Appendix #3 Catharsis and Meditation: Steps on The Path
The New Alchemy To Turn You On #20
Date:
1973-02-10
(pm)
Place:
Anandshila
Osho's Commentary
THERE ARE TWO ATTITUDES TOWARD EXISTENCE. The first is one of enmity, conflict, struggle; the attitude of conquering the world, nature, the universe.
The whole scientific edifice is based on this attitude. Science is a struggle, a violent struggle with nature -- destructive. Religion is based on quite the contrary attitude: the approach of friendliness, of love.
Nature is not to be conquered, because you are part of it. It is absolutely absurd that the part should try to conquer the whole. It is impossible. And, ultimately, only the part will suffer not the whole. The whole effort is foolish, stupid.
Religion says that we are part of nature -- nature is the whole. The effort to conquer it is bound to create hell for you. Rather, surrender to it, be in a deep sympathy with it. Be deeply involved in it, be in a family relationship with it. Love must be the attitude.
And this is the miracle. It looks paradoxical, but when you try to conquer it you never conquer it. In the effort, you are destroyed. You just create misery, anguish, anxiety for yourself. You become an outsider. Then the universe is not a home for you; the universe is not your mother. You suffer; you become motherless. But when you love -- when the approach is of love and not of violent struggle -- you conquer it.
Only love conquers, because only love knows how to surrender, only love knows how to be defeated. That's why love conquers. Love becomes victorious because it knows the secret key: that there is only one victory with existence and that is by surrendering to it.
Once you surrender to it, the whole universe surrenders to you. The universe is just a response. Whatsoever you are doing, the universe goes on echoing it. The universe is not really doing anything to you. Rather, you are doing something to yourself, through nature. If you are trying to conquer nature you are creating conflict. Nature will respond with conflict. It is your own face, reflected in the whole.
If you are not fighting, nature is not fighting. If you are ready to surrender, nature will surrender to you. This surrendering attitude toward existence is prayer. This attitude of surrendering toward the whole will make you whole also. Meditation is the path of how to surrender.
Three things are to be remembered. One, you are born out of existence; existence is your mother. Those who call God 'the father' are not right. This is just a male-oriented attitude. God is not the father, God is the mother, because we are born out of God. The whole universe is a womb.
One comes out of it and then, finally, one drops into it again -- just like a wave in the ocean, jumping and then falling back If the wave is struggling against the ocean, it is stupid. It is bound to go mad. And we have gone mad. This madness has to be dropped.
So the first thing to remember: if you really want to go deeply into ecstasy, a violent, aggressive approach toward existence is not for you. Rather, a loving approach, a friendly approach, a surrendering approach.
Or, you can say it in another way. With science, the approach is a male approach. With religion, the approach is a feminine approach. With science, it is positive aggression; with religion, it is passive love, surrendering, being in a deep let-go. But before this let-go, this love, you must throw out all the diseases that create aggression within you.
You are aggressive because you have accumulated aggression. You have accumulated anger, hatred, jealousy. You have accumulated much poison within you. That poison has to be thrown out. Only then will this aggression disappear.
And remember, you cannot approach the divine with an aggressive mind. You will never find him. The very attitude becomes the obstacle. You can approach the divine only in a very deep, passive receptivity. No aggression should be within you, no poison, no violence.
That's why I place so much emphasis on catharsis. In these meditations you are to throw out whatsoever you have accumulated in the past. All the dust, all the dead past. Throw it away. Act it out, act it out of your system completely. Only then can you surrender because only then, when aggression in not in you, is surrender possible.
In the modern age, relaxation has become a problem. No one is really capable now of relaxing. Such a simple thing! Even cats do it better than man. Look at a cat relaxing. He is so deeply relaxed. But you cannot do it. What has happened to man that a cat can do it and a man cannot do it?
So much accumulated aggression is there that it cannot allow you to relax. Deep down, you are afraid of relaxation. That's why you can't relax. The moment you relax the suppressed madness will come out, so you cannot relax. You are afraid. You have such nonsense within you that if you relax it is bound to come out, it will flow out of you. This fear creates a protection, a defense mechanism. You create a wall around your repressions and, because of that wall, you cannot relax.
