First, the nature of activity and the hidden currents in it have to be understood, otherwise no relaxation is possible. Even if you want to relax, it will be impossible if you have not observed, watched, realized, the nature of your activity, because activity is not a simple phenomenon.

 

Many people would like to relax, but they cannot relax. Relaxation is like a flowering: you cannot force it. You have to understand the whole phenomenon -- why you are so active, why so much occupation with activity, why you are obsessed with it.

 

Remember two words: one is "action," another is "activity." Action is not activity; activity is not action. Their natures are diametrically opposite. Action is when the situation demands it, you act, you respond. Activity is when the situation doesn't matter, it is not a response; you are so restless within that the situation is just an excuse to be active.

 

Action comes out of a silent mind -- it is the most beautiful thing in the world. Activity comes out of a restless mind -- it is the ugliest. Action is when it has a relevance; activity is irrelevant. Action is moment to moment, spontaneous; activity is loaded with the past. It is not a response to the present moment, rather, it is pouring your restlessness, which you have been carrying from the past, into the present. Action is creative. Activity is very very destructive -- it destroys you, it destroys others.

 

Try to see the delicate distinction. For example, you are hungry then you eat -- this is action. But you are not hungry, you don't feel any hunger at all, and still you go on eating -- this is activity. This eating is like a violence: you destroy food, you crush your teeth and destroy food; it gives you a little release of your inner restlessness. You are eating not because of hunger, you are simply eating because of an inner need, an urge to be violent.

 

In the animal world violence is associated with mouth and hands, the fingernails and the teeth; two are the violent things in the animal kingdom. In food, while you are eating, both are joined together; with your hand you take the food, and with your mouth you eat it -- violence is released. But there is no hunger; it is not an action, it is a disease. This activity is an obsession. Of course, you cannot go on eating like this because then you will burst. So people have invented tricks: they will chew PAN or gum, they will smoke cigarettes -- these are false foods, without any nutritious value in them, but they work well as far as violence is concerned.

 

A man sitting chewing pan, what is he doing? He is killing somebody. In the mind, if he becomes aware, he may have a fantasy of murdering, killing -- and he is chewing pan: a very innocent activity

 

in itself. You are not harming anybody -- but very dangerous for you, because you seem to be completely unconscious of what you are doing. A man smoking, what is he doing? Very innocent in a way: just taking the smoke in and bringing it out, inhaling and exhaling; a sort of ill PRANAYAMA, and a sort of secular transcendental meditation. He is creating a MANDALA: takes smoke in, brings it out, takes it in, brings it out -- a mandala is created, a circle. Through smoking he is doing a sort of chanting, a rhythmic chanting. It soothes; his inner restlessness is relieved a little.

 

If you are talking to a person, always remember -- it is almost hundred percent accurate -- if the person starts finding his cigarette, it means he is bored, you should leave him now. He would have wanted to throw you out; that cannot be done, that will be too impolite. He is finding his cigarette; he is saying, "Now, finished! I am fed up." In the animal kingdom he would have jumped on you, but he cannot -- he is a human being, civilized. He jumps on the cigarette, he starts smoking. Now he is not worried about you, now he is enclosed in his own chanting of the smoke. It soothes.

 

But this activity shows that you are obsessed. You cannot remain yourself, you cannot remain silent, you cannot remain inactive. Through activity you go on throwing your madness, insanity. Action is beautiful, action comes as a spontaneous response; life needs response. Every moment you have to act, but the activity comes through the present moment. You are hungry and you seek food. You are thirsty and you go to the well. You are feeling sleepy and you go to sleep. It is out of the total situation that you act. Action is spontaneous and total.

 

Activity is never spontaneous, it comes from the past. You may have been accumulating it for many years, and then it explodes into the present -- it is not relevant. But mind is cunning; the mind will always find rationalizations for the activity. The mind will always try to prove that this is not activity, this is action; it was needed. Suddenly you flare up in anger. Everybody else becomes aware that it was not needed, the situation never demanded it,

 

it was simply irrelevant -- only you cannot see. Everybody feels: "What are you doing? There was no need for it. Why are you so angry?" But you will find rationalizations; you will rationalize that it was needed.

