How to differentiate between the unconscious and the inner guide

 

 

Question 2

How to differentiate between the dictates of the unconscious mind and that of the inner guide? how can one recognize that the inner guide has come into function?

 

 

The first thing: because of Freud, much misunderstanding has arisen around the word ”unconscious”. Freud completely misunderstood it, misinterpreted it. And he has become the very basis of modern knowledge about mind. To Freud, unconscious meant simply the repressed conscious, the suppressed part of the conscious. So all that is evil and bad, immoral, has been suppressed. Because the society cannot allow it, it has to be suppressed within. For Freud, that repressed part is the unconscious – but not for mystics. Freud is not a mystic; he has not entered his own unconscious. He has been simply observing cases of patients: ill people, abnormal people, mad, insane, pathological. He has been studying the pathological mind, and through the study of the pathological mind – and that, too, from without – he concluded that just underneath the conscious there is an unconscious mind. That unconscious mind carries all that has been suppressed from the childhood, all that society has condemned. The mind has suppressed it, just to forget that it is there.

 

But it is there – and it goes on functioning. And it is very powerful: it goes on changing the conscious, it goes on playing tricks with the conscious. The conscious is really impotent before it, because whatsoever is repressed is repressed only because it is so powerful that society cannot cope with it. So society has been repressing it and society doesn’t know what else to do with it. For example, sex. It is so powerful that if you don’t repress it you won’t know what to do with it. It will lead you into dangerous paths. And it is such a forceful energy that the whole society will become chaotic if it is allowed completely.No marriage could exist, no love could exist, everything could be just a chaos if it was allowed total freedom – because then man would behave like an animal. If there were no marriage, no family, the whole society would be destroyed. Society depends on the unity of the family; the family depends on marriage; marriage depends on sex-suppression. Everything that is natural, forceful, has been inhibited, tabooed – so forcibly that you feel guilty about it and you go on fighting with it. Society has not only created policemen outside, it has created inner policemen, your conscience – a double arrangement so that you don’t go astray so that you cannot be natural, you have to be unnatural.

 

Now modern psychologists say that insanity is part of civilization – no civilization can be without madness. But mad people are suffering because you have forced such an order over them that their natural instincts are crushed. They have been crippled. It may be that your madmen are more powerful than you, that’s why their inner instincts have revolted and they have thrown their conscience, their mind, everything, overboard. That’s why they are mad. A better concept of humanity, a better organization, a better discipline with more knowledge and wisdom, may use them. They may prove geniuses; they may prove very talented people. They are. But they have such a force in them that they cannot repress themselves. And society will not allow them to move because they are wild. Freud came to the conclusion that civilization needs the unconscious, the repressed part.

 

But really, for Tantra and yoga this unconscious is not the unconscious, it is just between the conscious and the unconscious, a small boundary. It is subconscious. The conscious has forced something down, but the conscious knows about it. It is not really unconscious, you know about it. You may not want to recognize it, you may not want to be attentive to it, because you are afraid that if you give it attention it will come up. You have forced it into darkness but you are conscious bout it. The Freudian unconscious is not really unconscious, it is only subconscious. It is not dark night, it is in the light, you can see it.

 

Tantra talks about the real unconscious which is not suppressed by you but which is your deepest being. And your conscious is just one part of it which has come into light, the one-tenth part which has seen the light, which has become conscious. Nine parts, nine-tenths, are just hidden underneath. That unconscious is really your source of life-energy, of being. Your conscious mind is one-tenth of the whole mind and this conscious mind has created its own center: that center is the ego. This center is false because it doesn’t belong to the whole mind, it is not the center of the whole mind. It is just a center of the conscious part, a fragment. The fragment has created its own center and that center goes on pretending it is the center of the whole being. No, your total mind has a center: that center is called the guide. That center is in the unconscious and it will be revealed only when five fragments, or half of the mind, come into light. Then the center which is the guide will be revealed. It is hidden in the unconscious.

 

So you need not be afraid of the unconscious; it is the Freudian unconscious you are afraid of. It is something to be afraid of. But this Freudian unconscious can be thrown out in catharsis. Hence my great insistence on catharsis. This Freudian unconscious can be thrown out in catharsis: whatsoever you wanted to do and you have not done, do it, meditatively. Don’t do it to anyone because that will create a chain of events – and you will not be in control. Just do it in a vacuum. If you are angry, do it in a vacuum.

 

If you feel sexuality, throw it into the sky. If you feel anything, just allow it to move from your inwards outwards. Express it. A meditative catharsis will relieve you of the Freudian unconscious. With the technique that I am teaching – if it is followed – the Freudian unconscious will simply disappear. And only when this Freudian unconscious disappears can you penetrate the real unconscious. It is just in-between, between the conscious and the unconscious. You just go on throwing your rubbish things into a room and you close it; you go on accumulating a junkyard – Freudian unconscious is just a junkyard. Don’t throw it in – I say, throw it out. When it moves in, you will become pathological, you can go insane. When it moves out you will become fresh, young, unburdened. For this age, catharsis is a must. No one can reach the inner guide without catharsis. And once you are in deep catharsis you need not be afraid. Then the real unconscious will start revealing itself; then it will penetrate into your conscious, and then for the first time you will become aware of your vast territory. You are not such a small fragment, you have a very vast being, and this vast being has a center – that center is the inner guide.

