Why does the mind dominate us due to our need to control?

People become afraid of love, because in love you are possessed. People become afraid of meditation too. They become afraid of anything that goes deeper than their control, beyond their control. Life is beyond your control. You can enjoy it but you cannot control it. You can live it, but you cannot control it. You can dance it, but you cannot control it. It controls you. Ordinarily we say that we breathe, and that's not true -- life breathes us. But we go on thinking ourselves as doers, and that creates the trouble. You just sit here. You come here Asseema. (addresses Gatha again) See how energy can be uncontrolled and wild. (addressing Asseema) Just sit and close your eyes. Raise your hands and allow your energy to go wild. [Asseema, a sannyasin who had just returned to Poona after several months away, sat in front of Osho as instructed.

Beloved master, what is the relationship between mastery over the self and control?

Nasruddin said, "I am a poor sinner, my dream was very ordinary -- very ordinary, not worth even telling. But because you insist and because we have agreed, I will tell you. In my sleep God appeared and he said, 'You fool! What are you doing? Eat the halva!' So I have eaten it -- because how can I deny his order? There is no halva left now!" Self-control gives you the subtlest ego. Self-control has more self in it than anything else. But self-mastery is a totally different phenomenon; it has no self in it. Control is cultivated, practiced; with great effort you have to manage it. It is a long struggle, then you arrive at it. Mastery is not a cultivated thing, it is not to be practiced. Mastery is nothing but understanding. It is not control at all. For example, you can control anger, you can repress…

Beloved Osho, why is the mind running like crazy when the heart wants to say something?

Mind is always afraid -- only of one thing, and that is your heart -- because mind is basically meant to be a servant but has managed to become the master. And the heart -- which was going to be the master -- has not even bothered to interfere, and has allowed the mind to remain the master. But the mind is aware that if at any moment the heart wants it, his mastery will be gone. So whenever the heart wants to say something, a fear arises in the mind. Mind is very much afraid of love. Mind is very much afraid of trust. Mind is very much afraid of anything that has to do with the heart. Because the mind's mastery is not part of nature. Heart is naturally the master. But this is the problem: Because the heart feels its mastery so definitely, with such a certainty,…

Chi hsing tzu was a trainer of fighting cocks for king hsuan. He was training a fine bird. The king kept asking if the bird were ready for combat.

'NOT YET', SAID THE TRAINER. 'HE IS FULL OF FIRE. HE IS READY TO PICK A FIGHT WITH EVERY OTHER BIRD. HE IS VAIN AND CONFIDENT OF HIS OWN STRENGTH'. AFTER TEN DAYS HE ANSWERED AGAIN: 'NOT YET. HE FLARES UP WHEN HE HEARS ANOTHER BIRD CROW'. AFTER TEN MORE DAYS: 'NOT YET. HE STILL GETS THAT ANGRY LOOK AND RUFFLES HIS FEATHERS'. AGAIN TEN DAYS. THE TRAINER SAID: 'NOW HE IS NEARLY READY. WHEN ANOTHER BIRD CROWS, HIS EYE DOES NOT EVEN FLICKER. HE STANDS IMMOBILE LIKE A COCK OF WOOD. HE IS A MATURE FIGHTER. OTHER BIRDS WILL TAKE ONE LOOK AT HIM AND RUN'. A small boy was visiting a zoo and there was a deer park, full of deer. He asked the keeper: What are these animals called? The keeper replied: The same thing as your mother calls your father in the morning, when they get…

If you listen to the mind it will go on postponing ad infinitum. But you don't listen to the mind -- and it is good that you put it aside. There are moments when you put the mind aside. You say, 'No, I have fallen in love.' The mind says, 'Are you a fool? You are becoming blind You say, 'Accept it. I am blind, but I am going.' And it is good. . .this is courage. Being with me cannot be a mind relationship. It is falling in love. . .in love with something impossible. . .in love with something absurd. Have you heard Tertullian's dictum? -- 'I love God because God is absurd. He cannot be -- impossible.' That is his credo absurdum. 'I believe in God because God is unbelievable.' Tremendously beautiful... that's what a lover says.