If you cannot relax, how can you surrender? Surrender is absolute relaxation. It is merging into the universe so much that you don't feel 'you' are; you feel the universe is, existence is. You are so relaxed that you don't feel any boundary between you and the universe; there is no division between you.
If you are tense, you are divided. If you are relaxed, you are undivided, one. Surrender is deep relaxation, absolute relaxation. Unless you throw out all that has become part of you, part of your mind, you cannot relax and you cannot surrender. And if you cannot relax, you cannot participate in existence.
Participation is bliss. The whole universe is celebrating, every moment it is celebrating. It is a great celebration, a constant celebration, only we are not part of it. We have detached ourselves and are in misery. We are in misery because of the mind. The flowers are participating in the celebration, the moon is participating, the stars are participating, the earth is participating, the oceans are participating, the air, the clouds -- everything is participating in the continuous, eternal celebration. Only man has become an outsider. And it is because of his own efforts. On his own, he has separated himself from the existence.
Meditation is a reunion. It is going back to the mother, it is coming back home. But first, whatsoever dust you have gathered on the way, you have to throw away.
So don't be afraid of catharsis. I see that you are afraid. You are afraid that nothing will happen. These eight days are for catharsis, so that you can become new. The old can die here and you can leave with a new face, with a new mind, with a new being. But you will have to surrender so that you can participate in the great celebration that the universe is.
For science, the universe is a mechanical thing. For religion, it is a celebration. For science, it is accidental. For religion, it is intentional. For science, it is just a long process of cause and effect -- meaningless. For religion, it is not. For religion, it is not a chaos; it is a cosmos. It is not a mechanical thing, but a conscious intention. And not meaningless, but intrinsically meaningful. That meaning is hidden in the celebration.
We have conceived of God as a dancing god. The whole universe is a dance. Unless you can dance, you cannot become a part of it. Meet this dancing universe in a dancing way! Go to this celebration in a celebrating mood!
But how can you create a celebrating mood? How can you yourself become a celebration when there is aggression, violence, hatred and thousands and thousands of diseases accumulated inside? You are defending them, you are safeguarding them. You are your own worst enemy.
Become a friend to yourself. Allow the whole nonsense that is repressed and unconscious within you to be acted out. Be courageous enough to express your diseases. The moment they are expressed, the moment your unconscious diseases become conscious, they disappear. This is the only way.
What is psychoanalysis doing? All the psychoanalysts -- Freud, Jung, Adler and others -- what are they doing? They are doing the same thing by means of a very lengthy process: making your unconscious conscious. By talking with a patient for years on end, the psychoanalyst makes him aware of his unconscious. But this is too long a process, too expensive. And not worthwhile. The results are not very meaningful, not very hopeful. But the base is right. If unconscious repressions are allowed to become open, if they're exposed to the conscious, they disappear; they evaporate. You are freed from them, unburdened. You become weightless.
This is what we are doing here. But what we are using is a very intense method. It is not going to be like years and years of just sitting on the couch of a psychoanalyst and talking, talking, talking: talking about your dreams and about your unconscious, bringing everything out of you in bits and pieces. This method will expose your unconscious immediately!
But then, you have to help me; you have to cooperate with me. I cannot do anything unless you cooperate. Unless you are ready to transform yourself, I cannot do anything. But with your cooperation, much is possible. If you have courage, something meaningful can happen.
Meditation starts with catharsis and ends with celebration. When your diseases are thrown, you can dance and laugh, you can feel blissful. Only in this blissful state will there be a meeting, a meeting with the universe. That meeting is divine.
Unless you have known that meeting and reunion, you have not known anything at all. Only one thing is worth knowing, and that is the deep rootedness of your being in the being of the universe. Unless you feel that you are the universe, that you are in the universe and the universe is in you, you will be in misery; you will be in hell.
