The Tantra Vision – Osho

The Tantra vision is a direct approach towards God, towards reality, towards that which is. It has no mediators, no middlemen – it has no priests. And Tantra says: The moment the priest enters, religion is corrupted. It is not the devil who corrupts religion, it is the priest. The priest is in the service of the devil.

God can only be approached directly. There is no via media. You cannot go via somebody else because God is immediacy, God is here-now, already surrounding you. Within, without, only God is. There is no need to find somebody to help you to find God. You are already in it, you have never been away from it. Even if you want to, you cannot be away from it. Even if you make all the efforts, it is impossible to go away. There is nowhere else to go. And there is nothing else to be.

Tantra is not a religion in the ordinary sense, because it has no rituals, it has no priest, it has no scriptures. It is an individual approach towards reality. It is tremendously rebellious. Its trust is not in the organization, its trust is not in the community; its trust is in the individual. Tantra believes in you.

I have heard . . .

It happened in a Billy Graham revival meeting.

A guy was collecting donations, and then he started to split with the money. Two policemen caught him red-handed in time. They brought him to Billy Graham’s feet. Naturally, Billy Graham was very angry, and said to the man ‘This money belongs to God . . . and what were you trying to do? Trying to cheat God?’

The man said ‘Sir, I took the money in an effort to get closer to God – by eliminating the middleman, of course.’

The middleman is not needed at all. The real Master never tries to become the middleman – he is not. He helps you not to reach to God, he helps you only to become aware of that which is already there. He is not a bridge between you and God, he is just a bridge between your unawareness and awareness. The moment you become aware, you are joined to God directly, immediately, without anybody standing between you and God.

This Tantra vision is one of the greatest visions ever dreamt by man: a religion without the priest, a religion without the temple, a religion without the organization, a religion which does not destroy the individual but respects individuality tremendously, a religion which trusts in the ordinary man and woman. And this trust goes very deep. Tantra trusts in your body. No other religion trusts in your body. And when religions don’t trust in your body, they create a split between you and your body. They make you enemies of your bodies; they start destroying the wisdom of the body.

Tantra trusts in your body. Tantra trusts in your senses. Tantra trusts in your energy. Tantra trusts in you – in toto. Tantra does not deny anything, but transforms everything.

How to attain to this Tantra vision?

This is the map to turn you on, and to turn you in, and to turn you beyond.

The first thing is the body. The body is your base, it is your ground, it is where you are grounded. To make you antagonistic towards the body is to destroy you, is to make you schizophrenic, is to make you miserable, is to create hell. You are the body. Of course, you are more than the body, but that ‘more’ will follow later on. First you are the body. The body is your basic truth, so never be against the body. Whenever you are against the body, you are going against God. Whenever you are disrespectful to your body, you are losing contact with reality, because your body is your contact. Your body is your bridge. Your body is your temple. Tantra teaches reverence for the body, love, respect for the body, gratitude for the body. The body is marvelous. It is the greatest of mysteries.

But you have been taught to be against the body. So sometimes you are over-mystified by the tree by the green tree – sometimes mystified by the moon and the sun, sometimes mystified by a flower, but never mystified by your own body. And your body is the most complex phenomenon in existence. No flower, no tree has such a beautiful body as you have. No moon, no sun, no star has such an evolved mechanism as you have.

But you have been taught to appreciate the flower, which is a simple thing. You have been taught to appreciate a tree, which is a simple thing. You have even been taught to appreciate stones, rocks, mountains, rivers, but you have never been taught to respect your own body, never to be mystified by it. Yes, it is very close, so it is very easy to forget about it. It is very obvious, so it is easy to neglect it. But this is the most beautiful phenomenon.

