.... Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. [A sannyasin had previously written to Osho about a fever which she gets in the late afternoon and in the night. Osho checks her energy.] Good. Come back! Do two things: one, tomorrow when you feel this heat coming to you, just go to the bathroom, rub your whole body with a dry towel. Rub your whole body so it becomes really more hot. Mm? Almost rub it so much that...

... you start perspiring. Start from the feet and go on rubbing upwards. Let the body feel as hot as possible. Then it will not take four hours; within fifteen minutes it will be finished. It has to become very intense. And it is very good. Some poisons in the body and in the mind are being released. It is simply good - nothing wrong in it, nothing like a disease. You are throwing something out. So help...

... the process - rub the whole body, mm? and then take a cold shower. First rub the whole body, perspire. If you feel like dancing and jumping, dance and jump; anything that you want to do, you can do. The whole point is to perspire, because through perspiration many toxic things get out of the body. And the mind wants them to be released from the body. Only when they are released will the mind be able...

... to release something. The mind and body correspond with each other. If the mind has to drop something, the body also has to drop the corresponding part of it in the body. Your mind wants to release certain heat and the body is just helping it. So rub it and then sit under the shower and let it be cooled; or you can lie down in the tub and let it cool. If you don't have a tub in your bathroom you...

... and in outer achievements. The individual is neither the body nor the soul but a combination of the two. Therefore anything based on any one of these alone is incomplete. Question 2: THE SECOND QUESTION: WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ABOUT RENOUNCING WORLDLY LIFE? IS SANNYAS, BECOMING A SEEKER, ONLY POSSIBLE IF ONE RENOUNCES THE WORLD? There is no conflict between the world and sannyas. It is not the world...

... sannyas is gradually born within us. Sannyas is the knowledge that "I am not the body"; it is the knowledge that "I am the soul". When this knowledge dawns, ignorance and attachment drop away. The world was there outside and it will still continue to be there. But inside there will be the absence of attachment for it. In other words, there will be no world, no samsara inside. To try...

... is neither a state of unconsciousness nor of stupor, samadhi is the realization of perfect consciousness. Samadhi is the combination of thoughtlessness and perfect consciousness. Question 5: THE FIFTH QUESTION: HOW ARE WE TO WATCH THE PROCESSES OF INHALING AND EXHALING IN MEDITATION? Hold the spine erect. Do not allow it to bend. The body is in a state of natural balance when the backbone is held...

... erect. In that position the gravitational pull of the earth has a uniform effect on the body and it is easy to free oneself from its attraction. When the force of gravity is at its minimum the body does not interfere in one's becoming empty, in one's becoming devoid of thoughts. Hold the backbone erect, without tension or rigidity in the body. Allow the body to relax as if it were hung on the spine...

... like a piece of cloth on a peg. Relax the body completely and then breathe slowly and deeply. The inhaling and the exhaling will move the naval center up and down. Continue to watch this movement. It isn't necessary to concentrate on it, just watch it. Be a witness to it. Bear in mind I am not advocating concentration. I am advising simple watchfulness and awareness. Breathe as children do - their...

... between the body and the soul. The soul resides in the body through breathing and because of breathing. By becoming aware of one's breath, by direct knowledge of breathing, a person gradually experiences that he is not the body. I am the body but I am not the body alone. It is my abode but not my foundation. As the direct realization of breathing goes deeper, one experiences the presence, the proximity...

... of the one who is not the body. For a moment one sees clearly that the self is not the body. Then you will see the three layers, the three sheaths of your personality - the body, the breath and the soul. The body is the shell; the breath is the bridge, the connecting link; the soul, the self, is the foundation. The role of the breath on the path to self-realization is a most important one because...

... breathing is the central point. On one side we have the body; on the other, the soul. We already exist on the physical level but what we yearn for is to be within the realm of the soul. But before this can be done it is essential to move onto the plateau of prana, of the breath. Only then can one enter the kingdom of the spirit. Watching at the level of the breath, one can look both ways. From here, the...

... paths leading to the body and to the soul become clear. Although the road is one and the same, the two directions stand out clearly. And the result is that a step towards the inner, towards the realm of the soul, becomes more of a possibility. I hope you now understand why I stress breathing so much. Question 7: THE SEVENTH QUESTION: WHY DO YOU SAY THAT DHYANA, MEDITATION, IS NO-ACTION? IS IT NOT AN...

... seek and find it in another, then that element is called the great, the supreme atman. The atman is simply the supreme atman known from within. The supreme atman is simply the atman known from without. If you examine yourself you will see that this body is a created thing. It could not have been produced without the cooperation of your parents. Even if, in the future, it is made in a test-tube, it...

... remains a manufactured thing. The scientists and biologists of the West may be able, if not today then in the future, to fulfill their claim of producing a child in a test-tube. They will succeed in manufacturing a body in a test-tube, and hope thereby to finally defeat religion. But they are mistaken in their view, because the spiritual man never saw this body as the atman. The spiritual man says...

