Author: purushottama

Trance is Always Unconscious – Osho

Can trance-like states be higher or lower than the conscious?

The trance-like state is always lower than the conscious. It is always unconscious. It is a very significant question, because for centuries it has been avoided and not discussed.

There have been people like Ramakrishna who used to go into a trance very easily. Ultimately Ramakrishna became enlightened, but he became enlightened when he met a master who taught him witnessing. Before that he was not an enlightened man. But he was a very simple, very spontaneous, very loving person, and he would go into a trance just by seeing something. For example, he was passing by the side of a lake. It was evening time, the sun was setting, and there was a black cloud – the rains were just going to come. And as he passed by, he disturbed almost two dozen cranes that must have been sitting by the side of the lake. Because of Ramakrishna’s coming there, they suddenly flew away – against the black clouds, the two dozen white cranes in a row and a beautiful sunset underneath. Then and there he fell suddenly into a trance. He had to be carried back to his home. It took three hours for him to come back. Just the beauty of it was enough. But it was not a superconscious state. It was tremendously relaxing, but it was below consciousness. […]

Trance is possible but for that you need a certain training in auto-hypnosis. Or, you may have a natural tendency of falling unconscious. You may have a very thin layer of consciousness, and anything that affects you very deeply – like Ramakrishna – may make you go unconscious; otherwise, you need a training. But the training will lead you to the unconscious – it is not a spiritual growth.

You have to be conscious, more conscious. That’s why my process is to first reach to the highest point of consciousness, then turn backwards. Now go down with the light that you have, the insight that you have, into the deeper, dark parts of your being. Now you will be going with light, and wherever you are, there will be light.

Your unconscious has treasures, your collective unconscious has treasures, your cosmic unconscious has treasures, but you need light and you need alertness. If you yourself are unconscious, how can you find any treasures in the three layers of your deep unconscious mind?

-Osho

From The Path of the Mystic, Discourse #13

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

Witnessing where Mindfulness and Self-Inquiry Meet

At first glance, one might think that there is a significant difference between Ramana’s Self-Inquiry and Osho’s Witnessing Meditation. But in my own experience I have found that not to be the case. What I discovered is that Osho’s Watching/Witnessing Meditation incorporates Ramana’s enquiry but also extends out to reach a much larger field of practitioners. How so? you might ask. Okay, here goes.

Ramana Maharshi’s method of self-inquiry is often described as such:
A thought appears.
The question is asked, “To whom does the thought appear?”
The answer, “Me,” arises.
And then the question, “Who is this me? Or who am I?” is enquired into.

Osho has described the following three steps for his watching meditation:
We begin with watching the activities of the body.

With this awareness we then turn inwards to watch the movement of mind, thought.

Even deeper still and ever more subtle we then begin to watch the feelings of the heart.

So where do these seemingly very different approaches to realizing the self overlap, and how are they related?

Ramana begins with “a thought appears.” So, for a thought to appear it presumes that one is watching the movement of mind. For many of us, this is not as easy as one might, excuse the pun, think.

And this is where Osho extends the field. He instructs us to begin with watching the activities of the body. Meaning: we watch, we bring awareness to daily activities, eating, walking, talking, showering, etc. By this bringing awareness we are reclaiming our consciousness. We are increasing our own capacity of being aware. We are learning the art of watching. We are beginning to be more conscious.

His next step is to take this awareness and begin to watch the movement of mind. First, we watch our continual getting lost into thought and then remembering which brings us momentarily out of the stream. This process takes time because we have to gradually increase our capacity to watch all that appears in consciousness. Soon we are able to see thought as something separate from our watching and slowly disidentification begins, but still we are drawn out into the fray again and again. But then there is one more instruction that Osho adds and that is to watch without grasping or rejecting, to watch without judging the thoughts, to watch without analyzing the thought stream. Through this quality of watching, we begin to see that it is “the grasping and rejecting, the judging and analyzing” that is keeping us tethered to the stream of thought. It is how we remain identified with thought. A thought appears and we grab onto it because we like it and go for a ride. Or a thought appears that we find unpleasant and we push it down not to be looked at. Or we judge our getting lost into a thought or even analyze why we are attracted to such a thought.

But when we discover watching without grasping or rejecting, without judging or analyzing we are able to disengage, disidentify with thought and remain the watcher. And it is the same process for feelings, moods, emotions.

It is here that Ramana’s second step comes in. He says, we ask, “To whom does the thought appear?” We are not able to ask this as long as we are glued together with the stream of thought, as long as we are grasping, judging, etc. With the quality of watching that Osho has instructed there is space for the inquiry, “To whom does the thought appear?” Here we are in the double-pointed arrow that Osho speaks about. The arrow pointing back is the enquiry – to whom does that thought appear.

Osho instructs us to remain in this watching with the double-pointed arrow, watching without judging, analzying … and slowly, slowly the content that the outward-pointing arrow is pointing to begins to disappear. It no longer has the fuel to continue because it was being supplied by the identification, by the engagement.

