiatrist, because if you go they will find something wrong with you... even if it is not there. They have to find, they also have to live, so when somebody comes they have to find something wrong and treat him.

I can see deeply into you that there is nothing wrong. It is just that you are unfortunate in one way that you have more than average intelligence. So you can make a misery out of it or you can make a blessing out of it – it depends on you.

[The sannyasin adds: I have never been in tune with the society.]

Perfectly good! There is nothing wrong with it. How can one be in tune with the society? – the society is ill! Either an ill person can be in tune with society or a cunning person can be in tune with

society... an actor! You have to be ill in the same way as the society – then you fit. You have to be stupid in the same way as the society, foolish in the same way, mad for money and power and prestige like the society, then you fit. You have to be mad in the same way as the society; then there is no problem, then you are in tune. Or you have to be an actor, just pretend that you fit.…

I am not saying to pretend... I am not saying to pretend. I am simply saying that these are the two ways to fit with the society; and both are meaningless. There is no need, there is no need to fit with the society. In fact you should start looking for a deeper fitness – to be fit with yourself. Then who cares? If you fit with yourself, who bothers?

Then you can avoid – and out of one hundred, ninety-nine situations can be simply avoided. There is no need to fit or not fit: you can simply by-pass them; there is no need to go through them. If you go through them the question never arises of whether to fit or not to fit – one can by-pass.

In fact sannyas is nothing but by-passing many things. If you don’t fit in the club, drop out of the club, don’t be a member of it! There is no compulsion to be a member of it.

If you don’t fit with people don’t meet with people too much. Meet with small groups with whom you can fit; create a small oasis.

That’s what I am doing here. I cannot fit with the society so I create my own society – what else to do? (laughter) So create a small society of your own, a few friends who can understand you and whom you can understand, and live with them. That’s the only way.

It happened that a prostitute came to Socrates. She was a very intelligent woman and by and by she had become interested in what Socrates was teaching. When she came Socrates was sitting with a few friends, just ten, twelve friends. The prostitute said, ‘Only ten, twelve persons come to you? Come sometimes to my house; there is always a queue waiting! The whole of Athens is mad for me, and you... only ten, twelve people?’

Socrates looked at her and said, ‘You are right, because you offer something which everybody needs. I offer something which rarely, very rarely somebody needs, so I have a few friends; you have many friends.’

The woman thought about it, bowed down to Socrates and said, ‘Accept me also as a friend.’

So if you cannot fit with the society create a small oasis. All through the ages this has been done: all the people who cannot fit with the society have to create small groups of their own where they exist, where they can find a harmony.

So now you are a sannyasin, help a few more people to become orange, create a small group there. Meditate together, dance together, talk together, listen, read, study, discuss, and forget about it.

And you are not ill at all. Now it is for me to transform your intelligence into a healthy dimension. Don’t be worried, mm? Good!

[A visitor says: I’ve been studying Karate, T’ai Chi and some yoga, and living with my grandmother... she studied under Orage and Gurdjieff.]

These processes are good but not enough...

And if you go on doing T’ai Chi, Karate and yoga-type things, there is some danger. If they are not substituted by cathartic groups, encounter, gestalt, psychodrama, things like that, there is a danger of becoming lopsided, because all the eastern methods are in a subtle way repressive, they repress...

You have done well. That’s good, nothing wrong with it, but now you have to do something just the contrary so that you can have the vision of both the extremes and then you can balance just in the middle somewhere. the path goes just exactly in the middle. It is neither like yoga nor like encounter; the path goes just in the middle. A balanced person is neither too expressive nor too repressive; a balanced person is simply balanced, he has no excess.

Whenever there is an excess there is illness because the excess is a strain; it drains you of energy. And the tranquility, the serenity, the calmness that has been searched for through the ages, comes only when you are exactly in the middle – neither this nor that.

[The visitor asks: Isn’t one always passing through?]

One has to pass through to come to the middle, otherwise you will never be able to find the middle. The middle can be found only when you have found the extreme. Thus once the middle is found you can remain in the middle, then there is no need to go anywhere. That’s what centering is – to be exactly in the middle. In fact to call it the middle is not right because it is so much in the middle that it is transcendental. When you are exactly in the middle you are beyond both. It is a great experience when one can come to the middle about anything.

For example you have known hate, you have known love. Just between hate and love there is a middle-point that nobody knows because it is neither like love nor like hate – or, it is also like love and also like hate. That middle-point is what friendship is all about; that is a transcendental state.

So in love fight continues because you have to balance: you go too much in love, then you have to fight with the woman or the man to keep balance. You have to move again and again to the hate and anger. It is impossible to love a woman and not to hate her; otherwise you will fall in the abyss, so you have to keep balance.

When you start falling too much in love you immediately turn to the other extreme and you become angry and hateful – fighting, nagging – and the balance is again maintained. Once you start falling into hate, again the balance has to be maintained.

Friendship is a very very different thing: it is revolution. Love is very ordinary, love is very natural. Love exists in animals too but friendship is simply a human and very rare flowering. Friendship does not know any feverish thing; friendship is non-feverish, it is tranquility.

Buddha used to call himself ‘the friend’. He said ‘The next time I come my name will he maitreya’; maitreya means ‘the friend’. And there is a great message in the name.

