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‌CHAPTER 7

7 May 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin says his parents have asked him to guarantee that if ever the need arises, he will return to Italy to be with them for a few months. He is an only child and sees his parents regularly each year, but his relationship with both of them is heavy.

Osho says if this is all they are asking, then he should give them the guarantee they want from him. He says that he owes them that much at least, that he should regard his visiting them not as a duty but as love]

It is very difficult to love your parents, I understand. The relationship is such that when a child is born the parents love the child – it is instinctive. With the mother it is more so, because the father is not a natural phenomenon; it is just institutional. But the mother has an instinctive love towards the child. Not that she loves you – there is no conscious decision about it, it is a natural pull just like gravitation. But the same pull does not exist from the child towards the mother; it cannot exist. It will exist from you towards your children – that’s the way the future is protected; that’s a natural in-built mechanism to protect the future.

Your mother loved you, your father loved you.you will love your children, they will love their children.

Nature is interested in the future, in the survival – not in the past.

So there is no natural instinct for the child to love the mother. It has to be done with deep understanding. One has to be alert about it – that it is just instinctive that the mother loves you and that it is also instinctive that you don’t have any pull of that sort.

You can fulfil the duty, but if you don’t have the pull, fulfilling the duty becomes ugly, so what is the way out? The natural pull is not there. You can force yourself unnaturally, but that is not good – it

kills your spontaneity and it makes you pretentious, and pretence is not good. Then what is the way out? The way out is to become more present.

Pretence is not the way, presence is the way... to become more alert about the situation – that the mother carried you in her womb for nine months, that half of your being consists of your mother and half of your being consists of your father. You are here because of them: if they were not here you would not be here. All that is happening to you is, in a way, because of them.One has to become

aware of this.

And they have done much – whatsoever they could do; more was not possible. Knowing well the type of persons they are, more was not possible so more cannot be expected. Whatsoever they did, that was all they could do – they did their utmost. They have not been lacking, but they have a certain type of personality, they have a certain mechanism, and they are not meditators, so your responsibility becomes greater than their responsibility.

Whenever a person is in meditation, his responsibility is more than the person who is not in meditation, because more is expected from you – existence expects more.

It is almost like a man is walking on the road, drunk. You don’t expect much – if he goes to the wrong side, it’s okay; if he sits just in the middle of the road, that too is okay. But you are not drunk. If you go to the wrong side, that is not okay: your responsibility is greater.

Exactly the same is the case with people who are not in meditation. They are living an almost mechanical life – they may be your parents, may not be your parents; that is not the point. But you have entered a new life, you have entered in a new stream of consciousness, you have become a ‘srotapanna’. Now your responsibility is greater... greater than ever! And you will not be able to forgive yourself if you do something irresponsibly.

This responsibility is not something that comes from the outside. Nobody can force anything on you, nobody is there to force. It comes from the within; it is just your understanding that makes you responsible for many things.

So just see the point: they are the type of people they are. Whatsoever they could do, they did – to ask for more is meaningless. So whatsoever they have done you have to feel grateful for. And whatsoever is happening to you and will happen to you, they remain the causes. If some day you become enlightened, then you will have to feel grateful towards them. If you are breathing it is because of them, because they loved each other. If you are here, listening to me, it is because of them. They remain your foundation – so don’t forget the foundation, that’s all.

It is not a duty, you cannot make it a duty. It cannot be a natural love, it can only be a compassion in deep understanding. I call it compassion. And when a child can feel compassion for his or her parents, great is the benefit for them and greater is the benefit for you. You will feel tremendously happy, at ease. You will feel very relaxed when you have carried out your responsibilities fully alert and aware.

So you just go and tell them and make them feel – it is not only a question of telling: let them feel while you are there – that they can depend on you, they can rely on you, that whenever the need arises you will be there. It’s not a question of guarantee; it is guaranteed.

This time relate with them in a different way. Be more alert, look into your mother’s eyesYou may

not have looked for years or you may not have looked at all. Nobody looks into the mother’s eyes – a poor woman, she has lived a life but nothing much has happened to her. She may die without meditation, without prayer, without knowing anything of god. Feel for her, hold her hand, hug her! She is part of you, you are part of her!

And in this way you can bring some new glimpse to them. Look into your father’s eyes. Some day he will die and then there will be no way to relate with him and you will miss him.