Now, something about the night meditation. Then we will move into it. This method is a very intense method. For twenty minutes you are going to stare at me with your eyes unblinking and your hands raised toward the sky. This is just a preparation so that you can meet with the cosmos. You will be jumping so that your energy is active, you are in a vital state, and the meeting can happen. Your energy is flowing upward. While you are standing with your hands raised -- jumping, staring at me -- feel that your energy is moving up. Jump with the energy that is moving up. You must move a little so that existence can descend into you. You must go at least one step of the way. Then, the divine can come. Only one step from you is enough.
In this state -- staring at me, jumping, feeling energy moving up as if you have become a tree that is spread out into the sky and you are jumping to meet the sky -- you will simultaneously be using the mantra hoo, loudly. HOO hits, hammers, the energy within and kundalini starts arising. In India we have called this energy kundalini, serpent power. The serpent uncoils.
This HOO has many meanings; it is multi-dimensional. Hoo hits the energy that is coiled inside. It actually hits the energy that is coiled in your sex center and the energy begins to move. Jumping, with your hands raised and spread toward the sky, the energy will flow in a fast current. You will feel that current. The more you feel it, the more you are to jump so that you are helping it to move. Go on using the mantra HOO, HOO, HOO as a hammering. It is a hammering with sound.
For twenty minutes you have to be completely mad so that all your madness is thrown out. Don't withhold yourself. Move into it totally, because half-effort is useless. Unless you do it totally, nothing will happen.
Only at a certain point will you touch existence. It is just like at 100 degrees water becomes vapor, it evaporates. If it is only heated to 90 degrees it may become hot but it will not change into vapor. The heat must reach a certain degree. Only then is there transformation. So half-effort is useless. You will just be wasting energy and moving nowhere. You will just become lukewarm; nothing will happen to you, you will not evaporate.
So bring your total energy to it. Don't withhold anything; move completely in it. Within twenty minutes your energy will become vital and flowing. It will become a current, a fast current moving from the earth toward the sky. You will just be a vibrating part of that current. You will have disappeared; you will only be vibrating energy, jumping and ready to meet the divine, ready for the deep communion I am talking about.
And then, I will stop you. For ten minutes you are to remain in total silence. In that total silence you can become more aware of what is happening within. A new door is opened, a new light descends on you, a new bliss overflows in you. You have a feeling that the divine is everywhere: all around, within and without.
Osho's Commentary
The whole scientific edifice is based on this attitude. Science is a struggle, a violent struggle with nature -- destructive. Religion is based on quite the contrary attitude: the approach of friendliness, of love.
Nature is not to be conquered, because you are part of it. It is absolutely absurd that the part should try to conquer the whole. It is impossible. And, ultimately, only the part will suffer not the whole. The whole effort is foolish, stupid.
Religion says that we are part of nature -- nature is the whole. The effort to conquer it is bound to create hell for you. Rather, surrender to it, be in a deep sympathy with it. Be deeply involved in it, be in a family relationship with it. Love must be the attitude.
And this is the miracle. It looks paradoxical, but when you try to conquer it you never conquer it. In the effort, you are destroyed. You just create misery, anguish, anxiety for yourself. You become an outsider. Then the universe is not a home for you; the universe is not your mother. You suffer; you become motherless. But when you love -- when the approach is of love and not of violent struggle -- you conquer it.
Only love conquers, because only love knows how to surrender, only love knows how to be defeated. That's why love conquers. Love becomes victorious because it knows the secret key: that there is only one victory with existence and that is by surrendering to it.
Once you surrender to it, the whole universe surrenders to you. The universe is just a response. Whatsoever you are doing, the universe goes on echoing it. The universe is not really doing anything to you. Rather, you are doing something to yourself, through nature. If you are trying to conquer nature you are creating conflict. Nature will respond with conflict. It is your own face, reflected in the whole.
If you are not fighting, nature is not fighting. If you are ready to surrender, nature will surrender to you. This surrendering attitude toward existence is prayer. This attitude of surrendering toward the whole will make you whole also. Meditation is the path of how to surrender.
Three things are to be remembered. One, you are born out of existence; existence is your mother. Those who call God 'the father' are not right. This is just a male-oriented attitude. God is not the father, God is the mother, because we are born out of God. The whole universe is a womb.
