It is like the moon in the sky on a full moon night. There are millions of rivers and reservoirs and oceans and small streams and small puddles on the road — they will all reflect God, they will all reflect the moon. A small puddle will reflect the moon in its own way and the big ocean will reflect it in its own way.

Then there is great controversy. Hindus say something, Mohammedans say something else, Christians say something else again — and so on, so forth. The controversy is foolish. The conflict is meaningless. God is reflected in millions of ways, in millions of mirrors. Each mirror reflects in its own way. This is one of the fundamentals to be understood. Not understanding this fundamental there is naturally antagonism between religions, because they all think, ‘If our standpoint is right then the other has to be wrong.’ Their rightness depends on the other’s wrongness. This is stupid. God is infinite, and you can look at him through many ways, through many windows. And naturally you can look at him only through yourself — you will be the window. Your God will reflect God as much as it will reflect you; you will both be there.

When Mansoor says something, he is saying something about himself. This tremendously beautiful statement — ‘THEN THE UNION… THEN THE FUSION’ — is much more about al-Hillaj Mansoor than about God. This is Mansoor’s God. This is Mansoor’s unique experience.

Mansoor was murdered, crucified, like Jesus. Mohammedans could not understand him. This happens always. You cannot understand any point higher than your own. It becomes a danger to you. If you accept it, then you accept that there is some possibility which is higher than you. That hurts the ego, that humiliates. You would like to destroy a Mansoor or a Christ or a Socrates just for a single reason: that you cannot conceive, you cannot concede, that there is a possibility of some higher standpoint than yours. You seem to believe that you are the last thing in existence; that you are the paradigm, that you are the climax, that there is no beyond. This is the attitude of the stupid and the irreligious mind. The religious mind is always open. The religious mind is never confined by its own limitations. It keeps remembering that there is no end to growth; one can go on growing.

It is said in the Bible that God created man in his own image. This is a human statement; it says nothing about God. It simply says something about man. It is man writing about himself. Naturally man thinks in terms which are anthropomorphic. Man thinks in terms of man being the centre of existence. God created man in his own image. He has to… at least in human scriptures he has to follow the human mind and the human ego.

Just the contrary is the case. Man has created God in his own image. Man’s God is a human God. You can see. You can go into the temples and you can see the images of God. They are made in the form of human beings — a little better, more beautiful. but still a modification, a decoration of the human body. They have human eyes with a little more compassion. Just a little more is added. The ideal human being, that’s what our Gods are.

When Nietzsche declared that God was dead. he was, in fact. not saying anything against God himself. He was simply saying that the God that we have followed up to now is no Longer applicable because man has grown up. The God that we have been following up to now was a childish, juvenile God. Humanity was juvenile. Somebody worshipping a stone as God is saying a very, very primitive thing. His statement is very primitive, pagan. Somebody worshipping an idol is a little better, but still limited. All forms are limited. Somebody worshipping a tree… a little more alive because the tree has a kind of vitality. God is vital; the tree participates in god so it is vital. God is green and fresh and so is the tree; and God blooms and the tree blooms. There is an at-oneness.

But a tree is a tree. It may be a faraway reflection of the divine, but to worship the tree as God is ignorant. Somebody worshipping a river may be right in his own way — because the river also expresses the divine, everything expresses him — but everything expresses him in a limited way. He is all. So no single thing can express him in his totality. How can a single thing express him in his totality? If you worship the tree, what about the river? If you worship the river, what about the sun? If you worship the sun, what about the moon? You are worshipping only one thing — and because it is limited and one, it cannot represent all.

When Nietzsche said ‘God is dead’, he was saying that all formulations of God up to now have become irrelevant. Man has gone beyond them; man has become more mature. Man needs new Gods every time. As man becomes more mature he needs a more mature God. Look in the Old Testament. God is ferocious, very jealous. God declares, ‘I am a very jealous God. If you worship somebody else I will be your enemy. I will torture you in hell. I will throw you into fire.’ This seems to be a very primitive God; seems to be conceived of by a Genghis Khan — not very cultured, not very sophisticated yet.

The Hindu God is far more sophisticated. Krishna with his flute is far more cultured. But Buddha reaches to the very peak because he drops the idea of God. He talks about godliness. The very word ‘God’ makes God like a thing: defined, clear-cut, solid, concrete, like a rock. Buddha drops the very idea. He says, ‘There is godliness but there is no God. There is divineness. Existence is full of divineness, BHAGWATA, but there is no God like a person sitting there on a golden throne controlling, managing, creating. No, there is no God as a person. The whole existence is full of divinity, that is true. It is overflowing with godliness.’

Now this is a far higher concept. we drop the limitations of a person. We make god more like a process. The ancient concept says that God created the world, he was the creator. Buddha does not agree. He says, ‘God is creativity, not a creator.’ God is one with his creativity. So whenever you are creating something you participate in God.

When a painter is lost in his painting, when he is completely absorbed in his painting, he is no longer an ordinary painter. He is divine in that moment of absorption. THEN THE UNION… THEN THE FUSION.

A dancer lost utterly in his dance is a human no more; hence the beauty, hence the utter beauty. Even those who are just spectators, even they start feeling something strange, incredible, fantastic, happening.

It happened that for nine years before al-Hillaj Mansoor was crucified he was confined in a jail. And he was tremendously happy because he used those nine years for constant meditation. Outside there were always disturbances, distractions — friends, followers, the society, the world, the worries. He was very happy. The day he was put into jail he thanked God from his very heart. He said, ‘You love me so much. Now you have given me complete protection from the world and there is nothing left except you and me.’ THEN THE UNION… THEN THE FUSION.

Those nine years were of tremendous absorption. And after those nine years it was decided that he had to be crucified, because he had not changed a bit. On the contrary, he had gone farther in the same direction. His direction was that he started declaring, ‘I am God — AN-EL-HAQ! I am the truth, I am the reality.’

His Master, al-Junaid, tried to persuade him in many ways — ‘Don’t say these things! Keep them inside you, because the people won’t understand it and you will be getting into trouble unnecessarily!’

But it was beyond Mansoor. Whenever he was in that state — what Sufis call HAL — whenever he was in that state, he would start singing and dancing. And those utterances would simply overflow; it was not possible for him to control them. There was nobody to control; all control was lost. Junaid understood his state, but he knew the state of the people too — that sooner or later Mansoor would be thought to be anti-religious. His declaration, ‘I am God,’ was a fact, his experience was there behind it, but people didn’t understand it. They would take it as arrogance, as ego, and there would be trouble. And the trouble came.

After nine years they decided that he had not changed a bit; in fact he had grown deeper into it. Now he was continuously declaring, ‘AN-EL-HAQ! I am the truth! I am God!’ So finally they decided that he had to be crucified.

When they went to take him out from his prison cell, it was very difficult — because he was in a HAL, in that mystic state. He was no longer a person, he was just pure energy. How to drag pure energy out? The people who went there were just struck dumb! What was happening in that dark cell was so fantastic! It was so luminous. Mansoor was surrounded by an aura not of this world. Mansoor was not there as a person. Sufis have TWO words for it: one is BAKA, another is FANA. BAKA means you are defined by a personality, you have a definition around you, you have a demarcation line that this is you. FANA means that you are dissolved into God and you don’t have any definition. BAKA IS like an ice cube and FANA is like the ice cube which has melted and become one with the river.
Source: Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter 3 – Here, Now, This…

Language is not capable of saying anything about a non-dual reality. Whatsoever is said in language is bound to be dual. And when you are with me neither you are nor I am. Whenever you are really YOUR BEING you are a nobody, a vast emptiness a whole sky with no boundaries. And then you are not only with yourself you are with the trees, with the clouds, with the mountains, with the sands and with the seas… when you are with yourself you become the whole.

That is the meaning of the Socratic insistence: Know thyself. If you can know yourself you have know all that can be known — or that which is worth knowing. If you miss yourself you can know much, but all that knowledge is just rubbish. It may hide your ignorance, it cannot dispel it. It may make you knowledgeable but it will not make you understanding, it will not open the inner eye of knowing. You will remain a head person, top heavy, in deep anguish and anxiety.

If you want to be with me, to be with me is not the way. If you want to be with me, to be with yourself is the way. And that is the insistence of all the Buddhas: Know thyself and you will know me, because in knowing yourself you have known all.

But if you try to be with me you will create a duality, and a conflict. Then being with me will become a new sort of attachment. That won’t help you, that will really harm you and hinder you. Then I will not be helping you towards transcendence. Rather on the contrary I will become a rock hanging around your neck. You will not achieve through me then, you will be drowned.

But I will not be at fault; that will be your own fault. That has happened to millions of people all over the earth in all the centuries. A Jesus comes and people start being attached to him. The whole point is lost. A Buddha comes and people start their journey to know the Buddha and they become so much obsessed with it that they forget that their own Buddha is just inside themselves. He is not outside.

And the way to know the outside Buddha is to know the inside Buddha. When you are completely within yourself you have known all Christs, all Buddhas, all the Masters that have ever existed, and also all those which will ever exist, because you become one with the whole. Knowing oneself one knows the whole.

The temptation is strong to be attached to a Master, to cling to a Master, to become a shadow; but that won’t help, that will be suicidal.

Don’t cling to me, I am here to make you free. I am here to help you to be completely, authentically yourself.

If you have accepted me as your Master then you have to understand what I am saying. If you have accepted me as your Master then the only way for you is to know yourself.

