Jyon Ki Tyon #12
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Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
ओशो, काम-ऊर्जा को ध्यान व समाधि की दिशा में रूपांतरित करने की साधना में तंत्र का क्या-क्या योगदान है? कृपया इसकी रूप-रेखा प्रस्तुत करें।
Transliteration:
ośo, kāma-ūrjā ko dhyāna va samādhi kī diśā meṃ rūpāṃtarita karane kī sādhanā meṃ taṃtra kā kyā-kyā yogadāna hai? kṛpayā isakī rūpa-rekhā prastuta kareṃ|
ośo, kāma-ūrjā ko dhyāna va samādhi kī diśā meṃ rūpāṃtarita karane kī sādhanā meṃ taṃtra kā kyā-kyā yogadāna hai? kṛpayā isakī rūpa-rekhā prastuta kareṃ|
Translation (Meaning)
Osho, in the sadhana of transmuting sex-energy toward meditation and samadhi, what are Tantra’s contributions? Please present its outline.
Questions in this Discourse
Osho, you just said that in sexual intercourse both woman and man lose energy, but the common belief is that a woman is nourished by the man’s semen in intercourse. Please clarify.
Common beliefs are like that—just as the common belief is that the sun rises, or that the earth is flat. Common beliefs are often wrong, because “common” means seen from the surface, without going deep. The sun appears to rise; now we know well that the sun neither rises nor sets. Yet humanity will probably never get rid of the words sunrise and sunset; they will continue. The ground appears flat; nowhere does it look round. For thousands of years people believed it was flat. Today, to accept that it is round is hard—the ordinary mind is troubled: “How can it be round? It looks flat.”
Common beliefs are often wrong because they rest on two things. First, on appearances—how things seem from the outside. Second, on what we want to believe—we adopt as truth what we prefer to be true. Ordinarily we do not want truth; we make what we want into “truth.” Man is less a rational being and more a rationalizing one. It is not that he thinks with great intelligence; rather, whatever he happens to think, he gives it the mask of intelligence. That’s easier.
We want to enjoy sex, to indulge in lust. If we want to indulge, we add rationalizations to it: the woman will be stronger, the man will be stronger, healthier, medically fine—this and that. And if we want to deny it, we will add all the counterarguments. On the ground, ordinary people have passed through every phase.
If you read the medical books of Europe in the Middle Ages—even doctors—what they say is not what doctors say today. Medieval doctors called sex very dangerous, because the medieval mind had adopted an anti-sex stance. Today’s doctor says it is not dangerous at all—it is positively good—because modern man wants to believe that. Don’t be surprised if the phase flips again tomorrow. Fashions change in ideas too.
On this ground, humanity has recycled the same points a thousand times—what it drops out of boredom, it later picks up again, then tires of again, and then embraces its opposite again. We keep reviving worn-out “truths,” and grow bored with them too.
And the irony is that in every age the “wise” endorse what the common mind believes—because to remain accepted as wise they must accept the common man’s “truths.” Few are the rare fools who challenge the beliefs of the masses. Yet only such people become causes for discovering a little of the real truth in this world. Ordinarily, though, we all endorse what the common mind believes. The common belief is a belief designed to soothe the mind.
When I say that both lose energy, it is important to grasp two points about what I am saying.
1) I am speaking of the sex-energy I spoke of yesterday—not the biological but the psychic. That sex-energy is lost by both—by both. This is not difficult to understand; even medically we can observe it. At the moment of sex, breathing becomes rapid, just as when a person is panting after climbing stairs. Blood pressure rises; sweat breaks out; after the act one feels tired. Ask a man to make love again an hour later and you will immediately know whether he gained energy or lost it. Then he needs twenty-four, forty-eight hours… Kinsey reported about one man—who knows how true it is; rare things happen—that he could make love twelve times in a single night. But such stories are often like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves—fairy tales. It isn’t really possible.
If a man were accumulating energy, then after the first act he should have more power for the second. But the amount of semen he releases in the first act is halved if he has a second act within two to four hours. In a third act it falls further, and in a fourth he will find himself like an old man, drained of energy.
2) With women there is a bit of confusion because a woman’s sex is passive. She also loses energy, but the woman is not aggressive; by nature, in passivity less energy is spent, in aggression more. The man takes the initiative; he attacks. The woman does not attack, she only receives the attack—we could say she merely defends. So a woman’s energy is depleted less than a man’s.
That is why female prostitution could exist. Male prostitution is much harder, because a woman can sell repeatedly; a man cannot. Recently in England and France some male prostitutes have appeared, but their rates are very high, because a male prostitute can sell himself only once in a night. I am not saying “Vaishya”—lest someone get offended—so I am saying male prostitute. The woman is passive, but she too loses energy.
There is another reason we don’t notice it with women: most women do not attain orgasm. In fact, the peak patterns of man and woman are different. A woman’s sexual mechanism develops very slowly. Often the man slips out of the moment of sex before the woman has come to any peak. In her, little seems diminished. The rhythms of man and woman during intercourse are not the same.
So often it looks as if nothing is depleted in the woman; the man quickly becomes depleted and falls out of the act. Thus the woman can be under an illusion. But if the woman too attains orgasm—if her own discharge happens—then energy will be lost; it has to be. The very thrill is in the expenditure of energy. For this reason, generally a woman does not find as much relish in intercourse as a man does. Kinsey, after ten years of research, reported that about seventy percent of women have no experience of the peak of intercourse. Children are born, but the experience of the release of sexual energy—the climax—rarely happens for a woman. Hence women become disinterested quickly; men do not. For men, their interest returns day after day.
When I say both lose energy, yes, energy is depleted. But I am not saying that by forcibly suppressing energy one becomes very powerful. If you suppress, you also spend energy in suppressing; sometimes more than in indulging. For two reasons: the suppressed energy will find an outlet today or tomorrow; it will discover many pathways—flow out in dreams. Suppressed energy will eventually leak, and the force spent on suppression will have been wasted.
So I am not in favor of suppression. When physicians or physiologists say sex is natural and healthy, their purpose is only to prevent people from falling into the madness of repression. If you repress, you will become distorted, perverted, and troubles will arise. No, repression will not save energy; repression will channel it into wrong, unnatural pathways that can be even more harmful.
I am not telling you to repress. I am saying there are other pathways for this energy to move. And once you have a glimpse of that pathway, you will know how much energy has been wasted—because we have no idea of a positive attainment. Only then can we weigh.
I was staying with a family. The friend was upset; he had stopped sleeping. I asked, “What’s the matter?” He said, “A big loss—five to seven lakhs of rupees.” I asked his wife what the matter was. She said, “To tell you the truth, I don’t understand what loss he is talking about. The real thing is he expected to make ten lakhs in a deal and made only four. So he is calling it a five–seven lakh loss. As I see it, he made a four-lakh profit. But he feels he lost five to seven lakhs. Who will explain it to him!”
In fact, you won’t know there is loss until you know a direction of gain. How will you weigh it? What is the measure? Life has been loss upon loss. We have no means to weigh. The weighing begins the day sex-energy begins to move in a positive, upward direction. Then you realize how much loss has occurred in life. To weigh loss, something must sit in the pan of profit. We have only one pan, into which we have been putting loss after loss; and then we call it profit or loss as we like. We have no other experience. All our experiences in life are relative.
So I will say: my point can be fully grasped only when a little particle of gain appears in your life. Then you will understand what loss is; otherwise how can you? If there has been only loss, then within loss we imagine profit and loss. If for a moment there was a bit more pleasure, we think there was profit; if for a moment there was less pleasure, we think there was loss. If once the sense of intercourse lasted a bit longer, we think it was profit; if not, we think it was loss. These are all losses. We weigh them against each other with faulty weights.
But the first time energy rises upward in life, you see that not only in this life but through countless lives there has been endless loss. You cannot know that until you have the opposite experience to balance the scales.
