Question 13:

How is it that great masters like Chogyam Trungpa get so drunk on occasional festivities that they have to be carried home? Can the use of alcohol for enjoyment disturb a certain awareness of seekers?

 

 

Who told you that this man is a Master? He belongs to a tradition in which many Masters have existed, but he carries just the dead load. And this is the trouble because in the tradition to which he belongs there have been men like Marpa, Milarepa, Naropa, Tilopa — great siddhas — and they all used to drink, now this is delicate, but they never got drunk. They used to drink, but they never got drunk.

 

That is one of the ways of tantra, a method: one has to go on increasing the amount of alcohol and getting attuned to it, but remaining conscious. Hmm?… first you take just one teaspoonful. you remain conscious; then two; then three; then you go on. Then you drink the whole bottle. But now you are so attuned your consciousness is not disturbed; then alcohol won’t do. Then you move to more dangerous drugs.

 

There came a time in the tradition of tantra when snakes, poisonous snakes, were used because a man became so attuned to all types of drugs. Then the last test was the snake cobra. Then the cobra was forced to bite the man on the tongue — then too he remained conscious.

 

This was a secret test and a growth: now you have achieved to such crystallization of consciousness that the whole body is filled with alcohol but it doesn’t affect you. This was a point in tantra to go beyond the body; this is going beyond the body — for tantra.

 

This man comes from that tradition, so he has the permission from the tradition to drink, but if he gets drunk then he has missed the whole point; he not a Master; he is not aware. But in America everything is possible now. Not knowing the old tradition. this man can say to people, “Even our own Masters have been drinking.” In tantra all those things that are ordinarily prohibited are allowed. A tantric is allowed to eat meat — ordinarily it is prohibited; he is allowed to drink ordinarily it is prohibited; he is allowed to have sex — ordinarily for a seeker it is prohibited. Everything that is prohibited ordinarily, is allowed in tantra, but allowed with such conditions that if you forget the conditions you forget the whole thing.

 

One should go in sex, but there should be no ejaculation. If ejaculation happens, then it is ordinary sex; then it is not tantra. If you make love and no ejaculation happens, for hours you are together with the woman and no ejaculation happens, this is tantra. This is an attainment. Drinking is allowed, but getting drunk is not allowed. If you get drunk you are an ordinary drunkard — no need to bring tantra in.

 

Meat is allowed, but you have to eat meat — even sometimes human meat, human flesh, from dead bodies — but you should remain indifferent. You should remain unperturbed — not even a flicker in your consciousness that “something wrong….”

 

Tantra says that every bondage has to be transcended, and the last bondage is morality — that too has to be transcended. Unless you transcend morality you have not transcended the world. So in a country like India where vegetarianism has gone to the very deep core of Indian consciousness, meat-eating was allowed, but it was not allowed in the way that meat-eaters eat. A man has to prepare his whole life for it. He was to be a vegetarian; as a seeker he was to be a vegetarian.

 

Years will pass — ten years, twelve years he has remained a vegetarian, he has not made love to any woman, he has not drunk anything alcoholic, and he has not taken any other drugs. Then after twelve years, fifteen years, even twenty years, the Master will allow him, now, to move into sex, but to move with a woman with such respect that the woman is almost a goddess; it is not carnal. And the man who is moving with the woman has to worship her, touch her feet. And if even a slight sexual desire arises he is disqualified; then he is not ready for it.

 

It was a great preparation and a great test — greatest that has ever been created for man. With no desire, with no lust, he has to feel towards the woman as if she is his mother. If the Master says, and sees, that he is right — now he is like a child entering the woman, not like a man, and like a child he remains inside the woman with no sexuality arising: his breathing is not affected his body energy is not affected; for hours he remains together with the woman, there is no ejaculation; a deep silence pervades — it is a deep meditation.

 

For twenty years remaining a vegetarian and then suddenly you are offered meat to eat: your whole being will feel repulsed. Hmm?… if you feel repulsion then tantra says, “You are rejected. Now go beyond it. Now whatsoever is offered, accept it in deep gratitude.” You must know if you have remained a vegetarian even for one year and suddenly meat is offered, you will start feeling nausea, vomiting. If that comes that means the man is still living in the thoughts — because it is only a thought that this is meat and this is vegetable. Vegetable is also meat, because it comes from the body of the tree; and meat is also vegetable, because it comes from the tree of a man’s body or an animal’s body. This is the transcendence of morality.

 

And then he is prepared to drink strong drugs. If he has really become alert then whatsoever is given will change the chemistry of the body but not his consciousness; his consciousness will remain floating on the chemistry of the body. Gurdjieff used to drink as much as you can imagine — but was never unconscious, never drunk. He was a tantric Master. If you want to look in the West towards somebody, then he is George Gurdjieff, not Tibetan refugees.

 

– Osho, “Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 5, #6, Q13”