Does sensitivity bring only suffering, and is there anything beyond sensitivity that frees one from both pleasure and pain?

Osho, I feel that as awareness grows, sensitivity grows too—and I simply cannot bear it. Please guide me. Guide this blind one, Osho; I keep stumbling as I walk!

Certainly, as awareness grows, sensitivity will grow. Ordinarily we live in a kind of fog—unconscious, stupefied. Like a man drunk, lying in a gutter—he doesn’t smell the stench. You think, “Poor fellow, lying in a drain.” But he’s enjoying himself. He may be dreaming he’s resting in a palace, that he’s become president and is holding court! You see mud, filth, the gutter running past his nose. You imagine a terrible stink must be assailing him. But he’s unconscious. For stench to be felt, a little awareness is needed. In the morning when he wakes up and comes to, he’ll dust himself off and run home, bathe, put on sandalwood paste, do his prayers, dress up and sit in the living room. Then if you tell him, “Just go and lie down in that gutter again,” it will be impossible—now all the senses are alert. Just so it happens. As…

Osho, in the West today all the sensitive existentialist thinkers seem to be pessimists. Does sensitivity bring only suffering? Is there anything beyond sensitivity that frees one from both pleasure and pain? Please explain.

There is a reason. In the West, suffering has decreased. This will sound strange, even contradictory, but listen: outer, visible suffering has decreased. Streets are clean. People do not beg. There is little visible poverty. Children’s bellies are not swollen from hunger and malnutrition. People are beautiful, bodies healthy, lives longer. Outwardly a certain affluence has arrived. As the outer structure of life has been raised, the Westerner can afford to let his armor loosen a little; there is less to be defended against outside. And because there is less pain outside, the need to be numb lessens—so more pain becomes visible! Sensitivity returns, and with it the perception of suffering. In the East suffering is so overwhelming that if you became sensitive you would die, you would commit suicide. You couldn’t even make it from home to the market; you would hang yourself from a tree on the way.…

You said that to be sensitive is to be religious. But it seems that sensitivity leads me to sensuality and indulgence. What is the way for me?

Then indulge! Then be sensual! Why are you so afraid of life? Why do you want to commit suicide? What is wrong with indulgence and what is wrong with being sensual? You have been taught so, and this is what I am saying. Then you become afraid of being sensitive because if you are sensitive, then everything will grow with sensitivity. Sensuality will grow -- it is beautiful, nothing is wrong with being sensual. An alive man will be sensual. What is the difference between a dead man and an alive man? The dead man is no longer sensual; you touch and he doesn't feel, you kiss and he doesn't respond. I have heard one anecdote about Picasso. A lady was appreciating Picasso's pictures and she said, 'Yesterday I went to a friend's house and there I saw your self portrait. And I loved it so much, and I was…

A friend has asked: Osho, if events happen in nature and feelings in man, then when one attains siddhi and experiences one’s separateness, do bodily pain and mental anguish stop?

This needs a little understanding. First, understand the difference between pain and suffering. If a thorn pricks your foot, two things happen. One is pain. Pain means you experience that there is hurt in the foot. I know there is hurt in the foot. You are the knower. The pain happens in the foot; you are the seer of it. You are the witness. This does not mean that if you are a witness and someone pricks your foot you will feel no pain. Do not fall into that illusion. There will be pain, because the prick of a thorn is an event. But there will be no suffering. Keep this distinction in mind. Suffering happens when I become one with the pain. When I say, “A thorn is pricking me,” then suffering happens. When I say, “A thorn is pricking the foot—and I am seeing it,” then there is…

Beloved Osho, why do I get so sensitive? Where does it come from and is it possible to share sensitivity?

And President Truman said, "Of course! I slept as deeply as possible for the first time in a few months. The work is done perfectly. Now Japan is bound to surrender. When I received the news, I was so contented that for once I slept the whole night without even waking up." These are the insensitive people -- and his name is "True Man!" Since that day I have started calling him President Untrueman. But from the very childhood, the head is trained and the heart is left absolutely untrained. Ernie was talking to Ronnie, the little boy from next door. "How old are you?" asked Ernie. "I don't know," replied little Ronnie. "Do women bother you?" inquired Ernie. "No," said Ronnie. "Then," said Ernie knowingly, "You are four." Prem Anugita, my final suggestion to you is, keep climbing upwards. You may never reach the top, but it is definitely…