A blessing from beyond

Question 1:

Sarjano, the Western mind has completely forgotten that sex is not life; hence everyone born in the West carries in his unconscious the idea that the moment sex is finished, all is finished. This is not true. On the contrary, the moment sex falls away from you, real life begins. On the graveyard of sex grows the mystic rose. It is not only happening to you, it is going to happen to every sannyasin who is honestly and sincerely seeking the truth.

Sex is so childish, so stupid that if you take a photograph of yourself making love, you will be surprised to note a few things: the woman you are making love to has closed her eyes because she cannot bear to see you in such a stupid activity. The only way is to keep the eyes closed and let this ugly moment pass. And that's why people have chosen the nighttime to make love - except a few idiots. You will see yourself doing such gymnastics, huffing and puffing and perspiring over the poor woman - and you are not even ashamed that the fragile woman is under you and you are on top!

But you are so much engaged in this futile activity that you are not aware of it. In fact, in a few cities in Europe and America there are restaurants, hotels which have a very special attraction. I have heard about one man who asked, "What is this special attraction?"

The manager said, "The fee is high, but if you are interested and you have the money, you will get one of the most gorgeous woman to make love to."

He could not resist the temptation, so he paid the money and he was led into a room. Certainly the woman was gorgeous, and as he started making love, he started hearing a few giggles from this side, a few giggles from that side. He could not understand what was happening. He has made love many times, but giggles? - and from all sides?

When the lights came on, he could see that those people had made a great arrangement. There were peepholes around the room - it was a round room - and people were watching him through magnifying lenses; that's why those giggles were coming. He said, "My God, these restaurant people are cheating!"

He went back out and he said, "What is all this? You never told me."

The manager said, "The fee for watching the show is much more. There is no harm; tomorrow you can watch the show. And what is a show if there is no watcher?"

He paid the money - because he felt that the people who were giggling were enjoying more than he was enjoying - and the next day he sat by a magnifying hole and he enjoyed it so much that he started giggling himself. The person who was watching the show by his side said, "What you are giggling at? This is nothing; you should have come yesterday! The man was absolutely mad!"

Sex has been kept hidden for centuries, in the darkness of the night, with the eyes of the woman closed. When it begins, at nearabout thirteen or fourteen years of age, it is a biological device for reproduction. It has nothing to do with you; you are just being used by the blind forces of biology.

And if you are understanding enough, my own calculation is that by the time you are forty-two you will start feeling that sex is dropping. Not that you have to drop it - let me insist again and again, you should never drop it because that is the only way to keep it alive to the very last breath of your life.

What you will do by dropping it is what has been done by monks - Hindu, Christian, Buddhist - all over the world. They call it celibacy - a beautiful name for an ugly fact. In the name of celibacy they are repressing their sex.

Sex is a vital energy because it reproduces life. You cannot repress it; it will find perverted ways to come out - in homosexuality, in sodomy. And the ultimate perversion of all the religious teaching is the disease AIDS. It is the outcome of your so-called celibacy.

But nobody is condemning the Vatican, nobody is condemning shankaracharyas that they are responsible that at least ten million people in the world today are sufferers from AIDS. These are the data only from the Western world, because the East has not yet the facilities, the processes, the experts to find the AIDS virus. So these ten million people belong to the Western part of the world.

Hundreds of people are dying every day because AIDS has no cure; it is slow death. Between six months and two years, you will be dying slowly. Dying quickly has a beauty about it; you don't suffer.

But hanging in the limbo, knowing perfectly that there is no cure, two years of your life becomes a horrible nightmare. You don't think about anything except death.

If you repress sex, you are not going to transform the immense energy contained in it. But if it drops by itself through your meditations and through your understanding, with no effort on your part, it will release such a tremendous beauty and openness to your being that all you have been always dreaming and thinking will become a reality.

And just as I said, Sarjano, it is going to happen to every sannyasin. I call it celibacy only when sex drops, not before it. If you force it before it drops by itself, you are simply becoming perverted. This is a fundamental law of life.

You can change the natural flow of life energy, but once it gets perverted, then it becomes very complicated. First you have to bring it back to the natural state and then only transformation is possible. Perversion cannot be transformed.

