Chapter 4 – Symptoms and Solutions

CHAPTER FOUR

Symptoms and Solutions

An idiot is a person who is completely closed within himself, caved in. He has no contact with the total energy system. That is his idiocy. And a wise man is one who is not closed at all — the air flows through him, the cosmos flows through him. He has no barriers, no doors closed. He has no privacy of his being. He is porous. And whenever he feels miserable, immediately he puts himself right; immediately he takes the indication. It is a symptom! It is just like illness: wWhen you are not behaving with your body naturally, some illness erupts. That illness is a friend. It shows: “Behave, change your ways! Somewhere you are going against nature.” If you don’t take food for three or four days, you feel dizzy, you feel hungry, you feel sad. The whole body is saying to you, “Take food!” because the body needs energy. Always remember: The eEnergy is neutral, so the whole quality of your being depends on you. You can be happy, you can be unhappy ——it is up to you. Nobody else is responsible. When you feel hungry, eat. When you feel thirsty, drink. When you feel sleepy, go to sleep. Don’t force nature. For a little while you can force it, because that much freedom is there. If you want to fast, you can fast for a few days, but every day you will become weaker and weaker and weaker, and every day you will be in more and more misery. If you don’t want to breathe, for a few seconds you can stop breathing, but only for a few seconds ——that much freedom is possible. But that is not very much, and soon you will feel a choking, dying sensation if you don’t breathe well. All misery exists to indicate to you that somewhere you have gone wrong, you have gone off the track. Come back immediately! If you start listening to the body, listening to nature, listening to your inner being, you will be more and more happy. Become a good listener to nature. Note: All the above matter is in italic form and this matter is taken from Discourse Series The Hidden Harmony Chapter – 9 title: The Sun is New Each Day [I] TENSION IN THE BELLY Question: “I often have a rocklike feeling in my stomach. How can I soften it up?” The majority of people suffer from a this rocklike stomach. It is the cause of a thousand and one illnesses ——physical, mental, both ——because the stomach is the center centre where your psychology and your physiology meet; they meet at the navel. The navel is the contact point between the psychology and the physiology. , Sso if around the navel the musculature becomes rocklike around the navel, you become very divided. Your mind and body become separate; then they are almost two things, with no bridge. So sometimes you can do a something that which only the mind feels like doing but and the body is not ready for. For example, you can eat: the body is not hungry but you can go on eating because the mind is enjoying the taste. It will not know how the body is feeling because the feeling is cut off; there is no bridge. Sometimes you it can be happen that you are so much engaged in playing cards or seeing a the movie that the body is hungry and you may not know that your body is hungry about it. Twhen this happens one remains like two parallel lines, never meeting. That’s what schizophrenia is, and it is very rare to find a person who is not, in some way, schizophrenic. But one symptom is will always present be there: a rocklike stomach. So the first thing to do is: to start exhaling deeply. And when you exhale deeply, naturally, you will have to pull the stomach in. Then relax and let the air rush in. If you have exhaled deeply, the air will rush in with such force. It will go like a hammering ——it will destroy the rocklike structure around the stomach... One thing. This is the first step. The second step thing: in the morning, after your bowel movement the motion when your stomach is empty, take a dry towel and rub the stomach, massage your the stomach. Start from the right corner comer and go around, not the otherwise – way, and give a three–to–four–minutes massage. That will also help to relax the stomach. And the third step thing: whenever you can, do a little running. Running is will be very good ——jogging, running. Do Tthese three things, and within a month the this rock will disappear. When it disappears, just inform me.

Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries

The first basic thing is to come coming back to the body. If we are not in contact with our bodies we are not in contact with the earth. We are uprooted, we don’t have any roots, and without being rooted in the body, nothing can be done, nothing at all. Once you get rooted in the body everything becomes possible. And These problems – like jealousy, possessiveness, — and greed are all part of unrootedness. Because we are not rooted we are always afraid; because of that fear we become possessive, because of that fear we cannot trust anybody, and so jealousy comes. In fact, we cannot trust ourselves ——that is the problem ——and how can you trust yourself when you don’t have any roots in the earth? The tTrust comes when you have deep roots in the earth. Then, come whatsoever, you know that you will be able to stand it and you will be able to face it. Then you don’t cling to others ——there is no need; you are enough alone. So the first step basic thing: don’t bring in other problems right now. The basic thing is that you have to get start getting more and more rooted in the body. Feel the body more, enjoy action, go running in the morning and enjoy your the body and the feel of running energy. Go swimming: ; enjoy your the body and the river and the touch of water. Jog and dance and jump in the air and in the sun and let your the body again start trembling with joy. This has to be done first… , and take as many deep breaths as possible. Once you get into your the body, once you again become alive in the body, nine problems out of ten problems will disappear, and the remaining one we can tackle; that’s not a problem. This is one of the tricks how the society has used to alienate made people from alienated with themselves. It has cut your connection with body, so you are just like a ghost in a machine. You are in your the body and not yet in your the body ——you are just hovering around. You take the hand of your friend in your hand but it is just a dead hand in a dead hand ——there is no feeling, no poetry, no joy. You eat but you go on stuffing yourself; the taste is lost. You see but you don’t see the psychedelic existence as it is; you see dull colors colours, grey, dusty. You listen to music but just sound goes on falling; the music is missed. So for a few months enjoy anything that is concerned with your the body: running, jogging, playing, jumping, dancing, singing, shouting in the mountains. Bring back your childhood! And you will start feeling that you are being born again. You will have the feeling, exactly the same feeling as the caterpillar has when it becomes a butterfly.… It is going to happen!

Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries

Question: “I am [A new sannyasin, who isa businessman and I business man, says that he getsa bad pain in my hisshoulder when I’m he isin the marketplace. Doctors say it is psychosomatic and treat me itwith painkillers.]”

Note: Above Question is in italic form

A I think that a few things can be of very great help. One is Rolfing, or deep-tissue massage, and the second is acupuncture. First try Rolfing; take all the ten session. It is available there so you can do it. If it doesn’t work… ninety percent chances are that it will work. If it is psychosomatic it is going to work, and it must be psychosomatic.

You try that. And if it doesn’t work then try acupuncture next. You could have tried it here but… The pain Itwill go ——it is nothing to be worried about. Just remember a few things. One is: that a Canadian psychoanalyst, Doctor Hans Selye Sehye, has been working his whole life on only one problem ——that is stress. And he has come to certain veryprofound conclusions. One is that stress is not always wrong; it can be used in beautiful ways. It kis not necessarily negative, but if we think that it is negative, that it is not good, then we create problems. Stress in itself can be used as a stepping–stone, ; it can become a creative force. But ordinarily we have been taught down through the ages that stress is bad, that when you are in any kind of stress you become afraid. And your fear makes it even more stressful; the situation is not helped by it. For example, there is something situation in the marketplace and thatis creating the astress. The moment you feel this that there is some tension, this somestress, you become afraid that this should not be so: ‘ “I have to relax.” ‘ Now, trying to relax will not help, because you cannot relax; in fact, trying to relax will create a new kind of stress. The stress is there and you are trying to relax and you cannot, so you are complicating the problem. When stress is there use it as creative energy. First, accept it; there is no need to fight with it. Accept it, it is perfectly okay. It simply says, ‘ “The market is not going well, something is going wrong,” ‘ mm?– or ‘“You may be a loser” ‘… or something else. Stress is simply an indication that the body is getting ready to fight with it. Now if you try to relax or you take painkiller pain-killersor tranquilizers, you take tranquillisers; you are going against the body. The body is getting ready to fight a certain situation, a certain challenge that is there: enjoy the challenge! Even if sometimes you can’t sleep in the night there is no need to worry be worried. Work it out, use that energy that is coming up: walk up and down, go for a run, go for a long walk, plan what you want to do, what the mind wants to do. Rather than trying to go to sleep, which is not possible, use the situation in a creative way. It The energy simply says that the body is ready to fight with the problem; this is no time to relax. Relaxation can be done later on. In fact, if you have lived your stress totally you will come to arelaxation automatically; you can go on only so far, then the body automatically relaxes. If you want to relax in the middle you create trouble; the body cannot relax in the middle. It kis almost as if an Olympic runner is getting ready, just waiting for the whistle, the signal, and he will be off, he will go like the wind. He is full of stress; now thatis no time to relax. If he takes a tranquilizer tranquilliserhe will never be of any use in the race. Or if he relaxes thereand tries to do TM he will lose all. He has to use his stress: the stress is boiling, it is gathering energy. He is becoming more and more vital and potential. Now he has to sit on this stress and use it as energy, as fuel. Selye Sehyehas given this kind of stress a new name for this kind of stress: he calls it eustress ‘eustress’, like euphoria; it is a positive stress. After Whenthe runner has run he will fall into deep sleep; the problem has been issolved. Now there is no problem, and the stress disappears of its own accord. So also try this too: when there is a stressful situation don’t freak out, don’t become afraid of it. Go into it, use it to fight with. A man has tremendous energy and the more you use it, the more you have of it. Rolfing will be helpful also. It is not going to help you relax; it will simply change your musculature, it will make you more vital. So try this will go with Rolfing. When stress itcomes and there is a situation, fight, do all that you can do, really go madly into it. Allow it, accept it, and welcome it. It is good, ; it prepares you to fight. And when you have worked it out, you will be surprised: great relaxation will comes, and that relaxation is not created by you. Perhaps Maybefor two, three days you cannot sleep and then for forty-eight hours you can’t wake up, and that is okay! We go on carrying around many wrong notions ——for example, that every person has to sleep eight hours every day. It depends on the what the situation is. There are situations when no sleep is needed: your house is on fire, and you are trying to sleep. Now that is not possible and thatshould not be possible, otherwise who is going to put that fire out? And when the house is on fire, all other things are put aside; suddenly your body is ready to fight the fire. You will not feel sleepy. When the fire is gone and everything is settled, you may fall asleep for a long period, and that will do. Everyone Everybodydoes not need the same amount lengthof sleep either. A few people can do with three hours, two hours, four hours, five hours, or six, eight, ten, twelve hours. People differ, ; there is no norm. People And about stressalso people differ when it comes to stress. There are two kinds of people in the world: Oone can be called the race–horse type and the other is the turtle type. If the race–horse type is not allowed to go fast, to go into things with speed, there will be stress; he has to be given his pace. And if you are a race–horse! type, Soforget about relaxation and things like that; they are not for you. Those are for turtles type. like me! Mm? So just be a race–horse,—that is natural to you,—and don’t think of the joys that turtles are enjoying; , because that is not for you. You enjoy havea different kind of joy. If a turtle tries to become starts becoming a race–horse he will have the same trouble! You can get out of the marketplace. It is so easy; the mind will say, ‘ “Get out of the market, forget about it.” Just come and be here in the ashram.‘But you will not feel good. If you do; Yyou will feel more stress arising because you will not feel that your energy is engaged, . and I will have to make you a race-horse again in something else. You can ask [the sannyasins who work in the ashram office]: I go on putting them into things! So accept your nature. You are a fighter, a warrior; you have to be that way, and that’s your joy. Now, there is no need to be afraid; go into it whole–heartedly. Fight with the market, compete in the market, do all that you really want to do. Don’t be afraid of the consequences, ; accept the stress. Next time you come you will be in a totally different kind of space.Once you accept the stress it will disappear. And not only that, you will feel very happy because you have started using it; it is a kind of energy. If you are a racehorse type, Ddon’t listen to people who say to relax; that is not for you. Your relaxation will come only after you have earned it by hard labor labour. One has to understand one’s type. Once you do the type is understood there is no problem; then you one can follow a clean-cut path line. Stress is going to be your way of life.

Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries Don’t Bite My Finger, Look Where I’m Pointing Chapter – 9 title: None

Question: “I gat sick very often and I think it has to do with pushing myself too much. Then I don’t feel connected with my center any more and the body falls ill.” Your understanding seems to be on the right track. Everybody has to understand his body’s functioning. If you try to do something which is more than your the body can tolerate, then sooner or later you will fall ill.. There is a certain limit to which you can push your pull on against the body, but that cannot go on forever. You may be working too hard. It may not look too hard to other people, but that is not the point. Your body cannot tolerate that much; it has to rest. And the end total result will be the same. Rather than working for two, or three weeks and then resting for two or three weeks, work all the six weeks but and reduce the workload each day to half… —simple arithmetic. Pushing your body And this is very dangerous because it can destroy many fragile things in the body ——being continuously overworked and then exhausted, depressed, and lying down in the bed and feeling bad about the whole thing is destructive. Reduce your speed, move slowly, and do it in an all-round way. For example, stop walking the way you walk. Walk slowly, breathe slowly, talk slowly. Eat slowly; if you take twenty minutes usually, take forty minutes now. Take your bath slowly; if you usually take ten minutes, take twenty minutes. And Aall around, the activities should be reduced by to half. It is not only a question of your professional work. The whole twenty-four hours should be reduced, the speed at which everything is done should be cut by brought back to the minimum? to half. It has to be a change of tThe whole life pattern and style has to change. Talk slowly… , and even read slowly, because the mind tends to do everything in a particular way. A person who is too much of a worker will read fast, will talk fast, will eat fast; it is an obsession. Whatever Whatsoever he is doing, he will do at a fast pace, even when there is no need. Even iIf he has gone just for a morning walk, he will walk quickly go fast. Going nowhere… , it is just a walk, and whether he you goes two or three miles makes no difference. But a man obsessed with speed is always speedy. It This is just his automatic mechanism, ; it is his automatic mechanical behavior behaviour. It becomes almost inbuilt. So you stop this. So Ffrom today on, reduce everything to half. T’ai Chi will be very good for you. You will enjoy it tremendously. Stand, stand slowly, walk slowly — . aAnd that will give you a very deep awareness of things also, because when you do a certain things very slowly ——for example, moving your this hand very slowly ——you become very aware of deeply alert about it. When you Mmove it fast and you do it mechanically. If you want to slow down, you will have to slow down consciously; there is no other way. Do this for two weeks and then tell me how you, feel. You have been doing more than your body can keep pace with so the body drops, collapses. [The sannyasin adds: It scares me to think that my capacity for work may be so small.] No, no, iIt is not a question of capacity. ; Iit is simply a question of speed. Everybody has his own speed and you one should move at your with one’s own speed. That is natural to you. It has nothing to do with capacity. You can do enough work with this much movement, and I think you will be able to do more. Once you come to your right rhythm, you will be able to do much more. It will not be hectic, everything it will run more smoothly, and you will be able to accomplish do much more. There are slow workers, but this type of slowness results in has its own kind of qualities. And in fact these those are better qualities. A fast worker can be quantitatively good. He can produce more quantitatively, but qualitatively he can never be that very good. A slow worker is qualitatively more perfect. His whole energy moves into a qualitative dimension. The quantity may not be much, but quantity is not the point really. If you can do a few things, but really beautiful things, almost perfectly, you feel very happy and fulfilled. There is no need to do many things. If you can even do one thing that which gives you total contentment, enough; your life is fulfilled. Or Yyou can go on doing many things and nothing fulfills you and everything makes you nauseous and ill. What is the point of that it? And there is no criterion.

A few basic things have to be understood. There is no such thing as human nature. There are as many human natures as there are human beings, so there is no criterion. Somebody is a fast runner, and another somebody is a slow walker. They cannot be compared because both are separate, both are totally unique and individual. So dDon’t be worried about that. Do not concern yourself with This is because of comparison. For example, Yyou see that somebody is doing so much and never goes to bed and you do something and have to go to bed, and therefore so you feel bad and think your capacity is not as much as it should be.

But who is he and how are you going to compare yourself to him? You are you, he is he. If he is forced to start moving slowly, he may start getting ill. because that Then it will be against his nature. What you are doing is must be going against your nature ——so just listen to your nature. Always listen to your body. It whispers, ; it never shouts, because it cannot shout. Only in whispering does it gives you messages. If you are alert, you will be able to understand them it. And the body has a wisdom of its own, which is very much deeper than the mind. The mind is just immature. The body has remained without the mind for millennia. The mind is just a late arrival. It does not know much yet. All the basic things the body still keeps in its own control. Only useless things have been given to the mind ——to think; to think about philosophy and God and hell and politics. [Osho said that tThe most basic functions ——breathing, digesting food, the circulation of blood ——are under the control of the body, while only the luxuries are given to the mind.] So listen to your the body, and never compare. Never before has there been a man like you and never will there be again. You are absolutely unique ——past, present, future.— Sso you cannot compare notes with anybody and you cannot imitate anybody. So drop that idea. For two weeks, slow down. Start from this moment.

Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries

Whenever a real change happens in the mind, the body is immediately affected. If it is a real change, you will always feel something deep down in the body also changing. And whenever something in the body is changing, there is no need to be afraid that the mind will take possession of you again; it is not easy. If only the mind changes and the body has not heard about it, then the mind can take possession very easily, because it remains on the surface. The body is where your roots are. The body is where you are rooted in the earth, and the mind is just like branches in the sky ——lovely to look at, but everything depends on the roots which are deep in the darkness of the earth. They don’t exhibit themselves; they don’t show. If you just move around you will see the branches and flowers, but you will never become aware of the roots. So iIf only the branches are changing and the roots have not been affected, that change is not going to last long. But if the roots are affected, then this change is going to last, and the process cannot be reversed easily. So don’t be worried. Give more and more attention and feeling to the phenomenon that which is happening to the body. You are feeling inside the body ——this is very beautiful. There are millions of people, almost the majority, who do not know any sense of the body. They have completely forgotten that they are in the body… . . . they are just ghost–like. [He replies: It s an entirely new sensation for me.] to rediscover your own roots in the body Yes, it is certainly a new sensation because humanity has been completely cut from the roots. The body has been suppressed for millennia, and the mind has been given the idea that it is the master; that mind is all and the body is nothing but a servant… , is in fact something condemnatory, is something like a sin. One feels embarrassed that one has a body. That’s why people are afraid of being naked, because once you are naked, you are more of a body than a mind. Clothes give you a feeling that the body doesn’t exist ——just the face, the head, the eyes. That is tThe whole mechanism of the mind is located there. So when they are naked, people suddenly feel that they are bodies ——and that doesn’t feel good. Remain inside your the body because that is the reality. Feel more and more… . . . aAllow your the body to have all the sensitivity it can have. Regain it, reclaim it, and allow the body more changes so that you can feel its being. For example, sometimes close your eyes and lie down on the earth… , feel the earth with your the body. Don’t think about it, feel it. Go into the river and lie down in the water, in the sand. Just lie in the sun. Feel more… . . . be sensuous. When you eat bread, first feel it with your hand… , put it on your cheek and feel it… , smell it. First let it be known by the body. Then taste it… . . . cClose your eyes and let the taste spread all over. And don’t be in a hurry; don’t simply go on stuffing it in. Enjoy it… , chew it well ——because this bread is going to become your body. Don’t miss this opportunity. This bread is your potential body. So receive it, welcome it, and you will have a totally different body within a few months. If you eat with a different mind, a different attitude; drink water with a different attitude, and remember always to be more sensuous, sensitive, soon you will see that your the body has been dead in many parts. You become alive, as if you were a lion sleeping and now the lion is coming back… , spreading its legs, stretching its body. You will find that same sensation of arising life. It is almost a resurrection.

Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries

Note: Above Question is in italic form

You always get up between three and four? Then make that it a meditation time. Always use opportunities for some positive good. Be creative about everything. If you cannot sleep, then there is no need to force sleep, for and sleep cannot be forced in the first place. Sleep is one of those energies that cannot be willed. If you will it, you will be disturbed. If you do something to force go into sleep, your very doing will be the hindrance, because sleep is against doing; it is a state of non-doing. So if you make any effort: —for example, if you start counting sheep or you start repeating a mantra or you start turning this way and that, or you start calling out for gGod and start praying, —all that will make you more awake. It That won’t help but that’s what people go on doing. My approach is totally different. First, if sleep is gone that simply means your body is perfectly rested and people have different… needs. . . [She says: “But I feel exhausted But I feel exhausted.” and then I feel… ] That is your mind; that‘s has nothing to do with the body. Just the idea that you have not been sleeping well tires you. It is not really the lack of sleep. , Bbecause the body mechanism, the body organism, has its own wisdom. For example, you are eating…. , and Tthe body says, ‘ “Enough!” ‘ but you say, ‘ “Because I am so thin and lean, I have to eat more.” ‘ That is wrong; you are creating trouble for yourself. You can eat, you can force a little more, you can stuff, but the organism is not ready for it and it will reject the food. One day you are not feeling like to eating at all, but your mind says that if you don’t eat you will become weak. Nobody becomes weak in one day. If your the body is not feeling like to eating, it is better to listen to it; it knows better. It has an instinctive knowledge that at this moment eating will be dangerous. Maybe some work is going on in the intestines and the body wants to clean it before you put in any more food. Maybe some poison has entered. You have already taken in too much food and the body has not been able to finish its work with it. It does not need any more work, ; otherwise the whole mechanism will go berserk; it will not be possible for it to manage. So the body says, ‘ “No food, no appetite.” ‘ No appetite is body language, just a symbol for you. The body cannot speak verbally: it cannot say, ‘ “Stop!” ‘ That is a symbol, a body symbol: no appetite. The body is saying, ‘ “Don’t eat!” ‘ but you in your have a certain mind, you feel that you have to eat at least twice or three times a day, otherwise you will become weak. So you go on stuffing yourself, and because you have there is no appetite you try to create a false appetite. You will put more spices in the food to create so you have a false appetite or you will go to some place where you always like to eat. You are trying to deceive the body, but this is just stupid! And the same happens with sleep. If you have fallen asleep and at three or four you feel you are wakeful, that simply means the body is rested. The body’s sleep is finished, now your mind is creating trouble. So use that one hour. Just lie down there silently; enjoy the silence of the night! Rather than getting disturbed because your the sleep is broken, enjoy this moment for meditation. No need to get up: just lie down there on the bed, rest, but listen… . . . the sounds of the night are there, the silence of the night. The traffic noise is there but people are not there; everybody is asleep. This is beautiful! You are alone ——almost as if you are in the mountains ——with the darkness and the soothing quality of the darkness. Enjoy that and relax into that enjoyment. You see the point? Otherwise you become miserable — , that once again your sleep has been broken; again tomorrow you will be tired and worried and there will be tensions and anguish and anxiety. Those things will not allow you to go to sleep again. Take a positive vision, use this time. One of our sannyasins Is in gaol in australia…. For some foolish legal thing he has been put into gaol. He was very much worried that two years would be wasted. I wrote to him to meditate. This is a monastery; a gaol is a monastery! A few people use monasteries as gaols; you use the gaol as a monastery! He got the idea! Now he is so happy; he has never been so happy. Mm? that small cell and all alone; nobody to disturb and a guard there on duty. It is beautiful! Regular food and regular sleep… no worries of earning, etcetera. He started meditating; now he is enjoying. He says, ‘Osho, it is really a blessing in disguise!’ Now he will come out of the gaol a totally transformed person. So use that one hour, mm? Get in tune with the night, the sounds of the night, and enjoy! It has immense beauty. Then you will not know when you have fallen into sleep again… . . . but that is a by-product, and that can only be a by-product. When you are so absorbed listening to the night sounds, again you will slip into sleep slowly ——but not through any will, not that you were wanting. And I am not saying that you have to meditate so that you can sleep, no. There is no ‘ “so that,” ‘, there is no ‘ “therefore‘.” I am simply saying to enjoy! And suddenly you will find that the sleep has happened. But whether it happens or not is irrelevant. If it happens, good; if it doesn’t happen, also perfectly good. Just for three weeks do this and all tiredness will disappear. That is a mind thing. From the very morning you are carrying the idea that you are tired. Of course, you will be getting more and more tired. You will be afraid of everything, of every involvement. You are already tired so if you do this you will be more tired. You are creating a neurosis around you. Everybody has different needs for about sleep and food. One person Somebody sleeps eight hours, another somebody may need ten hours, and somebody may need only six and others somebody may need even four, and or sometimes there are people who need only three or two hours…. . . . My own father could cannot sleep after three o’clock. He went goes to sleep at near about eleven, so he had has three, four hours’ sleep at the most. My mother has always been worried, but I told my father to sit in meditation. So he sat sits from three, and that became has become his door to the divine. For years now he has sat from three to seven… . . . and he almost becomes like a statue; he forgot his forgets the body. Now tThat because has been the most precious experience of his life; no sleep can give it. He was is fresh by three; that’s how his mechanism, his body, was is functioning. In the beginning he used to try to go to sleep. It was a misery because the sleep wouldn’t come and he would get tired trying to sleep, and frustrated; by the morning he would be frustrated. If you Three or four hours of struggles for three or four hours to sleep every night and sleep it doesn’t come; , how can you not be remain unfrustrated? But after he found since I have given him meditation, all the frustration has disappeared, and those times became have become his most valuable moments. Now hHe started longing longs for them: for twenty-four hours he was thinking thinks about them, because those were are the most peaceful. He has used the time it rightly. So just see it as meditation… Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries Only Losers Can Win in This Game Chapter – 23 title: Mind is maddening [7] TENSION AND RELAXATION

Question: “I experience a lot of tension and stress. How can I relax more?”

But sStart relaxing. Start from the circumference ——that’s where we are, and we can start only from where we are. Relax the circumference of your being ——relax your body, relax your behavior, relax your acts. Walk in a relaxed way, eat in a relaxed way, talk, and listen in a relaxed way. Slow down every process. Don’t be in a hurry and don’t act be in haste. Move as if all eternity is available to you ——in fact, it is available to you. We are here from the beginning and we are going to be here to the very end, if there is a beginning and there is an end. In fact, there is no beginning and no end. We have always been here and we will be here always. Forms go on changing, but not the substance; garments go on changing, but not the soul. Tension means hurry, fear, doubt. Tension means a constant effort to protect, to be secure, to be safe. Tension means preparing for the tomorrow now, or for the afterlife — , afraid that tomorrow you will not be able to face the reality, so you have to be prepared. Tension means the past that you have not lived really but only somehow bypassed; it hangs, it is a hangover, it surrounds you. Remember one very fundamental thing about life: any experience that has not been lived will hang around you, will persist: “Finish me! Live me! Complete me!” There is an intrinsic quality in every experience that it tends and wants to be finished, completed. Once completed, it evaporates; incomplete, it persists, it tortures you, it haunts you, it attracts your attention. It says, “What are you going to do about me? I am still incomplete ——fulfill me!” Your whole past hangs around you with nothing completed ——because nothing has been lived really, everything somehow bypassed, partially lived, only so-so, in a lukewarm way. There has been no intensity, no passion. You have been moving like a somnambulist, a sleepwalker. So that past hangs, and the future creates fear. And between the past and the future is crushed your present, the only reality. You will have to relax from the circumference. The first step in relaxing is to relax the body. Remember as often many times as possible to look in the body, to find out it whether you have tension are carrying somewhere tension in your the body somewhere ——at the neck, in the head, in the legs. If so, Rrelax it consciously. Just go to that part of the body, and persuade that part, say to it lovingly “Relax!” And you will be surprised that if you approach any part of your body, it listens, it follows you ——it is your body! With closed eyes, go inside your the body from the toe to the head searching for any place where there is a tension. And then talk to that part as you would talk to a friend; let there be a dialogue between you and your body. Tell it to relax, and tell it, “There is nothing to fear. Don’t be afraid. I am here to take care ——you can relax.” Slowly, slowly, you will learn the knack of it. Then your the body will becomes relaxed. Then take another step, go a little deeper; tell the mind to relax. And if your the body listens, your mind also listens, ; but you cannot start with the mind ——you have to start at from the beginning. You cannot start from the middle. Many people start with the mind and they fail; they fail because they start from the a wrong place. Everything should be done in the right order. If you become capable of relaxing your the body voluntarily, then you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily. The Mmind is a more complex phenomenon. Once you have become confident that your the body listens to you, you will have a new trust in yourself. Now even your the mind can listen to you. It will take a little longer with your the mind, but it will happens. When your the mind is relaxed, then start relaxing your heart, the world of your feelings, emotions ——which is even more complex, more subtle. But now you will be moving with trust, with great trust in yourself. Now you will know it is possible. If it is possible with the body and possible with the mind, it is possible with the heart too. And then only then, when you have gone through these three steps, can you take the fourth step. Now you can go to the innermost core of your being, which is beyond body, mind, and heart: , oyou can go to the very center of your existence. And you will be able to relax it too. And that relaxation certainly brings the greatest joy possible, the ultimate in ecstasy, acceptance. You will be full of bliss and rejoicing. Your life will have the quality of dance to it. The whole of existence is dancing, except for man. The whole of existence proceeds is in a very relaxed way movement; there is movement there is, certainly, but it is utterly relaxed. Trees are growing and birds are chirping and rivers are flowing, and stars are moving: everything is happening going in a very relaxed way. No hurry, no haste, no worry, and no waste. Except for man. Man has fallen a victim to of his mind. Man can rise above gods and fall below animals. Man has a great spectrum of possibilities. From the lowest to the highest, man is a ladder. Anurag, sStart from the body, and then go, slowly, slowly, deeper. And don’t start with anything else unless you have first solved the first problem primary. If your body is tense, don’t start with your the mind. Wait. Work on the body first. Remember, And just small things are of immense help. You walk at a certain pace; that has become habitual, automatic. Now try to walk slowly. Buddha used to say to his disciples, “Walk very slowly, and take each step very consciously.” If you take each step very consciously, you are bound to walk slowly. If you are running, hurrying, you will forget to do this remember. Hence Buddha walks very slowly. Just try walking very slowly, and you will be surprised —— a new quality of awareness will starts happening in your the body. Eat slowly, and you will find that be surprised — there is great relaxation. Do everything slowly… . . . just to cChange the old patterns, leave behind the just to come out of old habits. First the body has to become utterly relaxed, like that of a small child, then only then can you start with the mind. Move scientifically: first do the simplest, then the complex, finally then the more complex. And only then only can you relax at the ultimate core. You ask me, Anurag, “Will you say something more about relaxation? I am aware of a tension deep in the core of me and suspect that I have probably never been totally relaxed.” That is the situation of every human being. It is good that you are aware — millions are unaware of it. You are blessed that you are aware, because if you are aware then something can be done. If you are not aware, then nothing is possible. Awareness is the beginning of transformation. And you say, “When you said the other day that to relax is one of the most complex phenomena possible, I glimpsed a rich tapestry in which the threads of relaxation and let-go were deeply interwoven with trust, and then love came into it, and acceptance, going with the flow, union and ecstasy….” Yes, Anurag, rRelaxation is one of the most complex phenomena ——very rich, multidimensional. All these things are part of it: let-go, trust, surrender, love, acceptance, going with the flow, union with existence, egolessness, ecstasy. All these are part of it, and all these start happening if you learn the ways of relaxation. Your so-called religions beliefs have made you very tense, because they have created guilt in you. My effort here is to help you get rid of all guilt and all fear. Let me I would like to tell you: , there is no hell and no heaven. Sso don’t be afraid of hell and don’t be greedy for heaven. All that exists is this moment. You can make this moment a hell or a heaven ——that certainly is possible ——but there is no heaven or hell somewhere else. Hell is when you are all tense, and heaven is when you are completely all relaxed. Total relaxation is paradise. Note: This matter is taken from The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1 Chapter – 8 title: The Beginning of the new phase Question – 2 [8] NEGATIVE FEELINGS ABOUT THE BODY Question: “I don’t myself, especially my body.” It is not in the body — it is just in your idea. If Yyou have a certain idea about how the body should be, and if you have some idea you will be miserable in misery. The body is as it should be. If you have some idea you will be in misery, so drop that idea. This is the body that you have got; this is the body that gGod has given to you. Use it… , enjoy it! And if you start loving it, you will find it is changing, because if a person loves his body he starts taking care of it, and care encompasses implies everything. Then you don’t stuff it with unnecessary food, because If you care. , Tthen you don’t stuff starve it, because with unnecessary food. If you care , then you don’t starve it. You listen to your body’s its demands, you listen to its hints ——what it wants, when it wants it. When you care, when you love, you become attuned to your the body, and your the body automatically becomes okay. If you don’t like your the body, that will create a the problem, mm? because then by and by you will become indifferent to your the body, and negligent of it the body, because who cares about the enemy? You will not look at it; you will avoid it. You will stop listening to its messages, and then you will hate it more. But And you are creating the whole problem. The body never creates any problems; it is the mind that creates problems. Now, this is an idea of the mind. No animal has a problem suffers from any idea about his the body image, no animal… , not even the hippopotamus! Nobody suffers — tThey are perfectly happy because there is no mind is there to create any negative thoughts an idea; otherwise the hippopotamus might will think, ‘ “Why am I like this?” ‘ (laughter) Animals have There is no such problems in it. Just drop the ideal. Love your body ——this is your body, this is a gift from gGod. You have to enjoy it and you have to take care of it. When you take care, you exercise, you eat, and you sleep. You take every care because this is your instrument, just like your car, which that you clean, which that you listen to, listen to every hum — , so you will to know whether something is going wrong . — mm? You take care even if the body gets a scratch comes on the body. Just take care of the body and it will be perfectly beautiful ——it is! It is such a beautiful mechanism, and is so complex, and yet working . It works so efficiently that for seventy years it goes on functioning for seventy years. Whether you are asleep or awake, aware or unaware, the body it goes on functioning, and the functioning is so silent. Even without your caring it goes on functioning; it goes on doing service for to you. One should be grateful to the body. Just change your attitude and you will see that within six months your body has changed its form. It is almost like when you fall in love with a woman; and you see: that she immediately becomes beautiful. She may not have cared about her body up to this moment, but when a man falls in love with her, she starts taking care. She stands before the mirror for hours… . . . because somebody loves her! The same happens: when you love your body; and you will see that your body has starts started changing. It is loved, it is taken care of, it is needed. It is a very delicate mechanism ——people use it very crudely, violently. Just change your attitude and see the difference! Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries Hallelujah! Chapter – 31 title: The Boat to the other Shore in Love

