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TANTRATantric Transformation: When Love Meets Meditation
"The days of tantra are coming. Sooner or later tantra will explode for the first time in the masses, because for the first time the time is ripe - ripe to take sex naturally. It is possible that the explosion may come from the West" -Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra Vol 1, #2, Q1"
"Real Tantra is not technique but love. Is not technique but prayer. Is not head-oriented but a relaxation into the heart. Please remember it. Many books have been written on Tantra, they all talk about technique. But the real Tantra has nothing to do with technique." - Osho, "This Very Body the Buddha, #8, Q2"
"Tantra is not teaching sexuality. It is simply saying that sex can be a source of bliss." - Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #34"
"The basic tantra attitude is: the sensual can be transformed into the sublime, matter can be transformed into mind, the unconscious can be transformed into consciousness." - Osho, "The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, #5"
"Tantra says: Never condemn anything - the attitude of condemnation is the stupid attitude" - Osho, "The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, #1"
What tantra means :Tantra means Expansion of Consciousness
Tantra is an effort to make you more conscious. The very word 'Tantra' means expansion of awareness. It comes from a Sanskrit root 'tan': 'tan' means expansion. Tantra means expansion of consciousness - and the basic fact, and the most fundamental fact to be understood is that you are fast asleep, you have to be awakened. Tantra believes in school methods. [....] Tantra says man can become awake only through group methods, through schools. That's why I insist so much for sannyas. Alone, you don't stand a chance. Together, much more possibility.
-Osho, “The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, #5”
Tantra means the science of falling in love with existence, not with any individual in particular; falling in love without any address of any lover, falling in love with the whole, the unaddressed whole, the unnamable whole. It contains everything from the rocks to the stars. And certainly one can have a communion with the whole, far more deeper than can exist between two individuals.
Two individuals can come to a union only for a moment -- it is temporary, fleeting dreamlike. For one moment it is there and then it is gone. In fact before you have recognised that it is there it is no more there, Hence ordinary love brings both -- the ecstasy which is momentary, and after the ecstasy, the dark night, the despair, the agony. Both these experiences are so mixed, so deeply mixed, that people hare chosen either one or the other. Those who have chosen the first, the ecstasy part, they believe in love; and those who have chosen the other part, the agony part, they emphasise renunciation of the world. But both have come out of the experience of love. They are like two sides of the same coin.
-Osho, "Going All the Way, #11“
Tantra is not a moral concept. It is neither moral nor immoral. It is amoral. It is a science, and science is neither. Your moralities and concepts concerning moral behavior are irrelevant for tantra. Tantra is not concerned with how one should behave; it is not concerned with ideals. It is concerned basically with what is, with what you are. This distinction has to be understood deeply.
Morality is concerned with ideals -- how you should be, what you should be. Therefore, morality is basically condemning. You are never the ideal so you are condemned. Every morality is guilt-creating. You can never become the ideal; you are always lagging behind. The gap will always be there because the ideal is the impossible, and through morality it becomes more impossible. The ideal is there in the future, and you are here as you are, and you go on comparing. You are never the perfect man; something is always lacking. Then you feel guilt; you feel a self-condemnation.
One thing, Tantra is against self-condemnation because condemnation can never transform you. Condemnation can only create hypocrisy. Then you try to pretend, to show, that you are what you are not. Hypocrisy means you are the real man, not the ideal man, but you pretend, you try to show, that you are the ideal man. Then you have a split within you; you have a false face. The unreal man is born, and tantra is basically a search for the real man, not for the unreal man.
-Osho, “Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #34”
Tantra is not teaching sexuality. It is simply saying that sex can be a source of bliss. And once you know that bliss, you can go further because now you are grounded in reality. One is not to remain with sex forever, but you can use sex as a jumping point. That is what tantra means: you can use sex as a jumping point. And once you have known the ecstasy of sex, you can understand what mystics have been talking about -- a greater orgasm, a cosmic orgasm. [....]
Sex is just the beginning, not the end. But if you miss the beginning, you will miss the end also, and you cannot escape the beginning to reach the end.
