Chapter 3

[A sannyasin says:

Osho checks her energy.]

Mm, nothing to worry about your mother. It has something to do with you, not with your mother.

Everybody comes to a feeling of death some day or other in deep meditation. Whenever meditation touches your inner depth, the feeling of death comes - because that very point where you touch yourself is the beginning of you and the end of your ego. So your ego goes through a sort of feeling of death; not exactly death, but... great panic.

Next time it happens don't be afraid; just move in it. Death is as beautiful as life. And the whole idea about death - that it is something to be afraid of - is based on absolutely wrong notions. Wrong notions about life too, because we think life is the life of the body - that's why death seems to be so scaring.

If you come to understand that life is more than body - body is just the surface of it, the form of it, and life itself is formless - then death is nothing but a door; a door to the beyond, a door to yourself.

It is a returning to the source.

Once you have fallen into your source, once you allow it to happen, you will become alive for the first time. Then you know that you are deathless; nothing can destroy you, not even death. Unless one experiences death, death remains. Once you accept it, death disappears - it has been transcended.

So the sooner it happens the better.

It was a good experience, but you have misunderstood it. It is just an indication that sooner or later you will have a deeper feeling of it coming again. Allow it, mm? And if you become really very much afraid and it becomes difficult to relax.... Because one has to relax.

Death is just like sleep: if you don't relax, it cannot come. If you remain tense how can you go to sleep? So if you are only a little bit afraid, even then you will not be able to relax. So just as it is coming, relax as if you are moving into deep sleep. Accept and welcome it. Give yourself to it, be possessed. If it is difficult, just take the locket in the hand and remember me - and immediately there will be a let-go, mm? Do it!

[A sannyasin who was going home asked Osho if he could give him a meditation to do on the aeroplane.

Osho told him to sit in a relaxed position and to watch his breath... ]

... but don't change the rhythm of it, just breathe as you normally do. Simply watch, go with it - breath goes into the belly... the belly comes up. You just go with it. Then for a second it stops... you stop there. Then it goes back, return journey, you come back... then it goes out... wait there for a second.

No need to force it in any way. You are not to do anything; you are just to watch. If even a slight doing comes in, then the watching is disturbed. So be totally a non-doer. And the breath goes on its own; you are not required to do anything.

That's the difference between buddhist breathing and yoga breathing. Buddhist breathing is tremendously beautiful. It is the breathing of a witness - nothing to be done. Yoga breathing is the breathing of a doer. You have to do something - inhale deeply, exhale deeply, count, take as much time in breathing, double time in exhaling... then it becomes a doing. The buddhist breathing is simply to watch. And just watching the breathing tranquillises the whole mind and being.

So you do that... and it is simple. Close your eyes and relax, and forget everything outside. Do it for one hour, and then for fifteen minutes stop it. And in those fifteen minutes you can do anything - you can sing a song, or hum... or anything, but something has to be done. If you go on doing the breathing for more than one hour then it can become heavy. You can do it as much as you like, but with fifteen minutes gap.

If you go on continuously - because it is such a deep-going method, mm? it is just like drilling a hole in you - it can become too much. You can go berserk or something in the aeroplane, and that will not be good.

[A sannyasin says:

I feel kind of afraid... of people that I want to resolve things with - family and friends.

Remember one thing: that there are things which, if you try to do them consciously, you will fail in.

There are a few things that can be done only in a very indirect way, never directly.

For example, if you have seen something, tasted something, then it is very natural that you would like to share it with your friends, your family. But don't be too aggressive about it because that will

become a barrier. In fact don't try to convince anybody about it. You simply go there and let them see what has happened to you, mm?

If you become too concerned about them you become nervous. If you are nervous you will become tense. If you become tense you may say that meditation gives silence, but your whole presence will show something else - that you are tense, nervous, anxious. It will be a self-defeating thing. Don't be worried about them.

If you can carry whatsoever you have felt, that's enough. Just enjoy in their presence. Let them see that you are smiling more, that you can laugh deeply. Let them see that you have become more tranquil and collected and calm. Let them see that you don't react so easily. Let them feel your being - and that will be their change. They will start asking what has happened. Then too, don't become too aggressive, because whenever you are aggressive the other becomes too defensive - that's natural.

If you are not aggressive the other is defenceless - and it is easier to enter in a defenceless person.

When he becomes defensive then he starts protecting, arguing, rationalising - and it is difficult, almost impossible. And particularly with people who have been intimately related to you - family and friends who have known you from your very childhood. They simply cannot believe that you have changed. That is too much for their egos. They have not changed in their whole lives - and you have suddenly changed Something must be wrong - either you have been hypnotised or you are befooling yourself or you have gone mad. First they will think about these things.

So don't be too concerned about anybody's conversion. Never be a missionary - that is one of the ugliest things a person can be. Just be yourself, but present yourself in a totally different dimension that they have not known before. And they will see it - it is something which cannot be hidden.

So simply go, loving... and be more loving, be more friendly, less argumentative. If they ask, then say something; but that too, never say with aggression. Say it with no effort to convert anybody; be humble and polite. Then you will see that a few friends are going to come - that's how many people come by and by. I never go outside this porch Carry the message of love - not in words, but in being. Continue to meditate...

[A sannyasin says:

It can be, because Primal brings up things from the childhood. Don't be worried about it - it is a good sign. You have been in the Primal, and have moved to the past, to your childhood.