If you look at a flower, people will say ‘How aesthetic!’ And if you look at a woman’s beautiful face or a man’s beautiful face, people will say ‘This is lust.’ If you go to the tree, and stand there, and look in a dazed state at the flower – your eyes wide open, your senses wide open to allow the beauty of the flower to enter you – people will think you are a poet or a painter or a mystic. But if you go to a woman or a man and just stand there with great reverence and respect and look at the woman with your eyes wide open and your senses drinking the beauty of the woman, the police will catch hold of you. Nobody will say that you are a mystic, a poet, nobody will appreciate what you are doing. Something has gone wrong.

If you go to a stranger on the street and you say ‘What beautiful eyes you have!’ you will feel embarrassed, he will feel embarrassed. He will not be able to say ‘thank you’ to you. In fact, he will feel offended. He will feel offended, because who are you to interfere in his private life? Who are you to dare?

If you go and touch the tree, the tree feels happy. But if you go and touch a man, he will feel offended. What has gone wrong? Something has been damaged tremendously and very deeply.

Tantra teaches you to reclaim respect for the body, love for the body. Tantra teaches you to look at the body as the greatest creation of God. Tantra is the religion of the body. Of course it goes higher, but it never leaves the body; it is grounded there. It is the only religion which is really grounded in the earth: it has roots. Other religions are uprooted trees – dead, dull, dying; the juice does not flow in them.

Tantra is really juicy, very alive.

The first thing is to learn respect for the body, to unlearn all the nonsense that has been taught to you about the body. Otherwise, you will never turn on, and you will never turn in, and you will never turn beyond. Start from the beginning. The body is your beginning.

The body has to be purified of many repressions. A great catharsis is needed for the body, a great rechana. The body has become poisoned because you have been against it; you have repressed it in many ways. Your body is existing at the minimum, that’s why you are miserable. Tantra says: Bliss is possible only when you exist at the optimum – never before it. Bliss is possible only when you live intensely. How can you live intensely if you are against the body?

You are always lukewarm. The fire has cooled down. Down the centuries, the fire has been destroyed. The fire has to be rekindled. Tantra says: First purify the body – purify it of all repressions. Allow the body energy to flow, remove the blocks.

It is very difficult to come across a person who has no blocks, it is very difficult to come across a person whose body is not tight. Loosen this tightness – this tension is blocking your energy; the flow cannot be possible with this tension.

Why is everybody so uptight? Why can’t you relax? Have you seen a cat sleeping, dozing in the afternoon? How simply and how beautifully the cat relaxes. Can’t you relax the same way? You toss and turn in your bed, you can’t relax. And the beauty of the cat’s relaxation is that it relaxes utterly and yet is perfectly alert. A slight movement in the room and it will open its eyes, it will jump and be ready. It is not that it is just asleep. The cat’s sleep is something to be learnt – man has forgotten.

Tantra says: Learn from the cats – how they sleep, how they relax, how they live in a non-tense way. And the whole animal world lives in that non-tense way. Man has to learn this, because man has been conditioned wrongly. Man has been programmed wrongly.

From the very childhood you have been programmed to be tight. You don’t breathe . . . out of fear. Out of fear of sexuality, people don’t breathe, because when you breathe deeply, your breath goes exactly to the sex center and hits it, massages it from the inside, excites it. Because you have been taught that sex is dangerous, each child starts breathing in a shallow way – hung up just in the chest. He never goes beyond that because if he goes beyond it, suddenly, there is excitement: sexuality is aroused and fear arises. The moment you breathe deeply, sex energy is released.

Sex energy has to be released. It has to flow all over your being. Then your body will become orgasmic. But afraid to breathe, so afraid that almost half the lungs are full of carbon dioxide . . .

There are six thousand holes in the lungs and ordinarily three thousand holes are never cleaned; they always remain full of carbon dioxide. That’s why you are dull, that’s why you don’t look alert, that’s why awareness is difficult. It is not accidental that Yoga and Tantra both teach deep breathing, pranayama, to unload your lungs from the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is not for you – it has to be thrown out continuously, you have to breathe in new, fresh air, you have to breathe more oxygen. Oxygen will create your inner fire, oxygen will make you aflame. But oxygen will also inflame your sexuality. So only Tantra can allow you real deep breathing – even Yoga cannot allow you real deep breathing. Yoga also allows you to go up to the navel – not beyond that, not to cross the hara center, not to cross swadhistan, because once you cross swadhistan you jump into the muladhar.