Tantra says take life naturally; do not be unreal. Sex is there as a deep possibility, a great potentiality. Use it! And what is wrong in being happy in it? Really, all moralities are against happiness. Someone is happy, and you feel something has gone wrong. When someone is sad, everything is okay. We live in a neurotic society where everyone is sad. When you are sad, everyone is happy because everyone can sympathize with you. When you are happy, everyone is at a loss. What to do with you? When someone sympathizes with you, look at his face. The face gleams; a subtle shining comes to the face. He is happy sympathizing. If you are happy, then there is no possibility for this. Your happiness creates sadness in others; your unhappiness creates happiness. This is neurosis! The very foundation seems to be mad.
Tantra says be real, be authentic to yourself. Your happiness is not bad; it is good. It is not sin! Only sadness is sin, only to be miserable is sin. To be happy is virtue because a happy person will not create unhappiness for others. Only a happy person can be a ground for others' happiness.
Secondly, when I say that tantra is neither moral nor immoral I mean that tantra is basically a science. It looks at you, at what you are. It means that tantra is not trying to transform you, but it actually does transform you through reality. The difference between magic and science is the same as between morality and tantra. Magic also tries to transform things simply through words, without knowing the reality. The magician can say that now the rains will stop; he cannot really stop them. Or he can say that rains will come -- but he cannot start them, he can just go on using words. [....]
Tantra is science. Tantra says first know what the reality is, what man is, and don't create values and don't create ideals right now: first know what is. Do not think of the "ought"; just think of the "is." And once the "is" is known, then you change it. Then you have the secret.
For example, tantra says do not try to go against sex, because if you go against sex and try to create a state of BRAHMACHARYA -- celibacy, purity, it is impossible. It is just magical. Without knowing what sex energy is, without knowing of what sex is constituted, without going deep into the reality of it, the secrets of it, you can create an ideal of BRAHMACHARYA. Then what will you do? You will simply suppress. And a person who is suppressing sex is more sexual than a person who is indulging in it because through indulgence the energy is released. Through suppression it is there, moving in your system continuously.
A person who suppresses sex starts seeing sex everywhere. Everything becomes sexual. Not that everything is sexual, but now he projects. Now he projects! His own hidden energy is now projected. Everywhere he will look he will see sex, and because he is condemning himself he will start condemning everyone. You cannot find a moralist who is not violently condemning. He is condemning everyone; to him everyone is wrong. Then he feels good, his ego is fulfilled. Why is everyone wrong? Because he sees everywhere the same thing he is suppressing. His own mind will become more and more sexual, and more and more he will be afraid. This BRAHMACHARYA is perversion, it is unnatural.
A different quality, a different type of BRAHMACHARYA, happens to the follower of tantra, but the very process is totally, diametrically opposite. Tantra first teaches how to move in sex, how to know it, how to feel it, how to come to the deepest possibility hidden in it, to the climax, how to find the essential beauty, the essential happiness and bliss that is hidden there.
Once you know that secret you can transcend it because, really, in a deep sexual orgasm it is not sex which gives you bliss, it is something else. Sex is just a situation. Something else is giving you the euphoria, the ecstasy. That something else can be divided into three elements. But when I speak about those elements, do not think that you can understand them just from my words. They must become part of your experience. As concepts they are useless.
Because of three basic elements in sex you come to a blissful moment. Those three are, firstly, timelessness: you transcend time completely. There is no time. You forget time completely; time ceases for you. Not that time ceases, it ceases for YOU; you are not in it. There is no past, no future. In this very moment, here and now, the whole existence is concentrated. This moment becomes the only real moment. If you can make this moment the only real moment without sex, then there is no need of sex. Through meditation it happens.
Secondly, in sex for the first time you lose your ego, you become egoless. So all those who are very much egoistic, they are all always against sex, because in sex they have to lose their egos. You are not, nor is there the other. You and your beloved are both lost into something else. A new reality evolves, a new unit comes into existence in which the old two are lost -- completely lost. The ego is afraid. You are no more there. If without sex you can come to a moment when you are not, then there is no need of it.
And thirdly, in sex you are natural for the first time. The unreal is lost, the faces, the facades are lost; the society, the culture, the civilization, is lost. You are a part of nature. As trees are, as animals are, as stars are, you are a part of nature. You are in a greater something -- the cosmos, the Tao. You are floating in it. You cannot even swim in it; YOU are not. You are just floating -- being taken by the current.
These three things give you the ecstasy. Sex is just a situation in which it happens naturally. Once you know and once you can feel these elements, you can create these elements independently of sex. All meditation is essentially the experience of sex without sex, but you have to go through it. It must become part of your experience, not just be there as concepts, ideas, thoughts.
