When the Dance Dances itself The Shadow Of The Whip #3

[In a previous darshan (See "God Is Not For Sale", October 25th, Osho had told a sannyasin to make dance and music his meditation. Now the sannyasin reports: Much has happened.]

It has -- and much that is going to happen is on the way. The more you have, the more is given to you. The rich become richer, because each experience creates a new receptivity, a new trust. And with each experience you are ready to take a bigger jump, and so on and so forth. So continue to dance.

There is nothing like dancing, because dancing seems to be the only activity when the doer can be easily lost, and the only activity in which body, mind, soul -- all can participate in a harmony. Otherwise there are activities that the body can do, there are activities that the mind can do -- the body is not needed. There are activities that can be done by the soul, by the spirit -- neither the mind is needed nor the body.

Any activity that needs the cooperation of all the three layers of your being will give you the richest crop, because in that harmony, in that synchronicity -- when all the three layers meet together and are not in any conflict, when they are one together -- you become something transcendental. Then you are none of the three -- you have become the fourth. And the fourth is the goal.

[Osho said that in India the fourth state is known only as 'turiya' which means simply 'the fourth'.]

Dancing is the only activity in which all the three can be together, in which all the three are needed. And all the three are needed in such a way that they become one. So continue to dance. Much will happen through dance.

There is no need to give any form to it, because once you start giving form to it, the mind has become predominant. Let it be spontaneous, let it be formless. Let it be such that it surprises even you. So each day simply stand and let it come. Let it flood you! And then start moving. Let each movement lead you to another not knowing at all where you are going or what is going to happen next. Then the dance dances itself. And when the dance dances itself and there is no dancer, it is tremendously beautiful.

So through dance many things will happen. And humanity has completely lost track of dance. All primitive societies were dancing societies. Still a few primitive tribes exist somewhere; they are still dancing tribes. Their whole religion consists of dance. They find any excuse and they will dance. It may be the birth of a child and the whole tribe dances to receive the new guest. It may be a marriage ceremony, it may be some other festival. It may be that somebody had died, so again they dance. Birth, death, marriage or anything important they mark by their dance.

Even when they go to war, they go dancing. They call it a war dance. Then even wars take on a new meaning, a new quality. Then it is not the ugly war that we have invented. Of course people are killed, but they are killed while they are dancing. And when a person is dancing, death is meaningless. He is deathless, because if he is killed in that harmony, that very experience will become an experience of samadhi. The primitive war dance has not yet been understood rightly. We think it is simply war -- it is not really a war. It is again an excuse to dance -- the ultimate dance, the last dance, the death dance. Both sides come dancing, and dancing they fight, dancing they die. But if you die in dance you will attain to a great new life. You will be born in a totally different altitude. So let this be your meditation.

Put on any music -- sometimes do it even without music. Sometimes life has its own music. This moment it is raining.... There is subtle music in this rain. Rain falling on the leaves and one can dance -- enough music. One has only to be sensitive. Or ocean waves shattering on the beach, on the rocks. One can dance -- enough music. One can have a wild, orgasmic dance. Or maybe there is no sound, only silence -- then too there is music... one can move with that silence.

So whenever you can find time -- but at least once a day, make it a part of your life. Just as you eat and you sleep, dance too. And I will remain available wherever you are. Just don't be shy in asking for my help. It is your right. By becoming a sannyasin you have all the right to ask for my help in any moment, in any situation. That is the privilege of a sannyasin. So don't be shy about it.
Ask, and it shall be given to you.

[A sannyasin who is leaving says: I'm a little scared to come back. To be too much involved here.]

Afraid of involvement? Then you will miss, because involvement is life, and the deeper you become involved, the deeper you will know the taste of it. From the periphery nothing much is available. If somebody doesn't want to get involved, remains on the periphery, he remains on the bank. He never gets into the stream, afraid that the stream will take him to some unknown space. But then he remains on the bank and he remains thirsty and he remains hungry and he remains frustrated -- because enrichment is through involvement. One grows through commitment.

I'm not saying that one should become attached to one's involvements -- no, not at all. And that's the art: one should get involved but always remain capable of getting out of it. Any moment, if the situation arises and one has to get out, one can. Involvement should not be an attachment, so beware of attach-ment, but never be afraid of involvement. They almost go together -- that's why the fear arises -- but they can be put separately, and that is the whole art of life.

If you don't get involved you will not enjoy life; everywhere the problem is the same. If you love a woman you will be afraid -- you may get involved. In fact you should get involved, otherwise how can you love a woman? Then only peripheries meet and the inner consciousness remains completely aloof. Unless the inner consciousnesses overlap, start penetrating each other, you will not know what love is, you will not know its depth; you will miss.

On the surface there are only waves. The great calm is only in the depth. It may be love, it may be meditation, it may be sannyas, but the problem is the same. You have to go into it headlong; one has to be a little foolish. Wise people always remain hanging on the bank. Their wisdom eventually proves to be stupidity. Fools jump, and finally their foolishness simply proves that they were courageous and wise because they learned. They know new places of being.

