Defenses

Beloved Osho, this new phase of the upanishad is so immensely beautiful. For me you are indeed closer than ever. I am getting a feeling of urgency, of `it's now or never', yet I feel my defenses standing in the way of letting you in totally. Where is the hammer to shatter my shell?

But one day I was informed that it had become a danger, because four deer died for no reason at all. The doctors investigated the case and found that we had provided too much alfalfa for them. They had become so fat -- and their legs are thin; a deer needs thin legs to run -- and they could not move. Running was out of the question, they could not even go for a morning walk! I said, "Then some measure has to be taken; then somebody has to take care that they should not get too much alfalfa. Otherwise, they have come here to save their lives but they will die just from eating too much!" It is a security phenomenon which nature provides you with -- to have some fat gathered around your bones in case you cannot get food. You can live for at least ninety days…

In any position gradually pervade an area between the armpits into great peace.

FEEL YOURSELF AS PERVADING ALL DIRECTIONS, FAR, NEAR. You are always behind a wall. Only sometimes, rarely, do you stretch your hand out of it to touch someone. But only a hand -- you never come out of your prison. So whenever we meet, it is simply meeting hands out of prisons. Out of windows we stretch a hand, afraid, scared, and ready any moment to withdraw the hand. Both the parties are doing the same -- only hands touch. And now psychologists say that even that is just an appearance, because hands have their own armor around them. No hand is ungloved. Not only Queen Elizabeth uses gloves, you also have gloves so that no one can touch you. Or even if someone touches, there is only a hand, dead. You are already withdrawn, afraid. Because the other creates fear. As Sartre says, "The other is the enemy." The…

Beloved Osho, the other day when you were speaking about coming closer to you, I was aware that I still feel a thin armor around me that keeps me from coming closer. This armor is incongruous with my openness to you. I don't know where it is coming from. Please help me to melt it away.

I said, "It seems you are incurable. You see me every day with you -- nobody is being angry, nobody is taking any revenge. You see thousands of people passing by." He said, "I see everything, but what am I to do with my own mind?" I said, "Then it is better you go one time and pay respect, and I will stop going on that street. I will go on another street, because I will not force you to go twice, wasting your time." When people are psychologically in such a bondage they always find reasons. One day he came to me and told me, "Now I go walking alone, without you, the whole joy of the morning walk is gone. And I know you will not come with me unless I leave these gods; I have to choose. So today I tried it -- perhaps you are right!…

[An ashram therapist, who is leaving, says: I catch a lot of things (energy) from other people and I don't know if I have to protect myself or just to let it happen.] It happens when the energy starts changing and the new spaces arise. They are very delicate, very soft, and can be easily disturbed. They are like a rose flower, and the situations all around are like stones, so if you throw a stone at a rose flower, the rose flower is gone; the stone remains the same. The higher the qualities that arise, the more one has to be alert, aware and watchful. But I will not say to protect, because that can become a dangerous thing again. People know only one way of protection and that is to become hard on the outside, to create an armor, a hard crust so nothing enters inside.