Hugging

 

 

Question 1

Osho,

When i look around your commune and see people hugging the way they do, and feel the energy i have when i hug someone here, i wonder why this doesn't happen in the outside world. please comment.

 

 

It cannot happen in the outside world, because for centuries man has been conditioned against the body. It has been told by all the religions that if you want to become spiritual you have to become anti-body. If you want to achieve the other world you have to renounce this world. And hugging is a very sensuous, physical experience of tremendous importance. But what to say about hugging? -- even touching has been tabooed.

 

These religious programs that have been given to you are so inhuman that if we can simply drop out of all religions and forget the past completely, you will see an immense explosion of warmth, love, hugging, touching, and for the first time you will feel alive.

 

The whole effort in the past has been to make you as little alive as possible, more dead, just surviving somehow, breathing somehow, dragging yourself to your grave, waiting for death to come to release you.

 

And your body is such a beautiful phenomenon. It is you. It is your circumference, and if you deny the circumference you can never find the center of it. The center is your being; it is not against the body. It cannot survive without the body for a single moment; the body is its nourishment.

 

You see in the whole world people almost dead, somnambulists walking in their sleep, miserable, suffering for thousands of reasons; but the whole thing is based on a simple phenomenon: you have been turned against your own body. Your center and your circumference have been cut off from each other. But to reach you one has to pass the circumference.

 

You have seen in the East, saying hello to someone, you don't shake hands. That is against spirituality. You are coming in contact with the body of the other person, the warmth of the other person. In the East nobody hugs anybody, because hugging is thought to be something sexual. It is not. Certainly it is sensuous, but not sexual. And you have to understand these two words clearly.

 

The alive man is sensuous. It means all his senses are functioning at the very peak. He sees better. His touch is not like holding a dead branch of a tree in your hand. His touch is alive; it is a language, it has a message. His energy is transferred to you, your energy is transferred to him.

 

The meeting of two energies is always a rejoicing. It is just like two dancers dancing in rhythm, two musical instrument players playing in rhythm, complementary to each other. But even in the West, where people shake hands, energies don't meet. Christianity is the cause. You shake hands but your energy, rather than going to the other person, shrinks back. The fear of being sexual, the fear of being sensuous, the fear of being interested in the other person's body -- that is thought to be unspiritual.

 

It has been discovered that if you look at a woman for more than three seconds, it is unspiritual. Three seconds is casual. Just passing on the road, you cannot avoid it; a woman comes there, a Cleopatra walks by -- three seconds is casual. Beyond that, your eyes are touching the woman -- a distant touch, like a remote control. And if you stare in the eyes of the woman more than three seconds, she will feel offended; you have already penetrated her body through her eyes. And it is not allowed by etiquette to look back again and again at the woman.

 

But do you know the meaning of the word `respect'? It means looking again. Respect does not mean honor, respect means you are enchanted. It is re-spect; you would like to see again... again.... Perhaps you will change your route and follow the woman.

 

In a more humane society the woman will not feel offended. And deep down she does not feel offended now. Even after thousands of centuries' conditioning, her feeling of being offended is superficial. Deep down she rejoices, deep down the undercurrent of nature is there. Not to look at a woman again, not to look back, is certainly an insult. Not to look in the eyes of a man or woman for more than three seconds is humiliation. You have rejected the person, you have not been nice to the person.

 

Hugging is closer than seeing. If seeing makes people offended, if in shaking hands people shrink their energy back.... People use the phrase "a warm welcome," but it rarely happens. It is always a cold welcome because your energy moves back. Your hand is just cold, not radiating warmth. There are dangers for the religious people: if your hand feels warm and the other person is also open to receive and give, things are not going to stop there.

 

If just two hands meeting in a warm glow give you so much joy, hugging the whole body will be a thousandfold more. And making love...? These are just steps. Hugging the body, you are close but still separate. Making love means you have entered into each other.

