Emotions

by Osho

  Love is not a positive achievement. When jealousy disappears, there is a deep friendliness towards all.

  Try to understand.…

  But all the religions have corrupted your minds because they have not taught you how to watch, how to understand; instead they have given you conclusions - that anger is bad. And the moment you condemn something, you have already taken a certain position of judgment. You have judged. Now you cannot be aware.

  Awareness needs a state of no-judgment. And all the religions have been teaching people judgments: this is good, this is bad, this is sin, this is virtue - this is the whole crap that for centuries man’s mind has been loaded with. So, with everything - the moment you see it - there is immediately a judgment about it within you. You cannot simply see it, you cannot be just a mirror without saying anything.

  Understanding arises by becoming a mirror, a mirror of all that goes on in the mind.

  Why do you think about renouncing anger? Why? Because you have been taught that anger is bad. But have YOU understood it as bad? Have YOU come to a personal conclusion, through your own deepening insight, that anger is bad? If you have come to this conclusion through your own inner search, there will be no need to quit it - it will have already disappeared. The very fact of knowing that this is poisonous is enough. Then you are a different person.

  You go on thinking of leaving, quitting, renouncing. Why? Because people say that anger is bad, and you are simply influenced by whatsoever they say. Then you go on thinking that anger is bad, and when the moment comes you go on being angry .If you think that anger is good, then do it and do not say that anger is bad. Or if you say anger is bad, then try to understand whether this is your realization or whether someone else has said it to you.

  Everyone is creating misery around himself because of others. Someone says this is bad and someone says that it is good, and they go on forcing these ideas in your mind. The parents are doing this, the society is doing this, and then one day you are just following others’ ideas. And the difference between your nature and others’ ideas cause a split; you become schizophrenic. You will do something and you will believe in the very contrary. That will create guilt. Everyone feels guilty. Not that everyone IS guilty, everyone feels guilty because of this mechanism.

  Whenever there is joy,

  you feel that it is coming from without. You have met a friend: of course, it appears that the joy is coming from your friend, from seeing him. That is not the actual case.

  The joy is always within you.

  The friend has just become a situation. The friend has helped it to come out, has helped you to see that it is there. And this is not only with joy, but with everything: with anger, with sadness, with misery, with happiness, with everything, it is so. Others are only situations in which things that are hidden in you are expressed. They are not causes; they are not causing something in you. Whatsoever is happening, is happening TO YOU. It has always been there; it is only that meeting with this friend has become a situation in which whatsoever was hidden has come out in the open - has come out. From the hidden sources it has become apparent, manifest. Whenever this happens remain centered in the inner feeling, and then you will have a different attitude about everything in life.

  Whenever you are alone,

  there is nobody to provoke your anger, nobody to create an opportunity where you can become sad, nobody to bring your own false faces before you. You are alone: anger does not arise. Not that anger has disappeared - simply the situation for anger is not there. You are full of anger, but nobody is there to insult you, to hurt you. Only the opportunity is missing. Come back to the world: live fifty years in the Himalayas - when you come back to the world, immediately you will find anger is there, as fresh as ever; even maybe more powerful now, because of fifty years accumulated anger, accumulated poison. Then one becomes afraid to come back to the world.

  Go to the Himalayas: you will see many people hanging around there. Cowards, they cannot come back to the world. What sort of purity is this, which is afraid? What sort of celibacy is this, which is afraid? What sort of reality is this, which is afraid of MAYA, of illusion? What sort of light is this, which is afraid of darkness: that it comes to the dark, the darkness will be powerful and may destroy it? Has darkness ever destroyed any light? But they go on hanging around. The more they hang around there, the more they become incapable of coming back to the world - because there in the Himalayas they can have their beautiful image: nobody else to destroy it. In the world it is difficult. Somebody, from somewhere, treads to your toe; somebody, from somewhere, hurts you. You have to drop anger. My whole effort is so that you change.

  Don’t try to change the scene, please change yourself.

  The change of the scene not going to help anybody; it has never helped anybody. Even if you meditate twenty-four hours a day it is not going to help unless meditation becomes a way of life - not that you meditate. Whether you meditate one hour, or two hours, or three hours, or six hours, or many hours - you may meditate twenty-four hours: you will go mad, but you will not attain to samadhi.

  Methods to Help You

  The following chapter includes practical suggestions for individual experiments in the world of emotions.

  What’s Your Issue?

  My method is so simple.

  Just put down in your diary for seven days, noting every day what it is that takes most of your time, what it is that becomes your fantasy most of the time, where your energy always moves readily. And just watching for seven days, noting in your notebook, you can find your own chief characteristic. And this finding is half the victory. It gives you a great strength, that you know the enemy.

