... real meaning of it. I saw the death, and something more that was not dying, that was floating above it, escaping from the body... the elements. That encounter determined my whole course of life. It gave me a direction, or rather a dimension, that was not known to me before. I had heard of other people's deaths, but only heard. I had not seen, and even if I had seen, they did not mean anything to me...

.... It is your home. If I cannot resist interfering with you then I will leave the house. You need not." That's exactly what he did. Just two months after this dialogue he was no longer in this world. He not only left the house, he left every house, even the body, which was his real house. I loved the man because he loved my freedom. I can love only if my freedom is respected. If I have to bargain...

... the doctor could not believe that my grandfather was not dead. I knew and he knew that as far as the body was concerned, it was finished; there was no quarrel about that. But there is something more than the body - in the body and yet not part of the body. Let me repeat it to emphasize it - in the body and yet not of the body. Love reveals it; freedom gives it wings to soar in the sky. Is there more...

... courage and more guts than those so- called holy men. And another woman of the same name, Mary was also there. These three women brought Jesus' body from the cross. Not a single man was there. But the Christian church has not accepted those three women as saints. Those twelve cowards who escaped, they are great saints. The woman has been condemned by all the religions. Mahavira says that no woman can go...

... to the ultimate liberation directly from the woman's body. Strange, because the same person continuously teaches people that you are not the body, you are the soul. If you are the soul, then the question arises, is the soul of a woman also feminine? Is the soul of man also masculine? The soul cannot be feminine and cannot be masculine. Consciousness is simply consciousness, it has no sexuality, it...

... discover that Mallinath was not Mallinath; it was a woman. But why did they change the name? Because they were feeling embarrassed. It goes against their whole teaching and their whole philosophy. No person can become enlightened from a woman's body. What is wrong in a woman's body? It is more beautiful than a man's body; it is more strong than a man's body. Perhaps you will be surprised when I say that...

... he explodes, wholesale. What is wrong with a woman's body? Why she cannot become enlightened? I have been working with millions of people, men and women. I don't see any difference as far as enlightenment is concerned. But even a man like Buddha, who is the best of his kind, was afraid to initiate women into his commune. For fourteen years continuously he refused women, he would not initiate them...

... cycle. But once a man has gone beyond all these mind-produced desires, greed, and anger and violence, once one has come to the very center of his being, he is liberated. Liberated from himself, liberated from the body, liberated from the mind. For the first time he understands that the body will be only a prison. Now that his intuition has absolute clarity he can see that the body is nothing but...

... disease and death - maybe a few moments of pleasure, which go on keeping you in the body in the hope that more pleasure... But soon one realizes, if one has intelligence, that those pleasures are very phenomenal, illusory, just made of the same stuff as dreams are made of. The moment this recognition happens, your life energy simply opens its wings and flies into the open sky of the cosmos, to dissolve...

... predicted that he will be coming back after twenty-five centuries. Of course, he can come only in one way, and that is to possess somebody's body; the womb is no longer possible for him. For seven weeks continuously I was witnessing a fire test. Each moment seemed to be the last, and each breath going out was not promising that it would be coming back. In those seven weeks, seven times my heart showed...

... symptoms of failure. My physician Amrito, at the seventh stroke thought that this was the end. I told him, "The cardiogram can show you how many beats I have missed, but it cannot show you that I am not the heart - I am the witness behind it. And my source of life is not the heart or the body; my source of life is existence itself. I trust in existence, and I trust that this seven weeks' long dark...

... feels, "Now existence is taking possession of me. I am not speaking, I am only allowing the existence to speak through me." My Japanese translator, Geeta, has been informing her of everything that has happened in these five tremendously meaningful days. Because of her prophecy that Gautam Buddha has taken possession of my body as a vehicle, I had to admit the truth. But I had also expressed...

... but the disease of the mind, the itching of the mind. If you itch too much, you may bring blood to your own mind, to your own body. It is a disease. Thinking, according to the enlightened masters, is a disease. It will be good if you try to divide the word disease into its basic roots. It means: dis-ease. All thinking is dis-ease. It is a continuous torture inside, a constant rush hour of thoughts...

... silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be completely frozen. Now is the moment to look inwards with your total consciousness, and with an urgency as if this is going to be your last moment. You have to find your center of being - at whatsoever cost. Deeper and deeper - just like an arrow, go on piercing into the very center of your being. That's where you are a buddha. That's where the doors of all...

... the mysteries of existence open. That's where you come to know for the first time your eternity, your cosmic being. You are beyond life and beyond death. What is left? - just a pure witness. That is the only quality in a buddha - just to be a witness. It is the purest thing in the whole world. Watch that you are not the body. Watch: you are not the mind. What remains? - only a witness. And this...

... witness is your ultimate nature. This witness makes you a buddha. To make it more clear, Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Relax, but remember you are not the body, you are not the mind, you are just a pure witness. And slowly slowly a deep joy will arise in you, a blissfulness, an ecstasy, a peace that passeth understanding. You have come home. The Buddha Auditorium has become a lake of consciousnesses merging...

... calls savitarka samadhi, because he was one of the most logical men ever born, one of the most rational minds, the very peak of rationality. He was thinking about the moon, about the stars and the night and the sky, and he forgot himself completely. And the snow started falling, and by the morning he was found almost dead, half his body covered with snow, frozen, and still he was looking at the sky...

... remain one. In Sufi tradition, dance is used to avoid mind. In the last stage, Sufi Masters say that "Whenever you come to a point where object has disappeared, immediately start dancing so that the energy moves into the body and not in the mind. Immediately do something; anything will help." Zen Masters when they attain start laughing a real belly laugh, roar-like, a lion's roar. What are...

... they doing? Energy is there and for the first time energy has become one. If you allow anything else in the mind, immediately the division is again there, and division is your old habit. It will persist for few days. Jump, run, dance, give a good belly laugh, do something so that the energy moves into the body and not into the head. Because energy is there and the old pattern is there, it can move...

... have to pass through the same misery, the same hell that is life, unless you become seedless. And what is seedlessness? If the object is not there, there is no seed. Then all your past karmas simply disappear, because in fact you have never done anything. Everything has been done by the mind - but you are identified, you think you are the mind. Everything has been done by the body - but you are...

... identified, you think you are the body. In a seedless samadhi, in nirvichara samadhi, when only consciousness exists in its utter purity, for the first time you understand the whole thing: that you have never been the doer. You have never desired a single thing. There is no need to desire because everything is in you. You are the ultimate. It was foolish on your part to desire, and because you desired you...

... temporal in the shape of a flower. Look at the face of your husband, your wife, your friend, your beloved, with alertness; meditate on it, and suddenly you see not only the body, but that which is beyond the body, which is coming out of the body. There is an aura around the body, of the spiritual. The face of the beloved is no more the face of your beloved; the face of the beloved has become the face of...

... to the smell, the fragrance. As you move away, the fragrance will become more and more subtle, and you will need more awareness to feel it. Become the nose. Forget about the whole body; bring all your energy to the nose, as if only the nose exists. And by and by, if you lose track of the smell, go few steps further ahead; again catch hold of the smell, then back, move backwards. By and by, you will...

.... Animals first smell the body before they make love. In fact they smell the sex center before they make love. If the sex center is giving them signals, that "Yes, you are accepted, allowed" - only then they make love, otherwise not. The human body also gives smells - of invitation, of repulsion, attraction. The body has its own language and symbols, but in a society it will be very difficult if...

... invitation smell. What to do? You want to make love to your wife. She is your wife, so of course when you want to make love she has to make love, but her body gives you the signal of no love, no invitation, repulsion - what you will do? And bodies are uncontrollable; you cannot control them just by mind. Smell became dangerous; it became sexual. It is sexual. That's why on perfume the names are all sexual...

... Osho This Very Body the Buddha: A Single Shout Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho This Very Body the Buddha   Next > A Single Shout From: Osho Date: Fri, 20 December 1977 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: This Very Body the Buddha Chapter #: 10 Location: am in Buddha Hall Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video...

