... the very extreme of their idea of virtue. For example, in India, the Jaina monks never take baths. That is a virtue - because they are so averse to their bodies that they don't care that the body should be clean. Who cares? If the body is just matter, and if a little more matter gathers on it... no harm; you are gaining a little weight. They don't brush their teeth, because all that is considered to...

... be showing that you still believe in the body. To talk with them is so difficult, because their breath is so foul, their body stinks. Every year they pluck their hair with their own hands - they cannot use any mechanical device. Strange, a safety razor is thought to be great technology. They are against all machines, all technology; naturally they have to pluck their hair with their own hands...

.... Thousands of devotees gather to see it. And I have seen people standing there, well shaved - perhaps they shave twice a day - with tears flowing from their eyes: "What a great saint!" They cannot follow it - they are sinners - but he is following the scriptures. There are many monks, Jaina and Hindu, who live naked, in all the seasons. It is torturing the body, but because they torture the body...

... their followers believe they are attaining to self-realization. The body no longer matters. Whether it is cold or hot summer, it makes no difference to them; they have attained to a state of balance. To them success and failure are the same, heat and cold are the same. They are not the same, because I have seen the monks shivering with cold; they cannot sleep the whole night. They are following it...

... POSSESSED; something greater than him speaks through him. When a man like Buddha speaks he is not Gautam Siddhartha who was born a son to a king; no, he is no longer that. He is no longer the body you can see and touch, he is not even the mind that you can comprehend and understand. Something of the beyond has entered, something which is not of time and space has come into time and space. A miracle has...

... lying on the nails? He has to make his whole body insensitive. That's the only way: he must not feel it. By and by he becomes thicker-skinned, then it doesn't matter. Then he becomes a rock, completely dead. And the whole society worships him: he is a sage, he has attained something. What has he attained? He has attained more deadness than you. Now the nails do not matter because the body has become...

... dead. You may not know, but if you ask physiologists they say there are already many spots in the body which are not alive; they call them dead spots. On your back there are many dead spots. Just give a needle to one of your friends, or your wife or your husband, and tell him to push the needle in your back on many spots. You will feel some spots and some you will not feel. Some spots are already...

... dead, so when the needle is pushed in you don't feel it. Those people, they have done one thing: they have made their whole body a dead spot. But this is not growing, this is regression. They are becoming more material rather than more divine, because to be divine means to be perfectly sensitive, to be perfectly alive. So I told that man that there is one way, and that is to be dead: that is easier...

... has become enlightened will have to live a few years, because enlightenment is not a destiny; it is not fixed, it is not caused. When it happens it is not necessarily at the moment when the body dies. There is no necessity for these two happenings to be together. Really, it is almost impossible, because enlightenment is a sudden uncaused phenomenon. You work for it but it never happens through your...

... attaining. If you attain that you have attained all; if you miss that you have missed all. When one becomes enlightened he lives for a few years before the body completes its circle. Buddha lived on for forty years because the body had got a momentum: from the parents the body had got chromosomes, from his own past karma the body had got a life circle. He was to live eighty years, enlightened or not. If...

... consciousness is nourished by the cosmic consciousness, just as your heart is beating because of the breathing. The air that you cannot see is continuously giving you oxygen, keeping your body alive. But you are not only body. Behind the body is your hidden splendor, the consciousness. That too needs nourishment continuously. And all around you just like air... Once you are empty, just wait a little, don't...

... scripture, one prophet." All Hindu scriptures say, "There are as many gods as there are people." That's why Hinduism is very inefficient. It has to be: it is not an army; it does not have a pope; it does not have any organized central body, it is a very disorganized chaos. So there is every freedom for everybody. Somebody becomes a Mahavira, Hinduism has no objection. Somebody becomes a...

... Buddha, Hinduism has no objection. Both were born Hindus, both went against Hindus. There is no problem, because there is no central body to appoint a court or a grand jury to judge whether Mahavira is authentic since he does not believe in God. His whole effort is that you should develop your consciousness to the ultimate peak: everybody is a god. Mahavira's interpretation of thirty-three million gods...

... religious war. It is everybody's choice to have a god or not to have a god; even the atheists were not burned. A great philosophy of charvakas flourished for centuries. Charvakas believe there is no God, there is no soul - what Marx said five thousand years later. They say that the soul is just a by-product of five elements that constitute the body. The founder of the charvaka religion was Acharya...

... have no central body, and they cannot have, because somebody is a worshipper of Shiva, somebody is a worshipper of Vishnu, somebody is a worshipper of Krishna, somebody is a worshipper of Brahma. And there are hundreds of smaller gods which people worship. People worship trees, people worship stones. Put a red color on any stone and just wait by the side. You will soon find some Hindu coming there...

...) (Gibberish) Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Be silent. Close your eyes, and feel your body to be completely frozen. This is the right moment to turn inwards, with your whole energy, with your total consciousness. Rush towards the center, with an urgency as if this is going to be your last moment on the earth. Without such an urgency nobody has ever become awakened. Faster and faster... Deeper and deeper... As you...