Friendship is the highest flowering of consciousness – higher than the so-called love, because love is contaminated with hate continuously; it is never pure.

Once love is pure it is no more passion, it becomes compassion. So between two opposite moods, two opposite emotions, two opposite tendencies, there is always a point which transcends both. It is exactly in the middle and beyond also.

So do a few groups here and move into the other extreme and then you will be able to feel where your middle-point is.

And that too also has to be remembered: everybody has to find his middle point, because it is not a fixed thing. Something may be middle to me and may not be middle to you; something may be middle to you and may not be middle to your friend, because people are different in their energies. Everybody has to find his own golden mean and that is nobody else’s golden mean. That is simply yours, it is purely individual. It is just as individual as your thumb-print, it is nobody else’s.

But if you stay only day by day it will be difficult because you will have to book for a few groups. If you want to do a few groups then make a plan to be here at least three, four weeks. Then it will be easy to do something.

And it has been good that you have been with somebody who knew Gurdjieff – your grandmother. That’s very good, a great blessing.

[A sannyasin says she had problems with her daughter: A lot of anger is coming up in me now any way but most of it gets focussed on her... I want to be able to control it! I can’t! ]

It is better to be natural rather than controlling it.

[She adds: I’ll lose many friends that way... and the price that is paid for being honest is so dear.]

It is not, because if you are natural maybe immediately you may feel that the price is too much; it is never! In the long run it is always beneficial to be natural. Repression may give you a false appearance of things being in control and everything going well; finally you have to pay deeply. Then it is too late and you cannot do anything. That’s what has been done to everybody, every mother has done this to every child.

And you think that the control has been simple? All the psychiatrists are engaged in just washing away the things that the mothers have done. The whole psychiatric profession is just undoing things that mothers have done, nothing else, their whole business is that.

If mothers listen to me psychiatrists will die, they will starve. It is really costly. All the mad people in the madhouses are because of mothers who have been too controlling.

[The sannyasin replies: I never know what’s going to come up!]

Let it come up! Who knows? And why should you know beforehand? If you know beforehand it will be false. Being natural means that nobody knows. Be natural and whatsoever happens, happens.

[Your daughter] will never be against you if you are natural, because she will understand; children are very understanding. If they see that the mother and the father are natural, true – if they can

depend on you, if they know that you are angry, that’s why you are angry; you are loving, because you are loving; if they know that you are true whatsoever you areIf [your daughter can depend on

knowing that when you are angry, you show it, she will understand.

Children are very understanding, and she will be able to forgive you. But if she comes to know that you are angry and you are smiling, then it is impossible to forgive; you are cheating the girl.

Sometimes you are angry – you are not a super-human being yet fortunately! You can be angry. And from where will she learn? She will have to learn from you so naturally she will practise outside. If you are angry she will go and practise on [someone else]...

She has to practise somewhere. She has to learn, otherwise how will she learn? That’s the way children learn. So be angry and let her learn anger and be loving and let her learn your love and always be honest so she learns honesty too. That’s all that you can do; nothing else is needed. Just relax.

If you don’t want to give the money, just say that you don’t want to give! What we do is to go on pretending: we go on pretending that we want to give but it is not good for the child.

Simply say that you are a miser and you don’t want to give these five rupees to her! Why should you give? – you don’t want to! You want to cling to these five rupees! Let it be a fact!

What do you do? You cling to five rupees and you pretend to [your daughter] that you would love to give her not five but fifty rupees, but you cannot because it will be harmful to her: she will go and eat ice cream and this and that. This is all nonsense!

Be simple: say you cannot afford five rupees, it hurts you too much. When five rupees goes out of your bag you cannot sleep the whole night! Be clear... just be simple and true and she will understand.

Never try to control and be artificial; that’s what everybody is doing, it is done everywhere. Mm? I would like my sannyasins to be different.

If you can avoid [your daughter] becoming a psychiatric case, that’s enough; you have done your duty. If she never comes to need Janov and his primal scream, then it’s perfect! Otherwise if you control her too much she will become a Janovian witness!

Just be natural and be true. And I tell you it is not costly. Truth is never costly, only untruth is costly, but initially it seems that untruth is paying and truth is costly. In the long run truth always wins and untruth always is defeated.

It will be difficult for you because to be untrue is easier. You are trained for that, your mother must have trained you, so now you want to try the same with [your daughter]. Be different! At least be different from your mother.

Who are we to control anybody? What do we know about what is right and what is wrong? So at the most we can be natural and hope that everything will go well, that’s all. Natural, prayerful.

[A sannyasin says that many emotions were coming up for him. He was alone in his room looking at a picture of Osho lit by a candle, and these emotions grew into a big catharsis.]

Very good! Things are really good. You can make it a point every night to do this for at least ten, fifteen minutes and then go to sleep.

It will be a great meditation for you; you have stumbled upon a natural meditation for yourself. So just enjoy it every night for fifteen minutes, not more than that, because it can go for hours. Then you will becomes so excited that sleep will be impossible, so not more than for fifteen minutes.

For fifteen minutes, go into it, then take a shower and go to sleep. No need to analyse it, just continue every night.

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