Only Tantra allows you total being and total flow. Tantra gives you unconditional freedom, whatsoever you are and whatsoever you can be. Tantra puts no boundaries on you; it does not define you, it simply gives you total freedom. The understanding is that when you are totally free, then much is possible.

This has been my observation: that people who are sexually repressed become unintelligent. Only very, very sexually alive people are intelligent people. Now, the idea that sex is sin must have damaged intelligence – must have damaged it very badly. When you are really flowing. and your sexuality has no fight and conflict with you, when you cooperate with it, your mind will function at its optimum. You will be intelligent, alert, alive.

The body has to be befriended, says Tantra.

Do you ever touch your own body sometimes? Do you ever feel your own body, or do you remain as if you were encased in a dead thing? That’s what is happening. People are almost frozen; they are carrying the body like a casket. It is heavy, it obstructs, it does not help you to communicate with reality. If you allow the electricity of the body flow to move from the toe to the head, if you allow total freedom for its energy – the bioenergy – you will become a river, and you will not feel the body at all. You will feel almost bodiless. Not fighting with the body, you become bodiless. Fighting with the body, the body becomes a burden. And carrying your body as a burden you can never arrive to God.

The body has to become weightless, so that you almost start walking above the earth – that is the Tantra way to walk. You are so weightless that there is no gravitation, you can simply fly. But that comes out of great acceptance. It is going to be difficult to accept your body. You condemn it, you always find faults with it. You never appreciate, you never love it, and then you want a miracle: that somebody will come and love your body. If you yourself cannot love it, then how are you going to find somebody else to love your body? If you yourself cannot love it, nobody is going to love your body, because your vibe will keep people repelled.

You fall in love with a person who loves himself, never otherwise. The first love has to be towards oneself – only from that center can other kinds of love arise. You don’t love your body. You hide it in a thousand and one ways. You hide your body’s smell, you hide your body in clothes, you hide your body in ornamentation. You try to create some beauty that you continuously feel you are missing, and in that very effort you become artificial.

Now think of a woman with lipstick on her lips… it is sheer ugliness. Lips should be red out of aliveness, they should not be painted. They should be alive out of love; they should be alive because you are alive. Now, just painting the lips… and you think that you are beautifying yourself. Only people who are very conscious of their ugliness go to beauty parlors, otherwise there is no need.

Do you ever come across a bird which is ugly? Do you ever come across a deer which is ugly? It never happens. They don’t go to any beauty parlor, and they don’t consult an expert. They simply accept themselves and they are beautiful in their acceptance. In that very acceptance they shower beauty upon themselves.

The moment you accept yourself you become beautiful. When you are delighted with your own body, you will delight others also. Many people will fall in love with you, because you yourself are in love with yourself. Now you are angry with yourself: you know that you are ugly, you know that you are repulsive, horrible. This idea will repel people, this idea will not help them to fall in love with you; it will keep them away. Even if they were coming closer to you, the moment they will feel your vibration, they will move away.

There is no need to chase anybody. The chasing arises only because we have not been in love with ourselves. Otherwise, people come. It becomes almost impossible for them not to fall in love with you if you are in love with yourself.

Why did so many people come to Buddha, and why did so many people come to Saraha, and why did so many people come to Jesus? These people were in love with themselves. They were in such great love and they were so delighted with their being that it was natural for whosoever would pass to be pulled by them; like a magnet they would pull. They were so enchanted with their own being, how could you avoid that enchantment? Just being there was such a great bliss.

Tantra teaches the first thing: Be loving towards your body, befriend your body, revere your body, respect your body, take care of your body – it is God’s gift. Treat it well, and it will reveal great mysteries to you. All growth depends on how you are related to your body.