So when I say both lose energy, I am speaking from the perspective that there could be a “profit” of ten lakhs. They don’t know that. To them even four lakhs looks like profit; that is another matter. Six lakhs are being lost—perhaps ten lakhs, perhaps billions—you will only know when the door of gain opens.
Try a little experiment. Allow the energy to move upwards a bit, and then you will say, “Now I see what has been happening.”
Life is entirely relative. And when I say both lose energy, if both reflect after intercourse they will sense it. After some time the energy will be replenished again. The body is a mechanism: you expend energy, the body produces energy and fills you again. If the body did not refill you daily, then you would realize that energy is being lost. As it is, it is like this: it is raining; you bail water out of a pit; from the sky the rain keeps coming and fills the pit again. You say, “Who says water was taken out? The pit is full again.”
At the University of California a small experiment was done. Thirty young men were kept fasting for thirty days. After just three days their sex attraction and sex appeal began to fade. Psychologists saw that after three days, even if nude magazines lay around, they flipped them less. After seven days, even if you placed them face up, they would not look. After ten days, if you tried to talk, to crack dirty jokes, nothing reached them: “Don’t talk nonsense,” they said. After fifteen days, no interest in sex remained at all. By thirty days, even if they were given every stimulant, provoked from all sides—shown nude films, nude pictures, posters placed before them—they sat as if none of it had anything to do with them. What had happened? Simply this: in thirty days the body had not been replenishing energy; the pits were empty. The mind had no juice for sex.
Then they were fed. In three days the pits began to fill again; interest returned—the magazines were turned eagerly. After seven days of proper food, they began to crack filthy jokes again; their conversation turned mostly to women. After fifteen days of proper food, they were again the same young men. The psychologists said, “You had become such renunciates, so full of indifference!” They replied, “Not at all—we were just hungry.”
Therefore, if many “renunciates” in the world are renunciates only because they are hungry, don’t be too impressed. The body is not substituting; the emptied energy remains empty. If the body does not refill energy, you will be out of the game. The body gives you back seminal energy every twenty-four hours; that is why you feel, “What did I spend? Nothing seems spent.”
But note the strange thing: twenty-four hours a day—eating, drinking, shop, job, labor, effort, study—everything is in service of producing semen. And after all that, what is to be done with the semen? Throw it away—and in the morning start the same routine again. For what? To accumulate semen!
Ask a biologist and he will say: the total function of the human body is this—work, earn food, eat, digest, make blood, make semen, throw semen away, and then begin again. That is the sum total of the biological cycle of human life.
Our whole life just for that? If someone really understands that this is all there is to his “function,” a revolution happens in his life. He wonders, “What am I being made to do? What is happening through me? Is this all?” If this is all life is, then what is life worth? It is nothing.
No—there are other doorways in life: unknown, unfamiliar. We have gotten caught in a circle and are destroyed in it. If energy were saved, we could strike at that new door. But this vicious circle is fast, and spins so rapidly that we seldom get the chance to pause for a moment and ask, “What am I doing with my life?” Energy is being lost, yes—but you will only know when out of that energy some positive, creative attainment begins to happen. Before that, you cannot know.
Common beliefs are often wrong because they rest on two things. First, on appearances—how things seem from the outside. Second, on what we want to believe—we adopt as truth what we prefer to be true. Ordinarily we do not want truth; we make what we want into “truth.” Man is less a rational being and more a rationalizing one. It is not that he thinks with great intelligence; rather, whatever he happens to think, he gives it the mask of intelligence. That’s easier.
We want to enjoy sex, to indulge in lust. If we want to indulge, we add rationalizations to it: the woman will be stronger, the man will be stronger, healthier, medically fine—this and that. And if we want to deny it, we will add all the counterarguments. On the ground, ordinary people have passed through every phase.
If you read the medical books of Europe in the Middle Ages—even doctors—what they say is not what doctors say today. Medieval doctors called sex very dangerous, because the medieval mind had adopted an anti-sex stance. Today’s doctor says it is not dangerous at all—it is positively good—because modern man wants to believe that. Don’t be surprised if the phase flips again tomorrow. Fashions change in ideas too.
On this ground, humanity has recycled the same points a thousand times—what it drops out of boredom, it later picks up again, then tires of again, and then embraces its opposite again. We keep reviving worn-out “truths,” and grow bored with them too.
And the irony is that in every age the “wise” endorse what the common mind believes—because to remain accepted as wise they must accept the common man’s “truths.” Few are the rare fools who challenge the beliefs of the masses. Yet only such people become causes for discovering a little of the real truth in this world. Ordinarily, though, we all endorse what the common mind believes. The common belief is a belief designed to soothe the mind.
When I say that both lose energy, it is important to grasp two points about what I am saying.
1) I am speaking of the sex-energy I spoke of yesterday—not the biological but the psychic. That sex-energy is lost by both—by both. This is not difficult to understand; even medically we can observe it. At the moment of sex, breathing becomes rapid, just as when a person is panting after climbing stairs. Blood pressure rises; sweat breaks out; after the act one feels tired. Ask a man to make love again an hour later and you will immediately know whether he gained energy or lost it. Then he needs twenty-four, forty-eight hours… Kinsey reported about one man—who knows how true it is; rare things happen—that he could make love twelve times in a single night. But such stories are often like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves—fairy tales. It isn’t really possible.
If a man were accumulating energy, then after the first act he should have more power for the second. But the amount of semen he releases in the first act is halved if he has a second act within two to four hours. In a third act it falls further, and in a fourth he will find himself like an old man, drained of energy.
2) With women there is a bit of confusion because a woman’s sex is passive. She also loses energy, but the woman is not aggressive; by nature, in passivity less energy is spent, in aggression more. The man takes the initiative; he attacks. The woman does not attack, she only receives the attack—we could say she merely defends. So a woman’s energy is depleted less than a man’s.
That is why female prostitution could exist. Male prostitution is much harder, because a woman can sell repeatedly; a man cannot. Recently in England and France some male prostitutes have appeared, but their rates are very high, because a male prostitute can sell himself only once in a night. I am not saying “Vaishya”—lest someone get offended—so I am saying male prostitute. The woman is passive, but she too loses energy.
There is another reason we don’t notice it with women: most women do not attain orgasm. In fact, the peak patterns of man and woman are different. A woman’s sexual mechanism develops very slowly. Often the man slips out of the moment of sex before the woman has come to any peak. In her, little seems diminished. The rhythms of man and woman during intercourse are not the same.
So often it looks as if nothing is depleted in the woman; the man quickly becomes depleted and falls out of the act. Thus the woman can be under an illusion. But if the woman too attains orgasm—if her own discharge happens—then energy will be lost; it has to be. The very thrill is in the expenditure of energy. For this reason, generally a woman does not find as much relish in intercourse as a man does. Kinsey, after ten years of research, reported that about seventy percent of women have no experience of the peak of intercourse. Children are born, but the experience of the release of sexual energy—the climax—rarely happens for a woman. Hence women become disinterested quickly; men do not. For men, their interest returns day after day.
When I say both lose energy, yes, energy is depleted. But I am not saying that by forcibly suppressing energy one becomes very powerful. If you suppress, you also spend energy in suppressing; sometimes more than in indulging. For two reasons: the suppressed energy will find an outlet today or tomorrow; it will discover many pathways—flow out in dreams. Suppressed energy will eventually leak, and the force spent on suppression will have been wasted.
So I am not in favor of suppression. When physicians or physiologists say sex is natural and healthy, their purpose is only to prevent people from falling into the madness of repression. If you repress, you will become distorted, perverted, and troubles will arise. No, repression will not save energy; repression will channel it into wrong, unnatural pathways that can be even more harmful.
I am not telling you to repress. I am saying there are other pathways for this energy to move. And once you have a glimpse of that pathway, you will know how much energy has been wasted—because we have no idea of a positive attainment. Only then can we weigh.
