Question 3

When an Impulse is authentic, I am unaware. How can I exercise "Stop!"?

 

 

This is a very significant question. It is easy to stop anything when you are false, and it is difficult to stop anything when you are authentic. When the anger is real, you will forget about the technique of Stop! When the anger is false you will remember, you can do it. But when the anger is false there is no meaning, there is no energy. You can stop it, but it is useless. When the anger is real, only then is the energy there, and if you stop it the energy will take an inner turn.

 

So what to do? Try to be aware not of anger directly, but of easier things. You are walking – be aware of it. Do not start with anger, start with easier things. You are walking – be aware of it, there is no problem. Then suddenly stop your walk. Start with easy things, and then go on to a deeper, more complex thing. Do not start with complex things, do not jump to sex immediately. It is more subtle, and you will need a more deep awareness for it.

 

So first create awareness with easier things. You are walking, you are taking a bath, you feel thirsty, you feel hungry – start with these things, all very ordinary things. You were just going to speak something to someone: Stop! Even in the middle of a sentence. You were going to relate a story you have related a thousand times, and you have bored everyone with it. You were again starting, ”Once there was a king...” Stop! Start with easy things more easy things.

 

There is a fly on your head and you were just going to send it away with your hand: Stop! Let the fly be there, let your hand remain stopped. Do it with easy things so that you have the feeling, the feel of stopping with awareness. Then move to complex things.

 

Anger is a very complex thing; take a mechanical thing. Every day in the morning you step out of your bed. Have you observed? You step out every day in the same way. If your right foot comes first, it comes first always. Tomorrow morning when the right foot is coming out, stop and let the left foot come.

 

Do it with easier things; then there is nothing to sacrifice but a habit. Always you start walking with the right foot first: Stop! Anything... anything can be used. Find something – the easier, the better. And when you become a master of easier things and you can stop suddenly, and you can have the feel of awareness, a sudden calmness comes to you. For a second, an inner silence explodes.

 

Gurdjieff used to train his disciples in very easy things. For example, you say something and you nod your head. Then he would say to you, ”Say the same thing, but do not nod your head.” It is a mechanical habit. I am saying something; I make a gesture with my hand. Gurdjieff would say, ”Do not make this gesture when you say this thing – remember this. Make any other gesture, but remember only this: when you are saying this, do not make this gesture. Be aware of it.”

 

Use anything -anything! You always start your conversation with a particular sentence – do not start with it. Someone says something and you have a mechanical response – do not respond that way, say something else. Or if you have started saying the old thing, stop in the middle. Stop with a jerk, suddenly. Try this, and only when you feel a mastery, move to complex things.

 

This is one of the basic tricks of the mind, that it will always tell you to jump to a complex thing. Then you are a failure, then you will never try again; you know that it cannot be done. This is a trick of the mind. The mind will say, ”Okay, now you know that the exercise of stopping will be a failure when you are angry, hot and angry.” Then you will not try again. Try with cold things; do not move to the hot. And when you can do it with cold things, then move to the hot. With gradual steps feel the path, and do not be hasty; otherwise nothing will be accomplished.

 

-Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #18, Q3"