And then the second thing Tantra speaks about is the senses. Again, the religions are against the senses. They try to dull the senses and sensitivity. And the senses are your doors of perception, the senses are the windows into reality. What is your eye? What are your ears? What is your nose? Windows into reality, windows into God. If you see rightly, you will see God everywhere. So eyes have not to be closed, eyes have to be opened rightly. Eyes have not to be destroyed. Ears have not to be destroyed because all these sounds are divine.

These birds are chanting mantras. These trees are giving sermons in silence. All sounds are his, and all forms are his. So if you don’t have sensitivity in you, how will you know God? And you have to go to a church, to a temple to find him . . . and he is all over the place. In a man-made temple, in a man-made church you go to find God? Man seems to be so stupid. God is everywhere, alive and kicking everywhere. But for that you need clean senses, purified senses.

So Tantra teaches that the senses are the doors of perception. They have been dulled. You have to drop that dullness, your senses have to be cleansed. Your senses are like a mirror which has become dull because so much dust has gathered upon it. The dust has to be cleansed.

Look at the Tantra approach about everything. Others say: Dull your senses, kill your taste! And Tantra says: Taste God in every taste. Others say: Kill your capacity to touch. And Tantra says: Flow totally into your touch, because whatsoever you touch is divine. It is a total reversal of the so-called religions. It is a radical revolution – from the very roots.

Touch, smell, taste, see, hear as totally as possible. You will have to learn the language because the society has befooled you: it has made you forget.

Each child is born with beautiful senses. Watch a child. When he looks at something, he is completely absorbed. When he is playing with his toys, he is utterly absorbed. When he looks, he becomes just the eyes. Look at the eyes of a child. When he hears, he becomes just the ears. When he eats something, he is just there on the tongue. He becomes just the taste. See a child eating an apple. With what gusto! With what great energy! With what delight! See a child running after a butterfly in the garden . . . so absorbed that even if God were available, he would not run that way. Such a tremendous, meditative state – and without any effort. See a child collecting seashells on the beach as if he were collecting diamonds. Everything is precious when the senses are alive. Everything is clear when the senses are alive.

Later on in life, the same child will look at reality as if hidden behind a darkened glass. Much smoke and dust have gathered on the glass, and you are hidden behind it and you are looking. Because of this, everything looks dull and dead. You look at the tree and the tree looks dull because your eyes are dull. You hear a song, but there is no appeal in it because your ears are dull. You can hear a Saraha and you will not be able to appreciate him, because your intelligence is dull.

Reclaim your forgotten language. Whenever you have time, be more in your senses. Eating – don’t just eat, try to learn the forgotten language of taste again. Touch the bread, feel the texture of it. Feel with open eyes, feel with closed eyes. While chewing, chew it – you are chewing God. Remember it! It will be disrespectful not to chew well, not to taste well. Let it be a prayer, and you will start the rising of a new consciousness in you. You will learn the way of Tantra alchemy.

Touch people more. We have become very touchy about touch. If somebody is talking to you and comes too close, you start moving backwards. We protect our territory. We don’t touch and we don’t allow others to touch; we don’t hold hands, we don’t hug. We don’t enjoy each other’s being.

Go to the tree, touch the tree. Touch the rock. Go to the river, let the river flow through your hands. Feel it! Swim, and feel the water again as the fish feels it. Don’t miss any opportunity to revive your senses. And there are a thousand and one opportunities the whole day. There is no need to have some separate time for it. The whole day is a training in sensitivity. Use all the opportunities. Sitting under your shower, use the opportunity – feel the touch of the water falling on you. Lie down on the ground, naked, feel the earth. Lie down on the beach, feel the sand. Listen to the sounds of the sand, listen to the sounds of the sea. Use every opportunity – only then will you be able to learn the language of the senses again. And Tantra can be understood only when your body is alive and your senses feel.

Free your senses from habits: habits are one of the root causes of dullness. Find out new ways of doing things. Invent new ways of loving. People are very much afraid.

I have heard . . .