Forget about me, move withinwards. One day when you will be standing in your own total glory, in the magnificence of your inner being, in the inner light — there you wi]l find me. Not as a separate being, not as an object, but as the very innermost core of your own self.

It is reported: Buddha was dying, and Anand started weeping and crying — his oldest disciple, and the most clinging one; for forty years he had been with Buddha and he had not attained, he had not realized himself yet; he loved Buddha too much. If you love too much… remember always, anything that is too much becomes part of the mind; only balance is transcending mind; anything that is too much becomes part of the mind; He loved Buddha too much, the love was not a freedom, it had become a bondage — anything of the too much is a bondage — and now that Buddha is dying his whole life is ruined. Anand cries and weeps like a small child whose mother is dying.

And Buddha stops him and says: What, Anand, are you doing? He looks at Buddha with tear-filled eyes and says: Now where will I see you? Where will I seek you? And Buddha laughed and he said: That has been my whole teaching! For forty years that is what I have been telling you, that whenever you want to see me, look within! APPA DEEPO BHAVA; be a light unto yourself. THERE, inside you, you will find me.

If you cling to the outside, it may be a Buddha, a Jesus, but you cling to the world, because the outside is the world. You own innermost interior is the transcendental.

Move withinwards and you come closer to me. Come closer to me and you go far from yourself. Try to understand this paradox: If you try to come closer to me you will go further from yourself, and how can you come close to me if you are going further from yourself? Come closer to yourself and you come closer to me, because how is the otherwise possible?

Source: Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 4

Don’t get caught by the fingers — that’s what happens. And that is one of the revolutions Zen brings to the world. Zen burns scriptures — that is helping you to uncling from the fingers.

If I show you the moon, and indicate the moon with my finger, don’t get attached to my finger — my finger is not the moon. And if you become too much obsessed with the finger you will miss the moon. To see the moon you will have to forget the finger; to see the moon you will have to completely drop the finger. You will have to take the indication and follow the indication — in that very following, the finger is forgotten. The finger does not matter. It may be a beautiful finger, the hand may be that of a great artist. It may be an ugly finger, it may be ill, it may be healthy, it may be black and white, it may be male, female — that doesn’t matter.

The qualities of the finger do not matter; any finger can point towards the moon. But people have got too much attached to the fingers. Jainas are holding the finger of Mahavir — they worship that finger, they have forgotten the moon. And Buddhists are worshipping the finger of Buddha.

Exactly, there is a temple in Japan where Buddha’s statue is not in the shrine but a finger, a marble finger, pointing somewhere into the unknown. Those who made that temple must have been very perceptive; but you don’t know people — people are worshipping that finger. They go and put their flowers there and bow down. Nobody is bothered where the finger is pointing at.

Christians are holding another finger. And they go on arguing with each other — ‘Whose finger is more beautiful? Is Jesus the greatest man? Or is Buddha the greatest man? Or is Krishna or Mohammed the greatest man?’ What are you talking about? All nonsense! You are talking about the fingers, but fingers are not at all relevant. Any finger can point to the moon. And all fingers that point to the moon are alike — in pointing to the moon they are similar; all other attributes are meaningless.

Buddha speaks one language, Jesus speaks another, Mohammed still another. That doesn’t matter. For a man who is perceptive the indication is enough. The man of perception will move towards the moon and forget all fingers. And the moment you move towards the moon, suddenly you realize all the fingers are pointing to the same goal.

So Zen is a finger raised in silence towards the moon. That’s the way of all basic essential religion. Why is language so impotent? Why can’t the truth be said? A few things have to be understood before we enter into this small anecdote.

Language simply misses it — for certain reasons in the very structure of language itself. First, language is utilitarian. It is good, as far as the world of utility is concerned. You go to the market to purchase something, language is needed — it makes things easier. Language is a lubricant, it helps communication — but only in the utilitarian world.

The moment you start moving towards existence… Existence has no utility, it is not something that you can buy or sell. Existence is non-utilitarian, existence is purposeless. Existence has to be observed with a deep silence in your eyes.

If you go to the marketplace and remain silent there, it will be very embarrassing to you and to others too. If you go to the police-station and they ask, ‘What is your name 1′ and you behave in a Zen way, you will be thought mad, crazy, cunning. Silence won’t be understood in a police-station. And if you go and just stand in front of a shop without saying anything, the shopkeeper will not be able to understand your silence either.

In the ordinary world, language is needed — language has been invented for this ordinary world, this day-to-day world. But language is not for the eternal. There you don’t purchase anything. There you are not talking to anybody in particular, you are simply in communion with existence itself. There is no need to talk; words are not needed at all. This is the first thing to be understood: language has certain utilities, and because of those utilities has certain limitations.

Existence does not understand your language. Language is human, existence is FAR wider — it is not confined to the human.

Just the other night, I was reading a book of a Russian existentialist, Nikolai Berdyaev. He is an existentialist, he comes very close to the Zen standpoint — but just close; he does not penetrate it totally. He says that in the old days mystics used to think that knowledge is divine. He feels that is inadequate, because knowledge, to be knowledge of the ultimate and the total, must be human too. Otherwise the human should be excluded from it. So how can knowledge be only divine? It should be human-divine — man should be included in it.

That’s true — but there he stops. Why not include animals too? Why not include trees too? Why not include minerals too? They also exist; they cannot be excluded. Berdyaev says that knowledge, to be total, should be human-divine. I will say it should be mineral, vegetable, animal, human, divine — PLUS. If something is left, that has to be included in it too.

But language is human. No animal understands your language, trees don’t bother about your language, rocks won’t listen to your language — won’t understand either. Even all human beings don’t understand one language; there are thousands of languages on this small planet. So language is a human invention, very local. Existence is very big, huge; we are just small particles in it. This, our earth, is a very very small planet. Very small. Even our sun is a very small mediocre star. Bigger suns exist. Infinity surrounds us; we should not be very provincial.

That’s what Zen means when it says language cannot express the truth. Language is a very provincial thing, local — an invention of humanity. If humanity disappears, all languages will disappear. Existence will continue. Existence was there before man entered, existence will be there if a third world war happens and man disappears and commits suicide. Trees will go on blooming, spring will come, flowers will bloom, birds will sing. The moon will be in the night, the sun will be in the morning. Nobody is going to miss you, remember; things will all be as they are. Man is so small….

But because we live in a human world, we live with people, we start thinking as if man is all. So language becomes very important. This you can watch. Have you ever seen Zen pictures? — you will see it in Zen pictures too. When people look at a Zen painting they are always surprised, and a little restless, because they cannot see the point of it. If you see a Zen painting, the whole painting is not painted; the canvas is left empty — almost ninety percent empty. Just in a small corner below, there is a small painting. In that painting also, there are huge mountains, big trees, rivers — and man is very tiny like an ant. A small boat, and just a dot-like man is sitting there.

Our language cannot express the whole. But our silence can — because when we are silent we fall in tune with existence. Hence, all religions preach for silence. When you are silent you are not a human being — you are as much a rock as a human being, as much a tree as a human being, as much an animal as a human being, as much a cloud. When you are silent you are in tune with existence. When you are not speaking you are no more part of the human province, the small locality of human beings. You become a member of the vast existence.

Silence is tremendous. Truth is known through silence. And when truth is known through silence, it can be expressed only through silence. If it is known through silence, how can it be expressed through noise? Language is noise. If it is known through silence, it has to be indicated in silence.

Language simply misses it. First, truth is so big, and language is so small. And then — it will look very paradoxical — truth is so subtle, and language is so gross. From both sides, language misses it. On one side, truth is so big and language is so small. On another plane, from another side, truth is so subtle and language is so gross. It is as if you throw a net in the river to catch fish. The fish is caught, but the water is not caught. When you withdraw the net you may get a few fish, but you don’t get water — water escapes. Water is more subtle. Your net cannot catch water, it catches fish; the bigger the better — smaller fish will escape out of it. And water is very very liquid and elusive — it escapes.

So, paradoxically, truth is infinite on one hand. On another hand, truth is subtlest, the smallest — the indivisible, the atomic. Again, language misses it. Language is a human invention. And truth is not a human invention. Language is man-made; language is just convenience. It is all make-believe.

You call a flower ‘rose’, in India we call it ‘GULAB’. It does not matter. In six thousand languages, there are six thousand names for the rose. And the rose has no name; all names are inventions. You believe, it becomes a rose. You believe in another word, it becomes GULAB. But all words are just conveniences.

Truth is not a convenience. Convenience adjusts with you; with truth you have to adjust. Remember that difference. Con-venience is for your use; truth you cannot use. If you want to move with truth, you have to move with truth — truth cannot move with you.

There are two kinds of people in the world. One, who wants truth to follow him. This man will never attain to truth. He thinks that truth should follow him, truth should become his shadow. This man is more interested in his own ego than truth. When this man fights and says, ‘This is true,’ he is not interested in truth. He is really saying, ‘This is my truth — how DARE YOU say it is wrong! ‘

Watch it. If I say something against your truth you get angry. Not that you are getting angry because I am saying something against truth, no. It is YOUR truth; it hurts your ego. If something is said against YOUR truth, the hurt is in the ego — you don’t bother about truth. Who cares about truth? ‘My Christianity, my Hinduism, my Jainism, my Islam. My Koran, my Veda, my Gita, my Bible’ — they hurt. The ‘my’ has to be looked into. You may not say it, but when you say, ‘The Bible is true,’ one thing is understood — that ‘The Bible is my holy book.’ That is not said so clearly, there is no need. Ego moves in very very cunning ways — it never comes on the surface, it remains hiding behind.

