Chapter 17

Deva means divine and mradula means softness - divine softness. And I give this name to you for a certain purpose, so that it becomes a constant remembrance. Be soft.

The soft always overcomes the hard. The soft is alive, the hard is dead. The soft is flower-like, the hard is rock-like. The hard looks powerful but is impotent. The soft looks fragile but it is alive.

Whatsoever is alive is always fragile, and the higher the quality of life, the more fragile it is. So the deeper you go, the softer you become, or the softer you become, the deeper you go. The innermost core is absolutely soft.

That is the whole teaching of Lao Tzu, the teaching of Tao: be soft, be like water; don't be like a rock. The water falls on the rock. Nobody can imagine that finally the water is going to win. It is impossible to believe that the water is going to win. The rock seems to be so strong, so aggressive, and the water seems to be so passive. How is the water going to win over the rock? But in due course the rock simply disappears. By and by the soft goes on penetrating the hard.

The hard disappears like sand. All the sand in the ocean is nothing but rocks of the past... defeated rocks, defeated hardness. It takes time for the soft to win but eventually it always wins. The hard is the male element, the soft is the female element. The female looks very very fragile; the male looks very strong - but finally the woman overcomes the man, finally she conquers. Of course her way of conquering is not like conquering at all. She surrenders. That is the watercourse way.

She surrenders, and through surrender, she wins. She accepts the defeat with deep gratitude and love, not as defeat at all - and that is her victory.

So let it be a continuous remembrance. Whenever you start feeling that you are becoming hard, immediately relax and become soft, whatsoever the consequence. Even if you are defeated and

momentarily you see that this is going to be a loss, let it be a loss, but become soft - in the long run, softness always wins.

And remember that man and woman is not just a biological and sexual differentiation. It is a differentiation of ultimate energies. So never be a man. And this has to be understood - that a woman is not a woman for twenty-four hours, and a man is not a man for twenty-four hours. There are soft moments in a man's life when he is more feminine than manly. There are hard moments in a woman's life when she is more male than female. So it is a shifting emphasis. One moment you are a man, another moment you are a woman. One moment you are flower-like, another moment you become rock-like. One moment you are a waterfall, and another moment you are just a hard rock blocking the path.

So whenever you remember, relax and become feminine again. Let it become a constant reference.

Again go on falling back to the feminine - and through it will come your liberation. So, softness is going to be your sadhana.

[A sannyas says he has a recurring sickness over the last ten years. He thinks it may be because he is going faster than his body can keep up: I guess I go off-centre and then the body goes right down.]

Your understanding seems to be on the right track. Everybody has to understand his body's functioning. If you try to do something which is more than the body can tolerate, then sooner or later you will fall ill..

There is a certain limit you can pull on against the body, but that cannot go on forever. You may be working too hard. It may not look too hard to other people, but that is not the point. Your body cannot tolerate that much; it has to rest. And the total result will be the same. Rather than working for two, three weeks and then resting for two or three weeks, work all the six weeks and reduce the work to half... simple arithmetic.

And this is very dangerous because it can destroy many fragile things in the body - being continuously overworked and then exhausted, depressed, and lying down in the bed and feeling bad about the whole thing. Reduce your speed, move slowly and do it in an all-round way. For example, stop walking the way you walk. Walk slowly, breathe slowly, talk slowly. Eat slowly; if you take twenty minutes usually, take forty minutes. Take your bath slowly; if you usually take ten minutes, take twenty minutes. All around, the activities should be reduced to half.

It is not only a question of your professional work. The whole twenty-four hours should be reduced, the speed brought back to the minimum? to half. It has to be a change of the whole life pattern and style. Talk slowly... even read slowly, because the mind tends to do everything in a particular way.

A person who is too much of a worker will read fast, will talk fast, will eat fast; it is an obsession.

Whatsoever he is doing, he will do fast, even when there is no need. Even if he has gone for a morning walk, he will go fast. Going nowhere... it is just a walk, and whether you go two or three miles makes no difference. But a man obsessed with speed is always speedy. This is just his automatic mechanism, automatic mechanical behaviour. It becomes almost inbuilt. So you stop this.

From today, reduce everything to half. T'ai Chi will be very good for you. You will enjoy it tremendously. Stand, stand slowly, walk slowly - and that will give you a very deep awareness also, because when you do a certain thing very slowly - for example, moving this hand very slowly - you become very deeply alert about it. Move it fast and you do it mechanically.

If you want to slow down, you will have to slow down consciously; there is no other way. Do this for two weeks and then tell me how you, feel. You have been doing more than your body can keep pace with so the body drops, collapses.

[The sannyasin adds: It scares me to think that my capacity for work may be so small.]

No, no, it is not a question of capacity. It is simply a question of speed. Everybody has his own speed and one should move with one's own speed. That is natural to you. It has nothing to do with capacity. You can do enough work with this much movement, and I think you will be able to do more.

Once you come to your right rhythm, you will be able to do much more.

