Chapter 15

[A sannyasin says: I'm going to be in a place where I'll have lots of temptation to drugs and sex.

I feel as though I've really developed some beautiful meditative things for myself and I feel a bit apprehensive... ]

You will have to be a little alert, because when there is nothing like meditation, there is nothing to lose. But when meditation starts and something is growing, there is much to lose.

The devil becomes a temptation only when God is very close by, otherwise not. The devil never goes to tempt devils - never. He always goes to tempt a Jesus, a Buddha. The temptation is always when you have something to lose. So ordinarily I don't say to people to be alert about sex because they don't have anything to lose so it is perfectly okay. If they don't have anything to lose and they become too alert about sex, their alertness will function as a repression. It will not be a gain, it will be a loss.

But to you I would like to say to be alert because now you have something growing..lt is very soft, fragile, tender. Just a small moment of unawareness and you can lose it. It can be crushed by anything.

And when energy is rising higher, sex can be dangerous. It pulls down the energy. It creates a contradiction in your being. One part is going higher and another part starts going lower. Then there comes a deep tension, a bifurcation. a split. So for you, the temptation is going to be there and you have to be alert. The greater the temptation, the greater is the possibility of being alert. So don't take it negatively. There is nothing to be afraid of. It's simply as it should be.

It is a challenge, and it is good. So when you are there be very watchful, be loving, and if sometimes sex happens as part of love, then there is nothing to be worried about. But it shouldn't be the focus.

The focus should be love. You love a person, you share his being, you share your being with him, you share the space.

That is exactly what love is: to create a space between two persons - a space which belongs to neither or belongs to both... a small space between two persons where they both meet and mingle and merge. That space has nothing to do with physical space. It is simply spiritual. In that space you are not you, and the other is not the other. You both come into that space and you meet.

Once it happened that I stayed with friends in Agra. They were two brothers, both mad and very rich people. I had never been to their place but they had been asking me again and again. Once just passing through, I stayed with them for four or five hours. I had known that both of them were a little neurotic, but their neuroses became clear-cut in those hours I stayed there.

The elder brother had come to receive me at the station and the younger came too, but a little late.

So the older took me to his part of the house. I became aware later on that the house was divided in two. When the younger came back from the station, rushing, because he couldn't find me, he came into the common hall where I was sitting, just like this. They had a common hall in which both could come and go and then two separate parts of the house.

The younger brother said to me, 'Either come to my place or at least to this common hall where we can both sit. Otherwise I cannot enter his territory and he cannot enter my house.' They were very inimical to each other but even they had a common room where they could both come.

So even if two persons are not as they should be, they can still have a common room. Even neurotics can have a common room. And that is what love is. If it grows, then that common room becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and then both the houses are dissolved into it.

So sometimes if you share space with somebody, a husband or friend or anybody, and sex happens as a spontaneous phenomenon not something brooded upon, not something sought after, not something that you were planning, then it is not sexual. There is a sort of sex which is not sexual at all. Sex can be beautiful but sexuality can never be beautiful. Sexuality means cerebral sex:

thinking about it, planning it, managing, manipulating and doing many things, but the basic thing remains deep down in the mind that one is approaching a sex object.

When you look to a person through sexuality, you reduce him to an object. He is no more a person and the whole game is only of manipulation. You are going to land in bed sooner or later. It depends how much you play with the idea and how much both of you prolong the foreplay. But if in the mind the end is just sex, then it is sexuality. When the mind has nothing to do with sex, then it is pure, innocent sex. It is virgin sex.

That sex can sometimes be even purer than celibacy, because if a celibate continuously thinks of sex, then it is not celibacy. When a person moves in a deep love relationship with somebody, not thinking about sex, and it happens because you share so totally that sex also comes in, then it is okay and nothing to worry about, so don't create guilt about it.

So two things: first, don't make sexuality a temptation. Don't allow it to tempt you. Be alert and don't allow it to become part of your mind. Relax and meditate and when the energy is urging you to

become sexual, close your eyes and allow that energy to move upwards. But sharing a space with somebody and it just happens as pure, animal, virgin sex, and you have not been thinking about it at all, there has not been a single thought about it, but it is simply following as a shadow of your love, then it is perfectly alright. It is prayerful.

