Chapter 12

[A french sannyasin said that he found passports and all those official kind of papers stupid and bureaucratic.]

Mm... but one lives in a stupid society. Just by throwing the paper in the river, you cannot be helped - and you cannot throw the whole society in the river. Even if they are stupid, it is not very wise to throw them in the river. You live in a stupid society, you are born in a stupid society, so nothing can be done; one is helpless. One has to follow these things. This is not the way to be free. By throwing the papers and the passport in the river you will be in more trouble, because that stupid society will not forgive you. And the power is with the society. One has to be very understanding about these things.

When you live with blind people, live like a blindman, because you have to live with them. You cannot change the whole world. If they are stupid, they are stupid, but you have not done anything very wise; it is even more stupid.

I know bureaucracy is there but it has to be there because people are absolutely irresponsible. There is no way to suddenly drop the bureaucracy and the court and the law and the policemen. There is no way because you will not be able to live for a single moment. It is a necessary evil. One just has to learn to live with people who are not alert, who are fast asleep; they are snoring. It may be disturbing to you, but nothing can be done about it.

At the most, the one thing you can do is not to enforce the same stupid behaviour that has been forced on you by society. Don't force it on anybody else. You may have your wife someday, your children someday, but don't force it on the n, on your friends. That's all you can do. But you have to live in society and you have to follow the rules.

[Osho went on to say when you are on the road, you have to keep to a certain side of the road, otherwise there will be a traffic jam because society is of more than one person. rules are needed.

[See Get out of Your Own Way', April 24th, where Osho talks more about this.]

Osho said we are part of society, which is an institution that has been in existence for millennia. The rules are just like the rules in a card game. You don't dispute which is the king or which is the jack. You agree on certain understandings and abide by them.]

Man is born in the society, he lives in the society. He is a social animal. You are born of two person's love affair. Society was there even in your birth. Your mother was following a certain rule, your father was following a certain rule; husbands and wives and this and that. Because they followed certain rules, they brought you up, otherwise they would have thrown you into the river. Why bother? Who are you? Why should you disturb their life and become a burden on them? They followed a rule that children have to be looked after.

So the game has to be understood and if you want to play the game, you have to follow the rules.

If you don't want to follow the rules, don't follow the game. It is simple. And you will unnecessarily create trouble. Now if you don't have a passport the police will catch you. If you don't have the right papers, you will be thrown out of the country. So how is it bringing you freedom ? It will destroy all your freedom. So don't do that.

This type of idea arises many times because there are stupid rules, but that's how things are. We have such a small life that we cannot hope to change the whole society. So it is better to be wise and to simply follow the rules. You will be freer if you follow the rules. If you follow the rules perfectly, you will be completely free. The moment you break a rule, you are caught.

So a wise man simply follows the rules. Be a Roman when you are in Rome and just follow the rules. You will fit there and nobody will create any trouble for you. They can create trouble because the power belongs to them. You are a tiny individual. What can you do? There is no point in fighting because you are fighting against a brick wall. You will hurt your own head.

That's where the hippie attitude is wrong. They are perfect in their insight that these rules are just bogus, but they don't understand that they are needed. The bigger the group, the more rules are needed. When you are alone, no rules are needed. When two are there, a few rules; three are there, more, four, more. And the world is populating itself so fast that more and more rules will be needed. Otherwise there will be chaos and madness.

So don't just condemn things. Try to understand. There are many evils which are needed; they are necessary. The choice is not between right and wrong. In real life the choice is always between a bigger evil and a lesser evil, a bigger wrong and a lesser wrong. The choice is not between right and wrong, otherwise it would have been very easy. The choice is of the lesser evil.

Just think of a society where no passport is needed, no documents are needed, no papers are needed. We could not have electricity. We could not sit here so silently. A mob could come and start dancing and we would not be able to talk. Somebody comes and starts living in your house. You cannot say, 'Get out!' because there are no papers; the house belongs to nobody. Then you cannot even keep your shirt on your body. Anyone who has more power will take it away.

Just conceive of a society existing even for twenty-four hours without any rules and regulations.

Within twenty-four hours the whole civilisation will go to dust. There will be murders and robberies and nobody will be able to even sleep because when you want to go to sleep, a mob comes inside the room and they want to play cards or drink there, and who are you to prevent it? Somebody takes your wife or your girlfriend and you cannot do anything. Even for twenty-four hours without those stupid rules, society cannot exist.

There is a possibility - but that is simply a possibility; it is not going to ever happen - that in some future time there will be a society of enlightened people. Then there will be no rules because they will be so responsible. But that you cannot in fact even hope for. It is a utopia.

This word 'utopia' is beautiful. It means 'that which never happens'. The very word means 'that which never happens'. It is just a dream. Good - dreamers have always been dreaming about it - but don't become a victim of it, mm?

[An elderly sannyas came to say goodbye to Osho tonight. He discussed what meditations would be suitable for her, saying that if she did Nadabrahma [the Humming meditation] in the morning, she should do the 'life/death' meditation each evening.]

In the night before you go to sleep, do this fifteen-minute meditation. It is a death meditation. Lie down and relax your body. Just feel like dying and that you cannot move your body because you are dead. Just create the feeling that you are disappearing from the body. Do it for ten, fifteen minutes, and you will start feeling it within a week. Meditating that way, fall asleep. Don't break it. Let the meditation turn into sleep, and if sleep overcomes you, go into it.

In the morning, the moment you feel you are awake - don't open your eyes - do the life meditation.

Feel that you are becoming more wholly alive, that life is coming back and the whole body is full of vitality and energy. Start moving, swaying in the bed with eyes closed. Just feel that life is flowing in you. Feel that the body has a great flowing energy - just the opposite of the death meditation. So do the death meditation in the night before falling asleep and the life meditation just before getting up.