 

Your so-called phony saints, messiahs, prophets, have all been very cunning. They did not allow you the first step, because one thing leads to another, and finally it is going to end in a very deep sexual orgasm.

 

So you will not find the same quality, the same intensity in the outside world. If people hug, it is just out of etiquette, but they keep as distant as the stars are -- millions of light-years distant. And have you watched, when you hug? You feel... not joyous, you are doing some duty. You have to hug your mother, your father, your sister on some occasions, but both of you keep aloof. The fear of sex has been so deeply programmed in you that anything that can lead toward sex is prohibited.

 

To me, to my people, warmth is life. In your sharing it, it grows. The more you share it, the more you have it. And each individual has a unique quality in his warmth. If you are sensuous enough-and that is what I want you to be -- you will be surprised that in shaking hands with different people you find differences in energy. The quality, the force, the intensity, the flavor, the fragrance of it -- everything is unique with every individual. But when you shake hands in a cold way, or hug a body as if two skeletons are meeting in a graveyard, then there is no difference.

 

Life gives you uniqueness; death destroys your uniqueness. Two dead bodies are exactly the same, just dead, but two living bodies are never exactly the same. Existence does not believe in carbon copies. Existence believes in originals; it creates only originals.

 

If you are sensuous you will be surprised how many riches you have been unaware of. Even a beautiful dress touching your body will give you a feeling of well-being. The cloth is not alive, but you are alive and sensuous. Your senses are functioning at their climax. Have you watched it? Wearing some clothes, you feel dirty, although the clothes may be clean. Wearing their clothes the way businessmen wear their gray suits in the marketplace -- they don't feel anything for their clothes. They cannot feel human beings, how can they feel clothes?

 

But I say to you on my own authority, that if you are sensuous enough, even ordinary things -- clothes, a cold drink, a hot cup of tea or coffee, the smell of the coffee, the fragrance of tea boiling in the kettle, the aroma that it creates.... You will feel all these things, and they will all make you richer and richer, more and more alive -- and there is no limit to it. How alive you can be -- and how rich you can be, there is no limit to it. It all depends on you how many programs you are courageous enough to drop.

 

Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans -- their religious doctrines may be different, that does not matter. That is simply a verbal game, logical gymnastics, but the base is the same: to make you as dead as possible. They will not say this to you, "We are making you dead." No, they will use beautiful words: renunciation -- renouncing the mundane, the profane.

 

And it is strange that you have not been able to figure out a simple thing. On the one hand they say renounce the world, its pleasure, its warmth, its love, its riches, so that you can have a millionfold of the same riches, of the same warmth, of the same love, of the same joy, in paradise. On the other hand they go on saying, "Don't be greedy!"

 

I cannot figure out what nonsense they have been teaching to you. And you have been listening, learning, being programmed by their nonsense, so much so that you cannot see a simple contradiction: they are teaching you to be greedy! Here renounce, so after death you can get a millionfold.

 

Great! Is this some kind of spiritual lottery? It cannot be business. In business you can get a few percent profit, but a millionfold? So the greedy people have become religious. And the rewards for your sacrifices are immense. Christians, Mohammedans, Jews -- all these three religions believe only in one life. One life means just a small life -- seventy years. Those few years don't count in the world of eternity, they will pass soon. To sacrifice seventy years to gain the joys of eternity is a simple thing. You are just greedy.

 

And you are not seeing a simple phenomenon: if these things are sin here, then your saints in paradise are committing sins a millionfold. You will commit sins only for seventy years and not continuously, because you have to eat, you have to bathe, you have to shave, you have to earn your bread and butter, you have to fight with your wife, with the neighbors, you have to go to the court, you have to be in some politics, you have to go to the churches, synagogues. What is left out of seventy years? Even if you can get seven hours, that will be too much.