The mind goes on creating unnecessary problems. But that is the whole function of the mind ——to create baseless problems. And once it creates them, you are caught, up and you try to solve them. Don’t try to solve them. Simply see the baselessness in them it. The very irrelevance has to be seen, that’s all. If you start doing something, then you have accepted the problem. Just see the irrelevance of it. Every face is beautiful. Every face is differently beautiful. Every face is a separate face, and every face is unique. In fact, there is no comparison and no possibility of any comparison. If you accept this, you will become beautiful. Through acceptance, beauty happens. If you yourself deny and reject, then you will become crippled and ugly. Now there is a vicious circle. First you reject; you don’t accept ——then you become ugly. Soon Then others will start feeling the ugliness, and you will say, ‘ “Right, so that’s true. I was thinking on along the right lines‘.” So you reject yourself more. This is how the mind goes on fulfilling itself. And all its prophecies are bound to be fulfilled once you miss the first step. The first step is that you are you. There is no criterion for of beauty. In fact, for almost five thousand years philosophers have been trying to define beauty. And they have not been able to, because there is no criterion. One person is beautiful to someone and to another he is not. Even the most beautiful woman may seem ugly be just horrible to someone. It is an absolutely personal choice. So there is no criterion… . . . and the criterion changes like fashions in clothes. For example, in India, if a woman does has not have very big breasts and big buttocks, she is not considered beautiful. Now in the West, buttocks are almost disappearing; breasts are also getting smaller and smaller. A different concept of beauty is arising. And whatever whatsoever the concept, the body fulfills it. It has This is something to be understood. that Wwhen in a country the concept is that big breasts are considered beautiful in a country, then women produce big breasts. Just look tomorrow at indian women. Look at their buttocks — they have big buttocks, because for centuries it has been the idea that a beautiful woman has to have big buttocks. If you read indian novels, ancient stories, always big buttocks are described, but in no western novel are buttocks described. In fact the woman is not described from the back at all. Ordinarily people say that novels, poetry, and literature, reflect society. But it works the opposite way also. Novels, poetry, literature, create society also. Once you have a certain idea that gets into people’s minds, it works. There is no criterion for of who is beautiful and who is not. It is a personal liking, ; in fact, a whim. But if you don’t accept yourself, in the first place, you are creating a situation in which nobody can accept you. Because if you don’t accept, you won’t allow anybody else to accept you. You will create all sorts of disturbances, troubles for him, because he is going against your idea. If you are a woman and a man somebody falls in love with you, you will destroy that love, because you will say, ‘ “How can you fall in love with an ugly witch?” ‘ Or you will think the this man has a very peculiar funny idea of beauty. If you don’t love yourself, then no one else nobody can love you either. So first, everyone everybody has to fall in love with himself. Jesus says ‘ “Love God. Love your neighbor neighbour like yourself‘.” That is the basic precept thing. If you love yourself, then you can love your neighbor neighbour and then you can love your God. But the basic commandment is: Love yourself. If you love yourself, if you are happy with yourself, you will attract many people. A woman who loves herself must be beautiful, has to be beautiful. She creates beauty out of her love for herself. She becomes a grace, a dignity. Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries Be Realistic: Plan for the miracle Chapter – 18 title: None

Inner beauty And that is the only beauty there is. All beauty, all other beauties are only skin-deep. One can fool oneself for the time being, but sooner or later the other beauty wears out and one is left in utter ugliness because one never developed the real beauty. The real beauty has nothing to do with the face but with the luminosity that comes from your within. It has nothing to do with the form of the eyes but rather with light that shines through them. It has nothing to do with the body but rather with the inner presence that vibrates through the body. The rReal beauty arises at the core, at the very core of your being, and spreads outwards towards the body. The fFalse beauty is only just on the surface; it has no roots in you. It is ungrounded. Remember: , one has to seek and search for the real beauty. And the real is eternal, it remains: once you have found it, you have found it forever. The momentary is simply a waste wastage of time, ; it is a kind of dream. One can remain occupied in a dream for the time being, but as soon as the moment you wake up you see that it was all foolish, stupid. Note: This matter is taken from

That can make you more young. A very good feeling about one’s own body helps life tremendously. It makes you more healthy, more whole. Many people have forgotten their bodies; they have become oblivious and they think about the body as if it is something that which has to be hidden behind clothes, something that always which has to always be covered and not allowed to be seen; something obscene, impure. Absurd notions, neurotic notions. The body is beautiful. The body as such is beautiful; young or old makes no difference. Of course youth has its own beauty and old age its own. The young body is more vital. The old body is more wise. Each age has its own beauty; there is no need to compare them it. And, particularly in the west, the old body has become a very frightening concept experience because life is somehow thought synonymous with youth, which is a foolish idea. It The east is better in the East. Life there is seen more synonymous with the old, because an old man has lived more, experienced more, loved more; has known many seasons of life, ups and downs. The old man has lived youth. The youth has yet to live old age. The old body simply carries all the experiences, the scars, the wounds, the grace that comes through ripening experiences. And once you start enjoying your body and loving it at whatsoever stage it is, suddenly you feel it is again beautiful, and that releases many things inside. It has been a really beautiful experience. Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries Dance Your Way to God Chapter – 14 title: None