That's what the Bauls insist. [The Bauls are mystics who follow no creed, no ritual, but move individually... dancing, singing, loving. The word 'baul means 'mad one'.]

That is the zenith of the tantra attitude. Energy has to move more and more towards your meditation. Much is going to happen. It is just a beginning... higher peaks will soon become available.

[A sannyasin returning to the West says: So much has happened. I don't understand it.]

There is no need to understand... and there is no way to understand. It is something that is always beyond understanding. When it happens, it is beyond understanding. When it is below understanding, it has not happened - because it is a mystery, not an ordinary fact that you can understand. It is bigger than you. It is higher than you. It is deeper than you.

You are just a very small drop in it and it is oceanic. So how can the drop understand the ocean?

... Participate in it rather than trying to understand it. That way comes understanding - participate in it, dissolve in it, allow it to overwhelm you and overpower you. Be possessed by it. And these are two totally different attitudes.

When we try to understand something, we are trying to possess it, we are trying to control it.

Knowledge is control. Lord Bacon has said, 'Knowledge is power.' It is. That's what science goes on doing. Science tries to know things just to overpower them. Once you know them, you become the master.

Religion is, just the opposite, diametrically opposite. It is not a quest to know. It is a quest to be.

Whatsoever is happening, allow it to overpower you, not the other way round. Don't try to understand it. Let it understand you.

It is said that a young man, very full of ego, came to see a great sufi mystic, Hassan. The young man had reason to be egoistic. He belonged to the royal family and he had the Greatest teachers of his country to teach him. He visited almost all the Feat masters available and had been to every enlightened person that he had heard of. He knew many things, he had collected much knowledge, and he was very intellectual. His memory was perfect, he could recite the whole of the koran, so of course there was reason to be egoistic.

When he came to Hassan, he started telling him that he had lived with this master and with that, that he had been reading this and reading that. Hassan started laughing, so the young man said, .'Why are you laughing?' He felt a little annoyed.

Hassan said, 'It would have been better if you had allowed those masters to study you, rather than your studying them. What a misfortune that you studied them and didn't allow them to study you.

They should have studied you - that would have been better!'

There are mysteries that you should not try to understand; rather, let the mystery understand you.

That will give you a greater bliss. Let God understand you, let Him know you - because there is no other way for us to know Him. Our knowing is going to be very limited.

So, I say, rather than knowing, participate. Whatsoever is happening is a mystique. It is not metaphysics. Be dissolved in it. Drop your mind, because the mind is continuously trying to understand something so it can control. Knowledge is violence and deep down it is conflict. Still deeper down it is fear.

That's why we are afraid of the stranger. Once you know who he is, from where he comes, to what community he belongs, you are less afraid because you think now that you know d little about him.

When you have lived with him for one year, you are still less afraid because now you have seen his moods, his style and everything. If you have lived with him for twenty years, you become completely oblivious of him. Whether he comes or goes in the room makes no difference. But when you had met him on the first day, he was a stranger. You were afraid because you could not control him. Now you know how to control him.

So remember, the very urge to know is fear-oriented. Rather, participate, relax, give your hand to the unknown and follow it. Trust, and much more will happen.

You will come back soon. I will be waiting, Continue to meditate and continue to remember me.

[Osho spoke to a western sannyasin about her relationship with an indian sannyasin. Osho said to the woman that her boyfriend was a very innocent man and that he loved her very deeply. It hurt him very much to see her being loving to others, and what made the hurt worse was that he felt that there was nothing wrong in what she was doing, but he couldn't allow her to do it and feel happy about it; he could not allow her total freedom. He did not want to say anything to her about it, so was suffering much in silence.... ]

So you have to understand that. It is very difficult to find such an innocent man. And when you live with and love such an innocent man, you have to understand his ways also.

In the West that innocence is completely lost. Things have become very superficial. Nobody bothers.

Even if you are holding hands with somebody, your lover does not bother - not because he has given you freedom; in fact he does not care. The thing is very superficial.

Just a little understanding is needed. Nothing is wrong with you. You don't have any intention to do anything wrong to him. It is just that you don't know how an innocent man thinks, that's the trouble.

