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The evolution of life is to become more and more conscious, but the consciousness is always other oriented: you are conscious of some thing, some object. Yoga means to be evolving in the dimension where there is no object and only consciousness remains. Yoga is the method of evolving toward pure consciousness; not being conscious of something, but being consciousness itself.

When you are conscious of something, you are not conscious of being conscious. Your consciousness has become focused on something; your attention is not at the source of consciousness itself. In yoga the effort is to become conscious of both the object and the source. The consciousness becomes double arrowed. You must be aware of the object, and you must be simultaneously aware of the subject. Consciousness must become a double arrowed bridge. The subject must not be lost, it must not become forgotten when you are focused on the object.

This is the first step in yoga. The second step is to drop both the subject and the object and just be conscious. This pure consciousness is the aim of yoga.

Even without yoga man grows toward becoming more and more conscious, but yoga adds something, contributes something, to this evolution of consciousness. It changes many things and transforms many things. The first transformation is a double-arrowed awareness, remembering yourself at the very moment that there is something else to be conscious of.

The dilemma is this: either you are conscious of some object or you are unconscious. If there are no outside objects, you fall into a sleep; objects are needed in order for you to be conscious. When you are totally unoccupied you feel sleepy — you need some object to be conscious of — but when you have too many objects to be conscious of, you may feel a certain sleeplessness. That is why a person who is too obsessed with thoughts cannot go into sleep. Objects continue to be there, thoughts continue to be there. He cannot become unconscious; thoughts go on demanding his attention. And this is how we exist.

With new objects you become more conscious. That is why there is a lust for the new, a longing for the new. The old becomes boring. The moment you have lived with some object for a while, you become unconscious of it. You have accepted it, now your attention is not needed; you become bored. For example, you may not have been conscious of your wife for years because you have taken her for granted. You no longer see her face, you can’t remember the color of her eyes; for years you have not really been attentive. Only when she dies will you again become aware that she was there. That is why wives and husbands become bored. Any object that is not calling your attention continuously creates boredom.

In the same way, a mantra, a repeated sound vibration, causes deep sleep. When a particular mantra is being repeated continuously, you are bored. There is nothing mysterious about it. Constantly repeating a particular word bores you, you cannot live with it anymore. Now you will begin to feel sleepy, you will go into a sort of sleep; you will become unconscious. The whole method of hypnosis, in fact, depends upon boredom. If your mind can be bored with something then you go into a sleep, sleep can be induced.

Our whole consciousness depends on new objects. That is why there is so much longing for the new — for new sensations, a new dress, a new house — for anything that is new, even if it is not better. With something different, you feel a sudden upsurge of consciousness.

Because life is an evolution of consciousness — this is good. As far as life is concerned, it is good. If a society is longing for new sensations, life progresses, but if it settles down with the old, not asking for the new, it becomes dead; consciousness cannot evolve.

Source: OSHO, Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy

That is the most important question that can arise in anybody’s mind, but there is no answer for it. The most important question, the ultimate question, cannot have any answer; that’s why it is ultimate.

When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Jesus remained silent. Not only that, the story says that when Pontius Pilate asked the question, “What is truth?” he did not wait to listen for the answer. He left the room and went away. This is very strange. Pontius Pilate also thinks that there cannot be an answer for it, so he didn’t wait for the answer. Jesus remained silent because he also knows it cannot be answered.

But these two understandings are not the same, because these two persons are diametrically opposite. Pontius Pilate thinks that it cannot be answered because there is no truth; how can you answer it? That is the logical mind, the Roman mind. Jesus remains silent not because there is no truth, but because the truth is so vast, it is not definable. The truth is so huge, enormous, it cannot be confined in a word, it cannot be reduced to language. It is there. One can be it, but one cannot say it.

For two different reasons they behaved almost in the same way: Pontius didn’t wait to hear the answer, he knew already that there is no truth. Jesus remains silent because he knows truth, and knows that it could not be said.