When a father dies, his death hurts very much – not only as death. Death hurts naturally, but it hurts more when it is your father, because now there is nobody left to whom you can go and feel grateful, to whom you can go and do something that you always wanted to do, but you never did. Look into his eyes, hold his hand.do something for him!

The death of the parents hurts more because now there is no chance to relate with them again. You will not be meeting them again ever. Life is so fragile! So whenever you are near your parents, remember one thing: they will die before you. You will be here for many years without them; then there will be no chance even to ask their forgiveness.

So don’t miss this moment – this time really be with them. Do something – whatsoever you feel like doing – feel for them, and maybe through your love, through your compassion, understanding, a new breeze enters their life, a new window opens. Talk about meditation; and they will ask you about it. They will see that you have changed, because you have never looked into their eyes, you have never been so loving, so understanding, so responsible... they will feel it! If they cannot feel it, then who will? The same life energy continues in you; you exist on the same wavelength. If they cannot feel then nobody can; they will be the first persons to feel.

So let them feel what has happened to you, let them enquire, talk to them, talk about me, take a few tapes. Sometimes meditate and tell them just to sit and see what happens. Let there be meditative energy in your home. One never knows – a door can open any moment.

And they have been seeking the same joy that you are seeking, the same search has been there... maybe unconsciously. Maybe they were not so fortunate and they couldn’t find some key to open the locks, maybe they were trying to search but in the wrong direction – somehow it didn’t happen. But if it has happened to you and is happening to you, take the message to them.

So, be a messenger, mm? Enjoy the trip and let them feel that you are there, always there and that whenever they need, you will be there immediately! Good.

[A sannyasin who was leaving for the West, said he would like to share what he has found with Osho with his wife. They have been separated for a long time, and plan to divorce. She is very negative against him.]

I think divorce will be good and then there may be some possibility, not before it. Let there be a divorce but make it as pleasant as possible – don’t make it an ugly affair, not at least from your side. Her side is her responsibility, from your side make it absolutely easy. Whatsoever you can do to make it easier, do it. Let it be a very very silent, pleasant thing.

Don’t say good-bye in a bad mood; that much we always owe to the other person. She has lived for sixteen years with you, shared her life, has given you children, has been mother to your children... sometimes things go wrong. Nothing to be worried about – that’s human.

So the first thing: let the divorce be there... and this can make a bridge between you and her. If you can allow this divorce to be really pleasant so that she can feel your compassion and love for her – can feel your love for the children, and that you are trying to make everything as cheerful for her as possible – out of that a friendship can arise, and only then can you share me with her.

Right now it will be very difficult, right now communication has broken, mm? You live in different worlds, you don’t speak the same language any more. So right now any effort from your side to convey anything will simply make her angry, antagonistic. She will argue: just to prove you wrong she will say anything and she will not listen, so this is not the right moment.

Always remember, when you want to communicate something to somebody, choose a right moment and a right climate. You can do the right thing in a wrong moment and then it is meaningless. And sometimes when the moment is right, even a small effort brings great harvest, and when the moment is wrong, great effort brings only frustration. Always watch out for the right time – that is immensely valuable.

It is very difficult to communicate with a wife, with a husband. Even when things are going well it is very difficult to communicate, because the relationship is somehow inimical, the relationship is that of domination. Whatsoever we say on the surface is not the point, but deep down it is a question of domination – it is political. The husband is trying to dominate in a thousand and one ways, the wife is trying to dominate in her own subtle and feminine ways. Her being sad may be nothing but an effort to dominate you, to make you more frustrated, to take revenge.

So even when ordinarily things are going well, then too it is difficult to communicate. It is very difficult for the husband to convert his wife to his philosophy, to his religion – so is the case for the wife: the wife cannot convert the husband... it is even more difficult. The husband feels very much offended. The very thing that the wife understands more than him is offending... it is very against the male ego.

And wives always know that husbands are foolish. In the first place if they were not foolish, why should they fall in love with them ? There is a deep self-condemnation. The moment you fall in love with a woman, she understands that you are a fool. It may not be very conscious, she may not say so, she may not even understand it, but deep down she has understood that you are a fool... otherwise who can fall in love with her? She is not in love with herself, so how can you be in love with her? She does not see anything beautiful in her, so how can you? You are deluded, you are a fool.