... sexuality. And for almost fifty years he has been trying to remain a celibate. Now this too much concern creates all kinds of problems. Nothing is solved, more problems are created. But people will think he is a mahatma. I would not like you to become a mahatma. If you can become simple innocent human beings, that is more than is required. Eat whatsoever feels good to you. Take care of the body, be...

... respectful of the body. Be respectful how much you eat, don't overburden the body, because that is a kind of anger, violence. And violence is so subtle that you have to watch it. When a person goes on stuffing himself he is being violent with his own body, he is destructive. Or he can go on a fast, then again he is violent. Just see the point of it. You can eat too much and you can be violent, and you can...

... fast and you can be violent. Eating or fasting is not the question: Don't be violent. Love your body, respect your body, it is God's shrine. But it is very easy to move from too much stuffing to fasting, because the mind always easily moves from one extreme to another, from one obsession to another obsession. First you go on stuffing your body and hurting it, loading it unnecessarily. Then one day...

... you turn against it, you become the enemy of the body. As if it has been the body's fault. Then you start fasting, and again you start torturing your body. But it is violence. And violence is so deep in man that you have to watch it continuously, otherwise it will come from some other way. Morarji Desai goes to other countries - he is against innoculation, any kind of innoculation. Now this is...

... with one irresistible impulse the whole body cried out 'There is no use waiting. We will go today. We will go now. We will go at once. ' And then in one unanimous mass they swept along, and in another moment were clinging fast to the magnet on every side. Then the magnet smiled - for the steel filings had no doubt at all but that they were paying that visit of their own free will. Unconscious, you...

...This Very Body the Buddha...

... WORKS INSTEAD OF INTERNAL CULTIVATION ARE ATTEMPTING THE IMPOSSIBLE. WHAT YOU CALL A MONASTERY, WE CALL A SANGHARAMA, A PLACE OF PURITY. BUT WHOEVER DENIES ENTRY TO THE THREE POISONS AND KEEPS THE GATES OF HIS SENSES PURE, HIS BODY AND MIND STILL, INSIDE AND OUTSIDE CLEAN, BUILDS A MONASTERY. CASTING STATUES REFERS TO ALL PRACTICES CULTIVATED BY THOSE WHO SEEK ENLIGHTENMENT .... AND BURNING INCENSE...

... SIX PERIODS. AS FOR WALKING AROUND STUPAS, THE STUPA IS YOUR BODY AND MIND. WHEN YOUR AWARENESS CIRCLES YOUR BODY AND MIND WITHOUT STOP, THIS IS CALLED WALKING AROUND A STUPA .... THE SAME HOLDS TRUE FOR OBSERVING A FAST .... TO FAST MEANS ...TO REGULATE YOUR BODY AND MIND SO THAT THEY'RE NOT DISTRACTED OR DISTURBED. ALSO, ONCE YOU STOP EATING THE FOOD OF DELUSION, IF YOU TOUCH IT AGAIN, YOU BREAK...

... YOUR FAST. AND ONCE YOU BREAK IT, YOU REAP NO BLESSING FROM IT. THE WORLD IS FULL OF DELUDED PEOPLE WHO DON'T SEE THIS. THEY INDULGE THEIR BODY AND MIND IN ALL MANNER OF EVIL. THEY GIVE FREE REIN TO THEIR PASSIONS AND HAVE NO SHAME. AND WHEN THEY STOP EATING ORDINARY FOOD, THEY CALL IT FASTING. HOW ABSURD! IT'S THE SAME WITH WORSHIPING. YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE MEANING AND ADAPT TO CONDITIONS...

... can be of any use .... BUT WHOEVER DENIES ENTRY TO THE THREE POISONS AND KEEPS THE GATES OF HIS SENSES PURE, HIS BODY AND MIND STILL, INSIDE AND OUTSIDE CLEAN, BUILDS A MONASTERY. Now this is a very farfetched idea. And if Bodhidharma can explain it to very new candidates of Buddhism, why cannot Buddha himself have said that he was speaking in metaphors? He could have explained it himself, and he...