... there. This is the face we have called in the East the face of the buddha. This is everybody's original face, it is nobody's monopoly. The only quality the buddha at the center of being has is witnessing. Witnessing is the whole of spirituality compressed into one word. Witness you are not the body, witness you are not the mind, and witness you are only a witness, just a mirror reflecting without any...

.... Sit down for a few moments, reminding yourself of the golden path you have traveled, and the tremendous space you have been in. And feel the radiance and the coolness of a buddha behind you. He is almost touching your body and your heart. He is so motherly, he is so feminine, so fragile - just like a lotus leaf. Rejoice that you are those chosen few Friedrich Nietzsche speaks of. Soon you will start...

... seated on the ground just as before; but as soon as he closes his eyes and feels the resonance inside, he experiences a sense of weightlessness. The physical body remains on the ground but the inner body separates from the earth and rises. If you continue in meditation one day you experience two bodies, not one; the body that has risen can see the body sitting on the ground, a thin thread of light...

... connecting them. Therefore remember, if someone practicing Omkar is deeply lost in meditation, do not shake him or bring him back too suddenly. This can be dangerous, and cause an imbalance between his physical and subtle bodies, which can be irreparable because the balance is very delicate. In a deep stage of meditation a person steps out of his body, then comes back. When you become perfectly fluent with...

... this art of stepping in and out of your body, you will know how to enter into and emerge from God. Then you see no difference between the material world and God Himself. You stay in your body but your remembrance becomes uninterrupted; the thread of your thoughts is connected with Him. THE LORD IS GREAT. HIS PLACE IS HIGH. AND HIGHER EVEN IS HIS NAME. NANAK SAYS: ONE ONLY KNOWS HIS GREATNESS WHEN...

.... Having made far-fetched statements his whole life, he repented at the time of death. As death approached he began to tremble with fear. He called his disciples together and said to them, "Whatever I have told you is a lie. Drag my body along the road when I am dead and tell people to spit on my face, because with this mouth I have uttered nothing but falsity." This man Makkhali Gosal must...

.... Mahavir said to him, "Have you forgotten completely the years when you were with me?" Makkhali replied, "You are mistaken. The soul that stayed with you left long ago. Now the soul of a Teerthankara has entered this body. This body may have been with you - I have heard so - but I am not the same one who was with you. He who was your disciple is long dead. Now don't ever say that Makkhali...

... burns your energy and burns it intensely. But you don't have an inexhaustible source; as an individual, in the body, all you have is limited. To be with me, silently and calmly, peacefully is the right way; you can afford it. Even with limited sources of individual beings, a calm state of mind can remain forever. I have seen both types of people coming to me. Those who come and become too much excited...

..., then there is no need to think of people who talk of ecstasy. Their ecstasy will be gone in two days; your calmness will go with you beyond the grave. Question 2: BELOVED OSHO, ONLY IN MOMENTS OF LOVE DO I FEEL MY BODY DANCING WITH JOYFUL SWEETNESS, AND ONLY IN MOMENTS OF LOVE DO MUSICIANS CREATE MUSIC WHICH TOUCHES MY HEART. TO FEEL THE MUSIC MOVING MY BODY AND THE DANCE MOVING THE FINGERS OF THE...

... fell from the rock there was no possibility of your being alive; in fact you could not even be found as a whole body, you would be scattered. It was a dangerous valley. The old man went onto the protruding rock; the young man was standing there trembling -- he was not going onto the rock. The old man was going and the young man was trembling. The old man said, "Stop that trembling. That is not...

... you tremendously to reach to the heterosexual person. These are the four stages: the auto-sexual person avoids sexuality. He wants to contain his sexuality within himself, he is a kind of miser, and such people suffer from constipation. It is now a well-established psychological fact. There is not a medical way to help them get rid of constipation, as their constipation has no cause in the body...

.... Everybody is trying to protect himself and is defensive. A certain strained defensiveness continues, even when the other is not doing anything, not even saying, mm? When people are crowded, their stomachs become tense. They shrink... their body aura shrinks, because that is the only way to avoid people and contact. Just look in crowded trains, a local train - so many people standing. Just watch people's...

... done anything. [Osho went on to say that unlike any other structure inside the body, breathing is the only thing that can be voluntary or non-voluntary; it is just in between... ] So Yoga breathing is doing something - pranayama - a certain rhythm to be created. You can create a certain rhythm and it can be used for certain purposes. You can have better health if you can control your breathing...

..., because by controlling your breathing, you start controlling your vital energy. By controlling your breathing, giving it a certain rhythm, you start controlling your body chemistry. If you inhale more, deeply, long, and exhale fast, you will have a different proportion of oxygen and carbon dioxide. If you inhale sharply and exhale slowly, you will have a different proportion of oxygen and carbon dioxide...

.... In fact you can create almost LSD-like states through breathing. That's why Krishnamurti is against it. He says it is the same - pranayama is the same as marijuana, because marijuana is changing your body chemistry. If you can increase the quantity of carbon dioxide inside, you will lose consciousness. It will be alcoholic. If you can increase your quantity of oxygen in the blood you will become so...