He has never loved any girl before. He has never been with any woman before. He is absolutely virgin so he cannot understand you. You have loved other men, you have been with other men, and sometimes they come to you. Nothing is wrong in it and he understands that. It is not that he would like you to drop these things, but I would like you to.

He will never say anything; he will suffer. This is something which has disappeared from the world.

Very few people are like that now. He can become hard. He can force himself to say that it is okay but then your intimacy will be lost and he will become hard. That's the only way he can tolerate it.

Or he can become careless, but in both ways you will lose something of tremendous value.

So drop everything and just tell your other, your old boy-friends, that you are finished. Now be Indian.

Enough of the Italian. You will gain much out of it.

[The woman said that she felt inexplicably angry when she heard Osho mention her previous boyfriend in lectures - as he had done two or three times, when he had said that he was hard and had no sense of humour.]

[chuckling] No, nothing is wrong. This is just a fact. He is very closed and stonelike... an old orthodox type of yogi. In fact he is in the wrong place. He should have been in some old stupid ashram [laughter].

This is just a fact - and he knows it, but it is difficult because he has lived with many gurus and they have corrupted him very deeply. He has become knowledgeable so now there is an investment in it also. If he simply relaxes, his whole investment, his whole ego has to be dropped - and that he cannot drop.

He wants to drop the hardness but they are both together; they are pan of the one phenomenon.

This is something to be understood because it can happen to anybody. Sometimes it happens that there is a certain thing inside you that you would like to drop, but a pan of it is so valuable to you that it gives you a very ego-enhancing feeling.

Both can be dropped together but they cannot be broken; they cannot be made separate. That's the trouble. And it is not so simple. Sometimes it is many things together, and one thing is very valuable to you and another thing is just dirty and you would like to drop it. But they are both together and there is no way to separate them.

So he has certain knowledge that he has accumulated from gurus and masters and this and that.

And that is his only property, he has nothing else, so dropping that means becoming just a nobody.

For that he is not ready. With all that foolish knowledge he has accumulated hardness, because those masters and yogis and people like that are just neurotic people. They are hard on themselves, they are hard on others. They don't have any compassion. They don't know anything about love.

They are against love. They are against life. They are people who are against God really.

So they make you very hard, very stonelike. In fact they call it 'sadhana', to become hard so that you are not troubled by anything. Nothing impresses you, nothing gives you a trembling, so of course the flower becomes stone. A flower has to remain fragile if he is to remain a flower.

[Osho said it hurt him to recognise that he was hard and that because of that he couldn't love, couldn't melt.

The woman asked why she should feel angry about him. She said she felt loving when she saw him but other times there was anger there.]

Because it has remained incomplete. You wanted to be with him and he was unapproachable. You tried hard to find the door and he was locked from everywhere. His citadel is very strong; in fact he lives in a tomb.

This is something to be understood. If you can love a man, you can forgive him and forget him also, but if there is a man with whom you have tried all the ways possible and you could not succeed, your ego is carrying something. Your ego is carrying a sort of defeat, a failure, that you were not able to conquer this man.

And he is feeling very good about it - another woman defeated again! He has become harder still than before he met you because now he knows that he has dropped one temptation. He is on a higher esoteric level now. This is what is pinching and hurting you - that you couldn't destroy this ascetic. That's the anger, nothing else.

[Osho said it was not good to carry this, and that she should recognise that the anger was because of a sense of defeat. He said there are millions of people - you cannot win them all.... ]

... and there is no need, otherwise you will miss your whole life. If you can love one person totally that's enough; that is the fulfillment.

[A sannyasin says: I realise that during the groups I lost my image and that's why I have been feeling so confused. And now I'm trying to catch it again.]

No, don't catch it. The old image is not worth it. Find a new image. Never go after the old. Gone is gone and the old is dirty. Find something new, fresh. When the fresh is available, why go for something which has been used too much? It is secondhand. A brand-new image is possible... just from the showroom [laughter]. So why be worried about the old?

[He answers: Because I don't like myself and I don't find anything good in myself. So trying to build up a new image is too difficult for me because I catch something here and there from people I know, and it's just imitation.]