..., "That which is unborn, uncreated, is the atman." By manufacturing a body in a test-tube, scientists will simply prove that the body is not the soul - the atman. It seems that the body will be manufactured in the future; I do not see any reason why it should not be so. Many spiritualists are apprehensive about this: "What will happen to the atman when the body is created in a test-tube...

... in a laboratory? It will prove that the atman does not exist if we are able to produce a child without the parents' cooperation and with the help of chemicals." But such spiritualists do not know that the body is not the atman. It is precisely if the scientist succeeds in his experiment that this sutra of the Upanishad will be proved true - that this body is not the atman. Only this much, and...

... nothing more, will be proved. Even now we know that the body is not the soul. This fact is proved by the physical sciences. In the future the body will be created by artificial and chemical processes. At present, when the chemical substances of the parents combine and create that cell which is the first cell of the body, then the soul enters it. If in the future that cell is produced in the laboratory...

..., and if that genetic situation is created which is being created by parents up to now, then the soul will enter there also. But that cell, the cell which is the first cell of the body, is not the atman. It is a manufactured thing, it is not selfborn. It is made by somebody. Its existence, its birth, depends upon something, so those who know the atman are not prepared to call it the atman. It is not...

... the atman. To know that, we shall have to work our way back and back; we shall have to go down deeper and deeper. So I myself am pleased and hope that science succeeds in making a test-tube baby as soon as possible, because then we will be helped by scientific investigations to break our identity with the body. Then we will know for sure that the body is a kind of machine, and that to believe in it...

... as the self is foolish. It is foolishness even now, but at present we are unwilling to recognize that the body is a machine. It is a machine even so. It is produced by natural forces, so by understanding the secrets of nature we will be able to produce it, and then we will have the cooperation of natural forces to break our identification with the body. Entering deep within ourselves, we have to...

... its light from shining out in all directions. And if the light is as mad as we are, and forgets that "I am the light," then it will face the same difficulties which we are experiencing. Our relationship with the nature of our self is completely broken and we are identified with the web made up of our body, mind, thoughts, feelings, passions and desires, surrounding us on all sides. We...

... standing becomes conscious and looks within itself and sees your image standing in front of it, and then says, "This is me!" Such an unfortunate happening only takes place because of the mirror's purity. The atman is pure and spotless, and because of its crystal clear purity, whatever approaches it is reflected in it as in a mirror - whatever the thing may be. If the body goes to it, it is...

... reflected as in a mirror and the atman says, "I am the body." You have no idea of the continual changes in your body and of how you identify yourself with them. If the first cell created in your mother's womb were taken out and put before you and then you were told, "You were once this," you would at once deny it and say, "How can this be me? It is impossible." If five to ten...

..., you have said, "This is me." Have you ever found any similarity between your infant photo and the photo of your adulthood. Is there any affinity? Are you that baby? No, once you had owned it, and the claim was fixed in your memory; and only the claim is still there today - that this was you. The body changes every day. Scientists tell us that every cell of the body is completely altered...

... over a period of seven years; not a single old cell remains. But our identity continues. Identification goes on. In seven years' time our bones, our flesh, our blood and all other cells are altered. If a person lives up to seventy years, the body has changed totally ten times. The whole body has undergone change ten times. The body changes every moment, but there is a spotless mirror within. Whatever...

... process is understood many things change immediately. The very understanding becomes mutation. Man is born undivided. He is neither a body nor a mind. He is born undivided, as one individual. He is both body and mind. Even to say that he is both is wrong. He is body-mind. Body and mind are two aspects of his being, not two divisions - two polarities of something which we may call life, energy or...

... anything - X,Y,Z - but body and mind are not two things. The very process of civilization, education, culture, conditioning, starts with the division. Everyone is taught that he is two, not one, and then, of course, one begins to be identified with the mind and not with the body. The very thinking process becomes your center and the thinking process is just a periphery. It is not the center because you...

... you are being taught continuously that you are two, body and mind, and that, really, you are the mind and you possess the body. The mind becomes the master and body becomes the slave, and you go on struggling against the body. This creates a rift, a gap, and that gap is the problem. All neurosis is born out of that gap; all anxiety is born out of that gap. Your being is rooted in your body, and your...

... body is not just something separate from existence. It is part of it. Your body is the whole universe. It is not something limited, finite. You may not have observed it, but try to observe where your body really ends - where! Do you think that your body ends where your skin ends? If the sun which is so far away just goes dead, instantly you will be dead here. If the sun rays stop coming, you will be...

... no more here. Your body cannot exist without the sun being there so far away. The sun and you are somehow deeply related. The sun must be included in your body; otherwise you cannot exist. You are part of its rays. In the morning you see flowers open: their opening is really the rising of the sun. In the night they will close: their closing is the setting of the sun. They are just rays that are...

... breath is your life, then the whole atmosphere is part of you. You cannot exist without it. So where does your body really end? Where is the limit? There is no limit! If you observe, if you go deep, you will find there is no limit. Or, the limit of the universe is your body limit. The whole universe is involved in you, so your body is not just your body; it is your universe and you are grounded in it...

