Chapter 7

[A sannyasin, said he felt a lot of jealousy at the possibility of his girlfriend having sexual relations with anyone else. He said he tried to just witness the fear of her leaving him for someone else, but it still persisted.]

Nothing is wrong in the fear because that is always possible - she may go to somebody else, she may be taken by somebody else. So I cannot console you. Nothing is wrong in the fear. It is absolutely realistic. The future remains open. She is with you today; tomorrow she may not be. So rather than creating too much anxiety about tomorrow, be happy with her today because she may not be with you tomorrow.

... Just tell the mind, 'Yes, it is possible but nothing can be done about it.' The future always remains beyond our power, that's why it is the future. It simply means that nothing can be done about it right now because it is not yet. All that you can do, you can only do with the present. With the past you cannot do anything; it is gone.

So to be afraid of something that happened in the past is stupid because nothing can be done about it. Whatsoever happened, happened. Now there is no way to undo it. One has simply to relax and accept it. There is no point in feeling guilty, no point in feeling repentance. It is all useless.

About the future nothing can be done because it has not happened yet. And the future is all alternatives open. That's what the future is: all the possibilities open. You cannot narrow down those possibilities. They are there. So the fear is realistic.

Only this small moment of the present is all that is on our hands. Something can be done in it. And it is so small that if you waste too much time in thinking, it is gone. Do something! Rather than being afraid, hug her, kiss her, sing a song together or dance because this moment is slipping by. Gone,

it will be gone forever. Then you may start worrying that you didn't use this moment and now it is gone. Then you were worrying about the future, and when the future has become the present, you may be worrying about the past. That's how people go on.

Tomorrow is open. Anything is possible... and everything is possible. So live this moment as totally as possible, that's all. When tomorrow comes you will have to see. There is no guarantee about it.

People have tried all sorts of tricks with the future. Marriage is a trick so that the future can become guaranteed - but you may have the woman and still the woman may not be yours. What to do? You may have the police and the court and the law on your side, but the love can disappear, and that will be even more miserable.

If the woman has gone, good; love is also gone. But if the love is gone and the woman is still there, you are stuck. That's how many marriages are. But marriage is a trick because of this fear. Marriage is not because of love; it is because of fear. If you love a person, there is no point in getting married because you don't think of the future. But it is because of fear. Tomorrow?... So the first thing: make arrangements for tomorrow - legal, political, social.

... It is uncomfortable because you are not seeing the reality of it. It is real.

[The sannyasin replies: But part of me says that I should be able to love so totally that everything's okay.]

It is not a question of 'should'. 'Should' is in the future. Either you love totally or you don't. There is no question of 'should'. It is a question of 'is'. If you love totally, you take note of the future fear but you are not worried about it.

As I see it, you are not totally in love, hence the fear. You are not enjoying her presence as totally as possible, hence the fear. Nothing is wrong with the fear. The fear is simply natural. It becomes too obsessive because you are afraid that this moment is going and tomorrow is not certain. If tomorrow were certain you would not worry about this moment: 'Let it go. Tomorrow is certain. I will love her tomorrow.' Now tomorrow is uncertain and this moment is going, passing by, and you are not being able to love. That's how fear grips you.

So don't talk about 'shoulds' and 'oughts'. Go and sit by her side and hold her hand before she escapes! [laughter] Do it immediately !

[A newly arrived sannyasin says: My trust is growing.]

Mm, it will grow. I can see it is growing. It is a very small sprout, soft. Help it and protect it.

Trust is the greatest thing that can happen to a man. That is the greatest treasure that one can discover in life. There is nothing like it, because if trust is there, God is there. If trust is not there then nothing is there.

Just as a pregnant woman protects the child in the womb, feel pregnant and protect it. There are so many dangers around it. When you don't have trust, there is no danger for you. When you have it, then danger arises. So just be more alert, mm?

[A new sannyasin, who had earlier asked Osho about his relationship (see 'The Cypress in the Courtyard ' June 26], says:

Mm, it can come. This idea can come. But always remember one thing: I am here to help you to be more free. If at any moment you feel that sannyas is becoming a burden to you, heavy, and if rather than being a help it is hindering you, then drop out of it - and with no guilt. I am the last person to create any guilt in anybody.

