According to Osho, hypertension is a mental state born of imbalance: too much trust in reason and disconnection from the heart. Living only in the head breeds tension, anxiety, and neurosis; relaxation arises from the heart—love, play, music, poetry, celebration. Health means fluidly moving between head and heart, the two shores of our being, rather than clinging to logic’s sterile, problem-multiplying grip.
It’s what happens when you think too much and forget to feel; calm returns when you reconnect with your heart through love, play, and joy.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What is hypertension?
Hypertension is a state of mind when you have been become too much focused on rationality and you have forgotten your feelings. Hypertension comes out of an imbalance; too much trust in reason is the basis of all hypertension. People who live in their heads become hypertense. Relaxation comes through the heart. One should be capable of moving easily from the head to the heart just as you move out of your house and inside your house. One should be fluid between head and heart. These are the two shores of the river that you are. You should not cling to one shore, otherwise life becomes lopsided. The West suffers very much from hypertension, because it has forgotten the language of the heart, and only the heart knows how to relax, because only the heart knows how to love. Only the heart knows how to enjoy, celebrate. Only the heart…
A friend has asked: what is the relation between meditation and jati-smaran, past life remembering?
When one succeeds in recalling past lives and they begin to appear like dreams, immediately one's present life begins to look like a dream too. Those who have called this world maya have not done so just to propound a doctrine of philosophy. Jati-smaran -- recalling past lives -- is at the base of it. Whosoever has remembered his past lives, for him the whole affair has suddenly turned into a dream, an illusion. Where are his friends of past lives? Where are his relatives, his wife and children, the houses he lived in? Where is that world? Where is everything he took to be so real? Where are those worries that gave him sleepless nights? Where are those pains and sufferings that seemed so insurmountable, that he carried like a dead weight on his back? And what became of the happiness he longed for? What happened to everything he…
Beloved Osho, I have hesitated for long to ask this question because it seems to reach deep down into my unconscious, and there is a lot of fear connected with it. For the past fifteen years I have experienced tension of varying degrees in my heart area, for which there has been no physical explanation. It can vary from sharp, breath-taking pain, which can last for hours, to a slight feeling of pressure. It disappears when I love, melt, let-go, and when I am in harmony with my body. Does it have something to do with the name you gave me? Do I hold back? I would be grateful if you could throw s
She said, "My joy is that so many people will be joyful. I am not a miser. Whatever I can do to make people joyful, happy, I will do; it is part of my love." She really loved humanity, and did everything that she felt was right. Just give your love to anybody -- a stranger. It is not a question that you have to give something very valuable, just a helping hand and that will be enough. In twenty-four hours, whatever you do should be done with love, and the pain in your heart will disappear. And because you will be loving so much, people will love you. It is a natural law. You get what you give. In fact you get more than you give. Learn giving, and you will find so many people being loving towards you who had never looked at you, who had never bothered…
Osho told him to do the same three exercises he had suggested to the previous group member -- of running, swimming and panting like a dog.] Nothing is wrong. It is just that you have not used your heart for a long time, that's all. There is nothing like a block. It is just that you haven't used it. If you don't use your hand for many days, it becomes as if paralysed. You massage it and the blood circulates again. Everything needs to be used to remain functioning. In the modern world very few people are using their hearts; very few. It is not just your problem; it is the problem of almost ninety-nine percent of people. It is good that you have become aware. They are not even aware. They think that the beating, the function of the lungs is what the heart is. It is not.
[Osho talks to a new sannyasin about being a therapist. He says, do you know the word 'therapist' comes from an ancient parsi word from Buddha's time meaning elder brother?] Anand means blissful, and Rinzai was a great zen mystic -- a Chinese -- founder of the Rinzai sect of zen. Literally the word means: one who helps people to cross the river, the boatman. And he helped many people to cross the river; he was one of the greatest boatmen. There are only a few names in the history of religion which can be compared to rinzai. So first help yourself, then help others. And read something about Rinzai -- books are available, mm ? It will be helpful if you read. Zen will be your path. Dhyana, meditation, will be your path... and Rinzai was one of the greatest meditators.