Love and Meditation: Temple of Two Doors

Osho, you have titled this series of talks “Sahaj Yoga.” Do “sahaj” and “yoga” not seem mutually opposed?

Anand Maitreya! They don’t just seem opposed, they are opposed. But no ultimate truth of life can manifest without contradiction. Life is made of opposites—darkness and light, day and night, woman and man, negative electricity and positive electricity, birth and death. The very structure of life is woven of opposites. Hence the opposites are not only opposed; they are complementary to each other. If you have labored hard all day, you will be able to sleep deeply. Labor and rest are opposites, yet only the one who has worked can rest deeply—and the one who has not worked cannot. So the opposites are not only opposed, they complete each other. And only the one who has rested deeply at night can rise in the morning and engage in work again. One who has not rested through the night will not be able to work in the morning. Look closely at…

Beloved master, when I hear you speak on love and meditation, or sex and death, saying they are two sides of the same energy, something in me knows it is true. But, although drawn by both aspects, I feel myself hung up on the idea that I can only approach one side at a time. Is there actually a way to be at the meeting point of these polarities where they can be felt as one?

Prem Asang, the beginning has to be always from one side, from one aspect; in the beginning you cannot manage to enter from both the doors. If a temple has two doors you cannot enter simultaneously from both the doors. How will you manage it? But there is no need either to enter from both doors simultaneously; one door is enough. By entering by one door you have reached the inner shrine. The people who have entered from the other door, they have also reached to the same inner shrine. The meeting happens in the innermost experience. Whether you enter from love or from meditation it does not matter -- you reach to the same point. The same point of egolessness is arrived at through love or through meditation. The same point of mind disappearing is arrived at by love and by meditation, and the same point of going beyond…

Ordinarily psychologists don't think that meditation can do anything because they are not aware of the roots -- and meditation's whole function is to cut the roots. Once the roots are cut the tree withers away by itself. Love makes man an ocean, an infinity. It gives a kind of unboundedness. It helps you to know that you are not defined by any limits, that you are not confined by the body or the mind, that you are not confined at all, that you are as vast as the sky; in fact, even the sky is not the limit. There is no limit to you. This is the beauty of love, it makes you aware of vastness. That is the first experience of godliness. And if the first experience happens, then other things follow in their own time. The first experience triggers a process.

Meditation is an end and a beginning -- the end of the old and the birth of the new. You cannot even comprehend it because the old cannot comprehend the new, the old can only comprehend something which is old. It has limitations, it can move only within the boundary of the known, and the new is not within its boundary, the new is unknown. Hence only very courageous people can take the jump. Courage is needed because you have to die to the old, and the old is familiar. You are dropping that which is familiar for something which is absolutely unfamiliar. This is what courage is: dropping the known for the unknown. There are two steps to courage: the first is dropping the known for the unknown, and the second is dropping the knowable for the unknowable. By dropping the known for the unknown, meditation happens.

Meditation fulfils something, love fulfils something else. It is like telling a person 'Either you can eat or you can drink. If you eat, then you cannot be allowed to drink anything; if you want to drink anything then you cannot eat. Choose one -- whatsoever you want.' Now, you will drive that man crazy! He needs both. You tell somebody 'Either you can remain awake or you can go to sleep -- choose.' These are opposite activities, and you cannot choose opposite things because that will create troubles for you, so either be awake or be asleep.' Now, nobody can choose one. You will need a certain rhythm between waking and sleeping; you will have to move from one to the other. Waking you will create the necessity for sleep, sleep will create the necessity for waking.