Question 4:
Osho,
The west seems to be obsessed with sex. people are stuffed with endless techniques and porno images. why, in all this time, are people still stuck and unable to move into the tantric experience of sex, of love and of life?
It is not a question of West or East. Both are obsessed with sex -- of course, in different ways. The West is indulgent, the East is repressive, but the obsession is the same. And the significant question is: Why is the West so indulgent? It is two thousand years of Christianity and its repressive methods that have brought this indulgence.
The East is repressive; sooner or later, it is going to become indulgent. The mind of man moves like a pendulum, from the right to the left, from the left to the right. And remember, while the pendulum is moving to the right it is gaining momentum to move to the left, and vice versa. It appears it is going to the left, but it is gaining momentum, energy, to go to the right.
When a society is repressive it is gaining momentum to become indulgent, and when a society is indulgent it is gaining momentum again to become repressive. So a strange thing is bound to happen, and in fact, it is happening: the West has been indulgent for a few decades and the repressive trend is arising again. There are many cults which preach celibacy now.
The Hare Krishna movement preaches celibacy, brahmacharya, and thousands of people have become interested in it. And there are many cults arising which are all agreed on one point: that sex has to be repressed.
In the name of yoga, in the name of Zen, in the name of Christianity, many cults are arising which are again repressive.
The West will become repressive soon. And in the East, the number of porno magazines is growing every day; porno movies are coming more and more. The East is a little slow in everything, a little lazy in everything, so it takes a little longer.
The West moves with speed. But the East is becoming West and the West is becoming East, and that is one of the greatest problems. If this happens, then the misery remains the same. Again the pendulum has moved and again you will go on doing the same things.
This has happened many times in the past. A repressive society becomes indulgent sooner or later. When the repression comes to a point where you cannot repress it anymore it explodes: people go berserk. Or when a society has been very indulgent it starts seeing the futility of it, the sheer wastage of energy.
And it gives no contentment; rather it makes one feel more and more frustrated. Then one starts thinking of brahmacharya -- celibacy. Maybe the ancient rishis were right! In the East also it has happened many times. The Hindu religion, in the beginning, was very indulgent; it was not a repressive religion.
The Hindu seers were married people. Not only were they married, they were allowed to have a few other women also as their concubines. They were allowed even to purchase women -- because in those days in India, men and women were sold in the marketplaces just like any commodity.
Beware of all those people who go on talking about the Golden Age of India. There has never been any golden age. Even in the days of Rama.... Hindus talk very much about Ramarajya -- the kingdom of Rama is thought to be the highest pinnacle.
People were sold like commodities in the marketplaces, and particularly women were thought to be just property; anybody can sell, anybody can purchase. People used to give them as gifts. A guest would come to your house and he would like one of your women, and you would present the woman to him.
Even the so-called saints used to have many women; they were all indulgent. All the stories of those days, even about the gods, are very indulgent. You must have seen Shiva temples -- temples devoted to the god Shiva. The statue is nothing but a phallic symbol. If you look, if you observe minutely, you will be surprised: it has both man and woman's sexual organs in it. It depicts the meeting of man and woman.
The story is this: One day Vishnu and Brahma went to see Shiva...this is the Hindu trinity: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. Brahma is the creator god, Vishnu is the maintainer god and Shiva is the destroyer god. All the three are needed to keep the world running. One creates, one maintains, one destroys; then again one creates, the other maintains and the third one destroys. So it remains in a flow.
Brahma and Vishnu went to see Shiva. As it happened, the guard was fast asleep, so they entered in without asking any permission, and Shiva was making love to his wife, Parvati. He was so passionately into it, so drunk! -- he may have taken some drug, because he is perfectly well known to have used drugs.
Marijuana and hash and opium were all known to him. He continued to make love and these two gods stood there watching. Great gods! They could not even say, "Excuse us," and get out. They must have enjoyed the scene -- living pornography!
Six hours it continued, the love-making, and these two gods stood there for six hours watching. A long blue film! -- and nothing else, just making love! No other incidents, nothing else... just Shiva making love to his wife. But they were very angry.
When Shiva was finished they told him, "We have been waiting for six hours and you have not even taken any notice of us. We are very angry and we curse you that you will be remembered forever and forever by your sexual organs."
