2 Nowhere and everywhere

‌CHAPTER 2

Nowhere and everywhere

20 March 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Question 1 BELOVED OSHO,

AT THE AGE OF SIXTEEN I LEFT MY BODY AFTER A CAR ACCIDENT. WHEN I SAW THAT THE PEOPLE I LOVED COULD NOT SEE OR UNDERSTAND MY HAPPINESS, I ENTERED MY BODY, IN A STATE OF SHOCK, AND STAYED UNCONSCIOUS FOR TWO MONTHS.

FOR A FEW WEEKS I HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCING A VERY SIMILAR STATE OF BEING IN MY MEDITATION, AND SITTING IN FRONT OF YOU. IT FEELS SO SIMPLE AND ORDINARY, AS IF MY BODY IS BECOMING LIKE AIR.

AFTERWARDS, IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO COMMUNICATE WITH PEOPLE, AND I FEEL SO SEPARATE – AS IF I AM IN “NOWHERELAND.”

BELOVED MASTER, I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO GET OUT OF THIS HYPNOTIC STATE. AND IF IT WAS NOT FOR YOU, WHY DID I COME BACK THEN?

Dhyan Charyo, it is not a hypnotic state that you are in. It happens, but very rarely, that in something like a car accident suddenly your body and your consciousness become separate. Because this separation is not a result of your effort, it feels very weird. And you remained in coma for two months – that simply means the consciousness was making every effort to be related to the body in the old way, as it was before the accident. It took two months for it to be settled again in its home.

Here, during meditation you will feel sometimes the same experience happening. Meditation is intentional, not accidental. The whole effort is to separate the body from the consciousness, to stand aloof and away and to see one’s own body as an object, unidentified with you. That happened to you in the car accident; it happened in an accident for which you were not prepared. But the memory has remained imprinted in your unconscious, so when it starts happening in meditation – and it will start happening sooner to such a person who has experienced it – you will feel weird, a little worried and afraid.

But there is nothing to be worried about and nothing to be afraid of. That accident was a benediction to you, in disguise. It has shown you your immortality, although you have not understood it. But now through meditation you will be able to understand it clearly, consciously. It does not mean that you have to leave the body, you have to only see the point that the body is your home: you can go out, you can come in.

And it is absolutely beautiful once in a while to come out of the body and be part of this immense existence, to open your wings and fly across the sun. Not even the sun can burn your consciousness.

It is good; you have been fortunate. Very few people have been in this situation, that accidentally they have attained to a state which usually takes years to attain. But once you have attained it, it becomes very easy to slip back into it. In the beginning, you will be afraid. The fear will be whether you will be able to enter your body again or not.

Secondly, you will start feeling that this body is not you, so why care about it? You may become destructive towards the body, uncaring, unloving. That will be a mistake. This body is not you. Your house is not you. But that does not mean not to care about your home, not to beautify it, not to celebrate its warmth, its space. There is no need to be identified with it...

So remember: don’t think that you are living in a hypnotic state – others are living in a hypnotic state. The car accident has broken your hypnosis. It has suddenly opened the door which was closed and takes effort, and years, and perhaps lives to open it.

Secondly, don’t think that if you are out of the body, you are in a “nowhereland.” Never think in negative terms. Existence is a positive reality. Why say “nowhere”? Why not say you are everywhere? And not only say it – feel it also. Just a small change in a word, a small nuance and difference, and you will start enjoying it.

You are everywhere.

One day, you will understand that being nowhere or being everywhere are synonymous. But in the beginning, start with the positive. Ultimately, there is no positive, no negative, only one reality. There is no duality of any kind.

And you are asking, “And if it was not for you, why did I come back then?” It is for me. It is for my work; it is for my love, to spread my message to all the corners of the world, to every heart, the dance and the song which has been destroyed by centuries of exploiters, oppressors, enslavers in beautiful names.

Dhyan Charyo, remember the meaning of your name: it means someone whose life itself is meditation. Your coming back out of the coma certainly has significance. You are reborn, you are fresh and new, and you can understand things which would have been difficult for you in the past because once consciousness leaves the body, the so-called prejudiced mind is destroyed. Then consciousness can come back into the body but the mind remains empty. In the separation it has lost all its prejudices; you are no more Christian, you are no more Hindu, you are no more Buddhist. Again you are a child of this beautiful universe and you can start your life with a new vision, with a new clarity, with a new fragrance.

What has been happening has been beautiful. You should rejoice it.

Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,

QUITE OFTEN, IN YOUR MOST RECENT DISCOURSES, WHEN YOU ARE TELLING YOUR WILDEST AND DIRTIEST JOKES, I FIND MYSELF UNABLE TO LAUGH!

I FIND MYSELF REACTING. SOME OLD FEMINIST IS FREAKING OUT IN THE BACK OF MY MIND, SERIOUSLY NOTING DOWN THE “MALENESS” AND “COARSENESS” OF YOUR JOKES.

AM I JUST A REPRESSED ENGLISH PRUDE, OR ARE YOU UP TO SOMETHING HERE? BELOVED MASTER, PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IS GOING ON.

Premdipa, I have never told a single joke in my whole life. What are you talking about? I am a serious man!

Just look: I am saying I am a serious man and they are laughing! Am I telling a joke? Strange...

But a few things you have pointed out in your absurd question. Absurd, because I don’t tell jokes. Nobody has ever heard... I think everybody here can be a witness. Raise your hands... (EVERYONE DELIGHTEDLY COMPLIES WITH THE REQUEST.) Nobody has heard! Still, I will consider your question – against so many witnesses.

It is true – I am wild. But what I say is not the wildest. That I am keeping for my last moment; something beautiful, before I leave the body. And what do you call “dirtiest”? In life, there is nothing which makes you feel this way. But things have been repressed in you, and because of repression you have started feeling about these things that they are dirty.

Just ask a small boy, “Is anything dirty in your body?” And he will say, “I don’t know. I don’t see anything dirty. Everything is perfectly beautiful, healthy and functional.”

What you are calling the dirtiest jokes are those jokes which are condemned by your religions. Basically, because all the religions are against sex, anything that refers to sex becomes dirty.

It took thousands of years in the West for a Sigmund Freud to be born and to have courage to talk about sex openly. And he was condemned by all the so-called sophisticated and cultured and educated and powerful people as a dirty old man. Talking about something which should not be talked about.

But in the East, the situation is different. Not today – today the West has contaminated the East completely. There exists a beautiful book, almost ten thousand years old, KAMASUTRAS. It means ‘maxims on sex’; it is the oldest book on sexology. And the East has not condemned the man who wrote the book but has accepted him in the same category as Gautam Buddha: a seer, a man with clarity, a man with purity, a man of tremendous wisdom and understanding.

You will be surprised to know – and it is unfortunate – that Sigmund Freud, Jung or Adler never came to know about KAMASUTRAS; otherwise they would have felt that they were just beginners. The science had been almost completely developed ten thousand years before, by another man.

He describes eighty-four postures of making love – illustrated. You will be thinking: eighty-four? The West has known only one posture. When Christian missionaries came to the East, people were very much puzzled: “These people are strange. They are fixed only on one posture.” They called that posture “the missionary posture” because the first Christians who came were missionaries – the man on top. And the Eastern people thought that, “This is so brutal – the beast on top of the beauty, heavy, doing push-ups. He can do push-ups anywhere; why torture that woman?” And the woman is lying there almost in deep meditation; she does not even open her eyes because that is against culture. A woman, if she makes any movements while making love, is thought to be against culture.

I have heard that on a sea beach in France a man was caught making love to a dead woman. He was drunk. In the court he said, “Drunk or not drunk, I would have made love to that woman because I thought she was English! She was lying so ladylike, she did not make any movement. She did not even open her eyes. What more do you want? And I have not done any harm, just a few push-ups.”

Vatsyayana condemns that posture, and his condemnation is very scientific. It is still not accepted by sexologists, but they will have to accept it. The woman has to be on top, not the man. The man has to remain meditative, and the woman has to do every kind of thing that she wants to do. That is the only possibility for the man and woman both to attain to orgasm, because there is a disparity between man and woman: the man comes to ejaculation too soon. And there is no reverse gear; you cannot even say, “Stop! Stop!” Nothing will happen, nobody is going to listen to you. The marathon race has begun. The woman is very slow in warming up, and if she does some push-ups she may warm up. And if the man remains meditative, cool and calm, the marathon race can wait till the woman is ready and gives the signal: “Okay!” Only then can they have together an experience which is very close to meditation.

Vatsyayana’s insistence is that because of this orgasmic experience, the idea of meditation was born. Meditation is not preceded, it is succeeded by orgasmic experience. Because in orgasmic experience the mind stops, time stops; for a moment you are nowhere... or everywhere. That experience of being nowhere and everywhere is so pleasant that one wants to experience it independently, not to be dependent on the sexual partner. And one has the secret: that if mind stops and if time is forgotten – no past, no future, just this moment...