Meditate over it. If you feel that it has become a confinement to you and you would be more free without sannyas, then I am always for freedom. Knowing well that you are wrong, still I am always for freedom - even if it is illusory.

[The sannyasin replies: I don't feel that I want to chuck it, but I feel a need to sort of fight against it, rather like a fish on a line.]

[chuckling] Mm ! That you can do. Whenever you feel like fighting against me, you can do it. You can start with my blessings; that's not a problem. Anything that helps you grow and that you feel will give you more maturity - even if it is fighting against me - is good. And don't think in terms of your being a renegade or betraying me. Even if you want to be a Judas, be one.

Remember only one thing - that whatsoever gives you happiness and growth is good. It is nobody else's business to interfere. That is the meaning of Jesus kissing Judas before he goes and betrays him. That is his blessing. He is saying, 'Yes, Judas, whatsoever you want to do, do. Go ahead. If that is your destiny and that is your fulfillment, then who am I to interfere? With all my blessings you go.' He washes his feet, he blesses him.

In fact he says in the end, 'The time is passing fast. Why are you waiting? You should go and do your duty.' That's his message to Judas: 'Go and do your duty.' The duty is that Jesus will be crucified, but that has nothing to do with Judas. He has to fulfill his own destiny. Of course Judas committed suicide when Jesus was crucified because he really loved this man. This is how man is paradoxical.

Judas was one of the closest disciples, very close. And he loved Jesus - but this is how the mind is paradoxical. He loved him so much that he hated him also. He loved him so much that he was always afraid that he may be overpowered, so he resisted. He loved so much that he could never allow Jesus to be very close to him, or allow himself to be very close to Jesus because he was afraid that he may be absorbed, finished. So he resisted, he fought, he argued. And this was his final effort to escape from his own love. He was afraid of his own love, but when Jesus was crucified, then Judas understood that he had killed himself. He committed suicide the next day.

Christians have never meditated much on the suicide of Judas because they have never looked with compassion on him. He needs much compassion. He's simply human, the most human disciple of Jesus, and he enacts the whole drama of human polarity. He is the most intriguing character in the gospels, sometimes even more intriguing that Jesus. Jesus is plain and simple. Judas is more complex.

Christians have not thought much about it because they have simply been condemning him, but I have been meditating on Judas very much. If somebody wants to understand Jesus rightly, Judas

has to be meditated upon. He is part of the drama. Without Judas, Jesus cannot be, because the crucifixion cannot be. The resurrection will be impossible.

So Judas creates the background. He must have suffered tremendous agony - more than Jesus, because Jesus was dying, dying a death that was not a death to him. In fact he was relaxing himself into the hands of God. Judas was in more agony. He betrayed his own master. He betrayed his only friend... and he betrayed the man he loved so much. Those twenty-four hours he lived must have been a tremendous hell, an eternal hell. Then he committed suicide because he could not believe that he could have done it. He felt worthless and that now to live, to even breathe, would be impossible. But Jesus blesses him... it's perfectly okay.

So if sometimes you feel like fighting, fight. Don't repress it. If sometimes you feel like betraying, betray. Don't be worried about it. I am not here to create any sort of worry and anxiety in you.

Whatsoever you feel good is good. Go into it. Go whole-heartedly and headlong so that whatsoever happens will help you. If it is a wrong thing, you will come out of it wiser. If it is a right thing, you will come out of it still wiser, so nothing is lost. In the total reckoning, the final reckoning, nothing is lost.

Even going astray is part of following a path.

So it is going to happen many times to many people that they will want to go away from me. Perfectly good. Sometimes you need your own space. To be near me becomes a heavy thing. So be here only when you want to be, otherwise go away. You should have your own space.

And my sannyas is nothing else but an effort to give you the courage to have your own space. If someday you feel that this sannyas has become a bondage and you are burdened, drop out of it.

And never think that you cannot do that because I have given it to you with such love; don't be worried about it. I can take it back with the same love.

But I am the last person to make you feel guilty for anything. So if you are a sannyasin, it is your choice. If you are not a sannyasin, it is your choice. My blessings are unconditional. Whatsoever you are - a sannyasin or a non-sannyasin - makes no difference.