Tantra is not for sex, tantra is to transcend. But you can transcend only through experience -- existential experience -- not through ideology. Only through tantra does BRAHMACHARYA happen. This looks paradoxical, but it is not. Only through knowledge does transcendence happen. Ignorance cannot help you towards transcendence; it can only help you towards hypocrisy.
-Osho, “Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #34, Q1”
Tantra says: Never condemn anything- The sensual can be transformed into the sublime -
Tantra says: Never condemn anything -- the attitude of condemnation is the stupid attitude. By condemning something, you are denying yourself the possibility that would have become available to you if you had evolved the lower. Don't condemn the mud, because the lotus is hidden in the mud; use the mud to produce the lotus. Of course, the mud is not the lotus yet, but it can be. And the creative person, the religious person, will help the mud to release its lotus so that the lotus can be freed from the mud. [....]
it says the more cultured, the more civilized a person, the less is the possibility of his Tantric transformation. The less civilized, the more primitive, the more alive a person is. The more you become civilized, the more you become plastic -- you become artificial, you become too much cultivated, you lose your roots into the earth. You are afraid of the muddy world. You start living away from the world; you start posing yourself as though you are not of the world. Tantra says: To find the real person you will have to go to the roots.
So Tantra says: Those who are still uncivilized, uneducated, uncultured, they are more alive, they have more vitality. And that's the observation of the modern psychologist too. A negro is more vital than the American -- that is the fear of the American. The American is very much afraid of the negro. The fear is that the American has become very much plastic, and the negro is still vital, still down-to-earth. [....]
Tantra says: In the world of those who are still primitive, there is a possibility of starting to grow. You have grown in a wrong direction; they have not grown yet -- they can still choose a right direction, they are more potential. And they don't have anything to undo; they can proceed directly.
- Osho, "The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, #1“
The Basic Tantra attitude is: the sensual can be transformed into the sublime, matter can be transformed into mind, the unconscious can be transformed into consciousness.
Modern physics says matter can be transformed into energy, energy can be transformed into matter. In fact, they are not two but the same energy functioning as two forms. Tantra says sex can be transformed into Samadhi the same approach; very basic and fundamental. The lower can be transformed into the higher, because lower ana higher are joined together; it is a ladder. They are never separate, nowhere separate; there is no gap between them. You can move from the lower to the higher. you can move from the higher to the lower.
And that ladder is what man is. He can exist on the lowest rung; that is his decision. He can move upwards, he can exist on the highest rung. He can exist as a beast, or he can exist as a Buddha -- both are his rungs, the lowest and the highest. And man is a ladder. He can fall into deep unconsciousness and become a rock, and he can rise to absolute consciousness and can become a God. But both are not separate -- that is the beauty of Tantra.
Tantra is non-divisive. Tantra is the only religion which is not schizophrenic. Tantra is the only religion which is really sane -- the sanest religion -- because it doesn't divide. If you divide, you create a split. If you tell people that the body is bad, that the body is the enemy, that the body has to be condemned, that the body is in the service of the Devil, then you are creating a split in man, then the man becomes afraid of the body. And then, by and by, there is created an unbridgeable gulf, and he is pulled into two parts. He is torn into opposite directions. The body pulls into the body, the mind tries to pull into the mind -- there is a conflict and confusion.
Tantra says you are one; there is no need to have any confusion. You can be fused in one reality. There is no need to have any conflict, there is no need to be torn apart. There is no need to go insane. You can love all that is available, and you can evolve it -- with deep love, care, creativity, it can be evolved. The body is not the enemy of your soul; the body is just the sheath of your sword. The body is just the temple, it is your abode. It is not the enemy, it is your friend.
Tantra drops all sorts of violence -- not only violence with others, but violence with oneself. Tantra says: Love reality in its totality. Yes, much can be evolved, but all evolution is through love. And there is no need to fight.
-Osho, "The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, #5“
Tantra accepts everything- Tantra believes in a deep let-go. -
Acceptance of totality is to be automatically in the middle. You are neither for something nor against something. You have not chosen, you are just floating in the stream. You are not moving toward a goal -- you have no choice. You are in a let-go.
