Lust

Question: The third question: Osho, what is lust and what is prayer? In my vision, they are the two ends of the same ladder—like seed and tree, like egg and hen. One day lust grows wings and becomes prayer. Lust is prayer in the process of being born. Lust is groping in the dark for the way to become prayer. Lust is the wandering, the search for the path, the quest for the door. Therefore I have no condemnation of lust. In fact, I have no condemnation at all—of anything. In me there is a total acceptance, because I see: when everything is accepted by God, to reject anything is to reject God. I have heard this: The Sufi fakir Bayazid was very troubled by a neighbor. For a whole year that man lived next door and was a great nuisance.

In this same context, someone has asked: Osho, what is your view regarding lust?

Lust is energy, and whoever fights with the energy of lust will be destroyed. Lust is to be transformed, not fought with. Sex, when transformed, becomes brahmacharya. Sex is not the opposite of brahmacharya. Brahmacharya is the transformed state of sex itself. In this world no energies are destroyed—only transformation happens. In this world nothing is destroyed; only transformation happens. Energies are never annihilated. The very energy of hatred, when transformed, becomes love. The very energy of cruelty, when transformed, becomes kindness and compassion. What you are calling lust—those very urges, when transformed, become forces that move life toward truth. After all, you must have seen: just now, on my way here, I passed a place where flowers were blooming. You must have seen a garbage heap where filth lies piled up. From that filth a stench arises, a bad odor spreads; anyone passing by holds his nose. But if…

A friend has asked: Osho, yesterday you said that to know anger completely, one must experience it in its totality. Then how is one to know lust completely? Because the experienced say that lust is never satisfied; the more you indulge it, the more it grows. So how can one go beyond lust?

Surely there is an inherent purpose. And it is this: even these saints could not have been born without lust. They too went beyond only by passing through the experience. They too entered it and found it to be futile. That realization of futility is precious—and it comes only when it happens in your own experience. So do not be in a hurry. Do not rely on borrowed experience. That does not mean you tell the experienced, “You are wrong.” You should simply say, “We do not yet know. We wish to enter and know for ourselves what this lust is. We will know it fully. If it turns out to be wrong, that very knowing will bring liberation. And if it turns out to be right, then there is no need for liberation.” One thing is certain: whoever has known rightly has become free. And another thing is also…

Osho, by your grace I can see the sky; I also have experiences of light, and I can become one with the inner flow. But when lust seizes me, I want to be as immersed in that as in meditation. Please tell me, what is this state of mine?

First thing: be a witness to lust as well. Do not become its controller. Do not try to bring it under control by force; remain a witness to it too. Just as you are a witness to everything else, be a witness to lust as well. It is difficult, because for centuries you have been taught that lust is sin. That notion of sin has settled in the mind. In this world there is no sin at all—only the Divine. Drop that notion. In this world the One alone is, pervading all forms—that One is the Divine. In the smallest of the small, the same; in the vastest of the vast, the same! In the low, the same; in the high, the same! In lust, the same; and in samadhi, the same. Here there is nothing that is “sin.” This does not mean I am saying you should remain stuck…