It will not be hectic, it will run more smoothly, and you will be able to do much more. There are slow workers, but slowness has its own qualities. And in fact those are better qualities. A fast worker can be quantitatively good. He can produce more quantitatively, but qualitatively he can never be very good. A slow worker is qualitatively more perfect. His whole energy moves into a qualitative dimension. The quantity may not be much, but quantity is not the point really.

If you can do a few things, but really beautiful things, almost perfect, you feel very happy and fulfilled.

There is no need to do many things. If you can even do one thing which gives you total contentment, enough; your life is fulfilled. You can go on doing many things and nothing fulfills you and everything makes you nauseous and ill. What is the point of it? And there is no criterion.

A few basic things have to be understood. There is no such thing as human nature. There are as many human natures as there are human beings, so there is no criterion. Somebody is a fast runner, somebody is a slow walker. They cannot be compared because both are separate, both are totally unique and individual. So don't be worried about that. This is because of comparison. You see that somebody is doing so much and never goes to bed and you do something and have to go to bed, and so you feel bad and think your capacity is not as much as it should be.

But who is he and how are you going to compare yourself to him? You are you, he is he. If he is forced to start moving slowly, he may start getting ill. Then it will be against his nature. What you are doing is against your nature - so just listen to your nature.

Always listen to your body. It whispers, it never shouts, because it cannot shout. Only in whispering it gives you messages. If you are alert, you will be able to understand it. And the body has a wisdom of its own which is very much deeper than the mind. The mind is just immature. The body has remained without the mind for millennia. The mind is just a late arrival. It does not know much yet.

All the basic things the body still keeps in its own control. Only useless things have been given to the mind - to think; to think about philosophy and God and hell and politics.

[Osho said that the most basic functions - breathing, digesting, the circulation of blood - are under the control of the body, while only the luxuries are given to the mind.]

So listen to the body, and never compare. Never before has there been a man like you and never will there be. You are absolutely unique - past, present, future. So you cannot compare notes with anybody and you cannot imitate anybody. So drop that idea. For two weeks, slow down. Start from this moment.

When you go back to your place, go slowly! Very slowly, as if you are moving in T'ai Chi.

[A sannyasin said she did not have any feeling in her legs below the knees.]

Then you don't have earth contact. There are people who have forgotten their legs completely, and if you forget the legs, they are neglected. They need care.

Many people live above the knees and they rarely become aware of that. But if you live above the knees, there is a gap between you and the earth - and the earth is the mother. This is a symptom that you were never deep in love with your mother. This happens only to people who have never been in love with the mother. They lose contact with the earth, because the earth is the mother, and the air is the father. So people who do not have good contact with the father always have breathing trouble. They breathe very shallowly.

It can be changed; there is nothing to be worried about.

[Osho suggested that she stand barefooted on the earth and try to make contact with the earth from inside, forcing her being to flow below her knees. While she was doing this, she should breathe deeply, which would force energy towards the sex centre and help a grounding to happen. Osho said that after a few days she would begin to feel the vibration of her being moving towards the magnetic pull of the earth, and the earth moving towards her.

Secondly he suggested that a hot shower immediately followed by a cold one would be helpful to encourage the body to shrink and contract, and that each night before going to sleep, she could massage her feet in a downward motion.]

[A sannyasin said: I've felt some confusion since you've been talking about different paths [at the morning discourses]. I feel that I naturally want to go the way of music and love and yet I've been doing Vipassana. Now I feel there's some kind of division.]

So you have been tricked by what I have been saying? [chuckling] I create such situations - otherwise you would have no problems! These situations help, because if confusion can come, that simply shows that it was possible for the confusion to come.

There is no need to be worried - you are going perfectly well. And when I am talking, I am talking to so many persons, so everything I say is not to be applied to you, otherwise you will be constantly spinning; you will never be out of it. I go on saying so many things because there are so many people. I am not talking to one, I'm talking to many people. So always listen to what suits you and if you are going well, don't get disturbed.

You are going well, so there is no need to divide, no need to think about what to choose. Your problem has simply been created by you; it is not there. It is just imagination. So you have to

remember now, because I will go on talking. So whenever you have found the right path for you, when you are listening to me, don't disturb it again and again. If you are feeling peaceful, calm, happy - and you were - then there is no need to disturb anything. This is just greed that creates trouble. ,The greed says, 'Look, something more may be possible,' so you choose the path of love or the path of meditation. There are no paths! [laughter]

One is simply there already, so there is no need for any path. Paths are needed because people want to go somewhere, so what to do? You are already there.

There is no need to go anywhere. Reality is pathless.

Now I am trying to create more confusion [laughter], but if you understand me rightly, then you will never be confused.

[The sannyasin answers: I just feel that I'm here with love and trust and that's all that matters.]

That's enough. Just continue as you are doing. But I will continue... you will have to be alert. That is part of being here with me. When I see that I put out the trap and you don't fall into it, then I will be very happy.