This moment is not part of time. And if there is no thought, suddenly a tremendous blissfulness – as if flowers have started showering over you.

And who is the idiot who calls a joke concerned with sex “dirty”? No joke is dirty. It has become dirty in your minds because your priests have been preaching against sex. Because sex became dirty, naturally anything concerned with sex has become dirty.

And, Premdipa, I feel sorry for you. It seems you have not known anything wild, that you have not screamed with joy and danced with joy. Go to Avirbhava, learn something about how to scream!

If two lovers really love, then the whole neighborhood is going to ring bells that it is happening, firecrackers – it has happened! But people have been taught to be silent, to make love deep in the night when everybody is asleep, when in fact the lovers are both half asleep! Cover yourself under the blanket, do it quick. Naturally, it becomes dirty.

It is not dirty. It is one of the nicest gifts of nature to living beings. It can trigger sources of higher consciousness in you.

I am really sorry, Premdipa. You should learn a few of the really wildest and dirtiest jokes. I don’t know any – just for your sake, I have been working hard to find out what joke is dirty. A few I have found...

But you say, “I find myself unable to laugh.” Are you frozen? So, wherever Premdipa is sitting... when you all laugh and you see somebody is not laughing, do everything – poke them. At least let her giggle, if she cannot laugh.

This is the house of laughter, it is not a church – that is the dirtiest word.

And Premdipa is saying, “I find myself reacting.” Wasting such a beautiful chance! The same energy that could have become laughter becomes reaction. And what do you gain by reaction? What is the ultimate fulfillment out of reaction? It makes you fascist, Nazi, fundamentalist Christian. You are on the way to hell, remember: doing the goose step!

I have heard that when I left... I would not have left if I had known beforehand that Niskriya was going to do the goose step. He did it perfectly, although he did it wrongly. He is not a Nazi.

And I have received dozens of letters – all from Germans. They can be divided into three parts. First, most of them are very jealous: “You are making Niskriya a hero.” I am not making Niskriya a hero, he is a born hero. Heroes are not made.

The second part reacted like Premdipa – greatly – “This is not right. This hurts our German pride.” I have never thought that in my people there are also hiding a few German fascists. It is perfectly good that you have become aware that you are carrying still that stupid idea that you are a German.

I don’t mean that only Germans are stupid. Anybody who is carrying the idea that “I am Indian, I am Iranian, I am Japanese”... these are all stupid people. An intelligent person knows only that “I am a human being.” And the third part was angry because Niskriya did it, and did it with intensity

and perfectionism, but did it all wrong! They were angry that “This is a caricature of the German heritage.”

You cannot drop your prejudices, you cannot drop your conditionings – even here. Just do it rightly! Otherwise I will again receive letters that people laugh, but they don’t laugh perfectly. And find out where Premdipa is frozen. Unfreeze her! And I will see about Niskriya later on.

And she is making such great statements: “Some old feminist is freaking out in the back of my mind.” So? It is perfectly good that you have become aware that some old feminist is living in the back of your mind – let it freak out!

My purpose is to give you the opportunity. If you don’t use it, you miss something which you may not find again.

She is saying – “seriously”! – “noting down the ‘maleness’ and ‘coarseness’ of your jokes. Am I just a repressed English prude or are you up to something here?” You are certainly a repressed English prude, and I am also up to something here. Otherwise, why should I be here?

Premdipa, don’t miss the opportunity this time. I have tried hard, because every joke seems to me so beautiful and has such a psychological significance, a profound philosophy behind it, that I was unable to find something dirty – seriously – for you. But I have made the effort. Whether I have succeeded or not... your laughter will prove it.

On the first day of school, the new teacher says to her class, “All right, children. I want you to know that I have a very difficult name, and so I am going to spell it out for you. Tomorrow, if any of you can remember how to spell it right, I will give you a bag of candy. My name is Miss Prussy. Spelled: P-r-u-s-s-y.”

Little Guiseppe, who has just arrived in America from Italy, really wants to do well in his new school. That night, he goes home repeating over and over: “Prussy – Miss Prussy.”

Guiseppe’s older brother hears him and asks what he is doing. Guiseppe explains and his brother says with a grin, “That’s easy to remember. Just think of ‘pussy’ with an ‘r’.”

The next day in class, Guiseppe is anxiously waiting to be called on. As the teacher walks in, she sees Guiseppe waving his hand.

“Okay, Guiseppe,” she says, “do you remember what my name is?”

