... are just a body, then you cannot transcend your body - because who will transcend and to where will you transcend? If you are simply the body, then you cannot go beyond the body. If you can go beyond the body, that means you are not simply the body, but something plus. That "plus" becomes the dimension to move into. Similarly, if you are just the mind and nothing else, then no...

... person. Mind itself is the disease for us. Why? Why call mind itself the disease? We will have to approach it from a different dimension, then it will be easy. For us, the body is death; for the Eastern approach, the body is death. So you cannot create a perfectly healthy body; otherwise it will not die. You can create a certain balance, but the body as such, because it is going to die, is prone to be...

... ill. So health can only be a relative thing. The body cannot be perfectly healthy - it cannot be. That is why medical science has no standard and no definition of what health is. They can define diseases, they can define a particular disease, but they cannot define what health is. Or at the most they can only define negatively that when a person is not ill, not particularly ill, he is healthy. But...

... to define health in a negative way looks absurd, because then disease becomes the primary thing by which you define health. But health cannot be defined, because really, the body can never be really healthy. Every moment the body is only in a relative balance, because death is progressing with life; you are dying also. You are not simply alive, you are dying simultaneously. Death and life are not...

... the death-day. If you are dying continuously - and death is not something which will come from without, but something which will grow within - then the body can never be really healthy. How can it be? When it is dying every moment, how can it be really healthy? It can only be relatively healthy. So if you are normally healthy, it is enough. It is the same with the mind. The mind cannot be really...

... healthy, whole, because the very existence of the mind is such that it is bound to remain diseased, ill at ease, tense, anxious in anxiety. The very nature of the mind is such, so we will have to understand what is this nature. Three things... One, mind is a link between the body and the no-body which is within you. It is a link between the material and the non-material within you. It is one of the most...

... body and spirit - or whatsoever you name these two banks. Because mind bridges such contradictory things, it is bound to remain tense; it cannot be at ease. It is always moving from the visible to the invisible, from the invisible to the visible. Every moment the mind is in deep tension. It has to bridge two things which cannot be bridged. That is the tension, that is the anxiety. You are every...

... resolved, I cannot be at ease." What is this anxiety? It is a basic anxiety. So if you become aware of the very basic situation of life - of body, of mind - a subtle anxiety will creep in, and then that anxiety will continue to tremble within you. Whatsoever you are doing or not doing, the anxiety will be there - a deep anguish. The mind is bridging an abyss, an impossible abyss. The body is going...

... the capacity for mind, but no mind - just a possibility, a potentiality. So if a child is brought up without society, without a society, the child will grow, he will have a body, but not a mind. He will not be able to speak any language; he will not be able to think in concepts. He will be like any animal. Society trains your capacity into an actuality, it gives you a mind. That is why a Hindu has a...

... ARE GRADUALLY BEING DEPRIVED OF STRENGTH OR OF KNOWLEDGE. AT THE INSTANT OF DEPRIVATION, TRANSCEND. You can do it in an actual situation or you can imagine a situation. For example: lie down, relax, and feel as if your body is going to die. Close your eyes; start feeling that you are dying. Soon you will feel that your body is becoming heavy. Imagine: "I am dying, I am dying, I am dying."...

...; If the feeling is authentic, the body will start becoming heavy; you will feel as if your body has become like lead. You want to move your hand, but you cannot move; it has become so heavy and dead. Go on feeling that you are dying, dying, dying, dying, dying, and when you feel that now the moment has come - just a jump and you will be dead - then suddenly forget your body and transcend. SUPPOSE...

... YOU ARE GRADUALLY BEING DEPRIVED OF STRENGTH OR OF KNOWLEDGE. AT THE INSTANT OF DEPRIVATION, TRANSCEND. When you feel that the body is dead, what is meant now by transcending? Look at the body. Up to now you were feeling that you are dying; now the body has become a dead weight. Look at the body. Forget that you are dying and now be the observer. The body is lying dead and you are looking at it...

.... There will be a transcendence. You will be out of your mind, because a dead body needs no mind. A dead body relaxes so much that the very process of the mind stops. You are there and the body is there, but the mind is absent. Remember, mind is needed for life, not for death. If suddenly you come to know that within an hour you will die, what will you do in that hour? One hour left, and it is certain...

... death which will come, or is to come later - fall down on the ground and lie dead. Relax and feel, "I am dying, I am dying, I am dying." And not only think it, feel it in every limb of the body, in every fib of the body. Let death creep in. It is one of the most beautiful meditations. When you feel that the body is a dead weight and you cannot move your hand, you cannot move your head and...

... everything has become dead, suddenly look at your own body. Mind will not be there. You can look! You will be there; consciousness will be there. Look at your body - it will not look like yours, it will be just a body. The gap between you and the body will be clear - crystal clear. There will be no bridge. The body is lying dead and you are there standing as a witness, not in it - NOT in it! Remember, the...

... feeling that you are in the body is because of the mind. This feeling that you are in the body is because of the MIND! If the mind is not there, if it is absent, you will not say you are in the body or out of the body. You will simply be there, no in or out. "In" and "out" are both relative terms associated with the mind. Simply, you will be there witnessing. This is transcendence...

... body will remain there. Even this very moment you can do it. Imagine this: lie down and feel that the energy is being sucked out. Within a few days you will have the knack of how energy goes out. And when you feel that everything has moved out, nothing is now left within you, TRANSCEND: AT THE INSTANT OF DEPRIVATION, TRANSCEND. When the last quantum of energy is leaving you, transcend. Be an onlooker...

...; just become a witness. Then this universe and this body, both, are not you. You are looking at the phenomenon. This transcendence will bring you out of the mind. This is the key. And you can do it in many ways, whatsoever is your liking. For example, we were talking about a run around. Exhaust yourself; go on running and running and running. Do not stop by yourself, let the body fall. When every fib...

... is exhausted, you will fall down. When you are falling down, become aware. Just look and see that the body is falling down. Sometimes a very miraculous happening happens. You remain standing and the body has fallen down, and you can look at it. You can look, as only the body has fallen down and you are still standing. Do not fall with the body. Roam around, run, dance, exhaust the body - but...

... remember, you are not to lie down. Then the inner consciousness also moves with the body and lies down. You are not to lie down, you just go on doing it until the body falls by itself. Then it falls like a dead weight. Immediately, you feel the body is falling and you cannot do anything. Open your eyes, be alert, do not miss the point. Be alert and see what is happening. You may be still standing, and...

... the body has fallen down. And once you know it, you can never forget that you are different from the body. This "standing out" is the real meaning of the English word ecstasy. Ecstasy means to stand out. And once you can feel you are out of the body, there is no mind in that moment, because mind is the bridge that gives you the feeling that you are in the body. If you are out of the body...

... for a single moment, there will be no mind in that moment. This is transcendence. Then you can move in the body, then you can move in the mind, but now you cannot forget the experience . That experience has become part and parcel of your being; it will be there always. Go on doing it every day, and many things happen through such a simple process. The West is always worried about how to tackle mind...

... are scientists, behaviorists, followers of Watson and Skinner, who say love is just an illusion. There is no love; you are just in an illusion. You feel that you are in love, but there is no love, you are just dreaming. And no one can prove they are wrong. They say that love is just a hallucination, a psychedelic experience. Nothing real, just body chemistry influencing you, just hormones, chemicals...

... use one hundred per cent of your potential - you will become a flame of joy! [Ganesh says: It happens often that I don't like myself, especially my body - I feel the misery in my body.] Mm mm. It is not in the body - it is just in your idea. You have a certain idea about how the body should be, and if you have some idea you will be in misery. The body is as it should be. If you have some idea you...

... will be in misery, so drop that idea. This is the body that you have got; this is the body that god has given to you. Use it... enjoy it! And if you start loving it, you will find it is changing, because if a person loves his body he starts taking care, and care implies everything. Then you don't stuff it with unnecessary food, because you care. Then you don't starve it, because you care. You listen...

... to its demands, you listen to its hints - what it wants, when it wants. When you care, when you love, you become attuned to the body, and the body automatically becomes okay. If you don't like the body, that will create the problem, mm? because then by and by you will become indifferent to the body, negligent of the body, because who cares about the enemy? You will not look at it; you will avoid it...

.... You will stop listening to its messages, and then you will hate it more. And you are creating the whole problem. The body never creates any problem; it is the mind that creates problems. Now, this is an idea of the mind. No animal suffers from any idea about the body, no animal... not even the hippopotamus! Nobody suffers - they are perfectly happy because no mind is there to create an idea...

...; otherwise the hippopotamus will think 'Why am I like this?' (laughter) There is no problem in it. Just drop the ideal. Love your body - this is your body, this is a gift from god. You have to enjoy it and you have to take care of it. When you take care, you exercise, you eat, you sleep. You take every care because this is your instrument, just like your car that you clean, that you listen to, to every hum...

... - to know whether something is going wrong - mm? You take care even if a scratch comes on the body. Just take care of the body and it will be perfectly beautiful - it is! It is such a beautiful mechanism, and so complex, and yet working so efficiently that for seventy years it goes on functioning. Whether you are asleep or awake, aware or unaware, it goes on functioning, and the functioning is so...