I was staying with a family. The friend was upset; he had stopped sleeping. I asked, “What’s the matter?” He said, “A big loss—five to seven lakhs of rupees.” I asked his wife what the matter was. She said, “To tell you the truth, I don’t understand what loss he is talking about. The real thing is he expected to make ten lakhs in a deal and made only four. So he is calling it a five–seven lakh loss. As I see it, he made a four-lakh profit. But he feels he lost five to seven lakhs. Who will explain it to him!”
In fact, you won’t know there is loss until you know a direction of gain. How will you weigh it? What is the measure? Life has been loss upon loss. We have no means to weigh. The weighing begins the day sex-energy begins to move in a positive, upward direction. Then you realize how much loss has occurred in life. To weigh loss, something must sit in the pan of profit. We have only one pan, into which we have been putting loss after loss; and then we call it profit or loss as we like. We have no other experience. All our experiences in life are relative.
So I will say: my point can be fully grasped only when a little particle of gain appears in your life. Then you will understand what loss is; otherwise how can you? If there has been only loss, then within loss we imagine profit and loss. If for a moment there was a bit more pleasure, we think there was profit; if for a moment there was less pleasure, we think there was loss. If once the sense of intercourse lasted a bit longer, we think it was profit; if not, we think it was loss. These are all losses. We weigh them against each other with faulty weights.
But the first time energy rises upward in life, you see that not only in this life but through countless lives there has been endless loss. You cannot know that until you have the opposite experience to balance the scales.
So when I say both lose energy, I am speaking from the perspective that there could be a “profit” of ten lakhs. They don’t know that. To them even four lakhs looks like profit; that is another matter. Six lakhs are being lost—perhaps ten lakhs, perhaps billions—you will only know when the door of gain opens.
Try a little experiment. Allow the energy to move upwards a bit, and then you will say, “Now I see what has been happening.”
Life is entirely relative. And when I say both lose energy, if both reflect after intercourse they will sense it. After some time the energy will be replenished again. The body is a mechanism: you expend energy, the body produces energy and fills you again. If the body did not refill you daily, then you would realize that energy is being lost. As it is, it is like this: it is raining; you bail water out of a pit; from the sky the rain keeps coming and fills the pit again. You say, “Who says water was taken out? The pit is full again.”
At the University of California a small experiment was done. Thirty young men were kept fasting for thirty days. After just three days their sex attraction and sex appeal began to fade. Psychologists saw that after three days, even if nude magazines lay around, they flipped them less. After seven days, even if you placed them face up, they would not look. After ten days, if you tried to talk, to crack dirty jokes, nothing reached them: “Don’t talk nonsense,” they said. After fifteen days, no interest in sex remained at all. By thirty days, even if they were given every stimulant, provoked from all sides—shown nude films, nude pictures, posters placed before them—they sat as if none of it had anything to do with them. What had happened? Simply this: in thirty days the body had not been replenishing energy; the pits were empty. The mind had no juice for sex.
Then they were fed. In three days the pits began to fill again; interest returned—the magazines were turned eagerly. After seven days of proper food, they began to crack filthy jokes again; their conversation turned mostly to women. After fifteen days of proper food, they were again the same young men. The psychologists said, “You had become such renunciates, so full of indifference!” They replied, “Not at all—we were just hungry.”
Therefore, if many “renunciates” in the world are renunciates only because they are hungry, don’t be too impressed. The body is not substituting; the emptied energy remains empty. If the body does not refill energy, you will be out of the game. The body gives you back seminal energy every twenty-four hours; that is why you feel, “What did I spend? Nothing seems spent.”
But note the strange thing: twenty-four hours a day—eating, drinking, shop, job, labor, effort, study—everything is in service of producing semen. And after all that, what is to be done with the semen? Throw it away—and in the morning start the same routine again. For what? To accumulate semen!
Ask a biologist and he will say: the total function of the human body is this—work, earn food, eat, digest, make blood, make semen, throw semen away, and then begin again. That is the sum total of the biological cycle of human life.
Our whole life just for that? If someone really understands that this is all there is to his “function,” a revolution happens in his life. He wonders, “What am I being made to do? What is happening through me? Is this all?” If this is all life is, then what is life worth? It is nothing.
No—there are other doorways in life: unknown, unfamiliar. We have gotten caught in a circle and are destroyed in it. If energy were saved, we could strike at that new door. But this vicious circle is fast, and spins so rapidly that we seldom get the chance to pause for a moment and ask, “What am I doing with my life?” Energy is being lost, yes—but you will only know when out of that energy some positive, creative attainment begins to happen. Before that, you cannot know.
Osho, a few days ago you said there is subtle violence in sex. Then the births of people like Mahavira, Krishna, Christ, and Buddha that come through sex—are they also based on violence? If not, why not? And is sex possible in which there is not even a trace of violence?
Sex without violence is impossible. Whether Mahavira is born, or Buddha, or Krishna—violence will be there. That it can be minimal is another matter. But violence will be there. Without violence, birth cannot happen. Therefore even the desire for birth is violence. The urge to take birth is violence. Even in Mahavira’s birth violence will occur.
Now, only if in a previous life Mahavira remained filled with even the slightest urge to be born would birth happen at all. Even on Mahavira the charge of that violence is imposed. It is certainly on his mother and father, but Mahavira too is a participant in that violence, because there is his eagerness to be born. The mother and father merely provide the opportunity, the situation.
A Western scientist, Daniel, has announced that we can now produce life in a test tube. It can be done. There is no difficulty. Mahavira’s parents only create a situation into which Mahavira’s soul enters. That the parents are committing violence is clear enough; Mahavira too is committing a little violence. The desire to be born is violence. Buddha has said: jiveshana is violence—the lust for life, the craving “I must live, I must be born.” In that too there is violence. So a little violence is present in Mahavira as well. When even this violence in Mahavira comes to an end, after that there can be no more birth for him. After that, birth is not possible.
With Mahavira there is a very sweet point—indeed with all the Jain Tirthankaras. The Jain tradition says the Tirthankara-gotra is also a bondage. Even becoming a Tirthankara happens because of a karmic bondage. It is the last bondage, a golden bondage, the noblest bondage—but a bondage nonetheless. A Tirthankara is born because of some deep, final desire: out of the urge to give to others what he has known or is coming to know. That desire too is a desire for life. That is the Tirthankara-bond. Such a person cannot remain without being a teacher; he has to be a teacher. Deep within, the teacher is present in his longing. For that teacher to express, a birth has to be taken. This longing to be a teacher is also violence.
So whether Mahavira is born or Krishna is born—whoever is to be born must pass through violence. And the day even that much violence is no longer there, on that day Mahavira’s births will thin out, cease, vanish into zero. Mahavira can no longer return. There is no way to come back, because the last wish to return is gone. The urge to teach others is also gone.
Therefore I do not say there is no violence—there is violence. In my birth there is violence, in your birth there is violence, in Mahavira’s birth there is violence. Violence will be there. It can be more or less. The intensity of the wish to be born determines the measure of violence. Mahavira’s wish must have been very slight, because after that there was no rebirth. It was the last one—but it was there. Without it, birth cannot be.
Understand this: birth is violence, life is violence, death is violence. We cannot live without violence. If a man does not eat meat, it makes little difference; he will eat vegetables. Vegetables also have life; there too violence takes place. He will drink water; water too has life. Violence will happen. He will breathe; breath too has life. Violence will happen. I utter one word, my lips open and close once—and millions of microbes are destroyed. Violence will happen. Mahavira slept on one side only; he would not turn over in the night, because if you change sides a few times, life under you will be crushed and destroyed a few times. But even if you sleep on one side only, life beneath that side is still crushed. That much violence will occur. Mahavira lives with minimal violence—that is another matter—but outside violence there is no life. If we walk, place a foot, breathe, rise, sit—violence will be.