When people argue, they are not arguing for truth. Truth needs no argument — because truth cannot be decided by any argument or any discussion. No debate can be decisive; it is meaningless. When you argue, you argue for egos — your truth and somebody else’s truth. Two egos are in conflict, you have to prove that you are right. Even if sometimes you have a glimpse that the other is saying the right thing, you cannot accept it. Many times it happens. You have a consciousness — many times a glimpse comes to you that maybe the other is right. But you cannot allow this, you cannot conceive of this — that will be very very bad for your ego. You have to fight for it.

I used to live in a town for a few years, and I had a neighbour — a very interesting man he was. He was a very very fanatic Hindu, and he would come and argue with me for hours. And I could see that he could see what I was saying, I could see that he had understood what I was saying — but still he would argue. Then one day I was surprised. He was talking to somebody else, and he was saying the things that I had been saying to him just that morning.

So I went into his house and I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He became very embarrassed. ‘Just this morning, you were against the thing that you are saying now.’ He was caught red-handed, he confessed. He said, ‘This happens every day. When I listen to you I want to agree, but my ego resists. I cannot say yes to you in front of you. But when I come home and I think over it, I find you are right. And you may be surprised, ‘ he said to me, ‘that I have been arguing for you with many people. But I cannot say that to you. But today you have caught me red-handed — now it will be difficult to argue with you.’

And really, since that day, the argument ceased. He still used to come — now he would silently listen. A great realization happened to him, and the man changed since that day. Since that day, he became REALLY a seeker of truth. Then he was no more bothered by his ego — ‘my belief’ was no more the concern.

What is true? What is truth? Wherever it is, the real seeker is ready to go with it. These are the two kinds of man — one wants truth to follow him, and another is courageous and is ready to go with truth, wherever it leads. He has no conditions, he simply goes wholeheartedly with it. And unless you are so wholeheartedly with truth, so straight with truth, you will not be able to attain it.

Language is a human invention. Truth is not an invention, truth is a discovery — a rediscovery. Truth is already there. The word ‘truth’ is not there, just like the word ‘rose’ is not there. The rose is there, the word ‘rose’ is not there. Fire is there, the word ‘fire’ is not there. God is there, the word ‘god’ is not there — but people go on fighting whether to call him God or Allah or Ram. He has no name; truth is nameless. No linguistic label is needed, or, any label will do. If you need a label, then any will do — Allah will do as much as Ram will do, as God will do. Any name will do. If you know it, that God has no name, truth has no name — if that understanding persists in you — then any name is okay. Fire is fire. By whatsoever name it is called makes no difference.

Truth is there; language we have made. Silence you have not made — that is the beauty of silence. Silence is God-given, language is man-made. If you want to know God you will have to go through the God-given, you will have to follow him through his gift. His gift has something in it — a bridge. Through that bridge you can become reconnected with the divine.

Silence is golden, silence is precious. A single moment of silence is far more valuable than hours of thinking, studying.

Because language is a human invention, it is naturally dualistic. The human mind cannot see both the aspects of reality together; the human mind can see only one aspect at one time. Even about a very small thing: if I give you a small pebble, a very small pebble, you can keep it in your palm but you cannot see the whole pebble at one glance. You will be seeing only one aspect. When you turn it you will see the other aspect, but the first aspect will disappear. You cannot see even a small pebble in its totality. Its totality is an inference — first you see one part, then you see another part, and then you imagine its totality.

Just now you are facing me. You are seeing my face, but you are not seeing my back. When you see my back you will not be seeing my face. You can see a coin, you see one aspect at one time. Something is always missing.

Existence is multi-dimensional, paradoxical. But language cannot be paradoxical. If language is paradoxical it will lose its utility. If somebody asks something and you say, ‘Yes-no,’ then it is meaningless to say anything. Either you say yes, then it is meaningful, or you say no, then it is meaningful. But existence says yes-no together. There, yes and no are not separate; yes and no are two aspects of the same energy. That’s why language is dualistic — it creates a kind of schizophrenia in human consciousness, it creates a split.

Sex Matters

Sex matters to us all. The Osho approach to sex begins with an understanding of how important love is in our lives, while at the same time acknowledges that the journey into love cannot exclude our innate biological energies. With this perspective, it becomes clear that the tendency for religions, and for society in general, to associate sex with sin and morality has been a great misfortune.

Sex Matters begins by deconstructing the layers of sexual repression that the condemnation of sex has inflicted on human. Throughout Sex Matters – in response to questions about everything from jealousy to premature ejaculation, the role of intimacy and the differences between men and women – Osho proposes a vision that embraces sex as a fundamental gift from nature. We learn how orgasm offers a glimpse of timelessness, thoughtlessness, and pure awareness — biology’s way of pointing toward the consciousness that helps us to understand ourselves.

Finally, we are presented with a clear choice: a repressed sexuality that leads to pornography, perversion, and a stunted humanity or a playful, respectful, and relaxed innocence that supports us in becoming fulfilled and whole, as nature intended.

http://astore.amazon.com/newmeditationcenter-20/detail/0312316305

By Osho

Emotions: Freedom from Anger, Jealousy & Fear

By Osho, Osho International Foundation

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Help in Understanding the Emotion:

Strong emotions that we don’t know how to handle effectively lie at the core of so many difficulties in the life of the individual. They can affect our relationships with loved ones, and how we function in our work. They play a profound role in how we feel about ourselves, and can even affect our physical health. And we are too often trapped in the dilemma of “expression” versus “repression.” Expressing our emotions can often hurt others, but by repressing them – even in the benevolent guise of “self-control” – we risk hurting ourselves.

Osho offers a third alternative, which is to understand the roots of our emotions and to develop the knack of watching them and learning from them as they arise, rather than being “taken over” by them. Eventually we find that even the most challenging and difficult situations no longer have the power to provoke us and cause us pain.

Osho’s unique insights goe far beyond the understandings of conventional psychology.
Includes video excerpts from OSHO Talks: – Nobody Teaches You About Hate
- If Somebody Creates Anger In You
- How Best to Deal With Fear
- Love and Hate Are One
- Life is a Very Mysterious Phenomenon

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The mind will always remain unsteady, because unsteadiness is its nature. If a wave does not move, it will cease to be a wave. It is called a wave because it is moving, because it remains in motion. What would a silent wave be? The existence of the wave is in its motion, in its restlessness.

Never hope for your mind to be quiet; it does not know how to be at peace. As long as the mind is there, there is certain to be restlessness. When the mind is no more, what remains is peace. The absence of mind is peace — to be in no-mind is peace.

The mind will always be shaky, will always remain indecisive. If you wait for a decision by the mind — if you think, “I shall do this when the mind decides” — you will never be able to do anything. To remain in indecision is the way of the mind. It will always remain divided, broken into parts. Some parts will be for something and other parts will be against it. Within the mind there is always a civil war, there is always an internal conflict, there is always a duel going on.

What is this duality? It is important to understand its roots.

In you there are three things, three factors. One is your body. Your body is a fact; it has a material existence. And then there is the flow of consciousness within you. That is your atma, your soul. That is also a fact. Between these two is the mind. The mind is not a fact; it is a false thing.

It is a little bit body and a little bit soul — it is a situation created between the two. It cannot be total, it is always divided, always with one side or the other. And so it remains partly with the body and partly with the soul. It is created by the union of these two, and so it can never be totally with the body.

The desire to be a saint, to be a holy person, is hidden in everyone; it is even hidden in the mind of the greatest sinner. Whenever you are going to do something terrible — even though you may have been doing it for lives — the mind will caution you not to. It will say, “Don’t do this. It is bad.” If the mind were only body, then nothing would be bad. At the body’s level nothing is good or bad; neither holy act nor sin can exist. In the case of the enlightened man both disappear, and for the ignorant man neither exists. For the ignorant man, there is no possibility of the existence of good or bad, and the enlightened man has reached a place where both of these are left far behind.

When you are at prayer or at worship the mind will ask, “Why are you wasting your time?” When you are going to steal something, when you are going to commit a theft, the mind will ask, “Why are you committing a sin?” When you are preparing to give something away in charity the mind will ask, “Why are you throwing your money away unnecessarily?” Then you are in a great fix trying to figure out what the mind wants.

The mind is like a bridge joining the two banks — the bank of the body and the bank of the soul. Half of the mind is on either side, and so there will always be a problem. If you follow the mind you will always be unsteady. Whatsoever you do, bad or good, the mind will repent it. Then you will fall into great difficulty and confusion; then you will be at a loss to know what to do.

When you are in good spirits you lean to one side, and when those good spirits have left you, you lean to the other. In between the two you are torn to pieces, just as a rock is reduced to dust between the stones of a gristmill.

Kabir has said:

BETWEEN TWO MILLSTONES

NONE REMAIN UNBROKEN.

These two stones are within you, and you are that gristmill.

Kabir says:

SEEING THE WHEEL TURNING,

KABIR BROKE INTO TEARS.

If you become a little alert you will be able to see this gristmill working within you; you will be able to see yourself going round and round. The mind joins the two millstones.

