Darshan 8 April 1977

[A sannyasin says: It's been a strange time here for me. I've been feeling the West a lot and so have decided to go back. I also feel sad about it sometimes.]

No, there is no need to be sad - go to the West. One day the west will disappear from the mind, but it will take time. You are conditioned by the west, brought up in the west, brought up by the west - it is not so easy to get out of any pattern, any culture, any civilisation; it is not so easy.

You can come from one country to another country very easily, travel has become very very easy, but you don't come out from your conditioning - that is your real country!

It is not the West that attracts you, it is your conditioning - so a thousand and one things will remind you to go to the west, small things. It is too hot and the idea comes to go to the west, the food is not the way you would like it to be and you think to go to the west. Each and every thing - but it has something to do with your conditioning. It is very difficult to come out of the conditioning, but by and by one starts learning.

When you can come out of your conditioning you are a free man, you are a universal man. You are neither Western nor Eastern, neither English nor Indian nor German nor Japanese - you are simply a human being. And that is a great freedom, that is real freedom! Then you don't carry a crust around you. You are not in a capsule, the capsule has broken. You don't have an eggshell around you.

When the bird is in the egg he cannot fly - and that is the situation. When a man is Indian or German or English or American he is in an eggshell. He cannot fly, he cannot open his wings, he cannot use this tremendous freedom that existence makes available.

There are layers upon layers of conditioning. One is conditioned as a german, one is conditioned as a christian, one is conditioned as a catholic and then there are other sects, and so on and so forth. One is conditioned as a man and another is conditioned as a woman. I am not talking about the biological difference - that's okay, that has nothing to do with conditioning - but the man is conditioned as a man. You continuously remember that you are a man, that you are not a woman, that you have to behave like a man - that you are not to cry, that you are not to weep, that tears are not to be allowed, that that is just feminine, it is not expected of you. This is conditioning, this is a crust around you.

A really free man is neither man nor woman - not that the biological difference disappears, but the psychological difference disappears. A free man is neither black nor white - not that the black becomes white and the white becomes black: the skin remains as it was before but the psychological colour is no more there.

When all these things drop you are unburdened. You walk one foot above the earth; gravitation doesn't function any more for you. You Can open your wings and fly any moment and there is no limitation.

So, many times you will be coming and many times you will be going - but coming and going, coming and going, you will become looser and looser. One day the boundaries will be blurred, you will not know who you are: eastern or western. That's what I am trying to do here.

But it is good to go sometimes. Next time you will hanker less, because when you go you will not find in the west anything that you have been fantasising about. That is just fantasy that arises out of conditioning. When you go to the West you will say 'What is there? Why was I hankering so much?

What was there to desire? Why have I come back?' And suddenly you will start thinking of coming back immediately.

So just go and don't feel sad. It is natural, it is a natural process of loosening. By and by the structures no longer carry any meaning for you. And unstructured is what freedom is....

[A sannyasin gives a very poetic description of a beautiful experience he had in a group. At the time he felt crazy, and wanted to share his experience with others.

Osho gives him a 'come close energy darshan'. He calls a sannyasin woman over to help.]

It has been really beautiful!

Raise your hands, this way. Sit back to back and hold his hands, mm? And if something starts happening in both of your bodies, allow it, but don't leave each other's body and don't leave the hands.

... It has been really good!

Do one thing: any time you feel closer to that state, allow it again. You will be able to feel it again, but always remember to allow it only when you are alone. Close the door, sit in the middle of the room, allow it to happen - it will come - and go into it as deeply as possible. There is no need to hold back.

Whenever you want to come back out of it, just hold the locket in your hand and give an order to yourself 'Come back!' - and you will be back. So there is no problem of fear that you may not be able to come back. Just hold the locket in your hand whenever you want to come back, and give the order.

One has to learn to order the mind. It follows - it is very very obedient if you know how to order it.

Don't fight with it, and there is no need to control it. In the very control there is fear. It is because of fear that we control and because of fear that the mind becomes the master and you become the slave.

And you are afraid that if you go beyond a certain limit you will not be able to control. But you are infinitely capable of controlling. The moment you say 'Stop!' it will stop. So just take the locket in your hand and say 'Come back' and you will come back. But allow it only when you are alone, or, if you have a girlfriend, then use the same posture. Then too it will be very easy and the energy, the feminine energy, will be very helpful.

By and by, the same state can be created in the girl too, and when you both feel simultaneously, there will be a great understanding about the male and female energy. You will be able to see her energy melting into your energy, your energy melting into her energy.

But while you do it with a girl or with any woman, any friend - there is no need for her to be a girlfriend, any woman can do - never take your hands off: hold the hands, and the backs have to be together... Whatever happens.

If you feel that something is going to be too much and it will not be possible to hold the back and hands together, then stop it - do it alone.

But this will give you a very very deep experience of feminine energy and male energy and their meeting - and a different kind of meeting: the meeting of the energies, not of the physical bodies.