And it is here that Ramana’s inquiry of “who am I” is relevant. Here in this disengaged awareness, this witnessing without an object, one’s own true nature as the witnessing consciousness is revealed. And it is indeed who we are.

I have been known to say that Osho’s witnessing meditation is the bee’s knees of meditation because it incorporates both mindfulness and self-enquiry. And so it is, and so it does.

A big shout to those who have persisted in their questions requiring me to articulate ever more clearly this insight.

-purushottama

See all 0f Prem’s notes.

Awareness is My Successor – Osho

You have said that you don’t care if there is any successor when you are gone. What do you see happening to your sannyasins, to Rajneeshism, the moment you die?

I don’t at all think about it. Never does the thought occur to me, for the simple reason that the very idea goes against my approach. The people who are living with me are enjoying the moment. Do you want me alone not to enjoy the moment?

I am teaching everybody to enjoy the moment, and don’t be bothered by tomorrow. Living in the moment intelligently, consciously, meditatively, will take care of the future. There is no need for me to give you directives, guidelines for what you have to do when I am gone. That’s what all the old religions have done.

Manu gave all the guidelines for Hindus five thousand years ago, and they are still following them. Everything has changed, nothing of Manu is applicable any more. In fact it is a hindrance to the evolution of Hindus to become contemporaries. Now, Manu has committed a crime against humanity by giving these directives. He did not prove a blessing, he proved himself a curse. But the same is done by Moses, Mohammed, Mahavira, Jesus, Buddha. On one thing they are all agreed: that when they are gone they have still to control the people who had come into contact with them, who had trusted them. But they don’t trust their people.

I trust my people. I know that they are living fully, joyously. They know how to live joyously, how to live fully, and that’s enough. I have given them the experience; now the experience will be decisive. And they will have a freedom, because things will change, situations will change. I could give directives that will become hindrances to their growth, but I cannot do that. That is criminal, very criminal. […]

Nobody should try to make any guidelines for the future. The future is always open. I am not willing to be a participant in a crime which has been committed for thousands of years. I absolutely decline to stand with Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Mohammed, Jesus, Moses. No, that is not my company.

I want to make a complete breakthrough about everything, and this is one of the most fundamental things. There is hidden in it a deep desire to dominate people, even when you are gone —to put it in other words, that the dead should be dominating the living. That’s what has been happening all around the world. The living are not given freedom even to choose their own course, to choose their own moralities, to choose, according to the time, what is right and what is wrong.

Those people were very much concerned, because they were writing, they were dictating rules and regulations in detail. In Buddhist scriptures there are 33,000 rules for a monk. People have come to seek freedom, they have come to seek truth. What they are getting is a strange psychological slavery in its place, and that too even for coming generations.

So when I am asked whether I am going to make somebody my successor, I say absolutely no. I am giving my people clarity, understanding, awareness. That is going to be my successor. Every one of my sannyasins has to decide for himself. I have given him that much understanding, and I am making every effort to make him more and more conscious, so there is no need for him to be dictated to about things which are absolutely new by people who are dead, and who had no idea about those things. […]

I am not going to give a single instruction about anything. In fact there is no need. These people had to give instructions because they left people blind. They gave only beliefs to them; they never gave them consciousness, awareness. They never gave them the capacity to decide on their own. They never made them responsible for their own life.

Yes, they gave them a blind man’s stick, and directions on how to move so you can get to the door. But the house is being continuously renovated, continuously remade. Doors are being changed, windows are being changed, and the old blind man goes on finding the way with the old instructions.

No, I don’t want to give my people sticks. I want to give them eyes. And the people who ask me who is going to be my successor are asking because that’s how it has always been: somebody should succeed, and I should give clear-cut instructions about what you have to do and what you have not to do when I am gone. The people who ask me the question think that I am very irresponsible that I will simply die and leave the sannyasins without any instructions, without any moral code, without any ten commandments. They do not understand me. I love my people so much that I cannot create any hindrance in their life in the future. I cannot give them any instructions. I am giving them eyes so they can see where the door is for themselves. Why should I give them a map of the house when the house is continuously changing? And it has been proved by these five thousand years that all codes, all religions, all ethical systems have failed for the simple reason that they were trying to decide the future, which was not in their hands. Their intention was good, but their understanding was not enough.

I want my sannyasins to inherit my freedom, my awareness, my consciousness. And each sannyasin has to be my successor, has to be me. There is no need for anybody to dominate. There is nobody for anybody to dictate to. They are on their own. If they want to be together, they can be together. Out of their own freedom, it is their choice and their decision. If they want to move free, they have all the rights to move free.

So the thought never occurs to me. All that occurs to me is that the sooner I can make my people more clear about life and its complexities the better, because nobody knows when I may be gone. Before that my people have to be capable of blissfully and joyously giving me a send-off.

And I will not be leaving any ethical code, any structure to be followed. They will have to make it. And they will have to remember that they make it only for themselves, not for the future. They will have to do the same as I am doing for them. They will have to keep alert, because it is very easy to be tempted so that the new generation does not get lost. It is better to get lost than to be imprisoned.