This whole life stands upon violence; this entire life rocks in an ocean of violence. We are fish in an ocean of violence. More or less is a secondary matter. The less it becomes, the more auspicious—but complete nonviolence cannot be achieved while alive. To strive for it is most auspicious, but perfect nonviolence while living is not possible; something or other will remain. Something will remain! Even when I take my last breath, a little violence will still remain.
But if throughout life I have gone on reducing violence—less and less—if I have weakened the craving for violence, broken the taste for violence, then in the final moment I will be in that place where my last breath will be my last act of violence. And the day my last breath is my last violence, after that my first breath will not begin again. Then the affair ends.
Therefore Buddha spoke of two forms of nirvana. He said: when I attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, that was nirvana. But the great nirvana is yet to be—great nirvana will happen on the day my last breath leaves the body. There is a gap of forty years between enlightenment and the leaving of the last breath. For Mahavira too there is a gap of forty–forty-two years. Before those forty-two years there was violence; even after the event of enlightenment there is still violence. But the perspective has changed. Before, the violence was unknowing; now it is with awareness, therefore it is minimal.
From Mahavira’s side, Mahavira is not committing violence. Only that violence which arises merely from being alive is taking place. And even within that he brings as much minimality as he can. He must sleep, so if he can sleep on one side only, he sleeps on one side. He must eat, so if he can eat once a day, he eats once; if once in two days, then once in two days. He must eat. He does not take meat; he takes vegetables. And even then, if dried fruits are available, he takes the dried rather than the fresh—because the fresh must be plucked, and somewhere there will be pain; the dried has fallen of its own accord. But even within the dried there are many lives; their violence will occur.
The violence through which Mahavira passes after enlightenment is a compulsion. In that violence Mahavira has no relish; it is necessity. With the last breath even that necessity will break. With the last breath there will be the supreme nirvana. Then the journey is of another kind. Now there will be life without a body. Only the life of the pure soul can be a life of complete nonviolence.
On this earth, everything will be impure. The impurity may be more or less. On this earth nothing is absolute, nothing is complete. What we call the most complete still retains a small lack. On this earth, however great a Rama may be, a little Ravana remains within him; and however bad a Ravana may be, a little Rama is always present within him. In fact, that little Rama within Ravana is his possibility of growth; and that little Ravana within Rama is the very basis of his birth. That little Ravana within Rama is the basis of his life; and that little Rama within Ravana is the means for his evolution. This will be so.
In this world, within the greatest sinner there will be a saint; within the greatest saint there will be a little sinner. But the saint is the one who also knows this small sinner and accepts it as a necessary evil. He acknowledges that it is inevitable, that it goes along with life. When some saint says, “Now I am perfect on this earth,” understand that a slight slip has occurred—he is refusing to see some part within himself. That refusal cannot be made; it will remain. It is impossible that we live on earth among sinners and not share in a little sin. This is impossible.
This life is a sharing. Here it may be that you are rich and I am poor, but your wealth and my poverty are interconnected. You may have millions; I may have a single coin. But I too have a coin. Truly, one should say: I am a little rich, you are a little poor. In this life everything is relative.
Mahavira, Buddha, and Krishna—their lives also have violence; their births also have violence. But that violence is sheer compulsion, and the last compulsion—the last barrier. The day it falls, a second birth for them is impossible.
Now, only if in a previous life Mahavira remained filled with even the slightest urge to be born would birth happen at all. Even on Mahavira the charge of that violence is imposed. It is certainly on his mother and father, but Mahavira too is a participant in that violence, because there is his eagerness to be born. The mother and father merely provide the opportunity, the situation.
A Western scientist, Daniel, has announced that we can now produce life in a test tube. It can be done. There is no difficulty. Mahavira’s parents only create a situation into which Mahavira’s soul enters. That the parents are committing violence is clear enough; Mahavira too is committing a little violence. The desire to be born is violence. Buddha has said: jiveshana is violence—the lust for life, the craving “I must live, I must be born.” In that too there is violence. So a little violence is present in Mahavira as well. When even this violence in Mahavira comes to an end, after that there can be no more birth for him. After that, birth is not possible.
With Mahavira there is a very sweet point—indeed with all the Jain Tirthankaras. The Jain tradition says the Tirthankara-gotra is also a bondage. Even becoming a Tirthankara happens because of a karmic bondage. It is the last bondage, a golden bondage, the noblest bondage—but a bondage nonetheless. A Tirthankara is born because of some deep, final desire: out of the urge to give to others what he has known or is coming to know. That desire too is a desire for life. That is the Tirthankara-bond. Such a person cannot remain without being a teacher; he has to be a teacher. Deep within, the teacher is present in his longing. For that teacher to express, a birth has to be taken. This longing to be a teacher is also violence.
So whether Mahavira is born or Krishna is born—whoever is to be born must pass through violence. And the day even that much violence is no longer there, on that day Mahavira’s births will thin out, cease, vanish into zero. Mahavira can no longer return. There is no way to come back, because the last wish to return is gone. The urge to teach others is also gone.
Therefore I do not say there is no violence—there is violence. In my birth there is violence, in your birth there is violence, in Mahavira’s birth there is violence. Violence will be there. It can be more or less. The intensity of the wish to be born determines the measure of violence. Mahavira’s wish must have been very slight, because after that there was no rebirth. It was the last one—but it was there. Without it, birth cannot be.
Understand this: birth is violence, life is violence, death is violence. We cannot live without violence. If a man does not eat meat, it makes little difference; he will eat vegetables. Vegetables also have life; there too violence takes place. He will drink water; water too has life. Violence will happen. He will breathe; breath too has life. Violence will happen. I utter one word, my lips open and close once—and millions of microbes are destroyed. Violence will happen. Mahavira slept on one side only; he would not turn over in the night, because if you change sides a few times, life under you will be crushed and destroyed a few times. But even if you sleep on one side only, life beneath that side is still crushed. That much violence will occur. Mahavira lives with minimal violence—that is another matter—but outside violence there is no life. If we walk, place a foot, breathe, rise, sit—violence will be.
This whole life stands upon violence; this entire life rocks in an ocean of violence. We are fish in an ocean of violence. More or less is a secondary matter. The less it becomes, the more auspicious—but complete nonviolence cannot be achieved while alive. To strive for it is most auspicious, but perfect nonviolence while living is not possible; something or other will remain. Something will remain! Even when I take my last breath, a little violence will still remain.
But if throughout life I have gone on reducing violence—less and less—if I have weakened the craving for violence, broken the taste for violence, then in the final moment I will be in that place where my last breath will be my last act of violence. And the day my last breath is my last violence, after that my first breath will not begin again. Then the affair ends.
Therefore Buddha spoke of two forms of nirvana. He said: when I attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, that was nirvana. But the great nirvana is yet to be—great nirvana will happen on the day my last breath leaves the body. There is a gap of forty years between enlightenment and the leaving of the last breath. For Mahavira too there is a gap of forty–forty-two years. Before those forty-two years there was violence; even after the event of enlightenment there is still violence. But the perspective has changed. Before, the violence was unknowing; now it is with awareness, therefore it is minimal.
From Mahavira’s side, Mahavira is not committing violence. Only that violence which arises merely from being alive is taking place. And even within that he brings as much minimality as he can. He must sleep, so if he can sleep on one side only, he sleeps on one side. He must eat, so if he can eat once a day, he eats once; if once in two days, then once in two days. He must eat. He does not take meat; he takes vegetables. And even then, if dried fruits are available, he takes the dried rather than the fresh—because the fresh must be plucked, and somewhere there will be pain; the dried has fallen of its own accord. But even within the dried there are many lives; their violence will occur.
The violence through which Mahavira passes after enlightenment is a compulsion. In that violence Mahavira has no relish; it is necessity. With the last breath even that necessity will break. With the last breath there will be the supreme nirvana. Then the journey is of another kind. Now there will be life without a body. Only the life of the pure soul can be a life of complete nonviolence.