Chidvilas has asked this question. The question is absolutely significant. There is no question higher than that, because there is no religion higher than truth. It has to be understood; the question has to be analyzed. Analyzing the question, trying to understand the question itself, you may have an insight into what truth is. I will not answer it, I cannot answer it; nobody can answer it. But we can go deep into the question. Going deep into the question, the question will start disappearing. When the question has disappeared you will find the answer there at the very core of your heart — you are truth, so how can you miss it? Maybe you have forgotten about it, maybe you have lost track of it, maybe you have forgotten how to enter into your own being, into your own truth.

Truth is not an hypothesis, truth is not a dogma. Truth is neither Hindu nor Christian nor Mohammedan. Truth is neither mine nor yours. Truth belongs to nobody, but everybody belongs to truth. Truth means that which is: that is exactly the meaning of the word. It comes from a Latin root, verus. Verus means: that which is. In English there are a few words which are derivations of the Latin root verus: was, were — they come from verus. In German, war — that comes from verus. Verus means that which is, uninterpreted. Once the interpretation comes in, then what you know is reality, not truth. That is the difference between truth and reality. Reality is truth interpreted.

So the moment you answer the question, “What is truth?” it becomes reality; it is no longer truth. Interpretation has entered into it, the mind has colored it. And realities are as many as there are minds; there are multi-realities. Truth is one because truth is known only when the mind is not there. It is mind that keeps you separate from me, separate from others, separate from existence. If you look through the mind, then the mind will give you a picture of truth. That will be only a picture, a photograph of that which is. And of course, the photograph depends on the camera, on the film used, on the chemicals, on how it has been developed, how it has been printed, who has done it. A thousand and one other things enter in; it becomes reality.

The word reality is also beautiful to be understood. It comes from the root, res; it means thing or things. Truth is not a thing. Once interpreted, once the mind has grabbed it, defined it, demarked it, it becomes a thing.

When you fall in love with a woman there is some truth — if you have fallen absolutely unaware, if you have not ‘done’ it in any way, if you have not acted, managed, if you have not even thought about it. Suddenly you see a woman, you look into her eyes, she looks into your eyes, and something clicks. You are not the doer of it, you are simply possessed by it, you simply fall into it. It has nothing to do with you. Your ego is not involved, at least not in the very, very beginning, when love is virgin. In that moment there is truth, but there is no interpretation. That’s why love remains indefinable.

Soon the mind comes in, starts managing things, takes possession of you. You start thinking about the girl as your girlfriend, you start thinking of how to get married, you start thinking about the woman as your wife. Now these are things; the girlfriend, the wife — these are things. The truth is no longer there, it has receded back. Now things are becoming more important. The definable is more secure, the indefinable is insecure. You have started killing, poisoning the truth. Sooner or later there will be a wife and a husband, two things. But the beauty is gone, the joy has disappeared, the honeymoon is over.

The honeymoon is over at that exact moment when truth becomes reality, when love becomes a relationship. The honeymoon is very short, unfortunately — I’m not talking about the honeymoon that you go for. The honeymoon is very short. Maybe for a single moment it was there, but the purity of it, the crystal purity of it, the divinity of it, the beyondness of it — it is from eternity, it is not of time. It is not part of this mundane world, it is like a ray coming into a dark hole. It comes from the transcendental. It is absolutely appropriate to call love God, because love is truth. The closest that you come to truth in ordinary life is love.

Chidvilas asks: “What is truth?”

Asking has to disappear; only then do you know.

If you ask, “What is truth?” what are you asking? If I say A is truth, B is truth, C is truth, will that be the answer? If I say A is truth, then certainly A cannot be the truth: it is something else that I am using as synonymous with truth. If it is absolutely synonymous, then it will be a tautology. Then I can say, “Truth is truth,” but that is silly, meaningless. Nothing is solved by it. If it is exactly the same, if A is truth, then it will mean truth is truth. If A is different, is not exactly truth, then I am falsifying. Then to say A is truth will be only approximate. And remember, there cannot be anything approximate. Either truth is or it is not. So I cannot say A is truth.