Because of the mind you think, “I am the body,” and because of the mind you also think, “I am the soul.” When the mind disappears, these mistaken notions that you are the body and that you are the soul disappear. They evaporate because the person who made these claims is no more. Only you, the soul, remains. Only your original nature remains; the claimant is gone. What will there be to say then? To whom will the soul speak when the body is not? That which is opposite to the body we call the soul. That is where the highest delight arises.

So the first thing to be understood is that the mind can never be whole, can never be total. The mind will always remain divided. And if you decide you need the mind’s approval before doing something you will never be able to do anything. You will never commit a sinful act or a holy deed, a religious act or an irreligious one, an act of sansara or an act of sannyas. You will not be able to do anything at all. The mind will always remain indecisive, perplexed.

During the second world war a very famous philosopher was recruited for military service because there was a shortage of soldiers. Enlistment was compulsory, and so he was recruited against his will. He was a great philosopher. He had spent his life thinking and thinking, he had never put anything into practice, he had simply thought and thought.

This world of thoughts is quite a different world, it is quite distinct. Philosophy is a kind of exercise that pleases the mind greatly, because you never do anything so there is never any question of repentance. If you simply think of sin, no harm is done because no one is hurt, and if you think about some act of merit there is no problem either, because no one is benefited. You simply sit and think. Something only happens when there is action involved; nothing happens just by thinking. Philosophers think a lot. They waste their lives thinking, and do absolutely nothing. You will not find them among the sinners, or among good people either. They just stand on the side of the road. They do not walk, they think. And they make no decisions.

This particular recruit was a very famous philosopher. The general under whose command he had been put also knew of him — he had read the philosopher’s books. The general thought, “What can this man do? Before he has to shoot he will think about it a thousand times. And the enemy won’t wait for him.”

His training began. The first time the order “Left turn” was given everyone turned accordingly, but the philosopher stood where he was. He was asked, “What are you doing?” He answered, “I can’t do anything without thinking it over first. When I hear ‘Left turn’ I ask myself, ‘Why? What is the reason? What harm is there if I don’t turn left? What is the advantage if I do?’”

If all soldiers were to ask such questions you can imagine what would happen, but because he was a very famous philosopher and because he could see no other way out, the general decided to give him a very small and unimportant job. He sent him to work in the kitchen.

On the very first day the philosopher was given a dish of peas and told to separate them, to put the big peas on one side and the small peas on the other. After an hour the general went to check on his work. He found the philosopher sitting in front of the dish with his eyes closed. The peas were untouched. He was thinking. The general asked, “What are you doing?” “A great problem has arisen,” he said. “If I put the big peas on one side and the small ones on the other, then where shall I put the medium-sized ones? It is not right to start anything until the whole thing has been settled.”

The mind is a great philosopher — it is unable to decide anything. Philosophers have never been able to decide anything.

Look at it in this way — knowledge that is associated with the body is science, knowledge that is associated with the mind is philosophy, and knowledge that is associated with consciousness is religion. Science has certainly accomplished some very substantial things; it has been able to do much in fact. Religion has also done a lot. Philosophy has not been able to do anything because philosophy is associated with the mind. Philosophers simply go on thinking, they simply go on finding arguments for and against. And there is no end to it. The chain is endless. That is why, even after thousands of years of thinking, philosophy has not yet reached a decision. Not one single decision has been made. There have been questions, thousands and thousands of questions, but not one single solution.

Do not bother about pleasing the mind — you will be wasting your life. Just set the mind aside. If you can do that, then your life will be meaningful. If you understand the mind correctly you will see that it is only a process, only a series of thoughts. No action is born out of the mind, it just thinks a lot. At times you mistakenly believe the mind has arrived at a particular decision. You go to a temple, for example, and you vow never to tell a lie from that moment on. And hiding in its dark corner the mind laughs at your vow, at your decision, because it is a decision made by half a mind, by a partial mind, and you have not consulted the other half. Then you go to the market or sit in your shop and begin your business. You enter the world of business and then that hidden part of your mind will induce you to lie.

Your vow is a challenge to the mind. You did not consult it before you made your resolution and your mind will not be still until it breaks it. You have taken many vows, and many times you have broken them. The only reason you keep doing this is that you take your vow after listening to the mind. The real vow is born when you give up the mind.

There are two kinds of vows. One is the kind you take following the dictates of the mind. You hear a sadhu or a saint and you like what he has to say. But who likes it? It is liked by the mind. The half of the mind near the soul is delighted to hear such talk, is enchanted by these words; it will become enraptured by them and will take a vow. This vow is taken, but you have not yet consulted the other half of the mind. Now the other half will take revenge. It will never pardon you, it will immediately start some game to make you break your vow.

Even in small matters, challenges play a great part in life. When a person decides not to smoke, for example, this becomes a challenge to the mind. If today you decide to fast, then the half portion of the mind that belongs to the body will decide to break your vow. For the whole day it will make you think of food, it will make you dream about food. It will try to entice you in a thousand and one ways. And the opposite of this is also true. If you follow the dictates of the body, then the other half of the mind will create trouble for you.

The man who follows the mind is like a traveler who is trying to sail in two boats, and each boat is going in a different direction. Such a person will always be in a quandary — he will always remain suspended in the middle. He will have no place to stand; he will be neither of the earth nor of the sky.

There is another type of vow which I call MAHAVRATA, the great vow. This is not taken by the mind. This vow is taken after the full realization that the mind is afflicted by duality, that the mind is duality, that the mind is conflict. In taking such a vow the mind is set aside. It is not that the mind makes a vow it will not speak the truth. When you have realized what the mind is, the feeling that arises in your consciousness is not this sort of vow. The feeling comes because you have realized what falsehood is and what the mind is, and now your understanding, your realization itself becomes the greatest vow.

The man who has understood what smoking is does not have to throw his cigarette away; the cigarette falls from his hand by itself. And the man who has realized what wine is watches the bottle slipping from his hand. When you quit something it is the mind that is giving it up; if it goes away by itself it is mahavrata, the great vow. But if it is you that is putting something aside, you will surely pick it up again.

Mulla Nasruddin once went to address a meeting. It generally happens that speakers say one thing but act differently. You may be surprised at this, but it is what usually happens. It is not their fault, and you are mistaken if you think they are deceiving you on purpose. On such an occasion it is that part of the mind nearer the soul that begins to function.

Addressing a gathering, who will speak out in favor of sin? It is only talk, no doing is involved, so one can speak of high ideals and of great deeds. It is only discussion. Nothing is at stake, there is nothing to lose. So at the time he is speaking, a speaker will talk about nonavarice and not about greed, about nonviolence and not about violence, about truth and not about falsehood. When he is speaking, the speaker becomes a pious man, a sadhu — when he is speaking.

The Mulla also spoke about great and wise things — about truth, nonviolence, about honesty. The audience was surprised. And the Mulla’s son, who was also there, was surprised as well. The Mulla explained that anyone could achieve liberation by climbing the steps of truth — by being honest, by practicing nonviolence, celibacy and nonpossessiveness. “This ladder is right in front of you,” he said. “You just have to begin to climb.” I was present the next morning when the Mulla’s son said to him, “I had a dream last night, and I saw the ladder you spoke about yesterday.”

Seeing that his talk had greatly impressed his son, the Mulla was eager to hear more. “Go on,” he said. “What happened next?”

His son replied, “The ladder rose high towards heaven — its top was lost, far away in the sky. At the base of the ladder there was a noticeboard with sticks of chalk, one foot long, kept near it. The instructions on the board said that whoever climbed the ladder was to take a stick of chalk with him and make a mark on each step for each one of his sins.”

The Mulla was becoming more and more excited. He said, “Go on. What next?”

The son continued, “I took a stick of chalk, made my first mark, and began to climb. After climbing a little I heard the sounds of someone climbing down.”

The Mulla asked, “Who was it?”

The son said, “I wondered that too, so I raised my eyes and saw that it was you climbing down.”

The Mulla said, “Me? Climbing down? What are you talking about? Why should I climb down?”

The boy said, “I asked you the same question and you replied, ‘I am going back down to get more chalk.’”

Actions are full of sins, while talk is only about great deeds. You keep on sinning and at the same time go on taking vows that you will perform acts of great merit. And so both parts of the mind are satisfied. The part of the mind near the body is satisfied with sin and the other is satisfied with the scriptures. You sail in both boats and seem very pleased with yourself. But you never reach anywhere, you cannot. No one has ever reached anywhere this way. Even if you choose one boat the difficulty remains the same — both boats belong to the mind.

Kabir says that those who sit in a boat, in either boat, drown. The voyage across the ocean of life is such that those who accept the help of a boat are the ones who sink. One has to swim oneself — there is no need for any boat at all. Both the boats are of the mind; their names are sin and holiness.

And so you remain divided, in duality. I see that the man sitting in the shop is divided; I see that the man sitting in the ashram is divided as well. The man in the shop thinks about holy acts because he is committing sins, and the man in the ashram performs holy acts and thinks of sinful things. There is no difference in their perplexity; both are in difficulty. So you have to give up the mind completely. The mind is madness. And to give it up means to understand it. When you understand the nature of the mind it will be easy to let it go.

Now let us try to understand these words of Kabir:

STOP WAVERING, MAD MIND!

The mind is mad. This is not poetry; what Kabir has to say are direct truths of life. Madness is another name for the mind. There is no need for anybody to explain this to you; you are very well acquainted with your mind. If you have even the slightest ability to see through it, to see through the workings of your mind, you will realize that it is mad.