.... Your mind too cannot exist without the body. It is part of it, a process of it. Division is destructive, and with the division you are bound to become identified with the mind. You think, and without thinking there is no division. You think, and you become identified with your thinking. Then you feel as if you possess the body. This is a complete reversal of the truth. You do not possess the body...

...; neither is the body possessing you. They are not two things. Your existence is one, a deep harmony of opposite poles. But opposite poles are not divided, they are joined together. Only then can they become opposite poles. And the opposition is good. It gives challenge, it gives stamina, it creates energy. It is dialectical. If you were really one, without opposite poles within, you would be dull and...

... dead. These two opposite poles, body and mind, give you life. They are opposite and at the same time complementary - and basically and ultimately one. One current of energy runs in both. But once we get identified with the thinking process, we think that we are centered in the head. If your legs are cut, you will not feel that YOU are cut. You will say, "My legs are cut." But if your head...

.... The head came later on, but your being was there. Where is that being? It is not in your head. Really, it is nowhere - or everywhere in your body. It is nowhere; you cannot pinpoint where it is. And the moment you pinpoint it you miss the whole thing. It is everywhere. Your life is everywhere, it is spread out all over you. And not only all over you; if you follow it, you will have to go to the very...

.... When you are thirsty, you feel it: you are filled with thirst; you feel it in the throat. If it grows you feel it all over your body, and a moment will come when it is not that YOU are thirsty, you will feel that you have become the thirst. If you are in a desert and there is no hope of getting water, you will not feel that YOU are thirsty; you will feel that you have become the thirst...

... sleep, relax. Close your eyes, make the room dark. Just close your eyes and start waiting. The sleep is coming; just wait, don't do anything, just wait! Your body is relaxing, the body is becoming heavy: feel it. Have the feeling of it. Sleep has its own mechanism, it starts working. Your waking consciousness is vanishing. Remember, because the moment will be very subtle and the moment will be atomic...

... eyes, her behavior, her mood, everything shows that something in him is not accepted, appreciated. Then he starts suppressing. Something is wrong. There is no language yet; his mind is not functioning. But his whole body starts suppressing. Then be begins to feel that sometimes something is appreciated by the mother. He depends on the mother, his life depends on the mother. If the mother leaves him...

... acupuncturist and you say, "Something is wrong with my eyes, or something is wrong with my head, or something is wrong with my liver," he may not bother about your liver, your head or your eyes. He will think of the whole organism; he will try to heal you - not just the part that is sick. Acupuncture has developed seven hundred points which were discovered in man's body. Man's body is a bio-electric...

... phenomenon, alive. It has a certain electricity - hence we call it bio-electricity. This bio-electricity has seven hundred points in the body, and each point relates to some part of the body which may be far away from it. That's what happened in that accident: the arrow hit a bio-electric point which related to the head, and the migraine disappeared. Acupuncture is more holistic. The difference has to be...

... understood. When you take man as a machine you take a partial view of him. If his hand is sick, you just treat the hand; you don't bother about his whole body of which the hand is only a part. The mechanical outlook is partial. It succeeds, but its success is not real success because the same disease which has been repressed in the hand by medicine, surgery and other things, starts expressing somewhere...

... else in a worse form. So medicine has developed tremendously; surgery has become a great science - but man is suffering from more diseases, sicknesses, than ever. This dilemma can be understood. Man should be taken as a whole, treated as an organic unity. But the problem with modern medicine, Western medicine is that it does not think you have any soul, that you have anything more than a body-mind...

... well-being; your whole body functioning at its peak without any disturbance, you feel a certain well-being, a certain at-onement with existence. That was not happening through surgery. India abandoned the whole science and developed a totally different approach, ayurveda, which means science of life. It is significant. In the West we call it medicine, and medicine simply indicates towards sickness...

... medicine does not accept that there is any subject in you. It only accepts your body; it does not accept you. Man has to be accepted in his totality. All other methods that have been used around the world should be brought into a synthesis; they are not against each other. Right now they are functioning as if they are against each other. They should be brought to a synthesis and that will give you a...

... have control of everything in the body. When something goes wrong in the center it is only symbolically represented by the outer part of the body. You start treating the outer part; you don't go deep enough. Modern Western medicine is superficial. You should go to very root: why has this hand suddenly become paralyzed? The center in the brain is in some trouble, and that center can be cured very...

.... Even her own children had to be kept separately. She was examined by medical people. They had no way to find... they had never heard of such a disease. It was not a disease - just some electric wires got entangled, something went wrong in her electrical system. That woman was the first to give the idea that the body is running on bio- electricity. They put a five-watt bulb in her hand and it lit up...

.... All these things have to be combined together into a synthesis, a whole, and man can be completely free from diseases. Man will be able to live at least three hundred years; that is a scientific estimate. His body has the possibility to go on renewing itself for three hundred years. So whatever we have been doing is basically wrong because man dies at seventy. And there are proofs... In a part of...