No wife believes that the husband can be wise – not even the wife of Socrates believed it, not even the wife of Buddha believed it. No wife has ever believed that the husband can be wise. The whole world may believe... but the wife cannot. She knows your foolishness, she knows your childishness, she knows your sexuality, she knows your lust. How can you be wise? She has seen you make love to her. How can she think that you can meditate, how can she think that now you have become a sannyasin? Whom are you trying to deceive? You can deceive the whole world; you cannot deceive the wife!

So many centuries of condemnation of sex has made it so. The wife knows that a sexual person is not a spiritual person. Now who knows better that you are a sexual person? Your whole relationship is that of sex, and if sex is sin then the husband and wife are joined together by sin. So the husband cannot believe that the wife has become holy and the wife cannot believe that her husband has become holy.

Sometimes it is possible that the husband may think that the wife has become spiritual... because wives don’t take much interest; at least they don’t show it. They are always passive partners in the love affair, and they show that they are just tolerating sex. But the man is very active, too interested; the wife cannot believe that the husband can become spiritual. So many centuries of wrong conditioning, and then continuous effort to dominate each other – things are bound to go wrong. Even when you are on a honeymoon, when there exists a certain rapport between you and the wife which will never exist again, when the romance is fully alive, even then communication is impossible – and the reason is that then whatsoever you say, the wife will say ‘yes’ Not that she understands, no – understanding is not possible at all – but she will say ‘yes’ Whatsoever you say is great and whatsoever she says is great. Nobody is in any mood to understand. You are so much foolishly in love, hypnotised by each other, that ‘no’ does not come, ‘yes’ comes. Then too there is no communication. First ‘no’ does not come, ‘yes’ comes, and later on when you are settled, only ‘no’ comes, ‘yes’ does not come. Either way understanding cannot happen.

Understanding needs a clarity where there is no hurry to say no or yes: you are neither enchanted, magnetised by each other, nor are you antagonistic to each other. You simply look with clarity at what the other is saying. I have never seen wives and husbands in a dialogue. The honeymoon is a monologue and later on also, the marriage is a monologue.

So the first thing I would like to say is: go back home, make this divorce as easy as possible, don’t blame her, don’t fight. If she wants the children, give the children to her... give everything that she wants. That will give her an insight into you and that will become the possibility of sharing me with her, otherwise there is no possibility. If she can feel that really you have become a sannyasin – you don’t fight, you don’t want to damage her in any way, you are ready to give whatsoever she wants: the children, the money, the house, whatsoever she wantsOnly that will give her an inkling into

your being – that you are not the same person with whom she is taking the divorce; it is not the same person with whom she has lived the sixteen years. This is not the man who has fathered her children – this is a new man, a new being. That has to be the beginning.…

After the divorce go on taking care as you have been, because marriage or no marriage is meaningless. Go on taking care, doing whatsoever you can do even after the divorce. The children will be taken care of by her; you take care of her and the children too. Go on doing whatsoever you have been doing, as if it doesn’t matter – divorce or no divorce – and then there is a possibility of a friendship arising which will be far more valuable than your so-called love. Then you can share.

It will depend on how you behave with this divorce thingand it will be a great experience to you. If

you can give unconditionally, it will be a great experience.…

[A sannyasin who is leaving wants to do massage but doesn’t know if that is right for her. Osho watches her energy movement for some moments and says yes, it is good for her to do massage...

]

Just remember one thing: keep the attitude of prayer whenever you are massaging the person... feel that the other is divine. This is something very basic – otherwise massage can turn into something sexual, and that’s what has happened in the west: massage has become a cover-up for sexuality.

Massage is tremendously important, but it is a very delicate phenomenon. Either it can become spiritual or it can become sexual; it is just in the middle of both. And the difference is not much: just a little here, a little there, and it makes a lot of difference.

So if you think of the other, the massaged person, as a human being, it is bound to turn the energy towards sexuality. And people are so starved of sexuality, so starved of touch, so starved of relationship, that a small shaking of their energy and their sexuality becomes alive. Then massage still does something good to their body, makes their body more alive – sexuality is a life energy – but much more could have happened.