The mind is always asking you to do something over again, something you have already done so many times before. And every time you see that by doing it nothing is achieved. What else can madness be?

Many times you have tried to extract oil from sand, but it does not work. You know that sand is sand, that oil cannot be extracted from it, and yet you do the same thing over and over again. If this is not madness, what is?

You have indulged in the pleasures of the flesh countless times, innumerable times, and yet you have achieved nothing. You still do not know what real joy is, you still do not know what ecstasy is. You simply remain thirsty and miserable, weeping and repenting what you have done. And in spite of this experience, the mind induces you to repeat things over and over again. If this is not madness, then what else is it?

To be mad is to keep repeating something that has already been seen as useless, as worthless. To be mad is not to do something even though there may be a little substance in it, not to go near something that has a glimpse of some substance in it.

People come to me and they say, “We practiced meditation for a few days and then gave it up.” I ask them how they found those few days. They say, “We experienced great joy and peace.” This seems very surprising, giving up meditation in spite of the fact they experienced peace while doing it. They say, “It was the mind that made us stop.”

Do you give up those things that make you unhappy and miserable? You have been angry many times. Have you ever experienced any joy from your anger? Has it brought you joy even once? Whenever you have been angry you have experienced unhappiness — but the mind does not give anger up. Whenever you meditate or pray, or go to a temple and sit in silence, you feel happy — yet your mind asks you to give it up. And you take its advice!

You do things from which nothing but misery results because the mind says, “Make another attempt. This time you might succeed. It may have borne no fruit up to now but you might get some in the future, so keep on. Who can definitely say you won’t get it just because you haven’t obtained it up to now? So keep on seeking. Keep on making an effort.”

And so your mind pushes you on a fruitless journey. What else can madness be?

OSHO, The Great Secret
Come what may, allow

Intimacy brings you close to a stranger. You have to drop all your defenses; only then, intimacy is possible. And the fear is that if you drop all your defenses, all your masks, who knows what the stranger is going to do with you?

We are all hiding a thousand and one things — not only from others but from ourselves — because we have been brought up by a sick humanity with all kinds of repressions, inhibitions, taboos. And the fear is that with somebody who is a stranger — and it does not matter, you may have lived with the person for thirty years, forty years; the strangeness never disappears — it feels safer to keep a little defense, a little distance, because somebody can take advantage of your weaknesses, of your frailties, of your vulnerability.

Everybody is afraid of intimacy.

The problem becomes more complicated because everybody wants intimacy. Everybody wants intimacy because otherwise you are alone in this universe — without a friend, without a lover, without anybody you can trust, without anybody to whom you can open all your wounds. And the wounds cannot heal unless they are open. The more you hide them, the more dangerous they become. They can become cancerous.

Intimacy is an essential need on the one hand, so everybody longs for it. But he wants the other person to be intimate, so that the other person drops his defenses, becomes vulnerable, opens all his wounds, drops all his masks and false personality, stands naked as he is. And on the other hand, everybody is afraid of intimacy — with the other person you want to be intimate with, you are not dropping your defenses.

This is one of the conflicts between friends, between lovers: nobody wants to drop his defenses and nobody wants to come in utter nudity and sincerity, open — and both need intimacy.

Unless you drop all your repressions, inhibitions — which are the gifts of your religions, your cultures, your societies, your parents, your education — you will never be able to be intimate with someone.

And you will have to take the initiative.

But if you don’t have any repressions, any inhibitions, you don’t have any wounds either. If you have lived a simple, natural life, there will be no fear of intimacy, but tremendous joy — of two flames coming so close that they become almost one flame. And the meeting is tremendously gratifying, satisfying, fulfilling. But before you can attempt intimacy, you have to clean your house completely.

Only a man of meditation can allow intimacy to happen.

He has nothing to hide.

All that was making him afraid that somebody may know, he himself has dropped. He has only a silence and a loving heart.

You have to accept yourself in your totality — if you cannot accept yourself in your totality, how can you expect somebody else to accept you? And you have been condemned by everybody, and you have learned only one thing: self-condemnation.

You go on hiding it. It is not something beautiful to show to others, you know ugly things are hidden in you; you know evil things are hidden in you; you know animality is hidden in you. Unless you transform your attitude and accept yourself as one of the animals in existence…. The word “animal” is not bad. It simply means alive; it comes from anima. Whoever is alive, is an animal.

But man has been taught, “You are not animals, animals are far below you. You are human beings.” You have been given a false superiority. The truth is, existence does not believe in the superior and the inferior. To existence, everything is equal — the trees, the birds, the animals, the human beings. In existence, everything is absolutely accepted as it is; there is no condemnation.

If you accept your sexuality without any conditions, if you accept that man and every being in the world is fragile… life is a very thin thread which can break down any moment. Once this is accepted, and you drop false egos — of being Alexander the Great, Mohammed Ali the thrice great — if you simply understand that everybody is beautiful in his ordinariness and everyone has weaknesses…. They are part of human nature because you are not made of steel.

You are made of a very fragile body. The span of your life is between ninety-eight degrees temperature and one hundred and ten degrees temperature: just twelve degrees of temperature is your whole span of life. Fall below it, and you are dead; go beyond it and you are dead. And the same applies to a thousand and one things in you.

One of your most basic needs is to be needed. But nobody wants to accept it, that “It is my basic need to be needed, to be loved, to be accepted.” We are living in such pretensions, such hypocrisies — that is the reason why intimacy creates fear.

You are not what you appear to be. Your appearance is false. You may appear to be a saint but deep down, you are still a weak human being with all the desires and all the longings.

The first step is to accept yourself in your totality, in spite of all your traditions, which have driven the whole of humanity insane. Once you have accepted yourself as you are, the fear of intimacy will disappear. You cannot lose respect, you cannot lose your greatness, you cannot lose your ego. You cannot lose your piousness, you cannot lose your saintliness — you have dropped all that yourself. You are just like a small child, utterly innocent. You can open yourself because inside, you are not filled with ugly repressions which have become perversions.

You can say everything that you feel authentically and sincerely. And if you are ready to be intimate, you will encourage the other person also to be intimate. Your openness will help the other person also to be open to you. Your unpretentious simplicity will allow the other also to enjoy simplicity, innocence, trust, love, openness.

You are encaged with stupid concepts, and the fear is, if you become very intimate with somebody, he will become aware of it.

But we are fragile beings — the most fragile in the whole existence. The human child is the most fragile child of all the animals. The children of other animals can survive without the mother, without the father, without a family. But the human child will die immediately. So this frailty is not something to be condemned — it is the highest expression of consciousness. A roseflower is going to be fragile; it is not a stone. And there is no need to feel bad about it, that you are a roseflower and not a stone.

Only when two persons become intimate are they no longer strangers. And it is a beautiful experience to find that not only you are full of weaknesses but the other, too… perhaps everybody is full of weaknesses.

The higher expression of anything becomes weaker. The roots are very strong, but the flower cannot be so strong. Its beauty is because of its not being strong. In the morning it opens its petals to welcome the sun, dances the whole day in the wind, in the rain, in the sun, and by the evening its petals have started falling. It is gone. Everything that is beautiful, precious, is going to be very momentary.

But you want everything to be permanent. You love someone and you promise that “I will love you my whole life.” And you know perfectly well that you cannot be even certain of tomorrow — you are giving a false promise. All that you can say is, “I am in love with you this moment and I will give my totality to you. About the next moment, I know nothing. How can I promise? You have to forgive me.”

But lovers are promising all kinds of things which they cannot fulfill. Then frustration comes in, then the distance grows bigger, then fight, conflict, struggle, and a life that was meant to become happier becomes just a long, drawn out misery.

Ramaprem, it is good that you are aware of your greatest fear, that it is of intimacy. It can become a great revelation to you, and a revolution, if you look inwards and start dropping everything of which you feel ashamed. And accept your nature as it is, not as it should be. I do not teach any “should.” All shoulds make human mind sick.

People should be taught the beauty of isness, the tremendous splendor of nature. These trees don’t know any ten commandments, the birds don’t know any holy scriptures. It is only man who has created a problem for himself.

Condemning your own nature, you become split, you become schizophrenic — and not just ordinary people, but people of the status of Sigmund Freud, who contributed greatly to humanity, about mind. His method was psychoanalysis, that you should be made aware of all that is unconscious in you. And this is a secret, that once something unconscious is brought to the conscious mind, it evaporates. You become cleaner, lighter. As more and more unconscious is unburdened, your consciousness goes on becoming bigger. And as the area of the unconscious shrinks, the territory of the consciousness expands. That is an immense truth.

The East has known it for thousands of years, but to the West, Sigmund Freud introduced it — not knowing anything of the East and its psychology; it was his individual contribution. But you will be surprised: he was never ready to be psychoanalyzed himself. The founder of psychoanalysis was never psychoanalyzed.

His colleagues insisted again and again: “The method that you have given to us — and we all have been psychoanalyzed — why are you insisting that you should not be psychoanalyzed?”

He said, “Forget about it.” He was afraid to expose himself. He had become a great genius and exposing himself would bring him down to ordinary humanity. He had the same fears, the same desires, the same repressions.

He never talked about his dreams; he only listened to other people’s dreams. And his colleagues were very much surprised — “It will be a great contribution to know about your dreams” — but he never agreed to lie down on the psychoanalyst’s couch and talk about his dreams. Because his dreams were as ordinary as anybody else’s — that was the fear.

