Osho – Don't depend on the body and don't remain confined to the body. Use it, respect it, love it

Osho – Don’t depend on the body and don’t remain confined to the body. Use it, respect it, love it, care for it, but remember: you have to leave it one day. It is only a cage, it will be left behind, and the bird will be gone. Before that happens, take care of the bird too. Cleanse your consciousness, because that will be going with you. Your understanding will go with you, not your body.

So don’t waste too much time in decorating it with cosmetics, with clothes, with ornaments — don’t waste too much time with the body, because the body belongs to the earth and the earth will claim it back. Dust unto dust. You don’t belong to the earth, you belong to some beyond, to some unknown. Your home is in the unknown, here you are only a visitor. Enjoy the visit and use it as much as possible to grow in understanding and maturity, so that you can take home your maturity, your understanding, your wisdom.

Source: from Osho Book “Dhammapada Vol 2″

Osho on LSD, LSD as aid to Meditation, Danger of LSD

QUESTION: CAN LSD BE USED AS A HELP IN MEDITATION?
Osho : LSD can be used as a help, but the help is very dangerous; it is not so easy. If you use a mantra, even that can become difficult to throw, but if you use acid, LSD it will be even more difficult to throw. The moment you are on an LSD trip you are not in control. Chemistry takes control and you are not the master, and once you are not the master it is difficult to regain that position. The chemical is not the slave now, you are the slave.
Now how to control it is not going to be your choice. Once you take LSD as a help you are making a slave of the master and your whole body chemistry will be affected by it. Your body will begin to crave LSD. Now the craving will not just be of the mind as it is when you get attached to a mantra. When you use acid as a help, the craving becomes part of the body; the LSD goes to the very cells of the body. It changes them.
Your inner chemical structure becomes different. Then all the body cells begin to crave acid and it will be difficult to drop it. LSD can be used to bring you to meditation only if your body has been prepared for it. So if you ask if it can be used in the West, I will say that it is not for the West at all. It can be used only in the East – if the body is totally prepared for it. Yoga has used it, tantra has used it, there are schools of tantra and yoga that have used LSD as a help, but then they prepare your body first. There is a long process of purification of the body.
Your body becomes so pure and you become such a great master of it that even chemistry cannot become your master now. So yoga allows it, but in a very specific way. First your body must be purified chemically. Then you will be in such control of the body that even your body chemistry can be controlled.
For example, there are certain yogic exercises: if you take poison, through a particular yogic exercise you can order your blood not to mix with it and the poison will pass through the body and come out in the urine without having mixed with the blood at all. If you can do this, if you can control your body chemistry, then you can use anything, because you have remained the master. In tantra, particularly in ”leftist” tantra, they use alcohol to help meditation.
It looks absurd; it is not. The seeker will take alcohol in a particular quantity and then will try to be alert. Consciousness must not be lost. By and by the quantity of alcohol will be raised, but the consciousness must remain alert. The person has taken alcohol, it has been absorbed in the body, but the mind remains above it; consciousness is not lost. Then the quantity of alcohol is raised higher and higher. Through this practice a point comes when any amount of alcohol can be given and the mind remains alert. Only then can LSD be a help.
In the West there are no practices to purify the body or to increase consciousness through changes in body chemistry. Acid is taken without any preparation in the West. It is not going to help; rather, on the contrary, it may destroy the whole mind. There are many problems. Once you have been on an LSD trip you have a glimpse of something you have never known, something you have never felt.
If you begin to practice meditation it is a long process, but LSD is not a process. You take it and the process is over; then the body begins to work. Meditation is a long process – you have to do it for years, only then will the results be forthcoming. And when you have experienced a shortcut, it will be difficult to follow a long process.
The mind will crave to return to using the drugs. So it is difficult to meditate once you have known a glimpse through chemistry; to undertake something that is a long process will be difficult. Meditation needs more stamina, more trust, more waiting, and it will be difficult because now you can compare.
Secondly, any method is bad if you are not in control all the time. When you are meditating you can stop at any moment. If you want to stop, you can stop this very moment; you can come out of it. You cannot stop an LSD trip: once you have taken LSD you have to complete the circle. Now you are not the master.
Anything that makes a slave of you is ultimately not going to help spiritually, because spirituality basically means to be the master of oneself. So I wouldn’t suggest shortcuts. I am not against LSD, I may sometimes be for it, but then a long preliminary preparation is necessary. Then you will be the master.
But then LSD is not a shortcut. It will take even longer than meditation. Hatha yoga takes years to prepare a body – twenty years, twenty-five years, then a body is ready; now you can use any chemical help and it will not be destructive to your being. But then the process is far longer. Then LSD can be used; I am in favor of it then. If you are prepared to take twenty years to prepare the body in order to take LSD, then it is not destructive.
But the same thing can be done in two years with meditation. Because the body is more gross, mastery is more difficult. The mind is more subtle so mastery is easier. The body is further away from your being, so there is a greater gap; with the mind the gap is shorter.
In India the primitive method to prepare the body to be ready for meditation was hatha yoga. It took so long a time to prepare the body that sometimes hatha yoga had to invent methods to prolong life so that hatha yoga could be continued. It was such a long process that sixty years might not be enough, seventy years might not be enough.
And there is a problem: if the mastery is not achieved in this life then in the next life you have to begin from abc because you have a new body. The whole effort has been lost. You do not have a new mind in your next life, the old mind continues, so whatever is attained through the mind remains with you, but whatever is attained through the body is lost with every death. So hatha yoga had to invent methods to prolong life for two hundred to three hundred years so that mastery could be attained.
If the mastery is of the mind then you can change the body, but the preparedness of the body belongs to the body alone. Hatha yoga invented many methods so that the process could be completed, but then even greater methods were discovered: how to control the mind directly – raja yoga. With these methods the body can be a little helpful, but there is no need to be too concerned with it. So hatha yoga adepts have said that LSD can be used, but raja yoga cannot say LSD can be used, because raja yoga has no methodology to prepare the body.
Direct meditation is used. Sometimes it happens – only sometimes, rarely – that if you have a glimpse through LSD and do not become addicted to it, that glimpse may become a thirst in you to seek something further. So to try it once is good, but it becomes difficult to know where to stop and how to stop. The first trip is good, to be on it once is good; you become aware of a different world and then you begin to seek, you begin to search, because of it – but then it becomes difficult to stop.
This is the problem. If you can stop, then to take LSD once is good. But that ”if” is a great one. Mulla Nasruddin used to say that he never took more than one glass of wine. Many friends objected to his statement because they had seen him taking one glass after another. He said, ”The second glass is taken by the first; ’I’ take only one. The second is taken by the first and the third by the second. Then I am not the master.
I am master only for the first, so how can I say that I take more than one? ’I’ take only one – always only one!” With the first you are the master; with the second you are not. The first will try to take a second, and then it will go on continuously; then it is no longer in your hands. To begin anything is easy because you are the master, but to end anything is difficult because then you are not the master.
So I am not against LSD, and if I am against it, it is conditional. This is the condition: if you can remain the master, then okay. Use anything, but remain the master. And if you cannot remain the master, then do not enter into a dangerous road at all. Do not enter at all; it will be better.

Osho – There are two types of addiction in life : Negative addiction and Positive Addiction

Osho – Deva means divine and giresh means god of the mountains. The full name will mean: god of the divine mountains. And I am giving this name to you for a certain reason – that your path will be almost as if one is climbing a mountain. A few people move towards height and few people move towards depth.
Ultimately they both culminate in the same experience, but the paths are different. A person who moves into depth has to learn more let-go, more relaxation, and a person who has to go up-hill, has to learn more effort, more technique, more will… and will is going to be your path. If you try relaxing, it will be very difficult and you will not succeed in it. You can succeed very easily in creating great will.
So the path towards the mountains is the path of will. It is arduous but you will enjoy it; it will not be arduous for you. And that has also to be understood – that something may be arduous to one person and it may be very very beautiful to another. And something may be very easy to one and may be very difficult to another. It depends on the person.
I can see in you a very very great possibility of a willpower that can explode. And if you don’t allow it, you will be going against yourself. The path towards the mountains is the path glasser calls ’the path of positive addiction.’ There are two types of addiction in life – one is negative addiction: a man becomes an alcoholic or a man becomes a heroin addict or a smoker or anything. Then there are positive addictions: a man becomes a meditator or a man becomes a runner or a great swimmer – these are positive addictions.
The addiction is the same – if you are an alcoholic, you will miss it if you don’t drink; then you will miss it tremendously. The same will happen to you if you become positively addicted. If you run every morning for one hour and one day you don’t run, you will feel very very sad and depressed and that something is missing – and a guilt feeling too. Of course there is no question of any guilt about whether you run or not, but you will feel a guilt feeling too.
If people who are will oriented become negatively addicted, their life is wasted. If they become positively addicted then they are great creators. The addiction is the same, the mind is the same…. So if you can start working on positive addictions you will be tremendously benefited. For example, meditation: choose one meditation and then put all your effort in it. That effort has to be very regular because will is created only out of regularity. It has to be very persistent and a continuity has to be maintained.
Even to miss for one day is to destroy much – and at least one hour every day has to be given to it. Many people have been doing research work on addictions and it has been found that it takes at least sixty minutes per day to become addicted to something… less than that won’t do. And it takes at least three to four months to really become addicted: one hour every day for four months; that is the period. Once you have become addicted, then there is no need for any effort. It becomes natural, it becomes your second nature.
After doing a meditation for one hour every day for three, four months, without break, any meditation will do and you will start finding trance-like states. It can happen through running. Runners know about it – that after running a certain distance they lose the mind and suddenly there is a transcendental state, a trance-like state. They don’t know who they are any more; they are just pure energy. Joggers know that, dancers know that that after a certain moment the dancer disappears… there is only dance. When that moment comes, it is the meditative moment, and it can be done through anything.
In Japan they have used all kinds of things – archery, swordsmanship, wrestling – for meditation. And anything active will be good for you – something like Vipassana won’t help much. If you just have to sit silently it will be unnecessary trouble for you. So choose some active meditation – the Dynamic is good, Kundalini is good, dancing is good – and then persist.
After three, four months, you will become a perfect meditator. The only thing is to be regular and not to relax the effort. It is only a question of three, four months – that is the most important period. Once the foundation is there and you have become positively addicted, then the addiction works.
Source: from Osho Book “This Is It”