The doctor told the working chap that he could not complete his examination without a sample of Urine. The small boy who was sent with the specimen spilled most of it while messing about. Fearing a good hiding, he topped it up with a cow in the field.

The doctor hastily sent for the man, who returned home to his wife in a furious temper and said ‘That’s you and your fancy positions! You would be on top wouldn’t you? And now I am going to have a baby!’

People have fixed habits. Even while making love, they always make it in the same position – ‘the missionary posture’. Find out new ways of feeling.

Each experience has to be created with great sensitivity. When you make love to a woman or a man, make it a great celebration. And each time bring some new creativity into it. Sometimes have a dance before you make love. Sometimes pray before you make love. Sometimes go running into the forest, then make love. Sometimes go swimming and then make love. Then each love experience will create more and more sensitivity in you and love will never become dull and boring.

Find out new ways to explore the other. Don’t get fixed in routines. All routines are anti-life: routines are in the service of death. And you can always invent – there is no limit to inventions. Sometimes a small change, and you will be tremendously benefitted. You always eat at the table; sometimes just go on the lawn, sit on the lawn and eat there. And you will be tremendously surprised: it is a totally different experience. The smell of the freshly cut grass, the birds hopping around and singing, and the fresh air, and the sun rays, and the feel of the wet grass underneath. It cannot be the same experience as when you sit on a chair and eat at your table; it is a totally different experience: all the ingredients are different.

Try sometimes just eating naked, and you will be surprised. Just a small change – nothing much, you are sitting naked – but you will have a totally different experience, because something new has been added to it. If you eat with a spoon and fork, eat sometimes with bare hands, and you will have a different experience; your touch will bring some new warmth to the food. A spoon is a dead thing: when you eat with a spoon or a fork, you are far away. That same fear of touching anything – even food cannot be touched. You will miss the texture, the touch, the feel of it. The food has as much feel as it has taste.

Many experiments have been done in the West on the fact that when we are enjoying anything, there are many things we are not aware of which contribute to the experience. For example, just close your eyes and close your nose and then eat an onion. Tell somebody to give it to you when you don’t know what he is giving – whether he is giving you an onion or an apple. And it will be difficult for you to make out the difference if the nose is completely closed and the eyes are closed, blindfolded. It will be impossible for you to decide whether it is an onion or an apple, because the taste is not only the taste; fifty per cent of it comes from the nose. And much comes from the eyes. It is not just taste; all the senses contribute. When you eat with your hands, your touch is contributing. It will be more tasty. It will be more human, more natural.

Find out new ways in everything. Let that be one of your sadhanas.

Tantra says: If you can go on finding new ways every day, your life will remain a thrill, an adventure. You will never be bored.

A bored person is an irreligious person. You will always be curious to know, you will always be on the verge of seeking the unknown and the unfamiliar. Your eyes will remain clear, and your senses will remain clear, because when you are always on the verge of seeking, exploring, finding, searching, you cannot become dull, you cannot become stupid.

Psychologists say that by the age of seven, stupidity starts. It starts near about the age of four, but by the seventh year it is very, very apparent. Children start becoming stupid by the age of seven. In fact, the child learns fifty per cent of all the learnings of his whole life by the time he is seven. If he will live until seventy, then in the remaining sixty-three years, he will learn only fifty per cent – fifty per cent he has already learned. What happens? He becomes dull, he stops learning. If you think in terms of intelligence, by the age of seven a child starts becoming old. Physically he will become old later on – from the age of thirty-five he will start declining – but mentally he is already on the decline.

You will be surprised to know that your mental age, the average mental age, is twelve years. People don’t grow beyond that; they are stuck there. That’s why you see so much childishness in the world. Just insult a person who is sixty years of age, and within seconds he is just a twelve-year-old child. And he is behaving in such a way that you will not be able to believe that such a grown-up person could be so childish.

People are always ready to fall back. Their mental age is just skin-deep, hidden behind. Just scratch a little, and their mental age comes out. Their physical age is not of much importance.

People die childish; they never grow.