Because this is a wrong attitude, and you will unnecessarily create trouble for yourself and will miss many things which are necessary. One has to go beyond sex one day, but the way beyond goes through it, and if you never go into it rightly, it is very difficult to go beyond it. So going through it is part of going beyond. And people who cannot enjoy sex You may have learned that some attitude, you may have been conditioned. Around All over the world somehow, humanity is being corrupted by people ——and the greatest corruption is that everybody is taught to feel guilty about enjoying themselves… . . . as if something is wrong when you are happy. When you are miserable, everything is okay, but when you are happy, something is wrong. So happiness has been crushed and repressed ——and unless you explode into happiness, you miss the whole opportunity of life. Life exists for that purpose, — so that one has to learns how to be absolutely happy… , how to explode in it. And certainly sex brings you the greatest possibility of explosion. It is one of the most natural ways to have a glimpse of samadhi samadhi, of deep meditation, of benediction. There are other ways to go into benediction but they are not as so natural. Sex is the most natural way ——it is biologically built-in. Sex It is a gift of God so that any person ——he may be religious, irreligious, Hindu, Mohammedan, may believe God exists, may not believe, be a communist, atheist, or whatever whatsoever…. . . . But this one thing is naturally there that will gives a glimpse of something beyond ——beyond the body, beyond the mind. So, being a woman, there are three things you have to remember and try. First, when you are making love, be active. If you are inactive, this difficulty you feel can thing will happen easily. When you are active, this will not happen so easily. So tTell your boyfriend that he has to play the role of the a woman and you will play the role of the a man. Let it be a game. So lLet him be more passive and you become more active. When one is more active, the activity is more involved, your energy is more involved ——it is difficult to stop it in the middle. But when you are passive you can stop any time because you are almost out of it. You are just there like a spectator. , Sso become more active, mm? instead. And this is just a temporary measure. Once you have attained to orgasmic experience, then there is no need to continue ——you can to start playing your old role of being a woman. This is just temporary. So tell your boy-friend that he has to be the woman, and you have to be the man and be active. Now for the And second thing: before you make love, dance together. Let it be a wild dance. Sing loudly, dance, play music if you want to. Have incense in the room. Make it an elaborate ritual… . . . almost religious. People don’t move towards love–making in steps. Two persons are sitting, and suddenly they start making love. It is so abrupt ——especially and it is very abrupt for the woman. For the man it is not so abrupt because man’s energy is a different type of energy, and his man’s sexuality is more local. The woman’s sexuality is more total; her whole body has to be involved in it. So unless it is preceded by a foreplay, a woman never gets goes deeply into it. So first dance, sing, let the energy bubble up, and then be the active partner. And go wild! Don’t have any pattern ——just go wild. If you want to scream while making love, don’t worry be worried. If you want to sing, don’t worry be worried. If you want to sing, don’t worry. If you want to just utter some jgibberish, utter it ——it that will function like a mantra. And finally, the third thing: every day from the morning to the evening, you have to take note of the watch — in other things in which also you also must be repressing your joy. This So it has to be changed altogether. When you are eating, eat joyfully, because everything is interconnected. When you are dancing, joy has to be there. When Mmeditating, be joyful. When Ttalking to a person, be joyful, be radiant, flowing. When Wwalking on the road, be joyful. Often Wwe don’t know how much we are missing. Just an ordinary walk along on the road coming to the ashram — you bring you can enjoy it so much joy tremendously. Who knows? — tThere may not be another day again. Tomorrow you may not be able to walk along on the road. Tomorrow you may not be there to receive the sun. The wind will be there, but you may not be there. Who knows about tomorrow? So tThis may be the last day. , Sso always enjoy each moment of it as if it is going to be the last. Take the whole of it, squeeze it completely, don’t leave anything in it. This way Then one lives intensely and passionately. And sex is just a by–product of your total attitude, so you cannot just change your sexual experience — that is not possible. Everything is interconnected, mm? and so you will have to change everything. Eat joyously! Just dDon’t go on eating just as if you have to do it so you just stuff the body ——enjoy it! It is a sacrament. Walk — , and enjoy it too. It is God’s gift, and one has to be thankful for it. When Ttalking to somebody, enjoy the conversation it. So fFrom this moment on also start enjoying things that also which have nothing to do on the surface have nothing to do with sex, mm? . But tThe end total result will be that if you enjoy other things, you will enjoy sex too. If you don’t enjoy other things, you will not enjoy sex either. It This is my observation — that the attitude towards sex is a very symbolic attitude; it shows everything about your whole life. So if you are will not be enjoying sex you will not be enjoying other things either, or you will be only enjoying them to a certain extent and then you will be stopping. A man who is afraid of happiness, and joy, is always afraid of many things. You will go to a certain extent and then stop. Do Tthese three things, and then report to me after three weeks. Enjoy Tthree weeks of wild life, mm? (She laughs) . Forget all humanity ——be an animal, pure animal, and then you I can become make you a human being very easily. But to be an animal one needs to go deeply into things. Unless you are a real animal, you cannot become a real human being. And unless you are a real human being, you cannot become a divine being. Everything has a hierarchy: the animal is the base of the temple, humanity is the walls of the temple, and divinity is the roof. So the roof cannot exist without the base. One can have the roof, but and if there are no walls, then too it cannot exist either. Man is a three–storey story building: the first story storey is animal, the second is human, the third is divine. So you start from the first, from the very beginning – and lay down the foundation stone. Right? Good! Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries The Shadow of the Whip Chapter – 15 title: Sex is the Beauty of Total Release [13] IMPOTENCE Question: “Whenever I’m making love to a woman, this fear of impotence arises.” You have the western attitude about sex; that is creating trouble. The western attitude is always about making things happen, doing something! And there are a few things that which cannot be “done.” There the West becomes very very crazy! For example, sSleep, and sex. —Tthese are things you cannot “do,” so the West suffers very much from lack of sleep also, insomnia, and also from sex. Everyone Everybody is worried that he is not experiencing it as it should be. The oOrgasm does is not come coming or it is very local or it is very lukewarm or it is not total. And the quality of sleep is not good: there are too many dreams. Many times one wakes or one has to wait hours for sleep it to come. People are trying all kinds of things to bring sleep: the tranquillizers, the tricks, the mantras and Transcendental MeditationTM. And about sex also pPeople are also very very worried about sex. That very worry and that very effort to do something is the problem. Sex happens; it is not a thing that you have to do. So you have to learn the eastern attitude toward sex, the Tantra attitude. The Tantra attitude is that you be loving to a person. There is no need to plan, there is no need to rehearse in the mind. There is no need to do anything in particular: just be loving and available. Go on playing with each other’s energy. And when you start making love, there is no need to make it great. Otherwise you will be pretending and so will the other person. She He will pretend that she is a great lover and you will pretend that you are a great lover… . . . and both will be are unsatisfied! There is no need to pose anything. Making love It is a very silent prayer. It Making love is meditation. It is sacred, ; it is the holiest of holies. So while you are making love to a woman go very slowly… , with taste, taking in every flavour of it. And go very slowly: there is no hurry, no need to hurry; there is enough time is there. And while making love, forget about orgasm. Rather, be in a relaxed state with the woman, relax into each other. The western mind is continuously thinking about when it is coming and how to make it fast and great and this and that. That thinking does not allow the body energies to function. It does not allow the body to have its own way; the mind goes on interfering…. . . . Relax with the other person man. If nothing happens there is no need for anything to happen. If nothing happens, then that is what is happening… . . and that too is beautiful! Orgasm does is not have such a thing that it has to happen every day. Sex should be just being together, just dissolving into each other. Then one can keep making love for half an hour, for one hour, just relaxing into the other. Then you will be of utter mindlessness, because there is no need for the mind. Love is the only thing where the mind is not needed; and that’s where the West is wrong: it brings in the mind even there! So just relax into each other and forget about the mind. Enjoy the very presence of the other, the meeting, and get lost in it. Don’t try to make anything out of it; there is nothing to make. Then one day there will be a valley orgasm; there will be no peak. There will be only relaxation, but that has its own peak because it has depth. Someday Some day the body will trigger itself into a peak orgasm, but that will also be coming; you will just be there. Sometimes there will be a valley, sometimes there will be a peak… . . . and that is a rhythm. You cannot have a peak every day. If you have only peaks, then the peak will not r be very big. You have to earn the peak by going into the valley. So it is half and half. Sometimes it will be a valley orgasm. Then get lost in the darkness of the valley, the coolness and the peace. That is how you earn a peak. One day the energies are ready: they themselves are going towards the peak. , Nnot that you are taking them. How can you? Who are you and how can you manage to do it? By being in the valley the energy accumulates; the peak is born out of the valley. Then there is great orgasm; your whole being is suffused with a joy. In the peak it will be joy, in the valley it will be peace. Both are beautiful. And, finally, peace is more valuable than joy, because joy will be momentary: you cannot be on the peak for more than a moment. A peak means it is very small; it is like a pyramid. You cannot stand there for long, ; you can be there only for a moment. But vyou can be there longer when a valley comes, good. Both have to be enjoyed; both have something to deliver. Both are meaningful and both help you to grow. Finally Tantra says, the valley orgasm is far more superior to than the peak. The peak orgasm is immature, the valley orgasm has a great maturity in it. The peak orgasm has excitement: ; it is feverish, it is passionate. It has a thrill but that thrill is tiring. The valley orgasm has no thrill but it has silence, and that silence is far more valuable, far more transforming. That will remain with you for twenty-four hours. Once you have been in a valley that valley will follow you. The peak will be lost and you will be exhausted and will fall in asleep. The valley will continue; for days it can have a kind of effect on you. You will feel relaxed, together. Both are good, but nothing can be “done.” One has simply to allow. So love is a kind of relaxation in i}i which things have to be allowed. Drop the western mind…. Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries The Open Secret Chapter – 4 title: None [14] FEELING WITHDRAWN Question: “Sometimes I would like to hide myself in a dark hole, especially when I have my period.” There is no problem. There are just waves of energy. Sometimes it is a tide and sometimes it is the ebb. When you are in a tide it is very easy to relate, communicate, be open, to love, to receive, to give. When you are not in a tide and energy is ebbing, it is very difficult to communicate, almost impossible. That’s why you started falling asleep again and again in the group. But both come and go ——they are both part of life. Nothing is wrong; in it, it is natural ——so remember to accept it. When you feel that the ebb period is there, don’t try to communicate. Don’t force yourself to open because that opening will not be opening. That is the seed time. One simply closes oneself and remains in oneself. Use that time for deep meditation. It is very fertile for meditation. When you are in a tide and energy is flowing and going higher, that is the time for love. Then relate, be open, share. That is the crop time, but it cannot be all the year around. They say that even in heaven, angels don’t sing all the time. So when there is a song arising, sing. And when you feel that everything is closing, just help it to close. That’s what being natural means. By being natural it is not meant that one should remain open for twenty-four hours ——you are not a magical store. There are moments when one should close, ; otherwise it will be too tiring, too tedious, boring. There is no need to smile continuously smile ——only politicians do that, and they are the most stupid people in the world. There are times when tears are welcomed, and should be welcomed. There are times when one feels sad ——sadness is beautiful, so when you feel sad, be sad. When you feel happy, be happy. To be authentic means never be against that which is already happening. Go with it… . . . trust it. In the night the petals of the lotus close, in the morning they open again ——but that’s a natural process. Now in the modern mind ——particularly in the new generation ——a very wrong notion is arising — , that one has always to be open; , that one has to be always loving. That is a new sort of torture, a new sort of repression, a new fashion in violence. There is no need for it. An authentic person is one who is whatsoever the case; you can rely on him. If he is sad, you can rely on the fact him that he must be feeling sad; he is a true person . If he is closed, you can rely on that and him, you can trust him. It is a state of meditation ——he wants just to be within himself. He does not want to go out, ; he is in deep introspection. Good! If he is smiling and talking, then he wants to relate and go out of his being and to share. You can rely on such a that person. So don’t try to enforce anything from your mind upon your being. Let the being have its say, and the mind should be just a follower, a servant. But the mind always tries to become the master. I don’t see that anything is wrong. Just live this period and by and by you will see be able to watch that every month it will be so. For a few days you will be very open ——for a few days you will be closed. It is more clear in women than in men because women still live in a periodicity. Because of their monthly course, their chemistry, the body chemistry goes in periods — of twenty–eight days and the period comes again — an inner clock functions. In fact, the same happens to a man, also but it is more subtle, more invisible. Now jJust recently a few researchers have revealed that there is a sort of monthly period for man also, but it is very invisible because there is no release of blood. But as for four days of each every month, a woman goes into a very low energy state, every man also goes into a low energy state for four days each every month, . This state in man but it is not so physical, not so visible; it is a very psychic one —— more inner than outer. But if you track watch your moods states you will be able to chart them. out…. Go Note them on noting on a calendar. My feeling is that you and your moods must be moving according to the moon, so just watch and relate how you go with the moon. Make a calendar for at least one, or two months, and then you will be able to even predict your states. Then you can use it to plan your life that way. If you want to meet friends, never meet them when you are closed; meet them when you are open. And when you come to me, never come when you are closed. Come when you are open so that you will be receiving more. But there is nothing wrong with this, in it — it is just a natural process. Good. Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries The Great Nothing Chapter – 22 title: None [15] HYPOCHONDRIA

Question: “I am constantly worrying about my body, that it will fall sick. Can you give me some advice?”