So I am not giving you any structure, any instructions, but only clarity, understanding, consciousness. Remember, the same thing has to be done for the future generation. One day the same question will be before you. What are you going to decide for the younger generation of sannyasins for when you are gone?

Nobody has the right to decide for anybody else. Help the person to grow, to mature. Help the person to stand on his own feet, this is real compassion. And my compassion does not allow me to say a single word about the future. I am absolutely concerned with the present. And if the present is golden, the future born out of it will be even more golden.

-Osho

From The Last Testament, V. 1, Talk #6

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

The Double-Pointed Arrow of Watchingness

Osho speaks often about watching the mind without grasping or rejecting, without judging, without analyzing. And he also speaks about watching with a double-pointed arrow of awareness.

After experimenting with these two viewpoints, it has been my discovery that they are two ways of describing the exact same phenomenon. When we manage to watch without grasping or rejecting, without judging, without analyzing we find ourselves watching with a double-pointed awareness. If we find ourselves in watching with the double-pointed arrow we discover that we are indeed watching without grasping or rejecting, etc., and we see that it is the grasping, the rejecting, the judging, the analyzing that is preventing us from having the double-pointed awareness

So whichever viewpoint we are more suited to, they both will be describing the same quality of watchingness. The key is watching without being drawn out (grasping, rejecting …) into the fray. This watching without being drawn out creates the second arrow of awareness.

-purushottama

See all 0f Prem’s notes.

Don’t Start with Love, Start with Meditation – Osho

Your silence goes so deep into my heart that it makes my love unconditional. Beloved Master, is this what “satsang” is?

Satyam Svarup, there are two ways to look at life. One is the way of the schizophrenic. That has been followed by the crowds around the world down the centuries. It divides things. It is very uneasy without dividing them. And because for thousands of years the teaching has penetrated into every mind it seems to be the only way.

It looks neat and clean divided, but existence does not follow it. It has its own undivided melting, merging into each other without making any demarcations. I am against the first because it has destroyed so much that the crime is incalculable. […]

The old way, the wrong way, the ugly and the insane way, divides love from silence, divides silence from ecstasy, divides ecstasy from self-realization and so on, so forth. But they are not divisions. It is a simple flow of energy moving into different spaces.

You are asking, “Your silence goes so deep into my heart that it makes my love unconditional.” To any logician, to any follower of the first path it will look absurd. What has silence to do with unconditional love? They seem to be worlds apart.

But, Satyam Svarup, you gathered courage to say something which goes against your training of logic. It was possible because it is not an intellectual question, it is your existential experience. And logic cannot overrule existential experiences.

Man is a miniature cosmos, everything intertwined. If your love deepens, your silence will deepen; your blissfulness will deepen, your innocence will deepen, your sensitivity, your aesthetic potentiality will come to flowering.

Just as your hands are not separate from your eyes, neither are your feet separate from your head; you are an organic unity – the same is the situation in the inner world. Your love, your meditation, your silence, your blissfulness – they are simply waves in the same ocean of consciousness. So don’t be disturbed by the mind, which is pretending to be the master. Listen to the heart and you will never be on a wrong track. And the more you listen to the heart, the more and more your life will go beyond intellect, beyond logic, beyond dialectics, beyond all kinds of discriminations.

It is beautiful that you have brought it into a question: “As your silence goes so deep into my heart, there it makes my love unconditional.”

Start from anywhere. You are a perfect circle, and so deeply interconnected, with everything in your life. You can start by being more meditative, which is the simplest because it does not involve other human beings. The others are a little complex; it is better to let them come on their own.

My own understanding is, don’t start with love, because your understanding of love is not the authentic love. It is simply biological infatuation, and if you start with that you have gone astray. Start with meditation because meditation is the only thing that biology has not given to you. It has a tremendous force of its own. That’s why the physiologist or the biologist will account for everything but will never mention the word ‘meditation’.

Meditation is the only bridge between you and the beyond. Start with meditation – and that’s what is happening to you, effortlessly. Sitting with me, listening to me, a silence enters into your heart and suddenly you feel springs of love unaddressed, radiating in all directions. It is not love to someone; it is simply being loving.

But if it comes from meditation, from silence, it will have purity, because it is not coming from biology.

It is not coming from your past, it is not coming from all your conditionings; it is coming from the spontaneous experience of silence. And suddenly you see a great aroma of love around you. You have known love, but it was always conditional. Anything conditional is not worth a penny, because the conditional will disappear. Once the condition is fulfilled there is no purpose in it. […]

Any love which has some conscious or unconscious conditions is bound to bring frustration, because those conditions cannot be fulfilled. The very nature of conditions is such. […]

When I say love has to be unconditional it means you are not expecting from the other anything. You are not expecting the other to be someone else. You are simply loving to the other, as he or she is. And your unconditional love will make you unattached to individuals; it will be just an aroma around you. You will be a loving person. You will love the trees, you will love the sunset, you will love a woman, you will love all that this universe provides you.