... drug, with no bad effects. Of course, it is not something that you have to take into your body and your body system; it is something that you have to become inside yourself. Diseases go on increasing because the scientists are not courageous enough to bring the society up to date. Society is lingering far behind. And the scientists are not sensitive enough to see what a drug or a certain medicine can...

... THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEDITATION AND AUTOGENIC TRAINING? Autogenic training is good, but it is not meditation. Autogenic training is a very superficial relaxation, but it is basically mind over body, mind telling the body, "Relax." You lie down silently, you close your eyes, and you start feeling where the tense points are in your body. Your knees are tense and you order the knees to...

... relax; your hands are tense, you order the hands to relax. And this way you go on all over the body, giving each part which feels tense the order to relax. Slowly, slowly your whole body feels absolutely relaxed. This is good. This is helpful for the body, but it is not meditation because it is still mind in control; it is mind dominating the body. Meditation is mind no more in control. Something...

... beyond mind, your being has taken control both of mind and body. Autogenic training can be helpful for physical relaxation; it can also be helpful to enter into meditation. First use the mind to relax the body, and then finally say to the mind, "Now you relax. I am here to take care; you just relax." When the mind also relaxes and there is no mind, no thought, but absolute serenity, silence...

.... Question 6: WHAT DOES HOLISTIC HEALTH MEAN? Man can be divided, just for this explanation, into three parts: the body, the mind, the soul. If all the three are perfectly in tune and there is a well-being in all the three, it becomes one well-being of the total organism - from the physical, psychological, to the spiritual. Then it is holistic health. The whole of your being has to be healthy. There are...

.... It's radical, because it pertains to the very roots of being. When I say it is the religion of the earth, I mean many things: it is the religion of the body, it is the religion of nature, it is the religion of reality. The Bauls don't believe in fantasy and they don't believe in some heavenly paradise; they don't believe in far-away goals, they are not utopians. They are very realistic people, down...

... shall inherit the earth; the poor in spirit are the people of God; those who are last will be the first in the kingdom of God. The poor man needs all these consolations. Man is afraid of death. He needs to be again and again reassured that he is a soul, deathless, immortal; only the body dies, not you. Man is suffering a thousand and one complexities. The whole life is almost an oceanic sadness...

... reality is nowhere divided; it is indivisible. Hence, they don't talk about a God somewhere sitting in the seventh heaven. They talk about a totally different God -- rooted in you, rooted here in the earth, rooted in this body, rooted in these emotions, lust and love, rooted here in tension and stress. The God of the Bauls is a very real God. You can touch Him, you can love Him, you can embrace Him, you...

... within you. That which you are seeking is not somewhere else, it is in your very seeking. It is in the very seeker -- the sought is in the seeker. You are the truth, alive, in flesh. God is reborn in you, God is incarnated in you, God has taken a body in you. Where are you seeking, where are you going? The Bauls say, "Wait, listen, go within." They sing, The God is living in man, wholly...

... joys do not exist. They believe in man. They believe in the tremendous potentiality of man. They believe that man is the shrine of God. They believe in the body. No religion except Tantra has ever endeavored to understand this miraculous happening of consciousness located in the body, of consciousness residing in the body. All the other religions have remained anti- body, anti-life, life-negative...

..., body-negative -- as if the more you destroy your body, the more you become divine, or the more you come close to God. Bauls say, "If you destroy the body, you destroy the very base. If you destroy sensation, you destroy sensitivity. If you destroy your senses, then how will you taste Him, how will you hear Him, how will you see Him? If you destroy your love, how will you love Him? If you destroy...

... own bodies; because they cannot understand conceptualizations they try to find out who they are; because they cannot be very learned -- poor beggars moving from one village to another, singing and dancing, enjoying -- they have come very close to reality. They are very authentic, uncorrupted by nature, society, education. They are very innocent people. And this is their understanding: that body is...

... divine. Body is sacred, because everything is sacred. But this word 'sacred' is not very good. In the Old Testament, the word 'sacred' comes from a root which means the separate. God is called sacred in the Old Testament because He is a separate reality from this reality. Bauls would laugh. They will say, "You have gone insane! There is no separate reality. God is THIS reality." Bauls make...

... the whole reality sacred, holy, divine. Their vision is so vast that even matter is no longer thought of as matter. Even matter, in their vision, becomes luminous. Even body is not just body -- it is of the earth, but it carries the divine within it. I have heard about a Hassid rabbi: Rabbi Bonum was his name. When he was dying he left this last message for his disciples. He said, "Everyone...

... are they doing? They come from the earth, they belong to the earth, they are rooted in the earth, and they are trying to reach to the sun, trying to reach to the stars. Rooted in the earth, they move towards heaven. That is the Baul symbol: the tree rooted in the earth, reaching towards heaven; rooted in the body, reaching towards the soul. Then these two are not contraries; they are both of one...

... the whole meaning; the very directness of it. There is no THAT. THIS is THAT! This is so vast, there is no need for any that to exist. This implies all that. "Don't be misled," he said -- because the greatest misguidance comes from people who separate God from reality, who separate truth from fact, who separate spirit from body, who separate lust from love, who separate mud from the lotus...