So make massage a prayer. Before you start massaging a person, bow down to him, feel that he is divine. For two minutes go into a inner space where you can feel the other is just a divine manifestation. And tell the other also to remember that the energy that is going to be showered on him is divine energy. Then you will be tremendously benefited and the person also will be tremendously benefited. A one-hour massage can give such a glimpse into spirituality.

[A sannyasin wants to start a centre in Canada, but she wonders if her interest in running a centre is just an ego-trip]

Don’t be worried! Don’t be worried, mm? I can use everything that you have: your ego, your greed, your ambition – I can use all!

... Something else is driving you there. You cannot understand it right now because right now it will look like ambition, like an ego trip. It is not that; you are misinterpreting something.

It comes to many sannyasins – the desire to go and share whatsoever they have glimpsed here, with people, friends, with strangers; and it is part of growth to share it. Here it is difficult to share. With whom to share? Everybody is bubbling with many things and everybody is enjoying his journey, his pilgrimage.

That’s why the desire comes to go to the West.and you are rooted there. That is your earth, that

is your climate, your people, and you have something that has to be finished there. You have taken so much from those people, from the earth, from the climate; you have to give something back, otherwise you always feel in debt. That’s the basic reason why many sannyasins feel like going some time. It is very good!

It is good for my work and for your growth too. And naturally there you will become very very alert about what has happened to you. Here, there is no background to it; there you will find the background. You will be so different from people; it will create a contrast, and you will be able to see what has really happened to you .

It is almost like writing with white chalk on a blackboard, mm? You can see clearly. You can write on a white wall also but you will not be able to see. It is written but you will not be able to see it.

Here it is just like a white wall – so many people moving in the same direction. There you will find yourself very alone and the whole society becomes a blackboard and you can see the contrast. It is good, a very grounding experience to become fully alert about what has happened to you. Down through the centuries masters have been sending their disciples into the world.

Then you can come back and the next coming will take you higher, to a different planet. Each going and each coming will prove a landmark.

And the idea to create a centre is exactly because of that – so that you can share with people. Sharing is so beautiful, it is such a blissful thing, that only foolish people don’t share, and they miss great joy. In fact to attain something is not so joyful as to share it. To keep a song in the heart is not so joyful as to sing it. Just to keep a dance in the mind and never dance it will become heavy, will become a torture, will become a nightmare. Unless you dance, you are not relieved of it.

If you can dance, then it is relieved and you are free to move higher – to a greater dance, to a higher song, to a new plane.

So go and jump headlong and start helping people. Don’t be worried about your ego or anything. Those have been your trips in the past, so that language you understand.

Whenever something comes you will interpret it through the past. You don’t know that there is a possibility to work without the ego; that’s why the interpretation. And that is natural, because all that you have done before has somehow or other been an ego trip. This is a new trip. Only by experiencing it long enough will you become aware that it is totally new, it has nothing to do with ego.

And in that way my presence, my remembrance, helps tremendously. So it is my work, it is not your work – you simply do it for Osho. If it succeeds, Osho succeeds; if it fails, Osho fails. Mm? don’t you come in... simply become a vehicle – then the ego will not get strengthened. So don’t be worried about that.

[A sannyasin says she feels something is wrong in the way she relates. She doesn’t commit herself easily but holds back, feeling that maybe it isn’t quite right for her. She says she would like to really go deep with someone but she is just not letting go.]

Mm mm. Don’t wait for the ‘quite right’ otherwise it never comes, and don’t wait for a very deep relationship, otherwise it never happens. It is as if a person just wants to be in the deepest point in the river, but you have to go from the shallow, you have to enter the shallow river first. You cannot just jump into the deepest – the deepest is far away.

So whatsoever is available, don’t miss it! By missing it again and again, you will miss the deeper points, the deeper possibilities. And each relationship is a step towards a higher relationship. That higher relationship may happen with the same person, it may happen with another person, that is not the point. You follow me? It may happen with the same person, it may happen with another person, but this relationship will help you to go into that.

[Osho repeats what he often says – to be committed not to an individual lover but to love itself. If you become committed to a person rather than to love, you lose track of and kill love. It doesn’t mean

that you have to change partners all the time – just don’t become attached to the one you’re with. Love can grow deeply with just one person but that depends on many things]

For example, the person may be capable only of a certain depth. Up to that depth it will be easy to flow in love with him; beyond that he will not be able to go with you. Mm? – then you have to move with deep gratitude to this person, because he made even this much available.