That's why in the Shiva temple you see the phallic symbol: Shiva is remembered by his sexual organ. Now, these Hindus must have been very indulgent. Their gods, too, were very indulgent. But then came a reaction, the pendulum moved.
Buddhism and Jainism rebelled against this indulgence and they created a very repressive world, a repressive morality. India still lives under that influence, but it is moving slowly slowly again towards the indulgent.
The West is influencing it -- Western films, Western novels are influencing it. The West is being influenced by Buddha, by Zen, by Patanjali, by yoga, by meditation, and the East is influenced by Playboy! People are reading Playboy, hiding it inside their Gitas!
You ask, "The West seems to be obsessed with sex." It is not true only about the West. The whole of humanity, up to now, has remained obsessed with sex, and it is going to remain so unless we change the whole gestalt.
Up to now the gestalt has been repression/indulgence, indulgence/repression, going on moving between these two. We have to stop exactly in the middle. Have you ever tried to stop the pendulum of a clock in the middle? What happens? The clock stops. The time stops.
That's my effort here. I don't want you to be indulgent and I don't want you to be repressive. I would like you to be balanced, just in the middle. It is in the middle that transcendence is possible, and it is in the middle that we can create a humanity which will be neither Eastern nor Western.
And it is immensely needed, urgently needed, that a man comes on the earth which is neither Eastern nor Western: a new kind of man with a new vision, freed of all the bondage of the past.
You ask, "Why, in all this time, are people still stuck and unable to move into the tantric experience of sex, of love and of life?"
Tantric experience means neither to be repressive nor to be indulgent. Tantric experience is possible only if you move deep into meditation, otherwise not. When you become very very still, silent, aware, alert, then only is it possible that you will know something of tantra. Otherwise, tantra can also become an excuse for indulgence - a new name, a religious name. And you can move into indulgence behind the name of tantra. Names won't make much change; your being needs change.
Zelda, the Hebrew zebra, was walking down a country lane, some place in the boondocks of Pennsylvania. Soon she came upon a flock of sheep.
"Yoo-hoo, may I speak to you, please?" she called out.
One of the sheep came to the fence.
"What do you want to speak about?"
"I represent the Hadassah Zebra Association of South Africa. You are Jewish?"
"Oh yes, we are all Jewish here."
"Well, I am on a fact-finding tour. Our zebras are interested in learning how Jewish animals in America earn a living. Would you mind telling me what kind of work you do?"
"What do I do?" exclaimed the sheep. "What kind of a question is that? I give wool, what else? Every year they shear it off and next season they do the same thing. Is it any different there in South Africa?"
"Oh no, it is just the same. Well, I must be running along. Ta-ta, and thank you most kindly."
Zelda continued on her fact-finding mission until she met a cow.
"Excuse me, madam, I am from the Hadassah Zebra Association of South Africa. I am interviewing Jewish-American domestic animals. Would you be so kind as to describe your work?"
"Glad to," murmured the cow. "I am employed by a strictly kosher dairy, being orthodox myself, of course. My work, you ask? Well, I am a purebred Guernsey, and I give Grade A milk. I live up there in that pretty white barn. Sorry I can't ask you in, but we were not expecting company and the place is a mess."
"That's perfectly alright. Thank you for your information. You have been most helpful.
Toodle-oo."
A short time later, Zelda saw a stallion in a pasture, and there was no mistaking his Jewishness. He happened to see her at just about the same moment. He charged toward the fence, skidded to a four-footed stop and loomed over the zebra with nostrils flaring.
"And just what is it that you do, sir?" asked the zebra demurely.
"Honey, you just slip out of those fancy pajamas," he said, "and I will show you what I do!"
The whole humanity is suffering from obsession, either through indulgence or through repression. The whole humanity is concerned with sex twenty-four hours a day.
Psychologists have discovered that every man thinks of women at least once in three minutes, and every woman thinks of man at least once in six minutes. That may cause enough problems - the difference; that may be the whole trouble between man and woman.
Tantric sex is not sex at all; it is meditation. Meditation has to spread all over your life.
Whatsoever you do, do meditatively. Walk meditatively, eat meditatively. If you are making love, make love meditatively. Meditation has to become your life twenty-four hours a day; then only the transformation. Then you go beyond sex, you go beyond body, you go beyond mind. And for the first time you become aware of godliness, of ecstasy, of bliss, of truth, of liberation.
The last question:
Question 5:
BELOVED MASTER,
WHY ARE THE INDIANS SUCH A PROUD PEOPLE?