It is not only you; your ancient girlfriend has also written to me. Her name is Prem Premal. She says,

IS IT POSSIBLE THAT SEX HAS DROPPED ME AND I DID NOT REALIZE IT?

It seems it is very hard for the Western conditioning to realize the disappearance of sex with joy and as a blessing from the beyond. Because they believe only in the material body, sex becomes the only possibility of having any moments of orgasmic joy - if you are fortunate enough, which millions are not.

Only once in a while somebody will get a little glimpse of orgasmic joy. Your conditioning prohibits it.

In the East, if sex drops by itself it is a celebration. We have taken life in a totally different way; we have not made it synonymous with sex. On the contrary, while sex continues you are not mature.

When sex drops a great maturity and centering comes to you, and a true celibacy, an authentic brahmacharya. And now, because you are free from the chains of biology which are the only chains that are making you a prisoner of blind forces, you open your eyes and you can see the beauty of the whole existence. You will laugh in your days of celibacy about your own stupidity, that you once thought that is all that life has to offer.

I have heard about an old drunkard who was sitting early in the morning on the sea beach, and he saw a young man doing pushups. The drunkard could not believe it. He went around the young man; he looked from this side, he looked from that side. Finally he could not contain his curiosity, and he said, "My poor boy. Why are you unnecessarily perspiring and doing these pushups? Your girlfriend is not here" - because he knew only the pushups which people go on doing in the name of love.

Sarjano and Premal, it is perfectly okay - and not just okay - that sex is disappearing. As sex disappears you will find authentic love growing in you. Sex is not love; it is just a fallacy, a blindness.

You are tricked by biology into believing that this is love.

But once sex has disappeared your whole life energy is redeemed from its animal past. And just as sex was reproducing more and more children, sex-freed energy starts giving you every moment a new birth. Your whole life becomes fresh, growing in a new direction. Sex is horizontal; love is vertical, it takes you upwards to higher realms of being. And the higher you are in your love, the closer you are to the ultimate truth. The day your love has reached to its climax, you will experience what I have been defining as satyam, shivam, sundram - the truth, the godliness and the beauty.

Then these experiences are not momentary glimpses any more. They become part of you, you become part of them. They become just like the heartbeat - they are with you for eternity.

But I can understand your problem: up to now you have known only one joy and that was sex. You are absolutely unaware that there are skies beyond skies and you are just creeping on the earth.

You are not aware that you have wings and you can fly just like an eagle across the sun into the faraway sky. The whole sky becomes your kingdom.

Because of this fact, a misunderstanding arose. Down the ages mystics have experienced it, and because they experienced that sex is functioning as a blinding force, as imprisoning you, they started condemning sex. The misunderstanding was that people started thinking that if sex can be repressed, they will also become part of the mystical world and its experiences.

Nobody has had the courage to say that this is not a true understanding of the fact. Celibacy is not something to be practiced, it is not something to be rehearsed, it is not something to be imposed on you by any method, any effort, any doing. Celibacy comes when sex disappears on its own accord.

Certainly the word 'celibacy' has tremendous meaning in my sense.

But the misunderstanding was that seeing the mystical people rejoicing and dancing and singing and their eyes and their faces and their charismatic pull, people started repressing sex, thinking it is sex that is preventing them from knowing higher realms of being. There lies the great misunderstanding.

My effort - which has brought me condemnation from all over the world from all religions, because they are all living in this misunderstanding - has been to destroy this misunderstanding. I am not for sex, but I am not against sex either. It has a time, its season, its climate, and that time should be given to it. It is absolutely a natural phenomenon, but it should not spread beyond its limits. Just as at the age of fourteen it appears, if you live it totally, intensely, without any guilt created by religions, you will be out of the imprisonment by the age of nearabout forty-two. This is an average; those who are more intelligent may get out of it sooner. Those who are a little dull witted will take a little more time.

But misunderstandings are everywhere.

Just before the operation, the high-powered surgeon was explaining all the new recovery techniques to his patient. "Now, you should begin walking as soon as possible," explained the doctor. "On the first day, you must walk around for five minutes; on the second day ten minutes, and on the third day you walk for at least an hour. Do you understand?"

