What happens when fear and anger arise during the practice of awakening and awareness?

A second friend has asked: Osho, in the practice of awakening, of awareness, fear arises, and there is a constant worry that the routine of life may fall into disorder. It also seems that when anger, sex, etc., arise, if one acts on them, they are finished in five to seven minutes—one feels free of them. If you don’t act, their after-echo, their waves, keep resounding within for days. Then it feels as if it would have been better to have done it and been done with it. So what should one do? Is such awakening not repression?

Two things. First, if through “awakening” your anger—which would otherwise be over in five minutes—goes on for two days, understand it is not awakening; it is repression. Repression makes things spread. It creates even more disturbance than indulgence. If sexual desire arises and is over in a moment, but with your so-called awakening it drags on for days, grows dense, and becomes a burden on the mind, know that it is not awakening, it is repression. Many of us don’t rightly understand the difference between awakening and repression. Understand it. Repression means: what has arisen inside, you press it down inside; you don’t allow it to come out. Indulgence means: you let it out on someone. Get the difference clear. Repression means: you force it down upon yourself; indulgence means: you unload it onto the other. Awakening is a third thing—letting it out into the void: neither pressing it down…

This too is anger. This too is anger. It is an inner suppression that goes on within. The earlier damage was that it became a habit; the harm here is that you will gradually start simmering in anger. Its surges will not be released; they will churn inside.

Such a person is very dangerous. One day he will explode in a rage so perilous that the first type can never manage. That is why sometimes very simple, mild-looking people commit murder. Generally, very hot-tempered people do not kill, because their anger is released day by day. But the one who goes on suppressing anger—many times people say, “He was so simple; how did he do this?” He suppressed it for a long time. The surge accumulated. Then something provoked him, he became enraged, and the whole force burst out together. And then he can do something very dangerous. This surge can erupt someday. Such a person can go mad. If it is suppressed so much that it has no outlet, the mind will be deranged. Any craving, any impulse—if indulged, it becomes a habit; if suppressed, it can make you neurotic. So the second path is no path.…

Beloved Osho, though we can be aware of anger and refrain from hurting others with it, inner anger seems to remain in a dormant state, and at times it becomes aroused by outer happenings. It doesn't seem possible to entirely throw it as it is deep-rooted in early, wrong training, and a lifetime of struggle in the world. Isn't the total disappearance of anger simultaneous with enlightenment? Does an enlightened one ever have any anger?

The first thing: if you feel angry and if you think that it is needed for it to be suppressed, suppress it for the time being -- because it is useless just to be angry with someone and then create a chain. Then he will be angry and then more anger will be created, and this can continue even for lives. Everything has a continuity of cause and effect; it becomes a chain. So if you feel anger and you see it is going to be destructive to you and to the other person, smile, have a false face. And move to your room, close the doors, take your pillow and beat it. Write the name of the person on the pillow and do whatsoever you wanted to do with the person. Don't suppress it in the system because that is too dangerous. Anger is poison, and when the body…

Osho, we feel that to penetrate and transform the deeper layers of the unconscious only through awareness is difficult and not enough. What else should one do other than the practice of awareness? Please explain more about the practical dimensions on this matter.

Silence is energy. Brahmacharya is energy. Not to be angry is energy. But this is not suppression. If you suppress anger, you have used energy again. Don't suppress -- observe and follow. don't fight -- just move backwards with the anger. This is the purest method of awareness. But certain other things can be used. For beginners certain devices are possible. So I will talk about three devices. One type of device is based on body awareness. Forget anger, forget sex -- they are difficult problems. And when you are in them, you become so mad that you cannot meditate. When you are angry you cannot meditate; you cannot even think about meditation. You are just mad. So forget it; it is difficult. Then use your own body as a device for awareness. Buddha has said that when you walk, walk consciously. When you breathe, breathe consciously. The Buddhist method…

Osho, yesterday you described the cathartic practice of pillow‑beating to release anger. In the same way, what practices should be done for the cessation of lust, greed, attachment, and ego? Please shed some light on these.

The friend I mentioned yesterday—today his companion told me he actually pulled out a knife and ripped the pillow to shreds. I hadn’t even suggested that! It makes us laugh: how can someone stab a pillow? But when we can rip a living person apart, we don’t laugh—so what’s the difficulty in slicing a pillow? When someone tears a living person, the “juice” is in the tearing itself; the person is incidental. That same juice can arise with a pillow. In fact, more so—because with a pillow you need impose no limits at all. So shut yourself in your room, and when your root “disease” wants to show itself, let it show. Consider this meditation. Let it come out in every pore of your being. Shout, jump, do whatever is happening—let it happen. And watch from behind—you will even feel like laughing. You will be surprised: “I can do this?”…