27

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‌CHAPTER 27

27 May 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin says she feels a certain restlessness about her which she experiences mainly as being in her arms. They feel like they need to do something energetic.]

Mm mm, it can be. Start doing one thing every night: sit in a chair and rest your head (Osho demonstrates, his head resting back on the chair like you do at the dentist). You can have a pillow, mm? so you are in a resting posture. Then release your lower jaw, just relax it so the mouth opens slightly, and start breathing from the mouth, not from the nose. But the breathing has not to be changed, it has to be as it is – natural.

The first few breaths will become a little hectic. By and by it will settle down and the breathing will become very shallow. It will go in and out very slightly; that’s how it should be, mm? Keep the mouth open, eyes closed, and rest.

Then start feeling that your legs are becoming loose, as if they are being taken away from you, broken from the joints. Feel as if they are being taken away from you, they have been cut loose, broken, and then start thinking that you are just the upper part; the legs are gone.

Then the hands: think that both the hands are becoming loose and being taken away from you. You may even be able to hear just a click! inside when they are broken. You are no more your hands – they are dead, taken away. Then just the torso remains.

Then start thinking about the head – that it is being taken away, that you are being beheaded, that the head is broken. Then leave it loose: wherever it turns – right, left – you cannot do anything. Just leave it loose; it has been taken away. Then you have just your torso, mm? Feel that you are only this much – this chest, the belly, that’s all.

Do this for at least twenty minutes, and then go to sleep. This is to be done just before the sleep. Do it for at least three weeks and then you tell me how you are feeling, mm?

This restlessness will settle. It is just that your body is not aligned, the energy is not proportionately distributed. Taking these parts as separate, only the essential will remain, so your whole energy will move in the essential part.

That essential part will relax and the energy will start flowing in your legs, in your hands, in your head, again, in a more proportionate way.

A new distribution of energies is needed. It is always energy being more in one part, less in another, that makes you feel lopsided. So your hands must be getting more energy than other parts. Then you want to do something with your hands, and if you cannot find anything to do you can become angry. The hands get angry if they have too much energy: when they cannot do anything, they want to destroy. Either they create or they destroy. If you can create, good; if you cannot create, then destruction.

So just do this for three weeks and then come back, mm?

[A sannyasin is present with the Tao group. Osho had suggested she do the group and bio- energetics because she has had pains in her body for the past year. She says tonight that the pains have not gone but have moved to her joints. The rains have made them worse, she adds. She has tried allopathic medicine, natural healing techniques and several therapies but it has not cleared.…

Osho checks her energy.]

Good. You are not creating it; it is there, mm? It has nothing to do with your mind – it has something to do with the body, so it is easier. If it has something to do with the mind then it is more difficult to get rid of.

But now it is very clear – that’s why I wanted you to do these groups. Now it is very clear: it is in the body, the mind is very relaxed. Before it was not very clear; the mind and the body were very much together. Now the mind is relaxed and it is simple body energy that is creating it.

So start doing a few things and it will go, mm? One thing isit will be good if you can take a hot

bath, hot shower, and then immediately a cold shower.

... It has to be really hot. Increase the heat by and by. No need to torture yourself but it has to be really hot so the whole body becomes heated.

The point is: when the body is really heated all the pores open, all the cells expand and all the joints become very very loose. Then with a sudden change to cold the whole thing again shrinks; again use hot water, then again cold. This has to be done three times: a two to three minute hot shower, a two to three minute cold shower, then again hot, then again cold.

Each time the cells expand and shrink they become flexible and the flexibility is needed. A few points in your body have become non-flexible – that’s why they are hurting; they have lost the fluidity.

But nothing to be worried about. This you have to do, but really hot water and really cold water... and you will enjoy it.

And another thing: if it is not possible to find hot and cold water every day – if you can find it it will be very very good – if it is not possible, then before taking your bath rub your whole body with a dry towel. Particularly these parts which hurt more, rub more; make the whole body hot. Jump, jog, rub so you start perspiring. That will do, then take a cold shower. If you cannot find hot water then make the body heated, that’s all.

[A sannyasin says that often people tell him he is closed, though at the time he feels open. Only in retrospect does he see that yes, he was closed and they were right.]

But is there any need to consider this, to go into it? Simply be yourself – open or closed!

If you are feeling open why bother about what people say? That is their problem! They feel you are closed – that is their feeling; it has nothing to do with you. If you are feeling open, perfectly okay.