 

How to differentiate between the unconscious and the inner guide? How to differentiate between the Freudian unconscious and the inner guide? It will be difficult if you don’t go through catharsis. But you can feel a difference by and by because the Freudian unconscious is just a repressed thing. If something appears in you with a violent force, know well that this violent force is coming because you have repressed it in the first place. If something simply appears in you without any violence, just bubbles up silently, easily, without any sounds, even soundlessly, then know that this is the real unconscious.

 

From the guide something is coming to you. But you will become proficient only when you go through catharsis. Then you will know what is happening. Whenever anything comes from the Freudian unconscious you will feel disturbed, it will make you uneasy, uncomfortable; and whenever something comes from the guide you will feel such serenity, you will feel so happy, so at ease, so at home, that you cannot imagine it. You will simply feel that this is the thing. Your total being is in harmony with it, there is no resistance. You know this is the right, this is the good, this is the truth – and nobody can convince you otherwise. With the Freudian unconscious you can never be serene, you can never be still and calm; you will be disturbed. It is a sort of disease that has come up – and there will be a fight with it. So it is better if you pass through deep catharsis, then the Freudian unconscious will become silent, by and by.

 

And just as bubbles come up from a riverbed, come up to the very surface of the water, you will feel bubbles coming up from the very bed of your being. They will come to your conscious mind. But their very coming will give you a deep tranquility – a feeling that nothing can be more right than this. But before it happens you have to unburden yourself of the Freudian unconscious. And that can happen only if you are in a let-go, because the innermost being is so nonviolent that it will not assert itself. The Freudian unconscious will want to assert itself; every moment it is trying to assert itself and you are pushing it back. This is the difference.

 

It wants to assert itself, it wants to become active, it wants to lead you somewhere, it wants to manipulate you – and you are resisting it, fighting it. The real unconscious, the guide, is not assertive. If you allow it, if you invite it, prayerfully, it will come to you just like an invited guest. You have to be in a let-go. Only then will it come. When it feels you are ready, when it feels it will not be denied, rejected, when it feels it will be welcomed, then it will come to you. So, you have to do two things: catharsis for the Freudian unconscious, and training in let-go and surrender for the real guide, the real unconscious. These two things done, you will know the difference.

 

The difference really cannot be taught to you – you will know it. When it happens, you will know it. How do you know the difference between when there is pain in your body and when the whole body feels a well-being? When the whole body is filled with well-being and when your head has a headache, how do you feel what the difference is? You simply know it. You cannot define it, you simply know it: you know what a headache is and you know what well-being is.

 

The real guide will always give you a feeling of well-being, and the Freudian unconscious will always give you a feeling of headache. It is a turmoil, it is an inner conflict, it is anguish, it is pain suppressed. So whenever it comes you will feel painful all over.

 

Because of this Freudian unconscious, many things have become painful which are not naturally painful For example, sex. Because society has repressed sex, it has become painful. One of the most blissful things in natural life is sex. But it has become painful. If you move into sex you will feel frustrated, you will feel guilty, at the end you will feel weakened. And you will decide never to have sex again. This is not because of natural sex, this is because of the unconscious. Sex has become painful. It has been so repressed that it has become ugly and painful Otherwise it is one of the most natural ecstasies. If a child is never taught that sex is bad and a sin he will enjoy it, and every time he will feel a deep well-being flowing all over the body.

 

Men feel more well-being than women – because women are repressed more. No one requires that a boy should be a virgin but everyone requires, even the boy himself, that the girl he is going to marry should be a virgin. Even playboys require that the girl should be a virgin. Women’s unconscious has been repressed ore than men’s, that’s why only a few women achieve orgasm. And that, too, in the West – in the east not more than five per cent of women, at the most, achieve any enjoyment in sex. Ninety-five percent are simply fed up with it. That’s why when sadhus and monks teach that sex is sin, women always agree. They gather in multitudes around monks because the thing appeals to them, it is right. Because they are so suppressed they have never known any bliss out of it.

 

In India, while making love, woman are not supposed to move, be active. They have to lie still like a corpse. If they are active their man will become suspicious: they are enjoying sex and this is not the sign of a good woman. A good woman is one who doesn’t enjoy. In the East they will say that if you want to marry, marry a good woman, and if you want to enjoy, then have a friendship with a bad woman – because only bad women can enjoy. This is unfortunate. The woman is not supposed to move, to be active, she should be just dead. How can she achieve orgasm when the energy is not moving?

 

And if she cannot enjoy it she is bound to be against the husband and she is bound to think that the husband is evil. Every day Indian women come to me and they say that they are fed up with sex and their husbands are forcing them again and again to have sex. They don’t like it, they are disgusted. And why are the husbands not so disgusted? Why are the women disgusted? The reason is that they have a greater repressed unconscious about sex than men.

