An Extraordinary Intoxication – Osho

It feels to me that my body is like a cage or bottle, in which a very powerful lion is imprisoned and he has been sleeping there for many lives, but now he has been awakened by your harassment. He is hungry and very impatient to be freed from the cage. Many times during the day he becomes enraged and roars, he leaps up roaring. Every cell of my body trembles from this roaring and leaping up, and the forehead and upper part of the head begin to burst with energy. After this I fall deep into an extraordinary intoxication and ecstasy. Then the lion becomes a little quiet, shakes, walks slowly and goes on growling. And then in kirtan or in remembering you he dances ecstatically. Please explain what is going on? 

Yoga Chinmaya has asked.

… what is happening is good. It is happening just as it should. Don’t be frightened by it. Let it happen. Help it in every way. A unique process has begun, whose final crescendo is liberation.

We are certainly imprisoned in the body – a lion locked up in a cage. Confined for such a long time that the lion has forgotten his own roar. Confined for such a long time that the lion has started thinking the cage is his home. No only this, he has started thinking, “I am the cage. I am the body!”

A hit is needed. That’s why you are with me, so I can hit – and you wake up.

These words that I say to you are not mere words. Think of them as arrows. They will pierce you. Sometimes you will be angry with me too. Because everything was moving along peacefully, comfortably and suddenly there is confusion. But there is no other way to wake you up; you will have to pass through pain.

When energy rises within, the body will not be able to bear it. The body has not been made to endure it. The capacity of the body is very small. The energy is vast. As if one wants to enclose the whole sky in a small courtyard… so when the energy awakens many disturbances will arise in the body. The head will be splitting with pain.

And sometimes it happens that even after enlightenment disturbances continue in the body. It is completely natural before enlightenment, because the body is not ready. It is as if you put one thousand candles of electricity into an electric line that has the capacity to carry one hundred candles – it will rattle and catch fire! It is just the same when the energy which had been sound asleep within you awakens – it manifests and your body is not ready for it. Your body is ready to accept your being a beggar; it cannot accept your being an emperor. The body has limits, you have no limits.

… it will be jolted, storms will arise. Before enlightenment happens, before samadhi, these shocks are completely natural. And sometimes it happens that samadhi happens and the shocks continue coming, the storms continue, because the body was not able to get ready.

This is what happened in Krishnamurti’s case. The process continued forty years after attaining the ultimate. The body could not absorb the shock. Krishnamurti will wake up in the middle of the night shouting and screaming. He starts to growl – really growling. And for forty years he has had a headache that doesn’t go away, it comes and goes but it never totally leaves him. Sometimes the pain is so strong that it feels his head will burst.

From the standpoint of the body, these last forty years have been years of great difficulty for Krishnamurti. Sometimes it happens this way. But usually the body becomes ready as samadhi happens. But with Krishnamurti the body could not adjust because samadhi had been forced. The thinkers that brought Krishnamurti up, those Theosophists worked hard, made untiring efforts to bring on samadhi. Their aspiration was to give birth to a world teacher. The world needs it – if a Buddha can be incarnated….

If Krishnamurti had worked only by his own efforts, perhaps he would have needed one or two more births. But then this problem would not have arisen. The worked was forced: what needed two lifetimes to happen, happened instantly. It happened but the body could not get ready. It happened suddenly when the body was not ready. So there have been forty years of physical suffering. Even now Krishnamurti growls at night and wakes up again and again from his sleep. The energy won’t let him sleep. He screams!

It seems amazing that a person who has achieved the ultimate should scream at night. But the cause is clear. An enlightenment that should have taken two lifetimes to happen, was forced too quickly. Because of this the body was not ready and the process continues. It has happened but this process continues. He has reached home but the body remains behind, still being dragged along.

The being has reached home, the body has not reached. The pain and suffering of this dragging continues.

Don’t be frightened by what’s happening. These are the first indications of samadhi, the first steps of samadhi. Take them as auspicious, accept them happily. If you are ready to accept them as blessings, then very soon they will slowly become quiet. And as soon as the body begins to accept, begins to cooperate, the readiness and capacity of the body increase.

You have called out to the infinite, so you will have to become infinite. You have challenged the vastness, so you will have to become vast.

There is a very unique story in the Old Testament – the story of Jacob. Jacob was seeking god. He distributed all his wealth. He sent all his beloved friends, his wife, his children, his servants – he sent them all far away. He was waiting for god on the deserted bank of a river. God arrived.

But it was very strange – Jacob started wrestling with god. Does anyone wrestle with god? But Jacob started struggling with god. It is said that they fought the whole night. As morning approached, as dawn was about to come Jacob was defeated. When god was about to leave him, Jacob fell at god’s feet and said, “Please give me your blessing.”

God said, “What is your name?”

Jacob told him his name.

God said, “Today you have become Israel” – the name that the Jews are known by – “From today on you are Israel. Now you are no longer Jacob, Jacob has died.” – Just as I change your name when I give you sannyas initiation. The old is gone.