"Yes, doctor," answered the apprehensive patient, "but is it all right if I lie down during the operation?"

Things were not going so well for Gilroy and Loretta when they went to bed together for the first time. Gilroy was working away hard, but Loretta was not responding at all. Finally in exasperation he asked her, "What is the matter?"

"It's your organ," Loretta replied, "I don't think it is big enough."

"Well," Gilroy replied indignantly, "I did not think I would be playing in a cathedral."

There is so much misunderstanding in the world. It creates confusion, it creates chaos, and when everybody has misunderstood something and you stand alone to make them understand, they feel offended.

Not a single religious leader has refuted logically whatever I am saying, because they don't have any logic. But they have been condemning me without refutation, and because they are all together in the same boat, naturally it seems that I am alone against the whole world.

But what I am saying is a simple truth to understand. You cannot bring sex in forcibly - can you make a seven-year-old child potent enough to reproduce children? The very idea looks absurd. Sex comes on its own accord; it is a certain maturity of your body, of your chemistry, of your physiology that brings it at the age of twelve.

If the coming is not in your hands, the going is also not going to be in your hands; it will go at the age of forty-two without any problem. Just one thing has to be remembered: don't be corrupted by your religions, don't be corrupted by your scriptures, don't be corrupted by your so-called saints. They are the most poisonous people on the earth. They have destroyed man in so many ways that their crimes are uncountable.

The greatest crime is to create a guilt against sex, because it keeps sex alive beyond its natural boundary. So even a person of seventy is still thinking of sex. In fact there is nothing else for him to think about - retired, what else can you do? You have to simply think about it and talk about it. Sex, which used to be a part of the physical body, has moved and become just cerebral, just in the mind.

Even at the time of death, most people die with some sexual image floating in their minds. This is ugly, and the responsibility is on your so-called saints. Neither do they understand the psychology and the science of the transformation, nor do they care that what they are teaching is going to destroy people's lives.

I teach you that when the sex energy is starting to function, allow it full support. At the age of nearabout eighteen or nineteen man has his greatest sexual energy; that is the peak point. But your society prevents you: you have to go to the college, you have to go to the university, you have to come back after university - maybe twenty-five years old - and then you will have to be married.

But at twenty-five years old, you are already six years downhill. This is absolutely unscientific. Boys and girls in the colleges and in the universities should live together, not in separate hostels, and they should be given all that the scientific approach has found out about sex. In the past, of course, it was a little difficult, because of the problem of the girl becoming pregnant. But now there is no problem at all. The pill has been the greatest revolution in the world - even greater than the Russian revolution!

And now two more pills have come into existence which have made sex simply a fun, nothing to be worried about. The first pill was to be taken by the woman for a certain period of time; only then was it possible to prevent pregnancy, and that too was not a hundred percent sure. It used to happen that you were not expecting your lover and he suddenly comes and you have not taken your pill....

And the human mind is so stupid that it goes on thinking that nobody gets pregnant every time; it is very rare, so there is nothing to worry about. You can take the chance. But that chance has always proved very dangerous.

I have heard about a man traveling with a busload of children. Somewhere he stopped for the children to take some drinks, tea or something. The manager of the small hotel asked him, "My God, are all these children yours?"

He said, "They are not my own. I am a salesman for birth control methods; these are my failures. I am going to take them to the factory to show the owner that something is wrong with his birth control methods. Just count these children.... And all the parents are now waiting with loaded guns to kill me, because I have given them a one hundred percent guarantee."

The first pill was not a hundred percent guaranteed. The second pill is tremendously important. The second pill is to be taken after you have made love, so there is no problem, there is no risk. And the third pill is even more important because it brings about the equality of men and women. Why should only the woman take the pill? The third pill can be taken by the man.

If one looks in a scientific way without any prejudice, then every young man or young woman who is at the peak of sexual potency should be allowed to make love without any guilt. But we force them to remain repressed about sex, and by the time they are declining in their energies we allow them to get married.

Two problems arise out of it. First, for twenty-five years you have been telling them that sex is wrong, to prevent them from getting into any sexual relationship. Twenty-five years is one third of your life; it is a long time to create a great prejudice against sex.