 

Sex will become painful. If you have suppressed it, it is a headache. Anything can become a headache – just suppress it, that is the trick. It will become a suffering. And anything can become blissful – just express it, don’t suppress it.

 

This Freudian unconscious is all that you know right now. You don’t know about the real unconscious, the Tantra unconscious – that’s why you are afraid. And afraid, you cannot let go. Afraid, you cannot lose control. You know that if you lose control, immediately the suppressed instincts will take over. Immediately, whatsoever you have repressed will come to the mind and it will insist on being acted out. That’s why you are afraid. Catharsis is needed first so the fear goes. And then you can let go. And if you let go, a very silent force will start flowing to your conscious mind and you will feel a well-being, you will feel that you are at home, you will feel that everything is good, you will feel that you are blessed.

 

HOW CAN ONE RECOGNIZE THAT THE INNER GUIDE HAS COME INTO FUNCTION? This will

 

be the first sign: you will start feeling good, good about yourself. Remember, you always feel bad about yourself. I almost never come across a person who feels good about himself. Everyone is condemning himself, everyone thinks he is bad. And when you think you are bad how do you suppose that someone else is going to love you? And when no one loves you, you feel frustrated. But you yourself don’t love you. You have never touched your hand lovingly, you have never felt your body lovingly, you have never thanked God that he has given you such a beautiful body, such a beautiful organism. No, you just feel disgusted. And the religions, the so-called religions have taught you to feel condemned – this body is a bag of sins. You are carrying a burden.

 

When the unconscious is released you will feel suddenly that you are accepted, you are not bad. Nothing is bad. The whole of life becomes deep down a blessing. You feel blessed. And the moment you feel blessed, all others around you become blessed; you can bless them, you can feel happy. Because you feel condemned, you feel bad about yourself and you think the same about others. How can you love another’s body if you condemn your own body? If you are against your own body, how can you love another body? You will condemn – deep down you will condemn. Really, religions have prepared you to become just ghosts. They don’t want you to be with the body, they want you to be just unembodied spirits. Everything has been so condemned..and you have taken it for granted. I have seen in scriptures, in many scriptures, that it written that your body has nothing but blood, fat, phlegm – just to condemn it. I don’t know what these persons who were writing these scriptures wanted. Did they want gold to be there? Why is blood bad? Blood is life! But they have condemned it and we have accepted the condemnation. They must be mad, insane.

 

Jains always say that their TEERTHANKARAS never urinated, they don’t defecate. Such bad things. But why is urine bad? What do you want to urinate instead of urine? And what is bad in it? But it is such a bad thing. And psychologists say that because the sex center and the urinating organ are the same in man, sex has become condemned. And in woman the sex center is just in the middle, on one side defecation and on the other side urination, sex cannot be good if it is between two such bad things. The condemnation of sex has come because we have condemned defecation. But why? Why condemn it? What is bad? But we accept condemnation and when we accept, then there are problems.

 

Your whole body is condemned by neurotic people. They may have written scriptures but that doesn’t make any difference. They may have been great leaders – neurotics almost always are. They are great leaders because they are so fanatic that they can immediately get a following. And there are always people who worship fanaticism. Anyone who says something strongly will have people falling at his feet saying he is the right leader. and he may be just neurotic, just mad. These neurotic people have condemned you and you have accepted them, you have been conditioned by them.

 

When the unconscious flows in you, a subtle well-being will come. You will feel good: everything is good, and everything is Divine. Your body comes from the Divine, your blood also, your urine also. Everything is Divine. When the unconscious flows in you, everything is Divine, everything becomes spiritual. Nothing is bd, nothing is condemned. This will be the feeling, and then you will fly. You will become so light you cannot walk. Then nothing is a burden on your head. Then you can enjoy small things in a very great way. Then every trivial things becomes a beauty. But that beauty is given by you – whatsoever you touch becomes golden because deep down you are so filled with bliss.

 

This will be the first thing that will happen to you – a goodness about yourself. And, when the unconscious starts flowing into your conscious, the second thing will be that you will become less world-oriented, less intellectual, more total. Then if you are happy you will not just simply say that you are happy – you will dance. Just saying, ”I am happy,” is pale, meaningless. I see people who say, ”I am happy” – but just look at their faces! I know people who say, ”I love you,” but their body is not expressing anything. Words are dead but we have substituted them for life. When the unconscious flows in you, this will be the difference: you will live with your total being. When you feel happy, you will dance. Then you will not simply say, ”I am happy”-you will be happy: that’s the difference. You will not say, ”I am happy” – there is no need to say it because you will be happy. Then there will be no need to say to someone, ”I love you” – you will be love. Your whole being will show the feeling, you will vibrate with love. Anybody passing nearby will feel that you love; anyone just touched by your hand will feel a subtle energy has entered into him. There is a warmth in your presence, a happiness.

 

This will be the second thing. First, you will feel a goodness about yourself and about everything; and second, you will become total. When the guide takes you, you will be total.

 

- Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2, #38, Q2"