Do two things. One is: eat very slowly, and chew. Count forty times; each bite has to be chewed forty times, not less than that. More you can do but not less. By that time it will be almost liquid - then drink it. So don't eat - drink. Let everything become liquid inside the mouth. That will give you more satisfaction, more nourishment - and with less quantity. The quantity will be reduced to half

automatically, because when you have to chew forty times, if you go with the quantity you are eating now, you will take three or four hours. So one gets tired and sleepy Second thing: in the night before you go to sleep, sit on the bed and for twenty minutes, just in imagination, eat whatsoever you like. Yes! You are allowed as much as you want. But do it exactly as if you are eating, mm? Just visualise the whole thing: take your empty hand to your mouth, take a bite, chew it, taste it, smell it, swallow it. After three or four days you will feel that it has almost become real. And it will give you more satisfaction than your real food, because it is not really the food that you need. You need something else, mm? Food is just a substitute.

So this you do for twenty minutes. If you enjoy and want to do more, you can do more, because it can never do any harm to anybody. And after doing it, just lie in the bed as if you are a small child - huddled up just like a small child - as small as you can imagine, mm?...

Within ten days the tendency will go, and you will come out of it very very alive, and very confident about yourself.

[A sannyasin says:

Osho checks her energy.]

Look at me... you think you cry, but your cry is not deep. You somehow manage it - it is not coming from the depth. You may have suppressed it too much; it doesn't touch you at all.

So the first thing to remember is to allow it to happen, and to move into it deeply. Don't say that it is rubbish - it is not. Your saying that it is rubbish is rubbish. It is one of the real things of life. If you cannot cry deeply, you cannot enjoy; they are in proportion. The more intense your crying, the more will be the intensity of your laughter. If you cannot be really sad, you cannot be gay; it is impossible.

Somehow you manage not to be sad - that's the trouble. So you are not sad... but you cannot be gay. You have to be sad - sadness is a catharsis, it is a cleansing process. Crying is tremendously beautiful - but anybody here can feel that your crying was not coming from the heart. Even you can feel that it is superficial - it is just from the throat; you are not involved in it....

So just try to remain true to the moment. If you feel afraid, then be afraid - nothing to worry about.

Just tremble like a leaf in a strong wind. What can you do? There is death and every sort of calamity in life, every sort of misery, and one is afraid - naturally. There is nothing wrong in it. No need to be brave, no need to perform; no need to show anybody that you are brave. You are full of fear so be afraid. When you feel like crying, cry. When you feel like laughing, laugh... just move with the moment.

It will take a little time to get the hang of it but it will come. And you know, everybody knows, when one is trying to be phoney. It may have become a long-standing habit, that s all.

You are in a certain relationship with anybody?

[Her boyfriend comes forward. He said he felt confused when she started crying. He felt sad, and yet wondered if that was only because he felt he should be. He didn't really know what he felt.]

You do two things: allow her to be real - because sometimes we don't allow the other. If she wants to be sad, okay - there is nothing wrong in it, let her. And don't try to force her out of her sadness prematurely; let sadness mature. It is difficult sometimes - you would like her to laugh and be happy.

Who does not want that?

And the second thing: don't show any sympathy when you feel she is being phoney. For example, if she is crying and you feel she is being phoney say, 'This is not going to help, and I am not going to show any sympathy ' You will be helping her. By and by she will understand that being phoney does not pay.

Women become very phoney because they understand the trick of manipulation. Lovers, husbands, children even, they can manipulate by crying - then they become dominating. You feel compassion and sympathy. Whether you feel it or not, at least you show it, because otherwise it will look inhuman if she is crying and you are not sympathetic. But to be sympathetic when the other is being phoney is very dangerous; you are destroying her soul. It is not compassion - it is poisoning her.

Whenever you see that she is real, love her as much as you can. Pay her immediately, so her realness becomes an investment and phoniness becomes simply bankruptcy. You understand me?

[The boyfriend says: We used to fight a lot... and she says: It was so tiring.]

If you stopped just because you felt tired, then you will be sad, because then you have not stopped for the right reason - just 'tired'! Understand that it is futile - not tiring When you stop because it is tiring you have not understood the point at all. You really still wanted to fight, but because it is tiring you have stopped. No understanding has happened. It is better to fight, and to be happy and tired - at least you will be true. The truth will be very animalistic, but at least it will be true. And don't try to be angels before time. People who try to be angels before they have any maturity of understanding, fall below animals.

Mature, try to understand. Tiredness is not the question; it is the futility of it, the foolishness, the stupidity of it - not tiredness. Just the whole thing is nonsense - and that is not in any condemnatory sense, simply as a fact; it is nonsense. It leads nowhere and is a vicious circle, endless.

But understand it and then it drops - not that you drop it; it drops of its own accord. Then you have a tremendous release of energy. The same energy which was becoming violent, aggressive, fighting, anger, this and that, is now released. Now the same energy is available to celebrate, to dance, to love.

So this time when you go back, be real....

[To the boyfriend]

It is not easy to control a woman! she will find a thousand ways and one to get out of it, don't be worried! Life can be rally such a laughter if you are true. Just the idea gives such beautiful freedom.

So for these months, be really true - fight, be angry, be sad. Sometimes, it will be too much... but then you will have a few glimpses of beautiful celebration, a few glimpses of laughter. and they are worth it. But they come only when anger is true. When anger is false, laughter is false.

So you just start from anywhere to be true - because the falseness has not paid. It is time... enough is enough!