  The lotus is one of the most miraculous phenomena in existence;

  hence in the East it has become the symbol of spiritual transformation.

  Buddha is seated on a lotus, Vishnu is standing on a lotus. Why a lotus?—

  because the lotus has one very symbolic significance: it grows out of the mud.

  It is a transformation symbol, it is a metamorphosis. The mud is dirty, maybe stinking;

  the lotus is fragrant, and it has come out of the stinking mud.

  Exactly in the same way, life ordinarily is just stinking mud—but

  the possibility of becoming a lotus is hidden there.

  The mud can be transformed, you can become a lotus.

  Sex can be transformed and it can become samadhi.

  Anger can be transformed and it can become compassion.

  Hate can be transformed and it can become love.

  Everything that you have that looks negative right now,

  mud-like, can be transformed.

  Your noisy mind can be emptied and transformed, and it becomes celestial music.

  Transformation of Anger

  PILLOW MEDITATION

  When: Every Morning

  Duration: 20 minutes

  The first thing in transformation is to express anger,

  but not on anybody, because if you express it on somebody

  you cannot express it totally.

  You may like to kill, but it is not possible;

  you may like to bite, but it is not possible.

  But that can be done to a pillow.

  The pillow will not react, and the pillow will not go to any court,

  and the pillow will not bring any enmity against you,

  and the pillow will not DO anything.

  The pillow will be happy, and the pillow will laugh at you.

  And remember: be aware.

  In controlling, no awareness is needed; you simply do it mechanically, like a robot. The anger comes and there is a mechanism - suddenly your whole being becomes narrow and closed. If you are watchful control may not be so easy. Society never teaches you to be watchful, because when somebody is watchful, he is wide open. That is part of awareness - one is open, and if you want to suppress something and you are open, it is contradictory, it may come out. The society teaches you how to close yo
urself in, how to cave yourself in - don’t allow even a small window for anything to go out.

  But remember: when nothing goes out, nothing comes in either. When the anger cannot go out, you are closed. If you touch a beautiful rock, nothing goes in; you look at a flower, nothing goes in: your eyes are dead and closed. You live an insensitive life. Sensitivity grows with awareness.

  SEARCH FOR THE ROOTS

  You are feeling sad or angry,

  you can make it a meditation.

  Don’t fight it, don’t try to distract your mind into something else. Don’t go to see a movie because you are feeling very sad. Don’t try to repress your feeling. It is a great opportunity for meditation.

  Just watch from where the anger arises. Just go to the very roots. Just go to the very roots from where the sadness is coming - and the greatest surprise is that it doesn’t have any roots.

  So when you look for the roots, by that time your emotions start disappearing seeing that, “This man is strange - he is looking for the roots!” And those afflictions, emotions, sentiments, feelings - none of them have any roots. They are just clouds, without any roots, surrounding your mind.

  So, if you start looking for roots, your emotions start dispersing - “This is not the right person, he is not going to be affected by us. He is a little strange; here we are, and he is looking for the roots!” Rather than being sad, rather than being angry, rather than being miserable - search for the roots! Every sentiment, every emotion, every feeling will disappear if you look for the roots. If your awareness goes that deep in search, then the emotion will be gone, and the sky of your inner being will be absolutely clear and clean. Just try it, and you will be amazed.

  RUNNING

  Time : morning

  Osho: It is difficult to work with anger directly because it may be deeply repressed; so work indirectly. Running will help much anger and fear to evaporate. When you are running for a long time, and breathing deeply, the mind stops functioning and the body takes over.

  Step 1:

  Start running in the morning on the road. Start with half a mile and then one mile and come to at least 3 miles eventually. Use the whole body. Don’t run as if you are in a strait jacket- run like a small child using the whole body-hands and feet - and breathe deeply, from the belly.

  Step 2:

  Then sit under a tree, rest, perspire, and let the cool breeze come; feel peaceful. You are simply a throbbing body, an alive body, an organism in tune with the whole-just like an animal..

  Osho: The musculature has to be relaxed. If you like swimming, go swimming also - that will help. But that too has to be done as totally as possible. Anything in which you can become totally involved will be helpful. It is not a question of anger or any other emotion; the question is to get into anything totally. Then you will be able to get into anger and love too. One who knows how to get into anything totally can get into everything totally.

  BOILING POINT

  When : Every day, whenever you feel good

  Duration: 15 minutes

  Need : Alarm clock

  Step 1:

  Close your room and for 15 minutes become angry, get heated up, as if at 100 degrees, bring it to a climax-but don’t release it. Go on forcing it-go almost crazy with anger; but don’t release it, no expression-not even a pillow to hit. Repress it in every way-just the opposite of catharsis.