... spoils his own work completely. AS FOR WALKING AROUND STUPAS, THE STUPA IS YOUR BODY AND MIND. WHEN YOUR AWARENESS CIRCLES YOUR BODY AND MIND WITHOUT STOP, THIS IS CALLED WALKING AROUND A STUPA ..... He is just trying to manage somehow, even though the whole thing is so stupid. Stupas actually exist and Buddhists of Mahayana school go on pilgrimages to the stupas and go around them. But your body and...

... mind is not a stupa. A stupa is for when you are dead; then a grave has to be created for you. The Buddhist grave is called a stupa. It is made in a certain round way. But your body and mind are alive. And how can your consciousness go around body and mind? He is not even taking into consideration that all his interpretations can be questioned. They were not questioned because they consoled the...

... people. They wanted something tangible and if it was a metaphor -- no harm; he is not denying Gautam Buddha. THE SAME HOLDS TRUE FOR OBSERVING A FAST. Even a man of very small intelligence can see the stupidity .... TO FAST MEANS ...TO REGULATE YOUR BODY AND MIND. I cannot conceive how a fast can mean TO REGULATE YOUR BODY AND MIND SO THAT THEY ARE NOT DISTRACTED OR DISTURBED. Fast simply means fast...

..., and nothing else. ALSO, ONCE YOU STOP EATING THE FOOD OF DELUSION, IF YOU TOUCH IT AGAIN, YOU BREAK YOUR FAST. Now he has forgotten what he was saying. In fact, because that saying is not coming from his inner-most being -- it is just his mental gymnastics -- he has forgotten that he has defined body and mind as 'stupa' and that he has defined fasting as, 'regulating your body, disciplining your...

... body.' Now from where comes this idea: ONCE YOU STOP EATING THE FOOD OF DELUSION? It was not in the very definition of the metaphor. Food was not brought in. If you STOP EATING THE FOOD OF DELUSION ... And is there any food that is not of delusion? Buddha also eats the same bread as you eat and Buddha also drinks the same water as you drink. ...IF YOU TOUCH IT AGAIN ... Not even eating, but just...

... INDULGE THEIR BODY AND MIND IN ALL MANNER OF EVIL. THEY GIVE FREE REIN TO THEIR PASSIONS AND HAVE NO SHAME. AND WHEN THEY STOP EATING ORDINARY FOOD, THEY CALL IT FASTING. HOW ABSURD! I agree only with the last: How absurd! IT'S THE SAME WITH WORSHIPING. YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE MEANING AND ADAPT TO CONDITIONS. MEANING INCLUDES ACTION AND NON-ACTION .... He is just trying to deceive people -- bringing...

... presupposes a little awareness. If you are unconscious and somebody is doing surgery on you, you will not feel any pain. How can you feel pain? To feel pain, consciousness is needed. That's why in surgery we have to give anaesthesia, so the man falls completely asleep in a coma. Then you can cut, remove parts of the body without any pain. Otherwise, the pain is going to be unbearable. A contented pig is...

... this anaesthesia. Have you ever been into anaesthesia? Slowly slowly, when you start coming out of it, you start hearing a few noises around - the traffic noise, the doctors walking, the nurses talking. Slowly slowly, you start feeling some pain in those parts of the body where the operation has been done. Slowly slowly, you come back. The discontented pig is one who is coming out of the anaesthesia...

... desire remains there. When you go to the sea and you feel a great attraction towards the sea, a gravi-tation almost, a pull, do you know from where it comes? Millions of lives before, you have been in the sea, you have been a fish, life started there. And our bodies have not forgotten it yet; they never forget anything, their memory is absolute. The body knows the thrill, the freedom, the flow of the...

... ocean. So when you see ocean waves, you cannot resist. Something pulls you: "Come into the ocean? It is your fish inside. Do you know that in the mother's womb for nine months you swim in almost the same kind of water as in the sea - with thE same chemicals, in the same proportion? Do you know? Inside your body, eighty percent is sea-water. Just don't take salt for a few days and you will feel so...

... have. been a great fish. So when you are attracted to the ocean... something deep in your memories is ingrained. That's what happens When you go to the lake and to the river, to a swimming pool - or if you cannot go anywhere, then just sitting under your shower. The falling water on you stirs the memories in the body. The body feels relaxed, happy. The body. feels nourished, rooted, centered. But...