Tantra believes in a deep let-go. When you choose, your ego comes in. When you choose, your will comes in. When you choose, you are moving against the whole universe -- you have your own choice. When you choose, you are not choosing the universal flow: you are standing aloof, isolated; you are like an island. You are trying to be yourself against the whole flux of life.
Non-choosing means you are not to decide where life goes. You allow the life to move, to take you with it, and you have no fixed goal. If you have a fixed goal, you are bound to choose. Life's goal is your goal. You are not moving against life; you have no ideas of your own against life. You leave yourself, you surrender yourself, to the life force itself. This is what tantra means by total acceptance.
And once you accept life in its totality things start happening, because this total acceptance frees you from your ego point. Your ego point is the problem, because of it you create problems. There are no problems in life itself; existence is problem-less. You are the problem and you are the creator of the problem, and you create problems out of everything. Even if you meet God, you will create problems out of him. Even if you reach paradise, you will create problems out of paradise - because you are the original source of the problems. You are not going to surrender. This non-surrendering ego is the source of all problems.
Tantra says that it is not a question of achieving something; it is not a question of achieving brahmacharya. If you achieve brahmacharya - celibacy -- against sex, your brahmacharya will remain basically sexual. Two extremes, howsoever opposite, are parts of one whole - two aspects of one thing. If you choose one, you have chosen the other also. The other will be hidden now, repressed. What does repression mean? Choosing one extreme against the other, which is a basic part of it. [....]
Tantra says, do not choose: be choiceless. Once you understand this, the question will never arise of what is indulgence and what is repression. Then there is no repression and no indulgence. The question arises only because you are still choosing. There are people who come to me and they say, "We will accept life, but if we accept life when will brahmacharya happen?" They are ready to be in total acceptance, but the readiness is false, just superficial. Deep down they are still clinging to the extremes.
-Ohso, “Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #30, Q1”
That's why tantra says everything is beautiful. Even sin is beautiful, because sin gives depth to your saintlihood. Even going astray is beautiful, because coming back becomes more enriched. This world is needed for you to move into it deeply so that you forget yourself completely -- and then a coming back.
People ask, "Why does this world exist if God is against it? Then why does he throw us into the world, into the world of karmas, sins, wrongs? Why does he throw us? He can simply redeem us." That is not possible. Then you will be shallow, superficial. You have to be thrown to the farthest corner of the world, and you have to come back. That coming back has something in it -- that something is the crystallization of your being.
Tantra accepts everything, LIVES everything. That's why tantra never could become a very accepted ideology. It always remained a fringe ideology, just somewhere on the boundary, outside the society, civilization, because civilization has chosen to be shallow; good, but shallow. Civilization has chosen to deny, to say no to many things. Civilization is not courageous enough to accept all, to accept everything that life gives.
The greatest courage in the world is to accept all that life gives to you. And this is what I am trying to help you towards, to accept all that life gives you, and accept it in deep humbleness, as a gift. And when I say this, even those things which society has conditioned you to call wrong and bad. Accept sex, and then there will come a flowering out of it; a brahmacharya will come, a purity, an innocence will come; a virginity will come out of it -- but that will be a transcendence.
Through experience one transcends.
-Osho, “Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, #5”
WHAT IS TANTRIC SEX?- Real Tantra is not technique but love. Is not technique but prayer. -
The Tantric definition of sexuality is opposite to the modern definition. The modern mind regards sex as a need -- like hunger for food -- which incidentally provides sense-and ego-gratification. That's how Freud thinks about sex, that it gives you ego-gratification, satisfaction, relaxation; it relieves tensions, it is a need. Tantra regards sex as a powerful instinctual return to our ultimate reality, one of the highest forms of meditation. [....]
Tantra does not define sex as a need -- it is not. A man can live without sex, it is not a need. Not like food -- you cannot survive without food. It is not like thirst -- you cannot survive without water. But you can survive easily without sex -- maybe you can survive longer. Sex is not a need like food or thirst or hunger. Sex has a definitely total dimension, a different dimension altogether. It is a way to contact the ultimate reality. It is an urge to move to the original source.
In ordinary sex it happens only for moments. Even that is rare, because there are very few orgasmic persons left in the world. People have become so much civilized that to be orgasmic seems impossible. A civilized person cannot be orgasmic because he cannot allow himself to be wild. Only a wild person can be orgasmic, because orgasm is wild. The better you are civilized, the better you are cultured, sophisticated, educated, the less is the possibility for you to be orgasmic. Then sex is just a relief. It is like sneezing, nothing much. It is sheer wastage.