... silent. Even without your caring it goes on functioning; it goes on doing service to you. One should be grateful to the body. Just change your attitude and you will see that within six months your body has changed its form. It is almost like when you fall in love with a woman and you see: she immediately becomes beautiful. She may not have cared about her body up to this moment but when a man falls in...

... love with her, she starts taking care. She stands before the mirror for hours... because somebody loves her! The same happens: you love your body and you will see that your body has started changing. It is loved, it is taken care of, it is needed. It is a very delicate mechanism - people use it very crudely, violently. Just change your attitude and see! Deva means divine, pradip means a lamp - a...

... nothing to do with the body at all - the body energy is perfectly okay. The brain is divided in two parts: the right part of the brain is connected with the left side and the left side is connected with the right side. Something has happened in the left side brain, something good, hence the right side started feeling numb. You have been too much of an intellectual, a thinker-type - thinking too much...

... things will happen... soon you will see all these things happening. But a great shift has happened, and it is nothing to be worried about but to be rejoiced in. So you need not be worried about it - it will disappear on its own. The body will become adjusted to the new change. The whole government inside has changed: the governing centre has moved to the other hemisphere. But soon the settlement... the...

... body is always infinitely capable of adjustment. But just old habit and the new change, for a little bit in the interval it can be troublesome, but nothing to be worried about. Deva means divine, nartan means dance... another door to the divine. Just as music is one beautiful door, so is dance. And dance will help you immensely. The only secret is to be lost in it, to be drowned in it. One has to...

... ACHIEVES HIS ALONENESS. THE YOGI WHO IS ESTABLISHED IN HIS ALONENESS CEASES TO DESIRE, AND THUS ATTAINS FREEDOM FROM BIRTH AND DEATH. THE LIBERATED PERSON, FOR WHOM BODY AND MIND ARE NO MORE THEN CLOTHING, ATTAINS TO SHIVAHOOD. OM! THIS IS DEDICATED TO LORD SHIVA. Before entering into the sutras... I told you before that I would say more about mantra, for I would like you to know how the right use of...

... tell you she is happily married. Not only that, her husband is a famous doctor." The friend knew Nasruddin, and he couldn't believe a word. He said, "For give me, Mulla, but I find that difficult to accept. Not only was your daughter... well, not beautiful, she was very ugly - really ugly. She had a body like an army tent. It is hard enough to believe that she got married at all, but to a...

.... But as long as the head remains there will be headache. There is a technique by which the head ban be removed. All your troubles are caused by your head; your thoughts, your reasoning, your arguing, your obsessing and wondering. If the thoughts are lost, then the head is lost; you will be, but not the mind! That which kills the mind is mantra. When the mind is not, then the bridge between the body...

... and you is broken. It is the mind that connects you to the body; if the bridge breaks you stand here and the body stand before. He who knows himself to the apart from the body and without mind, attains Shivahood. He is the ultimate 'aloneness'. Therefore understand what mantra is. The definition of mantra is: that which destroys the head so that the mind is no more. There is a method for cutting...

... through the layers of the body and of the mind. It is very necessary to go step by step; you have to exercise the utmost patience. It is a method that demands immense patience. Impatient people will not only not benefit from mantra, but they will quite possibly harm themselves. Understand this will. As it is you have troubles enough? Mantra will just be an added problem for you if you are impatient...

... only this: they are in such a great hurry that they pluck the fruit while it is till green. A ripened fruit is very sweet, while an unripe fruit is not only bitter but acid, and possibly poisonous. The first layer is the body, so the mantra practice should begin on the body; you are in the body, so it is there that the cure must begin. If you skip this layer your illness will remain, and in due...

... course you will find yourself with unripe fruit on your hands. Remember, you can only start from where you are; if you start somewhere else you are merely dreaming. Tight now you think you are the body, so you have to begin the mantra experience with the body. Understand the technique. First, you have to sit quietly for ten minutes, but before you sit you have to purge yourself off all your...

... restlessness by being totally active for five minutes; dance, jump, skip and run, whatever is required to satisfy your restlessness. It must be cleansed from every pore, from every part of the body; only then can you sit in silence for ten minutes. This catharsis is necessary before you begin to sit in silence; it will require from five to ten minutes, depending on the extent of your restlessness. Let your...

... body shake, totally, completely, in every possible way, so that for then minutes it will have no more desire to more to satisfy its craving for activity. Then sit down - so still that there is not even a hint of movement. Keep the eyes half-closed. Do not attempt this practice in an open place. A closed room, preferable small and empty, is ideal. There should be nothing inside the room. A church or...

... be half-closed to the world and half-opened to your inwardness. Begin here! Remember, there is no hurry. When the eyes are half-opened you experience a state of drowsiness. Keep looking at the tip of your nose; keep your eyes open only to that extent. You are not to concentrate. Observer the tip of your nose with a feeling of peace within. Then begin to say 'Om' loudly. You are using the body, you...

... start from the body, because that is where you are right now. Repeat 'Om' loudly, so that the sound strikes the walls and rebounds and falls back on you. This is why an empty room is essential, for that resonance is only possible in an amply room, and the greater the resonance the better it is. Christian cathedrals were designed for mantra; whatever is spoken reverberates and echoes a thousandfold...

... from all sides. The Hindu temple is also constructed for meditation; the dome serves the same purpose. No vibrations can escape from a circular place; the sound turns inward. Sit and repeat 'Om' as loudly as possible. Remember, you have to use the body. Your whole body should be bathed in the vibrations of 'Om'. You should feel that you have expended all your life- energy in that 'Om'. Hold nothing...

... bathed in perspiration. In a few days you will find that the whole room is filled with 'Om'. You will find that the room is assisting you; all the sound will be coming back to you. If you can find a circular room it will be very good; if you find one with a dome, even better! The room should be absolutely empty, so that the vibrations rain on you from all sides. You whole body should be bathed in those...

... in order to hear better. All the plants have their ears to the sitar! And they grew twice as quickly! A plant is a gross body in which everything is asleep, unconscious; but even so, the body vibrates with sound an begins to sway. When 'Omkar' - the sound of 'Om' - begins to shower on you from all sides the vibrations will from a circle. You will find that every pore of your body is filled with joy...

..., and all the bodily illnesses are draining away; you will find a peace, a profound sense of well -being. It will surprise you how many body illnesses will disappear on their own, for it is a profound cleansing that penetrates you deeply. The body is a concentration of vibrations, and there is no vibration more wonderful than 'Omkar', the repetition of 'Om'. Repeat 'Om' loud for ten minutes, using the...

... medium of the body to its maximum. Then close your eyes. The tongue should touch the roof of the mouth, which should be completely closed. Now you have to use the tongue and lips no more. The next step is to repeat 'Om' inside, in your mind. Until now the room was outside, surrounding you on all four sides; now the body surrounds you on all four sides; now the body is the room. Let the mantra...

... reverberate within the body for the next ten minutes. You are not to use the lips or tongue or throat at all. The mind should repeat 'Om... Om... Om...' but you must keep it the same rapid rate, the same speed. As you filled the room with omkar, so you fill the body, leaving it trembling with vibrations from head to toe. Allow no gap between two oms, so that the mind has no chance to intrude. The mind...

... are not to use the body any more; therefore now the eyes have to be closed. The body must now be very still. The 'Om' vibrations should hit the walls of the body from within and fall on the mind, just as in the beginning they hit the walls of the room and were then reflected back to the body, which purified the body, just as the internal vibrations cleanse the mind. As the vibrations deepen you will...

... more stiff. If you failed until now to attain God the only reason is that you are not prepared to bow your head; you are not prepared to surrender. Bowing the head is merely a symbol. Hang your head down as if it is severed from the body; this is only so that you may bow down. No sooner does the head bow down, then it becomes easier to see; no sooner dies the neck bend, then thinking becomes...

... difficult. Now just try to listen. Until now you were repeating the mantra, first with the body, then with the mind. Now you try to become a witness to the mantra. You will be surprised; there is a very subtle sounding of the mantra going on within. It is exactly like 'Om' though is it not 'Om', for it is difficult to express it in any language. If you listen very silently you are bound to hear it. Now...

... you are standing apart from the body. The first step severed your connection with the body; the second step severed your connection with the mind; now the third step is the witnessing attitude, the feeling that 'I am the witness'. No mantra is greater than 'Om'; no mantra is more wonderful. Ram, Krishna, Mahavir, Buddha are all beautiful sounds, but they cannot take you beyond the mind, for they...

... not connected with any thought. Whoever was observed into the no-thought state, heard it. For the first two steps you will pronounce the mantra, and in the third step you will just listen to it. You will be the listener, the witness. In the first two steps you are the doer, for the body and mind are parts of the doer; the third is the witness state. In it you listen, just listen. The body is cut off...

... are attached to the world and there are people who are attached to the soul; both are in bondage. They have yet not reached the ultimate salvation. The knowing one has no ties-neither inside nor outside. He flows naturally in and out! You should try to maintain this third stage of the mantra for as long as possible. The first stage is to sit silently. The prelude it is to shake up the body by...