No, the new image cannot be built really. If you build it, it would be old because you will be the builder. You are nothing but your past, so it will be manufactured by your past. If you build it, it will be old.

A new image arises; it is not built. You can do only one thing: you can drop the old, that's all. Wait.

There is nothing to be done. Just drop the old. The new will emerge and then it will be unlimited and you will be able to love it.

You nave not been able to love it because it was never your image. It was given to you by others - your parents, society, this and that. It was just fragmentary. It was almost like a jigsaw puzzle, as I see it, inside you. So you were holding this fragment back, somehow trying to make a pattern out of it and always something was missing. It was never a whole. It was not a gestalt but just fragmentary things you had collected from everywhere, from junkyards, and which you were trying to make something of. Hence you cannot love it because it is rotten.

The whole arises; it cannot be made. It is organic... it is natural. It cannot be manufactured. Who will manufacture it? It comes from God. That's what I mean when I say that it comes brand-new from the showroom. It arises. You are just a witness to it. You are not the one who is making it. It is God or the whole who makes it; you simply witness it. It is a sheer wonder. One stands in awe. One

cannot believe one's eyes. And each moment that fresh image is coming into being but because of the old, you never see it. You don't allow it to assert itself.

So this time do one thing: don't try to create a new image. If it is not coming, wait. If it is not there, remain with it. Be without name, without form, without any image. Be imageless. This time don't manufacture it. It will be a little hard but soon you will see that without your creating it, it is coming.

And then you will be able to love it. It is so beautiful.

It is always beautiful, because that new thing that comes to you is divine. It is nothing to do with you or with anybody else. It is always fresh. It is just like the morning... always fresh. One simply loves it. Just wait, expectant. Something is ping to happen. You don't know exactly what it is, nobody knows,'but something is going to happen. It always happens. The world is nothing but a continuous happening, a continuum of happening. It is already happening.

Please don't propose anything. God has His own plan. Let Him propose; don't you dispose, that's all. Just wait, and moment to moment see how one can live without an image. By and by you will see something arising in you which is not your construction. You have not done anything. You will not find your signature on it. Then it is tremendously beautiful. It has a grace and a dignity, a glow of the unknown. Just wait, expectant. It is almost certain.

I was reading an anecdote. A woman went to a doctor with a very big belly and the doctor said to her, 'Are you expecting?'

She said, 'No, I'm absolutely certain!' [laughter]

You may not be able to see the belly. I can... it is absolutely certain!

[The Encounter group was present tonight. Osho has said about it:]

People have to be brought back to their bodies. They have to be pulled down from their heads and spread all over their bodies. Once they are in the body, everything becomes possible because they become alive and sensitive. They become pan of the animal world to which they belong - to the trees, to the animals, to the birds.

[The group leader said:

Don't be worried about somebody leaving. But you have to be hard and tough. Only then work can happen, otherwise not, because the time is so short. And if somebody leaves, it is for him to decide to or not.

[A group member said she always felt very dull and lethargic after the groups.]

That too is natural, because a group is a very intense activity, so for a few days one needs to sleep, rest. Even love will be a distraction from rest. That's why you feel dull. With just two or three day's rest, by and by you will find your energy coming fresher, younger, more vital than ever. Then you can move into relationship.

A gap is needed. That gap is for rest. You have done so much work, mentally and bodily, that right after the group you cannot move in ordinary life. I am thinking that later on when we have better facilities in the ashram, after a group a three-day complete rest is needed - just relating by the side of a swimming pool or resting in a hot bath or sleeping under a tree.

When one feels like eating, one eats; like resting, one rests. Just a total holiday for two or three days after each group. That will help very much. Sooner or later we will manage it.

[A sannyasin says:

Just let go. Don't force anything. Whatsoever you do, nothing can be forced. Things happen on their own. Just let go and there will be no tension and no problem and no confusion.

Don't have any ideas about life. Let life have its own way. You just go with it. Whatsoever happens is good. That should be the attitude, the basic prayerful attitude. Say 'yes' whatsoever happens.

What else can one do? Be a total 'yes'. Then there is no confusion, no conflict, because you are not moving upcurrent. Just float with the stream.