.... It is earth come to its glory; it is earth's essence. Once you can see lust and love as one, passion and compassion as one, body and soul as one -- maybe two rhythms of the same energy, two formations of the same force, two concretizations of the same stuff, but the stuff is the same -- if you can see the world and God just like mud and lotus, lust and love, you have the vision of the Baul. If you...

... dedared, "Phew! It smells!" Then she pulled up a leg, sniffed and said, "Phaugh!" After smelling the hind end, Mistress Goldfarb held her nose and exclaimed, "It stinks! You call this a fresh chicken?" "Tell me, lady," said the butcher, "you could stand such an inspection?" These people who go on condemning the world, condemning the body, condemning...

.... Have you noticed the fact that all religions have tried to convince the world that their founders were almost unreal? Jainas say Mahavir never perspired, because how can a man of God perspire? Ordinary humanity perspires, not Mahavir. They say that Mahavir was hit, but blood never came out of his body. What came out of his body?. -- milk. How could blood have come out Mahavir's body, this ordinary...

... will never be able to find God, because He is hiding in you. Unguilt; drop all guilt! Whatsoever you are, whosoever you are, wheresoever you are, God has accepted you. When God has accepted you, why be worried?. -- accept yourself. Start living your life not through concepts; start living your life through your feelings, emotions, your body. Start living life as if you were never corrupted by any...

... society, as if you have just come new into the world directly from God's hands and nobody has taught you anything. Start living: that life is the real life. Then you listen to your own heart, you listen to your body. You don't repress, you try to understand; and through understanding is transformation. The Bauls sing the song for today: COMMIT YOURSELF TO THE EARTH WHILE ON THE EARTH, MY HEART, IF YOU...

... more do I need any wealth, O my Master, give me your feet" -- just your feet are enough, so I can cry, so my tears can wash your feet. PLACE AT HIS FEET YOUR FLOWERS OF FEELINGS AND THE PRAYERS OF TEARS FLOODING YOUR EYES. THE MAN YOU SEEK IS EARTHED IN THE EARTH, DECEASED WHILE BEING. DYING WITH DEATH, YOU MUST LIVE TO SEEK... The man you seek is earthed, is incarnated in the body. The body is...

... your earth. And the man you seek is here, enshrined in the earth, enshrined in death: the flame of life enshrined in death...so don't be afraid of the earth, and don't be afraid of death; they make it possible for you to live. Life is possible only because of death, soul is possible only because of the body. The tree is possible only because of the roots, so don't be afraid of the roots, and don't be...

... afraid of death. Don't be afraid of the body. Accept this reality. DYING WITH DEATH, YOU MUST LIVE TO SEEK... Live when life is there. Be committed to the earth while on the earth; die when death comes. Move with life and move with death. Dying, don't cling to life. Dying, don't resist death; dying, die. Living, live; dying, die. Let the moment be total. Float with it, be committed to it. When death...

... have attained was always with me. On the contrary, I have lost many things. I have lost my ego. I have lost my thoughts, my mind. I have lost all that I used to feel I possessed. I have lost my body - I used to think I was the body. I have lost all that. Now I exist as pure nothingness. But this is my achievement*. Let me explain it to you, because this is very central. According to Buddha's approach...

... NEITHER TEMPTED BY THE PASSIONS..." because the passions are of the body, the passions are of the senses. They are very stupid! People come to me and they say, "What to do, Osho? I go on eating too much, I go on stuffing myself - I cannot stop! The whole day I am thinking about food." Now the person who is saying this is simply saying that he has lost all intelligence. Food is needed, but...

..., the body will struggle. That's how it happens. People who have come to meditate here, they were never aware that they were obsessed with food. Meditating, suddenly one day, a great obsession arises about food. They feel continuously hungry; they are surprised because it has never been so. What has happened? Out of meditation? Yes, it can happen out of meditation, because when you are moving in...

... meditation the body starts feeling you are going distant, you are going away. The body starts tempting you. The body will not allow you to become a master. The body has remained master for many, many lives; you have been a slave. Now, suddenly you are trying to change the whole state: you are trying to make the slave the master, and the master the slave. You are trying to stand on your head - to the body...

... it looks exactly like that, that you are turning things upside down. The body revolts, the body fights, the body resists. The body says, "I will not allow you so easily." The mind starts fighting! When the body starts fighting you will feel a great obsession for food arising in you. And when the mind starts fighting, you will feel a great obsession with sex arising in you. Sex and food...

..., these two are going to be the problems. These are the two basic passions. The body lives out of food. When you start moving in meditation the body wants more food to become more strong so it can fight you more. The body wants all strength now, so that it can resist the aggression that has come upon it. The effort that you are making to conquer it, to become a master of it, has to be destroyed. The...

... body needs all energy that is possible. The body becomes mad in eating. The body survives because of food, and when the survival is at stake the body starts eating madly. The mind exists through sex. Why does the mind exist through sex? Because the mind exists by projecting in the future; the mind is a projection in the future. Let me explain it to you. You are a projection of your mother's and...