... dancing, jumping, wriggling, for about ten minutes, so as to get rid of all the body's restlessness. The body is filled with restlessness; that is simply a scientific fact. If you want to slap someone your body energy immediately flows into your hand. That is why someone who is quite weak can give you a hard blow; his hand does not remain in the ordinary state but is filled with energy. suppose for...

... someone reason you cannot slap this person. There may be many reasons; life is very complex. Perhaps you are indebted to him, or maybe you want to use him to get something, so you restrain yourself; but the energy that has accumulated in your hand is blocked and has no way to go back. Recent scientific research reports that there are ways to discharge the energy from the body, but there is no way to...

... draw the energy back into the body; so if you so not hit somebody or something, the energy will remain in the hand. It does not matter whom you slap; even if you hit empty space, you will discharge that energy; but there are no channels to draw that energy back to the center. In this way energy gets blocked in various parts of the body. In any twenty-four hour period energy will be blocked in many...

... different parts of the body, and that blocked energy is bound to hinder you. It is responsible for the feeling of numbness in your feet, or the feeling of ants crawling on your legs, or you back beginning to hurt, or suddenly feeling itchy. These things are not your imagination; they are really happening, but you have perhaps never noticed them before because your energy was always occupied and you never...

... follows catharsis is the calm that follows the storm; the body becomes light, it loses its restlessness. These ten minutes are only preparation, not an actual stage in the meditation of mantra. It is the step outside of your house. The real journey occurs inside the house. FIRST STEP, BUT THE BODY: SAYING 'OM' - TEN MINUTES SECOND STEP, BUT THE MIND: SILENT REPETITION OF 'OM' - TEN MINUTES. THIRD STEP...

..., come sorrow. A little effort will bring success. All you have to do is stand a little apart from your body. There is already a great distance between you and the body. No two wings can be further apart - for it is the distance between matter and consciousness. Even the stars are not as distant from earth as you are from the body. One is living and the other is inanimate; one is made of clay and is...

... extremes. It is like the movement of the indicator on the balance scales; the stable point is right in the middle. Any slight weight and the needle deflects either sad or happy, constantly you will soon tire of the weight of it and will want to move it to the other side. When people are carrying a body to the burning ghats they bear the wight of the bier on one shoulder and soon they tire and change...

... WHO IS ESTABLISHED IN HIS ALONENESS CEASES TO DESIRE, AND THUS ATTAINS FREEDOM FROM BIRTH AND DEATH. Then there is no birth; then there is no death. Birth and death are necessary when we journey in search of happiness. We desire happiness and happiness can only be attained through the body; so we have no choice but to take on a body. The happiness we desire decides the kind of body that we take on...

... own body will die, but the tree has already made arrangements for a new body to live once again. And this explains the fact that although the tree is born from a single seed, it produces millions of seeds in the course of its lifetime. The tree takes no chances. It has to take into account so many factors; what if the seed falls onto rocks or barren ground? What if it gets no water? It may be eaten...

... the nectar, thinking that it has been provided expressly for them, little knowing that while it sucks at the flower it picks up hundreds of seeds on its legs in the form of pollen. Then the bees carry the seed to distant places. When plants devise so many methods for survival, now many must you be inventing? You cleverness has no limit. One man contains within his body sufficient sperm to father as...

...', when he is beyond happiness and sorrow, his body stops producing semen; but the formation of sperm only stops when the desire for survival is completely extinguished. As long as the desire to survive remains, the body keeps producing sperm whether in this body or in another. Thus you keep the body alive on one hand and your soul desire-ridden on the other, so the soul will keep seeking a new womb...

... peace and serenity. Happiness is useless, suffering is useless; good riddance to both! The yogi who is established in his aloneness is rid of all desires. Without desires he no longer wants to undertake any new life journeys. The journey itself has become meaningless to him. It is then that the cycle of birth and death is forever destroyed. THE LIBERATED PERSON, FOR WHOM BODY AND MIND ARE NO MORE THEN...

... CLOTHING, ATTAINS TO SHIVAHOOD. He is Brahma! It is he who is God, the ever-abiding supreme spirit! The Sanskrit word for such a person is liberated, refers to the five elements and the clothing. It means that all five elements - earth, air, fire, water and ether - that go into forming the body are no more than clothing for such a person. Body and mind are made of the fie elements. The gross forms of the...

... five elements form the body, and the subtle forms make up the mind. When such a person recognizes the fact that the mind and the body are no more than outer clothing, that his real self lies hidden deep within the folds of his clothing, he peels off the layers like we peel an onion and he knows the Shivahood within himself. Such a liberated person becomes God himself. In our country we do not believe...

... Available: N.A. Length: N.A. Question 1: BELOVED OSHO, SINCE I HAVE BEEN HERE WITH YOU AND LISTENING TO YOU SO CLOSELY, I SEE MY BODY - AND THE FEELINGS I HAVE TOWARDS IT - CHANGING A LOT. THE WAY I WALK, THE WAY I LOOK AT MYSELF WHEN TAKING A SHOWER, THE WAY I FEEL IN MY BODY - EVERYTHING SEEMS SO DIFFERENT TO ME THAT I CAN ONLY RECOGNIZE IT WITH AN ASTONISHED FACE. DOES THE BODY FOLLOW THE MIND, AND IS...

... together again, but the organism will not be alive again. The organism is a living unity; everything is connected with everything else. Whatever happens to you, in the body or in the mind or in the heart or in your awareness, is going to change everything in the whole organism. You are going to be affected as a whole. The members of the organic unity are not just parts put together, there is something...

...-realization. But almost its whole function is with the body, the body postures. It is a tremendous research - the people who have done it, have done an almost impossible job. They have found in what postures your mind takes a certain attitude, your heart takes a certain rhythm, your awareness becomes more acute or less acute. They have developed all the body postures in such a way that just working on the...

... body, not touching anything else, they will change your total being. It is long, tedious, difficult work, because the body is an absolutely unconscious part of your being. To train it, and in strange postures which are not natural, is bound to be a difficult job. You will be surprised to know that because the yoga system found that this life is too short to work on all the postures of the body, to...

... change the whole inner being, they were the first in the world to think of lengthening the life so that they can accomplish the task in this life. The difficulty with the body is, you may have worked your whole life - sixty years, seventy years - and you may have come to a certain state, but this body will die. And when you get a new body, you will have to start from scratch; you cannot start from...

... as little food as possible. The reason is not that they want to live long; the reason is that they have developed a system that is concerned with the body, and the body is our most unconscious part: it does not change easily. It takes a long time, but it does change. I have found people who have done almost miracles just by body postures which look irrelevant, because consciousness is such a...

... faraway thing. But just sitting in a certain posture you will be surprised: you can watch how you change. Everybody knows about the lotus posture in which you see Buddha sitting. That is the most famous posture. It has been found now that gravitation has the least effect on you if sit in the lotus posture with your spine absolutely straight and the whole body relaxed. And it is gravitation that kills...

.... The digestive system working longer, and gravitation having the least effect on you, can easily make your life one hundred and fifty, sixty years long. And the reason for living long was not lust for life but because they had chosen a very slow vehicle of transformation: the body. But through the body people have reached to enlightenment. They have not done anything but change body postures. In a...

... that big quantity of blood is cut off completely; otherwise they cannot sleep. You can see this happening in ordinary life also: with every mood, emotion, thought, your body takes a certain posture. If you are just watchful you will see that there is a relationship, and the relationship is such that you cannot change it. For example a person like me, if you tie down both my hands I cannot speak. I...

... of my pockets, and without taking my hands out of my pockets, I cannot speak." From the lowest - that is the body - everything is connected. Yoga has worked on the body; it is a long, arduous process and perhaps has no future unless science joins hands with it and helps it. Then perhaps it may have an explosion. Yoga is one of the most ancient sciences developed by man. It is at least five...

... thousand years old. If science is not going to join hands with it, then yoga is asking too much. Modern man cannot afford that much; shorter ways have to be found. If you are working with the mind... that is a shorter way than the body and the work is easier, because with the mind nothing much has to be done, only awareness, only watchfulness... no psychoanalysis. That is again prolonging the process...

... complicated. And analyzing all this rubbish helps a little bit, gives a little relief, but it is an unending process. Those who have really worked with the mind have worked with watchfulness, witnessing; and as you witness the mind, the mind slowly starts becoming silent, stops its gibberish, becomes calm and quiet. And as the mind becomes calm and quiet your body will go through changes, amazing changes...

..., and that's what is happening. You will see that the body is behaving in new ways; it has never behaved like this. It is walking differently, its gestures have changed. You know perfectly well, just by seeing somebody walk you can say whether the man is homosexual or heterosexual. What does the walk have to do with homosexuality? But the homosexual's mind changes his walk. Although he cannot manage...

... interconnected. So when your mind becomes calm and quiet, your body also starts becoming calm and quiet - a certain stillness in the body, a certain aliveness that you had never felt before. You have been in it, but you have never been in such deep touch with it because the mind was continuously keeping you engaged. It was a barrier, so your awareness was never bridged with your body. Now that the mind is...