A Gautam Buddha would not have feared to go into meditation. That was his contribution — a special kind of meditation. And he would not have been afraid of any psychoanalysis, because for the man who meditates, by and by all his dreams disappear. In the day he remains silent in his mind, not the ordinary traffic of thoughts. And in the night he sleeps deeply, because dreams are nothing but unlived thoughts, unlived desires, unlived longings in the day. They are trying to complete themselves, at least in dreams.

It will be very difficult for you to find a man who dreams about his wife, or a woman who dreams about her husband. But it will be absolutely common that they dream about their neighbors’ wives and their neighbors’ husbands. The wife is available, he is not suppressing anything as far as his wife is concerned. But the neighbor’s wife is always more beautiful; the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. And that which is unapproachable creates a deep desire to acquire it, to possess it. In the day you cannot do it, but in dreams at least, you are free. Freedom of dreaming has not yet been taken away by the governments.

It won’t be long — soon they will take it away, because methods are available, already available, so that they can watch when you are dreaming and when you are not dreaming. And there is a possibility some day to find a scientific device so that your dream can be projected on a screen. Just some electrodes will have to be inserted in your head. You will be fast asleep, dreaming joyously, making love to your neighbor’s wife and a whole movie hall will be watching it — and they used to think that this man is a saint!

This much you can even see; whenever a person is asleep, watch: if his eyelids are not showing any movement of his eyes inside, then he is not dreaming. If he is dreaming then you can see that his eyes are moving.

It is possible to project your dream on a screen. It is also possible to enforce certain dreaming in you. But at least up to now, no constitution even talks about it, that “People are free to dream, it is their birthright.”

A Gautam Buddha does not dream. Meditation is a way to go beyond mind. He lives in utter silence twenty-four hours — no ripples on the lake of his consciousness, no thoughts, no dreams.

But Sigmund Freud is afraid because he knows what he is dreaming.

Source: The Hidden Splendor
Chapter 4 – Who is preventing you? join the dance! , OSHO

For example, the man is always on the woman — on top of the woman. This is an egoist posture because the man always thinks he is better, superior, higher — how can he be below the woman? But all over the world in primitive societies the woman is above the man. So in Africa this posture is known as the missionary posture, because for the first time when missionaries — Christian missionaries — went to Africa, the primitives just could not understand what they were doing. They thought it would kill the woman.

The man-on-top posture is known in Africa as the missionary posture. African primitives say this is violent that man should be on top of the woman. She is weaker, delicate, so she must be on top of the man. But it is difficult for man to think of himself as lower than woman, under her.

If your mind changes, many things will change. It is better that the woman should be on top, for many reasons. If the woman is on top she will be passive, so she is not going to do much violence; she will simply relax. And the man under her cannot do much, he will have to relax. This is good. If he is on top he is going to be violent, he will do much. And nothing is needed to be done on her part. For tantra you have to relax, so it is good that the woman should be on top. She can relax better than any man. The feminine psychology is more passive, so relaxation comes easy.

Positions will change, but do not be bothered about positions much. Just change your mind. Surrender to the life force, float in it. Sometimes, if you are really surrendered, your bodies will take the right position that is needed in that moment. If both partners are deeply surrendered, their bodies will take the right posture that is needed.

Every day situations change, so there is no need to fix postures beforehand. That is a problem, that you try to fix it beforehand. Whenever you try to fix it, this is a fixing by the mind; then you are not surrendering.

If you surrender then you let things take their own shape, and that is a wonderful harmony – when both partners have surrendered. They will take many postures or they will not take them and will just relax. That depends on the life force, not on your cerebral decision beforehand. You need not decide anything beforehand. Decision is the problem. Even to make love, you decide. Even to make love, you go and consult books.

There are books on how to make love. This shows what type of human mind we have produced. You even consult books on how to make love. Then it becomes cerebral; you think everything. Really, you create a rehearsal in the mind and then you enact it. Your action is a copy; it is never real then. You are enacting a rehearsal. It becomes acting; it is not authentic.

Just surrender and move with the force. What is the fear? Why be afraid? If you cannot be unafraid with your lover, then where will you be unafraid? And once you have the feeling that the life force helps by itself and takes the right path that is needed, it will give you a very basic insight into your whole life. Then you can leave your whole life to the divine. That is your beloved.

Then you leave your whole life to the divine. Then you do not think and you do not plan; you do not force the future according to you. You just allow yourself to move into the future according to Him, according to the total.

But how to make the sex act a meditation? Just by surrendering it becomes so. Do not think about it, let it happen. And be relaxed, do not move ahead. This is one of the basic problems with the mind: it always moves ahead. It is always seeking the result, and the result is in the future. You are never in the act; you are always in the future seeking a result. That seeking of a result is disturbing everything, it damages everything.

Just be in the act. What is the future? It is to come; you need not worry about it. And you are not going to bring it with your worries. It is already coming; it has already come. So you forget about it, you just be here and now.

Sex can become a deep insight in being here and now. That is, I think, the only act now left into which you can be here and now. You cannot be here and now while in your office; you cannot be here and now while you are studying in your college; you cannot be here and now anywhere in this modern world. Only in love can you be here and now.

But even then you are not. You are thinking of the result. And now many modern books have created many new problems. You read a book on how to make love, and then you are afraid about whether you are making it rightly or wrongly. You read a book on how a posture is to be taken, or what type of posture is to be used, and then you are afraid about whether you are taking the right posture or not.

Psychologists have created new worries in the mind. Now they say the husband must remember whether his wife is achieving orgasm or not, so he is worried over it. And this worry is not going to help in any way; it is going to become a hindrance.

The wife is worried whether she is helping the husband to relax totally or not. She must show that she is feeling very blissful. Then everything becomes false. Both are worried about the result, and because of this worry the result will never come.

Forget everything. Flow in the moment and allow your bodies their expression. Your bodies know well; they have their own wisdom. Your bodies are constituted of sex cells. They have a built-in program; you are not asked at all. Just leave it to the body and the body will move. This leaving it to nature together, both together, this let-go, will create meditation automatically.

And if you can feel it in sex, then you know one thing: that whenever you surrender you will feel the same. Then you can surrender to a master. It is a love relationship. You can surrender to a master, and then while you are putting your head at his feet, your head will become empty. You will be in meditation.

Then there is even no need of a master. Then go out and surrender to the sky. You know how to surrender — that is all. Then you can go and surrender to a tree. But it looks foolish because we do not know how to surrender. We see a person – a villager, a primitive man – going to the river, surrendering himself to the river, calling the river the Mother, the divine Mother, or surrendering himself to the rising sun, calling the rising sun a great god, or going to a tree and putting his head at the roots and surrendering.

For us it looks superstitious. You say, “What nonsense he is doing! What will the tree do? What will the river do? They are not goddesses. What is the sun? The sun is not a god.” Anything becomes a god if you can surrender. So your surrender creates divinity. There is nothing divine, there is only a surrendering mind which creates divinity.

Surrender to a wife and she becomes divine. Surrender to a husband and he becomes divine. The divinity is revealed through surrender. Surrender to a stone and there is no stone now: that stone has become a statue, a person — alive.

So just know how to surrender. And when I say “how” to surrender, I do not mean to know a technique; I mean you have a natural possibility of surrendering in love. Surrender in love and feel it there. And then let it spread all over your life.

Source: Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 “OSHO”

Yoga believes in struggle; yoga is basically the path of will. Tantra does not believe in a struggle; tantra is not the path of will. Rather, on the contrary, tantra is the path of total surrender. Your will is not needed. For tantra your will is the problem, the source of all anguish. For yoga your surrender, your will-lessness is the problem.

Because your will is weak, that is why you are in anguish, suffering – for yoga. For tantra, because you have a will, because you have an ego, an individuality, that is why you are suffering. Yoga says, bring your will to absolute perfection and you will be liberated. Tantra says, dissolve your will completely, become totally emptied of it, and that will be your liberation. And both are right; this creates the problem. For me, both are right.

But the path of yoga is a very difficult one. It is just impossible, nearly impossible, that you can attain to the perfection of the ego. It means you become the center of the whole universe. The path is very long, arduous, and really, it never reaches to the end. So what happens to the followers of yoga? Somewhere on the path, in some life, they turn to tantra.

Intellectually yoga is conceivable; existentially it is impossible. If it is possible you will reach by yoga also, but generally it never happens. Even if it happens, it happens very rarely, such as to a Mahavir. Sometimes centuries and centuries pass and then a man like Mahavir appears who has achieved through yoga. But he is rare, an exception, and he breaks the rule.

But yoga is more attractive than tantra. Tantra is easy, natural, and you can attain through tantra very easily, very naturally, effortlessly. And because of this, tantra never appeals to you as much. Why? Anything that appeals to you appeals to your ego. Whatsoever you feel is going to fulfill your ego will appeal to you more. You are gripped in the ego; thus yoga appeals to you very much.

Really, the more egoistic you are, the more yoga will appeal to you, because it is pure ego effort. The more impossible, the more it is appealing to the ego. That is why Mount. Everest has so much appeal. There is so much attraction to reach to the top of a Himalayan peak because it is so difficult. And when Hillary and Tensing reached Mount. Everest, they felt a very ecstatic moment. What was that? It was because the ego was fulfilled — they were the first.