Right now, the conditional love is like an imprisonment. Two persons who don’t like each other are holding each other in imprisonment. It is a strange thing. If you don’t like the other, say good-bye.

But you cannot say good-bye because you are afraid he may enjoy himself somewhere else. It does not fit with your jealousy, he has to be happy with you. A husband does not like his wife to be laughing, to be happy with another man. Neither does the wife like such a situation.

So it is a very strange situation in which we have placed humanity. And unless a great awareness happens that this is our fundamental misery, you cannot be freed from this hell that you have made of the earth. Lovers – the so-called lovers, I mean – are more like detectives to each other than lovers. Jealously watching what the other is doing . . . every letter is opened; every pocket is searched.

One night, a woman heard . . . in sleep her husband was again and again saying, “Kamala, darling.”

The woman was listening to exactly what he was saying. In the morning, she asked, the first thing, “Who is this ‘Kamala darling’?”

The man said, “It is nothing, it is just the name of a female horse. I have been thinking to bet on that horse – you know the racing season is coming.”

And then, just when they were talking about this, the phone rang. The husband ran towards the phone; the wife said, “Stop, I will take it.” And then she handed over the phone to the husband: “That female horse ‘Kamala darling’ wants to talk to you.”

Even in sleep you are not free to say things. And people say there is freedom of speech! If there were a small window which God had managed to make into every head, the wife would have been looking through the window into your dreams. “What are you seeing? Who is this woman?” […]

This whole society is boiling with jealousy. Nobody says it, everybody hides it. But the more you hide it, the more it goes on like a cancerous growth, expanding in your interior being. Just look how many things you are jealous of: somebody has a beautiful house and somebody has a beautiful physique, and somebody has a beautiful strong body. Somebody is an intellectual giant and somebody has the most wealth that one could ever think of. So on, so forth, there are people all around who will make you jealous.

Instead of your life being in an oceanic love, it is suffering in a gutter of dirty jealousy. But unless you start looking inwards and finding the roots, you will not be able to transform it.

You are blessed, Svarup, that just without any effort my silence reaches to your heart. It will purify you; it will destroy all that is poisonous in you – jealousy, anger, greed, attachment, possessiveness.

It will make you just a beautiful flower of love.

What is happening has been called in the East satsang, being with a man who has attained the truth. Yes, this is satsang – where, without any effort on your part, just the grace of your master starts alchemical changes . . . so silently that you become aware only when the work is done.

And there are a few things . . . for example if you have known unconditional love, you cannot undo it. It is so vast and it is so beautiful that what you used to think was love looks like just an ugly nightmare compared to it. You would not like to go back to it; your whole being will resist going back to it.

My speaking to you is not especially to give you any philosophy or any dogma, or any creed or any theology or any religion. My talking to you is a device so that you can experience my presence, my silence. In an unaware moment perhaps, you can come closer to my heart without any fear.

This is a device for meditativeness.

I am not interested in any kinds of doctrines; they have tortured humanity long enough. I am interested in a loving humanity, in a humanity fragrant with silence, rejoicing this immense gift of life and existence. […]

-Osho

From Om Mani Padme Hum, Discourse #28

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

Shravan Means Right Listening – Osho

This sutra uses four words as four steps, four steps towards the unknown. The first is shravan. Shravan means right listening – not just listening, but right listening.

We listen, everyone listens, but right listening is a rare achievement. So what is the difference between listening and right listening, shravan?

Right listening means not just a fragmentary listening. I am saying something, you are listening to it there. Your ears are being used; you may not be just behind your ears at all; you may have gone somewhere else. You may not be present there. If you are not present there in your totality, then it cannot be right listening.

Right listening means you have become just your ears – the whole being is listening. No thinking inside, no thoughts, no thought process, only listening. Try it sometimes; it is a deep meditation in itself. Some birds are singing – the crows – just become listening, forget everything – just be the ears. The wind is passing through the trees, the leaves are rustling; just become the ears, forget everything – no thought process, just listen. Become the ears. Then it is right listening, then your whole being is absorbed into it, then you are totally present.

And Upanishads say, that the esoteric, ultimate formulas of spiritual alchemy cannot be given to you unless you are in a moment of right listening.

-Osho

From That Art Thou, Discourse #44

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

What is Exactly your Attitude about Death? – Osho

What is exactly your attitude about death?

Kamalesh, a mystic who was being led to the gallows saw a big crowd running on before him. “Don’t be in such a hurry,” he said to them. “I can assure you; nothing will happen without me.”

That’s my attitude towards death: it is the greatest joke there is. Death has never happened, cannot happen in the very nature of things, because life is eternal. Life cannot end; it is not a thing; it is a process. It is not something that begins and ends; it has no beginning and no end. You have always been here in different forms, and you will be here in different forms, or, ultimately, formless. That’s how a buddha lives in existence: he becomes formlessness. He disappears from the gross forms totally. Death is not there, it is a lie, but it appears very real. It only appears very real, it is not.