... silent, the awareness for the first time becomes alert about the body. So a buddha has his own gestures; his walk is different, his look is different. Everything is different because now there is no mind. The body is now not following the mind; mind is not in the way. Now it is following awareness, the innermost quality of your being. So any changes that are happening in the body, watch them and...

... rejoice. Be more alert and more changes will happen. Be more conscious and you will see that even the body starts having a consciousness of its own. In the presence of a master you start feeling a different vibration around you. It is his awareness radiating through his body. He may speak, he may not speak, but his presence... Those who are alert will immediately become connected with the master's body...

... still there and you can hear the voice again. So be watchful of whatever happens to your body. As you are becoming more alert and more aware you will feel more loving towards your body, more compassionate towards your body; you will feel more close, more intimate, a kind of new friendship arising. Up to now you have simply used it. You have never said even a thank you to your body - and it has been...

... smiled. One man in the crowed asked, "Mansoor, why are you smiling?" And he said, "I am smiling because these people are killing a person who was trying to give them more life, more light. But these people are strange - they are killing their own friend. And I am also smiling because they don't know that by destroying my body they cannot destroy me. They are killing somebody else! So...

... THINGS. GIVING UP FOLLOWING LOK, THE SOCIETY, HE GIVES UP FOLLOWING THE BODY ALSO. GIVING UP FOLLOWING THE SCRIPTURES, HE GIVES UP THE ILLUSION OF THE SOUL ALSO. BEING ROOTED IN HIS OWN SOUL, AND THROUGH TECHNIQUES, THROUGH LISTENING AND THROUGH SELF-EXPERIENCING, THE YOGIN COMES TO KNOW HIMSELF AS THE SOUL OF ALL AND HIS MIND IS ANNIHILATED. WITHOUT GIVING OPPORTUNITY TO SLEEP, TO SOCIETY'S TALKS, TO...

... 'mine' falsely, unmeaningfully. This hand you call 'mine', this body you call 'mine', are also not yours. When you were not, even then the bones, the skin, the blood of this hand existed somewhere; and they will exist even after you. The bones in your body, they have been bones in so many other earlier bodies. The blood in your body has flowed in the body of some animal yesterday and in some tree the...

... day before. Who knows how long, how many billions and trillions of years, the journey has been? Even when you won't be, not a single particle of your body will be annihilated. It will all exist. It will flow in some other bodies. Understand it this way: the breath you took in just now, a moment ago it was inside the person sitting next to you. A moment ago he was calling it "my breath,"...

..., the money is not mine; even the body is not mine. Your body is made up from the atoms of your parents. Those atoms existed before you were, and they are coming to you after a long journey. Before your parents, they were in the bodies of their parents. These atoms have had a long journey of millions of years; now they constitute your body. That body too is a field, a land in which you are rooted, but...

... you are not it. You are not the body, you are separate from it. This sutra says a man is not only not the body, it goes even deeper and says man is not even the mind, because mind is also an accumulation. Do you have a single thought which may be yours, which you can say is yours? There are none. Some have come from tradition, some from scriptures, some from hearing someone, some from your reading...

... I can even think whether it is mine or not, that which remains even then.... When there is nothing left to cut, when all relations are broken and none remains that can still be broken, that which remains even then is what the Upanishads have called sakshi, the witness. There is a big world around me - it is not mine. Shrinking I come closer - this body is not mine. Descending deeper into it - the...

.... This much is clear, that I am. Though what I am is not so clear. Am I a body, or a mind, or what? - this is not so clear. This is what the Upanishads are in search of. One after another everything is eliminated, just as one would remove layer after layer of an onion. If you go on peeling an onion, finally nothing will be left of it in your hand. An onion is nothing but layers upon layers of skin...

... your hand. So the biggest search of man is to find out if he too is nothing but an accumulation of many, many layers that we can go on peeling off and in the end there is nothing in our hand. If we go on denying and saying, "I am not the body," "I am not the mind," "I am not this," "I am not that," it may turn out to be the story of the onion and in the end...

... in this small word. The East has contributed no other more important word than sakshi, the witness, to the world. What does sakshi mean? Sakshi means the seer, the witness. Who is this who is experiencing that "I am not the body?" Who is this who is experiencing that "I am not the mind?" Who is this who goes on denying that "I am not this, I am not this?" There is an...

..., now he does not need any borrowed light any more. GIVING UP FOLLOWING LOK, THE SOCIETY, HE GIVES UP FOLLOWING THE BODY ALSO. Not only does he stop following others, as the realization of the witness deepens he drops the slavery of the body too. Then he does not do things because the body is saying so, now he does what he wants to and the body follows him like a shadow. Right now your body does not...

... follow you like a shadow; on the contrary, you follow the body like its shadow. The body dictates to you to do things or not to do things, and you have to act accordingly. The body is the master, and it has its own indicators which control you. It is bound to be so, because whosoever is not his own master, the society will be his master, his biology will be his master. Society is the group of human...

... beings around us, and our body is connected with the earth, with nature. One who becomes his own master becomes free of the systems of the society and also of his biology. Then the body does not tell him, "Do this"; then he moves on his own and the body follows. The phenomenon of the body following you is very valuable. We cannot even conceive how the body can follow. Only when the body is...

... hungry... even if it is the body of a Mahavira, he too will feel hunger only when the body is hungry first; and it is only when the body indicates its hunger that Mahavira will go out in search of food, begging for food. So how can the body follow one? Does it mean that suddenly Mahavira will say, "I am hungry," and the body will become hungry? What is the meaning of the body following? It is...

... a deep alchemy. Certainly the body will not be hungry unless Mahavira agrees. Whatever happens to the body, whatever it feels, it will be able to convey it to Mahavira only when he is ready to listen. It is Mahavira who decides that he will fast for a month. If you decide that you will go on a fast for one day, for twenty-four hours you will go on eating food in your mind, because the body will...

... protest, "Who is the master? Without consulting me... fasting? I will see to it!" The body will go on sending the message around the clock: hunger, hunger, hunger; and your whole consciousness will be covered over by hunger. Ordinarily the body will not trouble you very much if you just could not eat, even if it is for a whole day, but you make a decision one morning that you will not eat that...

... day, and...! A very interesting thing happens which is worth noting. If you take your meals daily at one o'clock in the afternoon, normally your body will not report hunger till about one o'clock. But if early one morning you get up at six o'clock and decide that today you will fast, your mind will start having lunch right from six o'clock that day. The body should have waited at least until one...

... o'clock! But no, the body has received the hint that you are trying to establish your mastery. One o'clock is a far-off matter, your body will begin to agitate right from the morning. It has never before happened like this, you used to feel hunger only around one o'clock, but today it will start happening right from the morning. The mastery of the body is ancient, thousands upon thousands of lifetimes...

.... And whomsoever is the master, no one ever wants to relinquish the mastery so easily. If Mahavira says he will fast for a month, the body becomes silent for one month, it does not communicate any message of hunger till then. The body follows, which means that it does not report. It will report only after a month whether it is hungry or not; for the whole month it will remain quiet. But what does this...

... only for a month but even for a year.... The body may become just a skeleton of bones, and die, and be finished, but it will not need to send any message to Mahavira. It will not dare to communicate the message to Mahavira that it is hungry. It is none of the body's business to send the message. It is a matter of settling once and for all who is the master. As long as the body knows that it is the...

... master it does the mastery, but once the witness is experienced the mastery of the body is immediately gone. The inner law simply changes. The body starts following you. And then there are unique experiences. After Mahavira thousands of people have fasted - so many Jaina monks are engaged in fasting - but Mahavira's fasting was unique. Have you looked at Mahavira's body, his statue? If you put the...

... bodies of these Jaina monks in front of Mahavira's you will know what I mean. Where is the difference? Monks' bodies are continuously reporting hunger, not only to them but even to you. Mahavira's body does not report any hunger - neither to Mahavira nor to you. It is very difficult to find a body as beautiful as Mahavira's. That handsome body is saying that now someone has become the master inside and...

... the body has no capacity to disturb. Now the body cannot say anything like, "Do this" or, "Do not do that." Now it is of no concern for the body; now everything is in the hands of the knower within. Now whatsoever he decides, howsoever he decides he may do - the decisions are in his hands. He may live if he chooses to live, he may die if he chooses to die, but the body cannot...

... interfere. The body will only follow like a shadow. GIVING UP FOLLOWING LOK, THE SOCIETY, HE GIVES UP FOLLOWING THE BODY ALSO. GIVING UP FOLLOWING THE SCRIPTURES, HE GIVES UP THE ILLUSION OF THE SOUL ALSO. Thus one goes on giving up: the society, the body, the following of the scriptures. For one who is the witness, all scriptures become meaningless. This is a little complex. We can say this in the...

... contains the whole essence of what Buddha had said. Finally, GIVING UP FOLLOWING THE SCRIPTURES, HE GIVES UP THE ILLUSION OF THE SOUL ALSO. Then he does not even say, "I am the soul." "I am not the society," this is where the thing began. It went deeper when it said, "I am not the body, I am not the mind." Now this is the last jump. "I am not even the soul." What...