... to be, that is learning the art of absence. The vapour simply disappears, you cannot catch hold of it, you cannot even see it. You can see it only when it is turning into vapour - al-d Soon it is gone, and soon it is invisible. A Buddha is seen only when he is in the body. Once the body is dropped, you will not be able to catch hold of him. He is simply gone, he has become part of the ultimate sky...

.... That's how one should think of paradise. Do you know about Jain monks? They don't take a shower, they don't take a bath. Never go to a Jain paradise, otherwise you will be in difficulty. There will be no showers. And plumbers, of course, will not be needed. They are so much against the body that even a simple joy like a shower seems to be too much of a luxury. See the pathological mind, how it works...

.... Afraid that if they take a shower they will be enjoying the body - the joy that will come, and the gladness that will spread all over the body. They are so against the body, how can they take a shower? They stink. They don't brush their teeth because that is a kind of beautifying of the body. And for what? The body has to be dropped, the sooner the better. The body has to be felt as horrible, so make...

... that the body is horrible. Their bodies smell so badly. What have people been doing on this earth? Negating life. My approach is that of affirmation. I am in love With life. t is fleeting, it is momentary - but who says that it is not momentary and it is not fleeting? Still you can love it - even more so because it is fleeting. You can pour all your love. Tomorrow it may not be there. Go on loving...

... LOVING? IT IS TIME TO PUT UP A LOVE-SWING! TIE THE BODY AND THEN TIE THE MIND SO THAT THEY SWING BETWEEN THE ARMS OF THE SECRET ONE YOU LOVE. BRING THE WATER THAT FALLS FROM THE CLOUDS TO YOUR EYES. AND COVER YOURSELF OVER ENTIRELY WITH THE SHADOW OF NIGHT. BRING YOUR FACE UP CLOSE TO HIS EAR, AND THEN TALK ONLY ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT DEEPLY TO HAPPEN. KABIR SAYS, 'LISTEN TO ME, BROTHER, BRING THE FACE...

... it has been, down the ages. All philosophy depends on duality - I/thou, mind/matter, body/soul. The world/God. But watch deep inside your own being. Is the mind separate from the body? Is there really any separation, any debarking line? Can you divide? Can you say 'This is mind and this is matter'? The body and the mind are not two things. You are body/mind - you are psychosomatic, you are one...

... unity. The body is the visible part of your being and the being is the non-visible part of the body. The body is your surface and you are the body's depth. But they are not separate. The world is the body of God. They are not separate, it is one reality. They are two because we cannot yet understand the one. This is the difficulty with the mind - the mind can understand only by dividing, the mind can...

... you think you are separate from the body then you start fighting with the body. Then the holy seems to be the enemy, then the body seems to drag you into the world. Then your life pattern becomes that of repression. And if you think God is separate from the world, naturally you start thinking that the world distracts you from God. So avoid the world, move into a monastery, escape into a desert or a...

... find that the world is transforming its qualities. The earth becomes sky if you go deep into it, the body becomes the soul if you go deep into it. The question is only of depth. Kabir says: I KNOW THE SOUND OF THE ECSTATIC FLUTE, BUT I DON'T KNOW WHOSE FLUTE IT IS. Nobody has ever known. Only the song is heard; the singer is never found. Only the music is heard; the musician is never found. And there...

... moved - actually moved. Your body starts throbbing with it, you start pulsating with it, the beat enters into your being. People were also very much puzzled; they had never heard of such a condition. In fact a musician loves seeing that people are moved - that tears are flowing and people are swaying, that the music has reached their heart and touched them and moved them. Thousands of people were...

... in many other ways. It is time now... IT IS TIME TO PUT UP A LOVE-SWING! Time to move in the real direction of love, time to search for the real Beloved. TIE THE BODY AND THEN TIE THE MIND SO THAT THEY SWING BETWEEN THE ARMS OF THE SECRET ONE YOU LOVE. BRING THE WATER THAT FALLS FROM THE CLOUDS TO YOUR EYES. AND COVER YOURSELF OVER ENTIRELY WITH THE SHADOW OF NIGHT. The original has a beauty of its...