I cannot even say, “God is truth,” because if God is truth then it is a tautology — “Truth is truth.” Then I’m not saying anything. If God is different from truth, then I am saying something, but then I am saying something wrong. Then God is different, then how can he be truth? If I say it is approximate, linguistically it looks alright, but it is not right. ‘Approximately’ means some lie is there, something false is there. Otherwise, why is it not a hundred percent truth? If it is ninety-nine percent truth then something is there which is not true. And truth and untruth cannot exist together, just as darkness and light cannot exist together — because darkness is nothing but absence. Absence and presence cannot exist together, truth and untruth cannot exist together. Untruth is nothing but the absence of truth.

So no answer is possible, hence Jesus remained silent. But if you look at it with deep sympathy, if you look into the silence of Jesus, you will have an answer. Silence is the answer. Jesus is saying, “Be silent, as I am silent, and you will know” — not saying it in words. It is a gesture, it is very, very Zen-like. In that moment when Jesus remained silent, he comes very close to the Zen approach, to the Buddhist approach. He is a Buddha in that moment. Buddha never answered these questions. He had eleven questions listed: wherever he would move his disciples would go around and declare to people, “Never ask these eleven questions of Buddha” — questions which are fundamental, questions which are really significant. You could ask anything else, and Buddha was always ready to answer. But don’t ask the fundamental, because the fundamental can only be experienced. And truth is the most fundamental; the very substance of existence is what truth is.

Go into the question. The question is significant, it is arising in your heart: “What is truth?” — a desire to know that which is, is arising. Don’t push it aside, go into it. Chidvilas, whenever it happens again, close your eyes, go into the question. Let the question become very, very focussed — “What… is… truth?” Let there arise a great concentration. Forget everything, as if your whole life depends on this simple question, “What is truth?” Let it become a matter of life and death. And don’t try to answer it, because you don’t know the answer.

Answers may be coming — the mind always tries to supply answers — but see the fact that you don’t know, that’s why you are asking. So how can your mind supply you an answer? The mind knows not, so tell the mind, “Keep quiet.” If you know, then there is no need for the question. You don’t know, hence the question.

So don’t be befooled by the mind’s toys. It supplies toys: it says, “Look, it is written in the Bible. Look, it is written in the Upanishads. This is the answer. Look, this is written by Lao Tzu, this is the answer.” The mind can throw all kinds of scriptures at you: the mind can quote, the mind can supply from the memory. You have heard many things, you have read many things; the mind carries all those memories. It can repeat in a mechanical way. But look into this phenomenon: that the mind knows not, and all that mind is repeating is borrowed. And the borrowed cannot help.

It happened at a railway crossing. The gates were closed, some train was to pass, and a man was sitting in his car, waiting for the train to pass, reading a book. A drunkard who was just sitting by the side of the gate came close, knocked on the air-conditioned car’s window. The man opened the window and said, “What can I do for you? Do you need any help?”

And the bum said, “Yes, for two days I have not eaten anything at all. Can you give me two rupees? That will be enough for me, just two rupees.”

The man laughed and said, “Never borrow and never lend money,” and showed the book to the bum and said, “Shakespeare — Shakespeare says so. Look.”

The bum pulled out of his pocket a very dirty paperback and said to the man, “You sonofabitch — D. H. Lawrence.”

Beware of the mind. The mind goes on quoting, the mind knows all without knowing at all. The mind is a pretender. See into this phenomenon: this I call insight. It is not a question of thinking. If you think about it, it is again the mind. You have to see through and through. You have to look deeply into the very phenomenon, the functioning of the mind, how the mind functions. It borrows from here and there, it goes on borrowing and accumulating. It is a hoarder, a hoarder of knowledge. Mind becomes very knowledgeable, and then whenever you ask a question which is really important the mind gives a very unimportant answer to it — futile, superficial, rubbish.

A man bought a parrot from a pet shop. The shop-owner assured him the bird would learn to say hello within half an hour. Back home he spent an hour ‘helloing’ to the parrot, but not a word from the bird. As he was turning away in sheer despair, the bird said, “Number engaged.”

A parrot is a parrot. He must have heard it in the pet shop. And this man was going on and on, “Hello, hello, hello,” and the bird was listening, and waiting for him to stop. Then he could say, “Number engaged!”

You can go on asking the mind, “What is truth, what is truth, what is truth?” And the moment you stop, the mind will immediately say, “Number engaged” or something. The mind will give you an answer. Beware of the mind.