... drops. As long as you do not know that you are God, know well that the illusion is still surviving. As long as you do not have the very experience, "I am Brahma, the ultimate," understand well that ignorance still prevails - and go on discarding it. Become free of the society, become free of the body, become free of the scriptures, and finally become free of your own self too. BEING ROOTED...

... last long. A yogi becomes a siddha, the enlightened one, when the mind is annihilated. The mind is annihilated when one experiences that, "I am not even a soul." ?? As long as I feel that, "True, I am not the body, I am not the mind, but I am the soul,"Eas long as there is any support left for my 'I', my mind will survive in its seed form. As long as there is any support...

... whatsoever left, even that of the soul, my mind will remain in its seed form. Whenever a drop of rain will come the seed will break open, sprout and start growing into a tree. Only when I no longer remain does the mind cease. It is easy to give up money, it is easy to give up position, it is easy to give up attachment to the body, it is easy to give up attachment to the mind, but it is the most difficult...

... suppression? They cannot, and they are not teaching. When Buddha says, "Go on a fast," what he means? Suppress your hunger? - no. He says, "Watch your hunger." The body will say, "I am hungry." You simply sit inside your being and watch. Don't do anything either to feed the body or to suppress the hunger. You simply watch the hunger. No activity is needed on your part, and...

... attention to hunger or to the sex desire, total attention - and total attention is such an energy, it is fire-the hunger simply is burned, the sex desire is simply burned. What happens? What is the mechanism inside? You feel hunger. In fact, you have never been hungry. The body has been hungry, you have never been hungry. But you are identified with the body that, "I am the body." That's why you...

... feel you are hungry. When you pay attention to hunger a distance is created, the identity breaks down. The identification is no more there. You are no more the body; the body is hungry and you are the watcher. And suddenly a blissful freedom arises in you that "I am not the body, I have never been the body. The body is hungry; I am not hungry." The bridge is broken - you are separate. The...

... body has a desire for sex because the body has come out of sex. The body has a desire for sex because every cell of the body is sexual. Your mother and your father, in a deep sexual activity, have created your body. The first cells of your body came out of deep sexual passion; they carry the quality of it. And those cells have been multiplying themselves; that's how your whole body is created. Your...

... whole body is sex passion. The desire arises. It is natural for the body, nothing is wrong in it. The body is sexual energy and nothing else. Brahmacharya is not possible for the body. Sexuality is natural for the body. Sexuality is natural for the body, and for you, only brahmacharya is natural; sex is unnatural, absolutely unnatural. That's why we call celibacy brahmacharya. The English word...

... problem. And what happens, what is miraculous... when you are separate, when the bridge is broken, you are not identified with the body, you don't say, "I am the body," you say, "I am in the body, but not the body. I live in this house but I am not the house. I am in these clothes but the clothes are not me." When you have come to attain this - and I say attain because intellectually...

... you know it already, that is not the point; you have not realized it. When you realize in deep attention to hunger, or to sex, or anything - you realize, suddenly the bridge disappears between the body and the embodied soul. When the gap is there and you have become a witness, then the body lives through your cooperation. The body cannot live without your cooperation. That is what happens when the...

... body dies: the body is absolutely the same, only your cooperation is no more there. You have gone out of the house, that's why the body is dead. Otherwise, nobody is ever dead. The body is the same, but the body depended on your energy. Continuously, you have to feed energy to the body. It exists with your cooperation; it has no existence of its own. It is through you it is together. Otherwise it...

... will fall apart. You are the center and the crystallizing factor in it. When in hunger, one watches the hunger, the cooperation is not there. It is a temporary death. You are not supporting the body. When you are not supporting the body, how the body can feel hunger? - because the body cannot feel anything; the feeling is of your being. Hunger may be there in the body but the body cannot feel, it has...

... cannot feel... A stone can be put in your head, inside, and you will never feel that it is there, because in the brain there is no feeling. From where the feeling comes then? The brain is the subtlest part of the body, the most delicate; even that has no feeling. The feeling comes from your being. It is borrowed by the body. The body has no feeling of its own. Once you watch hunger - and if the...

... problems in the body. You feel the leg is going dead, there is some itching in the hand, you feel ants are creeping on the body and many times you have looked - there are no ants. The creeping is inside, not outside. What you should do? You feel the leg is going dead - be watchful just give your total attention to it. You feel itching - don't itch. That will not help. You just pay your attention. Don't...

... open even your eyes. Just pay your attention inwardly, and just wait and watch, and within seconds the itching has disappeared. Whatsoever happens - even if you feel pain, severe pain in the stomach or in the head, it is possible because in meditation the whole body changes. It changes its chemistry. New things start happening; the body is in a chaos. Sometimes the stomach will be affected, because...

... energy is the same. Pain or pleasure are two dimensions of the same energy. And if you can remain silently sitting and paying attention to distractions, all distractions disappear. And when all distractions disappear, you will suddenly become aware that the whole body has disappeared. In fact, what was happening? Why these things were happening? - and when you don't meditate they don't happen. The...

... whole day you are there and the hand never itches, the head has no pain, and the stomach is perfect, and the legs are okay. Everything is okay. What was really happening? Why in meditation these things start suddenly? The body has remained the master for long, and in meditation you are throwing the body out of its mastery. You are dethroning it. It clings; it tries in every way to remain the master...

.... It will create many things to distract you so the meditation is lost. You are thrown off balance and the body is again on the throne. Up to now, the body has remained the master and you have been a slave. Through meditation, you are changing the whole thing; it is a great revolution. And of course, no ruler wants to be thrown out of his power. The body plays politics - that's what is happening...

.... When she creates imaginary pain, itching, ants creeping, the body is trying to distract you. And it is natural, because the body has remained in rule for so long; for many lives it has been the emperor and you have been the slave. Now you are changing everything upside down. You are reclaiming your throne, and it is natural the body will try whatsoever it can do to disturb you. If you get disturbed...

..., you are lost. Ordinarily, people suppress these things. They will start chanting a mantra; they will not look at the body. I am not teaching you any sort of suppression. Only awareness I teach. You just watch, pay attention, and because it is false, immediately it will disappear. When all the pains and itches and ants have disappeared and the body has settled in its right place of being a slave...

... Master is like a wife because he is so soft. All corners have disappeared in his life. He has become more and more round, and round, and round. Even in his body, in his being, he is more feminine. That's why Buddha looks more feminine. Nietzsche criticized Buddha only because of this: that he is a feminine man. Nietzsche said that he created the whole feminity of India, because for Nietzsche, the male...

... surrender of your body, if he is only related to you because of sex. If he loves you also, then he demands the surrender of your mind. But a Master demands you - mind, body, soul - your total being. Less than that will not do. There are three possibilities. Whenever you come to a Master, the first possibility is to be related with him intellectually, through the head. That is not much. You may like his...

... of breath, yes. But when you are resting in your chair and everything is good, are you aware of the breathing? No, there is no need. When there is a headache only then you become aware of head, something goes wrong. When the head is perfectly healthy, you are headless. This is the definition of health: when the body is perfectly healthy, you don't know it... as if it is not there; you become...

.... Resurrection is not of the body, it is of the soul. Again one becomes like a child; again one is innocent, but this innocence is based, rooted in experience. If you die without becoming a child again, you lived your life in a futile way; you lived uselessly. You simply wasted the opportunity. And you will have to come back again - the whole will go on throwing again and again... This is the whole doctrine of...

... reincarnation: that unless you learn it by yourself, the whole is not satisfied with you. Unless you become a child in your own right - not because of your body but because of your being: if the innocence is attained by you, and the innocence is attained in spite of all distractions, in spite of all that was there to destroy it - you will have to be thrown back again and again and again. Life is a learning...

... the day. Gather more and more energy of awareness. Make it such an overflowing stream that when you fall asleep, your body falls asleep, your mind falls asleep, but the energy, the current of awareness is so forceful it continues. Then you will be able to make distinctions. And when one becomes able to make distinctions in dreams, it is a great achievement. And then, by and by, rubbish drops. First...

... face will be like you; in its body your blood will be circulating. It will be your continuity. You are unhappy today; you project tomorrow to be happy, but tomorrow is a projection of you, of your today, of whatsoever you are. You are unhappy - the tomorrow will come out of this unhappiness and you will be more unhappy. Of course, out of more unhappiness you will desire for more happiness in the...

... and he followed everybody's advice. And the more he followed their advice, the more confused he became. Buddha tried whatsoever was said to him. Somebody said: "Do HATHA yoga" - he became a HATHA yogi. He did yoga postures and he did them to the very extreme. Nothing came out of it. Maybe you can have a better body with HATHA yoga, but you cannot become happy. Just a better body, a more...

... healthy body, makes no difference. With more energy you will have more energy at your disposal to become unhappy - but you will become unhappy. What will you do with it? If you have more money, what are you going to do with it? - you will do that which you can do. And if a little money makes you so miserable, more money will make you more miserable. It is simple arithmetic. Buddha dropped all yoga. He...

... went to other teachers, the RAJA yogis, who teach no body postures, who teach only mantras, chantings, meditations. He did that too, but nothing came out of it. He was really in search. When you are really in search then nothing can help, then there is no remedy. Mediocre people stop somewhere on the way; they are not real seekers. A real seeker is one who goes to the very end of the search, and...