But that is not the real problem. Your real problem is somewhere else. Now you are trying to hide the real problem by creating a false one.

... It is artificial. It is imaginary. It is not your real problem. Your real problem is with [your partner].

You started thinking against sannyas and against me because I told you to be committed to her. And I knew that this was going to happen. It has happened exactly the way I was thinking it was going to.

[Osho said that he felt that all his life, this sannyasin had been afraid of commitment. Taking sannyas was the first commitment and, as this was related to his partner, he reacted against sannyas. Osho said that to not marry was simply a suggestion, not something he wished to enforce, and that it was up to him to make a decision.]

Somewhere deep down you are afraid of women - and that's something which will hinder your growth. One has to settle that. That fear is not good, because we are deeply involved with women.

It is impossible to get rid of women. Many people have tried. It is impossible. It is impossible just as it is not possible for a tree to renounce the earth. It is rooted in it.

The woman is the earth. You are rooted in woman. You come out of the womb. You come out of it - and, in one way, one never comes out of it. Something remains rooted. Hence so much attraction to women. In fact the sexual penetration is nothing but a search again for the womb. Now you cannot go into the womb totally so you penetrate sexually. It is a search for the womb, a search for the roots.

But, on one hand, the tree is nourished by the roots. On the other hand, because of the roots, the tree cannot move. It is in bondage. So both things are together: it is nourished by the earth and imprisoned by the earth. So the tree is afraid. It cannot escape because the nourishment is lost, and it cannot relax because then where is the freedom?

I don't think trees are worried, but man has become worried. If you look at the whole history of human consciousness, one thing seems to be very permanent: man has always been fighting with women. Mahavira, Buddha, Jesus, somehow, in some way, have been trying to be free of women.

That seems to be the greatest puzzle, confusion. And people have felt very good if they think that yes, they are beyond women, because the woman forces them into the snare again.

[Osho said that the oldest method which has been tried in order to escape from women is to become a monk. Even Buddha was very reluctant to initiate women, because he said they would be a disturbance, and that his religion would have lasted five thousand years, but with the admission of women it would last only five hundred years.

Osho said that the West is trying another way of avoiding commitment with women. Men relate with women, but only superficially, so that if one starts getting entangled, one can always flee. There is a fear of commitment.]

And this is your fear continuously. You want to remain a free person and yet you don't want to become a monk, so this is the compromise that you have been making; just managing something on both sides. You have been a monk without being a monk, being with women and never really being with anybody so that you can be caught.

But I knew this was going to happen. Knowingly I have done it. I wanted to see how you react. Your reaction will show many things about you. It shows you many things about yourself. So now you decide - this is just my advice.

I feel that if you become committed the fear will dissolve. It is going to be arduous. Commitment is arduous. I am not promising you a rose garden. It is very thorny and the path is difficult. But growth comes that way. Fight will come, nagging and misery will be there, conflict and moments of agony will be there, and you will be in moments when you will never be able to forgive me.

Woman brings reality and man lives alone in dreams. A woman comes and shatters all dreams. She is very earthy, very real. Man is a dreamer, woman is very realistic, so she will pull you down to the earth. Many times you will feel that your wings have been cut and, 'What has Osho done? Why do I deserve this?'

I know you will be angry but still I am saying that it will be of great value to you, of immense value.

Otherwise you will remain a child. Unless a man is committed to a woman he never becomes adult;

he remains a child. Then he can go on looking at women like mother-figures, full of milk and juicy, but he is never adult. The maturity comes when you start encountering a woman. She really creates spaces of which you are not aware. She will bring to the surface your own faces which will never come by themselves.

Facing a woman is facing a mirror. She will reveal many ugly faces to you, but they are your faces and they have to be absorbed, synthesised with your total being. They have to fall into an organic unity. They should not remain like islands hanging around you. They should become part of the continent. Then you will be more of one piece, more together. But these are my suggestions.

And always remember that my suggestions are not commandments. The final decision has to be arrived at by you. If you still feel that you are not ready to be committed to any woman, just say to her that you are not ready. Then too don't think that you are not following me or my advice. This is simply advice. It was never meant to be followed. The decision has to be taken by you.

