Osho on Meditating on your Sexuality

 

 

Question:

I feel stuck. I feel I have an essential being inside which wants to get out. It feels a lot more alive and dangerous than the one I drag around with me. It wants to grab girls and sexually enjoy. But you have said that for lifetimes the energy has gone down; time for a change. It wants to fume and rage at getting a half-cup instead of a full cup of milk.

 

 

The half-cup will always remain half. Because it is in the very nature of desires that they cannot be completed. It is the very nature of desire to remain half, to remain discontent. It is the very nature of desire to remain desiring.

 

You desire one thing. When you get it, by the time you get it, your desire has increased. You were desiring ten thousand rupees. By the time you get ten thousand rupees, your desire has gone farther ahead. Now it is asking for twenty thousand rupees.

 

In fact nothing has changed. You had five thousand rupees with you, and you were desiring ten thousand rupees. Now you have ten thousand rupees, you are desiring twenty thousand rupees. The proportion is the same. The distance between you and your goal is the same. It remains the same. The cup remains half. There is no way through desire to come to fulfillment.

 

Buddha has said it is not the nature of desire to be fulfilled. Fulfillment comes only by desirelessness. Now, this is one of the most important paradoxes -- if you drop desiring, you will be fulfilled. The more you desire, the more you are getting into desire, the farther and farther away you go from your possibility of fulfillment. One desire creates many more desires... then many more desires, millions more. It is like a tree. First it is one, then many branches, then many small offshoots, and on and on it goes. The person has asked, I FEEL STUCK....

 

Everybody who has been living in desire feels stuck. The problem is that if you don't try to fulfill your desire, you remain unfulfilled. If you try, even if you get the goal of your desire, then you remain unfulfilled -- then too, nothing changes. This is the nightmare of life.

 

I have heard about a madhouse. A visitor had come, and the doctor, the superintendent, was taking him round. They came to a cage. A man was beating his head, pulling his hair, crying, and holding a small picture near his chest. Pathetic, very tragic was the scene.

 

The visitor asked, 'What happened to this unfortunate man?'

 

The doctor said, 'He used to love a woman and he could not get her. She decided to marry somebody else. Since then he has been mad. He is carrying that picture continuously -- day, night, awake, asleep -- and he goes on in deep anguish. His misery is immense.'

 

Then they reached another cage, just in front of the first one. Another person was raving mad, hitting against the walls, fighting with some shadows. He was almost violent, aggressive; he looked like a murderer. And the visitor asked, 'What happened to this man?'

 

The doctor started laughing. He said, 'The woman married this man! And this is what has happened by marrying the woman.'

 

One is suffering because he could not get, another is suffering because he could get. There are poor people who are suffering because they don't have riches. And there are rich people who are suffering because now they have riches and yet they have nothing. There are unsuccessful people who are in tremendous pain because they failed and life failed them. And there are successful people who are simply empty, all life gone out of them. They put everything at stake and they succeeded and now what to do?

 

Nothing fails like success. When it comes, you cannot believe what you were desiring. You can have a big house, and you can have respect and money, and suddenly you see -- you are just empty and your whole life has been a wastage. Things have accumulated and you have disappeared. Things are there, possessions are there, but the master is missing. This is the nature of desire. Everybody feels stuck.

 

I FEEL STUCK. I FEEL I HAVE AN ESSENTIAL BEING INSIDE WHICH WANTS TO GET OUT.

 

That is not your essential being. Because the essential being is that which has no desire. The being that desires is the accidental being. Be careful what words you use. The essential is one which has no desire. It is already fulfilled. That which desires is the accidental. It is continuously unhappy, continuously in discontent, continuously frustrated... and goes on desiring. And the problem is -- the more you desire, the more you get frustrated. The more you get frustrated, the more you desire. A vicious circle... and one goes on moving in it and is crushed by the wheel.

 

I FEEL I HAVE AN ESSENTIAL BEING INSIDE WHICH WANTS TO GET OUT.

 

The essential being never wants to get out. The essential being is your innermost core, it is your innerness. It never wants to get out. There is nothing for it to go anywhere. It is already where it should be. The essential is one which is already where it should be, which is already that which it should be. The essential is the ideal, the essential is the natural, the spontaneous.

