Chapter 5

Prem means love, somen means the moon god, the god of the moon. The god of love and the moon is to be the meaning of the whole name. The moon and love are deeply related, the sun and reason are deeply related. In man there are two currents of energies. In the East, we call one current the sun energy and the other current the moon energy The sun energy is reason, logic, arithmetic... the rational mind, the male mind. The moon energy is the feminine mind: love, intuition, poetry. Man has leaned too much towards the sun energy; that is creating havoc in the world. The sun energy has to be used but it should remain a servant, The moon should be the master because the moon is cool energy. The sun energy is feverish; there is passion in it but a feverish kind of passion. The moon energy is cool, calm, collected, meditative. The meditative part should be the master part in one's being; the non-meditative part should be the servant. But just the reverse is the case: the sun energy has become very dominant - it can become dominant because it is aggressive - and the moon has been repressed, because the moon is polite.

The moon represents surrendering. Just as man has become the dominant factor in the world and has repressed the woman, exactly the same has happened in the inner being too: the male part has become dominant and the feminine has been repressed. And the feminine has something immensely valuable. It is creative because it is motherhood, it is a womb, receptivity. Only through the moon energy can god be approached.

Reason dissects, analyses, divides. That's why science goes on dividing, and has finally reached to the electron.

First they used to say that the molecule is last; then they divided it and started saying that the atom is last; then they started dividing the atom. Nothing is last: they will divide the electron too, because reason depends on division, and as you divide, you come to smaller and smaller components.

Intuition joins things together, it brings them together. Intuition ultimately arrives at god. God means the totality, the indivisible totality, the whole. The English word 'religion' is beautiful; it means exactly what Yoga means: that which unites, that which makes things come to a togetherness. Intuition is uniting. Only intuition can know the whole.

Reason can only know the part, then part of the part, and so on and so forth; it is ad infinitum.

Reason can only know more about less. It is very accurate but it goes on becoming more and more specialised, and finally the specialist knows nothing except a very tiny part. The expert becomes a kind of ignorant man: about ninety-nine things he is ignorant, only about one thing does he know.

And even that knowing, because it is partial and only of the part, is dangerous. Reason is very very pretentious, very egoistic: it pretends that the part is the whole. It is very egoistic. It says, 'This is the truth, the only truth, and there is none other.'

... You can start shifting your energies from reason to intuition, from sun to moon, from day to night, from logic to love. This is the transformation, the inner alchemy. The moon is in the heart and the sun is in the head. Start slipping out of the head and start becoming more and more in tune with the heart. The day one becomes one with the heart is the day of great rejoicing, because then there is peace, bliss, contentment, utter contentment.

[A sannyasin asks: concerning my critical attitude towards other people. I'm aware of it when it happens but don't seem to be able to do anything about it... mostly towards strangers.

Osho checks his energy.]

It has something to do with your energies; it is not just a mind thing. It is not a critical attitude, it is a critical personality; and these are two different things. To change a critical attitude is not so difficult.

To change a critical personality is difficult; it is almost in-born. You have carried it from your past lives, it is in your blood and bones. But once understood, then there are possibilities.

Just do one thing: every day for one hour, sit silently and be critical about anything that happens in the mind. For one hour, allow your critical character to have full sway. Be possessed by it! Write, say, think, and don't be moderate in any way. You have to go into that criticalness totally, to the very extreme, about anything and everything. Enjoy that process, and you will be surprised that within twenty-three hours your criticalness will be less. This is the first step: to allow it full sway, because you have never allowed it, nobody allows it.

Yes, it is so ugly, and it looks so stupid: why allow it? So one goes on repressing it, one goes on condemning it, but the condemned remains; only the expressed evaporates. So this one hour of criticalness will be a catharsis. And you are allowed everything in that moment... no problem. There is no need to be moderate, no need to be lukewarm; exaggeration is allowed. And you have to enjoy it! Aker that one hour you will feel almost like when your stomach is not okay and you have vomited, the same relief; this will be a mental vomit. For the following twenty-three hours you will feel very very relieved, and you will not find that much criticism coming to your mind. So this is the first step.

Do it for at least three months, and in these three months things will start changing. After three months, don't do it for one hour but just for ten minutes, and make it more intense and more penetrating, like a sword, cutting everything. Do that for at least one month and then reduce it

to one minute. In that one minute you can't make much criticism, but you can be absolutely critical, your whole being in a state of antagonism against the whole existence. Even that one minute will start doing the same as that one hour had done. This has to be continued for fifteen days and then drop it.

So for three months, one hour, for one month, ten minutes, for fifteen days, one minute and then drop it ... It will be possible to get rid of it, but it will take a little time. And it is an unnecessary wastage of energy, because this world has to be enjoyed. A critical person cannot enjoy it because he is always looking for something wrong; he counts the thorns in a rosebush. He does not look at the moon, he looks at the shadows, and they become predominant in his mind. He does not look at the whole person; he just looks at one single thing about which he can be critical, and that becomes his obsession.

In this obsession, nobody is harmed, only you. You will not be able to love people, you will not be able to be friend people, you will not be able to sympathise, empathise, with people, Then you will miss many things which come only through sympathy, love, friendship. You will create unnecessary antagonism in others, because when you are critical you provoke the other also to be critical. It is a double-edged sword, it cuts both ways: it will cut you too! Nobody likes to be criticised, everybody wants to defend themselves, and the best way to defend is to attack, so everybody will attack you.

This is creating an unnecessary turmoil in life. There is enough turmoil as it is, there is no need to create more. One has to create a cool, calm, and collected space in this turmoil for oneself.

[A sannyasin falls on the ground in front of Osho. When she sits up she says: I feel you have taken away the ground underneath me... From where is this coming? What... what is all this?]

You will start experiencing what it is. Something beautiful is coming but it is so new that you cannot figure it out right now. Just let it come a little more. the ground is disappearing and when the ground disappears, you start falling into an abyss. One feels frightened, but no need to be frightened. This abyss is your nature, this is your very being.

The ground was false. It was just a prop, an excuse to cling; those excuses I am taking away. When all the excuses are gone and you are left alone, for a few days it will be difficult, and these are the days in which it will be difficult. Once you settle with this new space life will have great joy.

[Another sannyasin says she has been doing a lot of vipassana and much energy is coming up. She wants to cry but is unable to, and feels dizzy. It feels good but she is also frightened.

Osho checks her energy.]

You need not be worried, mm? - enjoy it. Crying will also be coming soon; no need to force it, it will come on its own. If you force it, you will be creating a hindrance. You feel it is coming, it is coming, and it doesn't come, mm? - some barrier is there. It will be broken, but you cannot do anything. The energy will just go on breaking it and it will become clear. But allow the energy to take you wherever it wants to. Naturally sometimes you will feel very dizzy and the eyes will lose perspective and focus, but no need to be worried.

Your whole inner structure is changing, so there will be a period of change, mm? Everything will be out of focus, and then again everything will settle. It is a change of perspective. You are growing new eyes, the old eyes will take a little time to go. But things are going just as they should.

[Another sannyasin says the fear she has always had with her has grown since being in Poona.]

Let it come to a climax. You are still holding it. You are afraid of fear. Fear is good; fear of fear is bad. Fear is natural but fear of fear is an unnatural thing. So just drop the second fear and allow the first fear to have its say. It has to do something, there is some work for it to complete, and once it has done the work it will disappear. If you prevent it, it will continue, because by preventing it you will be preventing its work.

Whatsoever happens in life has some very very deep meaning in it. Everything should be accepted - fear too, anger too. Only when you accept all do you start growing. If you reject even a single thing, you cannot grow. It is as if you want to come to see me but you don't want to bring your left hand. It is impossible: either the left hand will come with you or you will have to stay with the left hand and you will not be able to come. Man is an organic totality; fear is a part, just like the left hand.

If you want to grow you will have to take everything with you - fear, anger, love, hate, all. If you want to drop even one thing you will have to remain there, you cannot grow, because those things are not like accidental attributes to you. They are your essential being, they are you! Fear is you, anger is you.

Language creates very fallacious understandings. We can make a sentence 'I have fear', but that is wrong. 'I am fear', not 'I have fear'. Using the word 'have' gives the impression that if you want, you can drop it. It is not like that.

So accept, and once you accept, things will start moving. You are just on the verge - only one thing is needed: acceptance.

[A sannyasin, who was a therapist and a priest, says he finds himself in a conflict, torn between a love for Jesus and loyalty to Osho.]

I understand your problem, but you are creating it unnecessarily, because me and Jesus are not two persons. You can think of Jesus, you can cry with Jesus and you are with me; your crying is not a barrier. Jesus is not a barrier to me. The pope is a barrier.

The church is a barrier, but Jesus is not. Perfectly good: if you can love Jesus, that is your love for me. You can forget me, you can love Jesus, and you are totally with me. That's not a problem at all.

Jesus and I can go together, there is no problem. So don't create unnecessary conflict in your mind.

There is no need.

Give up your monastery and everything and come to [the new commune], mm? I will need very many Jesus freaks! (laughter)