It appears so because you believe too much in your separate existence. It is in believing that you are separate from existence that you give reality to death. Drop this idea of being separate from existence, and death disappears.

If I am one with existence, how can I die? Existence was there before me and will be there after me. I am just a ripple in the ocean, and the ripple comes and goes, the ocean remains, abides. Yes, you will not be there—as you are you will not be there. This form will disappear, but the one who is abiding in this form will go on abiding, either in other forms or ultimately in formlessness.

Start feeling one with existence, because that’s how it is. That’s why my insistence again and again to let the distinction between the observer and the observed disappear, as many times during the day as possible. Find a few moments—whenever you can find, wherever you can find—and just let this distinction and difference between the observer and the observed disappear. Become the tree you are seeing and become the cloud you are looking at, and slowly, slowly you will start laughing at death.

This mystic who was being led to the gallows must have seen the utter lie of death, he could joke about his own death. He was being led to the gallows, he saw a big crowd running on before him; they were going to see the crucifixion . . .

People are very much interested in such things. If they hear that somebody is being murdered publicly, thousands of people will gather to see it. Why this attraction? Deep down you are all murderers, and this is a vicarious way to enjoy it. That’s why films about murder and violence, detective novels, are so much in vogue, popular. Unless a film has murder in it and suicide in it and obscene sex in it, it never becomes a box office hit. It never succeeds; it fails. Why? Because nobody is interested in anything else. These are deep desires in your being. Seeing them on the screen, there is a vicarious enjoyment as if you are doing it; you become identified with the characters in the film or in the novel.

Now this mystic was being led to the gallows. He saw a big crowd running on before him. “Don’t be in such a hurry,” he said to them. “I can assure you nothing will happen without me. You can walk easily, slowly, there is no hurry. I am the person they are going to kill, and nothing is going to happen without me.”

This is my attitude about death. Laugh! Let laughter be your attitude about death. It is a cosmic lie created by man himself, created by the ego, by self-consciousness.

That’s why in nature no other animal, bird, tree is afraid of death. Only man, and he makes so much fuss out of it . . . his whole life trembling. Death is coming closer, and because of death he cannot allow himself to live totally. How can you live if you are so afraid? Life is possible only without fear. Life is possible only with love, not with fear.

And death creates fear.

And who is the culprit? God has not created death; it is man’s own invention. Create the ego, and you have created the other side of it—death.

-Osho

From The Book of Wisdom, Discourse #22, Q3

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An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

Right Listening – Osho

Right listening means you have put aside your mind. It does not mean that you become gullible, that you start believing whatsoever is said to you. It has nothing to do with belief or disbelief. Right listening means, “I am not concerned right now whether to believe or not to believe. There is no question of agreement or disagreement at this moment. I am simply trying to listen to whatsoever it is. Later on, I can decide what is right and what is wrong. Later on, I can decide whether to follow or not to follow.”

And the beauty of right listening is this: truth has a music of its own. If you can listen without prejudice, your heart will say it is true. If it is true, a bell starts ringing in your heart. If it is not true, you remain aloof, unconcerned, indifferent; no bell rings in your heart, no synchronicity happens. That is the quality of truth: if you listen to it with an open heart, it immediately creates a response in your being – your very center is uplifted. You start growing wings; suddenly the whole sky is open.

It is not a question of deciding logically whether what is being said is true or untrue. On the contrary, it is a question of love, not of logic. Truth immediately creates a love in your heart; something is triggered in you in a very mysterious way.

But if you listen wrongly – that is, full of your mind, full of your garbage, full of your knowledge – then you will not allow your heart to respond to the truth. You will miss the tremendous possibility; you will miss the synchronicity. Your heart was ready to respond to truth . . . It responds only to truth, remember, it never responds to the untrue. With the untrue it remains utterly silent, unresponsive, unaffected, unstirred. With the truth it starts dancing, it starts singing, as if suddenly the sun has risen and the dark night is no more, the birds are singing, and the lotuses are opening – the whole earth is awakened.

-Osho

From The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, V.7, Discourse #9

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An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

How do You Bring About the Catharsis? – Osho

How do you bring about the catharsis that you are talking about?

It takes time, but it is not difficult. How have we become so suppressed? The technique to release the suppression is just the opposite.

The method of repression is to not express. If you feel angry, you don’t express it. You suppress it, you don’t allow it to come out. My method is quite the contrary. If you are angry, express it. Not to someone but in a vacuum. If you are angry at me, don’t express it to me. Go into a room and express it to the vacuum. If you express it toward someone, it creates a chain reaction, and you will never be out of it. But if you suppress it within, it becomes poisonous. It will remain in your system and will go on doing many, many foolish things to you. Ultimately, you will have to express it somewhere, somehow.

My method is to express everything that is inside. If there are special problems, moral problems, don’t express it to someone else. Express it in a vacuum. So my method starts with expressing everything that has been suppressed.