 

These rationalizations help you to remain unconscious about your madness. These are the things that Gurdjieff used to call "buffers." You create buffers of rationalization around you so you don't come to realize what is the situation. Buffers are used in trains; between two bogies, two compartments, buffers are used so that if there is a sudden stopping there will not be too much shock to the passengers -- the buffers will absorb the shock. Your activity is continuously irrelevant, but the buffers of rationalizations don't allow you to see the situation. Buffers blind you -- and this type of activity continues.

 

If this activity is there, you cannot relax. How can you relax? -- because it is an obsessive need, you want to do something, whatsoever it is.

 

There are fools all over the world who go on saying, "Do something rather than nothing." And there are perfect fools who have created a proverb all over the world that "An empty mind is a devil's workshop." It is not. An empty mind is God's workshop. An empty mind is the most beautiful thing in the world, the purest -- because how can an empty mind be a workshop for the devil? The devil cannot enter into an empty mind, impossible! The devil can enter only into a mind which is obsessed with activity -- then the devil can take charge of you, he can show you ways and means and methods how to be more active. The devil never says, "Relax!" He says, "Why are you wasting your time? Do something, man! Move! Life is going by -- do something!" And all the great teachers, teachers who have awakened to the truth of life, have come to realize that an empty mind gives space to the divine to enter in you.

 

Activity can be used by the devil, not an empty mind. How can the devil use an empty mind? He will not dare to come near because emptiness will simply kill him. But if you are filled with a deep urge, mad urge to be active, then the devil will take your charge, then he will guide you - then he is the only guide.

 

I would like to tell you that this proverb is absolutely wrong. The devil himself must have suggested it.

 

This obsession to be active has to be watched. And you have to watch it in your own life, because whatsoever I say, or Tilopa says, will not be of much meaning unless you watch it in yourself: that your activity is irrelevant, it is not needed. Why are you doing it?

 

Traveling, I have seen people continuously doing the same thing again and again. For twenty-four hours I am with a passenger in the train. He will read the same newspaper again, again, not finding what else to do. Enclosed in a railway compartment there is not much possibility to be active, so he will read the same newspaper again and again, and I am watching. What is this man doing?

 

A newspaper is not a GITA or a BIBLE. You can read the GITA many times because each time you come to it a new significance is revealed. But a newspaper is not a GITA; it is finished once you have seen it! It was not even worth reading once, and people go on reading it. Again and again, they will start again. What is the problem? Is it a need? No -- they are obsessed; they cannot remain silent, inactive. That is impossible for them -- that looks like death. They have to be active.

 

Traveling for many years gave me many opportunities to watch people without their knowing, because sometimes only one person was with me in the compartment, and he would make all sorts of efforts to bring me to talk to him and I would say only yes or no; then he would drop the idea. Then I would simply watch -- a beautiful experiment and without any expense.

 

And I would watch him: he would open the suitcase -- and I would see that he was not doing anything -- then he would look in it, close it. Then he would open the window, and then would close it; then again would go to the newspaper, then he would smoke, then again open the suitcase, rearrange it, go and open the window, look out. What is he doing? and why? An inner urge, something is trembling within him, a feverish state of mind. He has to do something, otherwise he will be lost. He must have been an active man in life, now there is a moment to relax -- he cannot relax, the old habit persists.

 

It is said that Aurangzeb, a Moghul emperor, imprisoned his father in his old age. Aurangzeb's father built the Taj Mahal -- Shah Jehan. He imprisoned him, dethroned him. It is said, and it is written in the autobiography of Aurangzeb, that after a few days, Shah Jehan was not worried about imprisonment because every luxury was provided. It was a palace and Shah Jehan was living as he was living before; it was not like a prison; absolutely everything that he needed was there. Only one thing was missing and that was activity -- he couldn't do anything. So he asked his son Aurangzeb, "It is okay, you have provided everything for me, and everything is beautiful. Just one thing I will be grateful forever and ever if you can do, and that is, send thirty boys. I would like to teach them."