 

You have to sleep one-third of your life; eight hours per day you sleep. And you have to do many other things. You have to see the football games, you have to see the Olympics. You have to go to the movies, you have to play cards. Just count, and you will be surprised: not even seven hours are left! For seven hours of joy, warmth and love, you are getting eternity -- and what an eternity!

 

I have heard.... A master died, and after a few days one of his disciples also died. Perhaps he could not live without the master, perhaps there was no point in living anymore. He had risked everything to be with the master. He lost the lust for life -- he died.

 

Of course, he was absolutely certain that he would be taken to paradise. He was no ordinary man. He was a great disciple of a great master. And certainly he was taken to paradise. As he entered, he could not believe his eyes: he saw his old master sitting under the shade of a tree, with Marilyn Monroe naked in his lap. The disciple closed his eyes.

 

He said, "My God! What is happening?" But then he remembered, those who renounce in the world will get a millionfold in the other, so there was nothing wrong. He fell at the feet of the master and said, "Great master, you have proved what you have been saying all along, that those who renounce in this world will get one thousand or one millionfold in the other world."

 

Before the master could speak, Marilyn Monroe said, "You idiot! I am not his reward, he is my punishment!"

 

Religions have just been telling you stories. I can manage my own -- far better. They have been giving you hope in the other world and taking everything from your life in this world. And this is the only world there is; there is no other world. Yes, this world extends to infinity, multi-dimensional infinity, but this is the only world, there is no other world. And this seventy-years' life is a training period.

 

If you are befooled by the religions, by your political leaders, and destroy these seventy years of joy, blessing, love, ecstasy, one thing is absolutely certain: paradise is not for you, because you have not even graduated from this seventy-year life. In seventy years you trained for hell! All your religions are giving you training for hell. Suffering, torturing yourself, fasting, celibacy; no smoking, no drinking, no taste while you are eating.

 

Hinduism makes it one of the first fundamental principles: tastelessness. Now how can these people teach you sensuousness? Taste is a sense.

 

You cannot taste food the way I taste. I can say it because once I was also a camel like you, so I know both kinds of taste. When I see a sunset you may be standing by my side, but you cannot see it; your eyes have lost their sensitivity.

 

Listening to Mozart you may fall asleep, but listening to jazz music you start jumping, shouting, screaming. Jazz is simply crazy! It is not music. These Beatles are really beetles, not human beings, but they appeal to you. To understand the classical music of the East you will need very sensuous ears, very trained, disciplined; the music is so subtle. The same is true about all your five senses.

 

Five senses are the accepted number of senses around the world, although we should change it now because there is a sixth sense hidden in your ears. But old habits die hard. And that sixth sense is far more important than any other; that's why it has been kept hidden in your ears, so nothing can disturb it. That is the sense of balance.

 

When you drink too much, that sense gets affected; you cannot walk in a straight line, you wobble. Above all, don't wobble! When you are hit on your head, and you see the whole world moving around you, and you fall, that sense of balance has been hit.

 

If all your six senses are functioning, ready to be receptive, you will have a rich life.

 

When I say I am a rich man's guru, I don't mean that Rockefeller, Ford, Morgan, and the Kennedys are my disciples. When I say I am a rich man's guru, I mean real riches. Dollars are bogus! What richness is there? Richness comes through your senses.

 

I want you to become more and more sensuous.

 

That's why you feel a difference when you hug somebody here, because the person who is hugging you is absolutely open, vulnerable, available to you; you are open, vulnerable, available to the other person. And when these two vulnerabilities, two opennesses, two skies full of stars meet together, for a moment you are not two; you become one. Your circumferences overlap each other. You feel life throbbing within you with a double force. Nobody is a loser, both are gainers, because both feel the same way -- life doubled.

 

In my commune hugging is a way of becoming rich. It is a way of understanding life.

 

It is a way that leads ultimately to the goal of love, and there is no other God than love.