In the first step, I insist on chaotic breathing for ten minutes, not systematic breathing but chaotic breathing. Systematic breathing cannot disturb your suppressed being. Chaotic breathing is very meaningful because breath is the link between your body and mind. If you are angry, you have a different rhythm of breathing; if you are in love, a different rhythm of breathing. If you are sad, again there is a different rhythm of breathing; if you are relaxed, a different rhythm of breathing. When your state of mind changes, your breathing changes immediately. So if you change your breathing, your state of mind is affected immediately. You cannot breathe rhythmically and be angry simultaneously.

It is impossible.

You cannot go into the sex act with very silent breathing. Impossible! So first I insist on chaotic breathing. Just taking the breath in and throwing it out. No yogic method is to be used. Inhale as much as possible and then exhale as much as possible, forgetting everything but the breathing. Just remember to exhale and inhale so forcibly that your whole system is disturbed: every cell of the body is disturbed, every cell of the mind is disturbed. You are trying to disturb the whole set pattern that has been developed in you!

In the second step, when your breathing has disturbed your body/mind completely, I tell you to express whatever is inside you. Whatsoever comes to your mind, for ten minutes you are to express it. If you want to scream, scream madly. If you want to weep, weep madly. If you want to laugh, laugh. If you want to jump, be angry, throw your violence to the sky, then do it. Whatsoever you want to express, express, but not to someone, just in a vacuum.

The second step is expression. You will be surprised to see how many things start coming to you once you start expressing them. It is not only that your mind expressed them. Your body expresses them. For the first time, you become aware that your body has many repressions to express. If you are a violent man, your hands will be moving as if you are killing someone or beating someone. Many screams will come out. And through the screams, much will be released.

For this second step to happen totally, [it] takes time. But within three weeks, you will be able to express what is within you spontaneously. Then you will feel that something is leaving you and you are being unburdened.

Only then can the third step happen.

The third step is a particular sound: hoo. Not the word “who,” just the sound hoo – meaningless. For ten minutes you have to repeat it: hoo, hoo, hoo. This sound hits the sex center inside. There are different sounds, and every sound reaches a different layer within. If you say om, the sound that has been traditionally used, it goes to the heart. If you say om, the sound never goes below the heart; but if you say hoo, the sound reaches below the navel and hits the sex center.

Modern man – the modern mind and the modern body – is so involved with sex that unless that center is hit, nothing can be done with man. The sex center can be hit in two ways: from without or from within. Sex is the only energy in you; it is the source of all energies. If it moves out, it becomes biological reproduction. If it moves in, it becomes spiritual transformation – a rebirth of yourself.

In the third step, you are to just go on crying, screaming, “HOO!” and hitting the sex center. Soon, within a few weeks, you will begin to feel an uprush of energy starting from the sex center and moving up through your spine. You will feel a warmth; you will feel that a new path has been opened inside you. And once this energy begins to move from your spine toward the head, you will have a different view about yourself, a different outlook, a different dimension. Once this energy reaches the head, it can be released from the head. Normally sex energy is released from the sex center. That is one pole of our being. The opposite pole is the head. If the sex energy can be released from the head, you are transformed; you are a different being.

So these are the three steps to do.

The fourth step is simple relaxation – just falling dead. Not doing anything: no effort, no technique. Just remaining silently with whatsoever is. After doing the first three steps, you are so exhausted that relaxation comes easily. You want to relax; your whole body wants to relax. You fall down and lie there like a dead man. In this deadness, you become a witness. You are simply a witness, not doing anything.

If those three steps are done rightly, the fourth follows. And by and by as your catharsis moves further, the second step will decrease. Ultimately it evaporates, then you need not do the second. When nothing comes to you, no movement of the body, no movement of any emotion, the second step drops.

The more you go in, then the first step will drop by itself because there is nothing to be disturbed. You go on doing chaotic breathing and nothing is disturbed, first step drops. When first and second drop, only then the third can be dropped. When you feel that the energy is moving now from the sex center to the head, to the opposite pole, and a moment comes when you completely forget the sex center in your body, and the head becomes the center of your being, then the third step can be dropped. And then you can move into the fourth any moment, any time.

This fourth step is the meditation; the first three steps are just preparations. The fourth step is just like Zen. You are not doing anything. No effort. Just waiting silently.

But it takes time. At least three weeks are needed to get the feel of the technique, and three months are needed before you can begin to move in a different world. But the time it will take is not fixed. It differs from individual to individual. If your intensity is very great, then even in three days it can happen.

-Osho

From The Eternal Quest, Discourse #2, Q2

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

Is Life Predestined or Not? – Osho

I would like to know if our lives are predestined or not.

It is both, yes and no, both. And it is always so with living problems.  In a way, everything is predetermined. Whatever is physical in you, material, whatever is mental, is predetermined. But something in you constantly remains undetermined, unpredictable. That something is your consciousness.