So my sannyasins remain absolutely free with me. Your relationship with me is of two free persons.

I am not occupying your space. Whatsoever I say has to be pondered over by you, and the final decision has to be yours. Even if you decide to follow me, remember it is your decision. You can never blame me. I am not responsible.

You cannot ever blame me. That's the beauty of giving freedom to people - they cannot blame you!

So you think about it, mm? Good.

[A sannyasin said that she had not been able to complete the Soma group and now she felt very confused, and thought of going home.]

Just relax for a few days. You got disturbed by your own mind. You could not relax in Soma and you started fighting. A group is a surrender. You are not to fight, otherwise nothing can happen and you will get more confused. But you went into politics and you missed the group unnecessarily. It could have been of great value, but what has happened, happened. [There had been some disruption in the group. See darshan June 28th.]

Going into a group means simply that you will listen to the leader. If he is a fool, let him be. You will listen and do whatsoever he says because it is just a special situation to move into surrender. If you argue and show your knowledge and try to show the leader that he is wrong and you are right, then you miss the whole point. But there is nothing to worry about.

If you can do one or two groups before you go it will be good, so that you can drop this argumentative attitude.

[She added: I became very frightened in the group... and it got to the point where the people whom I felt were supporting me, left, and I felt alone and without someone who had come to represent my mother. It frightened me terribly.]

But that fear has to be faced. Hiding it inside won't help. It has to be opened. It has to be operated on. You can do some other group. But think about it, and if you feel like it, do. It will be helpful and you will go in better shape. Otherwise you will carry with you what you have done in the Soma group and you will never be able to forgive yourself.

Primal will be exactly the right group for you. If the fear is connected with the mother, then Primal will be the right group - but do it totally. And it is not a question of anybody supporting you - because it is not a fight, so that you need anybody's support and if somebody leaves, you have to. They were fools and you were foolish. And you created a clique there and tried to disrupt the whole group. It was absolutely wrong. But sometimes it happens, because we move in a very unconscious way...

not knowing what we are doing, not knowing what we mean. It is almost mechanical.

If you are really courageous, do Soma again. If you are not so courageous, then do Primal, but Soma will fix everything exactly and nothing will be left. Then you have faced the fear and you have lived those moments. You will come out of it feeling very beautiful. I don't see that there is much problem. It is just a very thin layer of ego, not much. I can hit your head right now and break it, but [a chuckle] it will be too easy for you. So go the hard way!

[A sannyasin says: I'm taking heroin lately... and feeling negative.]

So if you want to feel negative, take it. It is destructive. You have some suicidal tendency deep down. These things are not going to help, and by and by you will lose control of your being.

[The sannyasin replies: I wish I would lose control.]

Then it is okay and nothing is to be lost. If you want to be destructive, it is your responsibility. If you are enjoying it, it is your responsibility. One is absolutely responsible for oneself, so whatsoever you are doing, you are doing to yourself. If you feel good, it is good. If you feel bad, then come out of it.

But take a decision to go in or to come out of it. Don't just drift in - because drifting is easy; coming out will be difficult. It is very easy to get into any sort of wrong trip but once you are in it, the body becomes accustomed to it and then it is very difficult. Just a decision won't do. You want to come out but the body will pull you in.

So, looking at all the consequences, one has to decide. And of course the decision is finally yours.

I have nothing to say about it, because I never enforce my decision on anybody. At the most I can give you some humble advice - that you are playing with your life and nothing can be got out of it. It is a slow suicide. But if you like slow suicide, then it's okay.

I'm not condemning you. I'm not saying that you are committing a sin or anything. I'm simply saying to do it knowingly, because coming back will not be easy. You can go in very easily because it is slow and there is no effort needed. It is downhill. Even if your car has no gas in it, it can go. But when you want to come out of it, then the uphill task. If you don't have any power, you are stuck in the valley of darkness, in depression. Then knowing nothing, people go on moving downwards because at least moving downhill they have a feeling that they are going somewhere.

But all growth is uphill. All growth needs conscious effort. And all-growth is responsibility. But this is just my advice. If you go downhill, you go downhill. You decide about it, mm ?

[A sannyasin says:... when I am meditating, a fear keeps on coming and disappearing again, and I realise suddenly how difficult it is to let go.]