 

Aurangzeb could not believe it: "Why would my father like to teach thirty boys?" He had never shown any inclination to be a teacher, was never interested in any type of education. What has happened to him? But he fulfilled the desire. Thirty boys were sent to him and everything was okay. He became again the emperor -- thirty small boys. You go in a primary school, the teacher is almost the emperor; you can order them to sit and they will have to sit; you can order them to stand and they will have to stand. And he created in that room with thirty boys the whole situation of his court -- just old habit and the old drug addiction to ordering people.

 

Psychologists suspect that teachers are in fact politicians. Of course, not self-confident enough to go into politics, they move to the schools and there they become presidents, prime ministers, emperors. Small children -- and they order them and they force them.

 

And psychologists also suspect that teachers have an inclination towards being sadistic, they would like to torture. And you cannot find a better place than a primary school. You can torture innocent children -- and you can torture for their own sake, for their own good. Go and watch! I have been in primary schools, reading, and I have been watching teachers. And psychologists suspect -- I am certain, they are torturers. And you cannot find more innocent victims: unarmed completely, they cannot even resist; they are so weak and helpless -- and a teacher stands like an emperor.

 

Aurangzeb writes in his autobiography: "My father, just because of old habits, still wants to pretend that he is the emperor. So let him pretend and let him fool himself, there is nothing wrong. Send him thirty boys or three hundred, whatsoever he wants. Let him run a MADERSA, a small school, and be happy."

 

Activity is when the action has no relevance. Watch in yourself and see: ninety percent of your energy is wasted in activity. And because of this, when the moment for action comes, you don't have any energy. A relaxed person is simply non-obsessive, and the energy starts accumulating within him. He conserves his energy, it is conserved automatically, and then when the moment for action comes his total being flows into it. That's why action is total. Activity is always half-hearted, because how can you befool yourself absolutely? Even YOU know that it is useless. Even you are aware that you are doing it for certain feverish reasons within, which are not even clear to you, very vague.

 

You can change activities, but unless activities are transformed into actions, that won't help. People come to me and they say, "I would like to stop smoking." I say, "Why? This is such a beautiful TM, continue. And if you stop it you will start something else -- because the disease doesn't change by changing the symptoms. Then you will chew pan, then you will chew gum; and there are even more dangerous things. These are innocent, because if you are chewing gum you are chewing gum yourself. You may be a fool, but you are not a violent man; you are not destructive to anybody else. If you stop chewing gum, smoking, then what will you do? Your mouth needs activity, it is violent. Then you will talk, then you will talk continuously; yakety-yakety-yak -- and that is more dangerous!"

 

Mulla Nasruddin's wife came just the other day. She rarely comes to see me, but when she comes I immediately understand there must be some crisis. So I asked, "What is the matter?" Thirty minutes she took, and thousands of words, to tell me: "Mulla Nasruddin talks in his sleep, so you suggest something -- what should be done? He talks too much and it is difficult to sleep in the same room. And he shouts and says nasty things."

 

So I said, "Nothing is to be done. You simply give him a chance to talk while you both are awake."

 

People go on talking. They don't give any chance to anybody else. Talking is the same as smoking. If you talk twenty-four hours ... and you talk: while you are awake, you talk; your body is tired, you fall into sleep, but the talk continues. Twenty-four hours, round the clock, you go on talking and talking and talking. This is like smoking, because the phenomenon is the same: the mouth needs movement. And the mouth is the basic activity, because that is the first activity you started in your life.

 

The child is born: he starts sucking the mother's breast; that is the first activity -- and the basic activity. And smoking is just like sucking the breast: warm milk flows in; in smoking, warm smoke flows in; and the cigarette in your lips feels just like the breast of the mother, the nipple. If you are not allowed to smoke, chew gum, and this and that, then you will talk, and that is more dangerous because you are throwing your garbage on other people's minds.

