on How to Deal with Addiction Meditatively

 

 

Question:

Many people are coming to my programs with Addiction problems. In my opinion they are not ready for meditation. I have to teach them, teach them to take the needle out of their arms, to Stop Stealing, to stop destroying their environment, to change their Negative behavior. How can I help them? I think you almost.... I would like to teach them Meditation, but first it's like just trying to stop them from acting crazy first (inaudible)

 

 

No. You should not ask them to drop all these things. They cannot do it. You are asking the impossible. Because if a person is addicted to drugs, the problem is not the drugs, the problem is why he is addicted to drugs. Because life gives no joy, life gives nothing. Life is so empty, so meaningless. The drugs make at least few hours very colorful, psychedelic, there is great joy. One forgets this whole madhouse, this world. You cannot tell them that we will teach you meditation only if you drop all these things first. They cannot drop.

 

You have to be more compassionate to them. Let them be on drugs; there is no problem. You teach them meditation. Meditation will help them to drop the drugs, not vice versa. Meditation can give them better experiences, far more superior and real. Drugs are only giving them hallucinations. And when somebody has to choose between a dream and a reality -- and a reality which is far more golden and far more beautiful than the dream -- I don't think anybody is going to choose the dream.

 

But first let him have something to choose, to fall upon. He was empty, he was disgusted with the whole life. Drugs have supported him. They are killing him. They are destroying him, but they have at least shown him beautiful dreams. Life cannot give any beautiful dreams either. The politicians, the priests, the pedagogues, altogether have made life so ugly, so difficult to live, so worthless, that any intelligent person is bound to find something or other. And meditation is not for sale.

 

There are no meditation dealers from whom you can get an injection. You will have to learn it, that is the difficulty. You will have to go through a certain discipline. So tell them that whatever you are doing is absolutely accepted. You are doing it not without reason, so you continue it. We give you a better drug which is not chemical. We give you meditation. Try it, and you will be surprised, the people who have been on drugs can enter into meditation more easily than other people.

 

This is unfortunate that drugs are illegal all over the world. In India for centuries seekers of truth have used drugs, all kinds of drugs. Even in my childhood there was no prohibition of any drugs. Just by my side of the house was a shop, all kinds of drugs were available. Only the shopkeeper needed a license, and that was only five rupees per year. The customers had nothing to do with law. And for centuries India has experimented with drugs and found it immensely helpful, because the drug at least give you a certain hallucinatory experience.

 

You become aware of something that you have never been aware. And the drug opens chemically doors into your being which are closed. The drug is not the last thing, but in the beginning it can be of immense help under right supervision. It will not make you a drug addict, it will lead you to meditation. Because the Master can say to you, "This is only a dream and now I want you to introduce to a reality which is far more superior. And now you can believe me, because if just a chemical can give you such a beautiful experience.... I know both, you know only the drug. I say to you that now you try meditation techniques."

 

So before he becomes addicted to any drug, he starts experiencing tremendous ecstasies within himself. The drug is left far behind. Now he can himself say that it was stupid to go on hanging around the drug. It was giving you only a hallucination, an illusion. What does it matter if in your dream you become the king of the whole world? In the morning you wake up in the same wretched hut. Then the more and more you need the drug, so you need not wake up. That's how drugs go on killing people.

 

But anything that is so destructive can be used in a constructive way. It has been used for thousands of years. But British government had no idea about it, that it can be used for some religious purposes, that it can be used for making man more peaceful, more silent, more aware. In the West meditation has never existed. The West has known only prayer, and prayer is even more false than the drugs. Drugs at least have a chemical reality. The prayer has no reality at all. It is addressed to the ultimate lie; the god, who does not exist anywhere.

 

You are simply wasting your time, your energy, and hoping that the answer will be coming. It never came, it never comes, it never can come. The West does not know anything about drugs. So it is the responsibility of all the governments in the world to make more experiments on drugs. Make them more sophisticated so they don't have any side effects, bad effects. This can be so easily done, that not to do it there must be some great reason.

Why all the governments are prohibiting drugs?

 

Because a man who goes into drugs cannot be sent to Viet Nam to kill innocent people. The man who goes into drugs forgets all about Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Mohammedanism. He doesn't care a bit. A man who goes into drugs becomes in many ways useless for the society, a burden. So the society is not interested; otherwise it is such a simple thing to make drugs so medically wholesome that anybody can use it as a preparation for meditation.

 

And there is no need to force millions of young people into jails. And not a single one from there is ever... drops the drugs. He manages even to get it in the prisons. And out of the prison he is again back, because you have nothing to offer in comparison. If you take something away from people, at least you should offer in its place something better. Then nobody is going to feel hurt, feel imprisoned. So tell those people that you are simply victims of a stupid society, victims of a science who has become a slave of the governments.

 

Otherwise man can reach to the moon. Man is capable to make nuclear weapons to destroy the whole earth seven hundred times. And man cannot make something better than LSD? LSD is already better than alcohol, but alcohol is legal because two thousand years before Jesus was alcoholic. It is unfortunate that LSD was not available. Otherwise he and his twelve idiots would all be on needles; and then no government will prohibit it. It will be something religious -- you should not interfere in religion. But the difficulty is LSD is developed now.

 

But our therapists have to be compassionate to these people -- they are victims of a society. So don't ask them to drop it. They cannot because they don't have anything to fall upon. Why they should drop it?

 

So first tell them that this is good. Use every opportunity in such a way that it leads to meditation. Tell them, "You are perfectly right. What you did, any intelligent man would have done in your place. But there are better spaces available, which you are missing. And you being intelligent, your very drug addiction is an indication of your intelligence, of your rebellion."

 

Give them some juice that they are better individuals than the society has. And they certainly are! And then you can explain them meditation. Tell them to meditate. And never mention their drugs. You just insist on meditation. Tell them you can take the drug and do the meditation in the same moment. So the drug takes you into hallucinations, opens doors of your inner chemistry. And that is the most vulnerable moment. You can meditate easily. I am not against drugs. I am not against anything in the world, because everything can be used in a creative way.

 

Every poison can become a medicine, so why not drugs? But I cannot allow drugs in the commune, because that will become a trouble for the whole commune against the government. I would like to change the laws, but before the laws are changed -- of course, knowing perfectly well drugs can be of immense help -- they cannot be allowed in the commune. All over the world intelligent people should raise their voices, protest, that why drugs are not being purified. When millions of young people are in it, they have every right to have it.

 

And if you are afraid for the bad effects, then do something. It is so easy to do. You can make some things really so miraculously helpful to meditation and so superior to any drug that is available in the world, that nobody is going to choose any other drug against your drug. And once he gets into your drug, he is bound to find meditation. But till it happens, we have to do something.

 

If somebody comes into your group who has this addiction, don't say anything against the drug, rather make the person feel less guilty. He is not committing a crime. He is doing the right thing in a wrong society. But this will destroy his health, this will destroy his whole life. And we have something which can give you better experiences, more authentic, more real. Experiences will automatically help the person out of the drugs.

 

-Osho, “The Last Testament, Vol 2, #16”