And then suddenly in one day everything changes; you allow them to get married. This is idiotic - because what will happen to twenty-five years' propaganda against sex? And those who are getting married are also idiots; they don't ask the priest and their parents, "What will happen to that twenty-five years' conditioning? Now you are giving us license to make love, but what about those twenty-five years that you prevented us?"

So the first problem is that man is the only animal in the whole world... Man is the most intelligent animal, but absolutely unintelligent as far as sex is concerned. There are no sex classes for deer and lions and horses and donkeys. They don't need to be taught about sex at all; it comes naturally.

But because of twenty-five years' constant insistence from the religion, from the society, from the university, from the parents, man gets confused. On the honeymoon he does not know what to do.

I have heard about a young man who got married and went to the honeymoon hotel in a holiday resort. It was a full moon night. The woman immediately undressed and lay down on the bed, but the young man was sitting at the window looking at the full moon. Minutes passed, hours were passing, and the woman said, "What is the matter with you? What are you doing there? It is our honeymoon."

The man said, "Shut up. When I was coming here, I asked my mother, 'Any advice?' She said, 'This is the greatest night of your life. Don't miss a single moment.' So I am waiting and watching the night, the greatest night. Don't distract me."

But this is bound to happen, and then the second thing happens: a deep guilt feeling about sex, that it is sin. If you are carrying the idea that something is sin you cannot really enjoy it. Your sin will be holding you back. Your guilt will be making you feel ashamed of yourself: What are you doing? So no man, no woman is prepared to make love in deep joy, in freedom. On the contrary, everybody is prepared against love.

This is the reason why people don't get rid of their sexuality at the age of forty-two; they will continue even if they live eighty years. Society spoils people in such a way - and perhaps they are also doing it absolutely unconsciously. They are taking away your home - the experience that was possible for you, but which happens only when sex drops on its own accord.

Then the freedom has a totally different meaning. You have not achieved it; it has been bestowed upon you from the beyond. Existence has accepted that now you are ready for greater mysteries.

You are no more to cling to your teddybears; you can move on into ecstatic lands, into experiences of bliss that know only a beginning but no end. You can move towards finding the truth of your being and the truth of existence.

It seems very strange that I am condemned for teaching sex to people. In fact I am teaching them the natural celibacy, but to bring the natural celibacy the sex also has to be natural. Sex is not the goal, but only a staircase.

If it can be natural, without any guilt, without any poison, you will reach beyond it and you will be immensely surprised that only now you have become mature. Now the bodily pleasures don't have any meaning, because in comparison to your spiritual blessings, blissfulness, they all fade away.

Sarjano, what is happening is perfectly good - but particularly for an Italian it is a little difficult to accept. But the moment you became my sannyasin, you dropped all boundaries and discriminations that make men different from each other. My sannyasins are simply the first world citizens. They don't belong to any nation and they don't belong to any church.

The other day I received a letter from Australia. Just like other lands and other continents, Australia also has a Rajneesh Foundation, and we have thousands of sannyasins in Australia. The Theosophical Society of Australia was selling my books up to now, and those books were their best sellers. This time, when the representative of the Australian Rajneesh Foundation went to the Theosophical Society, they said, "We have been ordered by our world headquarters that your books should not be sold."

The sannyasin saw that books that were written against me were being sold, and he asked about it and the man said, "I love Osho myself, and his books were our best sellers. I even wrote a letter that this is not right, but they overruled my letter and they said, 'You have to do what you have been told. Books against Osho can be sold, but literature of Osho or any literature written in his favor is banned.'"

It was not a surprise to me - but it is very inconsistent with the Theosophical Society's own philosophy. They pretend that they are synthesizing all religions, all philosophies, all approaches - just excluding my standpoint! They are exposing themselves, because this letter banning my books must have gone not only to Australia; it must have gone to Japan, it must have gone to America, it must have gone to other countries in Europe.

What is their fear? Their fear is that they cannot make my approach fit with all other religions' approaches. It stands aloof and apart and alone in its own majesty.