On this earth, everything will be impure. The impurity may be more or less. On this earth nothing is absolute, nothing is complete. What we call the most complete still retains a small lack. On this earth, however great a Rama may be, a little Ravana remains within him; and however bad a Ravana may be, a little Rama is always present within him. In fact, that little Rama within Ravana is his possibility of growth; and that little Ravana within Rama is the very basis of his birth. That little Ravana within Rama is the basis of his life; and that little Rama within Ravana is the means for his evolution. This will be so.
In this world, within the greatest sinner there will be a saint; within the greatest saint there will be a little sinner. But the saint is the one who also knows this small sinner and accepts it as a necessary evil. He acknowledges that it is inevitable, that it goes along with life. When some saint says, “Now I am perfect on this earth,” understand that a slight slip has occurred—he is refusing to see some part within himself. That refusal cannot be made; it will remain. It is impossible that we live on earth among sinners and not share in a little sin. This is impossible.
This life is a sharing. Here it may be that you are rich and I am poor, but your wealth and my poverty are interconnected. You may have millions; I may have a single coin. But I too have a coin. Truly, one should say: I am a little rich, you are a little poor. In this life everything is relative.
Mahavira, Buddha, and Krishna—their lives also have violence; their births also have violence. But that violence is sheer compulsion, and the last compulsion—the last barrier. The day it falls, a second birth for them is impossible.
Osho, another question in the same vein. Can people like Buddha, Mahavira, and Christ bring about conception even after enlightenment? And why don’t they have intercourse again to give birth to a superior soul? And is conception only a possibility between two unenlightened persons?
Ordinarily, conception is only a possibility between two ignorant persons. As for someone like Mahavira or Buddha—this needs to be understood. A person like Mahavira or Buddha would not consent to give birth. For two reasons. First, they cannot bring themselves to send anyone off on the journey of birth and death. They cannot become the cause of someone undertaking that long pilgrimage through life and death.
In fact, people like Mahavira and Buddha are eager to send us to a realm from which there is no return, where what we call “life” does not happen. They are eager to free us from the cycle of coming and going. We, by contrast, are eager to keep the traffic of birth and death going. We want to bring someone onto this earth; Mahavira and Buddha want to free someone from this earth. They too wish to give birth—but the birth they wish to give is liberation. They want to lead you somewhere—where there is no body, no sorrow, no suffering. They too spend their lives running for your new birth, but their eagerness is not for the birth of the body.
There is a sweet incident from Buddha’s life that may help you understand. Buddha returned home after twelve years. He had left when Rahul was just a day old; now he was twelve. His mother had naturally remained angry with Buddha. She must have said many things against him to her son and prepared him well that when Buddha came, he should quarrel with him. When Buddha arrived, she told her son, “Stretch out your hands and beg from this beggar-father—what is the will for the son? What is there for the son? You only gave birth; now give provisions for the journey of life as well.”
It was a joke—a cruel joke. It was sarcasm, and deep. But Yashodhara may be forgiven. Buddha had left her without asking; her anger is natural. No one could have imagined such a thing would happen.
Buddha said to Ananda, “Ananda, where is my begging bowl? Give my bowl to Rahul and initiate him into sannyas.”
Yashodhara beat her chest and wept. She said, “What are you saying!”
Buddha said, “The supreme wealth I have found—that is exactly what I want to give my son. I set out on the journey toward supreme bliss, and the treasures I discovered—I want to give those to my son.”
Rahul was initiated. A small twelve-year-old boy became a sannyasin. Others told Buddha not to do this. Buddha’s father said, “You left home, and now you are taking away the only star of our eyes. Then who will own this kingdom?” Buddha said, “I bring news of a far greater empire. This is a very small kingdom, and to cling to it is too costly a bargain. I bring news of an empire, and I make him the great emperor of that empire.” In his sorrow the father said, “Then initiate us too.” Buddha said, “What could be more auspicious!” So he initiated his father as well. Then Yashodhara cried, “Why leave me alone here? Initiate me too.” Buddha said, “What could be more auspicious!” And the whole household was initiated!!
Now, even a person like Buddha is giving birth—in some other empire, in another kind of life. To bring a soul into the prison of the body—people like Buddha and Mahavira, after enlightenment, cannot consent to that.
Understand it like this: there is a prison. The prisoners know nothing of an outside world of flowers, sun, moon and stars, open sky, birds in flight. They have always been there; they were born there. Then one man climbs the prison wall and sees the open sky, moon and stars, the sun, the birds’ songs. Now his wife says, “Other people are having children; won’t you have a child?” The man says, “In this prison I would not wish to give birth to anyone. At least my child cannot be born here. If I must give birth, I will do so on the journey toward the open sky.”
But who inside that prison will understand? The inmates will say, “You’ve gone mad—come back home.” Home meaning your cell. And however much he speaks of moon, sun, flowers—they will understand nothing, for they have seen nothing but darkness and chains. It may be that, just as we are asking here today, those people also ask, “Can someone, after sitting on the prison wall, come back once to have a child? Or is it only those who have never climbed the wall who have children?” Our question is exactly like that.
The world, the life, the Great Life that Buddha and Mahavira are seeing—we know nothing of it. We are shut inside this small prison of the body, carrying it around all our lives. We think this is the great life. So we think, “Bring more souls here—bring better souls.” Buddha and Mahavira are busy sending even the “bad” souls away from here. And we are busy trying to bring better ones in. Between our vision and theirs there is a fundamental difference of dimension; hence it does not occur to us.
One who has attained enlightenment cannot give birth—cannot, because he cannot take the responsibility of putting someone into a prison. Yes, he can give birth into a vast life of liberation, into ultimate freedom. But that birth is not the birth of the body; it is the birth of the soul. It is not the birth of the visible, but of the invisible. Not of the known, but of the unknown.
And Mahavira and Buddha have given many births. Mahavira had fifty thousand sannyasins. Is Mahavira anything less than a father to them? Certainly much more! Buddha had thousands of sannyasins. Is Buddha anything less than a father to them? Far more than a father. What have fathers given? What these have given—only those who have received it can know. We have our own difficulties; we know nothing; therefore we can raise such questions. Even so, it is good that we come to understand questions like these.
Enough for today. The rest, tomorrow.
In fact, people like Mahavira and Buddha are eager to send us to a realm from which there is no return, where what we call “life” does not happen. They are eager to free us from the cycle of coming and going. We, by contrast, are eager to keep the traffic of birth and death going. We want to bring someone onto this earth; Mahavira and Buddha want to free someone from this earth. They too wish to give birth—but the birth they wish to give is liberation. They want to lead you somewhere—where there is no body, no sorrow, no suffering. They too spend their lives running for your new birth, but their eagerness is not for the birth of the body.
There is a sweet incident from Buddha’s life that may help you understand. Buddha returned home after twelve years. He had left when Rahul was just a day old; now he was twelve. His mother had naturally remained angry with Buddha. She must have said many things against him to her son and prepared him well that when Buddha came, he should quarrel with him. When Buddha arrived, she told her son, “Stretch out your hands and beg from this beggar-father—what is the will for the son? What is there for the son? You only gave birth; now give provisions for the journey of life as well.”
It was a joke—a cruel joke. It was sarcasm, and deep. But Yashodhara may be forgiven. Buddha had left her without asking; her anger is natural. No one could have imagined such a thing would happen.
Buddha said to Ananda, “Ananda, where is my begging bowl? Give my bowl to Rahul and initiate him into sannyas.”
Yashodhara beat her chest and wept. She said, “What are you saying!”
Buddha said, “The supreme wealth I have found—that is exactly what I want to give my son. I set out on the journey toward supreme bliss, and the treasures I discovered—I want to give those to my son.”