 

I FEEL I HAVE AN ESSENTIAL BEING INSIDE ME WHICH WANTS TO GET OUT.

 

This is not your essential being that wants to get out. This is your accidental being. Maybe it arises because you are identified with the body, or it arises because you are identified with the mind. IT FEELS A LOT MORE ALIVE AND DANGEROUS THAN THE ONE I DRAG AROUND WITH ME.

 

Yes, it is. It at least appears to be more alive. It at least deceives you to be more alive. Follow it and you will find that it tricked you.

 

That's what people find by the time death is approaching. Their sex tricked them, their lust tricked them, their greed tricked them, their ambition tricked them. And now everything is gone, all energy lost, and they are going empty-handed. They have not matured. They have not got anything that they can carry beyond death.

 

Life is that which cannot be destroyed by death, remember. That is the definition. And anything alive, if it is truly alive, is beyond death. It cannot be taken away by death. Nothing can destroy it. Aliveness is eternity.

 

IT FEELS A LOT MORE ALIVE... It simply deceives you. It is very very tricky, it is very persuasive. It is a great salesman... AND DANGEROUS THAN THE ONE I DRAG AROUND WITH ME. Yes, and it is dangerous; not for you -- it is dangerous for others. For you, it is just an illusion.

 

Of course it is dangerous, but not in the sense that I was talking about danger. That's what everybody is doing. That is nothing new. Everybody is greedy and everybody is full of lust. That is nothing new, that is nothing risky. That is the way of the world. Even animals are doing that, trees are doing that. Everybody is doing that. It is dangerous in a different way. It is dangerous in the sense that it is destructive. It will destroy you, and it will destroy others. It is not creative.

 

Love is creative. Sex is destructive. And there is a lot of difference between the two. Sometimes you start thinking that your sexuality is your love. Then you are deceived. Sexuality can play the game of love, but it is a counterfeit game. I am not against sex, but I am certainly against sexuality. And the difference is that sex is a natural thing and sexuality is a mind thing.

 

To love a woman is natural, to love a man is natural. To reproduce children is natural, nothing wrong in it. But to think about women, to carry pornographic pictures, to fall asleep every night thinking about women -- women and women and women -- that is sexuality.

 

Mulla Nasrudin went to his psychiatrist. And the psychiatrist said, just as a test, 'Look at the clock on the wall. What does it remind you of?'

 

He looked at the wall and said, 'Of women.'

The clock!? The psychiatrist said, 'Okay, what does this chair remind you of?'

 

'Of course,' Mulla Nasrudin said, 'of women.' Even the psychiatrist was shocked -- the chair? And then a camel was passing, so he said, 'And what does this camel remind you of?' Now, this is the farthest thing from a woman -- a camel.

 

And he said, 'Of course, of women.'

The psychiatrist said, 'This is too much. How can the camel remind you of women?'

 

Mulla Nasrudin said, 'It is not a question of the camel or anything else. I never think about anything else. Everything reminds me of women. Even nothing reminds me of women. I simply think about women and nothing else.'

 

Now this is sexuality. And the same is trying to erupt in the questioner. IT WANTS TO GRAB GIRLS AND SEXUALLY ENJOY. Now nothing is wrong in falling in love with a woman, but to grab a girl is ugly. Be a little more artful and a little more gentlemanly. Grabbing? The very word is aggressive, the very word is violent -- as if you don't have any respect for the woman you love. Grabbing? Is she a thing? Do you want to rape?

 

This is what goes on happening in the ordinary mind. It has fallen from sex, it has become sexual. Sex is natural, normal. You love a woman, you love a man -- good. But then you are finished. If you love a woman, you are finished with being concerned with other women. Then that one woman represents all women, then that one man becomes all the men in one. Then the whole mankind is there. When you love a woman, you have found the essential woman that you were looking for. Now you are not looking at every passerby, and your mind is not grabbing. IT WANTS TO GRAB GIRLS AND SEXUALLY ENJOY.