Osho – There are two types of addiction in life : Negative addiction and Positive Addiction

Osho – Deva means divine and giresh means god of the mountains. The full name will mean: god of the divine mountains. And I am giving this name to you for a certain reason – that your path will be almost as if one is climbing a mountain. A few people move towards height and few people move towards depth.
Ultimately they both culminate in the same experience, but the paths are different. A person who moves into depth has to learn more let-go, more relaxation, and a person who has to go up-hill, has to learn more effort, more technique, more will… and will is going to be your path. If you try relaxing, it will be very difficult and you will not succeed in it. You can succeed very easily in creating great will.
So the path towards the mountains is the path of will. It is arduous but you will enjoy it; it will not be arduous for you. And that has also to be understood – that something may be arduous to one person and it may be very very beautiful to another. And something may be very easy to one and may be very difficult to another. It depends on the person.
I can see in you a very very great possibility of a willpower that can explode. And if you don’t allow it, you will be going against yourself. The path towards the mountains is the path glasser calls ’the path of positive addiction.’ There are two types of addiction in life – one is negative addiction: a man becomes an alcoholic or a man becomes a heroin addict or a smoker or anything. Then there are positive addictions: a man becomes a meditator or a man becomes a runner or a great swimmer – these are positive addictions.
The addiction is the same – if you are an alcoholic, you will miss it if you don’t drink; then you will miss it tremendously. The same will happen to you if you become positively addicted. If you run every morning for one hour and one day you don’t run, you will feel very very sad and depressed and that something is missing – and a guilt feeling too. Of course there is no question of any guilt about whether you run or not, but you will feel a guilt feeling too.
If people who are will oriented become negatively addicted, their life is wasted. If they become positively addicted then they are great creators. The addiction is the same, the mind is the same…. So if you can start working on positive addictions you will be tremendously benefited. For example, meditation: choose one meditation and then put all your effort in it. That effort has to be very regular because will is created only out of regularity. It has to be very persistent and a continuity has to be maintained.
Even to miss for one day is to destroy much – and at least one hour every day has to be given to it. Many people have been doing research work on addictions and it has been found that it takes at least sixty minutes per day to become addicted to something… less than that won’t do. And it takes at least three to four months to really become addicted: one hour every day for four months; that is the period. Once you have become addicted, then there is no need for any effort. It becomes natural, it becomes your second nature.
After doing a meditation for one hour every day for three, four months, without break, any meditation will do and you will start finding trance-like states. It can happen through running. Runners know about it – that after running a certain distance they lose the mind and suddenly there is a transcendental state, a trance-like state. They don’t know who they are any more; they are just pure energy. Joggers know that, dancers know that that after a certain moment the dancer disappears… there is only dance. When that moment comes, it is the meditative moment, and it can be done through anything.
In Japan they have used all kinds of things – archery, swordsmanship, wrestling – for meditation. And anything active will be good for you – something like Vipassana won’t help much. If you just have to sit silently it will be unnecessary trouble for you. So choose some active meditation – the Dynamic is good, Kundalini is good, dancing is good – and then persist.
After three, four months, you will become a perfect meditator. The only thing is to be regular and not to relax the effort. It is only a question of three, four months – that is the most important period. Once the foundation is there and you have become positively addicted, then the addiction works.
Source: from Osho Book “This Is It”

Osho on Drug Use – Drugs can slowly slowly destroy your capacities to Meditate

[A new sannyasin from America, says that she gets high meditating but now and then she slips back into drug-taking. Osho says that drug-taking and meditation are polar opposites though they may appear to be similar.]
Osho – The drug experience is a forced, phony experience, but because we don’t know the real, the phony seems to be right. If you have not seen the real, then even the phony is too much. If you compare your life with an ordinary man who has never taken anything like LSD, marijuana, then you feel very high – if you compare it with an ordinary man. Because he has not known any moment, he has not even had a false glimpse; he lives such a mundane life.
You have lived the same mundane life – then one day this drug creates a dream, gives you a euphoria, and you are tremendously happy. But once meditation can give you an experience, then you will see that this experience was just a dream experience. It is as if you have been thirsty and drinking in a dream from a pool of water, a pure pool of water… but in a dream. By the morning you are awake and thirsty again – it has not helped. Of course it was so clear and so cool and it had looked, for that moment at least, as if you would never be thirsty again.
But if you go on meddling sometimes with meditation and sometimes with drugs – the problem is that drugs can slowly slowly destroy your capacities to meditate. Otherwise there is nothing in it…. If it is to be an ordinary straight life, then drugs are perfectly okay. But if you are really interested in meditation, then drugs are dangerous. The drug is not dangerous for the people who think it is dangerous.
The so-called common people think drugs are dangerous – it is not dangerous for them at all because they have nothing to lose, they have nothing to be destroyed! But if you are really interested in search and you want to grow, then drugs are dangerous. Drugs are not dangerous for politicians – drugs are dangerous for the religious people because something delicate arises out of meditation. It is very delicate and it comes out of much effort.
Just a small quantity of a drug and it is destroyed and you will have to start again from abc. The drug experience is so cheap and the meditation experience is so costly, because you have to go through such effort. Then by and by the mind starts choosing the cheaper one. Mm? it is the path of least resistance, so the mind says ’Why bother?’ The drug can give you something so easily, then why bother with vipassana – sitting and meditating and struggling hard? Why not the easier way?
The mind is always for the short-cut, and the short-cut is always false. As far as the spiritual growth is concerned there is no short-cut. You cannot cheat… there is no back door. Each has to follow the arduous way. In fact the real beauty of the peak depends on how hard your struggle has been. When you struggle hard and you lose the track many times – many times even the peak disappears and you are again in the dark valley, again you struggle and again you fall and again you move – this whole effort creates that situation where when the real experience happens, you are in a tremendous bliss. If you are suddenly dropped on that peak by some helicopter, there will be no joy, there will be no joy at all.
source: from Osho Book “This Is It”