 

Can you remain silent for a long time? Psychologists say that if you remain silent for three weeks, you will start talking to yourself. Then you will be divided into two: you will talk and you will listen also. And if you remain silent for three months, you will be completely ready for the madhouse, because then you will not bother whether somebody is there or not. You will talk, and not only talk, you will answer also -- now you are complete, now you don't depend on anybody. This is what a lunatic is.

 

A lunatic is a person whose whole world is confined in himself. He is the talker and he is the listener; he is the actor and he is the spectator -- he is all, his whole world is confined in himself. He has divided himself in many parts and everything has become fragmentary. That's why people are afraid of silence -- they know they may crack up.

 

And if you are afraid of silence that means you have an obsessive, feverish, diseased mind inside, which is continuously asking to be active.

 

Activity is your escape from yourself. In action you are; in activity you have escaped from yourself -- it is a drug. In activity you forget yourself, and when you forget yourself there are no worries, no anguish, no anxiety. That's why you need to be continuously active, doing something or other, but never in a state when non-doing flowers in you and blooms.

 

Action is good. Activity is ill. Find the distinction within yourself: what is activity and what is action; that is the first step. The second step is to be more involved in action so that the energy moves into action; and whenever there is activity to be more watchful about it, more alert. If you are aware, activity ceases, energy is preserved, and the same energy becomes action.

 

Action is immediate. It is nothing ready-made, it is not prefabricated. It doesn't give you any chance to make a preparation, to go through a rehearsal. Action is always new and fresh like the dew-drops in the morning. And a person who is a person of action is also always fresh and young. The body may become old, but his freshness continues. The body may die, but his youth continues. The body may disappear, but he remains -- because God loves freshness. God is always for the new and the fresh.

 

Drop more and more activity. But how can you drop it? You can make dropping itself an obsession. This is what has happened to your monks in the monasteries: dropping activity has become their obsession. They are continuously doing something to drop it: prayer, meditation, yoga, this and that -- now that is also activity. You cannot drop it in that way; it will come from the back door.

 

Be aware. Feel the difference between action and activity. And when activity takes hold of you -- in fact that should be called a possession: when the activity possesses you, like a ghost; and activity is a ghost, it comes from the past, it is dead -- when activity possesses you and you become feverish, then become more aware; that's all that you can do. Watch it. Even if you have to do it, do it with full awareness. Smoke, but smoke very slowly, with full awareness so that you can see what you are doing.

 

If you can watch smoking, suddenly some day, the cigarette will fall from your fingers, because the whole absurdity of it will be revealed to you. It is stupid; it is simply stupid, idiotic! When you realize that, it simply falls. You cannot throw it because throwing is an activity. That's why I say it simply falls, just like a dead leaf from the tree ... falling, just like that it falls. If YOU have thrown it, you will pick it up again in some other way, in some other form.

 

Let things drop, don't drop them. Let activity disappear, don't force it to disappear -- because the very effort to force it to disappear is again activity in another form. Watch, be alert, conscious, and you will come to a very very miraculous phenomenon: when something drops by itself, on its own accord, it leaves no trace on you. If you force it, then a trace is left, then a scar is left. Then you will always brag that you smoked for thirty years, and then YOU dropped it. Now this bragging is the same; talking about it you are doing the same thing -- not smoking, but talking too much about that you have dropped smoking. Your lips are again in activity, your mouth is functioning, your violence is there.

 

If a man really understands, things drop -- and then you cannot take the credit that "I have dropped it." It dropped itself! You have not dropped it. The ego is not strengthened through it. And then more and more actions will become possible. And whenever you have an opportunity to act totally, don't miss it, don't waver -- act.

 

Act more, and let activities drop on their own accord. A transformation will come to you by and by. It takes time, it needs seasoning, but there is no hurry also.

 

-Osho, “Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, #4“