 

First thing to remember -- if you grab a woman, you will never enjoy. Because enjoyment cannot be forced. It is a subtle rhythm. When a woman also loves you, only then this music arises between the two which gives joy, delight.

 

You can grab a woman -- and that's what people are doing. Somebody is doing just by physical force, somebody is doing by money-force... because he has money so he can purchase any woman... somebody is doing by some other means. As I see, out of a hundred, ninety-nine people have grabbed women and men. Rarely it happens that a person is in love.

 

When you are in love, you don't grab the woman and the woman does not grab you. When you are in love, love possesses you both. When you are in love, you don't possess each other. You possess not -- not at all. And when you are in love, you don't think about enjoyment; it is there. All thinking about enjoyment exists because it is not there, it is missing.

 

Joy is something which happens as a consequence; it is not a result. You cannot make any effort to be joyful. You can move into some activity so deeply that you forget yourself, and joy arises. Joy arises only when you are not. This is what Buddha says -- when the self disappears then joy arises.

 

The self can disappear in meditation. The self can disappear in love. The self can disappear in prayer. The self can disappear in dance, in singing and painting. The self can disappear anywhere if you are completely lost in any activity, and the activity is so deep that you are no more a doer there; you have become one with it. It happens sometimes.

 

Once a young man came to me. He was a good runner, a champion runner, and he asked me how to meditate, and he was so bubbling with energy. He was a great runner, and he said, 'When I sit, and you tell me to sit silently, I cannot sit; the energy is so much. Is there any possibility for me to ever become meditative?'

 

I said, 'You forget about meditation. You run, and you drop yourself in running. One day meditation will happen.'

 

He said, 'What are you saying? Just by running? Has anybody ever become a Buddha just running?'

 

I said, 'Yes, there is a possibility. Because a person can become a Buddha in any activity.'

 

He said, 'I will try.'

 

After a week he came and he said, 'It is unbelievable. I cannot even believe that it has happened. Something tremendously beautiful happened. I was running, I was going as fast as I could. And as you had said, I forgot myself completely. I was not performing, it was not a competition. I was simply in it... the sun falling on my being, showering me, the morning breeze, the birds singing, and the empty bank of the river. And I was running and running.

 

'And by and by I started falling into a rhythm with the river, with the breeze, with the trees. And suddenly, yes, it was there. I was so full of joy. I have never been so joyful. Tell me, Osho, has it really happened? Because I cannot believe that just by running... and I have been running for many years and it has never happened.' He was not losing himself; running was a performance.

 

Now, one of the most miserable things is happening in the West -- people are making even love a performance. They read Masters and Johnson, and they read Kinsey and his reports, and they read other so-called great sex researchers, and now they are trying to perform.

 

They go on looking whether the woman is having the orgasm or not, whether she is thinking that the man is the greatest man in the world or not. And the woman is also thinking in the same way -- seeing whether she is fulfilling the man and giving him great ecstasy or not. Now both are performing and the whole thing is destroyed. Now they are simply acting, they are no more in it.

 

In the West, this century is proving the worst century for love. And they talk too much about love, and so many books are there -- but something is missing. Love is becoming a performance.

 

I am saying to you that even a thing like running, if it is no more a performance, will give you the same orgasm that love can give, and the same ecstasy that meditation can give. Even cleansing the floor, you can attain to samadhi.

 

Sarita goes on cleansing. I hope one day she achieves her samadhi through cleansing. She is moving by and by towards it. Sometimes she even misses my talks because she has to clean, and she enjoys cleaning so much that I say, 'Okay, you miss the talk. You will not be missing me.'

 

Even an ordinary activity -- very ordinary activity -- can have tremendous import once you are completely lost in it. Don't be a performer.

 

IT WANTS TO GRAB GIRLS AND SEXUALLY ENJOY. If you grab a girl you will have a corpse in your hands, not a human body. You can make love to a corpse. There have been people.... It is said that when Cleopatra died, some foolish people dug her out of her grave and raped her... with a dead body. But this is not so strange. As I see, many people are doing it. It is not very strange. Cleopatra was tremendously beautiful, and men are foolish.