Osho on Dropping an Obession, Obsession simply means a wound in your being

Question – BELOVED MASTER, HOW CAN ONE DROP AN OBSESSION? OR IS IT NOT TO BE DROPPED AT ALL, BUT ENJOYED?
Osho – Satya, an obsession simply means a wound in your being, which keeps attracting you again and again, which goes on declaring itself, which wants your attention. You cannot drop it. How can you drop your wound? An obsession is a psychic wound, you cannot drop it. Understand it. Watch it. Pay attention to it. Be meditatively with it. And the more you are meditatively with it, the more it will be healed.
Meditation is a healing force. The words ‘meditation’ and ‘medicine’ are derived from the same root; they both mean healing forces. Meditation is medicine — medicine for the soul. So if you have any obsession, don’t call names. The moment you call it an obsession you have already started condemning it. And if you condemn something you cannot watch it — you are prejudiced against it. How can you watch the enemy? No need to condemn; whatsoever is the case is the case. Just by condemning it you can’t change it; by condemning it you can only repress it.
You can avoid seeing it, but the wound will continue; it will become cancerous, it will go on growing inside. Rather than condemning it, rather than calling it names, giving it labels, watch it — without any conclusion. See what it is. See as deeply as possible, with great friendliness towards it, with intimacy. It is YOUR obsession, YOUR wound! It says something about you, it is part of your biography. It has arisen in you, just as flowers arise in trees. It is essential because it says something about your past.
Go deep into it, with care, with love, and you will be surprised: the more care you show about it, the less it hurts, the less it dominates, the less it forces itself upon you. Yes, in a certain way, enjoy it! But by enjoying I don’t mean become identified with it. If you become identified with it you go insane. If you condemn it, if you repress it, you go insane again. Avoid both the extremes. Keep yourself exactly in the middle, neither condemning nor identifying. Just be a pure witness.
And slowly slowly, it will be healed. Slowly slowly, it will lose all its poison. Slowly slowly, you will see it changing into a positive energy rather than a negative force. It will become helpful. Each obsession is a knot in your being. Once it is opened, great energy is released. And everybody is carrying obsessions; our whole society is obsessive. A few obsessions are accepted by the people; then you don’t call them obsessions. If they are not accepted, then they become obsessions. In one society one thing is thought to be obsessive, in another society it is not obsessive. It may be even respected, may be thought saintly, holy.
For a Jaina monk, to take a bath is an obsession. People who are taking baths every day once or twice are obsessive; they are too much concerned about their body, body-oriented. The Jaina monk condemns them. The Jaina monk does not take a bath. Jaina monks used to come to see me. It was really a difficult time for me — they stink! But they think they are doing great austerity.
They don’t clean their teeth either — that too is an obsession. Morning, evening and before you go to bed… and a few people will clean their teeth after each meal, so four, five, six times a day. This IS obsession! You are madly concerned about your teeth. And all arguments that you can give are pointless to them because Jaina monks will say, “Look at the animals. Without any cleansing, without any toothpaste, without any toothbrush, their teeth are absolutely clean. Nature takes care, there is no need to worry about it. You are obsessed.”
According to them, you are too much concerned about your body odor, about your breath, about your teeth. And this is materialism, and they are spiritual people! But except a Jaina, nobody will think that these are obsessive things.
Remember one thing: that obsessions differ from society to society, from country to country, from religion to religion. What is really obsession? Anything that becomes a dominating force upon you, that dominates you, that becomes master of your being. Anything that reduces you into a slave, that’s my definition of an obsession.
Watch it, meditate. Be silently with it, because that is how you will become master again. Silence makes you a master of everything. Don’t fight, and don’t become identified. If you become identified you are mad. If you fight you are mad from the other extreme.
The director of a well-known mental hospital decided to resign his post after many years of service. This decision brought the local press out for an interview.
“Tell us, Doctor, what are your plans? Will you resume private practice?”
“Well, I have given it some thought,” replied the doctor. “I may go back into private practice, but on the other hand I may become a tea-kettle.”
Now, living with mad people for so long, with so many tea-kettles, he has also become impressed with the idea. If you want to become ANYTHING in your life, that is obsession. It is not a question only of becoming a tea-kettle: if you want to become the president of a country or the prime minister, it is the same — other names for becoming tea-kettles! There are people who are obsessed with the idea that they will not take any rest unless they become the president.
And then they are at a loss when they become the president; they don’t know what to do now because all that they know is how to become the president. Their whole life they have devoted to a single purpose: how to become the president. Now they have become the president and they are certainly at a loss; they don’t know what to do.
There are people who want to become rich; they become rich. If you persist you can fulfill any kind of stupidity. Man has immense powers. Yes, you can become a tea-kettle if you persist; nobody can prevent you. But then? Then you are suddenly empty. Then suddenly you find yourself without any goal, lost.
All obsessive people, when their obsessions are fulfilled, will feel lost. If you become identified with an obsession, sooner or later you will feel lost. If it is fulfilled you will be the loser; if it is not fulfilled, certainly you are the loser. The other way is to repress it, to throw it into the basement of your being, somewhere deep in the unconsciousness, so you don’t come across it. But it goes on growing there, and it goes on affecting you and your behavior; it goes on pulling your strings from the back. And the enemy is more powerful when it is hidden. You don’t see it, but still you have to follow its dictates — it becomes a dictator.
Both extremes, Satya, have to be avoided. That’s what Buddha also would have suggested: Be exactly in the middle, watchful, choicelessly watchful. Neither choose to be identified nor choose to be repressive. Just see. It is a fact of your psychic life, whatsoever it is. Don’t say good, bad, XYZ — whatsoever it is, watch it. And see the tremendous power of watchfulness: how it transforms wounds into flowers, how it releases entangled energy knots into great forces, positive forces, nourishing forces.
Source: from Osho Book “Dhammapada vol 8″

Osho – The greatest art needed in life is to bring a Madman to Sanity

[A sannyasin asks about his brother, a former drug-taker and now a religious fanatic, who spends the day lying on his bed.]
Osho – I understand the type. The only way to bring him out is not to argue with him – the first thing… not to give him any indication that you want to bring him out of his state, otherwise he will defend himself. Even if he suspects, that’s enough, and he will undo all your efforts.
So the first thing: don’t give him any suspicion, any idea, that you want to bring him out. Rather, when you go, feel very happy – at least pretend to be very happy – and you tell him that he is in a great spiritual state; that will be the right beginning for him. Sympathise with him. Not only that – respect him; that’s what he needs. Then you can become close to him, he will take you into his confidence, otherwise not.
This type of person is very defensive. So when you go, just tell him that he is in a perfect state, this is the right state to be in. Ask him to teach you also how to be in it. Be a disciple rather than a teacher; then you can pull him out. He needs to be pulled out. Deep down he will like to be pulled out, but his ego will create difficulty.
So give him the feeling that the parents are wrong, that everybody is wrong – he is right. Once he takes you into his confidence then things will become very easy. By and by you can motivate him to come back to life. For example, how to motivate him? There is no hurry: for one week simply wait, just go and sit by his side, be meditative. Let him feel that you are learning something from him, that he is in some higher state, mm? Pretend it as much as you can – it will be just acting but it will help him to come out.
Then once he starts being close to you and takes you into his confidence, tell him that he has such a great experience – now it is to be shared with people. This is his duty, so he should come out of his lethargy, should share it with people… at least share it with you. Make him talk to you; don’t try to talk to him. Talking to him will be talking to a madman, a deaf man – it will not be of any use. And talking to him you will feel tired, exhausted. When you are talking to a wall, you feel tired. When there is some response, you feel happy – then your effort is bringing some fruit.
When you are talking to a wall how long can you talk? You can go on dissipating your energy and you feel exploited, sucked out. These people who fall into such a neurotic lethargy become suckers unknowingly. They become like a low place, so whenever you are close by, your energy starts flowing towards them – not that they do it knowingly; it happens naturally. They are like a hole. So let him talk to you, provoke him to talk.
Just give provocation, just small starts – that is the whole art of bringing him out. Tell him, ’You have got so much and the world needs it, people are in tremendous need. So come out of it – start at least telling me what you have experienced and where you are going.’ Once he starts talking, things will become very easy. If he can be persuaded to talk, he can be persuaded to do anything. Then by and by tell him to come out, to talk to the family, and tell your parents also that this is the way to bring him out: listen to him.
Mad people enjoy it tremendously if somebody listens to them. If a madman can find a person who listens sympathetically, the madness will disappear. That’s all that psychoanalysis is about. You pay the psychoanalyst to listen to you sympathetically, so that he is at least in sympathy. And just through talking to a psychoanalyst, day by day, you start coming out go through a unwinding process. That boy needs unwinding and you can help.
Once he starts talking with you then sometimes sitting by his side, start meditating. Tell him just by the way, what you have been doing in india… tell him that he is far higher than you. Once that is settled – that he is higher than you – then there is no fear from your side. Then he will not be defensive: he will ask about meditations and what you are doing; he will start doing them! But the first basic point is that he becomes perfectly confident that you are not the enemy but a follower. Go and try. And this will be very good for you too – if you can bring him out… and you can! One just has to be very very artful.
The greatest art needed in life is to bring a madman to sanity. You will be helped tremendously if you can pull him out. It will help you to understand your own mind, because in fact it is everybody’s mind. People move from one extreme to another: first he was thinking that lsd is divine; now he thinks it is devilish.
These people are extremists – again one day he can start thinking that it is divine. In fact these people have split personalities, they are two persons: the person who was taking LSD was a totally different personality, this is another personality. These people have a spare personality. When one gets tired they start using the other and the other is just the opposite. Go – it will happen!
Source: from Osho book “This Is It”