Tantra says: Learn new ways of doing things, and free yourself of habits as much as possible. And Tantra says: Don’t be imitative, otherwise your senses will become dull. Don’t imitate. Find out ways of doing things in your own way. Have your signature on everything that you do.

Just the other night a sannyasin who is going back was saying that love between her and her husband has disappeared. Now they are hanging together just for the children. I told her to meditate, to be friendly to the husband. If love has disappeared, all has not disappeared; friendship is still possible. Be friendly. And she said ’It is difficult. When a cup is broken, it is broken.’

I told her that it seemed she had not heard that Zen people in Japan will first purchase a cup from the supermarket, bring it home, break it, then glue it together again to make it individual and special. Otherwise, it is just a market thing. And if a friend comes and you give him tea in an ordinary cup and saucer, that is not good; that is ugly, that is not respectful. So they will bring a fresh new cup and break it. Of course, then there is no other cup in the world exactly like it – there cannot be. Glued together, now it has some individuality, a signature. And when Zen people go to each other’s house or each other’s monastery, they will not just sip the tea. First, they will appreciate the cup, they will look at it. The way it has been joined together is a piece of art – the way the pieces have been broken and put together again. The woman understood, she started laughing. She said, ‘Then it is possible.’

Bring individuality into things, don’t just be an imitator. To imitate is to miss life.

I have heard . . .

Mulla Nasruddin has a very horny parrot. The parrot was continuously saying foul things, particularly whenever there was a guest, and Mulla was very worried. It was getting terrible. Finally, somebody suggested to him that he take it to the vet.

So he takes the parrot to a vet. The vet examines the parrot extensively and says ’Well, Nasruddin, you have a horny parrot. I have a sweet, young, female bird. For fifteen rupees your bird can go in the cage with my bird.’

Mulla’s parrot is in the cage listening. And Mulla says ‘God, I don’t know . . . fifteen rupees?’

The parrot says ‘Come on, come on, Nasruddin. What the hell?’ Finally, the Mulla says ‘All right’ and gives the vet the fifteen rupees.

The vet takes the bird, puts him in the cage with the female bird and closes the curtain. The two men go and sit down. There is a moment of silence, and then suddenly ‘Qua! Qua! Qua!’ Feathers come flying over the top of the curtain.

The vet says ‘Holy Gee!’ runs over, opens the curtain. The male has got the female bird down on the bottom of the cage with one claw, with the other claw he is pulling out all her feathers and shouting in delight ‘For fifteen rupees I want you naked, naked!’

Then, seeing the vet and his master, Mulla Nasruddin, he screams again in joy and says, ‘Hey Nasruddin, isn’t this the way you also like your women?’

Even a parrot can learn human ways, can become imitative, can become neurotic. To be imitative is to be neurotic. The only way to be sane in the world is to be individual, authentically individual. Be your own being.

The third thing that Tantra says is: First, the body has to be purified of repressions. Second, the senses have to be made alive again. Third, the mind has to drop neurotic thinking, obsessive thinking, and has to learn ways of silence. Whenever it is possible, relax. Whenever it is possible, put the mind aside.

Now you will say ‘It is easy to say, but how to put the mind aside? It goes on and on.’ There is a way.

Tantra says: Watch those three awarenesses. Awareness one: let the mind go, let the mind be filled with thoughts, you simply watch, detached. There is no need to be worried about it – just watch. Just be the observer and by and by you will see that silent gaps have started coming to you. Then, awareness two: when you have become aware that gaps have started coming, then become aware of the watcher. Now watch the watcher and then new gaps will start coming – the watcher will start disappearing, just like the thoughts. One day, the thinker also starts disappearing. Then real silence arises. With the third awareness, both object and subject are gone; you have entered into the beyond.

When these three things are attained: body purified of repressions, senses freed from dullness, mind liberated from obsessive thinking, a vision arises in you free from all illusion – that is the Tantra vision.

-Osho

From Tantric Transformation, Discourse #7

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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