The mind is the devil, there is no other devil. And it is your mind. This insight has to be developed — of looking through and through. Cut the mind in two with a sharp blow of the sword. That sword is awareness. Cut the mind in two and go through it, go beyond it! And if you can go beyond the mind, through the mind, and a moment of no-mind arises in you, there is the answer — not a verbal answer, not a scripture quoted, not in quotation marks, but authentically yours, an experience. Truth is an existential experience.

The question is immensely significant, but you will have to be very respectful towards the question. Don’t be in a hurry to find any answer, otherwise some rubbish will kill the answer. Don’t allow your mind to kill the question. And the way of the mind to kill the question is to supply answers, unlived, unexperienced.

You are truth! But it can happen only in utter silence, when not a single thought moves, when the mind has nothing to say, when not a single ripple is in your consciousness. When there is no ripple in your consciousness, your consciousness remains undistorted. When there is a ripple, there is a distortion.

Just go to a lake. Standing on the bank, look down at your reflection. If there are waves, ripples on the lake, and wind is blowing, your reflection is shaky. You cannot figure out what is what — where is your nose and where are your eyes — you can only guess. But when the lake is silent and the wind is not blowing and there is not a single ripple on the surface, suddenly you are there. In absolute perfection, the reflection is there. The lake becomes a mirror.

Whenever there is a thought moving in your consciousness it distorts. And there are many thoughts, millions of thoughts, continuously rushing, and it is always rush-hour. Twenty-four hours a day it is rush-hour, and the traffic goes on and on and on, and each thought is associated with thousands of other thoughts. They are all holding hands and linked together and interlinked, and the whole crowd is rushing around you. How can you know what truth is? Get out of this crowd.

That’s what meditation is, that’s what meditation is all about: a consciousness without mind, a consciousness without thoughts, a consciousness without any wavering — an unwavering consciousness. Then it is there in all its beauty and benediction. Then truth is there — call it God, call it nirvana, or whatsoever you like to call it. It is there, and it is there as an experience. You are in it and it is in you.

Use this question. Make it more penetrating. Make it so penetrating; put everything at stake so that the mind cannot befool you by its superficial answers. Once the mind disappears, once the mind is no longer playing its old tricks, you will know what truth is. You will know it in silence. You will know it in thoughtless awareness.

Source: OSHO, The Heart Sutra

Concentration is a choice. It excludes all except its object of concentration; it is a narrowing. If you are walking on the street, you will have to narrow your consciousness in order to walk. You cannot ordinarily be aware of all that is happening because if you are aware of everything that is happening you will become unfocused. So concentration is a need. Concentration of the mind is a need in order to live–to survive and exist. That is why every culture, in its own way, tries to narrow the mind of the child.

Children, as they are, are never focused; their consciousness is open from all sides. Everything is coming in, nothing is being excluded. The child is open to every sensation, every sensation is included in his consciousness.

And so much is coming in! That is why he is so wavering, so unstable. A child’s unconditioned mind is a flux–a flux of sensations–but he will not be able to survive with this type of mind. He must learn how to narrow his mind, to concentrate.

The moment you narrow the mind you become particularly conscious of one thing and simultaneously unconscious of so many other things. The more narrowed the mind is, the more successful it will be. You will become a specialist, you will become an expert, but the whole thing will consist of knowing more and more about less and less.

The narrowing is an existential necessity; no one is responsible for it. As life exists, it is needed, but it is not enough. It is utilitarian, but just to survive is not enough; just to be utilitarian is not enough. So when you become utilitarian and the consciousness is narrowed, you deny your mind much of which it was capable. You are not using the total mind, you are using a very small part of it.

And the remaining — the major portion — will become unconscious.

In fact, there is no boundary between conscious and unconscious. These are not two minds. “Conscious mind” means that part of the mind that has been used in the narrowing process. “Unconscious mind” means that portion that has been neglected, ignored, closed. This creates a division, a split. The greater portion of your mind becomes alien to you. You become alienated from your own self; you become a stranger to your own totality.