Osho on Reducing Weight, Why there is Obsession with Food

Question – BELOVED MASTER, I AM OBSESSED WITH FOOD. I EAT TOO MUCH AND HAVE GAINED ENORMOUS WEIGHT. CAN YOU HELP ME TO REDUCE MY WEIGHT?
Osho – Sangito, this is strange, coming to me from California just to reduce your weight. In California there are far more facilities available to reduce weight. I know it because I had to send Mulla Nasruddin to California. The problem was the same.
When Mulla Nasruddin reached California, he was directed by our sannyasins there to this ultimate weight-losing program. It took four days and was guaranteed to take off fifty pounds or your money would be refunded.
He entered the building and was told to enter the first door to his left and to undress there. He did so and then from a second door in the room entered a beautiful blonde woman, naked but for a sign around her neck. It read, “If you catch me, you can make love to me!”
Nasruddin felt the passion rise within him. The room was fairly small, but the lady was agile, and it took him twenty minutes to catch her. After his love-making, Nasruddin showered and left, eagerly awaiting the next day.
On the second day, he was directed to another room, a bit larger than the first. There a beautiful redhead, naked except for the sign, greeted him. The chase lasted for almost forty minutes. On the third day, it was another, larger room, and a beautiful brunette! After almost an hour, he caught her too.
Throughout the three days, Nasruddin had kept an account of his weight loss — twenty-eight pounds to date. On the fourth day, he envisioned perhaps a bevy of beauties. He was directed to the top floor. He climbed the stairs, removed his clothes and waited. There was a click behind him as the door was locked, and out of his left eye he caught sight of a huge gorilla coming his way with a sign around its neck which read, “If I catch you I’m going to make love to you!”
Sangito, you need not come from California to Poona! But one thing is certain: people become obsessed with food only when they lose the capacity to love. It is an indication that you have forgotten the language of love. If you are in love you never become obsessed with food. Obsession with food is a symptom that you don’t know how to love. How it happens has to be understood.
The first acquaintance of the child with the world is the mother’s breast. That is his first introduction to the world, his entry into the world — his first relationship is with the breast of the mother. And the breast becomes the symbol for him of two things: food and love.
Whenever the mother is loving, the breast is available; and whenever the mother is unloving, the breast is not available. Food and love become associated; a deep conditioned reflex happens. It becomes so unconsciously rooted that you repeat it your whole life. If the child knows that the mother loves him he will not drink too much, because he KNOWS, he is secure; whenever he needs the mother her breast will be available.
If the child is insecure and feels that next time the mother may not be available, he will start drinking too much, eating too much. Now, you can see the point: whenever love is there, there is security and a kind of fulfillment, and the child never becomes obsessed with food. If love is not there, there is insecurity, fear, and a kind of emptiness, and the child stuffs that emptiness with food.
In the West, weight is becoming more and more of a problem for the simple reason that mothers are not ready to give their breasts to their children. Of course the breast loses its shape; and the fear that the breasts will lose their shape and make the woman look old has gripped the mind of women in the West so deeply that they are afraid to give their breasts to their children. And they are creating an obsession about food in the child unknowingly, unconsciously.
The child will become obsessed with food, he will eat too much. Eating will become his substitute for love. Sangito, you will have to learn love. There is no other way to reduce your weight. All other programs can help you a little bit, but sooner or later you will gain weight again because the basic root cause remains the same. You can diet, you can run, swim, exercise, but how long can you diet? Sooner or later you will be fed up with dieting and your mind will become more and more obsessed with eating. Now you will eat in your fantasy, in your dreams, and your mind will convince you that this is not the right way to live. You can’t eat this, you can’t eat that, and somehow if you ask the doctors, all the good things have to be avoided.
A child was talking to his mother, “You say God is very wise. I don’t believe it.”
The mother said, “But why don’t you believe it?”
He said, “If he was wise, he would have put more vitamins in ice cream. He puts vitamins in things which are uneatable, and things which are really worth eating are dangerous.”
How long will you avoid ice cream? The temptation will be such that it will be unavoidable. So you can lose weight for a few days and then you will eat too much, you will take revenge. And you may gain more weight than you had lost by dieting. This is the pattern of millions of people, particularly in the West.
In the East people are starving. You can see a few fat people in Bombay, in Delhi, in Calcutta, but that’s all. If you go to the real India, eighty percent of the people in India are starving. There is no question of gaining more weight, they don’t have enough weight. They are suffering from malnutrition. Yes, sometimes you will find villagers with big bellies and thin bodies, because they are eating food which is not nourishing, unbalanced, and they eat only when it is available. So when it is available they eat too much.
There are millions of people in India who eat only once a day because they can’t afford to eat twice. So to keep their bodies together for twenty-four hours they eat anything, whatsoever is available; sometimes they have to eat the roots of trees. So the problem is not in the East, the problem is in the West where enough food is available and people have completely forgotten that food grows on trees. Children know that food grows in the fridges. You go to the fridge any time and food is available.
I have heard about a woman who must have been suffering like Sangito. She went to her psychiatrist and asked him his advice — what to do? He pondered over the problem and gave her a picture, a picture of a naked woman, such an ugly fat woman, disgusting, nauseating, sickening — just to see it was enough to become afraid of food. And he told the woman, “Stick it inside your fridge so that whenever you open it you will see this picture — this will remind you of what is going to happen to you.”
So she sticks in the picture of the naked woman. The psychiatrist has also given her another picture of a beautiful young woman with a very proportionate body, a world beauty, and has told her, “Stick this in too, so you can compare. If you don’t eat too much you will be like this woman, if you eat too much you will be like that one.”
Immediately, from the next day, the woman starts losing weight. But a miracle happens: her husband starts gaining weight. The woman is puzzled. She says, “What is the matter?”
He says, “Since you have put that beautiful naked woman inside the fridge, I go again and again to see the picture. And when I see the picture I see the food too, and the flavor and the smell… and I say, ‘Why not take a cake or some ice cream or something?’ I am eating too much because of your pictures.”
In the West the child grows with the idea that food is somehow miraculously produced by the fridges and it is always available, twenty-four hours a day; any time he can go and eat. And mothers have taken their breasts away and mothers are not available much either. The Husbands go to work and the mothers go to so many committees — they belong to the liberation movement, and consciousness-raising committees — and they have so many charity shows going on and they have to sell tickets and collect the charity funds… they are not available. The father is gone, the mother is gone; the child is left with the fridge and with no love.
Sangito, just understand the root cause of it: love is missing somewhere in your life. I will not take your obsession with food as a real problem, it is a symptom. Love is the real problem — love more. And if you love more, you will be loved more. And it is not yet too late; you can find a woman. And all women are mothers, and all men are always like children.
So any woman will do, because she will function like a mother. And each man needs a mother his whole life, he needs mothering, and each woman needs children. Even the husband is only the oldest child, that’s all. And if you cannot find one, you can come to me — I always have many applications with me; women searching for men, men searching for women. And I fix anybody with anybody! I don’t believe in astrology, I believe only in accidents.
Mulla Nasruddin awoke one morning and looked at the clock. It was five minutes to five. Unable to go back to sleep, he went to the front door to get his newspaper. On the front page he saw the date: May 5th.
“Oh, fifth day, fifth month, five minutes before five,” he thought. “Today will be my lucky day!”
He decided to go to the horse races, so he got dressed and went to the corner to wait for the bus. Soon it came — it had the number five, and Nasruddin noticed when he boarded that there were three other passengers, the driver and himself — five in all. He arrived at the track and waited for the fifth race. He bet five hundred rupees on number five to win — his horse came in fifth!
Enough for today.
Source: from Osho Book “Dhammapada Vol 5″

Osho on Beginninglessness – Slip out of the mind, and you will know what it is: the beginningless, the endless

