[Another participant says: I feel more attracted to the deeper silent meditations, but I always have the uncertainty about whether there’s something I’m suppressing and should go into. There’s always a doubt.]

 

 

I think an Encounter group will be helpful. There is not much there, but even if a little is there, it can become a problem in Vipassana. Vipassana should be done only when you have finished with catharsis, otherwise it will become a struggle.

 

That’s what is happening in buddhist monasteries. They don’t have cathartic methods, they simply teach Vipassana, and then it becomes suppressive. When you try to suppress something it becomes a fight. That was the difference here – because these people are doing dynamic meditation and cathartic methods; Encounter Groups and Primal Therapy. Their minds are clean, and they-have nothing to suppress, so they could enjoy it tremendously. So I suggest you do Encounter first, and then do Vipassana.

 

All the methods that are being used in the West are cathartic, and all that have been used in the East are noncathartic. My effort is to bring a new synthesis to them. The western methods should be used in the beginning so that one is clean and has thrown out all repressions. Then the eastern methods should be used, because then they go to the very core of your being. You enjoy them then, and there is no effort involved; they are almost effortless. Things settle by themselves while you simply sit and watch. But right now, if many things are there and you try to sit, they will bubble up, and you will go on thinking and thinking and thinking about them.

 

Always remember the difference between isolation and solitude. This is the difference. Isolation is a sort of suppression – forcing yourself to be still, being alone, cutting yourself off from other people. Solitude is not isolation. You are not cutting anything, because there is nothing to cut. You are not trying to be alone; you are simply alone, and there is no effort involved.

 

Vipassana in buddhist monasteries has become isolation, and I would like it to become a solitude. Isolation is negative, because one wants to break all communication with the world. One is fed up with all relationships and with love. One simply wants to withdraw into oneself. The whole thing is negative. You are left in a negative emptiness, a sort of darkness.

 

Solitude is very positive. It is not going away from society, or cutting relationships. On the contrary, it is not a withdrawal but a dipping into your own being; it is an in-going. In withdrawal the focus is on the other, you are going away from the other. In solitude the focus is no longer on the other, you are simply sinking into your own being. Before you can communicate, you have to enter into your own shrine to bring something to share.

 

It is just like a well from which you draw water. If you draw continuously and don’t leave any gap for the well to renew itself, to refill, it will become dry. So for a few hours you leave it alone so it is again overflowing. Solitude is like that. One becomes depleted leading the ordinary life – with the thousand and one problems and anxieties and worries. Solitude is like moving into your own world to become revitalised, to be rejuvenated, refreshed and overflowing, so that you can come back to the world again and share.

 

Vipassana becomes isolation if you are suppressing something. It is a withdrawal and a fear-oriented thing; basically ill. Vipassana can be very healthy and wholesome if you are not withdrawing but just going in to come back again. It is not a renunciation, a rejection of the world – it is just a rest into oneself.

 

[the participant continues: This morning when I woke up, I never felt more asleep in my life. I’d done no work whatsoever, and I felt totally asleep! I think that’s because I was more aware of my sleep.]

 

It can happen, it is possible. In fact if you are not really aware, your sleep becomes superficial. When things deepen, everything deepens, so when you become more aware your sleep also becomes deeper. It is not the other way around. The higher the awareness, the deeper the sleep. If your awareness is just dim it means that already a little sleep is there, so there is no need for your sleep to be so deep.

 

They are always in proportion. It is just like when you work hard in the day you can rest deeply in the night. If you rest in the day, then in the night there is insomnia. One person used to be with me for a few years. I had given him a method to work out – a very intense method of awareness. For three months he worked hard, the effort was really hard, and after that he fell into a coma. A coma! – for four days. His family became very afraid and wanted to call a doctor, but I said not to disturb him, otherwise his whole life would be disturbed.

 

He came out of it as if coming out of death, totally renewed. He had not had a single dream in those four days. The sleep was absolute, as if everything had stopped. He relaxed as if he had not been asleep for many years, many lives. So it is possible, and there is nothing to worry about. The opposite polarity always happens. If you meditate very deeply, suddenly one day you will find you have fallen in love. If you love very deeply, one day or other, suddenly you will become aware of a new dimension which is opening its door – the dimension of meditation.

 

If you love deeply, one day or other you will become meditative, and if you meditate deeply, you are going to become a lover. So if somebody is trying to be meditative without being in love, he is just trying to fool existence, and existence cannot be fooled! If anybody is trying to live just a life of love without being bothered about meditation, he is trying the impossible.

 

- Osho, “Hammer on the Rock, #27”