... inhalation becomes the exhalation of God, and whatsoever you call exhalation becomes the inhalation of God. When God inhales, you exhale. When God exhales, you inhale. There is a very old indian story of a man who went in search of God. He travelled all over the world. Hindus say that the whole world is the body of God, so somewhere there are bound to be feet, somewhere hands. The man travelled and...

... serious about it. Seriousness is a sickness, and the true religion would not like you to be psychologically sick. It would like you to be physically healthy, to be psychologically healthy, because only in a healthy body, in a healthy mind, can a healthy soul be realized more easily. Just remember the definition of health. When you don't feel your body at all, your body is healthy. You feel your head...

... only when you have a headache. When you don't have any headache, you don't have any head either - it is simply light, it has no weight. When your legs are hurting, you have them. When they are not hurting, they are absent. When the body is healthy... my definition of health is that you are absolutely unaware of its existence, whether it is there or not makes no difference. And the same is true about...

... the healthy mind. It is only the insane mind which is felt. When the mind is sane, silent, it is not felt. When the body and mind both are in a stillness, your soul can be experienced more easily, with a laughter. There is no need to be serious at all. Particularly here with me, laughter is the way, seriousness is the hindrance. There are situations in which one feels serious, but if one is alert...

... mind to no-mind; the bridge is witnessing. Question 2: BELOVED MASTER, HOW DO I COME TO KNOW WHEN I AM REALLY WITNESSING MY BODY, FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS, OR WHEN IT IS ONLY MY MIND PRETENDING TO BE A WITNESS? The question is only intellectual; you have not even tried to pretend. When you are witnessing and you start feeling that it may be just the pretense of the mind, then it is certainly a pretense...

... reality. And it is a very simple process, just like swimming. Once you know swimming, you will be surprised that there was nothing to learn. Before knowing swimming, it seems dangerous, difficult - you cannot believe how people are swimming. But have you seen a dead body? The dead body automatically comes up and starts swimming - not even swimming, it simply floats. The dead body knows something which...

... you don't know. If the dead body can float, why can't you float? It is so simple that even dead bodies are doing it. One Japanese scientist has been trying with small children, because his hypothesis is that the child in the mother's womb remains in liquid, in water for nine months, so swimming must be something very natural. It need not be learned. The hypothesis seems to be correct. If the child...

...;-pathies" developed around the world - homeopathy or ayurveda or acupuncture - except allopathy, nobody has exactly understood the inner function of nature in man's body and mind. I say, except allopathy, because others may be sometimes helpful, but they are not scientific. And others are helpful not in a small way either; if you look at their help, it is tremendous. In almost seventy percent of the...

... person. So only thirty percent remain to be helped by allopathy. It is a strange world. Thirty percent to the most scientific approach and seventy percent to all kinds of hocus-pocus - superstitious approaches which really don't make any change, but they help. The most scientific approach of allopathy is based on a deep understanding of nature, and that is that the body has a resistance of its own...

.... Because of this fact, naturopathy condemns allopathy. Allopathy goes on injecting viruses into patients because the allopathic understanding is, the moment the body gets a virus, it immediately creates antibodies. It immediately starts fighting, it has a resistance of its own. The whole body immediately goes on red-alert to destroy the disease. Naturopathy condemns it because they think you are...

... you going to deliver your sermons in the church? For instance," he said, "when you are talking about heaven, let your face show a radiance, let your eyes become lighted, let your whole being, your body, indicate that you are thrilled." The student asked, "That's okay, but what about when we are talking about hell?" The professor said, "For hell, your normal face will do...

..., there is no need for me to remain in the body even for a single moment more. I have done my homework. Whatever I am doing - talking to you, laughing with you, rejoicing with you - my silence, my words, are all dedicated to you, to provoke a certain synchronicity. It is said Buddha never laughed. And you can see Jesus ... it is impossible that that face can laugh. Mahavira cannot laugh. There is only...

... I have been teaching you to celebrate. Somebody has become free from the body, and you are crying. Feel ashamed! Somebody is out of jail and you are weeping. You wanted the poor fellow to remain always in the jail! Unless you know how to turn the worst into the best, you are not aware of the real essence of sannyas. So certainly I am laughing for you, speaking for you, living for you, but it is...

... other side of the river. When you reach the other side you know it is the same shore, there is nothing different. And existence understands certainly that my body or my mind are no more a bondage to me. I am no more confined to them. I am already free. Death is not an urgency to make me free. I will continue until I penetrate into the deepest core of your being. All that I have experienced I would...

... clean my clothes, they have to make my bed, they have to cook my food, they have to make my clothes. They have to do all kinds of things, take care of my garden, take care of my body. This is a totally different kind of harem. It is not the harem of the Arabian Nights. Love here is prayer. And because it is prayer, there is no jealousy. Otherwise, so many women, if they are in love in a biological...

..., Mahamaya had contributed to. It was impossible to say no to her. So reluctantly he had to give her initiation into sannyas. But once one woman had entered, he could not prevent other women; then hundreds of other women entered. But as far as personal staff was concerned, those who were taking care of his body, of his day, of his food, every small detail, they were all men - not a single woman. Not even...