Can someone who has indulged attain understanding in this lifetime?

In this very lifetime, someone who has indulged—can he attain that understanding?

Absolutely he can; there is no question about it. It’s not even a question. While indulging, we can do so with understanding or without understanding. If we indulge with understanding, we move toward brahmacharya; if we indulge without understanding, we keep revolving in the same circle. So the issue is not indulgence; the issue is indulging while awake. Whatever we are enjoying—are we enjoying it awake or asleep? Sex has this particular twist: for lifetimes people indulge in it, but asleep. That’s why no real experience ever comes into our hands. In the moment of sex a person becomes almost unconscious, loses awareness. When he comes out and awareness returns, the moment is gone; then the craving for that moment begins again. The key formula of the discipline of brahmacharya is: how to remain awake at the moment of sex. And you can remain awake in that moment only if…

Osho, just as the word "renunciation" can be misleading, the word "indulgence" can also be misleading, can't it?

That is exactly what Manik Babu says: anything can be misleading. That is not the question—anything can be. But if even here a choice has to be made, I say it is all right if indulgence misleads; I even recommend that. If the choice is between indulgence and renunciation—both capable of misleading—then I say let indulgence be the one to mislead. I say this because indulgence is a sign of life being healthy, simple, and spontaneous. And here is the curious thing: the person who sets out to indulge will, little by little, find renunciations becoming inevitable—however misleading indulgence may be. As he descends into experience, the possibilities of larger enjoyments open up, and renunciations become unavoidable. But the one who sets out to renounce will lose the possibilities of the old enjoyments, and the new possibilities will not arise. He will go on drying up. It is true: overeating…

Osho, while listening to yesterday’s discourse I felt as if in you both Charvaka—“live happily”—and Ashtavakra—“move happily”—were speaking together. And for some reason I found that likable. But if, to become disenchanted with indulgence—that is, to be liberated—it is necessary to pass through indulgence completely, wouldn’t it be better to give Charvaka’s philosophy full scope in place of the huge hocus‑pocus of religious practice?

You eat; hunger had been there, there was torment—you ate, there was satiety. In that moment of satiety there is the flavor of fasting. For that short while, no memory of food remains. And the meaning of fasting is precisely this: that food does not preoccupy you. When the body is utterly healthy, when it is vibrant, then for a little while a glimpse of the bodiless arises. Ask athletes, runners, swimmers. Sometimes while swimming—in the sunlight, with the waves—there comes a moment when the body begins to throb with such aliveness, such a sense of well‑being showers in the body, that the body is forgotten—you become bodiless. That joy is of the bodiless. Sometimes while running, there comes a moment when the inner climate and the outer weather become harmonious; you are running, drenched in sweat, but the mind becomes silent, thoughts have stopped. Standing beneath a tree in…

Isn't tantra a way of indulgence?

But Tantra is not indulgence at all. The repressive people have always thought that Tantra is indulgence; their minds are so much obsessed. For example: a man who goes to a monastery and lives there without ever seeing a woman, how can he believe that Saraha is not indulging when he lives with a woman? Not only lives but practises strange things: sitting before the woman naked, the woman is naked, and he goes on watching the woman; or even while making love to the woman he goes on watching. Now, you cannot watch his watching; you can see only that he is making love to a woman. And if you are repressive, your whole repressed sexuality will bubble up. You must start going mad! And you will project all that you have repressed in yourself on Saraha -- and Saraha is not doing anything like that; he is moving…

A friend has asked: Osho, yesterday you said that to know anger completely, one must experience it in its totality. Then how is one to know lust completely? Because the experienced say that lust is never satisfied; the more you indulge it, the more it grows. So how can one go beyond lust?

Surely there is an inherent purpose. And it is this: even these saints could not have been born without lust. They too went beyond only by passing through the experience. They too entered it and found it to be futile. That realization of futility is precious—and it comes only when it happens in your own experience. So do not be in a hurry. Do not rely on borrowed experience. That does not mean you tell the experienced, “You are wrong.” You should simply say, “We do not yet know. We wish to enter and know for ourselves what this lust is. We will know it fully. If it turns out to be wrong, that very knowing will bring liberation. And if it turns out to be right, then there is no need for liberation.” One thing is certain: whoever has known rightly has become free. And another thing is also…