So the first basic thing is to drop that idea. And don’t think too much of the body; start thinking of the inner king. Emphasis should be on consciousness, not on the body. And there is a complexity: iIf you think too much about your of the body, the body becomes ill, and when the body becomes ill, naturally you think about it more. Then iIt becomes a vicious circle. Even if a healthy person, a perfectly healthy person, starts thinking about his stomach ——how he is going to digest this and that and what is going to happen ——within twenty-four hours his stomach will be disturbed. And once it is disturbed, he will think about it more. So nothing is basically wrong with the body. , Iit is just that an idea has disturbed it become settled. Medicine can’t help because medicine can’t cure the idea. Therefore So you can go from one doctor to another, from one ‘ “pathy” ‘ to another ‘ “pathy” ‘ and none they will not be of much help. Their treatments may They may even disturb you further because the their medicines will have an effect do something but they will not cannot cure the idea. And there is no other disease except the idea. So their medicines will have after-effects; they are all poisons. And the more you fail with the doctor, the more you become concerned with your the body. Then a body-consciousness arises. You One becomes very very touchy about your the body. Just a slight change, just a slight difficulty, just a slight discomfort, and you one gets into a panic. Then panic helps the body to become more and more disturbed. So my the first thing in my suggestion is that : you drop the idea that something is wrong. Start living. It happened once…. . . . . A man was told by a doctor that he would not live more than six months. That man had been ill for twenty years with a thousand and one kinds of illnesses. All that can happen to a human being was happening to him. The doctors were tired; and he was very rich. He was a hypochondriac, and just out of sheer tiredness the doctors said, ‘ “You cannot survive, so forget about it certain. Six months more and you will die; that is certain. Now nobody can save you. So if you want to live, you can live for six months.” ‘ The man thought, ‘If I am going to live only for six months then why bother about the body? It is going to die.‘ So for the first time he shifted his consciousness. He ordered the best clothes, he purchased the best cars, and he planned a world tour. He went to every place that he always wanted to go to but had not gone because of his the body. He traveled travelled around the world, ate everything that he always wanted to eat, made love to women, purchased everything that he wanted… . . really lived! Death was coming so there was no point in holding back. After six months when he went back, he was healthier than he had ever been before. He lived thirty years more and the problem never came up again! You have to drop that consciousness. Naturopathy is good, for example, because it is not a true “pathy”; it is just a rest. (He’d asked if he should go to a Naturopathic Clinic some distance from here.) But don’t become a faddist, because otherwise that is an illness. Naturopathy in itself is not a “pathy”; it is just giving rest to the body, giving the body a situation in which where it can become attuned to nature. It is an attuning with the instinctive nature; it is non–medicinal. But the danger problem with Naturopathy is that it can become a fad. , and Then the fad is more problematic dangerous than the disease. And it is very rare… Naturopathy helps many people, but it is very rare that a person who has been helped by Naturopathy does not become ill with Naturopathy itself. It is very rare; then it becomes a fad. The person becomes obsessed: Hhe is constantly thinks about thinking what to eat, and what not to eat, where to go, and where not to go, and about ecology and all like that. When this happens, Then life becomes difficult again. If Yyou become obsessed with Naturopathy you cannot breathe because there is so much pollution in the air. You cannot eat in a restaurant hotel because meals things are not prepared in a natural way. You cannot eat this thing or that thing and you cannot eat that, because you would like only natural foods. You cannot live in a city. The result is that life And then things becomes really difficult. Always remember, Naturopathy is just a rest. Good — oOnce in a while, even for no reason, one should go to a Naturopathy clinic and rest for two, three weeks, one month, two months, for as long much as one can afford every year. Go and for no particular reason, just to enjoy nature and natural foods and baths and saunas, and massage. Go just Not for any particular reason but just for simple joy, the sheer joy of the experience it. So my suggestion is that you go to the Naturopathy clinic, enjoy it, bBut drop the idea that you are ill.… And So think of the inner king; the body is just a palace. Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries The Open Secret Chapter – 4 title: None [16] ENLIVENING THE SENSES Question: “I do intellectual work and I spend most of my time at the computer. I often feel so unalive.” Massage is perfectly good. It is better than to be a diplomat. It is very very good to forget all about that nonsense. Get more into your body. Make your senses more alive. See more lovingly, taste more lovingly, touch more lovingly, smell more lovingly. Let your senses function more and more. Then suddenly you will see the energy that was. moving too much in the head is now well-divided dispersed in the body. The head is very dictatorial. It goes on taking energy from everywhere and is a monopolist. It has killed the senses. Your The head is taking almost 80 eighty percent of the energy, and only 20 twenty percent is left for the rest of the whole body. Of course the whole body suffers, and when the whole body suffers, you suffer, because you can only be happy when you are functioning as a whole, as an organic unity, and every part of your body and being is getting its proper portion of energy— proportion; not more than that, not less than that. Then you function in a rhythm. ; Yyou have a harmony. Harmony, happiness, health —— they are all part of one phenomenon, and that is wholeness. If you are whole, you are happy, healthy, harmonious. The head is creating a disturbance. People have lost many things. They People cannot smell. because They have lost the capacity to smell. They have lost the capacity to taste. They can only hear a few things. because Tthey have lost the function of their ears. People don’t know what touch really is. Their skin has become dead. It has lost its the softness and receptivity. So the head thrives like an Adolf Hitler, crushing the whole body. The head becomes bigger and bigger. It is very ridiculous. Man becomes is almost like a caricature ——a very large big head and just very small limbs, hanging. So bring back your senses. Do anything with your the hands, with the earth, with the trees, with the rocks, with bodies, with people. Do anything that does needs not require much thinking, not much require intellectualization intellectualisation. And enjoy. Then your head will by and by be unburdened. It will be good for require your the head too, because when the head is burdened too much, it thinks ——but it cannot think. How can a worrying mind think? For thinking you need clarity. For thinking you need a non-tense mind. It may seem will look like a paradox, but for thinking you need a thoughtless mind. Then you can think very easily, very directly, intensely. Just put any problem before yourself and your non-thinking mind starts solving it. Then you have intuition. It is not worry ——just insight. When the mind is burdened too much with thoughts, you think too much but to no purpose. It comes to nothing; there is nothing in your the head. You go round and about, round about; you make much noise, but the net end result is zero. So it is not against the head to disperse the energy into all the senses. It is in efavor favour of it, because when the head is balanced, in its right place, it functions better; otherwise it is jammed up. There It is such great traffic. In it, Iit is almost like a rush hour; , a continuous, for twenty-four–hours a rush hour. So start doing something — whatsoever you feel. Massage is very good. The body is beautiful. Anything to do with the body is beautiful. Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries The Passion for the Impossible Chapter – 2 title: None