[The sannyasin answers: Yes, but I realise quite often afterwards that it was right: I wasn’t open.]

No, my feeling is that your first feeling is right the second feeling is just created by people. And when the second feeling is created, you may become closed. You are going about very open and happy.… Have you watched it sometimes? – you are going about very happy, laughing, and somebody says ‘Why do you look so sad?’ You say ‘No, no.…’ But in that very moment when you say ‘No, no, I am not sad’, you have become sad. Watch it!

You were not sad but somebody says, ‘You look very pale, what is the matter? You look very sad, are you ill ?’ And you say ‘No, I am not ill’, but in that very moment when you are saying ‘I am not ill’ – and you are saying a truth – it is becoming false: you are becoming sad. That man has given you the suggestion, that man has already created the idea. And if you go somewhere else and somebody else repeats the same, then certainly how can two persons be wrong? You must be wrong.

Next time when somebody says ‘You are looking very sad,’ you will not be so certain about it – you may say ‘Yes, I have been feeling a little down since the morning.’ And then the third person comes and he says ‘You are looking very sad,’ and you will say ‘I have been feeling so bad lately!’ This is how we impress each other, how we manipulate each other.

My feeling is that your first feeling is true. That is more authentic. But I can understand why people feel that way. You are open but you don’t have that certain expression of openness on your face – that’s why it is happening. Your face has an expression as if you are closed .

Whenever people say that you are closed – naturally, they can’t look into your heart – they look at your face! Your face has a certain sadness, closedness. Maybe because of your past habit the face has taken on a certain expression.

There is a very famous anecdote about moses.…

A king was in deep love with Moses and he wanted a beautiful portrait of Moses in his palace, so he ordered the greatest painter to go and to paint Moses.

The painter went to Moses. For months he worked on the portrait and then he brought the portrait. But the king was not happy – he said, ’This can’t be Moses! What have you done? He looks like a murderer, not like a saint! His face shows so much anger, so much arroganceAnd I know him –

he is such a humble man!’

But the painter said, ‘What are you saying? I have been there with him, for months I have watched him, for hours I have worked on the portrait. I have never done such an exact job before!’

So both went to Moses and asked him. Moses said ‘The painter is right! I was a murderer.’

In fact, Moses had murdered one Egyptian, that’s why he had to flee from Egypt. An Egyptian was beating a Jew; that Moses could not tolerate. He was not thinking to kill that man but just to prevent him he hit him hard, and by chance, by accident, the man died.

Nobody knew about it, and moses said to the king, ‘The painter is right, because I had once murdered a man. I was very angry when I was young and very arrogant and very egoistic. Yes, those things have gone but the traces of them are left on my face. This man has really studied my face, he has really gone deep into the lines of my face. You have just looked into the lines of my face, you have just looked at me – you have not studied my face. He has studied for months and he is really a great painter. He has not only caught my present but my past also; those lines are there.’

So in your past you may have been a very closed person, in your childhood you may have been a very closed person. In your face I can see it – those lines are there. Those lines will deceive many people, even when you are flowing and open. People cannot look into your heart – they just look at your face and immediately say, ‘Why do you look so sad? Why are you so closed? Why don’t you open?’

And when they say it, naturally you start thinking ’MaybeWhy should they say it at all if I am not

closed?’

The first impulse is to deny them but the second impulse, the second thought is: why should they say that? And it is not just one person – many people have said so to you – so it becomes a very very powerful suggestion. Under that suggestion you become closed, and then immediately you feel ‘Yes, they were right: I am closed!’

Drop this! Your face will take some years to change. Just tell people ‘Nothing to be worried about. My face gives you the wrong impression. I am open and I am perfectly okay. I am feeling very very happy, so if you feel I am closed that is your problem. For me the problem doesn’t exist.’

You will have to insist on this for a few years, then the face will by and by change with the heart. The body is very slow, mm? – the body cannot move as quickly as the mind. The mind can move in an instant; the body takes years. The mind can become transformed in a flash but the body cannot move so quickly: the body is very gross, the body is matter! Matter takes its own course.

So when you understand something the mind can change immediately, but the body will slowly, slowly, drag on. It has weight – it cannot jump like the mind. Nothing to be worried about.

My feeling is that your first feeling is right, your second feeling is a suggestion. Don’t be a victim of suggestions – avoid that, mm? Good!

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