What happens when physical pain prevents letting go in meditation?

Beloved Osho,

A LOT OF PEOPLE SAY THEY CAN'T REALLY LET THEMSELVES GO IN MEDITATION BECAUSE OF THE PHYSICAL PAIN, BECAUSE OF BUMPING INTO EACH OTHER AND FALLING DOWN. THEY FEEL THIS MAY BE SOME SORT OF EXCUSE FOR NOT REALLY LETTING GO. COULD YOU TALK TO US ABOUT THIS PHYSICAL ASPECT? A child can fall but he will not feel hurt. A drunkard, walking in the street, falls, but his body is preserved, his bones are not fractured. What is happening? The real thing is not the other bumping into you, the real thing is your resistance. You are afraid the other may bump into you, so you are resisting the whole time. Somebody may not bump into you, but you are afraid. Fear closes you, you become stiff, and if somebody then bumps into you that stiffness is hurt, not you. But you feel that you are hurt, and then…

In meditation the distraction is often physical pain. Would you talk about meditating on pain while pain is happening?

This is what I was talking about. If you feel pain, be attentive to it, don't do anything. Attention is the great sword -- it cuts everything. You simply pay attention to the pain. For example, you are sitting in the last part of the meditation silently, unmoving, and you feel many problems in the body. You feel the leg is going dead, there is some itching in the hand, you feel ants are creeping on the body and many times you have looked -- there are no ants. The creeping is inside, not outside. What you should do? You feel the leg is going dead -- be watchful just give your total attention to it. You feel itching -- don't itch. That will not help. You just pay your attention. Don't open even your eyes. Just pay your attention inwardly, and just wait and watch, and within seconds the…

I have glimpses of how psychological, existential pain is created by the ego. It is homemade, and it can be unmade. But what about physical pain: why is it there? Is it a necessary part of dying? I do not feel I am afraid of death as much as I am afraid of physical pain, senility, old age.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PAIN can be dissolved; and only psychological pain can be dissolved. The other pain, the physical pain, is part of life and death; there is no way to dissolve it. But it never creates a problem. Have you ever observed? -- the problem is only when you are thinking about it. If you think of old age you become afraid, but old people are not trembling. If you think of illness you become afraid, but when the illness has already happened, there is no fear, there is no problem. One accepts it as a fact. The real problem is always psychological. The physical pain is part of life. When you start thinking about it, it is not physical pain at all; it has become psychological. You think about death; there is fear. But when death actually happens there is no fear. Fear is always about something in the future.…

Beloved Osho, the first few days of active meditation tend to tighten muscles, causing pain everywhere. Is there any way to get over that?

Look at any animal and see the grace of the body. What happens to the human body? Why is it not so graceful? Why? Every animal is so graceful: why is the human body not so graceful? What has happened to it? You have done something with it: you have crushed it and the natural spontaneity of its flow has gone. It has become stagnant. In every part of your body there is poison. In every muscle of your body there is suppressed anger, suppressed sexuality, suppressed greed -- and everything -- suppressed jealousy, hatred. Everything is suppressed there. Your body is re#ally diseased. So when you start meditating, all these poisons will be released. And wherever the body has become stagnant, it will have to melt, it will become liquid again. And this is a great effort. After forty years of living in a wrong way, then suddenly meditating,…

Osho, you have often said that the true master calls the disciple close, and then also sends him away. How can one know whether the master has sent him away in displeasure, out of anger, or as a blessing, out of joy, for the disciple’s further growth?

First thing: a master who gets angry is no master. Second: a disciple who, when sent away, thinks it must have been out of displeasure is not of the right mettle for discipleship. The master does not get angry; the very possibility of anger has ended. If ever a master seems angry, know that he is acting—for sometimes there is no other way. Gurdjieff would often appear angry—so angry it seemed there would be bloodshed. Those who ran away were deprived. Those who still remained came to know how rare it is to find a heart as tender as his. But why would he behave so angrily? Perhaps that was exactly what was needed for the disciple. Such things happened—and only Gurdjieff could do them—that two people would come to see him, one seated on the left, one on the right. When he looked to the left, it was with…