One comes out of it and then, finally, one drops into it again -- just like a wave in the ocean, jumping and then falling back If the wave is struggling against the ocean, it is stupid. It is bound to go mad. And we have gone mad. This madness has to be dropped.
So the first thing to remember: if you really want to go deeply into ecstasy, a violent, aggressive approach toward existence is not for you. Rather, a loving approach, a friendly approach, a surrendering approach.
Or, you can say it in another way. With science, the approach is a male approach. With religion, the approach is a feminine approach. With science, it is positive aggression; with religion, it is passive love, surrendering, being in a deep let-go. But before this let-go, this love, you must throw out all the diseases that create aggression within you.
You are aggressive because you have accumulated aggression. You have accumulated anger, hatred, jealousy. You have accumulated much poison within you. That poison has to be thrown out. Only then will this aggression disappear.
And remember, you cannot approach the divine with an aggressive mind. You will never find him. The very attitude becomes the obstacle. You can approach the divine only in a very deep, passive receptivity. No aggression should be within you, no poison, no violence.
That's why I place so much emphasis on catharsis. In these meditations you are to throw out whatsoever you have accumulated in the past. All the dust, all the dead past. Throw it away. Act it out, act it out of your system completely. Only then can you surrender because only then, when aggression in not in you, is surrender possible.
In the modern age, relaxation has become a problem. No one is really capable now of relaxing. Such a simple thing! Even cats do it better than man. Look at a cat relaxing. He is so deeply relaxed. But you cannot do it. What has happened to man that a cat can do it and a man cannot do it?
So much accumulated aggression is there that it cannot allow you to relax. Deep down, you are afraid of relaxation. That's why you can't relax. The moment you relax the suppressed madness will come out, so you cannot relax. You are afraid. You have such nonsense within you that if you relax it is bound to come out, it will flow out of you. This fear creates a protection, a defense mechanism. You create a wall around your repressions and, because of that wall, you cannot relax.
If you cannot relax, how can you surrender? Surrender is absolute relaxation. It is merging into the universe so much that you don't feel 'you' are; you feel the universe is, existence is. You are so relaxed that you don't feel any boundary between you and the universe; there is no division between you.
If you are tense, you are divided. If you are relaxed, you are undivided, one. Surrender is deep relaxation, absolute relaxation. Unless you throw out all that has become part of you, part of your mind, you cannot relax and you cannot surrender. And if you cannot relax, you cannot participate in existence.
Participation is bliss. The whole universe is celebrating, every moment it is celebrating. It is a great celebration, a constant celebration, only we are not part of it. We have detached ourselves and are in misery. We are in misery because of the mind. The flowers are participating in the celebration, the moon is participating, the stars are participating, the earth is participating, the oceans are participating, the air, the clouds -- everything is participating in the continuous, eternal celebration. Only man has become an outsider. And it is because of his own efforts. On his own, he has separated himself from the existence.
Meditation is a reunion. It is going back to the mother, it is coming back home. But first, whatsoever dust you have gathered on the way, you have to throw away.
So don't be afraid of catharsis. I see that you are afraid. You are afraid that nothing will happen. These eight days are for catharsis, so that you can become new. The old can die here and you can leave with a new face, with a new mind, with a new being. But you will have to surrender so that you can participate in the great celebration that the universe is.
For science, the universe is a mechanical thing. For religion, it is a celebration. For science, it is accidental. For religion, it is intentional. For science, it is just a long process of cause and effect -- meaningless. For religion, it is not. For religion, it is not a chaos; it is a cosmos. It is not a mechanical thing, but a conscious intention. And not meaningless, but intrinsically meaningful. That meaning is hidden in the celebration.
We have conceived of God as a dancing god. The whole universe is a dance. Unless you can dance, you cannot become a part of it. Meet this dancing universe in a dancing way! Go to this celebration in a celebrating mood!
But how can you create a celebrating mood? How can you yourself become a celebration when there is aggression, violence, hatred and thousands and thousands of diseases accumulated inside? You are defending them, you are safeguarding them. You are your own worst enemy.