A small part is being identified as your self and the rest is lost. But the remaining unconscious part is always there as unused potentiality, unused possibilities, unlived adventures. This unconscious mind–this potential, this unused mind–will always be in a fight with the conscious mind; that is why there is always a conflict within.

Everyone is in conflict because of this split between the unconscious and the conscious. But only if the potential, the unconscious, is allowed to flower can you feel the bliss of existence; otherwise not.

If the major portion of your potentialities remains unfulfilled, your life will be a frustration. That is why the more utilitarian a person is, the less he is fulfilled, the less he is blissful. The more utilitarian the approach– the more one is in business life–the less he is living, the less he is ecstatic. The part of the mind that cannot be made useful in the utilitarian world has been denied.

The utilitarian life is necessary but at a great cost: you have lost the festivity of life. Life becomes a festivity, a celebration, if all your potentialities come to a flowering; then life is a ceremony. That is why I always say that religion means transforming life into a celebration. The dimension of religion is the dimension of the festive, the nonutilitarian.

The utilitarian mind must not be taken as the whole. The remaining, the greater–the whole mind–should not be sacrificed to it. The utilitarian mind must not become the end. It will have to remain there, but as a means. The other–the remaining, the greater, the potential–must become the end. That is what I mean by a religious approach.

With a nonreligious approach, the businesslike mind, the utilitarian, becomes the end. When this becomes the end, there is no possibility of the unconscious actualizing the potential; the unconscious will be denied. If the utilitarian becomes the end, it means that the servant is playing the role of the master.

Intelligence, the narrowing of the mind, is a means toward survival, but not toward life. Survival is not life.

Survival is a necessity–to exist in the material world is a necessity–but the end is always to come to a flowering of the potential, of all that is meant by you. If you are fulfilled completely, if nothing remains inside in seed form, if everything becomes actual, if you are a flowering, then and only then can you feel the bliss, the ecstasy of life.

The denied part of you, the unconscious part, can become active and creative only if you add a new dimension to your life–the dimension of the festive, the dimension of play.

So meditation is not a work, it is a play. Praying is not a business, it is a play. Meditation is not something to be done to achieve some goal–peace, bliss–but something to be enjoyed as an end in itself.

The festive dimension is the most important thing to be understood–and we have lost it totally. By festive, I mean the capacity to enjoy, moment to moment, all that comes to you.

We have become so conditioned and habits have become so mechanical that even when there is no business to be done, our minds are businesslike. When no narrowing is needed, you are narrowed. Even when you are playing, you are not playing, you are not enjoying it. Even when you are playing cards, you are not enjoying it. You play for the victory and then the play becomes a work; then what is going on is not important, only the result.

In business the result is important. In festivity, the act is important. If you can make any act significant in itself, then you become festive and you can celebrate it.

Whenever you are in celebration, the limits, the narrowing limits are broken. They are not needed, they are thrown. You come out of your straitjacket, the narrowing jacket of concentration. Now you are not choosing; everything that comes, you allow. And the moment you allow the total existence to come in, you become one with it. There is a communion.

This communion–this celebration, this choiceless awareness, this nonbusinesslike attitude–I call meditation.

The festivity is in the moment, in the act, not in the bothering about the results, not in achieving something.

There is nothing to be achieved, so you can enjoy that which is here and now.

You can explain it in this way: I am talking to you; if I am concerned about the result, then the talk becomes a business, it becomes a work. But if I talk to you without any expectations, without any desire about the result, then the talk becomes a play. The very act, in itself, is the end. Then narrowing is not needed. I can play with the words, I can play with the thoughts. I can play with your question, I can play with my answer; then it is not serious, then it is lighthearted.

And if you are listening to me without thinking about getting something out of it, then you can be relaxed; then you can allow me to be in communion with you and your consciousness will not be narrowed. Then it is open– playing, enjoying.

Any moment can be a business moment, any moment can be a meditative moment; the difference is in the attitude. If it is choiceless, if you are playing with it, it is meditative.

There are social needs and there are existential needs that are to be fulfilled. I will not say, “Do not condition children.” If you leave them totally unconditioned, they will be barbaric. They will not be able to exist. Survival needs conditioning but survival is not the end, so you must be able to put your conditioning on and take it off–just like clothes. You can put them on, go out and do your business, and then come home and take them off. Then you are.