In a sudden panic, Guiseppe tries to think of what his brother told him and stutters, “It is... mmh, ah... it is Miss CRUNT!”

And you call it dirty? Find out if anybody is frozen. Niskriya, just look all around. Do you see anybody Niskriya? No? Let us try again.

Little Ernie goes up to his father after school one day. “Dad,” says Ernie, “the teacher started talking about economics today and I don’t understand a thing.”

“Well,” says his father thinking for a moment. “Put it this way: In this household, I bring in the money, so I am capital. Your mom does the housekeeping; that is management. The maid does the work – she is labor. And your baby brother, well, he is the future.”

Little Ernie wakes up in the middle of the night when his baby brother screams to have his diaper changed. Ernie goes to his parents’ room to find his mother fast asleep. He then goes to the maid’s room to find his father making love to the maid. So he changes the diaper himself. As he gets back into bed, little Ernie reflects, “Now, I understand economics. Management is asleep, capital is screwing labor and the future stinks.”

Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,

LAST TIME I LEFT POONA TO GO WEST, YOU TOLD ME “HELP MY PEOPLE THERE.” I’M GOING TO THE WEST NOW, IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT THE LAST TIME I DIDN’T HELP YOUR PEOPLE THERE.

WHEN I CAME HERE FOURTEEN MONTHS AGO, I PROMISED MYSELF THAT I WOULD NEVER LEAVE YOU BEFORE I DIE. NOW HERE I AM WITH MY GREASY SUITCASE POINTED TO ITALY, AND STILL I DON’T KNOW WHO YOUR PEOPLE THERE ARE, NOR HOW I CAN HELP THEM.

BELOVED MASTER, I REALLY DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY TO YOUR PEOPLE IN ITALY. DO YOU THINK A SMILE WILL DO? I WOULD LIKE TO BRING WITH ME A LITTLE TASTE OF THIS SILENCE.

CAN YOU HELP ME?

Sarjano, you still think you are alive? According to your promise, you died long ago!

But there are many dead people going here and there. And you are telling me that last time when you went, you did not help my people there. You are a very compassionate man!

Last time at least you were alive. This time, please don’t help anybody. The best will be for you first to clean your greasy suitcase. And what is the need to go to Italy? The whole of Italy is coming here! I don’t understand at all. If you want to help Italians, you will find more Italians here than you will find in Italy.

Just the other day somebody told me that Lufthansa, the airline, announced while passing over Poona towards Australia that “We are passing over the house of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.” Now this is unprecedented, this new announcement. You pass over the Kremlin or the White House or the Taj Mahal... but to announce a poor man’s house, who has nothing but a few dirty jokes to tell you...

And where are you going? If you have decided already and you are not going to change your mind, then I will tell you a few jokes. Tell my people. The problem is how to decide who my people are. There are different kinds of my people: a few are my friends and most of them are my enemies. So whoever you help, you are helping my people. I have simply two categories – right, Niskriya?

The God Thor is getting bored sitting around Valhalla drinking mead all the time, so he comes down to earth for some fun. He meets Gorgeous Gloria in Las Vegas and they soon go to bed together.

They stay there for three days and three nights in a row. On the fourth morning as he is leaving, he decides to tell Gloria how she has been honored.

“My dear,” he announces, “I am Thor.”

“You are Thor,” says Gloria, “I am thore, too – I can’t even pith!”

Sarjano, you won’t last in Italy long. You will be coming back on the next plane, you won’t have much time. So I will give you one more joke to keep as a spare.

After ten years in the army, the men are sent for a medical check. The soldiers strip off their clothes and enter the doctor’s office one by one.

The doctor puts his stethoscope on the first man’s chest and says, “Sophia Loren.” The man’s heart beats quickly – “Boom! Boom! Boom!”

“Raquel Welch,” says the doctor – “Boom! Boom! Boom!” “Your wife,” says the doctor – “boom.”

“Perfectly normal,” announces the doctor. “Go and stand over there.”

The next man is examined in the same way. “Marilyn Monroe,” says the doctor – “Boom! Boom! Boom!”

“Your wife” – complete silence.

“Good,” says the doctor, “go and stand with the other man.” The next man comes for the examination.

“Sophia Loren,” says the doctor – “boom... boom... boom...” “Brigitte Bardot,” tries the doctor – “boom... boom... boom...” “Your wife,” says the doctor – “... boom.”

“Strange,” says the doctor, “but still you are quite normal. Anyway, go and stand with the other men.” – “Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!”

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

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