Each love helps... small loves, big loves, all helpand life consists of a thousand things. The day

you really fall deeply in love all your loves of the past will be involved in it – even small things: you were passing along a road and you saw a small boy standing there. He smiled, you smiled, and then you went on and nothing else happened. That too will be there when you fall in a deep love – that smile will be there, part of it, because it is part of you.

So don’t wait for the ‘quite right’, otherwise it never comes. Take hold of any opportunity that comes by, and use it. Maybe this person can growyour love may help him to go deeper. Together you

may be able to go very very far – go as far as possible.

And remember that the person is not the point! Mm? – then when you find that the relationship has become stuck and stale, you can move; it was not a commitment at all!

The ultimate commitment is towards love, and everything has to be used as a jumping board for it. This idea – that it is not quite right or maybe it is not going to be that deep – is dangerous! The energy that has been released in you, if it is not used, will become stuck; sooner or later it will disappear. Energy not used disappears; energy used, grows, becomes bigger and bigger.

The group has been really good for you – I can feel it. Just flow with this energy and don’t be a miser, mm? Good!

[A forty-eight-year-old sannyasin says he still has a sexual block which he experiences as an unwillingness to say what he really wants when he is with a woman. He has noticed too, that his sexuality seems to be on the decline]

That time is the time, mm? Somewhere near around forty-nine there comes a menopausefor men

too, not only for women. The man’s menopause is very subtle but it is there – now even scientific research says so. This has been a known fact for tantra.because basically the man’s chemistry

and the woman’s chemistry cannot be that different – it is different but it cannot be that different.

When a woman becomes sexually mature around twelve, thirteen, fourteen, a man becomes mature around the same time. Then it will be very unfair that the woman has a menopause around forty-nine and that man has no menopause; that will simply prove that god is also a male chauvinist! (laughter) That is unfair and that is not possible.

There is a difference – that’s why it has never been detected up to now – but within these ten years much research has been there and they have come to feel that there is a menopause. Just as the woman has the monthly periods after each twenty-eight days, a man has too. For these three, four days the woman goes into a depressive state, into a negative state – so does a man. But because the woman’s blood is visible there is no need to prove it and she knows that the period has come and

that the depression and the negativity and everything arises; she becomes very very dark, dismal, inside.

Man’s release is not that visible, but certain energy is released each month; for three, four days, man also becomes a victim of depression, negativity. If you keep a record for a few months you will be able to see that exactly after twenty-eight days you again become negative for three, four days... out of the blue, for no reason at all. Just keep a small diary and it will become clear to you.And it

happens around forty-nine. So that menopause is coming closer – nothing to be worried about; it is natural.

Sexual energies decline but with the decline of sexual energies, spiritual energies can increase. If one takes a right step then the declining energy of sexuality can become rising energies of spirituality – because it is the same energy that can move upwards and when sex interest becomes lessened, there is more possibility of uplifting the energies.

So don’t take it in a negative way – it can prove a great blessing; just accept it. And there is no need to work upon it, just accept it. Let it be so and don’t think in terms of blocks – now, that will be wrong.

If a young man of twenty or twenty-five feels a decline in sexual energy then there is a block, something has to be done. If a man after forty-nine does not feel a sexual decline then something is wrong, something has to be done. That means he is not moving upwards – he is stuck!

And in the West it has become a problem, because in the west sex seems to be the only life. So the moment sexual energy starts declining a man almost feels he is dying. In the east we feel very happy when the sexual energy declines, tremendously happy, because one is finished with that turmoil and that nightmare.

Nothing to be worried about – there is no block there. Within one year things will settle and you will come onto a higher plane: you will be able to see life in a different light and in a different colour. Men will not be so much like men and women will not be so much like women. There will be more human beings in the world rather than men and women.and that is a totally different world – of

human beings. In fact to look at a woman as woman, at a man as man, is not right, but sex creates that division. When sex is no more a dividing force, you see human beings.

[A sannyasin expresses concern about being a sannyasin in the West. She works in a personnel at a university. Osho says that is good work, and love is needed more than expertise]

The therapist, the counsellor, has to love the patients so deeply, so totally, that in his love something starts in the patient. Under that impact of love he also can see the problems in their true perspective.

