The difference between animals and man is that animals have fixed potentialities while man has infinite possibilities. But they are only possibilities. Man can grow, but this growth must be helped. We must open up centers throughout the world where this can happen.

 

The mind must be trained in a logical, rational way, but it must be simultaneously trained in irrational, non-rational meditation. The reason must be trained, and at the same time the emotions. Reason must not be trained at the cost of the emotions. Doubt must be there, but trust also.

 

It is easy to be trusting without any doubt, and it is easy to be doubtful without any trust. But these simple formulas will not do now. Now we must create a healthy doubt, a persistent doubt, a skeptical mind that exists simultaneously with a trusting mind. And the inner being must be capable of moving from one to the other: from doubt to trust, and back again. With objective research, one must be doubtful, skeptical, cautious. But there is another dimension adjacent to this where trust gives the clues not doubt. Both are needed.

 

The problem is how to create the contrary polarities simultaneously. This is what I am interested in. I will go on creating doubt and will go on creating trust. I do not see any inherent inconsistency in it, because for me it is the movement that is important, the movement from one pole to another.

 

The more we are fixed on one pole, the more difficult it becomes. For example, in the West you have cultivated activity. But you cannot sleep well. When you go to sleep and the mind needs to move from activity to inactivity, it cannot. You go on turning in your bed; the mind goes on being active. In order to sleep, you have to take a tranquilizer. But a forced sleep cannot give you much rest; it is just superficial. Deep down, the turmoil goes on. The sleep becomes a nightmare.

 

The opposite has happened in the East. The East can sleep well, but cannot be active. Even in the morning the Eastern mind feels lethargic, sleepy. For centuries they have been sleeping well and doing nothing else, while you have done much, but you have created unease, a dis-ease. And because of this dis-ease, everything you have done is useless. You cannot even sleep!

 

That is why my emphasis is to train the mind for activity, for inactivity and, most significant of all, for movement -- so that you can move between the two. The mind can be trained to move from one to the other. From any activity, in a single moment I can move to inactivity. I can talk with you for hours and in a single moment I can move to a deep, inner silence with no talking going on. And unless this possibility is created in you, your growth will be stunted.

 

The future has to allow there to be a deep harmony between inner polarities. Unless this movement between opposites is created, human inquiry is finished. You cannot move ahead. The East is exhausted and the West is exhausted. You can change the perspective of the two but then, within two centuries, the same problem will again come up. If you just exchange one attitude for the other, you begin to move in a circle.

 

- Osho, "The Psychology of the Esoteric, #12"