Darshan 5 August 1976

[A visitor says he is studying massage.]

No, it is good. It is a great art, so don't just study it as a profession. No, learn it as an art.

The human body is the greatest mystery in existence, and massage is trying to get in tune with the energy of the human body. So whatsoever appears on the surface is not so significant. In fact, what happens inside the energy system is the most significant thing. And once you start loving it, you are playing with tremendous energy. You can create so many patterns through that energy, and you can help tremendously. You can also be helped through it, because by knowing others' bodies and their energies, you will understand your own body and your own energy and its functioning, more and more. It is going to help you in your inner growth.

And you have been a mechanic before? That you have to un-learn, because the body is not a machine. That can be a hindrance to you. Once you work with machines your whole attitude becomes technological. And the body is very fragile; it is not a machine at all. It is full of the unknown... it is a vehicle of the unknown. It is alive - no machine is alive - and that makes the whole difference. If you look at the body like a machine, you are looking at a corpse, not an alive body. You cannot massage a corpse. You can manipulate, but you cannot massage. Manipulation is one thing - massage is totally different.

Massage is to come to a rapport with the aliveness of somebody else's body and to feel where it is missing, to feel where the body is fragmentary and to make it who!e... to help the energy of the body so it is no more fragmentary, no more contradictory. When the energies of the body are falling into line and becoming an orchestra, then you succeed,

So be very respectful about a human body. It is the very shrine of god, the temple of god. So with deep reverence, prayer, learn your art. It is one of the greatest things to learn. And when you have learned, come back again! Mm? Good!

[A sannyasin says she does not enjoy sex, which is disturbing to her boyfriend. She says: I've never really been in a relationship where I felt secure with someone. I always used sex to keep someone and pretended that I enjoyed it.]

Mm mm. In fact you have never enjoyed love, it seems. You have been political about it; you have been using it for other means.

Sometimes one feels lonely, and one pretends in a relationship so as not to be lonely and just to be with somebody. Sometimes one feels good because one feels powerful over the other. Then one uses sex as bait. Sometimes one feels very egoistic that one can conquer so many men or so many women, and one goes on conquering. Then love becomes like a domination. One enjoys the domination, not the love itself. That's why this problem is arising now.

When such a person settles with somebody the problem arises, because now there is no point in making love to that person. You have already won him over, so what is the point of going on making love to this person? Now there is no politics in it.

So it happens only because you have been carrying a very wrong attitude about love. You have not enjoyed its intrinsic value; you have used it for something else. So when you are one with the person and things have settled, you are not interested in sex, in love, or in anything. You are not even interested that he should touch your body, but then why should he be with you? For what? If you don't want him to touch your body, you will not want to touch his body also, because these are reciprocal. Then why be together? Be alone. Otherwise the whole misery of love remains, and all that is beautiful disappears. Two persons are there just racking each other's nerves. For what?

If you are not feeling any pleasure, if something is not deeply satisfied with being together, then all the conflict, nagging, fighting is for what? It can be tolerated if something beautiful is happening - then it is worthwhile - but if it has stopped, why go on being together? Separate. But that is not going to help. Once you are separate you will again start playing your old games because again you are free to dominate, to try here and there, to win people over, to make somebody a partner. But this is self-defeating. Once you try these things and you pretend love, you pretend happiness, when you have achieved the goal, suddenly all happiness disappears.

So it is not going to help to drop out of the relationship. Rather, drop out of the political mind. The body is beautiful. And if he loves, he will touch your body. Why feel repulsed? Have you some hatred about your body? You must be carrying some hatred about your body, you must be somehow against your body. You cannot believe why this man is touching your body - such a dirty body. You will never touch it and he is touching and enjoying it! So that man also becomes repulsive. But the basic idea in your mind is that somehow your body is repulsive. Many people have been conditioned that way - that the body is repulsive.

The body is the most beautiful thing in the world. No flower can compete with it. It is the most complex flowering of nature.

So love your body, enjoy it. Enjoy touching yourself. Feel blissful with it. It is a miracle - that out of nothing, out of matter, such immaterial beauty arises. And enjoy it when he loves your body...

enjoy that. Sex is nothing but two persons sharing each other's energy, that's all. If it disappears on both sides - and that is possible only when you have started meeting on a higher level.... There are higher levels also, but they are not against the body. And that distinction has to be remembered.

There are higher levels of merging, but they are not against the body - they are beyond the body.

One passes through the body, goes beyond the body. They are based in the body, but go higher than the body. They are rooted in the body.

So love. Bodily love is good - but don't stop there. Try to find deeper levels, higher levels of communication. Then one day just holding hands is so orgasmic that a sexual orgasm pales before it. Looking into the other's eyes, one is immediately transported into another world. Then a moment comes when just the memory of the beloved - just the very glimpse, the idea that he exists - is enough to make one orgasmic, to give one a shivering delight as if a great lightning has happened from the toe to the head and your whole body is thrilled... full of something of the divine.

These layers are possible but they are not possible if you are against the body. And this is the problem to be understood: a person who is against the body always remains in the body. A person who is against materialism always remains a materialist, because whatsoever you are against, you can never get rid of.

If you really want to go beyond the body, then love the body so tremendously that it starts showing you its innermost chambers; that it allows you: 'Come in more'; that it says, 'Now you have earned it - come in more. Don't stand in the porch. Now the whole palace is yours.'

So rather than dropping out of the relationship, try, make every effort. Because if you cannot enjoy his lovemaking or your lovemaking, you will never attain to prayer, never, because it is a sort of lovemaking with the whole. So be prayerful. Touch his body with reverence. Allow him to touch your body... invite him to touch your body with reverence. Delight in it... it is god's gift.

But you must be carrying some christian ideas in your mind. Some christian priests and popes must be standing behind you and manipulating you... condemnatory voices, conditionings inside. Drop all that nonsense. Say goodbye to all the christians you must be carrying inside. Be a pagan - I am a pagan - and learn much from epicurus. Just change your attitudes.

I have always been feeling that you have a very rigid ideology inside and that is making your whole face rigid, your whole body rigid. Melt! No need to remain so ice cold. Warm up a little.

[Osho says to the boyfriend:]

Help her to come out of her castle. She lives in a castle, so bring her out. Love her more. She will only understand the language of love. And three things for you....

One, love her more but don't ask for sex. If she invites you, only then, otherwise not - at least for one month. Because your very effort will create a resistance in her. So simply love, be loving, be prayerful, but don't ask for sex.

Many women have a very wrong idea that they are needed only for sex, so that becomes like a commodity. And they give it very grudgingly because they know that if they give it to you they are used, and then they cannot dominate you. So they start dominating you through not giving it; they starve you. So you go around them with a wagging tail, and they enjoy. They think that it is something that they can withhold and can starve you of, and then you become a slave.

Never force sex on any woman, and you will be surprised; they will be running around you wagging their tails - because they need it as much as you. They love it as much as you - in fact more than you, because a woman can enjoy sex more than a man. For a man,. sex is a very local affair. For a woman it is a very big thing - bigger than herself. Man is a big circle and sex is a small circle in it.

The woman is just the opposite: sex is a big circle and the woman is a small circle in it.

She enjoys it but she doesn't want to show it, because if she shows you that she enjoys it then how will she dominate you? She holds herself hard, stiff, rigid, and she tries to prove that she does not want it at all. She can give it to you if you ask, but then you have to be grateful to her. She obliges you. This is the politics.

So for one month don't ask for sex at all. It will make it easy for her to come down to the earth and she will be coming more and more towards you. To help her, simply stop asking. Just be loving. If she invites, good. If she does not invite, then it is not gentlemanly to ask. Just wait.

And the second thing. She has a very anti-attitude about the body, so don't touch her body with any lust in your mind. When you are feeling lustful don't touch her body. Just tell her...'I will not touch your body. I am feeling lustful in this moment.' Only touch her body when you are feeling very very prayerful, meditative, no lust - just loving. You understand what I mean?

When you are lustful, you are asking for sex, you are starved. Then the whole mind is just planning for sex. Then your touch and other things are just seductions. But the deep message is: 'I am hankering for your body.' No, that moment is not the right moment - at least not for one month.

When you are feeling very happy and contented and there is no need for any other's body, then touch her body in a very prayerful mood, and she will be very happy. She will be able to see that you are not asking for the body. That is the way you can help her to come out of her condemnatory attitude, her anti-body attitude.

And the third thing: don't be together too much. That's how many love-affairs are destroyed. Enjoy your own space alone and let her also enjoy her space alone. Sometimes meet, sit together, but don't make it a twenty-four-hour affair. Leave her alone so that she starts having some appetite for you, otherwise the appetite is killed. It is just as when food is there in the fridge twenty-four hours and you are looking at it; the appetite is killed.

So don't be together too much. Lovers should be very very economical about that. The more and more you are missing, the more she misses you. Then when you come she will be more open to receive you. So first create the appetite, then you can enjoy the meal.

These three things.... And everything is good. Don't be worried.

[The vipassana group was present at darshan tonight. Recently bhagwan said of this method:

It is buddha's special method that he gave to the world. It is through vipassana that he became enlightened. It is through vipassana that thousands of people became enlightened, so it is one of the greatest routes to the ultimate. But one has to do very hard work. It is arduous. Put whatsoever you have at stake - only then will you have a taste of it.'

[The group leader said: They were very hard-working... a conscientious lot. The first thing is that in this group several people were driven mad by their minds, so I suggested a technique of slow sustained hard breaths, which seemed to work. Someone else was going into womb-like trances, so I suggested they stop looking at the breath and just watch.

I wondered if this was the right thing to do or if it was against vipassana to try to use the breath a bit like this.]

No, you can do it. You have just to look at the situation. Never pay too much attention to the technique. Pay more attention to the person, because the person is important, not the technique.

The technique can be modified here and there, but it has always to fit the person; the person has not to fit with the technique, never. No technique is that important. But always remain flexible.

[The group leader says that since he has recently fallen in love, he finds it difficult to take meditation seriously. He asks: is vipassana is something that you can do for a long period and then it comes to an end. Is it something that is good for a long period of time but there are just fallow patches where you've got to drop it, or should you just go on when you're not feeling particularly attracted to it?]

No, it is a very very long process and it never comes to an end. You can go in this method to the very last goal of enlightenment. It is not that it comes to a point where it doesn't work and you have to change the method and do something else, no. It is a very slow-going process; twenty years are nothing. But many times your moods will change, so sometimes it fits, sometimes it doesn't fit. Don't bother about whether it fits or not. Just continue it as a natural routine.

Eating, sleeping, taking your bath... you don't think about whether to take a bath or not. You simply take it as a matter of course. Vipassana is like that. It is a very mild, slow-working, homeopathic method; very mild, small doses.

... there is nothing to worry about. It is just to be carried on with as a matter of course; whether you are flowing in or out - irrelevant. The method has to be continued.

By and by, you will see many beautiful things. Sometimes they will happen when the energy is flowing out... sometimes very rare experiences. So simply continue.

[The leader then asks about the difference between prayer and meditation.]

Prayer and meditation are different methods. Love becomes prayer. If you go on loving, then the very depth of love is prayerful. When you love a person, in the beginning it is more or less sexual.

You are attracted by the body, the face, the physiology, the proportions, the eyes, the hair, the voice - superficial things. If you go on loving the person, by and by these things become irrelevant. They are important only when you have not met the person or you have not been in relationship, then they are meaningful.

When you are with a person, by and by you completely forget the colour of the eyes and the voice and the face, the body and the curves; that becomes irrelevant. Something deeper becomes relevant:

the attitudes of the person, the moods of the person. If you Still continue and the relationship goes on growing, by and by those too become irrelevant.

You know that sometimes the person is sad, sometimes the person is happy, but that too becomes irrelevant. Now you are simply attracted to the very presence of the person. Her or his simply being delights you... just the presence is nourishing. It strengthens you. It simply makes you joyful for no reason at all... just the presence. And as these layers are gone through and you are reaching towards the innermost core of the person, then by and by you start feeling a deep reverence arising in love. It was not before - you were both on equal ground.

Suddenly a reverence arises. The person starts feeling to be sacred, holy. With all the limitations, with all the barriers and the screens, still you can glimpse that the innermost core is simply holy, divine. Then love starts changing into prayer. And when you have looked into one person and have found this innermost glow, then you know the knack of it. Then you can look into any person and you can see it. You can look into the trees and you can see it. You can look into rocks and you can see it.

Suddenly you become aware that that one person has opened the door of being prayerful. Then you are in deep reverence - moving; sitting, sleeping, you know you are surrounded by god... something of tremendous beauty - and you are thankful, grateful. That's what I mean by prayer.

[A sannyasin says: I have a belief that I have to direct my life to become more and more open, but when I'm thinking that, I feel very alone, very helpless.]

You will feel, because whenever one wants to direct one's own life, one has decided to be alone.

With that very attitude - that you have to direct your life - you have broken yourself away from the whole. You have become an island. You could have become part of the continent.

The moment you say, 'I have to direct my life,' struggle arises. Then you start fighting - as if things are not happening as they should and you have to force them to happen as they should.

[The sannyasin says that he also has a feeling to be passive and let things happen, but that this would be sloppy. He had done a lot of work on himself to be more aware... ]

That will make you isolated. That's what is making you isolated. What can you do? You are a sloppy person! So if you are unconscious, you are unconscious. Just say to people, 'Sorry, I am an unconscious person, and that's how it happened.' The very idea that you are responsible makes you again isolated. The very idea that you have to be more aware makes you isolated - and that is not going to help you.

There are people whom that method helps; that is not going to help you. I'm not saying that anything is wrong in it. It is not going to help you. To you, the way is surrender. Just drop all nonsense about directing your life. Just be an actor - there is no need to be a director. The director is there already.

He has planned and things are moving... the story is already written. Everything is ready - you have just to be an actor, a vehicle, so that whatsoever he prompts from the back of the stage, you simply

do. That is going to be your flowering. It is not awareness which is going to help you. It is being more and more deeply in tune with existence... almost drunk with it. So be a drunkard, and allow the whole to function through you.

Nothing is wrong in being passive. That's how things are going to happen to you. And I am ready to take the whole work for you. You can leave it to me.

For one month just move slowly with no direction and with no effort, with no proposition for the future, with no plan. Just meditate, sit, eat, sleep, love, pray, rest. But move moment to moment, knowing well that whatsoever is running the world will take care of [you also. Mm? - such a big world, so many stars and so many suns and so many earths, and everything is going perfectly well. So why should you be worried? The one who takes care of this all, or the no-one who takes care of this all, can take care of you also.

You don't seem to me such a problem that god will not be able to... (laughter) ... Just be sloppy. For one month simply try it, and then you can choose. If you feel like being a director then, even if it brings misery and confusion, then it is for you to choose. But for one month just give it a try just to see whether ...

[A group member said the group was torture for him: I feel a total loss... I can't do anything without having to control it. I can't be an observer.]

Mm, I understand.

Two things.... One is, everybody one day or other comes to realise that one is at a total loss, because all efforts that a man can make are doomed to fail. And if you have really understood that you are at a total loss, then a great transformation is possible. But I don't see that you have seen yet that it is a total loss. You say it, but you have not seen it. You are still thinking you will be able to manage.

So that's creating the trouble - that you think you can manage, that you think that you can do something... if not today, then tomorrow, if not this way, then in another way, but there must be a way.

A man is almost impotent; there is no way to do anything. If this total loss sinks deep in you, if this failure becomes really substantial and you can accept it, the change is bound to happen. Then you start living a totally new life - not that you change anything; you simply start living a totally new life.

Then there is nothing to manage, nothing to do.

The whole thing looks to you like a torture - it is a torture. The day one realises that there is nothing to improve upon and nowhere to go and that all improvement and the very idea of improvement is sheer nonsense, then one sees that one has been torturing oneself and one relaxes. There is nothing to do. One simply lives a simple life of enjoying small things, of doing certain things but with no great projections and no great ideas. That's what the first satori in the journey is - realising that there is no way to improve upon yourself. You are simply yourself... you are already that.

But to know it one has to pass through many tortures, and vipassana is a great torture. Many people have realised through it because it is a great torture. It is one of the most significant methods ever evolved which brings a person to a point where he collapses completely.

So it has been a good insight. If you understand it, just do one thing - and that is nothing like doing - just be. If you feel like doing a few groups, do, but there is no need to be an achiever. You are not going to achieve anything. If you enjoy them, do them. If you enjoy the meditations, do them. If you don't, then don't do them.

If you ask me, I don't see that there is any need for you to improve. You are perfect - as everyone is perfect. Everybody is perfect, but to recognise that is very difficult because we have been taught ideas of improvement, achievement - that one has to go somewhere, that one has to rush. Time is short and there are many things to do and life is slipping by. One gets more and more agitated, and in that agitation there is much confusion and much torture.

There is nowhere to go.

[The sannyasin says: My whole childhood I tried to comply and never rebelled, and now all I want is to rebel, but it's the same trying.]

It is the same trap - whether you comply or rebel. They are two aspects of the same coin - obedience and rebellion. All the people who rebel have been forced to be obedient somewhere or other, so that is the natural consequence of it.

A real rebel is one who drops the whole coin of obedience, disobedience... who simply lives and is not worried whether to comply or whether to rebel, because in both ways you are being directed by others. Either you have to comply or you have to rebel, but the other is the deciding factor.

If I say go to the left, you go because I have said, or you don't go because I have said, but in both ways I have been the decisive factor, and in both ways you are complying. Whether you say yes or no makes no difference. Now drop the whole thing.

[The sannyasin answers: I saw that over and over again in the last few days. Ever since I remember, I can't let go.]

Then accept it. What can you do? When I say drop it, I simply mean this - that if you cannot drop it, then accept it. That's what dropping is. Because if you start dropping and you cannot, then a new idea has arisen: now you have to drop it. What I mean by dropping is that it is irrelevant. Accept it.

That's what dropping is.

Just be for one month. Be here, just floating. And when I say floating, I'm not saying that it will always be beautiful. Sometimes it will be very miserable. So don't think that if you are miserable you are not floating. Sometimes it is miserable.

I'm not saying just relax so there will be no tensions. There will be tensions but you accept them.

What can you do? Recognise your helplessness. Recognise the pointlessness of all effort. And whatsoever the case - whether you are happy or unhappy - for one month simply accept it. Even if you cannot accept it, accept that too. That's what I am making clear, because sometimes you may not be able to accept it; then what can you do? You cannot accept it, so accept this too. But a deep background of acceptance should remain - even of rejection the background should be of acceptance. For one month, just relax.

I was waiting and thinking that some day this is going to happen. I was waiting, because you have to say it to me. Unless you say it, I cannot say to stop improvement, because if it is not your insight it will be meaningless. Even when it is your insight there is difficulty. Now you see it, but it is still difficult because of the whole past training and conditioning: be an achiever, succeed in life. And there is nothing to succeed in. If you fail totally, you have succeeded. For one month, just be, mm?