... will die - within three months, at the most you can survive three months if you are perfectly healthy, then you will die. Dropping food will be death to you. Dropping sex has nothing to do with you. Maybe your children will never be born; that will be a death to them - death before they are even born - but not death to you. Through sex the race survives; through food, the individual. So the body is...

... concerned only with food. This body is concerned only with food, but your mind is concerned with sex - because only through sex, the mind thinks, will it have a sort of immortality. You will die, that seems certain. You cannot deceive - everybody some day is dying. And every time the bell tolls it tolls for thee. Every time death happens, you become shaken: your own death is coming close by. It WILL come...

... - then mind starts imagining some way to avoid it. First it spins philosophies that "the soul is immortal," that "the body will die - I am not going to die." You are even more fragile than the body. This ego that thinks "I will not die" is more flimsy, more dreamlike than the body. The body is at least real; this ego is absolutely unreal. So you spin philosophies: "...

... would like, because I don't see that you will be able to do that which I like. I have to persuade you slowly. You are not ready to take a sudden jump. First I say change your clothes, then I start changing your body. Then I start changing your mind. People come to me and they say, "Why should we change clothes? What is the point?" They are not even ready to change their clothes; more cannot...

... anything. Breath comes in and goes out, the blood circulates, the body is alive and throbbing, the breeze blows, the world goes on spinning around - and you are not doing anything. You are not a doer. You are simply relaxed and things are happening. When things are happening and you are not a doer, you are totally relaxed. When you are a doer and things are not happening but are being manipulated by you...

..., you are tense. You relax partially while you are asleep, but it is not total. Even in your sleep you go on manipulating, even in your sleep you don't allow everything to happen. Watch a man sleeping: you will see that he is very tense, his whole body will be tense. Watch a small child sleeping, he is very relaxed. Or watch an animal, a cat - a cat is always relaxed. You are not relaxed even while...

... is no need to practise it: start from any posture that comes easy to you right now. Don't struggle with the posture. You can sit in an easy chair and relax. The only thing is your body must be in a relaxed state. So just close your eyes and feel all over the body. Start from the legs - feel whether there is some tension or not. If you feel there is some tension, do one thing: make it more tense. If...

... you feel there is some tension in the right leg, then make that tension as intense as possible. Bring it to a peak - then suddenly relax so that you can feel how the relaxation settles there. Then go all over the body just looking everywhere for some tension. Wherever you feel the tension make it more so, because it is easy to relax when it is intense. In just a mid-state it is very difficult...

... the body, all the limbs are relaxed. And be particular about the face muscles, because they carry ninety per cent of the tensions - the rest of the body carries only ten per cent. All your tensions are in the mind so the face becomes the storage. So strain your face as much as possible, don't be shy about it. Make it intensely anguished, anxious - and then suddenly relax. Do it for five minutes so...

... that you can feel that every limb in the whole body is relaxed. This is an easy posture for you. You can do it sitting, or lying in bed or howsoever you feel is easy for you. IN ANY EASY POSITION GRADUALLY PERVADE AN AREA BETWEEN THE ARMPITS INTO GREAT PEACE. The second thing: when you feel that the body has got to an easy posture, don't make much fuss about it. Just feel that the body is relaxed...

..., then forget the body. Because really, remembering the body is a sort of tension. That's why I say don't make much fuss about it. Relax it and forget it. Forgetting is relaxation. Whenever you remember too much, that very remembering brings a tension to the body. You may not have observed this, but there is a very easy experiment to try. Put your hand on your pulse and count it. Then close your eyes...

... is a lady doctor you will be more alert, and it will go faster. So whenever a lady doctor counts your pulse reduce it by ten. Then that will be exactly your pulse count - otherwise there will be ten more counts per minute. Whenever you bring your consciousness to any part of the body, that part becomes tense. You become tense when someone observes you; the whole body becomes tense. When you are...

... alone you are different. When someone enters the room you are not the same. The whole body is going at a faster rate. You have become tense. So don't make much fuss about relaxation or you will be obsessed with it. For five minutes simply relax easily and forget. Your forgetting will be helpful and it will bring a deeper relaxation to the body. .... GRADUALLY PERVADE AN AREA BETWEEN THE ARMPITS INTO...

... GREAT PEACE. Close your eyes and just feel the area between the two armpits: the heart area, your chest. First feel it just between the two armpits with your total attention, total awareness. Forget the whole body, remember just the heart area between the two armpits, the chest, and feel it filled with great peace. The moment the body is relaxed, peace automatically happens in your heart. The heart...

... becomes silent, relaxed, harmonious. And when you forget the whole body and bring your attention just to the chest and consciously feel it filled with peace, much peace will happen immediately. There are areas in the body, particular centers, where particular feelings can be created consciously. Between the two armpits is the heart center, and the heart center is the source of all the peace that happens...