... don't have any poetic insight. The translations are accurate but very unpoetic. They are literal - but Kabir is a great poet and to translate him literally is not accurate. Then it is only the body, and the soul is missing. Robert Bly is a poet, has the poetic insight, but he does not know Hindi. So sometimes he has missed, sometimes he has done just the opposite. For example, in this line: BRING YOUR...

... LOVE-SWING! TIE THE BODY AND THEN TIE THE MIND SO THAT THEY SWING BETWEEN THE ARMS OF THE SECRET ONE YOU LOVE. BRING THE WATER THAT FALLS FROM THE CLOUDS TO YOUR EYES. AND COVER YOURSELF OVER ENTIRELY WITH THE SHADOW OF NIGHT. BRING YOUR FACE UP CLOSE TO HIS EAR, AND THEN TALK ONLY ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT DEEPLY TO HAPPEN. KABIR SAYS, 'LISTEN TO ME, BROTHER, BRING THE FACE, SHAPE, AND ODOR OF THE HOLY...

... has been forgotten. At the moment when Heraclitus was born, precisely at that moment, humanity reached a peak, a moment of transformation. It happens with humanity just as with an individual: there are moments when changes happen. Every seven years the body changes, and it goes on changing -- if you live for seventy years, then your total bio-physical system will change ten times. And if you can use...

... those gaps when the body changes, it will be very easy to move in meditation. For example, at fourteen for the first time sex becomes important. The body goes through a biochemical change, and if at that moment you can be introduced into the dimension of meditation, it will be very, very easy to move because the body is not fixed, the old pattern has gone and the new has yet to come in -- there is a...

... gap. At the age of twenty-one, again deep changes happen, because every seven years the body completely renovates itself: all the old cells drop and the new cells come in. At the age of thirty-five again it happens, and this goes on. Every seven years your body comes to a point where the old goes and the new settles -- and there is a transitory period. In that transitory period everything is liquid...

... flowers on the grave. What are you doing? You are trying to decorate it a little. In the West, how to hide death has become a profession. There are professionals who help you to avoid it, to make the dead body beautiful, as if it is still alive. What are you doing? -- can this help in any way? Death is there. You are headed towards the graveyard; wherever you put it makes no difference -- you will reach...

... are logical. One day Mulla Nasruddin went to his doctor. Coughing, he entered. The doctor said, "It sounds better." Nasruddin said, "Of course, it has to sound better -- because I practiced it the whole night." If you practice rest the whole day, in the night you will be restless. You will change sides again and again: that is just an exercise the body is doing so that some rest...

.... And a person who never contradicts himself, who is absolutely consistent on the surface, will not have the real harmony. There are consistent people: if they love they love, if they hate they hate -- they don't allow opposites to mingle and meet. They are absolutely clear who their enemy is and who their friend is. They live on the surface and they create a consistency. Their consistency is not real...

... consistency: deep down inconsistencies are boiling; on the surface they are somehow managing. You know them because you are them! On the surface you manage, but this won't help. Don't be bothered too much with the surface. Go deeper -- and don't try to choose between the opposites. You will have to live both. And if you can live both, nonattached, unattached to either, if you can live both -- if you can...

... becomes a figure and background phenomenon, then there is a gestalt. And Heraclitus is talking of the deepest gestalt. The obvious harmony is no harmony really, the hidden harmony is the real harmony. So don't try to be consistent on the surface; rather, find a consistency between the deep inconsistencies, find a harmony between the deepest opposites. THE HIDDEN HARMONY IS BETTER THAN THE OBVIOUS. That...

... sought through the opposites. That possibility is completely unknown to them -- that possibility is there. THE HIDDEN HARMONY IS BETTER THAN THE OBVIOUS. ... But difficult, you will be in constant difficulty. People expect consistency from you and the hidden harmony is not a part of the society. It is part of the cosmos, but not of the society. Society is a manmade affair, and society has worked out...