When the first man landed on the moon, can you imagine how he felt? He was the first in all history. And now he cannot be replaced; he will remain the first in all the history to come. Now there is no way to change his status. The ego is fulfilled deeply. There is no competitor now, and there cannot be. Many will land on the moon but they will not be the first. But many can land on the moon and many can go to Everest — yoga gives you a higher peak. And the more unreachable the end, the more there is the perfection of the ego — pure, perfect, absolute ego.

Yoga would have appealed to Nietzsche very much because he felt that the energy which is working behind life is the energy of will — the will to power. Yoga gives you that feeling. You are more powerful through it.

The more you can control yourself, the more you can control your instincts, the more you can control your body and the more you can control your mind, then the more you feel powerful. You become a master inside. But this is through conflict; this is through struggle and violence. And it always happens more or less that a person who has been practicing yoga for many lives comes to a point where the whole journey becomes drab, dreary, futile, because the more ego is fulfilled, the more you will feel it is useless. Then the follower of the path of yoga turns to tantra.

But yoga appeals because everyone is an egoist. Tantra never appeals in the beginning. Tantra can appeal only to the higher depths — to those who have worked on themselves, who have really been struggling through yoga for many lives. Then tantra appeals to them because they can understand. Ordinarily you will not be attracted by tantra, and if you are attracted you will be attracted by the wrong reasons, so try to understand them also.

You will not be attracted by tantra in the first place because it asks you to surrender, not to fight. It asks you to float, not to swim. It asks you to move with the current, not to go upstream. It tells you, nature is good; trust nature, do not fight it. Even sex is good. Trust it, follow it, flow into it; do not fight it. “no-fight” is the central teaching of tantra. Flow. Let go! It cannot appeal, there is no fulfillment of your ego through it. In the first step it asks for your ego to be dissolved, in the very beginning it asks you to dissolve it.

Yoga also asks you, but at the end. First it will ask you to purify it. And if it is purified completely it dissolves, it cannot remain. But that is the last in yoga, and in tantra that is the first.

So tantra will not appeal generally. And if it does appeal, it will appeal for wrong reasons. For example, if you want to indulge in sex then you can rationalize your indulgence through tantra. That can become the appeal. If you want to indulge in wine, in women, in other things, you can feel attracted toward tantra. But really, you are not attracted to tantra. Tantra is a facade — a trick. You are attracted to something else which you think tantra allows you. So tantra always appeals for wrong reasons.

Tantra is not to help your indulgence, it is to transform it. So do not deceive yourself. Through tantra you can deceive yourself very easily, and because of this possibility of deception Mahavir would not describe tantra. This possibility is always there. And man is so deceptive that he can show one thing when he really means another, he can rationalize.

For example, in China, in old China, there was something like tantra — a secret science. It is known as Tao. Tao has similar trends to tantra. For example, Tao says that it is good, if you want to be freed of sex, that you should not stick to one person — to one woman or one man. You should not stick to one person if you want to be freed. Tao says that it is better to go on changing partners.

This is absolutely right, but you can rationalize it; you can deceive yourself. You may just be a sex maniac and you can think that “I am doing tantra practice, so I cannot stick to one woman. I have to change.” And many emperors in China practiced it. They had big harems only for this.

But Tao is meaningful if you look deep down into human psychology. If you know only one woman, sooner or later your attraction for that woman will wither away, but your attraction for women will remain. You will be attracted by the other sex. This woman, your wife, will really not be of the opposite sex. She will not attract you, she will not be a magnet for you. You will have become accustomed to her.

Tao says that if a man moves amidst women, women, he will not only go beyond one, he will go beyond the opposite sex. The very knowledge of many women will help him to transcend. And this is right — but dangerous, because you would like it not because it is right but because it gives you license. That is the problem with tantra.

So in China also that knowledge was suppressed; it had to be suppressed. In India tantra was also suppressed because it said many dangerous things – dangerous only because you are deceptive. Otherwise they are wonderful. Nothing has happened to the human mind that is more wonderful and mysterious than tantra; no knowledge is so deep.

But knowledge always has its dangers. For example, now science has become a danger because it has come to know many deep secrets. Now it knows how to create atomic energy. Einstein is reported to have said that if he is again given a life, rather than being a scientist he would like to be a plumber, because as he looks back, his whole life has been futile — not only futile, but dangerous to humanity. And he has given one of the deepest secrets, but to a mankind which is self-deceptive.

I wonder… the day may come soon when we will have to suppress scientific knowledge. There are rumors that there are secret thoughts amid scientists about whether to disclose more or not — whether they should stop the search or whether they should go further, because now it is dangerous ground.

Every knowledge is dangerous; only ignorance is not dangerous, you cannot do much with it. Superstitions are always good — never dangerous. They are homeopathic. If the medicine is given to you, it is not going to harm you. Whether it is going to help you or not depends on your own innocence, but one thing is certain: it is not going to harm you. Homeopathy is harmless; it is a deep superstition. If it works, it can only help. Remember, if something can only help then it is deep superstition. If it can do both, help and harm, then only is it knowledge. A real thing can do both, help and harm. Only an unreal thing can just help. But then the help never comes from the thing, it is always a projection of your own mind. So, in a way, only illusory things are good; they never harm you.

Tantra is science, and it is deeper than atomic knowledge because atomic science is concerned with matter and tantra is concerned with you, and you are always more dangerous than any atomic energy. Tantra is concerned with the biological atom, with you — the living cell; with life consciousness itself and how its inner mechanism works.

That is why tantra became so much interested in sex. One who is interested in life and consciousness will automatically become interested in sex because sex is the source of life, of love, of all that is happening in the world of consciousness. So if a seeker is not interested in sex, he is not a seeker at all. He may be a philosopher, but he is not a seeker. And philosophy is, more or less, nonsense – thinking about things which are of no use.

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin was interested in girls, but he had very bad luck with girls, no one would like him. He was going to meet a certain girl for the first time, so he asked a friend, “What is your secret? You are wonderful with women, you simply hypnotize them, and I am always a failure, so give me some clue. I am going on a date for the first time with a girl, so give me some secrets.”

The friend said, “Remember three things: always talk about food, family and philosophy.”

“Why about food?” Mulla asked. The friend said, “I talk about food because then the girl feels good – because every woman is interested in food. She is food for the child, for the whole humanity she is food, so she is basically interested in food.”

Mulla said, “Okay. And why family?” So the man said, “Talk about her family so your intentions look honorable.”

Then Mulla said, “And why about philosophy?” The man said, “Talk about philosophy. That makes the woman feel that she is intelligent.”

So Mulla rushed. Immediately, when he saw the girl, he said, “Hello, do you like noodles?” The girl was startled and said, “No!”

Then the Mulla asked the second question: “Have you got two brothers?” The girl was even more startled and wondered, “What type of date is this?” She said, “No!”

So for a moment Mulla was at a loss. He wondered, “How to start talking about philosophy?” Just for a moment he was at a loss, and then he asked, “Now, if you had a brother would he like noodles?”

Philosophy is more or less nonsense. Tantra is not interested in philosophy; tantra is interested in actual existential life. So tantra never asks whether there is a God or whether there is MOKSHA, liberation, or whether there is hell or heaven. Tantra asks basic questions about life. That is why there is so much interest in sex and love. They are basic. YOU ARE through them; you are part of them.

You are a play of sex energy and nothing less, and unless you understand this energy and transcend it you will never be anything more. You are, right now, nothing but sex energy. You can be more, but if you do not understand this and you do not transcend it you never will be more. The possibility is just there as a seed. That is why tantra is interested in sex, in love, in natural life.

But the way to know it is not through conflict. Tantra says you cannot know anything if you are in a fighting mood because then you are not receptive. Then because you are fighting the secrets will be hidden from you — you are not open to receive. And whenever you are fighting you are always outside. If you are fighting sex you are always outside; if you surrender to sex you reach the very inner core of it; you are an insider. If you surrender; then many things become known.

You have been in sex, but always with a fighting attitude behind it. That is why you have not known many secrets. For example, you have not known the life-giving forces of sex. You have not them known because you cannot know — that needs you to be an insider.

If you are really flowing with sex energy, totally surrendered, sooner or later you will arrive at the point where you will know that sex cannot only give birth to a new life: sex can give you more life. To lovers sex can become a life-giving force, but for that you need a surrender. And once you are surrendered, many dimensions change.

For example, tantra has known, Tao has known that if you ejaculate in the act, then it cannot be life-giving to you. There is no need to ejaculate; ejaculation can be totally forgotten. Tantra and Tao both say ejaculation is because you are fighting; otherwise there is no need of it.

Source: Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 “OSHO”

The lover and the beloved can be in a deep sexual embrace, just relaxing into each other with no hurry to ejaculate, with no hurry to end the affair. They can just relax into each other. And if this relaxation is total, they both will feel more life. They both will enrich each other.

Tao says a man can live for one thousand years if he is not in any hurry with sex, if he is deeply relaxed. If a woman and man are deeply relaxed with each other, simply melting into each other, absorbed into each other, not in any hurry, not in any tension, many things happen — alchemical things happen — because the life juices of both, the electricity of both, the bio-energy of both, meet. And just by this meeting — because they are “anti”; one is negative, one is positive: they are anti-poles — Just by meeting with each other deeply, they invigorate each other, make each other vital, more alive.

They can live for a long time, and they can live never becoming old. But this can only be known if you are not in a fighting mood. And this seems paradoxical. Those who are fighting sex, they will ejaculate sooner because the tense mind is in a hurry to be relieved of the tension.