... anti-body. That is absolutely wrong. He was never anti-body. He was not FOR the body, that's true; but he was never anti-body. This sutra will make it clear. He says: "THERE WAS ONCE A MAN WHO, BEING IN DESPAIR OVER HIS INABILITY TO CONTROL HIS PASSIONS, WISHED TO MUTILATE HIMSELF." And there have been many persons like that, not only one person. Millions of people have destroyed their...

... bodies in the search for truth, God, ecstasy, or whatsoever you call it. Millions of people have concluded that the body is the enemy. There is a certain logic in it. People think it is because of the body that you are in misery. People think it is because of the body that you have sexuality; it is because of the body that you have greed; it is because of the body that you need money; it is because of...

... the body that you need relationship. People think it is because of the body that the whole trouble arises, so why not destroy the body? why not commit suicide? There have been many religious sects which are suicidal, which really teach suicide; which say, "This body has to be dropped. If you are courageous enough, then in one leap, drop this body. If you are not courageous, then slowly, in...

... parts, cut the body, drop the body." There was a VERY popular sect in Russia before the revolution - it was very popular - that used to teach people to cut their sexual organs. And there were thousands and thousands of people who followed it - just to mutilate the sexual organs. The idea is that by cutting the sexual organ you will go beyond sex. This is simply foolish, because the sex does not...

... exist in the sexual organ - it exists in the mind. You can cut the sexual organ and sex will still exist in fact, now it will become more neurotic because there will be no way to fulfil it. There have been sects all over the world which teach fasting. Once in a while, once a month, fasting can be of help, can be very healthy, can be a cleansing process. But to go on long fasts is destroying the body...

... something goes wrong. His suggestion is very logical - and yet absurd. The announcement comes only because the ride is going to be bumpy. The announcement is not the cause; the announcement does not create it. It is going to be bumpy - the announcement tries to help you. But it happens in ordinary life too. Your mind is sexual. The cause is there. The body simply follows it. But when the body follows then...

... you become aware. You are not yet so aware that you can see it when it is in the mind. When it enters into the body, it becomes very solid - then you become aware. Your awareness is not sharp. You cannot catch it in the cause. When it has already moved into the effect, then you catch it. You catch it when it is already beyond control. You catch it only, you become alert about it only, when it has...

... stage. When the thought has become a thing, when it has already entered into the gross body and the body has become possessed by it, then you become aware. It simply shows your unawareness. Hence Buddha says if you really want to get rid of the misery, the pain, that life that is almost like hell, you have to become more and more aware. The more aware you become, the deeper the cause you can see. The...

... root and has become a great tree, it will be difficult to uproot it. First the idea arises in the innermost core. Then it enters into the mind. Then it enters into the body. You feel it only when it has entered into the body. There are even more sleepy people who don't even feel it there. When it has entered into the world, then they feel it. For example, anger arises first in your deepest core...

..., wordless, undefined. Then it comes to be a thought. Then it enters in your body; adrenaline and other poisons are released in the bloodstream - you are ready to kill somebody or beat somebody, bite somebody. You are getting mad. But you may not even become aware. When you hit somebody it has entered into the world. That is the fourth stage. Then you become aware: "What have I done?" Haven't you...

... tree will be difficult. And when the tree has sent its millions of seeds into the air, then it is almost beyond your control. The winds have taken the seeds to faraway fields; now it is impossible to find out where they have fallen. Now the tree is not one; it has created many possibilities of its own being. It will be imitated in many fields. BUDDHA SAYS THAT DESTROYING THE BODY IS NOT GOING TO HELP...

...;THERE WAS ONCE A MAN WHO, BEING IN DESPAIR OVER HIS INABILITY TO CONTROL HIS PASSIONS WISHED TO MUTILATE HIMSELF." Buddha is not against the body; he is not anti-body. He cannot be! - because the body is so innocent. It has never done anything wrong. It is so pure; you cannot find a purer thing in existence. Yes, one thing is certain, that whatsoever you want to do, the body follows you. It is a...

... servant and very obedient. Even if you are going to murder somebody, the body follows; it never says no. If you are going to the temple to pray, the body follows. It never says no. Whether you are going to commit a crime or going to pray in the temple, the body follows you so obediently, like a shadow. No, the body is never responsible. And one thing has to be understood about the body. The body is a...

... unique thing in the world; nothing can be compared to it. It has one unique situation and that is: it is the only object in the world that you can look at from both the sides, from without and from within. If you look at a rock, you look from the without. If you look at the moon, you look from the without. Except for the body, your body, everything else you look at from the without. Your body is the...

... only object in the world you can look at from the without and you can look at from within. Hence, the body is the door for the within, the body is the door for the inner journey - how can Buddha be against it? And you can see Buddha's body - so beautiful, so graceful - how can he be against it? Watch Buddha's statues: he must have loved his body, he must have had tremendous compassion for his body...

.... His body is flower-like - it is a rose-flower or a lotus. No, he cannot be against the body. And if people interpret that Buddha is against the body, those people are putting their own interpretations on him. "The Buddha said to him, 'Better destroy your own evil thoughts than do harm to your own person. The mind is lord. When the lord himself is calmed, the servants will of themselves be...

... oceanic bliss. There is no need to reach to it, there is no need to make any effort - effortlessly it happens. So Buddha says the basic question is not of the body, and it is not of the soul. The soul has no problems, and the body also has no problems. The problem is just in between the two. This mind which links the body and the soul is the problem; this mind that bridges the unknown to the known, the...

... with anger, the same with possessiveness - - and the same with ALL that makes you miserable. A maidservant happened to belch in front of her master - of course, the master must have been Western because in India nobody takes any notice of belching - the master became very angry and was going to strike her, but seeing her young and beautiful body his anger suddenly abated, and he took his pleasure...

... in your mind. This image will not allow happiness to enter again in your being - this image will be the barrier, will be the rock. Buddha says: Don't carry the past and don't ask for the future - just be herenow. And then there is no-mind. And the body simply follows that no-mindness. Right now the body follows the mind, and the mind is the culprit - and you go on punishing the body. It is almost...

... unconscious manners. That unconscious mannerism of your behaviour is all that Buddha means by the word 'mind'. Mind is your sleep. Mind is your absence. And if the body follows this mind, this sleepy, drunk mind, don't get angry at the body. "THE MIND IS LORD. WHEN THE LORD HIMSELF IS CALMED, THE SERVANTS WILL OF THEMSELVES BE YIELDING." When the mind is calm it becomes no-mind. No-mind and a calm...

... mind mean exactly the same thing; they don't mean two different things. A calm mind, a cool mind, is a no-mind - because mind is the fever. Mind is the continuous anxiety, tension, the disease - yes, the disease is the mind. When the disease has disappeared, you function from a state which is of no mind, and then the body follows it. The body is a follower. If you have mind, the body follows the mind...

...; if you have no-mind, the body follows the no-mind. But don't start fighting with the body. Don't be stupid. "IF YOUR MIND IS NOT CLEANSED OF EVIL PASSIONS, WHAT AVAILS IT TO MUTILATE YOURSELF?" THEREUPON THE BUDDHA RECITED THE GATHA: "PASSIONS GROW FROM THE WILL, THE WILL GROWS FROM THOUGHT AND IMAGINATION: WHEN BOTH ARE CALMED, THERE IS NEITHER SENSUALISM NOR TRANSMIGRATION."...

...The body is an abode...

... Osho The Beloved Vol 1: The body is an abode Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho The Beloved Vol 1   Next > The body is an abode From: Osho Date: Fri, 28 June 1976 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: The Beloved, Vol 1 Chapter #: 8 Location: am in Buddha Hall Archive Code: 7606280 Short Title: BELOV108 Audio Available: Yes Video Available: No...

..., knows only the empty temple. It has completely forgotten about the one who is enshrined in the temple. So we go on worshipping the temple, but the God is forgotten. Not knowing anything about the center of life, we go on moving and indulging on the periphery. The American cherishes his body as the body, Baul worships his body as the shrine of God. Body in itself is nothing. It is luminous because of...

... something that is beyond the body. The glory of the body is not in the body itself -- it is a host -- the glory is because of the guest. If you forget the guest, then it is sheer indulgence. If you remember the guest, then loving the body, celebrating the body is part of worship. The Baul has a great vision. In that vision body is the lowest part, the most visible part, the most tangible. But it is not...

... the all, it is just the beginning. You have to enter through the body; it is just a gate. It leads to deeper mysteries. The Baul cherishes the body because the body is a vehicle, and through the body one can know that which is embodied, that which is not body itself. The body is the earthen lamp and God is the flame. The lamp is worshipped because of the flame. Once the flame is gone, who worships...

... the body, who celebrates the body? Then it is nothing; then dust unto dust, it returns back to the earth. The body is throbbing with God, pulsating with God. If you can see that pulsation, then even dust becomes divine. If you cannot see that pulsation, then it is simply dust. Then there is no meaning in it. The American worship of the body is meaningless. Hence, people go after health food, massage...