Rahul was initiated. A small twelve-year-old boy became a sannyasin. Others told Buddha not to do this. Buddha’s father said, “You left home, and now you are taking away the only star of our eyes. Then who will own this kingdom?” Buddha said, “I bring news of a far greater empire. This is a very small kingdom, and to cling to it is too costly a bargain. I bring news of an empire, and I make him the great emperor of that empire.” In his sorrow the father said, “Then initiate us too.” Buddha said, “What could be more auspicious!” So he initiated his father as well. Then Yashodhara cried, “Why leave me alone here? Initiate me too.” Buddha said, “What could be more auspicious!” And the whole household was initiated!!
Now, even a person like Buddha is giving birth—in some other empire, in another kind of life. To bring a soul into the prison of the body—people like Buddha and Mahavira, after enlightenment, cannot consent to that.
Understand it like this: there is a prison. The prisoners know nothing of an outside world of flowers, sun, moon and stars, open sky, birds in flight. They have always been there; they were born there. Then one man climbs the prison wall and sees the open sky, moon and stars, the sun, the birds’ songs. Now his wife says, “Other people are having children; won’t you have a child?” The man says, “In this prison I would not wish to give birth to anyone. At least my child cannot be born here. If I must give birth, I will do so on the journey toward the open sky.”
But who inside that prison will understand? The inmates will say, “You’ve gone mad—come back home.” Home meaning your cell. And however much he speaks of moon, sun, flowers—they will understand nothing, for they have seen nothing but darkness and chains. It may be that, just as we are asking here today, those people also ask, “Can someone, after sitting on the prison wall, come back once to have a child? Or is it only those who have never climbed the wall who have children?” Our question is exactly like that.
The world, the life, the Great Life that Buddha and Mahavira are seeing—we know nothing of it. We are shut inside this small prison of the body, carrying it around all our lives. We think this is the great life. So we think, “Bring more souls here—bring better souls.” Buddha and Mahavira are busy sending even the “bad” souls away from here. And we are busy trying to bring better ones in. Between our vision and theirs there is a fundamental difference of dimension; hence it does not occur to us.
One who has attained enlightenment cannot give birth—cannot, because he cannot take the responsibility of putting someone into a prison. Yes, he can give birth into a vast life of liberation, into ultimate freedom. But that birth is not the birth of the body; it is the birth of the soul. It is not the birth of the visible, but of the invisible. Not of the known, but of the unknown.
And Mahavira and Buddha have given many births. Mahavira had fifty thousand sannyasins. Is Mahavira anything less than a father to them? Certainly much more! Buddha had thousands of sannyasins. Is Buddha anything less than a father to them? Far more than a father. What have fathers given? What these have given—only those who have received it can know. We have our own difficulties; we know nothing; therefore we can raise such questions. Even so, it is good that we come to understand questions like these.
Enough for today. The rest, tomorrow.
Osho's Commentary
G. N. M. Tyrrell has written a book: “Grades of Significance.” In the Tantric vision the differences in life are differences only in degrees of significance. But the first step is itself a part of the temple’s last step. And if the first step is removed, there is no way to reach the final step of the temple. The ugly roots hidden under the earth are the very life of the flowers blooming in the sky. If those ugly, dark-soaked roots are cut away, there is no possibility of beautiful blossoms in the sky. The rough stones buried in the temple’s foundation support the golden finial crowning its spire. Deny them—and the finial will fall to the ground and be covered in dust.
Tantra accepts life in its totality. This must be understood first. On this very basis Tantra has developed the science of transforming sex-energy. In Tantra’s vision, sex-energy is the earthing—the earthly condensation—of divine energy. In Tantra’s vision, sex-energy is the very first step of Brahman.
This does not mean that Tantra wants one to remain drowned in sex. It means only this: the journey must begin from where we stand. And if the ground on which we stand is not connected with the ground where we have to arrive, then there can be no journey at all. Man is standing in kama.
Man stands upon the soil of sex. The point where nature has placed us is the point of kama, of sex. From there any journey must begin. And from this point two kinds of journeys are possible.
One—the one people ordinarily attempt but never accomplish—is to begin fighting with one’s own situation. To become an enemy of the ground on which we stand is to become an enemy of ourselves, to split ourselves in two. One part—the part we condemn—is what we presently are. The other part—the part we praise—is what we are not yet, what we want to become. We break ourselves in two: what is, and what should be.
And whenever a person splits himself in this way, understand first of all: that which he denies is the very thing he is, and that which he accepts is precisely what he is not. His whole life will now descend into a very absurd struggle. That which he is not will try to pose as “I am,” and that which he is will he try to deny as “I am not.” Such a person can only become deranged. In Tantra’s vision this is an inner civil war.
If someone wishes to arrive at Brahmacharya, it cannot be by fighting sex. Tantra says: by fighting we can never arrive anywhere—whom will you fight, and with whom? We are one. Fighting means dividing oneself into two. That is schizophrenic. In that way a person breaks into two and goes mad; a split personality is born. Within us only fragments will scatter. Tantra says: it is sex itself that has to be transformed into Brahmacharya. The very power of sex has to be carried to Brahman. The same sexual energy that runs toward the other has to be brought toward oneself. The same sexual energy that longs for the other has to be made to long for the depths of the self. The same sexual energy that seeks petty pleasure has to be turned toward the vast, the infinite bliss—toward the eternal, toward liberation. I call this Tantric vision the vision of nonduality.
All those who see life in the language of quarrel, of conflict, are dualists. They believe there are two principles in life and that these must be pitted against each other: the body against the soul, God against nature, sex against meditation. The entire web of their thinking spreads in the language of conflict. Such people do not know the truth of life.
Tantra says: do not set things to fight; transform what is in your hands. And today science agrees with Tantra. For among all the fundamental principles announced by science in the last three centuries, one is this: energy cannot be annihilated. There is no way to destroy energy. We can only change it; we cannot destroy it. Not even the greatest power in science can destroy what is hidden within a speck of sand. Yes—it can be transformed; given another form, another figure, another shape, another life, another world. Everything can be changed, but the energy hidden in that tiny grain of sand cannot be annihilated. Science says: in this universe nothing is ever destroyed.
There is another aspect too: in this universe nothing is ever created. Nothing is lost, nothing is born; only forms change. The seed was—then it becomes a tree. The seed seems to be gone, but that is due to our limited seeing. The seed does not die; the energy hidden in the seed becomes the tree. Then tomorrow the tree dies, and leaves behind thousands of seeds. Energy only changes form; energy is not destroyed. Nothing is created in the world, nothing is destroyed.
Therefore those who think in the language of creating and destroying think unscientifically. Sex cannot be destroyed—but in a certain sense sex can completely bid farewell, just as the seed has bid farewell. Where is that seed that was yesterday? Now there is a tree. If you try to find the seed, you will not find it anywhere. You could say the seed is gone—but that language would be wrong. The seed is not gone; it is transformed. For where the seed was, now there is the tree; what was the seed is now the tree.
Brahmacharya is not the destruction of sex; Brahmacharya is now present where yesterday sex was. Where yesterday sex-energy was rushing outward, today that very energy, become Brahmacharya, is rushing inward. Where yesterday the flow was centrifugal, today the flow has become centripetal. But the energy is the same. Energy is not destroyed. Tantra gave this declaration to humanity long before modern science understood it.
Tantra says: do not fall into the madness of destroying any power—otherwise you yourself will break and scatter—and yet you will not be able to destroy the power. Therefore all who fight sex do not attain Brahmacharya; they attain only distortions, perversions. Whoever becomes combative with his own sex, whoever nurtures enmity—and most of us nurture such enmity—
In truth, we only know how to nurture enmity or to nurture friendship; we do not know how to remain in between. Either we become friends madly, or we become enemies madly—but our madness remains. We are never able to look neutrally.
Tantra says: to look at sex neutrally is the first sutra. Do not look at sex as a friend, do not look at it as an enemy. Do not see sex as something to be indulged, do not see it as something to be renounced. See sex as a pure energy, a sheer energy. This is indeed the fact. Friendship and enmity are our standpoints, not facts. Friendship and enmity are our interpretations, not facts. The fact is only this: an energy, an immense energy, that spreads outward, that demands the other, that demands its opposite—see this energy as energy. This is Tantra’s first sutra.
