Why do my questions often reflect the dark side of me?

Beloved Osho, I love you so much, and still -- how can it be that so many questions which come to my mind are reflecting the dark side of me? I am afraid to bore you, but somehow these questions often feel as if they are the most honest and authentic to me.

Latifa, one thing to be constantly remembered is not to judge what is dark and what is light, what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil -- because the moment you judge, you start repressing. You don't want to show anything that you judge as dark, as evil, as bad. Then you have chosen only half of yourself; it is as if you have chosen only the day and you have denied the night. But the night has its own beauties. Its darkness is also a beauty -- it has a depth, a silence, a serenity, the stars. If the day has its beauty, the night has its own beauty; they are both unique -- and they are complementary. What you have been doing is to ask questions which look good -- and you repress those questions which you feel and judge to be…

Osho, you speak so much about the inner light, but my experience is different. Whenever my thoughts fall silent in meditation, a dense darkness descends within me, which feels cool and pleasant. Kindly explain what this is.

Psychologists say that in every human being’s unconscious that caveman’s experience is still there; it has not gone. It has become embedded in the body’s memory. Hence we fear the dark. Now there is no reason—one sits at home, electricity is at hand; press a button and there is light; there is no such hassle. In the country a “festival of discipline” is going on—no disturbances, no cause for fear. You are sitting in your room, and still you are panicking at the dark. That experience from twenty thousand years ago is in your every vein. You too are born from that same man; the chain is linked to him. It has not been forgotten; it is lodged very deep. So darkness seems frightening. Man becomes afraid of the dark. But the one who is afraid of the dark will never be able to go within. His inner journey will…

Osho, you say take light into darkness and the darkness disappears. You are the light. Then where is darkness? And why do I long for darkness too?

Chetana, when I say bring light and darkness disappears, what I mean exactly is: bring light and darkness becomes luminous. It does not disappear, because nothing can disappear. Bring light in and darkness becomes enlightened. When the light comes in it transforms the very quality of darkness itself. Nothing disappears, things are just transformed. If you allow me in your heart, you will not find darkness. That doesn't mean darkness has disappeared; darkness has been transformed. Darkness is no more darkness, it has become light itself. In fact, darkness and light are not two opposite things as we ordinarily think. The difference between darkness and light is not of opposition. They are the same thing. It is like hot and cold. What you call cold is only relatively cold; there is no absolute difference. What you call hot is only relatively hot; there is no absolute difference. You can try…

Sometimes running here and there, talking, laughing, working, reading, writing and cleaning -- the fact is: when the door closes behind and the eyes are shut -- it is dark. Thoughts or no thoughts feelings or no feelings it is dark. Morning or night any time inside it is dark. Looking inside for the looker it is dark. Is 'I' darkness who is is writing this question?

So, remember it: whatsoever you know about light and darkness -- both have to be left behind. When you close your eyes, you have left the light outside; now you enter darkness. Love it. Sing? a song with it. Have a dance with it. Don't fight with it, don't be afraid of it, don't keep a distance from it. And don't go on looking for light. Forget about light. This darkness is there -- it has to be enjoyed; one has to be grateful to God for this darkness, this silence, this stillness, this velvety expanse. And then, one day, the observer and the observed are no more two. When you love something, the duality disappears. If you love darkness, you become darkness. And when there is no duality, there comes a luminousness of a totally different quality. It is not the light that comes from the sun, and it…

Beloved master, last month I was faced with a recognition that where there is light there is also a shadow side of darkness. Yet until the last few days I still clung to the illusion of some separation between them, in particular that here on the ranch with you there was light, and outside there was darkness. Now I'm experiencing the inseparability of light and darkness, both within myself and within the commune. Are light and darkness also inseparable within you? Is this a reality we have to face to let our love grow deeper?

The existence consists not of contradictions, but of complementaries. Light and darkness are neither separable nor inseparable; they are one. Darkness simply means less light. Light means less darkness. The difference is only of degrees. There are animals, birds, who see only in darkness. Your day is their night. Their night is your day. And what you see is a very small fraction of the immense phenomenon of lightdarkness. I am using it as a single word, not even with a hyphen between the two. You don't see X-rays. Your vision has a limited capacity. Below it there is infinity, above it there is infinity. So you have to drop the Aristotelian logic from your mind. Aristotle has dominated the human mind, particularly the Western mind, for almost two thousand years. But now it is possible to get rid of the old man. Aristotle's basic strategy was to divide things…