  If you feel tension rising in the stomach as if something is going to explode, pull the stomach in; make it as tense as you can. If you feel the shoulders are becoming tense, make them more tense. Let the whole body be as tense as possible, almost as if on a volcano- boiling within and no release. That is the point to remember-no release. Don’t scream- otherwise the stomach will relax; don’t hit-otherwise the shoulders will be released of tension.

  Step 2:

  When the alarm goes off, sit silently, close your eyes, and just watch what is happening. Relax the body.

  Osho: This heating of the system will force your patterns to melt.

  OSHO DYNAMIC MEDITATION

  Osho: Energy can be converted and used. And then, using it, you will be more vital, more alive. The opposite has to be absorbed, then the process becomes dialectical. Effortlessness means not doing anything, inactivity. Effort means doing much, activity. Both have to be there. Do much, but don’t be a doer—then you achieve both. Move in the world, but don’t be a part of it. Live in the world, but don’t let the world live in you. Then the contradiction has been absorbed.

  And that’s what I’m doing - Dynamic Meditation is a contradiction. Dynamic means effort, much effort, absolute effort. And meditation means silence, no effort, no activity. You can call it a dialectical meditation.

  Note: Special music has been created to support the different stages of this meditation technique. For beginners, it is best done in a group, with instruction from an experienced practitioner. For more information, and links to the music CD, see www.osho.com/meditation

  Instructions:

  First stage: 10 minutes

  Breathe rapidly through the nose, emphasizing the out-breath, and the in-breath will happen by itself. Let breathing be intense and chaotic. The breath should move deeply into the lungs. Be as fast as you can in your breathing, making sure the breathing stays deep. Do this as totally as you possibly can; without tightening up your body. Make sure the neck and shoulders stay relaxed. Continue on, until you literally become the breathing, allowing breath to be chaotic (that means not in a steady, predictable way). Once your energy is moving, it will begin to move your body. Allow these body movements to be there, use them to help you build up even more energy. Moving your arms and body in a natural way will help your energy to rise. Feel your energy building up; don’t let go during the first stage, and never slow down.

  Second stage: 10 minutes

  Follow your body. Give your body freedom to express whatever is there—EXPLODE!... Let your body take over. Let go of everything that needs to be thrown out. Go totally mad! Sing, scream, laugh, shout, cry, jump, shake, dance, kick, and throw yourself around. Hold nothing back, keep your whole body moving. A little “acting” often helps to get you started. Never allow your mind to interfere with what is happening. Remember to be total with your body.

  Third stage: 10 minutes

  Leaving your shoulders and neck relaxed, raise both arms as high as you can without locking the elbows. With raised arms, jump up and down shouting the mantra, HOO!... HOO!... HOO! as deeply as possible, coming from the bottom of your belly. Each time you land on the flats of your feet (making sure heels touch the ground), let the sound hammer deep into the sex center. Give all you have, exhaust yourself completely.

  Fourth stage: 15 minutes

  STOP! Freeze where you are in whatever position you find yourself. Don’t arrange the body in any way. A cough, a movement, anything will dissipate the energy flow and the effort will be lost. Be a witness to everything that is happening to you.

  Fifth stage: 15 minutes

  Celebrate!—with music and dance, express whatsoever is there. Carry your aliveness with you throughout the day.

  Transformation of Jealousy

  FOR COUPLES

  When: At night

  Duration: 60 minutes

  Step 1: Sit facing each other, holding each others’ hands crosswise.

  Step 2: For 10 minutes look into each other’s eyes. If the body starts moving and swaying, allow it. You can blink, but go on looking into each other’s eyes. Don’t let go of each others hands whatever happens.

  Step 3: After 10 minutes both close your eyes and allow the swaying for 10 more minutes.

  Step 4: Now stand and sway together, holding hands, for 10 minutes. This will mix your energies deeply.

  NOURISHING THE ENERGY OF LOVE

  Step 1: Take a rock in your hand with deep love, concern. Close your eyes and feel tremendous love for the rock-grateful that it exists, grateful that it accepts your love. Suddenly you will see a pulsation and the energy movin
g.

  Step 2: By and by there is no need to have an object. With just the idea that you love somebody energy will start flowing. Love is flow, and whenever we are frozen it is because we don’t love.

  Osho: Love is warmth, and the frozenness cannot happen if the warmth is there. When love is not there everything is cold. You start falling below zero point. So one of the very important things to remember: love is warm. So is hate. Indifference is cold. So sometimes even when you hate, energy starts flowing. Of course that flow is destructive. In anger energy starts flowing-that’s why people feel somehow good afterwards: something was released. It is very destructive. It could have been creative if it had been released through love, but it is better than not being released. If you are indifferent you don’t flow.