Question – My mind has difficulty understanding the Existence of Beginninglessness. Would you please talk about it?
Osho – Prem Viraj, reality is indefinable. Reality simply is; there is no way to say what it is. It is not a “what,” it is not even a “that,” it is this. It is this-ness: you can experience it, but it cannot be explained.
And reality is beginningless and endless. The mind has a beginning and an end, hence the mind and reality cannot meet. The mind cannot comprehend the eternal. The mind exists in time, in fact the mind is time; it exists in the past and the future. And remember, time consists of only two tenses, the past and the future. The present is not part of time, the present is part of eternity.
Hence the mind is never found in the present. It is always wavering, either towards the past or towards the future. It moves into that which is not, or into that which is not yet. Its whole skill consists in dreaming. It is rooted in the nonexistential, hence it cannot understand existence itself. It is like darkness. How can darkness comprehend light? How can death comprehend life? If death can comprehend life then death will have to be life. If darkness has to comprehend light then darkness will have to be light.
And so is the case with the mind. If the mind wants to comprehend reality, it will have to come out of the past and the future. But coming out of the past and the future, it is no longer the mind at all. Hence the insistence of all the great masters of the world that the door to reality is no-mind. Slip out of the mind, and you will know what it is: the beginningless, the endless. Remain confined to the mind, and you will be puzzled; reality remains inconceivable.
I cannot explain it to you, because in explaining I will have to use the mind. Trying to understand it, you will have to use the mind. I can be silent with you, and if you can also be silent with me then there is understanding. Understanding is not of the mind. Then there is great intelligence, great insight. Suddenly you know, and you know from a totally different center of your being; you know from the heart. Your knowing has the quality of love, not of knowledge. Your knowing has the quality of transcendence. It is no longer scientific knowledge, reducible to concepts. It is poetic vision, it is mystic experience.
Viraj, if you really want to understand, you will have to lose the mind. You will have to pay the price of losing the mind. But if you insist, “I have to understand through the mind,” then only one thing is possible. The mind will convince you, slowly slowly, that there is nothing which is beginningless, nothing which is endless, nothing which is indefinable, nothing which is unknowable.
The mind will reduce your experience to the measurable, the fathomable, the knowable — and the knowable is ordinary, mundane. The unknowable is sacred. And only with the unknowable does life become a benediction, only with the unknowable are you thrilled with the wonder of life and existence. Suddenly a song is born in your heart — a song that cannot be contained, a song that starts overflowing, a song that starts reaching others. A dance is born in you — a dance that has to be shared, a dance about which you cannot be miserly, a dance that makes you generous. A love is born in you — a love that is so infinite that it can fill the whole infinite existence. That is real understanding. But it happens only when the mind is dropped.
Don’t try to do the impossible. Trying to understand reality through the mind is like pulling yourself up by your own shoestrings. Maybe you can hop a little bit, but that hopping is not going to help; you will be back on the ground again and again, and it will be very tiring. Just by pulling your own shoestrings you cannot fly into the sky; that is not going to give you wings.
Slowly slowly, learn the art of contacting reality without the mind interfering. Sometimes when the sun is setting, just sit there looking at the sun, not thinking about it — watching, not evaluating, not even saying, “How beautiful it is!” The moment you say something, the mind has come in.
The mind consists of language. Don’t use language. Can’t you just see the sunset and its beauty? Can’t you be overwhelmed by its beauty? Can’t you be possessed by its grandeur? What is the point of bringing language in? Nobody is asking you to say anything. The sun does not understand your language, the clouds that have become so beautiful and luminous in the setting sun are unable to understand your language. Why bring it in? Put it aside; be in direct contact, be thrilled. If tears come to your eyes, good. If you start dancing, good. Or if you simply remain unmoving, stoned on the beauty of the sun, intoxicated, you will have gained a little experience — a little experience that goes very far, a little glimpse of no-mind.
And there are a thousand and one situations every day. Holding the hand of your woman or your man, there is no need to talk. People are continuously talking — yakkety-yakkety-yakkety. And the reason why they are talking is that they are afraid to be silent, they are afraid to see the truth, they are afraid to see their utter emptiness, they are afraid to expose themselves, they are afraid to look deep into the other. Continuous talking keeps them on the surface, occupied, engaged.
Holding the hand of your woman or man, why not sit silently? Why not close your eyes and feel? Feel the presence of the other, enter into the presence of the other, let the other’s presence enter into you; vibrate together, sway together; if suddenly a great energy possesses you, dance together — and you will reach to such orgasmic peaks of joy as you have never known before. Those orgasmic peaks have nothing to do with sex, in fact they have much to do with silence.
And if you can also manage to become meditative in your sex life, if you can be silent while making love, in a kind of dance, you will be surprised. You have a built-in process to take you to the farthest shore.
People make love in such an ugly way that if children sometimes see their parents making love, they think they are wrestling, fighting — that Daddy is going to kill Mum! Groaning, breathing in an ugly way, violent, their movements have no elegance. It is not a dance; certainly it is not a dance.
And unless it becomes a dance it will remain very very physiological; it won’t have any spirituality in it. But it is impossible. Unless your whole life is saturated with those moments that come when the mind ceases, your love life cannot move into silence.
The night is full of stars. Lie down on the earth, disappear into the earth. We come from the earth, one day we will be going back to the earth to rest forever. At night sometimes, lying on the lawn, disappear into the earth. Look at the stars — just look, a pure look. Don’t start thinking about the names of the stars, the names of the constellations. Forget all that you know about stars, put aside all your knowledge, just see the stars. And suddenly there will be a communion; the stars will start pouring their light into you, and you will feel an expanding of consciousness. No drug can do it.
Drugs are very artificial, arbitrary and harmful methods to know something which is naturally available, which is easily available, beneficially available. Just watching the stars, you will start feeling high, you will start soaring high. Make as much as you can of all the opportunities that life and existence allow you. Never miss a single opportunity when you can drop the mind, and slowly slowly you will know the knack of it. It is a knack — it is certainly not a science, because it has no fixed methods.
Somebody may be thrilled by the stars, somebody may not be. Somebody may be thrilled by the flowers, somebody else may not be affected at all. People are so different that there is no way of determining it in a scientific way; it is not a science. It is not even an art, because an art can be taught.
So I insist on the word knack. It is a knack. You have to learn it by doing a few experiments with yourself. And once you have the knack… and everybody can have it, because every child is born with it. Every child brings wondering eyes into existence. Soon we force dust into his eyes; we cover his pure mirror with dust. Sooner or later, he becomes knowledgeable — and the sooner he does, the more happy we are. Our happiness is really in poisoning the child.
If the child sees that the parents are very happy because he has become knowledgeable, he starts gathering more and more knowledge. He starts forgetting the knack that he had brought with him into this life, that was inborn. By the time he comes out of the university he has completely forgotten one of the most beautiful things that was given to him by God: the capacity to wonder, the capacity to see without thinking, the capacity to contact reality without the mind continuously interfering, distorting.
You will have to regain it. The sage is the person who regains his childhood; hence he is called “the twice born.” Jesus says, “Unless ye are born again, you will not be able to enter into my kingdom of God.” And the kingdom of God is here, but you have to be reborn — reborn as a no-mind.
And I am not saying that when you are reborn as a no-mind you cannot use the mind. The mind has its limited uses. Use it. When you are working in your office, I am not telling you to be a no-mind. When you are working in your shop or in the factory, I am not saying to be a no-mind. I am saying be perfectly a mind. Use the mind but don’t carry it continuously, twenty-four hours, day in and day out, with yourself. Don’t go on dragging it. Use it as you use a chair. You don’t go on carrying your chair everywhere, wherever you go, just because you may need it.
The mind is a beautiful instrument if you know how to be a no-mind too.
Viraj, the mind is impotent, incapable of knowing the beginningless and the endless. The mind exists between birth and death; it knows nothing beyond birth and beyond death. You were here before you were born, and you will be here after you are dead. The mind has a very limited existence, very momentary — one day it comes, another day it is gone. You are forever. Have some experience of your forever-ness. But that is possible only through no-mind. No-mind is another name for meditation.
Source – Osho Book “The Book of Wisdom”

Osho – With meditation, whatsoever is attained remains with you

Osho – Once you have come to a point in your being, it can never be lost unless it was simply a dream. Only a dream can be lost. Drugs cannot give you reality. They can only give you very beautiful dreams. Or even horrible dreams – it depends on you, the dreamer. You can hypnotize yourself into a particular dream; there are hypnotic techniques. If you use them you will be in a state of autohypnosis, you will start feeling things, many things, but once you stop the technique, the whole thing will disappear. It was just a mental trick you were playing: you were dreaming, it was your imagination.
If you really grow into awareness, it cannot be lost. That is the distinction between real methods and false methods. A real method is a growth method; it is not simply a vision. You grow in it; the vision comes because you have grown to a new state of mind.
With drugs, or with a false technique, you never grow. A certain vision comes to you, but you remain the same. When you are not using the drug, or the technique, the vision will disappear. It was produced chemically; it was not coming through your own growth. Remember always, only growth matters. Visions are of no use. Even if you see God, it is meaningless. If you remain the same, then your God is nothing but a by-product of your own imagination. Visions are not meaningful. Christianity has placed too much emphasis on them.
That’s why drugs have become so prevalent in the West – because they can easily create visions. If you are looking for visions, then I will say that meditation is a waste of time; drugs are better. They give you visions easily. But you remain the same. Or, rather, you may even fall down from your ordinary state of mind; you may deteriorate.
With meditation, whatsoever is attained remains with you. If you stop the technique you will not proceed further, but whatever you have attained will remain with you. It cannot be lost; a real growth can never be lost. It is not something added to you that you can lose. It is you who has grown.
For example, if you have become a young man you cannot fall back to your childhood again. It is a growth. But if a child is simply dreaming that he has become a young man, he will fall down. When he awakens from his dream he will be a child again. That is the criterion to judge whether something has been a growth or it is just a dream. If it is a dream, it will be lost. If it has been growth, it will remain with you.
Source – Osho Book “The Eternal Quest”

Osho on Chogyam Trungpa, Use of Alcohol and Sex in Tantra Tradition

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Question – How is it that great masters like Chogyam Trungpa get so drunk on occasional festivities that they have to be carried home? Can the use of alcohol for enjoyment disturb a certain awareness of seekers?

Osho - Who told you that this man is a Master? He belongs to a tradition in which many Masters have existed, but he carries just the dead load. And this is the trouble because in the tradition to which he belongs there have been men like Marpa, Milarepa, Naropa, Tilopa — great siddhas — and they all used to drink, now this is delicate, but they never got drunk. They used to drink, but they never got drunk.
That is one of the ways of tantra, a method: one has to go on increasing the amount of alcohol and getting attuned to it, but remaining conscious. Hmm?… first you take just one teaspoonful. you remain conscious; then two; then three; then you go on. Then you drink the whole bottle. But now you are so attuned your consciousness is not disturbed; then alcohol won’t do. Then you move to more dangerous drugs.
There came a time in the tradition of tantra when snakes, poisonous snakes, were used because a man became so attuned to all types of drugs. Then the last test was the snake cobra. Then the cobra was forced to bite the man on the tongue — then too he remained conscious.
This was a secret test and a growth: now you have achieved to such crystallization of consciousness that the whole body is filled with alcohol but it doesn’t affect you. This was a point in tantra to go beyond the body; this is going beyond the body — for tantra.
This man comes from that tradition, so he has the permission from the tradition to drink, but if he gets drunk then he has missed the whole point; he not a Master; he is not aware. But in America everything is possible now. Not knowing the old tradition. this man can say to people, “Even our own Masters have been drinking.” In tantra all those things that are ordinarily prohibited are allowed. A tantric is allowed to eat meat — ordinarily it is prohibited; he is allowed to drink ordinarily it is prohibited; he is allowed to have sex — ordinarily for a seeker it is prohibited. Everything that is prohibited ordinarily, is allowed in tantra, but allowed with such conditions that if you forget the conditions you forget the whole thing.
One should go in sex, but there should be no ejaculation. If ejaculation happens, then it is ordinary sex; then it is not tantra. If you make love and no ejaculation happens, for hours you are together with the woman and no ejaculation happens, this is tantra. This is an attainment. Drinking is allowed, but getting drunk is not allowed. If you get drunk you are an ordinary drunkard — no need to bring tantra in.
Meat is allowed, but you have to eat meat — even sometimes human meat, human flesh, from dead bodies — but you should remain indifferent. You should remain unperturbed — not even a flicker in your consciousness that “something wrong….”