So never be afraid of involvement. Never be afraid of commitment. Just one thing has to be remembered -- never lose your freedom. That does not mean that you don't become intimate with somebody. It simply means that you become intimate but you still remain free. In fact a free person is simply aware that he is free, any moment anything can be dropped. If the time arises and the situation is there, the challenge is there and one simply feels stuck -- one can get out of it. It is an agreement that can be broken. It is your choice to be in it or not. But from the very beginning to stand out and become a spectator you will miss the whole of life.

So go deeply into involvement but always remain your own master. There is no need to show your mastery every moment, you just have to know that it is there. And if you want to get out, you can simply slip out; just as a snake slips out of the old skin, one can slip out of any situation. But if you remain afraid just because there is a possibility of getting involved, and you don't grow skin because it may become old and then you may have to get out of it, or it may become a confinement, how will you live? But it happens to everybody.

Once you start enjoying your aloneness and enjoying your freedom, the fear arises, 'Now don't get into anything. Just keep out.' That's why so many people drop out of society. But that is not going to end it. And the days that are wasted, are wasted forever -- you cannot reclaim them.

My whole teaching is to get involved and yet to remain unattached. Walk in the water but don't be touched by the water. Remain like a lotus leaf: in the water but yet untouched. The lotus leaf has functioned as one of the greatest symbols in the East because it remains in the water and yet untouched. That is the ideal for the sannyasin. Not that one escapes, then there is no water. Not that one gets soaked with water, then you are not a lotus leaf.

Be in the water, be in the turmoil of involvement, in the problems that commitment brings, that intimacy brings, love brings; be in it and yet remain aloof. And by and by one learns -- it is a knack. One learns by doing it. Then a great balance arises. With that balance all fear disappears.
Come back and get involved, mm?

[A visitor says: I don't know if I'm ready to stop holding back.]

Nobody knows. Holding back is just a tendency of the mind, a natural tendency. In fact to say that the mind holds back is not right. This holding back is what the mind is. Once you don't hold back, the mind disappears. And with the disappearance of the mind is the appearance of your being, of your true being. This holding back simply says that one goes on clinging to the past. Of course there is nothing to cling to because the past has gone. If you open your fist there is nothing to hold, the past is gone. It is just in the memory, it is no more part of reality. But we go on holding it, hoping that maybe it is somewhere and can be reclaimed.

And holding back is also a subtle fear of the unknown, the unfamiliar, the strange. By and by you will start living a very dead life, because the unknown is what life is, and each moment one has to take the risk again and again of living. Each morning one has to take a risk again. It is very risky, and there is no security. One never knows where one is going, so that the mind holds back. The mind is a safety measure, mm? -- a key to the known, to the familiar. Make a definition -- don't go beyond it. Make a boundary. But all boundaries are imprisonments. And then one suffers.

Man is made in such a way that unless the whole sky is his boundary he will be miserable. Less than that won't do. One needs to expand, and one has to become the expansion. Then there is enthusiasm and there is zest and there is juice, mm? because each moment is a new victory; you expand. Each moment there is a new challenge. You accept and you go on the unknown journey. Each moment God knocks on your door and calls you in such a way that He has never called you; in such a language He has never used before; onto such paths which you have not even dreamed about, and beckons you to come and follow Him

That's what I call a religious life: to always be ready to go into the unknown, the unchartered, with no maps, with no past experiences. Of course there cannot be any past experiences of it. Such a being grows and such a being has a movement.
And I can see that you have infinite possibilities....

(to a sannyasin): I received your letter. Too much eating is the problem? Is it something new or has it always been there?

[The sannyasin replies: Always.]

You can do two things. There are two types of food. One is that which you like, which you have a fancy for, about which you fantasize. There is nothing wrong in it, but you will have to learn a small trick for it. There are foods which have a tremendous appeal. The appeal is not because you see that the food is available. You go into a hotel, into a restaurant, and you see certain foods -- the smell coming from the backroom, the colour and the aroma of the food. You were not thinking about the food and suddenly you are interested in it -- this is not going to help. This is not your real desire. You can eat this thing -- it will not satisfy you. You will eat and eat and nothing will come out of it; no satisfaction will come out of it. And satisfaction is the most important thing. It is the dissatisfaction that creates the obsession.

Simply meditate every day before you take food. Close your eyes and just feel what your body needs -- whatsoever it is! You have not seen any food -- no food is available; you are simply feeling your own being, what your body needs, what you feel like, what you hanker for.

Dr. Leonard Pearson calls this, 'humming food' -- food that hums to you. Go and eat as much of it as you want, but stick to it. The other food he calls, 'beckoning food': when it becomes available, you become interested in it. Then it is a mind thing and it is not your need. If you listen to your humming food, you can eat as much as you want and you will never suffer, because it will satisfy you. The body simply desires that which it needs; it never desires anything else. That will be satisfactory, and once there is satisfaction, one never eats more. The problem arises only if you are eating foods which are beckoning foods: you see them available and you become interested and you eat. They cannot satisfy you because there is no need in the body for them. When they don't satisfy you, you feel unsatisfied. Feeling unsatisfied, you eat more, but howsoever much you eat, it is not going to satisfy because there is no need in the first place.