If you are identified with your body and your material existence, in the same proportion you are determined by cause and effect. Then you are a machine. But if you are not identified with your material existence, with either body or mind – if you can feel yourself as something separate, different, above and transcendent to body-mind – then that transcending consciousness is not predetermined. It is spontaneous, free. Consciousness means freedom; matter means slavery. So it depends on how you define yourself. If you say, “I am only the body,” then everything about you is completely determined.

A person who says that man is only the body cannot say that man is not predetermined. Ordinarily, persons who do not believe in such a thing as consciousness also do not believe in predetermination.

Persons who are religious and believe in consciousness ordinarily believe in predetermination. So what I am saying may look very contradictory. But still, it is the case.

A person who has known consciousness has known freedom. So only a spiritual person can say there is no determination at all. That realization comes only when you are completely unidentified with the body. If you feel that you are just a material existence, then no freedom is possible. With matter, no freedom is possible. Matter means that which cannot be free. It must flow in the chain of cause and effect.

Once someone has achieved consciousness, enlightenment, he is completely out of the realm of cause and effect. He becomes absolutely unpredictable. You cannot say anything about him. He begins to live each moment; his existence becomes atomic.

Your existence is a river-like chain in which every step is determined by the past. Your future is not really future; it is just a by-product of the past. It is only the past determining, shaping, formulating and conditioning your future. That is why your future is predictable.

Skinner says that man is as predictable as anything else. The only difficulty is that we have not yet devised the means to know his total past. The moment we can know his past, we can predict everything about him. Based upon the people he has worked with, Skinner is right, because they are all ultimately predictable. He has experimented with hundreds of people, and he has found that they are all mechanical beings, that nothing exists within them that can be called freedom.

But his study is limited. No Buddha has come to his laboratory to be experimented upon. If even one person is free, if even one person is not mechanical, not predictable, Skinner’s whole theory falls. If one person in the whole history of mankind is free and unpredictable, then man is potentially free and unpredictable.

The whole possibility of freedom depends on whether you emphasize your body or your consciousness. If you are just an outward flow of life, then everything is determined. Or are you something inner also? Do not give any preformulated answer. Do not say, “I am the soul.” If you feel there is nothing inside you, then be honest about it. This honesty will be the first step toward the inner freedom of consciousness.

If you go deeply inside, you will feel that everything is just part of the outside. Your body has come from without, your thoughts have come from without, even your self has been given to you by others.

That is why you are so fearful of the opinion of others – because they are completely in control of your self. They can change their opinion of you at any moment. Your self, your body, your thoughts are given to you by others, so what is inside? You are layers and layers of outside accumulation. If you are identified with this personality of yours that comes from others, then everything is determined.

Become aware of everything that comes from the outside and become non-identified with it. Then a moment will come when the outside falls completely. You will be in a vacuum. This vacuum is the passage between the outside and the inside, the door. We are so afraid of the vacuum, so afraid of being empty that we cling to the outside accumulation. One has to be courageous enough to disidentify with the accumulation and to remain in the vacuum. If you are not courageous enough, you will go out and cling to something and be filled with it. But this moment of being in the vacuum is meditation. If you are courageous enough, if you can remain in this moment, soon your whole being will automatically turn inward.

When there is nothing to be attached to from the outside, your being turns inward. Then you know for the first time that you are something that transcends everything you have been thinking yourself to be. Now you are something different from becoming; you are being. This being is free; nothing can determine it. It is absolute freedom. No chain of cause and effect is possible.

Your actions are related to past actions. A created a situation for B to become possible; B creates a situation in which C flowers. Your acts are connected to past acts, and this goes back to the beginningless beginning and on to the endless end. Not only do your own acts determine you, but your father’s and mother’s acts also have a continuity with yours. Your society, your history, all that has happened before, is somehow related to your present act. The whole history has come to flower in you. Everything that has ever happened is connected with your act, so your act is obviously determined. It is such a minute part of the whole picture. History is such a vital living force, and your individual act is such a small part of it.

Marx said, “It is not consciousness that determines the conditions of society. It is society and its conditions that determine consciousness. It is not that great men create great societies. It is great societies that create great men.” And he is right in a way because you are not the originator of your actions. The whole history has determined them. You are just carrying them out.

The whole evolutionary process has gone into the making of your biological cells. These cells in you can then become part of another person. You may think that you are the father, but you have just been a stage on which the whole biological evolution has acted and has forced you to act. The act of procreation is so forceful because it is beyond you; it is the whole evolutionary process working through you.

This is one way in which acts happen in relation to other past acts. But when a person becomes enlightened, a new phenomenon begins to happen. Acts are no longer connected with past acts. Any act now, is connected only with his consciousness. It comes from his consciousness not from the past. That is why an enlightened person cannot be predicted.

Skinner says that we can determine what you will do if your past acts are known. He says that the old proverb, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,” is wrong. You can force him to. You can create an atmosphere so that the horse will have to drink. The horse can be forced, and you also can be forced because your actions are created by situations, by circumstances. But even though you can bring a buddha to the river, you cannot force him to drink. The more you force him, the more impossible it will be. No heat will make him do it. Even if a thousand suns shine on him, it will not help. A buddha has a different origin of action. It is not concerned with other acts; it is connected with consciousness.