Tantra says that every bondage has to be transcended, and the last bondage is morality — that too has to be transcended. Unless you transcend morality you have not transcended the world. So in a country like India where vegetarianism has gone to the very deep core of Indian consciousness, meat-eating was allowed, but it was not allowed in the way that meat-eaters eat. A man has to prepare his whole life for it. He was to be a vegetarian; as a seeker he was to be a vegetarian.
Years will pass — ten years, twelve years he has remained a vegetarian, he has not made love to any woman, he has not drunk anything alcoholic, and he has not taken any other drugs. Then after twelve years, fifteen years, even twenty years, the Master will allow him, now, to move into sex, but to move with a woman with such respect that the woman is almost a goddess; it is not carnal. And the man who is moving with the woman has to worship her, touch her feet. And if even a slight sexual desire arises he is disqualified; then he is not ready for it.
It was a great preparation and a great test — greatest that has ever been created for man. With no desire, with no lust, he has to feel towards the woman as if she is his mother. If the Master says, and sees, that he is right — now he is like a child entering the woman, not like a man, and like a child he remains inside the woman with no sexuality arising: his breathing is not affected his body energy is not affected; for hours he remains together with the woman, there is no ejaculation; a deep silence pervades — it is a deep meditation.
For twenty years remaining a vegetarian and then suddenly you are offered meat to eat: your whole being will feel repulsed. Hmm?… if you feel repulsion then tantra says, “You are rejected. Now go beyond it. Now whatsoever is offered, accept it in deep gratitude.” You must know if you have remained a vegetarian even for one year and suddenly meat is offered, you will start feeling nausea, vomiting. If that comes that means the man is still living in the thoughts — because it is only a thought that this is meat and this is vegetable. Vegetable is also meat, because it comes from the body of the tree; and meat is also vegetable, because it comes from the tree of a man’s body or an animal’s body. This is the transcendence of morality.
And then he is prepared to drink strong drugs. If he has really become alert then whatsoever is given will change the chemistry of the body but not his consciousness; his consciousness will remain floating on the chemistry of the body. Gurdjieff used to drink as much as you can imagine — but was never unconscious, never drunk. He was a tantric Master. If you want to look in the West towards somebody, then he is George Gurdjieff, not Tibetan refugees.
Source – Osho Book “Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol5″

Osho on Drugs Addiction – The person needs help, the person needs sympathy

[A sannyasin says she is addicted to heroin, and asks Osho to help her with it.]

Osho – It will disappear; no need to worry about it. Just go through groups, mm? Be here one month, and in this one month try to carry on without drugs as much as possible. Don’t be too hard on yourself either: if sometimes you take a little bit, nothing to worry about. But keep it in mind that the less you take, the better. I am also a drug. Once you are addicted to me, then things are very much simpler – you can drop other drugs!
That is my way of helping addicts, mm? – I make addicts of a new dimension. And once you are with me, sooner or later you will not be able to remain in it. In fact there will be no need to drop drugs. They by and by become irrelevant; they become meaningless. You start seeing the suicidalness of them; they are destructive. But unless something bigger than that happens, how can you drop it? That’s the problem.
So I am not so much for dropping them. My whole effort is to bring something greater than they can bring, and that is the decisive factor them. If something can happen through meditation, through sannyas, through groups, which gives you a better glimpse, at no cost… You are not paying for it by your health, by your chemistry, by destroying your body and other things. You are not to pay anything for it and it happens! You are the master of it – you are not dependent on anything for it. You can make it available any moment you want. Once you know the key you can unlock the door whenever you want. Something greater, higher, has to be made available to you.
All over the world that has been the problem down the ages: people have tried to help others to come out of their drug trips but it almost always fails because you can’t provide anything better. The people also want to get out of it – everybody wants to get out of it because it is a bondage and everybody understands that he is creating a subtle bondage which will become bigger and bigger and one day he will be surrounded by walls, china walls, and it will be difficult to get out of them. By one’s own effort, one is creating such a big wall and then it will be difficult to destroy it; one will be caught in it. One’s whole life will become a kind of sickness.
And it is vicious. If you take a drug, while you are under its impact everything seems good. Then out of it everything feels so dull, so meaningless that the drug seems to be the only possibility again and again. Then the quantity of drug has to be increased and by and by one is lost. Drugs are so powerful that they destroy the very chemistry of your brain. The brain is very delicate; it cannot live with such violent coercions being made on it. Those very very minute and subtle nerves start getting damaged. Then one loses alertness, intelligence, becomes dull, becomes insensitive. Then the drug remains the only possibility, the only meaning that one can get.
But just to say these things doesn’t help. Just to preach doesn’t help. Just to say that this is bad and a sin does not help; in fact, it makes the problem worse! The person is already in suffering and now you bring in another problem – that this is sin – so he feels guilty too. The drug was enough to destroy him; now guilt will destroy also. You have added more poison to the problem. You make the person feel immoral, criminal – and these are all wrong attitudes.
The person needs help, the person needs sympathy, the person needs love. Maybe the person has missed love, hence he has moved into that direction. Maybe the society has not given w hat was needed, the parents have not given what was needed. So the person has become distracted. The person needs all attention, love, care – but even that will not help unless the person comes to know and feel something that is bigger and greater than any drug can make available. And that’s what I am trying to do here.
So don’t be negatively concerned with drugs. While you are here become more concerned with me. Listen to me, meditate, be more and more around the ashram, have the feel of it. Be very loving to people, be open, relating, dance and sing. By and by you will see that what the drug can do, I can do and in a far better way. And that is the only possibility of getting out of it. It will happen – don’t be worried! Good!
Source – Osho Book “Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There”

