Can the use of alcohol for enjoyment disturb the awareness of seekers?

How is it that great masters like chogyam trungpa get so drunk on occasional festivities that they have to be carried home? Can the use of alcohol for enjoyment disturb a certain awareness of seekers?

It was a great preparation and a great test -- greatest that has ever been created for man. With no desire, with no lust, he has to feel towards the woman as if she is his mother. If the Master says, and sees, that he is right -- now he is like a child entering the woman, not like a man, and like a child he remains inside the woman with no sexuality arising: his breathing is not affected his body energy is not affected; for hours he remains together with the woman, there is no ejaculation; a deep silence pervades -- it is a deep meditation. For twenty years remaining a vegetarian and then suddenly you are offered meat to eat: your whole being will feel repulsed. Hmm?... if you feel repulsion then tantra says, "You are rejected. Now go beyond it. Now whatsoever is offered, accept it in…

Question: The final question: Osho, do you also drink alcohol? And there is nothing else truly worth drinking. For years I haven’t drunk water—that much I can assure you; for ten years at least I haven’t touched it. I drink soda and wine. Soda on the outside, wine on the inside. I believe in balance—a little of the outer, a little of the inner. There is a wine that has never been distilled; toward it no one has ever been able to gaze. There is an elixir like that. I drink this undistilled wine. I live on this unseen elixir! And I want to make you drunkards too. Bhakti means wine. Shandilya means a drunkard. The devotee’s temple is a tavern—intoxication, sweetness, mellowness. Drink the Divine; then no other wine will remain worth drinking.

A friend has asked: Osho, you said about a wayward son that one should let him pass through his experiences, and he will learn on his own. But even after experiencing, he still prefers the same thing—someone is asking about his wayward son—no matter how much suffering he has to endure, even if death itself should come, still he does the same. After stumbling again and again, he repeats it. What can be done? How to reform him?

You will not be able to reform him. If life cannot reform him, if even death cannot reform him, what will you be able to do? If what you say is true—that again and again, even after suffering, he does the same thing; even if death comes, he will still do the same thing, and he does not change—then take your hands off. You will not be able to reform him. You cannot be stronger than death. And one who does not learn from suffering—what will he learn from you? Do not call him a wayward son. You have found yourself a Jadabharata. Because those whom suffering does not reform, whom even death does not reform—these are great, arrived masters; they are in the ultimate state. Do not even try to reform such a one. And why are you so eager to reform another? It is enough to reform yourself.…

Osho, you say that getting lost in bhajan is an intoxication. You also say that if we seek joy in swimming, in play, in meditation, joy is lost—and that when we dissolve in them, joy itself finds us. Please clarify immersion, and the boundary-lines between awareness and unawareness.

Doing bhajan in order to get lost is intoxication; getting lost while doing bhajan is not intoxication. Let me repeat. It is a little intricate, subtle—but you will understand. To do bhajan so that you can get lost—only to get lost—is intoxication. There is anxiety in life, sorrow, pain, tension, restlessness, anguish. One wants to escape it, to forget it, to keep oneself busy anywhere so it is forgotten. Someone goes to the cinema and forgets for two hours; someone sits in a bar and forgets for two hours; someone goes to the temple and begins kirtan and forgets there. These are different methods of forgetting, but all three have the same aim—to forget anxiety. But when you return home, anxiety is waiting. You are the same as before; those two hours have gone to waste; nothing of substance has happened. Those two hours will not dissolve anxiety. Seeking to…

I had heard that wine is bitter and burns the breast, but the taste of your wine is something else.

I say unto you, enjoy life with the witnessing consciousness. But you want to drop the witness. You catch only 'enjoy'. Enjoy life but if you enjoy it without remaining the witness, you didn't enjoy it. Real enjoyment is only when you remain a witness. Drink wine but if consciousness is lost you didn't drink it. You have drunk real wine only if consciousness grows as you drink. There is no other wine than samadhi. As I see it, the attraction for alcohol will continue in man until the attraction for samadhi grows. People will go on drinking fake wine until real wine is available to them. False coins will pass until the real coin is available. Governments throughout the world try to stop the consumption of wine, but it doesn't happen. They have always been trying to do it. Religious people have been advising governments to enact prohibition. They…