... you. The hit penetrates you and that penetration makes the stone real. If I throw a stone and it touches you but doesn't penetrate you, deep down you will hear the thud of the falling stone on you, but there will be no disturbance. You will feel it as false, unreal, MAYA, illusory. But you are so near the periphery that if I throw a stone at you, you will be hurt. Not the body - the body will be...

... hurt in either case. If I throw a stone at a Buddha the body will be hurt as your body will be hurt, but Buddha is not on the periphery, he is rooted in the center. And the distance is so great that he will hear the thud of the stone without being hurt. The being will remain untouched, unscarred. This unscarred being will feel the stone as if it is something thrown in a dream. It is illusory. So...

... is vibrating. It is because you are coming back to the periphery from the center. And the moment you become alert that now sleep is no more, don't open your eyes. First do this experiment for ten minutes, then open the eyes. The body is relaxed after the whole night and is feeling fresh and alive. You are already relaxed; so it will not take much time. Just relax. Bring your consciousness to the...

... being will be poured into it. But if you know the beloved is going to live, there is no hurry. You can fight and you can postpone the loving for later on. If life is eternal, if the body is immortal, you cannot love. Hindus have a beautiful myth. They say in heaven where Indra rules - Indra is the king of heaven - there is no love. There are beautiful girls, more beautiful than on the earth, and...

... really. Life exists here on earth, where death exists. Whenever you make anything secure, life disappears. Remain insecure, that is the very quality of life itself. Nothing can be done about it. And it is beautiful! Just think if your body was immortal - it would be ugly. You will start finding ways and means of committing suicide. And if it is impossible, against the law, you will suffer so much you...

..., Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity - they have all come from the outside. China is a good soil but it cannot originate any religion, because to originate a religion one has to move into the inner world. To give birth to a religion one has to be like a feminine body, a womb. The feminine consciousness is extremely introvert. A woman lives in herself; she has a very small world around her, the most...

... - forty thousand women and ten thousand men. Why? Physically man can be healthier; spiritually woman can be healthier, because their concerns are different. When you are concerned with others you can forget your body, you can be more physically healthy, but religiously you cannot grow so easily. Religious growth needs an inner concern. A woman can grow very, very easily into religion, that path is easy...

... part tries to pretend as the whole; that is the whole problem. The mind tries to say that it is the whole understanding, but it is just a part. When you fall asleep, where is your mind? The body continues without it. The body digests food; there is no need for the mind. Your brain can be taken out completely and your body will continue. It will digest food, it will grow, it will throw dead things out...

... of the body. Now scientists have come to feel that the mind is just a luxury. The body has its own wisdom; it doesn't bother about the mind. Have you ever observed that the mind goes on playing at being the great knower, without having the slightest feeling that all that is important in the body goes on without it? You eat food. The body doesn't ask the mind how to digest it; and it is a very...

... complex process. It is not easy to transform food into blood, but the body transforms it and goes on working. It is a very complicated process because thousands of elements are involved. In right proportions, the body releases juices, which are needed to digest the food. Then it absorbs that which is needed for the body and it leaves that which is not needed, it throws out the excreta. In the body...

..., every second, thousands of cells are dying; the body goes on throwing them out of the bloodstream. There are millions of needs for hormones, vitamins, and millions of things, and the body goes on finding them from the atmosphere. When the body needs more oxygen, it takes deep breaths. When the body doesn't need it, it relaxes breathing. Everything goes on - mind is just a part in this whole mechanism...

... eating, don't eat. There is no urgency. Just leave everything to the body, to the total. Mind is a creator of problems. Sometimes it says: Eat more, the food is very delicious! And when the body says: Enough, wait, don't force anything any more - you don't listen to the total. The total is wise. In that total, your mind, your body, everything, is involved. Not that I am saying cut the mind off - that...

... slowly, they reach a little later - but everybody is in the queue. Mind's destiny is the madhouse, because a part trying to pretend to be the whole is already mad, insane. And all religions have helped to create divisions in you. All religions have helped the mind to become more and more dictatorial. They say: Kill the body. And you don't understand what you are doing, and you start killing the body...

.... Mind and body and soul - they all exist together, in a togetherness. They are a togetherness. Don't divide; divisions are false, divisions are political. If you divide, the mind becomes the dictator because the mind is the most articulate part in the body. There is nothing else in it. It happens in life also: if a man is more articulate, he will become a leader of men. If he can talk well, if he is...

... phenomenon. No other religion has reached to such a great flowering. Because Zen has come to understand that the understanding is of the total - you eat, you sleep, you be natural and you be total, and don't try to divide yourself, mind and body, soul and matter. Don't divide. With division comes conflict and violence, with division come millions of problems, and there are no solutions. Rather, there is...

... only one solution and that is to be whole again, to leave everything to the natural totality. The mind will be there but its function will be totally different. I also use the mind. I am talking to you, the mind is needed. For communication the mind is needed; in fact it is a communication device. For memory the mind is needed. It is a computer. But to be, your whole is needed. In the body - and when...