God told Jacob: “Jacob has died, from now on you are Israel.”

This story is from the Old Testament. There is no other story of someone fighting with god. But there is a great truth in this story. When that ultimate energy descends, what happens is almost like a fight. And when the ultimate experience happens and you are defeated by the divine and the body is vanquished and you accept defeat – then your final initiation happens. In that moment divine blessings shower on you. Then you are new. That is when you taste the nectar of the eternal for the first time.

Yoga Chinmaya is almost there where Jacob must have been. It is difficult to say how long the night may be. It is hard to say how long the struggle will last. No prediction can be made. But this struggle is auspicious.

Cooperate with this energy. This lion inside that wants freedom – it is you. This energy that wants to rise towards the head, that wants to go from the sex center to the crown chakra, that wants to create a path – it is you. For many lives it has been subdued and lying coiled up, now it is starting to raise its hood. You are fortunate, you are lucky. With this you are approaching the final blessing.

Your real transformation will happen.

Krishnamurti has written in his notebook, whenever my head is splitting, when at night I cannot sleep and the screaming and shouting come and something inside me growls – after all this is over a unique experience comes. After this a great peace descends. Blessings shower in every direction. Everywhere lotuses and more lotuses are blooming.

Exactly this is starting to happen to Chinmaya. It is good.

After this I fall deep into an extraordinary intoxication and ecstasy.

When the energy arises after it has had its struggle, and the body becomes a little ready, then a new ecstasy will come: there is growth. You have come up a little. You have transcended a little. You have come out of the prison a little, you have found open sky. You will be fulfilled. You will dance, you will dance for joy.

Then the lion becomes a little quiet, shakes, walks slowly and goes on growling. And then in kirtan or in remembering you he dances ecstatically.

The lion wants to dance. There isn’t room enough to dance in the body. More space is needed for dancing – what space is available in the body? Dance can only happen outside of the body. This is why if you dance totally you will find you no longer remain a body. In the ultimate grace of dance, at the ultimate height, you are out of the body. The body goes on turning, goes on moving rhythmically but you are outside, you are no longer inside.

This is why I have invariably included dance in my methods of meditation, because there is nothing more miraculous for meditation than dancing. If you dance fully, if you dance totally, then in that dance your being comes out of the body. The body will go on moving in rhythm but you will experience that you are out of the body. And then your real dance begins: below, the body will go on dancing; above, you will dance. The body on the earth, you in the sky! The body in the earthly, you in the celestial. The body will dance the dance of matter, you will dance the dance of consciousness. You will become Nataraj, the king of the dance.

You ask, “Please explain what is going on?”

The unprecedented is happening, the wondrous is happening, the rare is happening! What is happening is not to be explained, it is to be experienced. Whatever I say will not help you understand this experience, at the most it can help you become capable of accepting it more easily. Accept it with joy. Do not repress it.

Naturally the idea will come to suppress it thinking, “What madness is this, I am growling like a lion? What is this roaring? People will think I am mad!” So naturally the idea will come to suppress it, to hide it – don’t let anyone know. What will they say?

Don’t worry. Don’t bother about what anyone says. If people say you are mad, then go mad! Has anyone become enlightened without going mad? Give your attention to your interiority. If bliss is coming from this, if ecstasy is coming, if wine is raining then don’t worry. This world has nothing so valuable as this to give to you. So don’t make any compromise with the world. Don’t sell an inch of your being, even if in exchange you will get the whole universe as your kingdom. Jesus has said, what use is it if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? If you save your soul, even if you lose the whole world you have everything.

Have courage, be daring. Let your trust, your faith in yourself grow. Soon your body will start gradually accepting it. Then the roaring will disappear. Then only dance will remain. Then the lion will not suffer, because the lion will have found a path: when he wants to go out he can go out, when he wants to come in he can come in. Then this body is no longer a jail, then this body becomes a place to relax. When you want to come in, come inside; when you want to go out, go outside.

When you can go out and in as easily as you come and go from your house… it is cool, you feel cold; you go outside and sit in the sunshine. Then the sunshine increases, the sun climbs high, it starts getting hot, you start sweating – you get up and come in. Just as you come and go from your house, then the house is not a prison – if you are sitting in prison you don’t have the possibility to come out or go in whenever your heart feels like it. In jail you are a prisoner; at home you are a master. When your lion can dance outside, can fly in the sky, can play with the moon and stars – then there is no problem. Then there is no fight with the body. Then the body is a place for relaxation. When you get tired you can return inside and rest. Then there is no enmity with the body either. Then the body is a temple.

-Osho

From Enlightenment: The Only Revolution, Chapter Eight

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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On August 15, 2019, Sambuddha Swami Yoga Chinmaya left the body behind and disappeared into the Great Mystery. Read the intimate tribute, Wake Up Into No-Mind.

You can read more about Yoga Chinmaya here.