And the moment you see it as energy, the whole vision changes. Then you are neither eager to indulge nor eager to renounce. The one eager to renounce is a defeated hedonist—a tired, bored, harassed hedonist. He is still a hedonist, now talking of renunciation. But if one is bored of indulgence, how long will he refrain from being bored of renunciation? The one bored with indulgence will soon be bored with renunciation as well. Renunciation is the other side of the same coin. When you are bored with one side, you will be bored with the other too.
Understand this a little—it is essential for the transformation of sex-energy.
Every act has two poles—so too the sexual act. For example, hunger: you are crazed to eat, frantic, ready to stake everything. Then you eat. After eating, the food is utterly forgotten; there is no memory of it. And if you eat too much, for the very food for which you were mad there arises a desire to vomit. For the very food for which you were obsessed, aversion sets in. For the very food for which you were ready to wager everything, now there is contempt and condemnation. Every movement of mind has two poles—thirst and the satiation of thirst.
When sex presses on the mind, one runs after sex like a madman. Then sex takes one to a peak where only energy is depleted—and the person falls back into a pit of sadness. In that pit of sadness he begins to think against sex. It is hard to find a hedonist who, after indulgence, does not think in the language of renunciation.
Renunciation is a notion conceived in the background of sex. Renunciation is the repentance of sex. Renunciation is the sorrow felt for the lost energy. All hedonists, after the gratification of sex, taste renunciation—repentance, melancholy, neglect, contempt. When a husband turns his back to his wife in sleep, that back is very telling. The wife understands the message of that back; hence she weeps behind it. The same man was mad—and the same man, a moment later, has turned his back. The same man is now so sad, exhausted, troubled—as if this demand will never rise again. Within twenty-four hours, forty-eight hours—depending on power and age—the demand will catch hold again, the mind of indulgence will stand up again. He will forget all the repentance he had yesterday. And then again repentance—and in the moment of repentance he will forget all dreams and cravings of pleasure he had cherished for a lifetime.
Renunciation and indulgence are two sides of one coin. Every person swings like a pendulum, all day long, between indulgence and renunciation. Some people then cling to one of these. Some cling to indulgence and remain in brothels. Some cling to the other side, to repentance, and sit in monasteries, ashrams. But both are clutching one half of the same coin—while the other side is hidden behind it.
Therefore the person who has fled to a monastery will experience waves of sex rising in his mind day after day. The call keeps coming from that other side which has not been dropped, only suppressed. The two sides of the coin can be dropped only together; one side can never be dropped alone. At most you can press one side down and keep the other up. But if the coin is in your hand, the other side is also in your hand. Hence the renunciate continually feels the attraction of indulgence—and therefore keeps speaking against indulgence. He is not explaining to you; he is explaining to himself.
Thus the renunciates of the world have abused indulgence in such terms that one suspects they must surely have felt its pull in their minds; otherwise such abuse would have no purpose, no meaning. If indulgence had truly dropped, there would be no relish even in abusing it. But if you open the scriptures of the renunciates, you will be amazed: just as the hedonists praise, the renunciates condemn.
Why does the hedonist praise? He praises to wash away his repentances. He tells himself his repentances were useless—moments of weakness. There is so much attraction, so much juice, so much heaven! He praises to wash away his remorse—and such praise is never true. Praises are never true. And the renunciate, on the contrary, condemns. He strives to falsify the memories of pleasure he tasted in moments of indulgence. He says: all wrong. He tells the mind: these are lies—this is hell. The mind brings memories of heaven; he keeps saying hell, hell, to destroy those memories. But both are suppressing: the hedonist suppresses renunciation; the renunciate suppresses indulgence. Both have suppressive minds.
Keep this in view as well. Ordinarily we call the renunciate suppressive—but we never call the hedonist suppressive. That is a mistake. The renunciate suppresses indulgence; the hedonist suppresses his remorse, his renunciations. Both suppress.
Tantra says: do not suppress—see, know, recognize. Escape this dual conflict. This duality is false. Neither praise nor condemn. Because if you praise now, after a little while you will condemn; as day follows night and night follows day, praise follows condemnation and condemnation follows praise—their wheel keeps turning. Tantra says: see that both are futile. See energy neutrally—neutral. Indeed, all energy is neutral: neither auspicious nor inauspicious, neither to be renounced nor to be indulged.
If one could look at one’s life-energy saved from this double conflict, what would be the result? Tantra says: the very moment someone sees life-energy as energy—as just energy—without valuation, without evaluation, in that very moment the energy becomes still. It neither goes forward nor backward; neither outward nor inward. Because we send energy: praise drives it outward, condemnation drives it inward.
You have seen the pendulum of a clock swing—but perhaps you have not noticed one principle: when the pendulum moves left, it gathers the power to go right; when it moves right, it accumulates momentum to go left. In truth, going right it prepares to go left; going left it prepares to go right. In this way it keeps swinging.
When you are praising your sex-energy, you are preparing for condemnation; when you are condemning, you are preparing for praise. This reverse understanding does not arrive at once. It is the law of reverse effect. Opposing energies keep accumulating in the human mind.
I have heard: a Hasid mystic wrote a book. It was a revolutionary book, and the orthodox Jews were very angry about it. He gave the book to a devotee and said: go and present it to the chief rabbi. The devotee was nervous: who knows how he will behave? The Hasid said: do not respond to his behavior. Whatever he does, come and report it to me exactly. So be careful—do not react, otherwise you will not be able to give me an exact report. Simply watch what he does. Do not do anything. If he abuses you, do not answer with abuse. If he gets angry, do not try to explain. Just be a witness, so you can give me a precise account. I am sending you as a witness.
The man went as a witness. It was evening; the rabbi was sitting in the garden with his wife. He handed the book and said: such-and-such mystic has sent this as a gift for you. Hearing the name, the rabbi picked the book up and hurled it away, saying: put it outside the door—such irreligious books cannot enter this house. The man had been told to remain a witness; for a moment he felt like doing or saying something, but he remembered—he was not to participate, only to witness. So he stood still. Then the rabbi’s wife said: why such anger? There are thousands of books in the house; put this also on a shelf—if later we want to throw it away, we can do that too. The man felt like thanking the wife, but again he remembered—he had to remain a witness. He stood and watched.
Then he asked: shall I go? The rabbi and his wife both said: but you have not said anything. He replied: I have been sent only as a witness. I have to report what happens. I was told not to participate. But as he was leaving he added: I will give you one piece of news—this is the first time in my life that I have been just a witness to something, and for the first time my whole being is laughing with joy. If only I could be a witness my whole life!
He returned. The Hasid asked: what happened? He told him. The Hasid asked: you did not react? He said: I did not. Then the Hasid asked: now what do you think? If you had reacted then, what would you think—and now, without reacting, what do you think? The man said: the situation is completely different. If I had reacted, I would think the rabbi is the enemy and his wife a friend. But having watched as a witness, I can say now: the rabbi may become a friend today or tomorrow—but there is no hope that his wife will become a friend. The Hasid asked: why? He said: the rabbi threw the book away with such anger that today or tomorrow he will have to read it; today or tomorrow he will repent. But the wife calmly said: put it in the library—there are thousands of books—let it be there. From her there is no hope that she will ever read it. So now I can say: the rabbi’s wife is the enemy; the rabbi can become a friend. The Hasid laughed and said: you have understood the law of the pendulum.
Life gathers very opposite reactions. The hedonist swears vows of renunciation every day; the renunciate is daily engrossed in longings for indulgence. Tantra says: both are futile—two aspects of one coin. Tantra says: energy is only energy. Do not see it as to-be-enjoyed, do not see it as to-be-renounced. Do not see it as something to be done with at all. Just become a witness to energy—just be a witness. And the moment one becomes a witness, the energy neither goes outward nor inward—it stands. And the moment energy stands, transformation begins.