... I say "body" I mean your whole: body, mind, soul - everything has its own functioning. If I want to catch something, I will use my hand. If I want to move, I will use my legs. If I want to communicate, I will use my mind. That's all. Otherwise I remain as a whole. And when I use my hands, my whole backs my hands. They are not used against the whole, but with the co-operation of the whole...

... question. Our lives are both predestined and they are not. Both yes and no. And both answers are true for all questions about life. In a way, everything is predetermined. Whatever is physical in you, material, whatever is mental, is predetermined. But something in you constantly remains undetermined, unpredictable. That something is your consciousness. If you are identified with your body and your...

... material existence, in the same proportion you are determined by cause and effect. Then you are a machine. But if you are not identified with your material existence, with either body or mind - if you can feel yourself as something separate, different, above and transcendent to body-mind - then that transcending consciousness is not predetermined. It is spontaneous, free. Consciousness means freedom...

...; matter means slavery. So it depends on how you define yourself. If you say, "I am only the body," then everything about you is completely determined. A person who says that man is only the body cannot say that man is not predetermined. Ordinarily, persons who do not believe in such a thing as consciousness also do not believe in predetermination. Persons who are religious and believe in...

... consciousness ordinarily believe in predetermination. So what I am saying may look very contradictory. But still, it is the case. A person who has known consciousness has known freedom. So only a spiritual person can say there is no determination at all. That realization comes only when you are completely unidentified with the body. If you feel that you are just a material existence, then no freedom is...

... experimented upon. If even one person is free, if even one person is not mechanical, not predictable, Skinner's whole theory falls. If one person in the whole history of mankind is free and unpredictable, then man is potentially free and unpredictable. The whole possibility of freedom depends on whether you emphasize your body or your consciousness. If you are just an outward flow of life, then everything is...

... determined. Or are you something inner also? Do not give any preformulated answer. Do not say, "I am the soul." If you feel there is nothing inside you, then be honest about it. This honesty will be the first step toward the inner freedom of consciousness. If you go deeply inside, you will feel that everything is just part of the outside. Your body has come from without, your thoughts have come...

... from without, even your self has been given to you by others. That is why you are so fearful of the opinion of others - because they are completely in control of your self. They can change their opinion of you at any moment. Your self, your body, your thoughts are given to you by others, so what is inside? You are layers and layers of outside accumulation. If you are identified with this personality...

... themselves. The more you repeat something, the more efficient you become. Efficiency means that now consciousness is no longer needed. If a person is an efficient typist it means that no effort is needed; typing can be done unconsciously. Even if he is thinking about something else the typing continues. The body is typing; the man is not needed. Efficiency means that the thing is so certain that no effort...

... our methods are still very primitive. Newer techniques will be able to determine our behavior to such an extent that no one will be able to say that there is a soul. If your every response is determined, then what is the meaning of the soul? Your responses can be determined through body chemistry. If alcohol is given to you, you behave differently. Your body chemistry is different so you behave...

... differently. At one time, the ultimate tantra technique was to take intoxicants and remain conscious. If a person remained conscious when everything indicated that he should be unconscious, only then would tantra say the man was enlightened, otherwise not. If body chemistry can change your consciousness, then what is the meaning of consciousness? If an injection can make you unconscious, then what is the...

... meaning? Then the chemical drug in the injection is more powerful than your own consciousness. Tantra says it is possible to transcend every intoxicant and remain conscious. The stimulus has been given, but the response is not there. Sex is a chemical phenomenon. A particular quantity of a particular hormone creates sexual desire. You become the desire. You may repent when your body chemistry has...

... returned to its normal level, but the repentance is meaningless. When the hormones are there again, you will act in the same way. So tantra has also experimented with sex. If you feel no sexual desire in a situation that is totally sexual, then you are free. Your body chemistry has been left far behind. The body is there, but you are not in the body. Anger is also just chemistry. Biochemists will soon be...

... able to make you anger-proof, or sex-proof. But you will not be a buddha. Buddha was not incapable of anger. He was capable of it, but the effect of feeling anger was not there. If your body chemistry is controlled, you will be incapable of being angry. The chemical condition that makes you feel angry is not there, so the effect of anger is not there. Or if your sex hormones are eliminated from your...

... body, you will not be sexual. But the real thing is not whether you are sexual or not, or angry or not. The real thing is how to be aware in a situation that requires your unawareness, how to be conscious in a situation that happens only in unconsciousness. Whenever such a situation is there, meditate on it. You have been given a great opportunity. If you feel jealous, meditate on it. This is the...

... right moment. Your body chemistry is working within you. It will make you unconscious; it will make you behave as if you are mad. Now, be conscious. Let there be jealousy, do not suppress it, but be conscious; be a witness to it. If there is anger, be a witness to it; if there is sex, be a witness to it. Let whatever is happening inside you happen, and begin to meditate on the whole situation. By and...

... about it is ill. Awareness must be there moment to moment, not only in acts but in questions, in every gesture. If I raise my finger, it may be just a habit. Then I am not the master of my body. But if it is a spontaneous expression of something that is present in my consciousness right now, it is altogether different. A Christian preacher's every gesture is predetermined. He has been taught it. Once...