Calmness

[A sannyasin who had been celibate for several months on Osho's suggestion, said she had been feeling very sexual lately and did not know what she should do about it.] Just do one thing whenever it happens again. Sit straight -- on a chair or on the floor -- with the spine straight, but loose and not tense. Inhale slowly and deeply. Don'tbe in a hurry; very slowly go on inhaling. The belly comes up first; you go on inhaling. The chest comes up next, and then finally you can feel that the air is filled up to the neck. Then for a moment or two just keep the breath in, for as long as you can without straining, then exhale. Exhale also very slowly but in the reverse order. When the belly is being emptied, pull it in so that all the air goes out.

In fact, anxiety is not anxiety then. It is as if you are solving a crossword puzzle. It creates anxiety but that's just a game. Or you are playing cards or chess. You know that the whole thing is created by you. Don't play the game -- get out of it! Nobody is forcing you to play it. You enter it on your own initiative, voluntarily, because you enjoy that sharpening, that state of tense consciousness. There is nothing wrong in it. But then the whole life is nothing but a chessboard and any moment you want to get out of it you can throw the board and finish the game. You have the key and you can move. Then problems are like toys and you play with them. So that is exactly the point to be understood.

Question: in hatha yoga there is an exercise in which one tenses every muscle in the body and then releases the tension and becomes relaxed. Is this similar to what happens in dynamic meditation?

You are not aware of the spiritual because you have so much tension in the body, so much tension in the mind. But if you are not tense in the physical and mental realms, you will automatically know the bliss of the spiritual, the relaxation of the spiritual. It comes to you; it has been waiting for you. Your whole attention is so absorbed by the physical and the mental that there is no attention left to divert to the spiritual. Only if the body and the mind are not tense can you delve into the spiritual, can you know the bliss of it. The spiritual is never tense; it cannot be. There is no spiritual tension, only bodily tension, only mental tension. Bodily tension has been created by those who, in the name of religion, have been preaching anti-body attitudes. In the West, Christianity has been emphatically antagonistic toward…

Osho, to abide in oneself beyond the knower, knowledge, and the known—can one live in that state for an entire lifetime? Just as a lake is sometimes calm, sometimes playful, and sometimes stormy, does the self-realized one remain unaffected by worldly circumstances in the same way? Osho, dispel my ignorance!

Spring means harmony between season and mood. Meditation means harmony between you and the whole. You become harmonious. Whatever is, is perfectly okay—accepted. Nowhere any refusal, nowhere any opposition. Whatever is happening is auspicious. That is trust; that is meditation. Such meditation naturally takes you into an altogether new experience. Storms will rise; they will not stop because you meditate. Diseases will not stop coming to the body because you meditate. They will come. A thorn will sometimes pierce the foot. Raman had cancer; so did Ramakrishna—great storms came! Ramakrishna got cancer of the throat; he could neither eat nor drink. Vivekananda said to him, “What is not in your power! Why don’t you pray to the Lord at least to allow food and water to pass? We suffer watching you writhe.” Ramakrishna said, “Ah, it never even occurred to me to pray. How could it occur—to one whose prayer…