... bring a separate woman would again create trouble. So he took a rib out of Adam and created a woman. Hence, there is a polarity and still a unity. They are two and still they belong to the same body. That is the meaning: they are two, opposites, and still they belong to the same body, deep down the same root; they are one body deep down. That's why when they meet in a deep, loving embrace, they become...

... one body. They come to that state where Adam was, alone; they become one, meet and merge. There is opposition for the game, but still there is oneness deep within. These two things are needed for the game to continue: opposition, and still harmony. If there is absolute harmony the game will disappear -- because with whom will you play? And if there is complete discord, opposition absolute, no...

... body. Four other sannyasins from other places have just arrived, because the moment it was known they have AIDS hospitals are not willing to admit because nobody wants to take the risk. Their own families -- their wife, their children, their parents -- don't want them to enter into the house any more. For them they are already dead. Their friends have turned enemies. Hearing about this -- that we...

... something spiritual, which is simple nonsense. Celibacy is not possible even. Celibacy is not in your control, that you can be celibate or not. Your body goes on creating male sperms and your body has no idea that you are a celibate monk. So what you are going to do with your sperms? When they collect they have to be released. My understanding is that homosexuality was born in monasteries where religions...

... the hills, in the forest, reading -- we have given them the best opportunity that is possible -- and meditate. And they will meditate more intensely, more earnestly, because death is so close. And if they can become centered in their being -- that's what is meditation is -- then death will come but not to them, only to their body. Then they will be able to experience death and experience at the same...

... meditation. Medicine is for the body to heal and meditation is for the soul to heal. But both mean the same in the original root. If there is no medicine, at least give them meditation. Q:* HOW IS YOUR HEALTH? A:* My health is really great. Q:* YOU COMPLAINED LESS THAN A YEAR AGO THAT YOU WERE AILING FROM A VARIETY OF CAUSES. A:* No. I have been suffering because my sickness is not something that I can say...

... go against biology, against physiology. But he cannot go against his consciousness. That creates the rift. So no enlightened people has ever been healthy. Q:* COULD YOU GIVE SOME EXAMPLES OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS GOING AGAINST BIOLOGY AND NATURAL INSTINCT AND THAT SORT OF...? A:* The ordinary man has no awareness that he has something in him which is not part of the body yet in the body. And that space...

... which is not part of the body and yet in the body is your real being. So once you get to it, it becomes your direction for everything. Then body cannot dominate you, physiology cannot dominate you, biology cannot dominate you. And they go on in their blind way. So in fact now you are on two tracks, and to keep them together is the problem that creates unhealth, sickness. Buddha was sick and was...

... continuously having a private doctor with him. Wherever he was going the doctor was with him -- and the best physician of the times. One king has presented his own physician to him, that, "Take care of him because he is in a fragile state." A small misbalance and he will be out of the body. The strings between the being and the body become very loose as you become enlightened. The old tightness is...

... no more there. Just a slight shock and the being and the body will fall apart. So it is a wrong notion around. Many people think like that, that the enlightened person should be perfectly healthy. They don't understand. That means people like Mohammed Ali should be enlightened. Q:* YET THERE ARE SOME YOGA TEACHERS, PARTICULARLY IN.... A:* They are not enlightened. Not a single yoga teacher is...

... has to come to a space within oneself where there is no thought, no feeling, but utter silence, and that comes through a very simple method: by watching your thought process. So there are three steps in it. Start from the easiest: watch your body movements. For example, I can watch my movement of the hand. Either I can do it mechanically or I can do it with full awareness. So walking, eating...

..., swimming, doing anything with your body -- chopping wood -- just remain watchful. Don't get lost in the activity. As if you are somebody else standing by the side, not the person who is chopping wood. You are seeing the person as chopping wood. Once you get accustomed with the body, then the second step is very easy. Then sit silently once in a while and watch the process of your thoughts, the constant...

... forty-eight minutes, then you can move to the third step. Then there is no difficulty at all. The third step is to watch your feelings. So one is for body, one for your head and the third is for your heart. The process is the same. When forty-eight minutes your feelings are no more there, a quantum leap happens on its own accord: the fourth step. But you don't take it. It happens. Suddenly you find...