New research says many surprising things, many surprising facts. Masters and Johnson, they have worked scientifically for the first time with what happens in deep intercourse. They have come to realize that seventy-five percent of men are premature ejaculators — seventy-five percent Before there is a deep meeting they have ejaculated and the act is finished. And ninety percent of women never have any orgasm; they never reach to a peak, to a deep, fulfilling peak — ninety percent of women!

That is why women are so angry and irritated, and they will remain so. No meditation can help them to be peaceful and no philosophy, no religion, no ethics will make them at ease with the men with whom they are living. They are in frustration, in anger, because modern science and old tantra both say that unless a woman is deeply fulfilled orgasmically she will be a problem in the family. That which she is lacking will create irritations and she will be always in a fighting mood.

So if your wife is always in a fighting mood, think again about the whole thing. It is not simply the wife — you may be the cause. And because women are not achieving orgasm, they become anti-sex. They are not willing to go into sex easily. They have to be bribed; they are not ready to go into sex. Why should they be ready if they never achieve any deep bliss through it? Rather, they feel after it that the man has been using them, that they have been used. They feel like a thing which has been used and then discarded.

The man is satisfied because be has ejaculated. Then he moves and goes to sleep, and the wife goes on weeping. She has been just used, and the experience has not been in any way fulfilling to her. It may have relieved her husband or lover or friend, but it has not been in any way fulfilling to her.

Ninety percent of women do not even know what orgasm is. They have never known it; they have never reached a peak of such a blissful convulsion of the body that every fiber vibrates and every cell becomes alive. They have not reached it, and this is because of an anti-sexual attitude in the society. The fighting mind is there, and the woman is so repressed that she has become frigid.

The man goes on doing the act as if it is a sin. He feels it as guilt: “It is not to be done.” And while he is making love to his wife or beloved, he is thinking of some MAHATMA — so-called saint — of how to go to the mahatma and how to transcend this sex, this guilt, this sin.

It is very difficult to get rid of the mahatmas, they are already there even while you are making love. You are not two; one mahatma must be there. If there is no mahatma, then God is watching you doing this sin. The concept of God in people’s minds is just that of a Peeping Tom — he is always watching you. This attitude creates anxiety, and when anxiety is there ejaculation comes soon.

When there is no anxiety, ejaculation can be postponed for hours — even for days. And there is no need of it. If the love is deep, both parties can invigorate each other. Then ejaculation completely ceases, and for years two lovers can meet with each other without any ejaculation, without any wastage of energy. They can just relax with each other. Their bodies meet and relax; they enter sex and relax. And sooner or later, sex will not be an excitement. It is an excitement right now. Then it is not an excitement, it is a relaxation, a deep let-go.

But that can happen only if you have first surrendered inside to the life energy — the life force. Only then can you surrender to your lover or beloved. Tantra says, this happens, and it says how it can happen.

Tantra says, never make love while you are excited. This seems very absurd because you want to make love when you are excited. And normally, both partners excite each other in order that they can make love. But tantra says that in excitement you are wasting energy. Make love while you are calm, serene, meditative. First meditate, then make love, and when making love do not go beyond the limit. What do I mean by “do not go beyond the limit”? Do not become excited and violent, in order that your energy will not be dispersed.

If you see two persons making love you will feel that they are fighting. If small children sometimes see their father and mother making love, they think the father is going to kill the mother. It looks violent; it looks like a fight. It is not beautiful, it looks ugly.

It must be more musical, harmonious. The two partners must be as if they are dancing, not fighting — as if singing one harmonious melody, just creating an atmosphere in which both may dissolve and become one. And then they relax. This is what tantra means. Tantra is not sexual at all, tantra is the least sexual thing and yet it has so much concern with sex. And if through this relaxation and let-go nature reveals to you its secrets, it is no wonder. Then you begin to be aware of what is happening. And in that awareness of what is happening many secrets come to your mind.

Firstly, sex becomes life-giving. As it is now it is death giving, you are simply dying through it, wasting yourself, deteriorating. Secondly, it becomes the deepest natural meditation. Your thoughts cease completely. When you are totally relaxed with your lover, your thoughts cease. The mind is not there, only your heart beats. It becomes a natural meditation. And if love cannot help you into meditation, nothing will help, because everything else is just superfluous, superficial. If love cannot help, nothing will help!

Love has its own meditation. But you do not know love; you know only sex and you know the misery of wasting energy. Then you get depressed after it. Then you decide to take a vow of BRAHMACHARYA, celibacy. And this vow is taken in depression, this vow is taken in anger, this vow is taken in frustration. It is not going to help.

A vow can be helpful if taken in a very relaxed, deeply meditative mood. Otherwise you are simply showing your anger, your frustration and nothing else, and you will forget the vow within twenty-four hours. The energy will have come again, and just as an old routine you will have to release it.

Tantra says, sex is very deep because it is life. But you can be interested in tantra for the wrong reasons. Do not be interested in tantra for wrong reasons, and then you will not feel that tantra is dangerous. Then tantra is life transforming.

Some tantric methods have been used by yoga also, but with a conflict, a fighting attitude. Tantra uses the same methods, but with a very loving attitude — and that makes a great difference. The very quality of the technique changes. The technique becomes different because the whole background is different.

It has been asked, “What is the central subject matter of tantra?” The answer is you! You are the central subject matter of tantra: what you are right now and what is hidden in you that can grow, what you are and what you can be. Right now you are a sex unit, and unless this unit is understood deeply you cannot become a spirit, you cannot become a spiritual unit. Sexuality and spirituality are two ends of one energy.

Tantra starts with you as you are; yoga starts with what your possibility is. Yoga starts with the end; tantra starts with the beginning. And it is good to start with the beginning. It is always good to begin with the beginning, because if the end is made the beginning, then you are creating unnecessary misery for yourself. You are not the end — not the ideal. You have to become a god, the ideal, and you are just an animal. And this animal goes berserk because of the ideal of the god; it goes mad, it goes crazy.

Tantra says, forget the god. If you are the animal, understand this animal in its totality. In that understanding itself, the god will grow. And if it cannot grow through that understanding then forget it, it can never be. Ideals cannot bring your possibilities out; only the knowledge of the real will help. So you are the central subject matter of tantra, as you are and as you can become, your actuality and your possibility — they are the subject matter.

Sometimes people get worried. If you go to understand tantra God is not discussed, moksha — liberation — is not discussed, nirvana is not discussed. What type of religion is tantra? Tantra discusses things which make you feel disgusted, which you do not want to discuss. Who wants to discuss sex? Everyone thinks he knows about it. Because you can reproduce, you think you know.

No one wants to discuss sex and sex is everyone’s problem. No one wants to discuss love because everyone feels he is a great lover already. And look at your life! It is just hatred and nothing else. And whatsoever you call love is nothing but a relaxation, a little relaxation, of the hatred. Look around you, and then you will know what you know about love.

Baal Shem, a fakir, went to his tailor every day for his robe, and the tailor took six months to make a simple robe for the fakir. The poor fakir! When the robe was ready and the tailor gave it to Baal Shem, Baal Shem said, “Tell me, even God had only six days to create the world. Within six days God created the whole world and you took six months to make this poor man’s robe?”

Baal Shem remembered the tailor in his memoirs. The tailor said, “Yes, God created the world in six days, but look at the world, at what type of world it is. Yes, he created the world in six days, but look at the world!”

Look around you; look at the world you have created. Then you will come to know that you do not know anything, you are just groping in the dark. And because everyone else is also groping in the dark, it cannot be that you are living in light. If everyone else is groping in the dark you feel good, because then you feel there is no comparison.

But you are also in the dark, and tantra starts with you as you are. Tantra wants to enlighten you about basic things which you cannot deny. If you try to deny them, it is at your own cost.

Source: Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 “OSHO”

Psychologists say that there is a very deep-rooted fear of success in the human mind. It looks absurd when you hear for the first time that man is afraid of success, but when you ponder over it, slowly slowly it dawns on you that it has some deep relevance.
Man is afraid of success, because if he succeeds, then what? That is the fear: then what? So in a subtle way he tries to succeed and yet creates such obstacles that he cannot succeed.
On one hand he tries to succeed, on the other hand he disturbs his own success so the game can go on. Just think of a day when you have succeeded and all that you desired has been attained, all that you always longed for is in your hands. Then what? — that is the fear. Then what will you do? — because all doing is searching, all doing is desiring, all doing is possible because there are goals which we have not attained yet. One is occupied, happily busy.

Just think of it a moment and even in thinking you will start trembling inside: if all is fulfilled, then what? Would you like to succeed to that point? And when you think about that you will see the point of what psychologists mean when they say there is a deep-rooted fear of success.
And it does not happen only as far as the inner success is concerned: outer success also. It almost always happens that when a person is at the last rung of succeeding, something goes wrong. And he thinks something has gone wrong from the outside, no. He does something — he takes a wrong step, he moves in an opposite direction. He blames god and he blames fate and he blames society and others, but if you search deep down you will find that people fail only when they were just going to succeed.

There seems to be that deep fear which at the last moment says to them ‘What are you doing? Avoid it.’ It is very unconscious. They fail, and then they are busy again. That’s how people keep themselves busy; life in and life out they keep themselves busy. This is called the wheel, the samsara, in the East; this is the world. That’s why people don’t go into the heart, which is the closest point to go to. They go on great journeys and pilgrimages, but they don’t search within.”

Osho, excerpted from: The Madman’s Guide to Enlightenment , Chapter 13