With the life meditation you can take deep breaths. Just feel full of energy... life entering with breathing. Feel full and very happy, alive. Then after fifteen minutes, get up. These two - the life and death meditation - are going to help you tremendously.

[The Hypnotherapy group that was present tonight. A group member said she had liked it so much and had found it helpful, Osho suggested that the meditation he had given (above) would be good for her also. He went on to talk about the significance of death .... ]

And remember, there is no fear in death. We cannot be afraid of something which we do not know.

To be afraid, one first needs to be acquainted. So the fear of death is not really a fear of death. It is just fear of losing life. It is not because of death that we are afraid. We are only afraid that we may lose this life with which we are acquainted.

But death is a door and leads to a higher life, a richer life.

[Osho said death is something like the existence before birth, before one started breathing.... ]

But now the womb is bigger. It is a cosmic womb. You are not entering the mother's womb. Now the whole cosmos is the mother. When one does the death meditation, one is again moving to a place where breathing is not needed because breathing is part of life.

So while doing this meditation, if you feel that the breathing is getting slower, it is perfectly alright.

Don't be frightened by that.

There are moments sometimes when the death meditation really possesses you so that you may feel almost as if the breathing has stopped. So don't get into a panic, because that is one of the most beautiful spaces one can enter. When there is no breathing, there is no disturbance. When there is no breathing, there is pure consciousness. When there is no breathing, you are for a moment absolutely independent of the body.

You are alive but in a totally new way. That life is no more dependent on physical conditions because even breathing is not there. Breathing is a bridge between you and the body, a link. If the link is broken, you are suddenly in a new space and you go on expanding. You are no more attached to this new body. So don't be afraid. It is mind-blowing - the experience. And death is very beautiful. It is dark but very relaxing. It is very silent. There is no noise of life in it. It is like a dark, deep night...

you are alone and everything is silent.

So do this for fifteen minutes every night and fall asleep doing it so that sleep and the death meditation become almost one phenomenon. The death meditation turns into sleep. And death is like sleep. A mini death is needed every day, otherwise you will not be fresh and new. So sleep is a small death. If you fall asleep meditating, your sleep will be of a totally different quality. It will not have dreams. In the morning you will feel as if within seconds you are awake again. Time will be so short and you will feel very fresh.

In the morning you have to do the life meditation first, otherwise you will feel difficulty. You have gone so deep that you have to come back. As slowly as one goes in, one has to come back. You have moved into a well-like phenomenon; you have to come back.

So continue this, mm? And do Soma. Very good.

[A sannyasin with a spinal complaint had done the group on Osho's suggestion. He mentioned the trouble with his spine again, and Osho felt it was probably due to sitting incorrectly and suggested that each morning he should take a very very hot shower or bath. The water should be hot enough to make the blood circulate easily. Then he should sit under a very cold shower or bath immediately afterwards. Osho said the use of heat followed by cold would help the body fibres to shrink and expand and make the body more supple, hence making it easy for him to develop a new posture.

Osho said if this was done every morning for six months, he would feel much better. Anuragi asked if he should continue the watching of the breath meditation that he had been doing for some time.

Osho said this was a good meditation for him and then went on to talk about meditation in general...]

One thing has to be remembered about meditation: it is a long journey and there is no shortcut.

Anyone who says there is a shortcut is befooling you.

It is a long journey because the change is very deep and is achieved after many lives; many lives of routine habits, thinking, desiring, and the mind structure. That you have to drop through meditation.

In fact it is almost impossible but it happens.

A man becoming a meditator is the greatest responsibility in the world. It is not easy. It cannot be instant. So from the beginning never start expecting too much and then you will never be frustrated.

You will always be happy because things will grow very slowly.

Meditation is not a seasonal flower which within six weeks is there. It is a very very big tree. It needs time to spread its roots.

So go on working continuously. You will not be here for one year, so for this one year devote as much time as you have to meditation so that when you come next time, I can start working on a higher altitude.

[A sannyasin said that the exercise that Osho had given him at a previous darshan had helped him much, and that he had started feeling the lower part of his body again.]

Very good. The lower part of the body is one of the problems with many people - almost the majority.

The lower part has gone dead because sex has been repressed through the centuries. Below the sex centre, people have become afraid to move. They just remain uptight, above the sex centre. In fact many people live in their heads, or if they are a little more courageous, they live in the torso.

At the most people go down to the navel but not beyond that, so half of the body is almost paralysed, and because of it, half of the life is also paralysed. Then many things become impossible because the lower part of the body is like roots. These are the roots. The legs are the roots and they connect you with the earth. So people are hanging like ghosts, unconnected with the earth. One has to move back to the feet.

Lao Tzu used to say to his disciples, 'Unless you start breathing from the soles of your feet, you are not my disciples.' Breathing from the soles of your feet. . .and he is perfectly right. The deeper you go, the deeper goes your breath. It is almost true that the boundary of your being is the boundary of your breath. When the boundary increases and touches your feet, your breath almost reaches to the feet; not in a physiological sense, but in a very very psychological sense. Then you have claimed your whole body. For the first time you are whole, one piece, together. So continue to do that exercise, mm?

And go on feeling more and more in the feet. Sometimes just stand on the earth without shoes and feel the coolness, the softness, the warmth. Whatsoever the earth is ready to give in that moment, just feel it and let it flow through you. And allow your energy to flow into the earth. Be connected with the earth.

If you are connected with the earth, you are connected with life. If you are connected with the earth, you are connected with your body. If you are connected with the earth, you will become very sensitive and centred - and that's what is needed. You have felt it, so you can move. Good... go into it more and more.