It will happen someday. Let-go is something that you cannot do. By its very nature it is something that happens. Nothing can be done about it. The momentum goes on gathering and then one day it reaches to a climax and suddenly everything falls down. So it is not something you have to do or you can do. You can just be a witness.

For many days you will see nothing is happening and the moment comes when you cannot let go either. The problem becomes very very complex, because nothing can be done and still you feel that something is needed to be done. But one day on its own, when the momentum is enough.... It is almost as when you heat water and at one hundred degrees it evaporates. Up to ninety-nine it is still water; maybe boiling but nothing else happens. Just a degree more and there is a jump, a leap, and the water starts evaporating. The whole quality of the water changes. Water ordinarily flows downhill. The moment it passes the hundred-degree limit, it starts rising upwards. It was visible - the moment it passes the hundred degree level, it becomes invisible. The whole dimension is totally different.

So just go on watching. You will witness it happening one day suddenly. You will not do it but you will see it happening. And the more the degrees will grow, the more fear will come. Something so tremendously new is going to happen that the whole mechanism is trembling, shaking to the roots.

So fear will grow and trembling will grow. There will come one moment when the trembling is at its peak and the fear has reached its peak and suddenly everything falls down; everything becomes quiet and calm - and the let-go has happened.

Once it has happened, you can persuade it anytime because you know the knack of it. It is not something to be done. You have simply to put yourself in a certain situation and it happens. Then you will know. Before it, there is no way to know it.

You are going so well. Just continue. Watch the fear arising. In fact, cooperate with it. If the body trembles, allow it to tremble. Let it go berserk. If you feel shaken, become one with the shaking - shake.

Have you heard about a christian sect called Shakers? They got the name because of shaking.

Another sect are the Quakers - that is because of quaking. These two christian sects have some tremendous work on meditation, but they were very much misunder-stood - as it always happens - because people thought they are going crazy - 'Why are you shaking so much?'

But when one really comes to the very core of meditation, there is a great shaking; all the foundations are shaken. One is uprooted completely from this world and transplanted into another world.

You are a born shaker, so just allow shaking and enjoy it. Watch and enjoy. Let these be the keys:

watching and enjoying. And don't be bothered that you have to do something. All that you can do you are doing. The remaining is to be done by God Himself. Leave it to Him. Whenever it becomes too much of a problem, simply remember this, and don't be worried. Good.

[The Tathata group were present. The group leader said: A lot is happening and tremendous energy is coming through, but at other times there is a lot of anxiety and doubting of myself.]

Only one thing: create a distance between you and your personality. All these problems are concerned with your personality, not with you. You don't have any problem; nobody has any problem

really. All problems belong to the personality. And for you, this is going to be the work - that whenever you feel anxiety, just remember that it belongs to the personality. You feel a strain, just remember that it belongs to the personality.

You are the watcher, the witness. Create distance. Nothing else is to be done. Once the distance is there, you will suddenly see anxiety disappearing. When the distance is lost, when you have become closed again, again anxiety will arise.

Anxiety is getting identified with the problems of the personality. Non-anxiety is not getting involved but remaining unidentified with the problems of the personality.

So for one month, watch. Whatsoever happens, remain far away. For example, you have a headache. Just try to be far away and watch the headache. It is happening somewhere in the body mechanism. You are standing aloof a watcher on the hills, far away, and it is happening miles away. Just create distance. Create space between you and the headache and go on making it bigger and bigger and bigger. A point will come when you will suddenly see that the headache is disappearing into the distance.

There comes a point beyond which you are simply a watcher and the headache has almost disappeared or appears to belong to somebody else. Then come close again and see it has become yours. The headache is in the head. If you are close to it, so close that you feel one with it, it is yours. So this distance has to be continuously practised for one month, whatsoever the problem.

Immediately the problem is noted, you create distance. And after one month, tell me how you feel.

[A sannyasin said: I started the Encounter this morning and... I really wanted to go home and my body was very tired and aching. But I'm staying.

Stay. Stay whatsoever happens.

... Stay and you will get out of the body, and then such a release will happen that you cannot imagine.

It always happens when the body is absolutely exhausted. When the body is absolutely exhausted, there comes a moment when you leave the body, and you are more in the spirit and less in the body.