Because let me tell you another delightful rule: nothing can stand still in this world. Nothing can remain fixed. Here, anything will either go outward or inward; forward or backward. There is no stationary state here. Every single thing is moving every moment. So if energy stands—neither inward nor outward—for a moment it will seem to be standing, because its outward movement stops at once. If you simply do nothing—remain a witness—you will find that the energy has begun to move inward. Energy is alive; it cannot remain still; it must go somewhere. If it does not go down, it will go up.
Thus Tantra says: to take it outward demands great devices. To take it inward requires only becoming device-less. Outward movement needs great effort—because going outward is unnatural. Inward movement requires no doing. To go inward, there is only one doing: drop the doings that drive it outward. The hedonist and the renunciate both struggle outside. One pulls the energy inward; the more he pulls, the more the energy pushes outward. The other pushes it out; the more he pushes, the more the energy tries to go in—like throwing a ball against a wall and it returns to you. Our struggle with energy leads us into absurdities and inconsistencies.
Tantra says: stop. Become a witness. Be a sakshi. Look—do not judge; do not interpret; choose neither pro nor con; neither praise nor condemn. Just stand and see. Stand still. And as soon as for a single moment you stand still, immediately it seems as if the flow has stopped—because the outward flow stops at once—and in the very next moment you find the current has begun to flow inward.
To flow outward is to flow downward; to flow inward is to flow upward. In this inner pilgrimage, inward and upward are synonymous. In this sadhana, outward and downward are synonymous. And the moment energy begins to flow inward, antar-maithun begins—the inner intercourse. This is Tantra’s wondrous art—antar-maithun.
There is one intercourse that a person has with another—the relation with the opposite sex, man with woman, woman with man. But when the journey turns inward, relationships begin to form within one’s own inner centers. When one muladhara relates to another muladhara, sex happens—there too are two chakras, and their meeting produces sex, a momentary pleasure. But as soon as energy flows from muladhara toward the next inner chakra, a meeting happens there—the meeting of two inner chakras. Tantra begins—antar-maithun begins.
There are seven chakras. At each chakra, when energy arrives, there is deeper and deeper bliss. And when energy reaches the seventh chakra, there is an explosion of supreme bliss. After that there is no chakra. After that the energy becomes one with the Supreme Brahman.
These inner chakras within the person—meeting them is the inner intercourse of energy. Tantra calls its bliss mahasukh—great bliss—for “pleasure” is not the right word. Pleasure is what we have known in meeting another—though in truth we never truly meet the other. Even before meeting, separation begins; even before union, fragmentation sets in; the energies diverge. Hence there is only the longing to meet another; the event does not truly happen—or if it does, it dissolves at once. But within oneself there is no question of separation; union grows deeper, becomes eternal. As one reaches deeper chakras, the stream of mahasukh begins to flow. But this stream is nothing but the transformation of sexual energy.
So first: witnessing is essential. A neutral vision is essential. No enmity with sex, no friendship—only a simple, easy attitude. Second: in that neutral instant—in that pause—a deep waiting and patience are needed. Why? Because our experience of sex in life is of a mere moment—of a thousandth part of a moment. The moment is not even complete before the mind returns—returns into opposition. Hence by habit, even when this moment of stopping comes in Tantra, the mind immediately tries to return. It is its old habit.
Therefore great patience is needed. When energy begins to flow on the inner chakras, one must keep patience. Much bliss will arise—but do not turn back. The first experience of bliss on the first chakra will feel very much like sexual bliss, like intercourse. So do not hasten to return. Old habit will insist. Without your even knowing, you will find you have returned—because the mind runs by mechanical habit; it lives by habits; it repeats what it knows. Naturally so, for apart from habit the mind has no knowledge.
Therefore, the greatest thing to know in Tantric meditation is this: the first experience on the first chakra will be like sex; then the mind will want to turn back at once. In that moment patience and waiting are needed. Do not turn back then. It will be difficult; five or ten times you may fall back—but do not return then. Be patient—keep watching, keep watching. Each moment will seem long, as if timeless—when will it complete? The mind’s habit is of momentary pleasure; even if mahasukh descends, it gets frightened and turns back. At that moment tapasya is needed—ascetic fire, endurance. Stop—and let yourself sink inward, deeper and deeper. This very experience of mahasukh will feel like death. There will be such trembling.
In truth, sex has a deep relation with death. Sex and death are profoundly linked. In every orgasm a man dies a little; in each intercourse his life-energy is depleted. Look at certain creatures and you will be amazed: some die in a single mating—taken down dead from upon their female; they do not return alive. One mating becomes their death. And there are other creatures whose mating, once understood, will amaze you further. There is no difference between ours and theirs—only a difference of time-gap.
An African spider mates—and the female begins to chew and eat him from above. By the time the mating is complete, half his body has been eaten. Even seeing this, other males continue to mate. It is visible—but each spider thinks the way each man thinks: this is happening to him—I am the exception. Why would it happen to me!
Human reasoning and spider reasoning are not so different. Each person thinks: I am the exception. When someone dies on the road, the thought does not arise: I too will die. The thought is: poor fellow… It does not arise that the fellow here is also poor—and that man’s death is the news of my death.
If we survey the entire animal world’s sexual experiences, we will be astonished: most often sex and death occur together. Where they do not occur together, still every sexual event brings death nearer. This link is deep. Hence the repentance after intercourse is in truth a repentance for having died a little. The man is no longer what he was before intercourse: something is lost, something destroyed, something broken—there is remorse, life-energy is depleted.
Therefore the first time energy reaches the inner chakras—reaches the first chakra—there will arise the same fear: I may die. In the depths of meditation the fear of death creates great difficulty. It seems: I may die! In that moment one must show readiness: so be it—even death is welcome. As one has always been ready in intercourse and welcomed even death, so in that first moment of inner intercourse one must be ready for death. And whoever is ready there discovers at once that he has entered amrit—nectar.
Every intercourse outward is an entry into death. Every intercourse inward is an entry into amrit. Every sexual event outside is an event of dying. Every inner union is a tasting of amrit. Within, nectar daily… That which Kabir cries—that amrit is showering from the palate; that O seekers, a rain of amrit is falling—this is not something raining outside. When life-energy climbs the inner chakras, the taste of amrit begins to shower. Amrit is not a thing that falls from above; death is not a thing that rains. Death is an event—so too amrit is an inner event.
A second aspect also: just as by mating with another we give birth to another person, so intercourse upon one’s own chakras becomes the birth of a new self. Within, a new person begins to be born—new every day. In truth, the one we used to call “dvija,” the twice-born, is one who has taken a second birth.
One birth is from mother and father—bestowed by others. There is another birth that is from oneself—this is the Tantric birth, the twice-born. We call dvija that person who, carrying his life-energy upon the inner chakras, has become available to a new birth. Behind all outer births there is death; behind all inner births there is amrit.
If this Tantric outline is grasped, there is no difficulty in carrying sex-energy to Brahmacharya. But it is difficult to understand this vision, because our minds harbor very deep hostility toward sex-energy. Though, even with hostility we do not become enemies; nurturing hostility we fall daily into friendship again. Here we abuse—and there we indulge. Here we condemn—and there our feet keep moving. The pendulum swings from left to right, from right to left.
Whoever wishes to carry sex-energy upward must know: sex-energy too is the energy of Paramatman; therefore condemnation is futile; therefore indulgence is futile. Knowing is meaningful; living is meaningful. Life is neither in indulgence nor in renunciation.
The more sex-energy moves inward, the more alive it becomes. The higher it rises, the more it becomes part of my life. And that inner emptiness, that hollowness we feel—when sex-energy runs inward, it is filled—fulfillment… One can say: now I am full, overflowing; no space is empty now.