Question 3:
Osho,
You mentioned that rapid eye movements indicate mental processes and that if eye movements are stopped the mental process will also stop. But this physiological control of the mental processes, this stopping of eye movements, seems to create psychic tensions such as happens when we keep our eyes closed under a blindfold for a long time.
Firstly, your mind and your body are not two things as far as tantra is concerned. Remember that always. Do not say, "physiological process" and "mental process." They are not two - just two parts of one whole. Whatsoever you do physiologically affects the mind. Whatsoever you do psychologically affects the body. They are not two, they are one.
You can say that the body is a solid state of the same energy and the mind is a liquid state of the same energy - of the same energy! So no matter what you are doing physiologically, do not think that this is just physiological. Do not wonder how it is going to help any transformation in the mind. If you take alcohol, what happens to your mind? Alcohol is taken in the body, not in the mind, but what happens to the mind? If you take LSD, it goes into the body, not into the mind, but what happens to the mind?
Or if you go on a fast, fasting is done by the body, but what happens to the mind? Or from the other end: if you think sexual thoughts, what happens to your body? The body is affected immediately.
You think in the mind of a sex object and your body starts getting ready.
There was a theory by William James. In the first part of this century it apparently looked very absurd, but in a sense it is right. He and another scientist named Lange proposed this theory which is known as the James-Lange theory. Ordinarily, we say you are afraid and that is why you escape and run away, or you are angry and that is why your eyes get red and you start beating your enemy.
But James and Lange proposed quite the contrary. They said that because you run away, that is why you feel fear; and because your eyes get red and you start beating your enemy, you feel anger.
It is just the opposite. They said that if this is not so, then we want to see even one instance of anger when the eyes are not red and the body is not affected and one is simply angry. Do not allow your body to be affected and try to be angry - then you will know that you cannot be angry.
In Japan they teach their children a very simple method of controlling anger. They say, whenever you feel angry, do not do anything with the anger, just start taking deep breaths. Try it, and you will not be able to get angry. Why? Just because you take deep breaths, why can you not get angry?
It becomes impossible to get angry. Two reasons... You start taking deep breaths but anger needs a particular rhythm of breathing. Without that rhythm anger is not possible. A particular rhythm in breathing or chaotic breathing is needed for anger to be.
If you start taking deep breaths it is impossible for the anger to come out. If you are consciously taking deep breaths, then the anger cannot express itself. It needs a different breathing which should be allowed. You need not do it; the anger will do it itself. With deep breathing you cannot be angry.
And secondly, your mind shifts. When you feel angry and you start to take deep breaths; your mind is shifted from anger to breathing. The body is not in a state to be angry, and the mind has shifted its concentration toward something else. Then it is difficult to be angry. That is why the Japanese are the most controlled people on earth. It is just a training from childhood.
It is difficult anywhere else to find such an incident, but in Japan it happens even today. It is happening less and less because Japan is becoming less and less Japanese. It is becoming more and more Westernized, and the traditional methods and ways are becoming lost. But it was happening, and it still happens today.
One of my friends was there in Kyoto, and he wrote me a letter saying, "I have seen such a beautiful phenomenon today that I want to write about it to you. And when I come back, I will want to understand how it is possible. One man was struck by a car. He fell down, stood up, thanked the driver, and went away - he thanked the driver!"
In Japan it is not difficult. He must have taken a few deep breaths, and then it was possible. You are transformed into a different attitude, and you can thank even a person who was just going to kill you, or who has already tried to kill you.
Physiological processes and psychological processes are not two things, they are one, and you can start from either pole to affect and change the other. And any science will do that. For example, tantra believes deeply in the body. Only philosophy is vague, airy, verbal; it may start from something else. Otherwise, any scientific approach is bound to start from the body because that is within your reach. If I talk of something which is beyond your reach, you may listen to it, you may gather it in your memory, you may talk about it, but nothing happens. You remain the same. Your information is increased, but not your being. Your knowledge goes on increasing, but your being remains the same poor mediocrity; nothing happens to it.
Remember, the body is what is within your reach; just now you can do something with it and change your mind through the body. By and by you will become a master of the body, and then you will become a master of the mind. And when you become a master of the mind, you will change the mind by and by, and you will be moving beyond it. If the body changes, you move beyond body. If the mind changes, you move beyond mind. And always do something which you CAN do.
For example, you may not be capable of becoming a master of anger, like a Buddha, just now. How can you? But you can change your breathing and then you can feel the subtle effect, the change.
Do it. If you feel filled with passion, sexual passion, take a few deep breaths and feel the effect: the passion will have dispersed.
Aldous Huxley's wife, Laura Huxley, has written a beautiful book - just simple devices for doing certain things. If you feel angry, Laura Huxley says, just tighten up your face. You can tighten in such a way - for example, in your closet - so that no one will be able to see.
A person is sitting just in front of you and you feel angry - so just tighten up your face. Go on tightening it as much as you can, and then suddenly relax and feel the difference. The anger will have gone. Or if it has not gone, do it again. Go on doing it - twice, thrice... What happens? If you tighten your face muscles and you go on tightening and tensing them, the energy that was going to become anger moves into the face.
