What happens when we are entangled?

Osho, “man eva manuṣyāṇāṁ kāraṇaṁ bandha-mokṣayoḥ. Bandhāya viṣayāsaktaṁ, muktyai nirviṣayaṁ smṛtam.” That is, the mind alone is the cause of human bondage and liberation. The mind that is attached to objects becomes the cause of bondage, and the one that turns away from objects is said to be the cause of liberation. This aphorism from the Shatyāyanīya Upanishad is quite well known; it also appears in many other scriptures. Osho, would you kindly explain this sutra for us?

Chidananda, the sutra is indeed precious—but when it falls into ignorant hands, even the most precious thing is made worthless. The Kohinoor becomes just a pebble. These immortal Upanishadic utterances, once grasped by certain hands, were turned to poison. The whole message was inverted; what was meant became its opposite. The entire country is rotting in that pain. The Upanishads are voices arising from the very life-breath of awakened beings. When the unstruck veena sounds, such incomparable music is born. But when pundits begin to “comment,” they drag the lotus back into the mud. True, the lotus arises from mud—but the lotus is not mud; it is a transcendence of mud, an expression of that within the mud which is not mud. To smear it with mud again is to turn the beautiful into the ugly, truth into untruth. Commentary has not honed truth; it has layered it with dust…

Osho, are being ensnared in the guru’s net, writhing, and dying indispensable parts of the process of transformation? Of course. One has to get caught, one has to writhe, and one has to die. But not in the sense in which you have asked. To the questioner it seems there is restlessness, there is fear; fear of getting caught, of being trapped.

What is the fear about? Who is afraid? It is the ego within us that is always afraid it may get trapped. And this very ego never lets us get trapped anywhere. But then we are deprived of the whole of life. A young man came to me and said, “I do want to love, but I don’t want to get entangled. I don’t want any hassles.” If you want to love, you will have to get entangled. Love happens only when you dive in. If you stand at a distance, guarding yourself like a watchman, the happening will not happen. And what is it you are saving anyway? What do you have that is worth saving? Who is this that is trying so hard to be safe? Even if you keep safe this trembling life, what will you do with it? What use is the kind of freedom that…

Osho, in one of your discourses you mentioned the sage Durvasa. You cited him as an example of the deranged state to which concentration can ultimately lead. But in trataka the spirit is also of concentration. What is the difference between the two? Please explain.

The traditional trataka—the conventional understanding of trataka—is indeed concentration. And concentration generates power; siddhis are acquired. But the union with the Divine, the supreme rest we seek, does not happen through it. Concentration is a function and an extension of the ego. You do not dissolve; you become more solid. You do not melt; you freeze like ice. Your power increases, not your bliss. But what I am calling trataka is not the use of concentration; it is only the experiment of seeing—just looking. Understand the difference. Trataka means gathering the entire mind and fixing it on one point—on the sun, on an image, on a mark—on anything. It means narrowing the mind so that it does not run here and there. All the currents of the mind turn in one direction. The mind goes on flowing toward a single point. Not even a single ray of awareness scatters elsewhere.…

There are two or three things. First, in trying to become light by dropping raga-dvesha, we have assumed that we are heavy because of raga and dvesha. I said this last night, and again this morning. This is sheer delusion. And if you accept it and then set out to erase raga-dvesha, you will never be able to erase it. So I am not saying how to become light from raga-dvesha. I am saying: first find out whether raga-dvesha and you are one or two. Simply inquire into this, analyze it within your own mind: are raga and I one, or separate? And as it becomes clearer that I am separate—raga over there, dvesha over there, I am here—as this sense deepens, raga-dvesha will begin to wither. The day it becomes utterly clear that I am separate from all—there is no raga and no dvesha—that day you are out.

Osho, what is attachment? Why do we become so attached to things, ideas and persons? And is there freedom from attachment?

“So do one thing,” she told the courtesan. “I will pay you whatever you ask. Go to him at midnight. He meditates at midnight—has done so for thirty years. I want to know whether meditation has happened or not before I die. His hut door is only latched; no one ever goes there. Open it and go in. Whatever he says, notice every word and tell me. Go and embrace him—then come back and report. Before I die, I want to be sure that my service was not in vain.” The courtesan went. She opened the door. The monk was startled. He opened his eyes—he had been sitting in meditation—and shouted, “You wicked woman! Why are you here? Get out! What need have you to come at midnight?” But his tongue faltered; his body trembled. The woman had taken her money; she went right in. He cried, “Stay back! Why…