 

I contradict Jesus. He says, "God is love." He has misunderstood. No, I say to you, "Love is God," When you say God is love, it means love is only an attribute of God, and there may be thousands of other attributes. When I say love is God, I have really finished God completely: only love is.

 

My communes are universities to learn the ways of a rich life, of love, beauty, warmth, compassion, humanity.

 

We are not gathered here in search of some dodo God who always sits on the roof -- I don't know why; can't he come down a little bit so people can see him? If you go on the roof, he disappears from there. He has been disappearing constantly. First, he used to live on the peaks of mountains. Then man reached there, and found nobody. God has moved his luggage to the moon, because the silly priests could not think that sooner or later man is going to reach to the moon.

 

One cannot expect much intelligence from priests, for the simple reason, that if they were intelligent people they would not be priests in the first place. They waste their life in teaching nonsense. They destroy other people's lives, because other people become conditioned by that nonsense. According to me, all your religious prophets and messiahs are criminals. They have only supplied you with consolations, hopes, and they have taken all that is real from you.

 

I want you to drop all hopes.

 

That does not mean that you become hopeless. You can become hopeless only if you have hope. Hopelessness is the shadow of a hope that has failed. The moment you drop hopes you have dropped hopelessness, the moment you drop expectations you have dropped frustrations - two birds with a single stone.

 

And if you are courageous enough to drop your consolations, reality is yours.

 

My people hugging are not two skeletons rattling their rib-bones with each other. My people are flesh, blood, everything that is real. And they know the secret: radiate warmth and love around you, and you will be getting more and more from existence.

 

Existence understands only the language of reality. The moment you are real, you are in a communion with existence.

 

It is not only a question of hugging, it is a question of accepting your body as a beautiful phenomenon. It is the most complex, delicate thing in the whole of existence.

 

You don't know what is going on inside your skin: continuous work twenty-four hours a day, millions of living cells doing thousands of things. Hairs are growing in the night when you are asleep. Breathing is not dependent on your mind; otherwise you can forget sometimes. Particularly in sleep, who will remember to breathe? And if you have to remember to breathe, how can you fall asleep? Breathing is your life. And your body is supplying you with everything you need.

 

The functioning of the inner body is so miraculous that Jesus walking on water looks just stupid! You eat food. Have you ever imagined how it becomes blood, flesh, bones? Who is doing all this work? How does your body manage to select only that which is nourishing and reject that which will be an unnecessary burden on you? It is continuously throwing all kinds of poison out of your body, and you are not even thankful towards it.

 

And your religious prophets go on saying things against you body without even understanding the simple fact that what they are saying is being said by the body.

 

I want my people, for the first time in the whole history of man, to be lovers of themselves, their bodies.

 

Take care of the body, it is taking care of you. You cannot repay it, there is no way. It is doing so much for you, what have you done for it? fasting, celibacy, standing naked in the burning hot sun, or standing naked in the freezing cold. And these maniacs have been worshipped down the centuries as the greatest heroes of humanity.

 

Get rid of these heroes. They all need to be imprisoned. They all need psychiatric treatment, they are simply mad. But the line of mad prophets and messiahs has impressed strange ideas on your delicate mind.

 

They are all against sex. Why? Because sex is the source of life. They are against life, that's why they have to be against sex; otherwise, what is so great about celibacy? They are preventing you from giving birth to new life, to more life, to better life. They have stopped you marrying faraway people. Russians won't marry Americans, Christians won't marry Hindus, Chinese won't marry Africans.

 

And that's how it should be -- they should marry someone who is far away from their own lifeline, because crossbreeding has proved in plants, in animals, a significant fact: out of crossbreeding comes a better generation, better than both father and mother. If these religions and nations and races had not prohibited people in these ten thousand years, then we would not be still dragging -- sad, burdened, frustrated, still going to the church and to the synagogue.