Source: OSHO

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About Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic

Ten years have passed since, in the words of his attending physician, Osho prepared for his departure from the body that had served him for 59 years “as calmly as though he were packing for a weekend in the country.” This volume is a recognition that the time has come to provide a historical and biographical context for understanding Osho and his work. Who was this man, known as the sex guru, the “self-appointed Bhagwan”, the Rolls Royce Guru, the Rich Man’s Guru and simply the Master?

Drawn from nearly 5000 hours of Osho’s recorded talks, we hear the story of his youth and education, his life as a professor of philosophy and years of travel teaching the importance of meditation, and the true legacy he sought to leave behind: a religionless religion centered on the act of meditation and the teaching of “Zorba the Buddha”, a celebration of the whole human being.

OSHO is one of the most provocative spiritual teachers of our time. In the 1970’s he captured the attention of young people from the West who wanted to experience meditation and transformation; A decade after his death, the influence of his teachings continues to expand, reaching seekers around the world.

Reviews

All reviews are of the hardcover edition

*Booklist
“Osho’s posthumous autobiography affords a delightful glimpse into the life of one of the most outrageous twentieth-century spiritual leaders. Consisting of anecdotes that Osho told during his many lectures and classes, the book has a conversational tone that well conveys the sometimes infamous guru’s dynamic personality as it offers a sampling of his thoughts on meditation, enlightenment, sex, money, education, and the evolution of consciousness.

“Osho was not afraid to tackle the world’s major religions, pointing out inconsistencies and hypocrisy where he found them and simultaneously drawing together their best aspects into a synthesis grounded in meditation. Osho also answers some of the criticisms leveled at him for his seemingly outrageous behavior and his iconoclastic tendencies. He proves a fascinating man: a prolific writer and lecturer, highly educated, and deeply passionate about his own search for truth. Whether or not one is interested in Osho’s teachings or in the controversies surrounding his movement, his autobiography is entertaining, insightful and for some, perhaps, even enlightening.”

*The New York Times calls Booklist “an acquisitions bible for public and school librarians nationwide.” It is the review journal of the American Library Association, and recommends works of fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, reference books, and media to 30,000 institutional and personal subscribers.

Amazon.com
Although he was criticized for being too enamored with the ways of the West, India’s spiritual leader Osho managed to garner global notoriety as the founder of “Dynamic Meditation.” During his controversial lifetime (which ended–at least on this planet–in 1990) Osho was asked numerous times if he would write an autobiography. “He would always dismiss the question with the wave of his hand,” writes Sarito Carol Neiman in her foreword. “[He] would say his biography is to be found in the sum of his work–in his hundreds of volumes of published talks, and in the transformed lives of the people he touched.” In fact this “autobiography” is just that–a collection of interviews (including excerpts from appearances on Good Morning America and 60 Minutes), personal essays, and quotes. Disjointed as this material may sound, the editors behind the project were able to piece together a smooth autobiography that does not shy from self-criticism or the fundamental question of whether Osho was a “Cult Leader,” “Joker,” “Master,” or “Zorba the Guru.” (The answer, of course, is all of the above.) Followers and seekers will find this a profound and playful collection of stories and teachings. -Gail Hudson

“I enjoyed reading this book… While it presented the history of Osho and of what he calls “his people”, it also presents a look at our society and at ourselves, and presents a new way of living and being that brings a more balanced perspective to our life. Osho suggests that we need to make the changes within and then live the change so that we become an example to follow, rather than someone who tries to change others and convert them to our point of view.” – from InnerSelf Magazine

Awareness

Awareness (The Key to Living in Balance) One of the most important things to be understood about man is that man is asleep.

