According to Osho, Nietzsche’s lake symbolizes human energy leaking outward—to objects, power, even God—causing inner emptiness. The ‘dam’ should be read symbolically: meditation gathers dispersed energy inward, so it rises upward and sinks deeper simultaneously, like a tree’s trunk and roots. Properly centered, energy unites material rootedness with spiritual flowering, making man whole—neither ascetic repression nor mere outward pursuit.
Instead of letting your energy spill everywhere, hold it inside with meditation so you feel full and can grow strong like a tree with deep roots and high branches.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: Maneesha's question: OUR BELOVED MASTER, FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE SAW MAN'S ENERGY IN TERMS OF A LAKE THAT UP TO NOW HAS "FLOWED OUT INTO GOD." HE LOOKED FORWARD TO THAT DAY WHEN THE LAKE WOULD CEASE TO LEAK OUTWARDS, WHEN A DAM WOULD BE CREATED SO MAN'S ENERGIES COULD RISE HIGHER AND HIGHER. IT SEEMS HE WAS ON THE RIGHT TRACK IN ASSESSING THE NEED FOR ONE TO GO IN, BUT THE DAMMING UP OF ENERGIES SOUNDS DANGEROUSLY LIKE THE IDEA OF THE ASCETICS. WOULD YOU PLEASE COMMENT? Friedrich Nietzsche is only a thinker, a philosopher of tremendous genius. But whatever he is saying is only a logical, rational, philosophical statement. It is not existential. So try to understand that a man who has not gone beyond the mind can still make certain statements which come very close to the truth.
In fact, when someone becomes absolutely peaceful and silent, he becomes like echo-points you may have seen on mountains. You call out and the mountain immediately returns it. You speak in an empty temple, the sound reverberates, returns and showers back on you. Whatsoever comes to a man who has attained to emptiness, silence and meditation, is immediately echoed back. He is taking and giving each moment. There is no gap between his taking and giving. It is like the waves touching the shore and being returned at once while the ocean stands debt free each moment. As much as it takes, it gives back; whatever it takes, it gives back. What I said is that Astron's instrument also shows how much energy is flowing out of you, how much energy-waves are going out of you. From a sad man, minimum energy waves go out.
Question: First question: Osho, “बलं वाव विज्ञानाद् भूयः; अपि ह शतं विज्ञानवतां एको बलवान आकंपयते। स यदा बली भवति, अथोत्थाता भवति, उत्तिष्ठन परिचारिता भवति, परिचरन उपसत्ता भवति, उपसीदन द्रष्टा भवति, श्रोता भवति, मन्ता भवति, बुद्धा भवति, कर्त्ता भवति, विज्ञाता भवति।।” Strength is superior to science, for a single strong man can terrify a hundred scholars. Only when a man is strong does he rise to stand; rising, he serves the master; by serving, he becomes worthy to sit near the master; by sitting near, he becomes a seer, a listener, a contemplative, a buddha, a doer, a knower. Osho, please compassionately explain in detail the intent of this seemingly strange sutra from the Chhandogya Upanishad. The youth left, but fell into great restlessness. The fakir was not mad. Fakirs are always a little illogical; if a fakir were logically neat, he wouldn’t be a fakir.
Maneesha's question: beloved Osho, wilhelm reich says, in his book, `listen, little man,' that he found that man reaches out with his life energy when he feels well and loving; that he retracts that energy when he is afraid. Reich says that he found that this life energy -- which he termed "orgone" -- is "found in the atmosphere," outside the body. He says he succeeded in seeing it and devised apparatus which magnified it. Is what he observed so?
Maneesha, Wilhelm Reich was one of the unique intelligences born in this century. What he has found has been known to the East as aura. You must have seen around the statues of Buddha or Mahavira or Krishna -- a round aura around the head. That round aura is a reality. What Wilhelm Reich said was authentically true, but the people to whom he said it were not the right people to understand it. They thought he was mad because he described life as an energy surrounding the body. It is exactly true. Life is an energy that surrounds your body. Not only your body, but flowers, trees... everything has its own aura. And that aura, that energy surrounding you shrinks and expands, in different situations. Any situation where your energy shrinks, should be thought bad, sick. And every situation where your energy expands, should be respected and loved. In…
The tao, the undivided, great one, gives rise to two opposite reality principles, the dark and the light, yin and yang. From yin comes the receptive feminine principle; from yang comes the creative masculine principle; from yin comes ming, life; from yang, hsing or human nature.
EACH INDIVIDUAL CONTAINS A CENTRAL MONAD, WHICH, AT THE MOMENT OF CONCEPTION, SPLITS INTO LIFE AND HUMAN NATURE, MING AND HSING. IN THE PERSONAL BODILY EXISTENCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL THEY ARE REPRESENTED BY TWO OTHER POLARITIES, ANIMA AND ANIMUS. ALL DURING THE LIFE OF THE INDIVIDUAL THESE TWO ARE IN CONFLICT, EACH STRIVING FOR MASTERY. IF THE LIFE-ENERGY FLOWS DOWNWARD, THAT IS, WITHOUT LET OR HINDRANCE INTO THE OUTER WORLD, THE ANIMA IS VICTORIOUS OVER THE ANIMUS; NO GOLDEN FLOWER IS DEVELOPED. IF THE LIFE-ENERGY IS LED THROUGH THE 'BACKWARD-FLOWING' PROCESS, THAT IS, CONSERVED, AND MADE TO 'RISE' INSTEAD OF ALLOWED TO DISSIPATE, THE ANIMUS HAS BEEN VICTORIOUS. A MAN WHO HOLDS TO THE WAY OF CONSERVATION ALL THROUGH LIFE MAY REACH THE STAGE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, WHICH THEN FREES THE EGO FROM THE CONFLICT OF THE OPPOSITES, AND IT AGAIN BECOMES PART OF THE TAO, THE UNDIVIDED, GREAT…