..., Rolfing, and in a thousand and one ways they somehow try to create meaning in their lives. But look into their eyes; a great emptiness exists. You can see they have missed. The fragrance is not there, the flower has not flowered. Deep inside, they are just desert-like, lost, not knowing what to do. They go on doing many things for the body, but it is missing the target. I have heard an anecdote...

... rejoicing. The Baul is not trying at all to enjoy life. There is no effort in it; he simply is enjoying it. And he has nothing to enjoy; he is just a beggar on the road, but he has something of the inner, some glow of the unknown surrounds him. His songs are not only songs; something from the beyond descends in them. When he dances, it is not only that his body is moving; something deeper has moved. He's...

... you don't lose Him. He cannot be lost. That which can be lost is not God. That's why Bauls call God ADHAR MANUSH -- the essential man, the essential consciousness. It is so essential you cannot lose it. It is your very ground, it is your being. He celebrates his body because he knows that someone who is of the beyond, the stranger, is residing in the body. The body is an abode. It is a temple, but...

... dances because of it. Now let me say this: the American is trying to find happiness, hence his overconcern with the body. It is almost an obsession. It has gone beyond the limits of concern, it has become obsessive: continuously thinking about the body, doing this and that, and all sorts of things. He is making an effort to have some contact with happiness through the body. That is not possible. The...

... Baul has ATTAINED it. He has already seen it inside himself. He has looked deep into his body, not through massage, not through Rolfing, not through sauna bath. He has looked into it through love and meditation and he has found that it is there, the treasure is there. Hence he worships his body; hence he is careful about his body because the body is carrying the divine. Have you watched how a woman...

... is going to be created through her. She walks carefully, moves carefully. A grace has arisen in her because she is pregnant. She is no more alone: her body has become a temple. This is just to make you understand. What to say about a Baul? God is there. He is pregnant with the divine. He glows, he is luminous, he dances and sings. Possessing nothing, he possesses all; having nothing, he is the...

... richest man in the world. In one way he is just a beggar on the road, and in another way, the emperor. Because of this that has happened inside -- that he has become aware -- he is happy with his body, he takes care of his body, he loves his body. This love is totally different. And secondly: the American mind is competitive. It is not necessary that you may be really in love with your body; you may be...

... that he is. The Baul's life does not end when life ends; the American's life ends when life ends. When the body ends, the American ends. Hence, the American is very afraid of death. Because of the fear of death, the American goes on trying any way to prolong his life, sometimes to absurd lengths. Now there are many Americans who are just vegetating in hospitals, in mental asylums. They are not living...

...; they are long since dead. They are just managed by the physicians, medicines, modern equipment. Somehow they go on hanging on. The fear of death is so tremendous: once gone you are gone forever and nothing will survive -- because the American knows only the body and nothing else. If you know only the body you are going to be very poor. First, you will always be afraid of death, and one who is afraid...

... course, anguish, anxiety. If there is nothing which is going to survive the body, then whatsoever you do cannot be very deep. Then whatsoever you do cannot satisfy you. If death is the end and nothing survives, then life cannot have any meaning and significance. Then it is a tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing. The Baul knows that he is IN the body, but he is not the body...

.... He loves the body; it is his abode, his house, his home. He is not against the body because it is foolish to be against your own home, but he is not a materialist. He is earthly but not a materialist. He is very realistic, but not a materialist. He knows that dying, nothing dies. Death comes but life continues. I have heard: The funeral service was over and Desmond, the undertaker, found himself...

... is the point of going back? -- you will have to come again. It hardly pays...if death is the only reality, then whether you are ninety-four or twenty-four, how much difference does it make? Then the difference is of only a few years. Then the very young start feeling old, and the child starts feeling already dead. Once you understand that this body is the only life, then what is the point of it all...

...? Then why carry it on? Camus has written that the only basic metaphysical problem for man is suicide. I agree with him. If body is the only reality and there is nothing within you that is beyond body, then of course that is the most important thing to consider, brood, and meditate on. Why not commit suicide? Why wait until ninety-four? And why suffer all sorts of problems and miseries on the way? If...

... a fear that you may miss and others may attain, and on the other hand a deep apprehension that even if you get, nothing is got. Even if you arrive, you arrive nowhere because death comes and destroys everything. The Baul lives in the body, loves his body, celebrates it, but he is not the body. He knows the essential man, the ADHAR MANUSH. He knows that there is something in him which will survive...

.... He MUST be saying something beautiful; others are laughing." Buddha must be saying something beautiful -- so many people believe in him, so you believe. But you have not understood the joke; the laughter is not yours. It will tire you, it will not refresh you. When laughter happens to you it spreads from your very being, from your innermost core of being to the surface. Your whole body ripples...

.... That energy that looks through them will be absent; it will move through a new center. That center is between these two eyes. It is already there, complete; any moment it can function. But it needs energy to function, and that same energy has to be diverted. Secondly, when you are seeing through the two eyes, you are seeing through the physical body. The third eye is not really a part of the physical...

... body. It is part of the second body which is hidden - the subtle body, the SUKSHMA SHARIR. It has a corresponding spot in the physical body, but it is not part of it. That is why physiology cannot believe that there exists a third eye or anything like it, because your skull can be analyzed, penetrated, x-rayed, and there is no point, no physical entity which can be said to be the third eye. The third...

... eye is part of the subtle body, the sukshma sharir. When you die your physical body dies, but your sukshma sharir, your subtle body, moves with you; it takes another birth. Unless the subtle body dies, you can never be freed from the circle of birth- death, rebirth-redeath. The circle moves on. The third eye belongs to the subtle body. When the energy is moving through the physical body, you are...

... are visible to the subtle eyes. Then, with the third eye functioning, if you look at a person you look at his soul, at his spirit, not at his body - just like you look at the physical body through the physical eyes, but you cannot see the soul. The same happens when you look through the third eye: you look and the body is not there, just the one who resides in the body. Remember these two points...

.... Firstly, the same energy has to move. It has to be taken away from the ordinary physical eyes and allowed to move through the third eye. Secondly, the third eye is not part of the physical body. It is part of the subtle body, the second body that is within. Because it is part of the subtle body, the moment you can look through it you look at the subtle world. You are sitting here. If a ghost is sitting...

... hundred years; I have compromised. But because you are forcing me, I will initiate women." What was the reason why he would not initiate women? One basic reason was this: with man, sexual energy can be regulated very easily. A man can become a celibate very easily. With a woman's body it is difficult because menses is a regular phenomenon - unconscious, uncontrollable, non-voluntary. Semen...

... ejaculation can be controlled, but menses cannot be controlled. Or, if one tries to control it, then it will have very bad effects on the body. The moment a woman enters her period of menses, her aura changes completely: it becomes sexual, aggressive, depressed, all that is negative surrounds the woman, and this happens every month. Only because of this Buddha was not ready to initiate women. He said that...

... it was difficult because every month the menses moves in a circle, periodically, and nothing can be done voluntarily. Something can be done, but it was difficult to do that in Buddha's time. Now it can be done. Mahavir completely denied any possibility of a woman being liberated from a woman's body. He said that a woman has to be born again as a man, and only then can she be liberated. So all the...

... woman to be reborn as a man. That was easier. It meant that a woman had to wait for another life, and the whole effort had to be directed toward the goal that she should be born in a male body. This appeared easier to Mahavir than to initiate a woman, because every month she comes back down to the original state and all effort is lost. But these two thousand years have done much. Particularly, tantra...

... has done much. Tantra has found different doors, and tantra is the only system in the world which makes no differentiation between man and woman. Rather, on the contrary, it says that a woman can become easily liberated, and the reason is the same, only looked at from a different angle. Tantra says that because a woman's body is periodically regulated, she can detach herself from her body more...

... easily than man. Because man's mind is more involved in the body, that is why he can regulate it. Man's mind is more involved in the body; that is why he can control his sex. Woman's mind is not so involved in the body. The body functions as an automata - different, on a different layer, and the woman cannot do anything about it. It is like an automatic mechanism; it goes on. Tantra says that because...

... of this woman can detach herself from her body very easily. And if this becomes possible - this detachment, this gap - then there is no problem. So it is a very paradoxical thing: if a woman decides to be celibate and to detach herself from her body, she can maintain her purity more easily than a man. Once the detachment is there, then she can forget the body completely. Man can detach himself very...

... easily, can control very easily, but his mind is more involved in the body. That is why he can control, but then he will have to control every day, continuously. And because feminine sex is passive, it is very easy for a woman to be relaxed about sex. Man's sex is active. It is easy for him to control it, but difficult for him to relax about it. So tantra has been trying to find many, many ways, and...

... affected. It became completely burned. She was afraid - what had happened? The feeling was pleasant, the warmth was very pleasant as if something were melting. Something was happening, but even the physical body had become affected, as if actual fire had touched it. The reason? The third eye had started functioning, the energy began to move in it. It had been cold for lives together; energy never moved...

... thing. With all the available data and discoveries, we have not yet found a single body structure, a skull or anything, which we can say is a link between the chimpanzee and man. Evolution means steps. A chimpanzee cannot suddenly become a man - stages must have been followed. But there is no proof, so Darwin's theory remains a hypothesis. There are no in-between links. So there have always been...