Osho on Obsession – Obsession with food or clothes or cleaniness or money

Question – You talk a lot about people obsesssed with sex — but what is obsession? Obsession with food or clothes or cleaniness, etcetera?
Osho – Prem Aniruddha, OBSESSION SIMPLY MEANS you are paying too much attention and energy to something which is not that important. Out of all proportion you have become focussed, hypnotized by something. Obsession is a kind of hypnosis that you have created within yourself. Then everything else disappears in your life and only one thing remains that becomes your focal point. Your life becomes one-dimensional: that is obsession.
Life has to be multi-dimensional. There are people who are thinking only of sex, only of sex — twenty-four hours a day. Deep down in their minds it is always lurking. They may be doing something else, but they are thinking of sex. Then it is an obsession. Sex itself is not an obsession, remember — I am not against sex. I am not against anything. Obsession means now sex has taken the place of everything. There are people who are obsessed with food; they are continuously thinking of food. And there can be a positive obsession or a negative obsession.
You must have heard about the great emperor, Nero. He was positively obsessed with food. He used to have four physicians always by his side — just to help him vomit. He would eat, and he would eat too much, and he would feel great discomfort and stomachache. The physicians were there to help him vomit — and once they had helped him vomit he would eat again, IMMEDIATELY. He would eat sometimes twenty times a day; and obviously, twenty times he would have to vomit.
Now, this is obsession. Food is not an obsession — twice or thrice it is okay, as is your need. It is a physical need, you need nourishment, but to become a Nero is pathological. Then there are people negatively obsessed with food. You can find them in India — they fast. They are continuously thinking of food, as if food is the only barrier to God and fasting is enough to take them to the ultimate. They are masochists torturing themselves. That is a negative obsession. And when you are fasting you are thinking of food, as much as Nero was thinking of food — Nero may not have been thinking so much. There was no time to think: if you eat twenty times, when will you think? But the person who is on a fast has twenty-four hours available. And when you fast you cannot sleep, because the body is hungry.
Sleep is a need when the body is fully nourished. You cannot sleep when you are on a fast — one or two hours at the most. So twenty-two hours you are thinking, and those two hours you will be dreaming about food. This is a negative obsession.
There are people positively obsessed with sex, who only think of sex and nothing else. In everything they think of sex. And there are negatively obsessed people: these people you call celibates, monks, brahmacharins, they are continuously thinking of sex too — in a negative way.
Obsession means anything becoming your whole life. Nothing is to become your whole life — everything has its own place, life should be an orchestra. It should not be only food, should not be only sex, should not be only money, should not be only power. It should not be any ONE thing, it should be many things, the whole variety. All the dimensions should remain available, then you will be rich.
A passionate millionaire has fallen in love and broken women’s hearts countless times. He begins each letter to his new sweethearts: “My darling, and gentlemen of the jury…” because marriage means divorce.
This is obsession.
There was once a lady from Spain
who liked a bit now and again.
Not now and again,
but now and again,
and again and again and again.
Obsession means your life is hypnotized by one thing, you have lost all sense of proportion. Then your life will be ugly, stupid.
Herman loved food, food was his beloved. Food was his religion, food was his God. He would have agreed absolutely with the Indian seers who declared, “ANAM BRAHM — food is God.” Of course. in a totally different sense.
Fearing a future world famine — and he was always afraid of a world famine — Herman hoarded a ten-year supply of canned food.
“Herman,” complained his wife, “what are we going to do? The garage and the house are stacked to the ceiling with canned goods.”
“Don’t worry,” answered Herman. “I know what I am doing.”
“Herman,” wailed his wife, “don’t you get tired of moving these cases of cans each time we go to bed? Our bedroom is like a warehouse!”
“Don’t worry,” Herman assured her. “We will never go hungry.”
But one night Herman had such terrible stomach cramps a doctor had to be summoned. Carrying his kit through a maze of cases, the doctor somehow found the moaning patient.
“Doctor,” cried Herman, “is it possible that eating so much canned food has affected my stomach?”
The doctor examined Herman. “No, it is not the food you ate,” diagnosed the doctor. “It is the food you lifted. You have a hernia.”
And you will find these people everywhere. There are people who think only of money — as if their whole life has only one goal: to leave in the world as big a bank balance as possible. There are people who only want some political power. Their whole life is devoted to only one thing: how to become the president of a country, or the prime minister of a country. These are obsessed people. They have missed their whole lives, they cannot enjoy anything. They are not herenow, they are always focussed on their single idea.
And anything can become an obsession. Cleanliness can become an obsession. I used to live in a house, a friend’s house — his wife was just neurotic about cleanliness, a perfectionist. Now, cleanliness is not bad — this is the trouble, that these neurotic people can rationalize. Cleanliness is not bad but one is not here only to be clean.
She was so mad that the whole day she was scrubbing floors and cleaning walls and the furniture. Her house was worth seeing — but only worth seeing, not to be used at all. She would not invite any guest, because if their children came then there would be trouble. Even her husband would not use the furniture, because if something was scratched then there would be trouble. Now cleanliness is one thing, good, but cleanliness is not all.
To remain sane means to remember the golden mean. Excess is illness. Avoid all extremes and remain in the middle. That is Pythagoras’ message to you, the golden mean. Always remain in the middle, never move to the extreme, and you will remain sane and healthy and whole.
Source – Osho Book “Philosophia Perennis, Vol1″

Osho – Greedy people renounce the world. This renunciation is not of understanding

Osho – A repressed person is carrying the same world as you. Just an opportunity is needed, a provocation, and immediately the real will come out. That’s why monks disappear from the world — because there are too many provocations, too many temptations. It is difficult for them to remain contained, to hold on. So they go to the Himalayas or to the caves, they retire from the world so that even if ideas, temptations, desires arise, there is no way to fulfil them. But this is not a way of transformation.
The people who become cold are the people who were very hot. The people who take vows of remaining celibate are the people who were extremely sexual. The mind turns from one extreme to another very easily. It is my observation that many people who are too obsessed with food one day or other become obsessed with fasting. It has to happen because you cannot stay in one extreme long. You are doing too much of it, soon you will get fed up with it, tired of it. Then there is no other way, you have to move to the other extreme.
The people who have become monks are very worldly people. The market was too much, they had moved too much in the market, then the pendulum moved to the other extreme. Greedy people renounce the world. This renunciation is not of understanding — it is just greed upside-down. First they were holding, holding…now suddenly they see the pointlessness of it, the futility of it and they start throwing it. First they were afraid to lose a single pai, now they are afraid to keep a single pai, but the fear continues. First they were too greedy about this world, now they are too greedy about the other world, but the greed is there.
Silverstein, the inveterate joiner, came rushing home proudly holding a membership card to his newest organisation…. There are people who go on joining everything. I have known one person who was a member of five political parties, all against each other. When he told me I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He enjoyed membership…..Silverstein, the inveterate joiner, came rushing home, proudly holding a membership card to his newest organisation. ‘Look,’ said Silverstein to his son, ‘I just joined the Prostitute Club.’
‘What?’ said the boy. ‘Let me see that card.’ After reading it he announced, ‘Pa, that is the Parachute Club.’
‘All I know is,’ said Silverstein, ‘they guaranteed me three hundred and sixty-five jumps a year.’
These people one day or other are bound to join a monastery — then they become great celibates, great renouncers. But it does not change their nature. Except awareness, nothing changes a man, nothing at all. So don’t try to pretend. That which has not happened, has not happened. Understand it, and don’t try to pretend and don’t try to make others believe that it has happened, because nobody is going to lose in this deception except you.
People who try to control themselves have chosen a very foolish way. Control will not happen, but they will become cold. That is the only way a man can control himself — to become frozen so that energy does not arise. People who take the vows of celibacy will not eat much; in fact, they will starve their bodies. If more energy is created in the body, then there will be more sex energy, and then they don’t know what to do with it. So Buddhist monks eat only once a day — and then too, not enough. They eat only enough that bodily needs are fulfilled, very minimum needs, so no energy is left. This type of celibacy is not celibacy. When you are flowing with energy and the energy starts transforming itself into love, then a celibacy, a BRAHMACHARYA, which is beautiful, happens.
The sweet old lady came into the store and bought a package of mothballs. The next day she was back for another five packets. Another day passed and she came in for a dozen more.
‘You must have a lot of moths,’ said the salesman.
‘Yes,’ replied the old dear, ‘and I have been throwing these things at them for three days now and I have only managed to hit one!’
Through control you will not even be able to hit one. That is not the way. You are fighting with leaves, branches — cutting them here and there. That is not the way to destroy the tree of desire; the way is to cut the roots. And roots can be cut only when you have reached to the roots of desire. On the surface there are only branches — jealousy, anger, envy, hatred, lust. They are just on the surface. The deeper you move, the more you will understand: they are all coming out of one root and that root is unawareness. Meditation means awareness. It cuts the very root. Then the whole tree disappears on its own accord. Then passion becomes compassion.
I have heard about a very great Zen Master who had become old and almost blind at the age of ninety-six and no longer able to teach or work about the monastery. Yama Moto was his name.
The old man then decided it was time to die because he was of no use to anybody, he could not be of any help. So he stopped eating. When asked by his monks why he refused his food, he replied that he had outlived his usefulness and was only a bother to everybody.
They told him, ‘If you die now’ — it was January — ‘when it is so cold, everybody will be uncomfortable at your funeral and you will be an even greater nuisance. So please eat.’
This can happen only in a Zen monastery, because disciples love the Master so deeply, their respect is so deep, that there is no need for any formality. Just see what they were saying. They were saying, ‘If you die now, and it is January, see, it is so cold, everybody will be uncomfortable at the funeral and you will be an even greater nuisance. So please eat.’
He thereupon resumed eating. But when it became warm again he stopped, and not long after he quietly toppled over and died. Such compassion! One-lives then for compassion; one dies then for compassion. One is even ready to choose a right time to so that nobody is bothered and one need not be a nuisance.
I have heard about another Zen Master who was going to die.
He said, ‘Where are my shoes? Bring them.’
Somebody asked, ‘Where are you going? The doctors say are going to die.’
He said, ‘I am going to the cemetery.’
‘But why?’
He said, ‘I don’t want to trouble anybody. Otherwise you will have to carry me on your shoulders.’ He walked to the cemetery and died there.
Tremendous compassion! What manner of man is this, not to give even that much trouble to anybody? And these people helped thousands. Thousands were grateful to them, thousands became full of light and love because of them. Yet they would not like to bother anybody. If they are useful they would like to live and help, if they are not useful then it is time to leave and go.
Source – Osho Book “Dang Dang Doko Dang”