Paul, God knows! They have no reason to be. I am also surprised. There is nothing - but the ego clings to anything or it invents something. India goes on inventing a beautiful past. It is invention, pure invention. It has never been there, it has never existed.
Yes, there have been people like Krishna and Mahavira and Buddha, but they are not Indians at all. Jesus is not Jewish and Lao Tzu is not Chinese. These people are universal; nobody can claim them. The whole earth belongs to them; they are our common heritage, so you cannot brag about them.
But every country has to invent something to feel good. Just as individuals need egos, countries need egos, races need egos, religions need egos. And Indians have a tremendously big ego. They think they are the most spiritual people on the earth, and that is just bullshit! The very idea is unspiritual.
To be spiritual means to be humble. To be spiritual means to be nobodies. To be spiritual means not to belong to any country, to any nation. To be spiritual means not to be Hindu, not to be Mohammedan, not to be Christian. But even spirituality is being used as a prop.
It happens every day: some new Indians come, once in a while, those who don't understand me... because it is not possible to understand me just if you come once as a visitor just to look around. You can't understand me if you come as a tourist. Indians come, but they come only as visitors.
And the few Indians who have become absorbed into my commune, who have become sannyasins, I don't count them as Indians anymore. They have become universal. It is a universal brotherhood.
But when new Indians come they ARE Indians, very much Indians. And what egos they carry! When I pass around the Buddha Hall with my hands joined together, with my head bowed down to them in love, in prayer, in salutation, they can't even respond.
They sit like stones. Not even a formal gesture they can show. They look so silly, so stupid, and I feel so sorry! How to help them? These people seem to be beyond help, beyond approach. And they see the whole ocean of sannyasins with their hands joined together joyously bowing, responding in love, communing, but they can't do it. They just sit there like dead rocks. Strange... but not so strange because deep down they think they already know. Deep down they think they are great inheritors of a spiritual tradition. They know the Vedas and the Gita and the Upanishads.
I watch them, I watch their spirituality. They don't look at me - they look at my Rolls Royce! That's why I have asked my secretary to bring a Rolls Royce: at least for Indians there must be something to see! They are more interested in the car - and they are spiritual people, not materialists! When they come to the ashram, the first question they ask the guides here is, "Where is the Rolls?" They are not interested in seeing meditations, they are not interested in seeing Sufi dancers, they are not interested in seeing vipassana, they are not interested in anything. "Where is the Rolls?" Their whole mind is materialistic, but they go on pretending to be spiritual. And you can always invent something or other.
The country is poor so they cannot brag about richness. The country is uneducated, they cannot brag about education. The country is technologically backward, they cannot brag about technology. So they have fallen upon something invisible: spirituality. You can always brag about spirituality. Nobody can disprove it. Of course, you cannot prove it either, but one thing good about spirituality is that it cannot be disproved. So you can go on talking about your spirituality - which exists nowhere, which has never existed.
Individuals have been spiritual beings, societies have never been. We have still to wait for that great day when there will be so many individuals awakened that the society will start having the color of spirituality. Up to now, it has not happened. Hitherto it has not been happening; it has only been a hope. But every religion believes that they are religious. Just believing in certain ideas gives you a false feeling of being religious.
And whenever you come across a real religious person you shrink back, you become afraid.
Hence they are against me - they are bound to be against me. I am shattering all their structures. I am shattering their whole egoistic patterns. I am trying to bring them down to the earth, to the reality - and it hurts.
India has never been against anybody as India is against me, for the simple reason that nobody has ever shattered their egos. I am making every possible effort to shatter their egos because that is the only hope. If India loses its ego, there is a possibility of a rebirth. The country can be reborn. It has great potential. It has the same potential as when you don't use a field for many many years, you don't grow any crop, and the field becomes more and more potential every year.
For centuries India has not grown any creativity. It has become the most potential country in the world. If it explodes into creativity it is really going to be something great, something of great consequence to the whole earth. But before it can ever happen the shell of the seed has to be shattered, has to be broken.
I am going to be condemned, criticized, rejected; that is bound to be my destiny. But I am the only hope. If I succeed in helping a few intelligent Indians to come out of their closed egos into the open, that will help not only India but the whole world. It will be a great contribution to the growth of consciousness.
It is possible, and you are all here to help it happen.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 10, #12"