List Price: USD 14.99
About Awareness

190 Pages
Most of us move through our lives like sleepwalkers. Never really present in what we are doing, never fully alert to our environment, and not even aware of what motivates us to do and say the things we do.
At work we are always “multi-tasking” – planning our tomorrows before we have even begun our todays, reading e-mail while talking on the phone, worrying about what is left undone on the to-do list as we take notes in a meeting that produces more to-do’s.
And in our personal relationships, we have all experienced moments when we have lashed out in anger, or found ourselves suddenly in a tangle of misunderstandings without quite knowing how we got there – “I did it in spite of myself,” or “I don’t know what came over me.” So unaware of our own inner processes that the path between inner feeling and outer expression is shrouded in darkness not only to others but also to ourselves.
At the same time, all of us have experienced moments of awareness – or awakening, to use another term – in extraordinary circumstances. On the road, in a sudden and unexpected accident, time seems to stop and one is suddenly aware of every movement, every sound, every thought. Or in moments that touch us deeply – welcoming a new baby into the world for the first time, or being with someone at the moment of death.
Awareness, says Osho, is the key to being self-directed, centered and free – at work or at play, alone or in relationship, in the marketplace or on the mountaintop, in every aspect of our lives.

Chapter Titles

Foreword
PART I: The Understanding
Chapter 1: Of Men and Rats
Chapter 2: The Roots of Suffering
Chapter 3: Private Worlds
Chapter 4: Awareness and Centering
PART 2: Many Illnesses, One Prescription
Chapter 5: The Analyst and the Witness
Chapter 6: Tension and Relaxation
Chapter 7: Mind and Meditation
Chapter 8: The Rut and the Wheel
PART 3: Awareness in Action
Chapter 9: Start From the Center
Chapter 10: Be Spontaneous
Chapter 11: Be Decisive
Chapter 12: Complete Each Moment
Chapter 13: Stop Trying to Be Good
PART 4: Experiments in Watching
Chapter 14: Time Yourself into Timelessness
Chapter 15: The Invisible Touch
Chapter 16: Vipassana
Chapter 17: The Night Shift
Afterword: Hanging by a Thread

Excerpt from Awareness

from the Foreword
One of the most important things to be understood about man is that man is asleep. Even while he thinks he is awake, he is not. His wakefulness is very fragile; his wakefulness is so tiny it doesn’t matter at all. His wakefulness is only a beautiful name but utterly empty.

You sleep in the night, you sleep in the day – from birth to death you go on changing your patterns of sleep, but you never really awaken. Just by opening the eyes don’t befool yourself that you are awake. Unless the inner eyes open – unless your inside becomes full of light, unless you can see yourself, who you are – don’t think that you are awake. That is the greatest illusion man lives in. And once you accept that you are already awake, then there is no question of making any effort to be awake.

The first thing to sink deep in your heart is that you are asleep, utterly asleep. You are dreaming, day in, day out. You are dreaming sometimes with open eyes and sometimes with closed eyes, but you are dreaming – you are a dream. You are not yet a reality.

Of course in a dream whatsoever you do is meaningless. Whatsoever you think is pointless, whatsoever you project remains part of your dreams and never allows you to see that which is. Hence all the buddhas have insisted on only one thing: Awaken! Continuously, for centuries, their whole teaching can be contained in a single phrase: Be awake. And they have been devising methods, strategies; they have been creating contexts and spaces and energy fields in which you can be shocked into awareness.

Yes, unless you are shocked, shaken to your very foundations, you will not awaken. The sleep has been so long that it has reached to the very core of your being; you are soaked in it. Each cell of your body and each fiber of your mind have become full of sleep. It is not a small phenomenon. Hence great effort is needed to be alert, to be attentive, to be watchful, to become a witness. If all the buddhas of the world agree on any one single theme, this is it – that man as he is, is asleep, and man as he should be, should be awake. Wakefulness is the goal and wakefulness is the taste of all their teachings. Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Buddha, Bahauddin, Kabir, Nanak – all the awakened ones have been teaching one single theme… in different languages, in different metaphors, but their song is the same. Just as the sea tastes of salt – whether the sea is tasted from the north or from the east or from the west, the sea always tastes of salt – the taste of buddhahood is wakefulness.

But you will not make any effort if you go on believing that you are already awake. Then there is no question of making any effort – why bother?