 

And remember, if crossbreeding becomes normal, all world wars will become impossible, because in one family you will find a Chinese, a Hindu, a Christian, a Mohammedan, a Jew. Who is going to fight whom? -- we will all be so intermixed. And that's my commune. Nobody bothers who you are-black or white, English or German, American or Russian. There are Russian sannyasins here. Nobody even thinks about your race, your religion, your color.

 

We are a life-affirmative religion. And this is happening for the first time in the world: all other religions have been life-negative. That's why you feel the difference. You will find differences in everything.

 

People talk outside; have you ever watched what they are talking about? If you are in Britain, they are talking about the weather. But strange... because both are there and they both know what kind of weather it is. What is the point of conversation? There is some secret in it, because it is the most non-controversial thing. If you start talking about anything political, immediately conversation stops, argumentation starts. If you talk about anything religious, conversation stops -- you are a Catholic and the other one is a Protestant.

 

You cannot talk even about significant things of life; you can talk only about weather. Just watch in the outside world, people are not conversing with each other; in fact, they are all trying not to be in a real confrontation. They are not opening their hearts, they are not saying what they always wanted to say.

 

One German film actress had come to India to my commune there. Her image in Germany was falling down; she was getting fewer and fewer films to work in. She wanted some attention so she could again become a great star.

 

She came to my commune, She did a few groups, meditated, and then suddenly -- not saying anything to anybody -- she disappeared. And while leaving Bombay airport, she gave a press conference in which everything that she said was a lie: that she has been beaten, she has been raped, that they were going to kill her; somehow she has escaped. In Germany, she became again a great famous star.

 

Her husband wrote a letter to me. I want you to know what was in that letter. Her husband wrote,"I don't believe what my wife is talking about, because every day she goes on adding more and more against you and your commune. I don't believe that any such thing has happened to her. If it had happened, she should have gone to the police department nearest to your commune. There was no need to go to Bombay, one hundred miles away, give the press conference and get into her plane."

 

But he said, "I don't believe any of these things have happened, but if they have happened I am immensely pleased, because this is what I have always wanted to do to her but I could not gather courage. She is a bitch!"

 

What kind of life are people living if the husband carries such ideas about his own wife? And the wife must be doing things to him; otherwise, why should he carry these ideas in his mind? No, no husband and wife have any conversation. They only argue, they fight. What kind of love is this? And the whole world is in the same rut. The reason is that life has been denied, condemned -- naturally, if it is condemned, who wants to learn the art of it?

 

My religion is nothing but the art of living, the art of loving. And if you can manage two things -- total life, total love -- the third thing, enlightenment, will come of its own accord. You have earned it. You need not seek it, you deserve it. It is a reward from existence to those people who have respected life, loved, lived, danced, enjoyed.

 

So it is not only a question of hugging, it has many implications. People in the outside world are not really living. Perhaps hippies were right, when they said,"Don't believe anybody who is more than thirty years old." I agree with them, because it is nearabout thirty years of age that people die. And after that they may live fifty years, but that is a posthumous existence. They go on living because they have got into the habit of living. Just the way they go on smoking, they go on living -- how to drop the habit?

 

But life is not a habit, life is a continuous inquiry, exploration. Life is a journey of discovery, and unless you have discovered the ultimate truth of your being, don't stop anywhere. There are many stopping places -- very beautiful, very charming, alluring, magical. Remember one thing, that unless you have come to realize who you are, there is no stop. Yes, you can rest a little bit on every stopover, but keep moving, keep flowing. Remain available to all kinds of experiences.

 

Don't live like a coward! In other words, don't live like a Christian! Live like a man, not like a gentleman; just a man is enough. Live like a woman, not like a lady. The lady is dead -- when a woman is dead she is called a lady. When a man is programmed completely by the society, he is called a gentleman.

 

I want only raw men, raw women -- natural, unpolished, free from the mind. And if you can live that way, everything in your life will become a rejoicing. And everything in your life will make you richer.

 

-Osho, "From Death to Deathlessness, #10, Q1“