Osho on Drugs and Samadhi – Similarity between samadhi and drugs

Question – I often take drugs. once when i was attending the discourse, i closed my eyes and suddenly felt the same as i feel on a drug trip. osho, is there any relation or similarity between samadhi and drugs?
Osho – There is and there is not. There is because drugs create a false SAMADHI, a pseudo SAMADHI almost like the SAMADHI. SO there is a relationship because even if drugs create false SAMADHI, they create something similar to SAMADHI; and there is no relationship also because the false is not the real, and the false can never be the real.
It is like this: if you are hungry in the night you dream that you are eating — yes, in the dream — everything looks like eating; you feel satisfied, you turn over and go to sleep. In the morning you feel it was just a dream. It has not nourished you, it simply deceived you. Drugs deceive you and create a false SAMADHI — they don’t nourish you.
Some day, when you will awaken, then you will see that you were simply dreaming that you were eating. It helped, because if you are hungry the dream that you are eating helps you to continue sleep, otherwise your sleep will be broken. If the hunger is too much, how can you sleep? So the mind creates a dream: the mind says ‘Okay, you are hungry — eat!’ In the dream you go to the fridge, you open the fridge, you are eating many things that you have always been denying yourself. You eat well, you feel perfectly good, you turn over and you go to sleep. In the morning you know that it was a false food. Dream food cannot help — but you will only know in the morning, not before it. And the morning I am talking about may not come if you don’t work for it.
So drugs can deceive you, they can deceive you for your whole life. They create a similarity through chemical change: through chemical coercion of the body and the mind cells a certain state is created which feels as if one has arrived. In the morning, when the drug influence is over, you are in exactly the same place as you were before — maybe even lower, because every high experience through drugs is bound to be followed by a very low and depressed experience. Then again more drugs are needed, and the quantity has to be increased — you become an addict. This is not a way towards truth because it is not nourishing.
SAMADHI is a nourishment. You are not drugged by SAMADHI, you are awakened. But there is a similarity, so sometimes it can happen if you have been taking drugs. There can come a moment listening to me when you become silent, you are EN RAPPORT with me. And suddenly there is a moment, a moment of tremendous joy and beauty, and because you have been taking the drug, you will start thinking in terms of the drug. But if it is happening just by listening to me….
Think of it. If you meditate, if you go into the same world where I exist, into the same dimension where I exist — and if it can happen just by listening to me — then what to say about when you yourself will move into that world? Then you will know that all those experiences through drugs were just foolish, silly; you were wasting your energy and wasting your time.
But they keep you asleep. If you are interested in sleep, drugs are good, alcohol is good, any type of chemical that helps you feel that you are happy is good. Happiness never comes through it, it just gives you the illusion of being happy; it keeps you asleep. But if you are interested in becoming alert, awakened, then it is dangerous. Then you are undoing your very longing to become awakened, enlightened. You are undoing it by your drugs.
I have heard…. A travelling salesman in the deep South hit one hotel where the rooms were infested with giant, economy-size mosquitoes. Furthermore, he was told that no mosquito netting was available. ‘All you got to do is follow the example of the man who owns this hotel, Colonel Rip Clatterborn’ the desk clerk told him.
‘And how’ enquired the salesman sarcastically ‘does your blasted Colonel Clatterborn manage to go to sleep without a net?’
‘He doesn’t’ admitted the clerk. ‘But the Colonel is what you might call a dedicated drinker. He goes to bed so well oiled he doesn’t notice the mosquitoes for the first half of the night. And for the second half, the mosquitoes are so drunk they don’t notice the Colonel.’
You can go on playing this way, but you are wasting a tremendous opportunity. Avoid drugs. If you are really interested, then why not take the real drug? SAMADHI IS the real drug, but you cannot purchase it at the druggist’s. you cannot purchase it through a dope pusher. SAMADHI you have to attain through great intensity. thirst, passion, enquiry. SAMADHI you have to attain. Drugs are available from the outside, SAMADHI happens in your innermost core; it is the ultimate drug — SOMA.
Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1″

Osho – The workaholic is not total in his work. The workaholic is addicted to work

Question – Our Beloved Master, could you talk about the difference between a workaholic and someone who is total in their work?
Osho – Maneesha, the difference is very great. The workaholic is not total in his work. The workaholic is addicted to work, he cannot sit silently. He has to do something; whether it is needed or not, that is not the question.
Now in Japan they are trying more and more for robots to work in the factories, because the robot can work twenty-four hours a day, with no strikes, no trouble with the labor unions, not constantly asking for a raise in the wages, no holidays. Robots are not religious anyway! But the workers are absolutely against it — and the government is only asking them to take one day off in seven.
In Japan, even on Sunday people work — there is no holiday as such — and people are resisting the government, there is great turmoil. They are not ready to take one holiday per week. They will be paid for it, what is the problem? They are addicted. They say, “What will we do at home? No, we don’t want such trouble. At home there will be fighting with the wife, with the children — and we are addicted to work.
“We will open the bonnet of the car, although everything is alright, and we will destroy the car by trying to refine the engine. We will open the television set and destroy it. We have already done it! Sometimes when a national holiday comes, we have done it — destroyed our old grandfather clocks, and they were working perfectly well, but something had to be done!”
These are workaholics — addicted to work just as people are addicted to drugs. Work is their drug. It keeps them engaged. It keeps them away from their worries, it keeps them away from their tensions. It keeps them just like any drug: it drowns your worries, tensions, anxieties, sufferings, Christianity, God, sin, hell — everything is drowned. A miserable person suddenly starts laughing, enjoying.
You just go in a pub and see. A pub is a far more joyous place than a church. Everybody is laughing, enjoying, fighting, punching each other’s noses, and when they get back home … it is late in the night, they are staggering, falling on the road.
One man came home and he was trembling so much, so drunk he could not manage to open the lock, because the key and the lock … The key was in one hand, the lock was in the other hand, and there was no meeting, no dialogue!
Finally, the policeman on the street saw the poor fellow, so he came. He said, “Can I help you?”
The drunk said, “Yes, just hold the house steady. There seems to be such a great earthquake!”
They have forgotten everything … the world and its troubles and the third world war. But you can use anything as a drug — just become addicted.
A few people are just chewing gum. You take their gum and see how miserable they become! Immediately they start thinking, “Life is useless. There is no meaning in life. Where is my chewing gum?”
The chewing gum keeps them engaged, and that’s how cigarettes keep them engaged. That’s how people go on gossiping with each other. That keeps them engaged. Nobody bothers whether it is true or false, that is not the point. The question is: How to keep engaged and away from yourself?
So the workaholics are against meditation. Every addiction is going to prevent you from becoming a meditator. All addictions have to be dropped. But to be total in your work is a totally different thing. To be total in your work is not addiction, it is a kind of meditation. When you are totally in your work, your work has a possibility of perfection, you will have a joy arising out of a perfect work.
If you can be perfect and total in work, you can be total in no-work — just sitting silently, totally silent. You know how to be total. You can close your eyes and you can be totally in. You know the secret of being total. So to be total in work is helpful in meditation. The workaholic cannot meditate, he cannot sit silently even for a few minutes. He will fidget, he will change his position, he will do something or other — look into this pocket or that pocket, and he knows that there is nothing in those pockets. He will take out his glasses, clean them, put them away, and he knows they are clean.
I have been traveling for twenty years around this country, continuously, on the train, on the plane, and I have seen people opening their suitcases, looking into them, closing the suitcase — as if there was something to see. They are just at a loss what to do. They will open the window of the train, close the window, they will lie down, close their eyes, open their eyes.
I used to tell people in trains … In India, if you are going from Bombay to Calcutta it will take forty-eight hours. I would enter into my air-conditioned coupe — mostly I was alone, but once in a while there was somebody else, because the coupe can have two persons — and I would immediately tell my name, my father’s name, my grandfather’s name, from where I come, without being asked. They would be shocked. I would say, “I am finishing my whole autobiography so that you need not ask anything.”
And then I would sit and that man would look very strange …. He would say, “What kind of man …?”
I would tell him, “Now keep quiet, I have told the whole autobiography, there is nothing more!” And I would sit and look at him — forty-eight hours — and whenever he would start opening his mouth I would say … Then he would start doing things. He would read the same newspaper again from the very beginning, the name of the newspaper, to the very end, the publishers, the editors — and once in a while he would look at me.
It happened many times that he would call the conductor and say, “I want to change from this compartment.”
The conductor would say, “Why? You have a very good companion. I know him because he is continuously traveling. He is a nice man. You be here.”
He would say, “It is not a question of a nice or a good man. He is too nice — but please put me into some other compartment where there are people to talk to! This man is dangerous. He goes on staring at me without blinking, and I become afraid. I have taken three showers since the morning just for no reason at all. Just to avoid him I go into the bathroom; then I say, `It is better to take a shower. At least a few minutes will be passed.’”
But forty-eight hours … and he would start seeing his insanity, that he is unnecessarily opening the window, closing the window, unnecessarily lying down, turning this side, that side — and I am watching! Then he would sit down, then he would go on the upper berth. I would keep my hand up, so that he could see my hand, because I could not say it: “I am here! You go on doing all your insanities!”
These are the workaholics.
But a man who is total in his work is not a workaholic. He can be total — in anything, he will be total. He will be total while he is sleeping, he will be total while he is going for a walk. He will be just a walker, nothing else — no other thoughts, no other dreams, no other imaginations. Sleeping, he will simply sleep; eating, he will simply eat. You don’t do that. You are eating and your mind is doing hundreds of trips ….
I have been seeing — in every bed there are never two people, but a great crowd. The husband is making love to his wife but he is thinking of Sophia Loren; the wife is not making love to her husband, she is making love to Muhammad Ali. In every bed you will find such a crowd! Nobody is total in any act, not even in love. So be total in everything that you do or do not do. Be total — then your whole life becomes a meditation.
Source- Osho Book “Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons”