Darshan 28 April 1976

[A newcomer, asked Osho what he should do in the time he was here.]

Start the meditations and do one group, Aum marathon. It will stir your energy, your bio-energy.

We have been taught to live at the minimum and the society is absolutely afraid to allow the maximum possibility, so we have been taught, somehow, to lower our energy. We live just at the minimum, the lowest. The Aum marathon is to stir your whole energy so that it moves in a circle.

Once the energy is moving in a wheel you can see what your problems really are, because with that moving energy, problems start moving. They are scarey in the beginning because you were never aware that they ever existed. Suddenly they surface... but they have been existing there in the basement. They are dangerous if they are in the basement because they go on manipulating you, and you don't know from where you are being manipulated. They go on affecting your life tremendously, but they are just below the surface so you never know how, where your life is moving, or who is moving it and what the motivation is. Things simply seem to be coming out of the blue...

the whole thing seems to be accidental. It is not. These repressions go on manipulating you from the unconscious.

The Aum marathon is an energy experiment to bring your negative and positive, all sorts of energies, to the surface again. For the first time you can face yourself as an energy system and with it all the problems arise. Then we can solve them.

Once the disease is known, once it is diagnosed, then changing is not difficult. The most difficult part is the diagnosis: how exactly to know what the problem is. This is my observation, that the mind has become so cunning in hiding, that when there is a problem, it never allows the actual problem to come to you; it changes the problem.

If you want to kill your father, the mind dreams of killing your uncle, not your father. The uncle looks like the father, is a little fatherly, and yet he is not the father. The mind diverts your attention to something similar - but the problem is pseudo. You wanted to do something and this may not be the real desire. You may really have wanted to do something else, but the mind played a trick and distracted you.

Many people feel that their problem is religious and it is not. Sometimes it is sexual, sometimes it is some sort of obsession, neurosis, or something else. Many people think that they want to be silent, peaceful, and they think this is their problem. But the deeper you go, you find that that is not the problem. The problem is greed or ambition, or something else. They have become so afraid of facing reality that they go on deceiving themselves, because when the problem is falsified, treatment becomes impossible.

You have a headache and yoU say you have a stomach ache. All the treatment goes to the stomach and the head is saved, the headache continues. This treatment can be dangerous, because if there is no problem in the stomach and some medicine is given, problems will arise. If there is a problem, the medicine will solve it. If there is no problem, it will create a problem, an illness. It will become toxic, poisonous or something.

So the basic thing is to first face the real problem, naked. The Aum will help you do this, so do it as totally as possible. And don't be afraid, because when things start bubbling up, one wants to escape, one wants to drop it. One feels, 'I was better before. What is happening?'

If you can pass through these five days.... It is almost a hell because the whole basement has to be opened and all the nightmares brought to your consciousness, but it is a great discipline. After five days you will feel so relieved, because once you understand where your problem is, you have almost solved it in a way.

[A sannyasin who has been to Goa says: I feel the same wherever I go. I change places but it doesn't change me.]

This is a good insight - to understand that change of place does not help. No outward change can be of help.

You can change the clothes, your job, the town, everything outside, but nothing changes inside.

And in changing these things much energy and time is wasted. The deep urge is for inner change.

People go on changing their jobs, their house, their wife, their husband, but really they want to change themselves. But that seems almost impossible. They may not have felt directly what their desire is and they go on projecting. They say, 'If I change this then things will be better.' They never are, because it is you, finally, who decides the mood, the climate of your being. The space in which you live is you and everything else is secondary.

I'm not saying to live in a horrible place. Live as comfortably as possible, but comfort is not a state of bliss. It is good as far as it goes but it is never satisfying. It is necessary but not enough.

... Nothing is wrong in seeing so many countries, but remember, this is not going to help. If you are in contact with yourself, go on travelling; there is no problem in it. But don't hope that anything is

going to come out of it. Enjoy it... it is fun... but don't think that you are going to become centred, liberated through it. And remember always, it may be a way of distracting yourself.

You may be basically bored with yourself, so when you have been in a town for a few days or a few weeks, you feel finished and that you have seen everything. Now the desire arises to go somewhere else. This gives you a thrill, a sensation - a new town, new people, new food, new climate. After a few days the sensation dies and everything becomes old. Again you have to be on the move.

Remember it should not be an escape from yourself; otherwise it is okay. Go on searching your inner being, because unless you have found the inner country you will not feel satisfied. And once you have found that, wherever you are, you are surrounded in bliss. You carry your paradise around you... it is part of your being. By and by you will start feeling that there is no point in unnecessary wandering here and there because the real scene is inside.

There is a very famous sufi anecdote about a sufi mystic, Rabiya-el-Adavia, one of the rarest women in the whole history of human consciousness. Only a few women can be counted as high as Rabiya.

Another great mystic, Hassein, was staying with her. It was morning and the new sun was arising, the birds were singing... flowers were there, and it was tremendously beautiful. Hassein called from outside, in the garden, 'Rabiya, come out. It is beautiful! The day is beautiful.'

Rabiya said from inside the house, 'Hassein, rather than calling me out, you come in. I am seeing the one who has created the outer scene. You are seeing the beauty of creation - it is beautiful! But I am seeing the beauty of the creator.'

Hassein was hoping that this was not going to be so significant. He had just mentioned casually to Rabiya to come out. But when he went in, Rabiya was in a tremendous, graceful state. She was swaying with eyes closed, and tears of happiness were flowing. Hassein was simply hypnotised...

he closed his eyes....

He writes in a letter that for the first time he could see something of the inside communicated by Rabiya... something was transferred. Some grace fell over him also.

So always remember that the outside world is beautiful, but don't be caught there, because the real beauty is waiting inside. Go on travelling if you enjoy it, but take it as fun. Continue travelling inwards... that is the real pilgrimage.

[A homosexual said that he wanted to be finished with his homosexuality, but had no desire for a woman.]

If the desire disappears completely, that is the best thing. There is no need to force, so just wait and be a witness. Much has happened, much is going to happen. Simply watch.

When these changes happen they are not to be interfered with, otherwise something will stop and the whole process will become a troublesome thing. Simply float with it, and after three weeks things will have settled and you will come out of it almost new.

[The sannyasin then asks about his relationship with another man.]

Watch that too... don't do anything. If it is disappearing, it will disappear. If it continues, that too is okay. don't try to do anything... don't try to pretend. Simply accept it and become passive.

If anything happens on the full-moon day, that simply shows that your path is going to be the moon path. That means receptive, passive... just like the moon. The moon has no energy of its own. It is just a reflector - it receives and gives back. It has nothing of its own. The moon is non-aggressive.

So simply be. Nothing on your part is needed to be done.

[The Primal group leader says that in the group it is easy, but outside the group he is withdrawn especially sexually from women.]

Mm mm... sex is one of the most basic problems. To solve it, one has to solve many things because everything is interconnected. If you are afraid of death you will be afraid of sex. If you are afraid of darkness you will be afraid of women. And if you are afraid of sex, that simply shows that you are afraid of life.

So sex is just a focusing of many problems - afraid of life, afraid of death, afraid of darkness, afraid of surrender, afraid of let-go, and in short, afraid of leaving yourself in an uncontrolled state. But everybody has been taught to control. The whole society goes on teaching every child to control. A controlled and disciplined personality is the goal.

That is creating the trouble. Then you create a conflict; the mind becomes the controller and everything else becomes the controlled. A rift arises in your being. Of course the greatest attack of the mind is on sex because that is the most uncontrollable energy in you.

The mind feels impotent when the sexual urge arises, so the mind is the greatest enemy of sex.

That's why all religions all over the world are so inimical towards sex. They are all head-oriented.

The mind says that somehow sex has to be controlled - as if everything is at stake there. Once you have controlled sex, you have controlled the body, you have controlled life; you have controlled death. Everything is controlled and you are the master. But this never happens. It cannot happen because the mind itself is nothing but an instrument of sex. This is the thing to be understood.

The mind exists for the sexual energy but not vice versa. It is an extension of sexual energy... to protect. It is exactly as Gurdjieff used to say - that you put a guard on your house to protect you, but he has a bayonet, and one day he suddenly jumps on your heart. You have given him a job to protect you, but he becomes more and more powerful and one day he jumps on the master. He wants not to protect but to control. This is what is happening.

The mind is just a guard on the outermost boundary of your being, just a guard's post on the boundary to look out for any danger... a radar to look all around and see that everything is clear and to give the sign.

I will suggest a few things. Every day for one hour, simply sit and let God breathe you.

[Osho went on to describe this meditation to him, saying that his breathing should be absolutely passive, as if he was being breathed by God. rather than being the doer. His inhalation would be

God's exhalation; God's inhalation, his exhalation. (Osho has recounted an old indian story about God's nose being discovered by a seeker, and his being breathed by God. See darshan, March Osho said that control comes through the way we breathe and that if one breathes deeply in love- making, one will go almost wild, because the sex centre is massaged internally by the breath. So everything - sex, anger, violence, crying - has been repressed.]

The second thing - whenever you can find time, go into the darkness. Go to the river bank alone, and just sit. If you feel afraid, feel afraid, but don't escape.

Soon you will see when fear by and by settles down, that darkness is so cool... and so warm at the same time. It is a womb... it surrounds you. It enhances your life energy. Out of darkness you will come more relaxed, vital, rejuvenated. These two things you start, mm?

And if a chance arises and you are with a woman and you start feeling afraid, just immediately remember to let God breathe you. Nobody will be able to know - it will just be your inner feeling.

Suddenly you will see that the fear has disappeared. And next time when you make ,e to a woman, just think of her as the dark night - she is. Let her surround you, and you will be dissolved in her...

lost.

Things will change. These problems are created problems - a certain upbringing, conditioning, and a thousand and one things, but nothing very much.

[The Primal Therapy group was present. Osho, in talking about the particular function of Primal, says:]

A Primal Therapy group will take you back on an inner journey. It will help your unconscious pains to bubble up, to surface. Of course it is going to be painful, but once you are relieved of that pain, you will feel a certain cleaning; you will become bathed and cleaned. Your energy will be flowing more easily. Those wounds have disappeared, those blocks have been dropped. You will find fresh life coming to you.

[The co-leader said he was feeling very angry. Osho suggested it was because his girlfriend had returned to the ashram. The co-leader said he felt very good with her and cared for her a lot.]

I see many things connected. It happens many times that when you love a person, you show your loving side to her. The other side remains, but you don't show it to her because she has been away for a few days, so of course you feel more warm and caring. But then you will take revenge somewhere with the people you work with.

Whenever there is love, there is also hate. When there is caring, there is anger also. When you take care of a person, somewhere or other you will balance the accounts. Either you have to balance with the same person; or you have to balance it somewhere else. Otherwise you feel lopsided.

So if you are feeling too loving and warm with her, you will throw your anger somewhere. You will carry it inside and whenever you find the opportunity, you will throw it. This has to be understood,

because if you don't understand it, it will be impossible to go beyond it. What I am trying to point out to you is that whenever you love a person, simultaneously you are creating a certain energy, a negative energy. That is part of it - be alert. Use that negative energy also in a positive way.

You can go into a garden and dig a hole or you can chop wood, or clean the floor. Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples that if they are feeling angry, to chew their food as much as they can. That is violence, anger. Kill the food... destroy it completely. That is what chewing is - destroying.

Energy cannot be just positive. Side by side, the negative has to come up to the same point, the same level. If you don't use it, either you will start fighting with Veena or somebody you love, or you will start finding some other ways somewhere else. This is what people are doing. This is the whole politics of emotions. If people are angry at home, they throw their anger at the office. A teacher comes angry from the house and beats his students.

If you are aware, that energy can be used. It is beautiful energy. Negative energy is also beautiful energy. It just has to be used in a creative way. Destruction is also needed for creation. Use it, otherwise it starts spreading all over your being, and whenever you find an opportunity, it will start flowing there. Of course to fight and be angry with the one you love creates too much inconvenience, but in a group you can be angry easily. There is no involvement, nothing. You can simply say, 'What can I do? I am simply being authentic. I have to throw my anger.'

If you feel angry, use it, but don't be angry in the group because that is pointless. How can you help people if you are angry? It is not possible. You have to be very cool and collected, and only then you can help.

[Another groupleader says: I see that my way is through involvement, but... I just became disconnected.]

So get involved! Where can you find more opportunity to get involved? There are so many beautiful persons, so many problems that have to be solved, so many people drowning. You have to jump in and bring them out of the river. Get involved!

[Osho had previously told him to be a hedonist. He found it difficult to be a hedonist and stay involved.]

So, it is not a question of being disconnected or anything. You are simply lazy.

And you rationalise it. You are plain lazy. There isn't much of a problem, because to get involved one simply has not to be lazy! Involvement makes you active. You simply avoid doing; somehow you pull out. Come out of your laziness, that's all.

The mind never allows you to see the real problem. It goes on clouding it, mystifying it. It is a great mystifier.

Laziness can be destroyed only in one way: don't be lazy. Whenever you catch yourself red-handed being lazy, pull yourself out and move into action. If you cannot do anything else, jog for fifteen minutes, and just bring energy into a movement. Otherwise, by and by your wheels will get rusty and will stop moving. That is the cause, maybe, of why you feel a little disconnected.

The body is a very beautiful and complicated mechanism. Millions of wheels are moving in the body.

If they all move together in unison, the body works like a beautiful clock... it ticks beautifully. But if one wheel is clogged, somewhere else something else is stopped, and then the whole clock is affected and you feel disconnected.

And when I told you to be a hedonist, you must have thought I was telling you to be lazy. You must have misunderstood, but your mind interpreted it, because lazy people think they are being hedonistic. The lazy person can never be a hedonist.

To be a hedonist you need much work so that energy flows high and remains always flowing and is never frozen. To be a hedonist is a great effort; much work is needed.

It is not that you go and drink and sleep with girls and you think that you are a hedonist. That is not hedonism at all. What does drinking have to do with hedonism? A real hedonist cannot drink because drinking will make him insensitive and he will not be able to enjoy so much. It dulls the mind. Drink does not makes you more aware - it lessens your awareness.

Will you think that somebody in a coma is enjoying bliss? Or an alcoholic lying down on the street is in a blissful state? He is simply avoiding situations where pain was possible, pleasure was possible.

He is avoiding both. He is not a hedonist, because a hedonist is one who moves into situations where he chooses pleasure, makes all effort to choose pleasure, and all effort to drop pain. It is a constant struggle to remain happy.

It is a great balance... just like walking on a tightrope. Every moment one has to balance oneself against pain... in favour of heaven against hell. Hell is just there, yawning open by your side. If you mistake your step, you are gone.

It is not that one simply lies down in the bed, with wine and women, and one is a hedonist. One is simply a fool! The real hedonists are buddhas, because they become so conscious that each small experience brings tremendous joy. When Buddha looks at a flower, it is almost paradise. When you are drunk, somehow stumbling towards your home, who bothers about the rose that has flowered by the side of the road?

A hedonist is not a person who goes on sleeping with any woman, here and there. He's just suicidal...

he is wasting his energy. He is not going into any deep intimacy, because joy comes out of intimacy.

He is just a hit and run affair. So you misunderstood me.

But I know that's how things are here. I say something and you people misunderstand and start doing your own thing. But that's how you will learn - there is no other way. I have to go on taking risks and saying things, knowing well that something is going to go wrong, but that's the way you will learn.

When I say to be a hedonist, I say be joyful each moment and exploit every moment as joyfully, as intensely, as possible because it will never be coming again. It is gone forever. And learn the art of loving - only then can you be happy. Just indulging never makes anybody happy. Great art is needed.

To paint, one needs to learn the art of painting. To swim, one needs to learn the art of swimming.

People think that to be blissful there is no need to learn anything. It is the greatest art. Painting and music are nothing compared to it. They can become parts of its greater harmony, but they are nothing... just fragments.

So get out of your laziness. Don't find excuses for being lazy - and don't be foolish. I have not told you to be foolish, I have told you to be a hedonist.

A hedonist is the wisest man in the world. Meditate on it, mm? (chuckling) [A group member says that he has been accustomed to discipline and control and it is difficult for him to suddenly become aware of his feelings in the group.]

No, there is no problem... and one cannot suddenly start feeling. It will melt by and by, mm? And don't take it seriously.

Don't be in a hurry, because you have been controlling for the whole of your life, and now to lose control is not easy because the musculature of control has become fixed. It is as if you have been holding your hand as a fist for many years and now suddenly you realise that it has to be opened.

But now the hand is almost paralysed; it has not been used, so treatment will be needed. Blood circulation has to move again. The muscles of the hand have shrunken inside because they have not been used and the energy has not moved in them. It will take time.

But once you have understood, much can be done. Don't try to open it right now. Let this understanding be there - a tacit understanding - that the hand has to be opened. Now many things wi!l have to be done to open it.

And don't feel that you are heavy on the therapist or anything. They are there to help... in fact you are a challenge! Whenever somebody very stubborn comes in the group, the groupleader has to be happy. Now there is a challenge... he has to work hard and find ways and means. He has to devise many things. If he succeeds he will feel tremendously happy.

So you are just a challenge - not a load or a problem. A real therapist will be happy seeing someone come who is going to be trouble. It is perfectly good. So don't feel guilty.

Are you going to do a few more groups?... Then I am going to give you a few meditations to do on your own which will allow you, by and by, to de-control. This group has done something but more is needed.

And never feel a pessimist - there is no need. Within a month you will be flowing; there is nothing to worry about. Just give it a little time.

[A sannyasin says: My mind tells me one thing, my feelings tell me another, and the therapist is telling me something else. I'm going mad!]

So go mad - that's the right thing to do.

I can understand where the problem is arising from. This is a situation in which you will have to choose. Your mind says one thing, your feelings say another, and the therapist says something else.

Now you will have to choose. If you don't choose you will remain in confusion.

The therapist cannot be chosen because he is outside you; he cannot always be there to help you.

Feeling and the mind remain. If you choose reason you will feel less confused because reason is a great control, a great repression. It avoids all those things which can create trouble. It chooses only a few things and makes a very systematic whole out of them. So reason can give you a feeling, a false feeling, that of course you are sane and not mad. But just underneath lurks madness. So this has to be understood - a delicate point.

If you choose reason, you will immediately feel everything is okay; you are not going mad. But some day you will go mad because you are hiding madness... accumulating it. It will become a reservoir, and one day or other it will throw reason completely. It will explode.

If you choose feelings, right now you will feel you are choosing madness, but later on it is going to give you a great pay-off. If you choose feelings you will not suppress madness, and then there is no possibility of your going mad. That's what I mean when I say go mad. Choose feelings because feelings are not repressive. In the beginning it will feel very very dangerous - but courage is needed.

Once you start moving with the feelings, soon we will see how mad you can go, because you will not be repressing anything.

And another thing, reason is a good slave but a bad master. Once you follow reasons, they become masters and they try to enslave feelings. If you follow feelings, they become the master, and by and by reason becomes the slave - which is the right place for it. Then things fall into harmony.

So the therapist has to help you. You are not to follow or to listen to him. Don't listen to the therapist and don't listen to your head - listen to your feelings. That is the whole work of therapy - to bring you to your own feelings. Once you know and can feel them, then go with them.