That is why I emphasize that you act consciously. Then, every moment you act, it is not a question of a continuation of other acts. You are free. Now you begin to act, and no one can say how you will act.

Habits are mechanical; they repeat themselves. The more you repeat something, the more efficient you become. Efficiency means that now consciousness is no longer needed. If a person is an efficient typist, it means that no effort is needed; typing can be done unconsciously. Even if he is thinking about something else the typing continues. The body is typing; the man is not needed. Efficiency means that the thing is so certain that no effort is possible. With freedom, effort is always possible. A machine cannot make errors. To err, one has to be conscious.

So your acts have a chain relationship with your previous acts. They are determined. Your childhood determines your youth; your youth determines your old age. Your birth determines your death; everything is determined. Buddha used to say, “Provide the cause, and the effect will be there.” This is the world of cause and effect in which everything is determined.

If you act with total consciousness, an altogether different situation exists. Then everything is moment to moment. Consciousness is a flow; it is not static. It is life itself, so it changes. It is alive. It goes on expanding; it goes on becoming new, fresh, young. Then, your acts will be spontaneous. […]

The more alive you are, the less repetitive. Only a dead man can be consistent. Living is inconsistency; life is freedom. Freedom cannot be consistent. Consistent with what? You can be consistent only with the past.

An enlightened person is consistent only in his consciousness; he is never consistent with his past. He is totally in the act. Nothing is left behind; nothing is left out. The next moment the act is finished and his consciousness is fresh again. Consciousness will be there whenever any situation arises, but each act will be made in complete freedom, as if it is the first time that this man has been in this particular situation.

That is why I answered both yes and no to your question. It depends on you, whether you are consciousness, or whether you are an accumulation, a bodily existence.

Religion gives freedom because religion gives consciousness. The more science knows about matter, the more the world will be enslaved. The whole phenomenon of matter is of cause and effect: if you know that given this, that happens – then everything can be determined. Before this century ends, we will see the whole course of humanity being determined in many ways.

The greatest calamity that is possible is not nuclear warfare. It can only destroy. The real calamity will come from the psychological sciences. They will learn how a human being can be completely controlled. Because we are not conscious, we can be made to behave in predetermined ways.

As we are, everything about us is determined. Someone is Hindu; someone else is Mohammedan.This is predetermination, not freedom. Parents have decided; society is deciding. Someone is a doctor and someone else is an engineer. Now his behavior is determined. We are already being controlled constantly, and our methods are still very primitive. Newer techniques will be able to determine our behavior to such an extent that no one will be able to say that there is a soul. If your every response is determined, then what is the meaning of the soul?

Your responses can be determined through body chemistry. If alcohol is given to you, you behave differently. Your body chemistry is different, so you behave differently. At one time, the ultimate tantra technique was to take intoxicants and remain conscious. If a person remained conscious when everything indicated that he should be unconscious, only then would tantra say the man was enlightened, otherwise not.

If body chemistry can change your consciousness, then what is the meaning of consciousness? If an injection can make you unconscious, then what is the meaning? Then the chemical drug in the injection is more powerful than your own consciousness. Tantra says it is possible to transcend every intoxicant and remain conscious. The stimulus has been given, but the response is not there.

Sex is a chemical phenomenon. A particular quantity of a particular hormone creates sexual desire. You become the desire. You may repent when your body chemistry has returned to its normal level, but the repentance is meaningless. When the hormones are there again, you will act in the same way. So tantra has also experimented with sex. If you feel no sexual desire in a situation that is totally sexual, then you are free. Your body chemistry has been left far behind. The body is there, but you are not in the body.

Anger is also just chemistry. Biochemists will soon be able to make you anger-proof, or sex-proof. But you will not be a buddha. Buddha was not incapable of anger. He was capable of it, but the effect of feeling anger was not there.

If your body chemistry is controlled, you will be incapable of being angry. The chemical condition that makes you feel angry is not there, so the effect of anger is not there. Or if your sex hormones are eliminated from your body, you will not be sexual. But the real thing is not whether you are sexual or not, or angry or not. The real thing is how to be aware in a situation that requires your unawareness, how to be conscious in a situation that happens only in unconsciousness.

Whenever such a situation is there, meditate on it. You have been given a great opportunity. If you feel jealous, meditate on it. This is the right moment. Your body chemistry is working within you. It will make you unconscious; it will make you behave as if you are mad. Now, be conscious. Let there be jealousy, do not suppress it, but be conscious; be a witness to it.

If there is anger, be a witness to it; if there is sex, be a witness to it. Let whatever is happening inside you happen and begin to meditate on the whole situation. By and by, the more your awareness deepens, the less possibility there is of your behavior being determined for you. You become free.

Moksha, freedom, doesn’t mean anything else. It only means a consciousness that is so free that now nothing can determine it.

-Osho

From Psychology of the Esoteric, Discourse #11, Q2

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.