 

H. G. Wells has written that if Cleopatra had had a little smaller nose, the whole history of humanity would have been different. Men are such fools that their whole history can be different if Cleopatra had had a little smaller nose. It must have been; H. G. Wells is right. The whole history would have been different. And some fools raped the dead body.

 

But this is happening on a very large scale. If your woman is not ready to love you in that moment... maybe she is your wife; that does not make it sure... if she is not ready out of her own heart, if she is not flowing in it, you are making love to a dead body. If your man is not ready, drawn into it, losing himself into it, you are making love to a dead body.

 

You can grab, but you will never reach the woman. The woman or the man can never be grabbed. And you can try to enjoy and you will be only frustrated, because nobody has ever attained any enjoyment by trying it. Enjoyment comes like a shadow. The whole effort is ridiculous.

 

Let me tell you one anecdote : Mulla Nasrudin and his wife were at the ballet. He suddenly started laughing. The wife asked, 'Why?' 'I was just wondering what the audience would do if I suddenly jumped on the stage, grabbed one of the girls, threw her down and made violent love to her,' he said.

 

The wife thought a little and began to laugh. He asked, 'Why?'

'I was just thinking,' she said, 'what would you do if the audience gave you a standing ovation and screamed for an encore. If the audience screamed, "Once more!" what would you do?'

 

It will be really ridiculous. Performance is ridiculous. Don't be a performer.

 

Never think of grabbing a woman or a man. Love -- love is beautiful. But loving needs a tremendous transformation in you, because it is a surrender. You have to surrender, you have to be respectful. You have to revere the other person, his being. Love is prayer. And if sex happens as part of love, sex is spiritual. Then sex is no more sexual, then it is a spiritual ecstasy. It is meditative and prayerful.

 

BUT YOU HAVE SAID THAT FOR LIFETIMES THE ENERGY HAS GONE DOWN; TIME FOR A CHANGE. IT WANTS TO FUME AND RAGE AT GETTING A HALF-CUP INSTEAD OF A FULL CUP OF MILK.

 

The very nature of desire is such, and you are tackling it in a very foolish way. Try to understand the nature of desire. I am not saying repress it. I am saying understand it. Because repression will not help. In fact, repression has brought you to this stage.

 

The questioner must have been repressing. See, he has repressed his natural desires so much that they have become corrupted. Now he thinks that is his essential being. It is nothing but his repressed being. Then you can go on and on in your head, playing again and again the same repressed desires. And it is not going to fulfill you. I am not saying be repressive. I am saying be skillful, be aware.

 

It happened : When Syble got to be twenty-eight without any prospects of getting married, her mother nagged her into inserting an ad in the matrimonial column. The ad read: Beautiful exotic young heiress seeks correspondence with devil-may-care gentleman who wants to go places fast.

 

After the ad appeared, the mother asked anxiously, 'Well, any answers?'

'Just one,' sighed the daughter.

'Who wrote it?' demanded mama.

 

'I should not tell you,' said the daughter.

'But it was my idea,' shouted mama, 'and I insist on knowing.'

'All right,' said the daughter, 'you asked for it. It is from papa.'

 

If you go on repressing, then it will become uglier and uglier. And in old age all your repressions become very strong -- because you become weak and your repressions take revenge. I am not saying to repress. I am saying understand. Only if understanding can help, then it is good. And understanding helps.

 

Meditate on your sexuality. See it through and through. Let it become transparent. And the first thing needed is -- at least make your sexuality normal. Let it be sex. Don't think in terms of grabbing. Be a little more romantic. Don't be so aggressive and violent. Be a little more poetic about life, and a little more graceful.

 

First let your sexuality come to a normal point of sex, and then let your sex follow your love. Never put your sex before love. Love should be the driving force and sex should follow it. And once you have done this much, you are on the right track. Soon you will realize that whatsoever you have been calling your essential self was your repressed self. And once that repressed self is dispersed, eliminated, and you have become natural, healthy, whole, then your essential self will come for the first time into your vision. The essential self is your innermost god. The essential self is what truth is. The essential self is no-self.

 

-Osho, “The Discipline of Transcendence, #4, Q3”