Become a friend to yourself. Allow the whole nonsense that is repressed and unconscious within you to be acted out. Be courageous enough to express your diseases. The moment they are expressed, the moment your unconscious diseases become conscious, they disappear. This is the only way.
What is psychoanalysis doing? All the psychoanalysts -- Freud, Jung, Adler and others -- what are they doing? They are doing the same thing by means of a very lengthy process: making your unconscious conscious. By talking with a patient for years on end, the psychoanalyst makes him aware of his unconscious. But this is too long a process, too expensive. And not worthwhile. The results are not very meaningful, not very hopeful. But the base is right. If unconscious repressions are allowed to become open, if they're exposed to the conscious, they disappear; they evaporate. You are freed from them, unburdened. You become weightless.
This is what we are doing here. But what we are using is a very intense method. It is not going to be like years and years of just sitting on the couch of a psychoanalyst and talking, talking, talking: talking about your dreams and about your unconscious, bringing everything out of you in bits and pieces. This method will expose your unconscious immediately!
But then, you have to help me; you have to cooperate with me. I cannot do anything unless you cooperate. Unless you are ready to transform yourself, I cannot do anything. But with your cooperation, much is possible. If you have courage, something meaningful can happen.
Meditation starts with catharsis and ends with celebration. When your diseases are thrown, you can dance and laugh, you can feel blissful. Only in this blissful state will there be a meeting, a meeting with the universe. That meeting is divine.
Unless you have known that meeting and reunion, you have not known anything at all. Only one thing is worth knowing, and that is the deep rootedness of your being in the being of the universe. Unless you feel that you are the universe, that you are in the universe and the universe is in you, you will be in misery; you will be in hell.
Now, something about the night meditation. Then we will move into it. This method is a very intense method. For twenty minutes you are going to stare at me with your eyes unblinking and your hands raised toward the sky. This is just a preparation so that you can meet with the cosmos. You will be jumping so that your energy is active, you are in a vital state, and the meeting can happen. Your energy is flowing upward. While you are standing with your hands raised -- jumping, staring at me -- feel that your energy is moving up. Jump with the energy that is moving up. You must move a little so that existence can descend into you. You must go at least one step of the way. Then, the divine can come. Only one step from you is enough.
In this state -- staring at me, jumping, feeling energy moving up as if you have become a tree that is spread out into the sky and you are jumping to meet the sky -- you will simultaneously be using the mantra hoo, loudly. HOO hits, hammers, the energy within and kundalini starts arising. In India we have called this energy kundalini, serpent power. The serpent uncoils.
This HOO has many meanings; it is multi-dimensional. Hoo hits the energy that is coiled inside. It actually hits the energy that is coiled in your sex center and the energy begins to move. Jumping, with your hands raised and spread toward the sky, the energy will flow in a fast current. You will feel that current. The more you feel it, the more you are to jump so that you are helping it to move. Go on using the mantra HOO, HOO, HOO as a hammering. It is a hammering with sound.
For twenty minutes you have to be completely mad so that all your madness is thrown out. Don't withhold yourself. Move into it totally, because half-effort is useless. Unless you do it totally, nothing will happen.
Only at a certain point will you touch existence. It is just like at 100 degrees water becomes vapor, it evaporates. If it is only heated to 90 degrees it may become hot but it will not change into vapor. The heat must reach a certain degree. Only then is there transformation. So half-effort is useless. You will just be wasting energy and moving nowhere. You will just become lukewarm; nothing will happen to you, you will not evaporate.
So bring your total energy to it. Don't withhold anything; move completely in it. Within twenty minutes your energy will become vital and flowing. It will become a current, a fast current moving from the earth toward the sky. You will just be a vibrating part of that current. You will have disappeared; you will only be vibrating energy, jumping and ready to meet the divine, ready for the deep communion I am talking about.
And then, I will stop you. For ten minutes you are to remain in total silence. In that total silence you can become more aware of what is happening within. A new door is opened, a new light descends on you, a new bliss overflows in you. You have a feeling that the divine is everywhere: all around, within and without.