... dominated the Czar and the Czarina, the royal family, and through them, the whole Russia. Nothing could be done without his will. You can have those eyes also; it is not difficult. You have just to learn how to bring your total body energy to the eyes. They become flooded, and then, whenever you look at someone your energy starts flowing toward him. It envelopes the person, penetrates his mind, and in...

... MOVEMENTS INDICATE MENTAL PROCESSES AND THAT IF EYE MOVEMENTS ARE STOPPED THE MENTAL PROCESSES WILL ALSO STOP. BUT THIS PHYSIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF THE MENTAL PROCESSES, THIS STOPPING OF EYE MOVEMENTS, SEEMS TO CREATE PSYCHIC TENSIONS SUCH AS HAPPENS WHEN WE KEEP OUR EYES CLOSED UNDER A BLINDFOLD FOR A LONG TIME. Firstly, your mind and your body are not two things as far as tantra is concerned. Remember that...

... always. Do not say, "physiological process" and "mental process." They are not two - just two parts of one whole. Whatsoever you do physiologically affects the mind. Whatsoever you do psychologically affects the body. They are not two, they are one. You can say that the body is a solid state of the same energy and the mind is a liquid state of the same energy - of the same energy...

...! So no matter what you are doing physiologically, do not think that this is just physiological. Do not wonder how it is going to help any transformation in the mind. If you take alcohol, what happens to your mind? Alcohol is taken in the body, not in the mind, but what happens to the mind? If you take LSD, it goes into the body, not into the mind, but what happens to the mind? Or if you go on a fast...

..., fasting is done by the body, but what happens to the mind? Or from the other end: if you think sexual thoughts, what happens to your body? The body is affected immediately. You think in the mind of a sex object and your body starts getting ready. There was a theory by William James. In the first part of this century it apparently looked very absurd, but in a sense it is right. He and another scientist...

... enemy, you feel anger. It is just the opposite. They said that if this is not so, then we want to see even one instance of anger when the eyes are not red and the body is not affected and one is simply angry. Do not allow your body to be affected and try to be angry - then you will know that you cannot be angry. In Japan they teach their children a very simple method of controlling anger. They say...

... angry and you start to take deep breaths; your mind is shifted from anger to breathing. The body is not in a state to be angry, and the mind has shifted its concentration toward something else. Then it is difficult to be angry. That is why the Japanese are the most controlled people on earth. It is just a training from childhood. It is difficult anywhere else to find such an incident, but in Japan it...

... who has already tried to kill you. Physiological processes and psychological processes are not two things, they are one, and you can start from either pole to affect and change the other. And any science will do that. For example, tantra believes deeply in the body. Only philosophy is vague, airy, verbal; it may start from something else. Otherwise, any scientific approach is bound to start from the...

... body because that is within your reach. If I talk of something which is beyond your reach, you may listen to it, you may gather it in your memory, you may talk about it, but nothing happens. You remain the same. Your information is increased, but not your being. Your knowledge goes on increasing, but your being remains the same poor mediocrity; nothing happens to it. Remember, the body is what is...

... within your reach; just now you can do something with it and change your mind through the body. By and by you will become a master of the body, and then you will become a master of the mind. And when you become a master of the mind, you will change the mind by and by, and you will be moving beyond it. If the body changes, you move beyond body. If the mind changes, you move beyond mind. And always do...

... towards the Self, will scarcely arise, for the creation of the Self is possible only in an atmosphere of self-love. I would also like to add the the physical body should not be excluded from the Self. THE BODY NOT TO BE SHUNNED Give the body abundant love, on getting which it becomes vibrant, alive. Its slumbering potentialities are awakened. But remember that neither the so-called debauchee nor the so...

...-called abstainer loves the body in the real sense. The contempt of the libertine for his own body is manifest in the lack of his own self-restraint. It is out of this contempt that he is inclined to waste away his body. The abstainer too, recoiling from the other extreme, is no less backward in his hostility to the body. Of course, the directions they turn to are different. The abstainer tortures and...

... torments the body in the name of self- restraint, in the name of renunciation, and the other in the name of licentiousness; but both of them are wanting in thankfulness to and ardent love for the body. The characteristic feature of a person of healthy mental poise is a favourable attitude towards the body with a loving vision. Torturing the body in any manner whatsoever reveals an unhealthy and sick...

... persons have taught us a lot. This is what they teach: the body is our enemy, we have to fight with it. As a result of these baneful teachings religion and piety have become body- obsessed. Opposition to the body must perforce be body-centred. Hence I say that if you wish to go beyond the body, if you wish to rise above it, do not fight with it, harbour no hostility towards it. Love it and seek its...

... friendship. The body is not our enemy. It is an instrument, a wonderful instrument, ready to be used. It is incumbent upon you to stretch your hand of friendship towards that which you wish to use. Prior to everything else, it is necessary to extend a friendly hand towards your own body which is a fine specimen of God's adroitness as a skilled craftsman. It is a ladder full of secrets that leads you up to...

... the Supreme Soul. He is certainly mad who comes into conflict with the ladder instead of climbing up through its rungs. Unfortunately, we are surrounded by the fraternity of such incorrigible bedlamites. Beware of them. It is difficult to estimate the extent of havoc wrought by such madmen among us. You do not fully realize the thousands of secrets lying hidden in this body naturally bestowed on you...

.... Even if one learns all the secrets of one's own body, one can easily secure the key to the endless mysteries of the Supreme Soul. How small is this body but how many wonderful mysteries lie embedded in it! The mind is hidden in the body. The soul is hidden in the mind. The Supreme Soul is hidden in the soul. A sage was about to die. He took leave of his disciples and devotees present there. He...

... thanked them all and stood up with his folded hands, and said, 'Oh, my beloved body! It is you who led me to God. I thank you for it. I could not do anything for you. On the other hand, I had subjected you to untold sufferings and pain. I had extracted work out of you without paying you anything in return. I am indebted to you very much, for endless has been the help you rendered me. At this hour of...

... farewell I seek your pardon. For all my acts of omission and commission, I request you to excuse me. But for you, it would have been impossible for me to reach God!" You have to see the body in this way. This attitude of thankfulness, this loving fervour is essential. The sage had said, "Oh, my beloved body!" These words stir up a wonderful bliss in me. Cannot a similar sympathetic...

... understanding brighten up your life too? May I ask you whether you have at any time looked upon the body with an overflow of such loving sympathy? Have you ever felt yourselves blessed with its acts of service? Have you ever expressed your gratefulness to it? If not, how great had been the ingratitude! What an unbecoming discourtesy! What a misdemeanour! The attitude towards the body should be one of...

... in the world, and there still are, many men of warped, distorted vision whose high-handedness, violence, unrelenting suppression and cruel tactics towards their own physical body provoke in our mind feelings of remorse and sorrow and eventually a fervent prayer, "Oh God! save mankind from such stupid spirituality!" Activities of this magnitude and seriousness go only to prove a total loss...

... of intelligence in them. But alas! the evil influences of such people still linger and haunt us even today. Let us keep ourselves away from such sickening sermons. Such preachers do not deserve our reverence; they deserve to be cured instead. Certainly I hope we will be able to cure them. This hostility to the physical body, as I said, is but a reaction to the weakness, failure and dissatisfaction...

... resulting from unregulated sensual enjoyment. Thus the innocent physical body has been blamed for the sinfulness of the Self itself. I appeal to you to be alert in regard to agonizing self-denials based on hostility to the physical body. In view of the fact that you have been playing havoc with your body, you may feel tempted towards all forms of self-discipline. If on seeing the enormous wealth possessed...

... them. As for the physical body, it is your slave, a whole time follower. Wherever you wish to take it, it is ever ready to follow you. Should you say, "Go to hell", it is ready to go to hell; should you say, "Go to heaven" you will find it ready to go to heaven. The question, then, is not of the physical body, but of your volition. Let it not be forgotten that the physical body...

... reels along behind the will. We will be committing a great blunder if, instead of modifying the will, we were to torture the body, victimize it or even destroy it. Subjecting the body to harassment and suffering is another form of violence, and I never approve of violence to the self or to the physical body. I advocate self-love, and it appears to me that there cannot be anything more foolish than...

... body eventually becomes hostile to the person who has been considering it so from the outset. Let us start with the belief that it is our friend. Then it remains our friend for ever. If the hostility, the grudge, vanishes, a load is taken off from the self; we are relieved of a tension; we experience peace and restfulness. Let us experiment with it. Let it be remembered that the body is only a medium...

.... It does not take anyone anywhere. Let there be no ill-will towards it. If we look at it without any prejudice, our heart is naturally filled with thankful love for the silent service it renders us. Again, we are not to stop with the body. We have to go further deep. The physical body is only the starting point of our journey of love towards the Self. LOVE THE MIND When we go deep down, we see the...

... mind. We have to love it too and seek its friendship. Normally we are aware of only these two planes of the individual self, namely, the body and the mind. If we wish to go far above these or deeper than these, we have to make use of them. The campaign against the mind has, no doubt, been carried on with greater intensity than against the body. This has been the central target of attack from the...