The first type of desire has to be fulfilled, then the second will disappear. What people are doing is that they never listen to the first, so the second becomes a problem. If you listen to the hum-ming food, the beckoning food will disappear. The second is a problem only because you have completely forgotten that you have to listen to your inner desire, and people have been taught not to listen to it. They have been taught, 'Eat this -- don't eat that' -- fixed rules. The body knows no fixed rules.

They have found that if small children are left alone with food, they will eat only that which is needed for their body, and they were surprised. Many psychological findings are available now; they were simply surprised. If a child is suffering from some disease, and if apple is good for that disease, the child will choose the apple. All other foods are available but the child will go to the apple.

That's what all animals are doing; only man has forgotten the language. You bring a buffalo and leave her in the garden. The whole garden is there -- all the greenery is available; she will not bother. The flowers and the trees may be beckoning but she won't bother with them. She will go to the grass that hums to her, and she will choose only certain grass that is her need. You cannot deceive a buffalo; you can only deceive man.

Man has fallen even below buffaloes. You cannot befool a donkey -- he will eat his food. Man is befooled. Everywhere through advertisements, coloured pictures, TV, movies, you are being attracted and distracted from your humming body. Some company is interested in selling something to you. That is in the favour of the company, it is beneficial to the company, not to you.

Some Coca Cola company is interested in selling Coca Cola to you. It has nothing to do with your body; it allures you. Wherever you go, there is Coca Cola; Coca Cola seems to be one of the most universal things. Even in Soviet Russia -- nothing else american is allowed, but Coca Cola is there. From everywhere the bottle is calling you, beckoning, 'Come here.' And suddenly you start feeling thirsty. That thirst is false. I'm not saying don't drink Coca Cola -- but let it hum; make it a point.

It will take a few days, even a few weeks for you to come to feel what appeals to you. Eat as much as you want of what appeals to you. Don't bother about what others say. If ice-cream appeals to you, eat ice-cream. Eat to your satisfaction, to your heart's desire, and then suddenly you will see that there is satisfaction. And when you feel satisfied, the desire to stuff disappears. It is an unsatisfied state that makes you stuff yourself more and more and still to no purpose. You feel full and still unsatisfied, so the problem arises.

So first start learning something which is natural and which will come, mm? because we have only forgotten; it is there in the body. When you are going to take your breakfast, close your eyes and see what you want; what your desire really is. Don't think about what is available; simply think what your desire is, and then go and find that thing and eat it. Eat as much as you want. For a few days just go with it. By and by you will see that now no food beckons you.

The second thing: when you eat, chew it well. Don't swallow it in a hurry, because if it is oral, you enjoy it in the mouth, so why not chew it more? If you take ten bites of something you can enjoy one bite, chew it ten times more. It will almost be like taking ten bites if your enjoyment is only of the taste.

It happened once that a man drank some hot coffee somewhere in Japan and he burned his throat inside. Some complication arose and his throat was completely cut from inside; the passage had to be closed otherwise the man was going to die. The doctors fixed a pipe into his stomach so he had to chew the food, throw it into the pipe, and the pipe would take it into the stomach.

The man was surprised because he continued to enjoy his food as much as before. And even the doctors were surprised.

They were at first feeling very sympathetic towards him because the poor man would no longer enjoy his food. But the man continued to enjoy it. In fact he started to enjoy it more because now he would chew it and if he did not want to take it into the stomach, he would simply throw it out. Now he could eat as much as he wanted. There was no need to take it into the stomach; the mouth and the stomach were completely separate.

So whenever you are eating, chew more, because the enjoyment is just above the throat. Below the throat there is no taste -- nothing of the sort -- so why be in a hurry? Just chew it more, taste it more. And to make this taste more intense, do all that can be done. When you are eating something, first smell it. Enjoy the smell of it because half the taste consists of smell.

Many experiments have been done. If your nose is completely closed and then something is given to you, you cannot taste it. Then you will understand that the taste was more smell than taste. If your eyes are closed, you cannot taste it even that much, because the colour, the appeal to the eyes, is no more there. They have done beautiful experiments: eyes closed, nose completely closed, and then they give you something; you cannot even tell what it is. They may give you onion and you cannot say that it is onion because much depends on the smell. That's why when you have a cold you cannot enjoy food, because the smell is not there, the taste is not there. When people are suffering from a cold they start eating spicy food because only then can they feel a little tingling.

So smell the food, look at the food. There is no hurry... take time. Make it a meditation. Even if people think you have gone mad, don't be worried. Just look at it from all sides. Touch it with closed eyes, touch it with your cheek. Feel it in every way; smell it again and again. Then take a small bite and chew it, enjoy it; let it be a meditation. A very small quantity of food will be enough and will give you more satisfaction.

So these few things do for three weeks and then report to me, mm? But try for three weeks. Good!