And it is very easy for it to move into the face. When you are angry, how do you feel? You feel you want to beat someone with your fists. The energy is there, so use it. If you can use it, it is dispersed. Your face will become relaxed, and the other person will not even be able to know that you were angry. It will appear as if nothing has happened to you. And once you know these things, you become more and more aware that energy can be transformed, diverted, checked, released, or prevented from being released, or used in a different way. If you can use your energy you become the master. Then one day you may not use it at all; you may preserve it.
This exercise is not good for a Buddha - to clench the fists. This is not good for a Buddha because this is wasting energy. But this is good for you. At least the other is saved from you, and a vicious circle is saved. If you get angry he will get angry, and there is no end to it. It may disturb your whole night, and it may continue as a hangover for a week. And then, because of this hangover, you may do many things you never intended to do. Do not say that this is just physiological. You are physiological, so what can be done? You are a physique; you cannot deny that fact. Use your energy. There is no need of denying it.
If you close your eyes, sometimes you may feel a certain tension gathering there, or an uneasiness.
Then there are certain things you can do. One, when you close your eyes do not become tense about it, let them be relaxed. You can close your eyes forcibly - then you will get tense. Then your eyes will get tired and inside you will feel uneasiness. Relax the face, relax the eyes, and let them be closed. I say, let them be closed; do not close them. Relax! Feel relaxed. Drop the eyelids and let the eyes be closed. Do not force them! If you force them, that is not good.
If you cannot feel the difference, then do this: first force them to close. Let your whole face become tense, strained, and then close your eyes forcibly. For a few moments remain strained, then relax.
Then again close your eyes relaxedly. Then you will feel the difference. Do not strain to do anything - that will tire you.
Two, when the eyes are closed and your face is relaxed, look as if everything has become dark.
A deep darkness is around you. Imagine you are amidst darkness, in a deep, velvety darkness, surrounded by it, in a deep, dark night. Go on feeling this darkness. That will help your eyes to stop their movements. With nothing to be seen, the eyes will stop. Be in darkness.
You can do it in a dark room. Open your eyes, look at the darkness, then close them and feel the darkness. Again open your eyes, feel the darkness; close your eyes, feel it inside. Darkness is deeply relaxing. Darkness is outside and inside you; everything is dead - dark and dead. Both are related. That is why we paint death as black, dark. All over the world death is painted as black, and people fear darkness.
While doing this method, feel darkness, love darkness, and feel inside that you are going to die.
Darkness is all around, and you are dying. The eyes will stop. You will feel that they cannot move:
they will have stopped. In that stopping, suddenly the energy will go up and start hammering the third eye. When it starts hammering, you will hear it, you will feel it. A warmth will come, a fire will flow - a liquid fire trying to find a new path.
Do not be afraid. Help it, cooperate with it, let it move, become it. And when the third eye opens for the first time, the darkness will disappear and there will be light - light without a source. You have seen light, but always with a source. Either it comes from the sun or from the stars or from the moon or from the lamp, but some source is there.
When your energy moves through the third eye, you will come to know a light without source. It is not coming from any source, it is simply there, not coming from anywhere. That is why the Upanishads say that God is not like the sun or like a flame. He is sourceless light. There is no source anywhere, simply light is there, just as if it is morning.
The sun has not arisen, but the night has disappeared. In between there is the dawn - the pre- dawn. Or in the evening, the sun has set and the night has not yet come. Just in between there is the margin. That is why Hindus have chosen SANDHYA as a proper time for meditation. SANDHYA is the in between time - neither night nor day, just the line that divides. Why? Just as a symbol. The light is there, but without a source. The same will happen inside, light will be there without a source.
Wait for it; do not imagine it.
The last thing to be remembered: you can imagine anything, so it is dangerous to tell you many things. You can imagine them. You will close the eyes and you will feel and imagine that now the third eye has opened or is opening, and you can imagine light also. Do not imagine; resist imagination. Close your eyes. Wait! Whatsoever comes, feel it, cooperate with it, but wait. Do not jump ahead; otherwise nothing will happen. You will be having a dream - a beautiful, spiritual dream, but nothing else.
People go on coming to me and they say, "We have seen this and we have seen that." But they have imagined it - because if really they had seen, they would be transformed. But they are not transformed. They are the same persons, only now a spiritual pride is added. They have some dreams - beautiful, spiritual dreams: someone is seeing Krishna playing on his flute, someone is seeing light, someone is seeing kundalini rising. They go on seeing things, and they remain the same - mediocre, stupid, dull. Nothing has happened to them; they go on relating that this is happening, that is happening, but they remain the same - angry, sad, childish, stupid. Nothing has changed.
If you really see the light which is there waiting for you, to be seen through the third eye, you will be a different person. And then you need not tell anyone. People will come to know you are a different person. You cannot even hide it; it will be felt. Wherever you will move, others will feel that "Something has happened to this man."
So do not imagine; wait, and let things take their own course. You do the technique, and then wait.
Do not jump ahead.
- Osho, "The Book of Secrets, Discourse #22, Q3"