That is the boundary line. So, many spiritual methods are nothing but techniques to exhaust the body energy completely.

Once the body is no more able to pull on, you are simply thrown inside. The body stops - as if a car has stopped because there is no gas. When the body stops because it has no energy to pull on any more, suddenly you are thrown into the spiritual world. If the body has energy it goes on pulling you. When it has no energy it cannot pull you. It loses the magnetic force it has. Then it has no gravitation.

Even if for a few moments you are allowed non-gravitation states, for the first time you will know who you are. So continue. Howsoever tired you are, don't be worried. One thing is certain - no group can kill you ! [laughter]

No group can kill you... except me !

[A group assistant says: I've seen aspects of my personality come out that are hard for me to accept - like greed and a desire for power.]

Just watch. There is no need to accept right now. Acceptance is a later growth of awareness. Greed is there, watch it. Ambition is there, watch it. A lust for power is there, watch it. Right now don't make it complicated by the idea of accepting if, because if you try to accept and you cannot, you will start repressing. That's how people have repressed. They cannot accept so the only way is to forget about them and put them in the dark. Then one is okay. One feels that there is no problem.

First forget about acceptance. Just be aware. When awareness grows, and you become clearly alert, acceptance is a natural consequence. Seeing the fact, one has to accept it because there is no go. What can you do? It is there just like your two eyes, your two ears. They are not four, only two.

For the coming month, just become more and more aware. Don't bring more complexity into it.

Awareness is enough work. Greed is there so try to find how much it is, how deep it is, where it is, where you are hiding it. Bring it into the light, expose it to the light. Then I will tell you how to accept.

And you may not neW to be told. Just by seeing it again and again and again, you may see that a natural acceptance is arising by the side on its own. And that acceptance is transformation. Greed accepted, greed disappears. That is the miracle. Anger accepted, anger disappears. Reject it and it continues.

Once you accept something, if it is real, only then can it remain. If it is unreal, it will dissolve. Love will remain, hate will dissolve. Compassion will remain, anger will dissolve.

So, awareness is a criterion to know what is real and what is unreal. It is just as when you take a torch into a room that was dark. Whatsoever was unreal will disappear. For example you were thinking that there are ghosts in the darkness. There were some clothes hanging up and you thought they were ghosts. When you bring the light, the ghosts disappear and there are only clothes. The clothes will not disappear because they are. Just by bringing the light they cannot disappear, but the darkness will disappear.

In fact that which is not will disappear, and that which is will be revealed. Awareness is a light. Just bring awareness into your inner being and you will see many things start disappearing. Greed is just like a ghost. Ambition and power-lust are just like ghosts. So just watch. For one month, don't do anything else and then remind me.

[A sannyasin says: I think the groups have made me confused. They're making me frightened. And after the lectures I feel sick. I just find that I try to escape from you and I daydream on purpose to avoid you.]

Try... you cannot escape. And wherever you will go, I will haunt you! Once caught it is very difficult to escape [laughter] .

I know. I know you don't want to try, but to each sannyasin it has to come one day or other. When you really start coming close to me, fear arises, because a little closer and you will be gone. Then you will never be able to return back to your old self. And that is the only self you know. You will have a new self, but that you don't know right now, so how can you be certain about it ?

If you really want to escape you will need my help [a loving chuckle]. But without my help you will not be able to. But you can try; there is nothing wrong in it.

... You are aware that only one thing is certain - that you are going to disappear if you go closer to this man. So fear is natural, under-standable, but you cannot escape because the allure is tremendously great. You will stumble into me. The abyss is not just an abyss; it is very magnetic also. It frightens you, it also allures you; it is very paradoxical. But this comes to everybody.

Looking into my eyes you are bound to see an abyss... a great abyss, death-like. It is death to you.

Somebody will come out of it. It will be your real self, but you are not aware of it at all. Your false self will go and the new self will come. So deep down you don't want to escape and yet on the surface the mind will try to find ways how to escape. So it is up to you. If you really want to get rid of this anxiety, fall headlong into me. Otherwise you can postpone and delay. Escape is not possible. Delay is possible - and that will just be prolonging the agony. So there is nothing to be worried about.