They cannot answer, and they are not ready to confront me publicly. So from the back door they try to destroy whatever I'm trying, which is to help humanity come out of the garbage that has been accumulating in you for centuries behind very good names.

Sarjano, it is a festive moment if sex has dropped from you - and it must have dropped, because the certificate is there from Prem Premal. Now you can move from ordinary animal life into authentic transformation. It is the same energy that is involved in sex.

If sex drops you have so much energy for meditation, you have so much energy for friendliness, you have so much energy to be creative - and you are a creative person.

Now with all this energy released you can manage so much creativity in your work that you may not have even dreamed about. This creativity will bring to you your self-realization.

Question 2:

Deva Sundaryo, the question you have asked is not just a question from your mind; it is the very heartbeat of your inner being. You are saying, "I want so much to give you nothing in return, but I have not found it yet. And the something I want to give you is already in your eyes. Thank you for singing my heartsong."

First, you will never find anything to give me in return, because here we are not in a marketplace, here we are not selling God or selling love. Here we are simply rejoicing, relishing what has happened to me and what is going to happen to you. It is not a business; it is authentic religiousness.

But I can understand the desire - one feels like giving something - and the sadness that you can't find anything to give.

Just that you feel to give it is enough; you have given it.

And you say, "And the something I want to give you is already in your eyes." From where will it come into my eyes? You have all given, without knowing, your love, your trust, which you see in my eyes.

My eyes are more your eyes than mine.

A gift that is given without knowing is the real gift. What you see in my eyes is just the joy and the blissfulness of you all growing, of you all expanding in consciousness, of you all coming closer to satyam, shivam, sundram.

Just as a gardener becomes immensely happy when he sees thousands of flower blossoming in his garden... I am also a gardener. You are my garden, and I would like every one of you to become a mystic rose, fully grown, utterly blissful. What you see in my eyes is your future.

And you say, "Thank you for singing my heartsong."

There is no need, Sundaryo, to thank me. It is simply my joy to bring song and dance into your heart. It is not that I am doing it for any return; in fact, I should be thankful towards you that you were courageous enough to open your heart and allow my dance and song and music to fill it. You could have remained closed.

Nobody's heart can be opened forcefully. It opens only when you are totally in love and relaxed, without any fear. If you allow me in, I should be thankful, because I am the guest and you are the host.

A great Zen master entered the hall where all the disciples had gathered for the evening meditation.

"There is good news tonight and bad news," he said. "First, the bad news: there is no good news.

Now the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news."

Hamish MacTavish, the old Scottish gamekeeper, returned from taking the new minister on a grouse- shooting trip over the highland moors.

As he sank wearily into his chair beside the fire, his wife Margaret approached with a cup of tea.

"Here's a cup of tea for you, Hamish," said Maggie. "And is the new minister a good shot?"

Hamish puffed on his pipe, staring into the fire and replied, "Aye, a fine shot he is. But it is marvellous indeed how the Lord protects the birds when he's shooting."

I am not an archer, nor a shooter, but strangely enough my arrows reach to your heart - and because God is dead, nobody can protect you.

Just a joke for you, Sundaryo; you need a good laugh. Last night you did great. I went on hearing your laughter for almost half an hour. I loved it so much that my people are starting to learn how to pray. Don't be miserly as far as laughter is concerned; that is the only miserliness I hate.

Solomon and Deborah won a contest. The first prize was a week's stay at the Watergate Hotel in Washington.

When they got to their suite, Debbie was acting nervously.

"What is the matter, darling?" asked Solly.

"This is the Watergate Hotel," replied Debbie.

"May be the place is still bugged."

Solly looks behind the curtains, behind the lightshade, picks up the carpet and sees a brass disc with four screws. He unscrews the disc and puts it in his pocket.

The next morning, the manager knocks on the door.

"Good morning," he says, "how do you like the suite?"

"Fantastic," replies Solly.

"How did you like the champagne and caviar we sent you? And the flowers?"

"Just great," replies Solly, "But why are you asking so many questions?"

"Well," replied the manager nervously, "we had a terrible accident last night in the honeymoon suite downstairs. The young couple were trapped together on their bed all night long after the chandelier fell on them."

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.