And you have created religions, gods, prayers, rituals, out of your dreams – your gods are as much part of your dreams as anything else. Your politics is part of your dreams, your religions are part of your dreams, your poetry, your painting, your art – whatsoever you do, because you are asleep, you do things according to your own state of mind.

Your gods cannot be different from you. Who will create them? Who will give them shape and color and form? You create them, you sculpt them; they have eyes like you, noses like you – and minds like you! The Old Testament God says, “I am a very jealous God!” Now who has created this God who is jealous? God cannot be jealous, and if God is jealous then what is wrong in being jealous? If even God is jealous, why should you be thought to be doing something wrong when you are jealous? Jealousy is divine!

The Old Testament God says, “I am a very angry God! If you don’t follow my commandments, I will destroy you. You will be thrown into hellfire for eternity. And because I am very jealous,” God says, “don’t worship anybody else. I cannot tolerate it.” Who created such a God? It must be out of our own jealousy, out of our own anger, that you have created this image. It is your projection, it is your shadow. It echoes you and nobody else. And the same is the case with all gods of all religions.

It is because of this that Buddha never talked about God. He said, “What is the point of talking about God to people who are asleep? They will listen in their sleep. They will dream about whatsoever is said to them, and they will create their own gods – which will be utterly false, utterly impotent, utterly meaningless. It is better not to have such gods.”

That’s why Buddha is not interested in talking about gods. His whole interest is in waking you up.

It is said about a Buddhist enlightened master who was sitting by the side of the river one evening, enjoying the sound of the water, the sound of the wind passing through the trees…. A man came and asked him, “Can you tell me in a single word the essence of your religion?”

The master remained silent, utterly silent, as if he had not heard the question. The questioner said, “Are you deaf or something?”

The master said, “I have heard your question, and I have answered it too! Silence is the answer. I remained silent – that pause, that interval, was my answer.”

The man said, “I cannot understand such a mysterious answer. Can’t you be a little more clear?”

So the master wrote on the sand “meditation,” in small letters with his finger. The man said, “I can read now. It is a little better than at first. At least I have got a word to ponder over. But can’t you make it a little more clear?” The master wrote again, “MEDITATION.” Of course this time he wrote in bigger letters. The man was feeling a little embarrassed, puzzled, offended, angry. He said, “Again you write meditation? Can’t you be a little clear for me?”

And the master wrote in very big letters, capital letters, “M E D I T A T I O N.”

The man said, “You seem to be mad!”

The master said, “I have already come down very much. The first answer was the right answer, the second was not so right, the third even more wrong, the fourth has gone very wrong” – because when you write “MEDITATION” with capital letters you have made a god out of it.

That’s why the word God is written with capital ’G’. Whenever you want to make something supreme, ultimate, you write it with a capital letter. The master said, “I have already committed a sin.” He erased all those words he had written and he said, “Please listen to my first answer – only then I am true.”

Silence is the space in which one awakens, and the noisy mind is the space in which one remains asleep. If your mind continues chattering, you are asleep. Sitting silently, if the mind disappears and you can hear the chattering birds and no mind inside, a silence…this whistle of the bird, the chirping, and no mind functioning in your head, utter silence…then awareness wells up in you. It does not come from the outside, it arises in you, it grows in you. Otherwise remember: you are asleep.

Certain things must be understood before we try to grasp what Kabir is saying. First, the mind is never sick nor is it ever healthy: the mind itself IS sickness. It is never quiet and so it is meaningless to say that it is restless: restlessness is the mind. The mind can never become mad because only one who is not mad can become a lunatic: the mind itself is madness.

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

Everybody is afraid of intimacy. It is another thing whether you are aware of it or not.Intimacy means exposing yourself before a stranger. We are all strangers — nobody knows anybody. We are even strangers to ourselves, because we don’t know who we are.

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

Positions are irrelevant; positions are not very meaningful. The real thing is the attitude – not the position of the body, but the position of the mind. But if you change your mind you may want to change your positions, because they are related. But they are not basic.

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”

This question arises to many. The techniques that we have discussed also belong to yoga. They are the same techniques, but with a difference: you can use the same techniques with a very different philosophy behind them. The framework, the pattern differs, not the technique. You may have a different attitude toward life, just the contrary to tantra.

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”