Sensuousness means you are open, your doors are open, you are ready to throb with existence. If a bird starts singing, the sensuous person immediately feels the song echoed in his deepest core of being. The non–sensuous person does not hear it at all, or maybe it is just as a noise somewhere. ; Iit does not penetrate his heart. A cuckoo starts calling —— a sensuous person starts feeling as if the cuckoo is not calling from some faraway mango grove, but from deep down within his own soul. It becomes his own call, it becomes his own longing for the divine, his own longing for the beloved. In that moment the observer and the observed are one. Seeing a beautiful flower bloom, the sensuous person blooms with it, becomes a flower with it. The sensuous person is liquid, flowing, fluid. Each experience, and he becomes it. Seeing a sunset, he is the sunset. Seeing a night, a dark night, beautiful silent darkness, he becomes the darkness. In the morning he becomes the light. He is all ALL that life is. He tastes life from every nook and corner comer. Hence he becomes rich; this is real richness. Listening to music he is music, ; listening to the sound of water he becomes that sound. And when the wind passes through a bamboo grove, and the cracking bamboos… , he is not far away from them. He is amidst them, one of them ——he is a bamboo. A Zen Master told one of his. disciples who wanted to paint bamboos, “Go and first become a bamboo.” He was an accomplished painter, he had passed all the art examinations, and with distinction. His name had already started becoming famous. And the Master said, “You go to the forest, live with the bamboos for a few years, become a bamboo. And the day you can become a bamboo, come back and paint, not before it. How can you paint a bamboo if you have not known what a bamboo feels like from within? You can paint a bamboo from the outside, but that is just a photograph.” And that is the difference between photography and painting. A photograph can never be a painting. Howsoever skillfully, artfully done, it remains only the reflection of the circumference of the bamboo. No camera can enter into the soul. When at for the first time photography was developed, a great fear arose in the world of painting that maybe now painting would lose its old beauty and its old pedestal; because photography would be developed more and more every day and soon it would fulfill its requirement. That fear was proved baseless absolutely unbased. In fact, after the invention of the camera, photography has developed tremendously, but simultaneously painting has learned new dimensions, new visions, new perceptions. Painting has become richer; it had to become. Before the invention of the camera the painter was functioning as a camera. … The Master said, “You go to the forest.” And the disciple went, and for three years he remained in the forest, being with the bamboos in all kinds of climates. Because when it is raining the bamboo has one joy, and when it is windy the bamboo has a different mood, and when it is sunny, of course everything changes in the being of the bamboo. And when a cuckoo comes into the bamboo grove and starts calling, the bamboos are silent and responsive. The disciple He had to remain be there for three years. And then it happened, one day it happened: sitting by the side of the bamboos, he forgot who he was. And the wind started blowing and he started swaying ——like a bamboo! Only later on did he remember that for a long time he had not been a man. He had entered into the soul of the bamboo, then he painted the bamboos. Those bamboos certainly have a totally different quality that which no photograph can capture ever have. Photographs can be beautiful, but they are dead. That particular painting is alive because it shows the soul of the bamboo in all its moods, in all its richness, in all its climates. Sadness is there, and joy is there, and agony is there, and ecstasy is there, and all that a bamboo knows, the whole biography of a bamboo is there. To be sensuous is to be available to the mysteries of life. Become more and more sensuous, and drop all condemnation. Let your body become just a door. All your senses should become clear doors with no hindrances, so when you hear you become the music, and when you see you become the light, when you touch you become that which you have touched. Note: This matter is taken from The Secret of Secrets, Vol 2 Chapter – 14 title: This very world the paradise Question – 1 [18] TOO MUCH FOOD, TOO LITTLE SEX Question: “since my relationship broke up I have been eating too much and getting fat. How can I regain my balancing and eat less?” It is a very simple thing — you just have to see the point. One thing is: wWhenever you don’t allow sex energy to move in the rightly direction it starts getting obsessed with food. Food and sex are polarities; they balance each other. If you have too much sexuality, your interest in food will disappear. If repress your have too much non-sexuality, your interest in food will become almost obsessive an obsession. So you cannot do anything directly about your food, and if you try to, you will be constantly in trouble. For a few days you can force yourself manage forcibly, but then you will have the problem will return back again, and it will return be back with a vengeance. You will have to work on your sexual energy. The problem arises because the first experiences of food and love for the child are very deeply connected associated. He gets food from the mother’s breast and love too. When the child gets love he is not worried about milk; the mother has to persuade him. If the child is not getting love, then he does not leave the breast, because he is afraid about the future. He has to drink as much as he can because he cannot be certain when his the mother will be available. If the child gets love, he is secure; he does not worry bother. Whenever there is need his the mother will be available; he can trust her love. But if a the mother is not loving then the child cannot trust; then he has to drink as much as he can. He goes on overeating. And the same is the situation… you can see: in poor families children will have big stomachs because the food is so scarce that whenever they can get food they overstuff themselves. The richer the family, the smaller will be the stomach of the child. It looks very absurd, because when you see poor people starving, their whole bodies are thin and yet their stomachs are too big. It doesn’t look right, it doesn’t look arithmetical. If they are starving then why do they have such big stomachs? Because they are starving they cannot trust tomorrow, so whatsoever they can get, anything they can get, they go on stuffing in. Their stomachs become their storage. So if a the child does not get love he becomes interested in food. ; Iif he gets love he is not interested in food, or has just a natural interest ——he takes just as much as is needed by the body. That’s what is happening to you: If somehow you have been blocking your love energy. , Tthat blocked love energy will is becoming your interest in food. If you want to change it, you will have to move into love a little more, you will have to become more loving. Love your own body — . bBegin from there; enjoy your own body. It is a beautiful phenomenon, ; it is such a gift. Dance, sing, feel and touch your own body. The problem is that if you don’t love your own body, you will not allow anybody else to love your body either. In fact, the person who tries to be loving towards you will look ridiculous, foolish, stupid. Because you cannot love your body, you wonder what is it he sees seeing in you? You don’t see anything! Unless you start seeing the beauty of your own body, you will not be able to accept somebody else’s love. The very idea that a person he is loving towards you shows that he is stupid and nothing else. So I say, be loving to your body. And if any opportunity arises where you can be loving, hugging, holding hands, don’t miss it those opportunities. And yYou will be surprised: as you start moving into love the food problem will be solved automatically. To be in love is a great experience and to go on stuffing food in yourself is a very miserable experience. — Nnot that food is not beautiful, but food is beautiful only when taken in certain quantities that you can absorb. When you take too much it is nauseating. This is one something beautiful about love: it love is never too much. Nobody can love to the extreme, nobody; there is no extreme in it. Unlike Because when you eat, you stuff things in; when you love, you share, you give. It is an unburdening phenomenon. And the more you give, the more your energy starts flowing. You become a river, no more a stagnant pool. That’s what you have done; that’s my feeling about your energy: you have made it a stagnant pool. Break the walls! You are unnecessarily missing something beautiful that which love and only love can bring, and instead you are suffering with this problem of food. Note: This matter is taken from Darshan Diaries God Got a Thing About You Chapter – 14 title: None [19] DETOXIFICATION THROUGH FASTING Question: “Do you recommend fasting as a method for detoxifying the body? I have started to become a vegetarian recently.” And how does fasting purify? Because wWhenever you are on a fast the body has no more work of digestion. In that period the body can work at in throwing out dead cells, toxins. It is just as one day, Sunday or Saturday, you are on a holiday and you come home and you clean all the whole day long. The whole week you were so engaged and so busy you couldn’t clean the house, so you are doing it all on one day. When the body has nothing to digest, when you have not eaten anything, the body starts a self–cleaning. A process starts spontaneously and the body starts throwing out all that is not needed, all that feels which is like a load. Fasting is a method of purification. Once in a while, a fast is beautiful ——not doing anything, not eating, just resting. Take as much liquid as possible and just rest, and the body will be cleaned. Sometimes, if you feel that a longer fast is needed, you can do a longer fast also ——but be deep in love with your the body while you are doing it. And if you feel the fast is harming your the body in any way, stop it. If the fast is helping your the body, you will feel more energetic; you will feel more alive; you will feel rejuvenated, and vitalized. This should be the criterion: if you start feeling that you are getting weaker, if you start feeling that a subtle trembling is coming into the body, then be aware ——now the fast thing is no longer a purification. ; Iit has become destructive. Stop it. But one should learn the whole science of fasting first it. In fact, before one should do fasting one should consult near somebody who has been fasting for a long time and who knows the whole path very well, who knows all the symptoms of problems: if it becomes destructive, what will start happening; if it is not destructive, then what will happen. After a real, purifying fast you will feel new, younger, cleaner, weightless, happier; and the body will be functioning better because now it is unloaded. But you should fasting comes only if you have been eating wrongly. If you have not been eating wrongly, there is no need to for fasting. Fasting is needed only when you have already abused done the wrong with the body by your eating habits —— and we all have been doing that eating wrongly. Man has lost the path. No animal eats like man; every animal has its chosen food. If you bring buffaloes in the garden and leave them, they will eat only a particular grass. They will not go on eating everything and anything ——they are very choosey. They have a certain feeling about their food. Man is completely lost, has no feeling about his food. He goes on eating everything and anything. In fact, you cannot find anything that which is not eaten somewhere or other by man. In some places, ants are eaten. In some places, snakes are eaten. In some places, dogs are eaten. Man has eaten everything. Man is simply mad. He does not know what is in resonance with his body and what is not. He is completely confused. Man, naturally, should be a vegetarian, because the whole body is made for vegetarian food. Even scientists concede to the fact that the whole structure of the human body shows that man should not be a nonvegetarian. Man is descended comes from the monkeys. Monkeys are vegetarians ——total absolute vegetarians. If Darwin’s concept is true, then man should be a vegetarian. Now there are ways to ascertain judge whether a certain species of animal is vegetarian or nonvegetarian: it depends on the intestine, the length of the intestine. Nonvegetarian animals have a very small intestine. Tigers, lions ——they have a very small intestine, because meat is already a digested food. It does not need a long intestine to digest it. The work of digestion has been done by the animal. Now you are eating the animal’s meat. It is already digested ——no long intestine is needed. Man has one of the longest intestines: that means man is a vegetarian. A long digestion is needed, and much excreta will be there that which has to be expelled thrown out. If man is not a nonvegetarian and he goes on eating meat, the body is burdened. In the East, all the great meditators ——Buddha, Mahavir ——they have emphasized that the fact. This is not due to Not because of any concept of nonviolence ——that is a secondary thing —— but because if you really want to move in deep meditation your body needs to be weightless, natural, flowing. Your body needs to be unloaded; and a nonvegetarian’s body is very much loaded. Just watch what happens when you eat meat: . wWhen you kill an animal, what happens to the animal when he is killed? Of course, nobody wants to be killed. Life wants to prolong itself; the animal is not dying willingly. If somebody kills you, you will not die willingly. If a lion jumps on you and kills you, what will happen to your mind? The same happens when you kill a lion. Agony, fear, death, anguish, anxiety, anger, violence, sadness ——all these things happen to the animal. All over his body — violence, anguish, agony spreads. The whole body becomes full of toxins, poisons. All the body glands release poisons because the animal is dying very unwillingly. And then you eat the meat ——that meat carries all the poisons that the animal has released. The whole energy is poisonous. Then tThose poisons are then carried in your body. And that meat which you are eating belonged to an animal body. It had a specific purpose there. A specific type of consciousness existed in the animal’s body. You are on a higher plane than the animal’s consciousness, and when you eat the animal’s meat your body goes to the lowest plane, to the lower plane of the animal. Then there exists a gap between your consciousness and your body, and a tension arises, and anxiety arises. One should eat things that which are natural ——natural for you. Fruits, nuts, vegetables ——eat as much as you can. And the beauty is that you cannot eat these things more of these things than is needed. Whatever Whatsoever is natural always gives you a satisfaction, because it satiates your body, saturates you. You feel fulfilled. If some thing is unnatural it never gives you a feeling of fulfillment. Go on eating ice cream: you will never feel that you are satiated. In fact, the more you eat, the more you feel like eating. It is not a food. Your mind is being tricked. Now you are not eating according to your the body’s need; you are eating just to taste the ice cream it. The tongue has become the controller. The tongue should not be the controller. It does not know anything about the stomach. It does not know anything about the body. The tongue has a specific purpose to fulfill: to taste food. Naturally, the tongue has to judge,—that is its the only function thing,— which food is for the body ——for my body ——and which food is not for my body. It is just a watchman at on the door; it is not the master. And if the watchman at on the door becomes the master, then everything becomes will be confused. Note: This matter is taken from Discourse Series Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 6 Chapter – 5 title: Purity and Power 20] FAST AND FEASTING So, iIf sometimes you feel that a the fast comes naturally ——not as a law, not as a principle, not as a philosophy to be followed, as a discipline to be imposed, but out of your natural desire feel for it ——it is good. Then, too, remember always that your fast is in the service of feasting, so that you can eat well again. The purpose of fasting is as a means, never as an end; and that will happen rarely, once in a while. And if you are perfectly aware while you are eating, and enjoying it, you will never eat too much. My insistence is not on dieting but on awareness. Eat well, enjoy it to the fullest tremendously. Remember, the rule is: that if you don’t enjoy your food you will have to eat more to compensate. If you enjoy your food, you will eat less, and there will be no need to compensate. If you eat slowly, tasting every bit of it, chewing well, you are completely absorbed into it. Eating should be a meditation. I am not against taste because I am not against the senses. To be sensitive is to be intelligent, to be sensitive is to be alive. Your so-called’religions’ called religions have tried to desensitize de-sensitise you, to make you dull. They are against taste, ; they would like you to make your tongue absolutely dull so you don’t taste anything. But that is not a state of health; the tongue becomes dull only in illness. When you have a fever. , the tongue becomes dull. When you are healthy the tongue is sensitive; it is alive, throbbing, pulsates with energy. I am not against taste, I am for taste. Eat well, taste well; the taste is divine. And so, exactly like taste, you have to look at beauty and enjoy it; you have to listen to music and enjoy it; you have to touch the rocks and leaves and human beings —— their warmth, their texture ——and enjoy them. Use all your senses, use them at their optimum, then you will really live and your life will be aflame; it will not be dull, it will be aflame with energy and vitality. I am not in favor of for those people who have been teaching you to kill your senses; , they are against the body. And remember, the body is your temple, the body is a divine gift. It is so delicate and it is so beautiful and it is so wonderful ——to kill it is to be ungrateful to God. God has given you taste; you have not created it, it is not anything to do with you. God has given you eyes and God has made this psychedelic world so colorful colourful, and he has given you eyes. Let there be a great communion between the eyes and the colors colour of the world. And he has made everything and there is a tremendous harmony. Don’t break this harmony. These so-called MAHATMAS are just on ego-trips, and the best way to feel that you are great is to be against the body. Children do it. The child feels that the motion is coming; he holds it, he feels powerful because he feels his will: he will not yield to the body. His bladder is full and he holds it. He wants to show the body’I’m not your servant, I’m your master.’ But these are destructive habits. Listen to your the body. The body is not your enemy, and when the body is saying something, do accordingly, because the body has a wisdom of its own. Don’t disturb it, don’t go on a mind-trip. That’s why I don’t teach you any dieting, I teach you only awareness. Eat with full awareness, eat meditatively, and then you will never eat too much more and you will never eat too little less. Too much More is as bad as too little; less. Too much eating is bad. just like too much fasting; these are extremes. Nature wants you to be balanced, to be in a sort of equilibrium, to be in the middle, neither less nor more. Don’t go to the extreme. To go to the extreme is to be neurotic. So tThere are two types of neurotics about food: those who go on eating, not listening to the body ——the body goes on crying and screaming’Stop!’ screaming “Stop!” and they go on. ; These are neurotic people. Aand then there is the other variety: —the body goes on screaming “I screaming’I am hungry!” ‘ and they are on a fast. Neither is religious, bBoth are neurotic, both are pathological —— they all need treatment, they need to be hospitalized hospitalised. Because a healthy religious person is one who is balanced: in whatever whatsoever he is doing, he is always in the middle. He never goes to any the extreme because all extremes will create tensions, and anxieties. When you eat too much, there is anxiety because the body is burdened. When you don’t eat enough, then there is anxiety because the body is hungry. A healthy religious person is one who knows when where to stop; and that should come out of your awareness, not out of a certain teaching. If I tell you how much to eat, that is going to be dangerous because it that will be just an average. Somebody is people are very thin and somebody is are very fat, and if I tell you how much to eat —— ‘ “three chapattis” ‘ — then for somebody it may be too much and for somebody it may be not enough nothing. So I don’t teach rigid rules, I simply give you a sense of awareness. Listen to your body: you have a unique different body. And remember then there are different types of energies, different types of involvement. One person Somebody is a professor in a university; he does not exert much energy as far as his body is concerned. ; Hhe will not need much food, and he will need a different kind of food. Somebody is a labourer; he will need much food, and a different kind of food. Now a A rigid principle for eating would is going to be dangerous. No rule can be given as a universal rule. George Bernard Shaw has said that there is only one golden rule, that there are no golden rules. Remember that it, there is no golden rule ——there cannot be, because each individual is so unique that nobody can prescribe. So I simply give you a sense.… And my sense is not of principles, of laws; my approach is of awareness, because today you may need more food and tomorrow you may not need that much food. It is not only a question of you being different from others ——every day of your life is different from every other day. The whole Today you have rested all day, and you may not need much food. Another The whole day you have been in the garden digging the hole all day, and you may need much food. One just should be just alert and one should be capable of listening to what the body is saying. Go according to the body. Neither is the body the master, nor is the body the slave; the body is your friend ——befriend your body. The one who goes on eating too much and the one who goes on dieting are both in the same trap. They are both deaf; they don’t listen to what the body is saying. And then you say’It is said food quickens the sperm and is a sin to eat for the tongue. It should first be offered to the gods etc.’ Have you some antagonism toward the gods? If you offer food…. So many people offering food it will quicken their sperm! Have you some enmity toward the gods? And it will help them to fall into sin! Be kind. Leave the gods alone. In fact, when you eat respectfully, lovingly, meditatively, the food is offered to God because God is within you. All food is offered to the God within. Just be respectful. Eat with feeling, eat with gratitude. The food gives you life, it is going to vitalise you, it will become your blood, your bones. Feel grateful — without it you will not be alive, feel thankful. And if you are eating silently, meditatively and your mind is not rushing here and there, you are totally there, your attention is perfect, this is offering. You have offered the food to God because you are nothing but God’s hand, his instrument. Where are you going to offer the food? God himself is eating through you, so don’t overfeed God otherwise he feels a belly ache, don’t starve God otherwise he feels hungry. And it is these things are nonsense, that it‘is a sin to eat for the benefit of the tongue‘. Then for what will you eat? If Then it is a sin to see for the eye, for what will you see? If Then it is a sin to hear for the ear, then for what will you hear? Then there is nothing left for you ——commit suicide, because the whole of life is of the senses. Whatever Whatsoever you do, the senses come in. It is through the senses that you flow and relate with life. When you eat with taste, God inside is fulfilled, satisfied; and when you eat with taste, the God within food is respected. But your mahatmas MAHATMAS, your so-called’religious gurus’, they called religious gurus have been teaching you self-torture. In the name of religion they have been simply teaching you nothing but masochism:’Torture masochism: “Torture yourself. The more you torture yourself, the more valuable you become in the eyes of God. The more unhappy you are, the more virtue you have. If you are happy, you commit sin. Happiness is sin; to be unhappy is to be virtuous.” ‘ This is their logic. I cannot see the point, ; it is so absurd, so illogical, so patently foolish. God is happy, so if you want to be in tune with God be happy. This is my teaching: God is happy, so if you want to be in tune with God be happy, because whenever you are happy, you fall in step with God; whenever you are unhappy, you are out of step. A miserable man cannot be a religious man. So iIf you ask me what is sin ——I say there is only one sin: to be miserable is to be a sinner. To be happy, really tremendously happy, is to be a saint. Let your religion teach you how to sing and how to dance and how to delight in life. Let your religion be an affirmative religion, a yea-saying religion, a religion of happiness, joy, bliss. Throw away all the nonsense that you have been carrying around for centuries , — that has crippled the whole of humanity. This nonsense It has made people so ugly and so unhappy and so miserable. And it appeals only to the pathological ——those who want to torture themselves; , for it gives them an excuse. To torture oneself or to torture others, both are diseases ——the very idea to torture is sick. If Ssomebody is an Adolf Hitler, he tortures others; if somebody is a Mahatma Gandhi, he tortures himself. Both are in the same boat ——they may be maybe standing back to back, but they are standing in the same boat. Adolf Hitler’s joy was is in torturing others, Mahatma Gandhi’s joy was is in torturing himself, but both are violent. The logic is the same —— their joy depends on torture. Their direction is different, but the direction is not the question, ; their mind has the same attitude: torture. You respect a person who tortures himself because you don’t understand the logic of it. Adolf Hitler is condemned around all over the world and Gandhi is worshipped all over the world, and I am simply puzzled. How is it possible? ——because the logic is the same. Gandhi says, “Don’t says’Don’t eat anything for taste. Taste should not be allowed. Eat as a duty, not as a joy. Eat because one has to live, that’s all.” ‘ He reduces the joy of eating to the ordinary world of work: “Don’t work:’Don’t eat as play.‘ Remember, animals eat that way. They eat just to eat, just to exist, to survive. Have you seen animals enjoying food? Not at all. They don’t have feasts and parties, and they don’t sing and dance. Only man has made eating a great feast. And the attitude is the same about other things. Gandhi says, “Make says’Make love only if you want a child, otherwise never. Let love be only biological. Eating should be only to survive and love should be so that the race survives. Never make love as fun tun.” ‘ That’s what animals do. Have you looked at a dog making love? Look in his face, you will not find any fun… . . . just a sort of duty. He has to do it, something is enforced from within —— the biological urge. And the moment he has made love, he forgets the beloved, he goes on his own way, he never says even a thank you a’thank you’. Finished, the job is done! Only man loves for tor fun. That is where humanity is higher than animals ——only man make loves for fun; just for the joy of it, just for the beauty of it, just for the music and the poetry of it. That’s why I say the pill is one of the greatest revolutions in the world because it has completely changed the whole concept of love. Now one can love only for joy. There is no need to be under the biological slavery, there is no need to make love only when you want a child. Now sex and love are completely separated. The pill brought about has made the greatest revolution: now sex is sex and love is love. Sex is when it is biological; love is when it is simply the a beautiful music of two bodies meeting, engulfing each other, disappearing into each other, losing into each other, falling into a totally new dimension of rhythm, harmony… . . . an orgasmic experience. No problem of the children, no biological push-pull, nothing. Now the act in itself is beautiful, no more a means towards any end ——that is the difference. Work is when it is a means to some end. Play is when the end and the means are together. Play is when the means itself is the end ——there is no other end to it. Eat for the joy of it, ; then you are man, human, a higher being. Love for the joy of love, ; then you are man, a higher being. Listen for the joy of listening and you will be freed from the confinement of instincts. I am not against happiness, I am all for it. I am a hedonist, and this is my understanding: that all the great spiritual people of the world have always been hedonists. If somebody is not a hedonist and pretends to be a spiritual person, he is not ——then he is a psychopath. Because happiness is the very goal, the very source, the very end of all things. God is seeking happiness through you, in millions of forms. Allow him all the happiness that is possible and help him to go to higher peaks, higher reaches, of happiness. Then you are religious, and then your temples will become places of celebration and your churches will not be so sad and ugly, so somber sombre, so dead, like graveyards. Then there will be laughter and there will be song and there will be dance and there will be great rejoicing. Religion has suffered very much because of these people who have been teaching self-torture. Religion has to be freed from all this nonsense. Great rubbish has become attached to religion. The essential religion is nothing but joy. So whatever whatsoever gives you joy is virtuous; whatsoever makes you sad, unhappy, miserable is a sin. Let that be the criterion. And I don’t give you rigid rules because I know how the human mind functions. Once a rigid rule is given, you forget awareness and you start following that the rigid rule. A rigid rule is not the question ——you can follow the rule and you will never grow. Listen to a few anecdotes: Benny arrived home to find the kitchen a mess of broken crockery. ‘ “What happened?” ‘ he asked his wife. ‘ “There’s something wrong with this cookbook,” ‘ she explained. “It explained.’It says that an old cup without a handle will do for the measuring ——and it’s taken me eleven tries to get a handle off without breaking the cup.” ‘ Now if the cookbook says that, it has to be done. The Hhuman mind is foolish ——remember it. Once you have a rigid rule, you follow it. The mob was meeting the big guy, and what the big guy said, went. The buzzer rang and the servant went over to answer the door. He peeked through the slot in the frame, and, recognizing recognising the visitor, allowed the panel to swing back. ‘ “Leave your umbrella at the door,” ‘ the servant told the visitor. ‘ “I ain’t got one,” ‘ answered the visitor. ‘ “Then get back home and get one. The boss told me everyone must leave their umbrella at the door. Otherwise I am not going to allow you in.” ‘ A rule is a rule. One of my friends is a professor at the University of Calcutta, a very renowned scientist. He went to Rangoon just to gather a specimen of the urine of a certain person. The disease happens very rarely and the urine changes its composition altogether, so he rushed to Rangoon. He wanted to study it — he was working on, he was researching, that particular disease. He got the urine. He was very happy because the illness happens very rarely, once in a while. But when he came to Calcutta Airport he was prevented by the authorities. They looked into their files — there was no provision to import urine. So they said ‘You will have to leave it. We will have to enquire.’ But he said ‘This is nonsense!’ ‘This is all we can do. You can look in the file nobody has ever imported urine and the government has no idea about it this is something new! We will have to ask Delhi.’ And as things go…. So the urine was not allowed; it remained with the airport authorities. And the professor was crying, and he said ‘This will be destroyed within forty-eight hours and it will be of no use. I need it right now.’ ‘But’ they said ‘that is not possible at all, because we don’t even know how much to charge — how much penalty. We will have to wait.’ After two months the urine was delivered. Because something goes to Delhi, and then the red file, and…. After two months! Rules are rules. And I don’t want you to become government officials, I want you to become intelligent people. It was a desperate chase but the police–car was catching up to the bank–robbers when suddenly it swerved into a gas station, from which point the cop driving phoned his chief. ‘ “Did you catch them?” ‘ the chief asked excitedly. ‘ “They were lucky,” ‘ replied the cop.’We cop. “We were closing the gap, only half a mile away, when I noticed our five hundred miles were up and we had to stop and change our oil.” ‘ What can you do when the oil has to be changed after each five hundred miles and five hundred miles are up? You have to change the oil first. I never give you rigid rules because I know how stupid the human mind is and can be. I simply give you a feel, a sense of direction. Be aware and live through awareness. Ordinarily you are living a very unconscious life. You eat too much because you are unconscious — you don’t know what you are doing. You become jealous, you become possessive, because you are unconscious and you don’t know what you are doing. You get mad in anger, you become almost possessed of the devil when you are in a rage, and you do things which you don’t know that you are doing. Jesus said on the cross — the last of his words, but of tremendous import — he said: Father forgive these people because they don’t know what they are doing. Now Christianity has never interpreted these tremendous words rightly. Jesus’ message is simple. He is saying: These people are unconscious people. They don’t know awareness at all, so they cannot be responsible. Whatsoever they are doing, they are doing in sleep; they are somnambulists, sleep-walkers. Please forgive them. They cannot be held responsible. So when you eat too much, I pray to God’Father, forgive this man. He does not know what he is doing.’ When you fast, I again have to pray to God’Forgive this man because he does not know what he is doing.’ The real question is not of doing but of bringing an awareness into your being, and that awareness will change everything. You are like drunkards. I have heard…. . . . . Mike told Pat he was going to a wake, and Pat offered to tag along. On the way Pat suggested a nipper or two and they both got well sloshed. As a result Mike couldn’t remember the address of the wake. ‘ “Where is your friend’s house?” ‘ Pat asked. ‘ “I forget the number, but I’m sure this is the street.” ‘ They had walked along for a few minutes when Mike squinted at a house that he thought was it. So they staggered in but the hall was dark. They opened the door and discovered a living room, which was also dark except for the faint glimmer of candles sitting on the piano. They went down in front of the piano, knelt and prayed. Pat stopped long enough to look at the piano. ‘ “Mike,” ‘ he said’I said, “I didn’t know your friend, but he sure had a fine set of teeth.” ‘ This is the situation. This is how man is. The only thing that I would like to give to you is a taste of awareness. That will change your whole life. It is not a question of disciplining you, it is a question of making you luminous from within. Note: This matter is taken from Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1 Chapter – 6 title: I am a cross to you Question – 1