Problems are not really problems: the only problem is that people have become blind. They live with the problems for years and they can’t see it.

Expertise can help you to dissect the problem, to analyse the problem, to go to its roots, to its causes, implications, and you can make the person intellectually understand, but that is not going to help really. It may make the person a little more adjusted but nothing much else. The problem will start asserting itself from somewhere else. It will find some new way to surface, in a new name it will continue, because the man has not really attained to insight.

If you attain to insight then solving one problem is solving all problems, because then you always have that insight with you: you can focus that insight on any problem and it starts disappearing.

By becoming a sannyasin you naturally become more loving. My sannyas is sannyas into love, initiation into love... and with love you can see the problem of the other person.

So don’t sit there like an inhuman expert: come closer, more personally to the person, because his problems are your problems – they are everybody’s problems, they are human problems. There is not a single problem which cannot be your problem, and you cannot have any problem which cannot be anybody else’s problem... we share.

So don’t let the patient feel that it is his problem and he has come to a computer, an expert. Let him feel he has come to a human being – as frail, as limited, as prone to mistakes as he himself. Then an understanding arises, the person starts opening, and in the light of your love and care, he can start seeing something which he was not able to see before.

Help people to attain a loving insight into their lives, help people to love themselves, and problems will start disappearing: They have been taught to hate themselves, they have been taught condemnation and nothing else, hence so many problems. Help them to accept themselves, help them not to be perfectionists. That’s how millions of problems arise.…

The perfectionistic mind is a neurotic mind. The perfectionist hankers for the impossible, so he always falls short. He cannot reach the goal, he is frustrated; then he starts thinking that something is wrong. He asks the impossible – it cannot happen by its very nature. Then he feels he has some defects. He loses self-confidence, and then small problems look like big problems; he cannot tackle them, he becomes nervous. He starts avoiding the problems, he goes on putting them aside. He hopes time will do something, and it never does anything.

The problems put aside become bigger and bigger; as time passes they become more bigger and more rooted. Perhaps if they were tackled in the very beginning they would not have been such a great nuisance. Later on they become very very difficult because they go deep into the blood; they start poisoning the whole system.

So bring people to love and accept themselves and tell them whatsoever they are is perfect... it is absolutely blissful the way they are! Once this feeling arises in a person – that he is absolutely okay – ninety-nine percent of problems have disappeared, and only one problem remains, and that problem nobody can dissolve. That problem is something which is existential – that is the problem of ‘Who am I?’ For that problem the person has to go into the deepest core of his being. Help people to meditate, talk about meditation, help them to become more aware of dynamic methods of meditation.

America has become alert about the passive methods of meditation. They cannot help much because america basically is an active country. Passive methods cannot help america – they may give a little solace, consolation, but finally they will prove to be like tranquillisers, nothing more. Only very very active and creative methods can be helpful. And tensions have not to be dissolved; tensions have to be transformed.

If a person simply dissolves tensions he will become uncreative. That’s what happens through ‘TM’ and other methods. They talk about it being very creative – it is just nonsense: it cannot be creative! Take away tension, then who bothers about creativity? The person becomes relaxed, but with relaxation he becomes detached too; with relaxation he starts looking at life as useless, meaningless. Tensions have to be transformed, tensions have to be used in a creative way so that they don’t destroy you – rather they create something.

India has suffered very much from these methods, in-active methods of meditation. The whole poverty of this country is because of these methods. For thousands of years we have been just drowning in ourselves, not thinking of anything else – not thinking of the society, not thinking of better roads, not thinking of better housing, not thinking of better food, not thinking of better hygiene – nothing! If a person can just close his eyes and be silent, we think enough is achieved.

Yes, this person will not go mad, that is certain, but just not going mad is not enough. It is not a qualification that you are not mad, that you sleep well, that you are not very tense. Good, but nothing to brag about.

Something creative should be born out of your silence. So my emphasis is basically on active methods. Silence should come but through activity, creativity – through painting, dance, music... it should remain continuously joined with action so it does not annihilate action; on the contrary it enhances it.

So help people – your work is beautiful! Wherever people come in contact with people it is a beautiful work. When people work only with tools, mechanical tools, it is not very happy work because if you work too long with machines you become... you tend to become a machine. If you work with people you remain alive.

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