You accumulate energy and you don't know what to do with your energy. And the energy becomes heavy on you, it has to be thrown out in some way or other. So you go on throwing the energy. But you have lost the language of orgasm. What is the language of orgasm? If you are really orgasmic you will groan and moan and shout and sing and pray, and a thousand and one things will happen when you are making love to your woman or to your man. It is going to be a mad thing. And that is difficult in a civilized world. Mm? The whole neighbourhood will know that now you are making love. And people will start phoning the police-station that there is danger, one person has gone orgasmic.
Yes, you will dance, you will sing, you will utter incoherent sounds, gibberish will come. One never knows what will happen because you lose control. To be orgasmic means the capacity to lose control. The constant control is there, you are simply sitting on your energies controlling them -- 'This should be, this should not be. This is right, that is wrong.' You are continuously doing that, inhibiting, repressing. Only go so far, beyond that is danger, only this much is allowed. How can you be orgasmic?
And if you are not orgasmic in other things, you cannot be orgasmic in sex. If in your anger you control, then you cannot be orgasmic in sex. If you can be orgasmic in anger, only then can you be orgasmic in sex. Man is a totality. If you cannot get into a rage, how can you get into love? Impossible.
Have you watched it? Knowingly, unknowingly, couples stumble upon the fact that if they want to make love it is a must that they should fight before they make love. So each evening, couples fight, become angry. Mm? -- that becomes a little help. A pillow-fight is helpful. Your energies start moving, your juice starts flowing. And if you can be a little silly and stupid in anger then you can be silly and stupid in love too. Then who cares?
A natural man is orgasmic in all his emotions. [....]
The world needs to be more natural. Then there will be less anxiety, less fear, less worry. But for a generation there will be great explosion -- after that, things will settle. We have to take that risk, only that risk can save humanity. Otherwise everybody is going mad.
The Tantra attitude about sex is that sex is not a need. It is a cosmic experience, it is an experience of meditation. It is an instinctual return to our ultimate reality, one of the highest forms of meditation. In fifteen minutes to an hour or more of uninterrupted coitus, Tantra seeks a complete loss of the ego. Just see the difference. Freud says it is a gratification for the ego. And that's how it has become, and Freud is not wrong. If you see the modern man, he is right.
People go on making love just to prove that they are males or females, or what charming people they are, beautiful people they are. People go on finding new women, new men, just to prove that 'I am still attractive.' My observation of people is that they don't fall in love. Their joy is not love, their joy is conquest. Once they have achieved a woman they are no more interested in her. It is not love. Now they are seeking new pasture, now they want a new woman. Now they want to prove again that they are still young, looked at, they still have charisma, magnetism. And the more women they can make love with, the more their ego is satisfied. This is not love. And Freud is right that sex gives ego-gratification.
But look at Tantra. Tantra has a totally different idea. Tantra says: The appeal of sex is because it gives you a moment of egolessness, timelessness, meditation. Because of ego-gratification, sex has become very very superficial, it only scratches the skin. It does not go deep, it has no depth. So many people are worried about premature ejaculation. The reason? They don't love. If they love, then naturally they can make love for longer periods -- the more you are in love, the longer the period will be. For hours you can be in love, because there is no hurry, the ego is not controlling.
In a Tantra coitus you can remain for hours. It is a kind of melting with the woman or with the man, it is a kind of relaxation into each other's being. And it is meditative, because there is no ego, no thought stirs. And time stops. This is a glimpse of God. Tantra is the natural way to God, the normal way to God. The object is to become so completely instinctual, so mindless, that we merge with ultimate nature -- that the woman disappears and becomes a door for the ultimate, the man disappears and becomes a door for the ultimate.
This is the Tantra definition of our sexuality: The return to absolute innocence, absolute oneness. The greatest sexual thrill of all is no search for thrills, but a silent waiting. Utterly relaxed, utterly mindless. One is conscious, conscious only of being conscious. One is consciousness. One is contented, but there is no content to it. And then there is great beauty, great benediction.
The questioner asks: What is tantric sex...a sex which is a meditation based on certain techniques?
If you are too much technique-oriented you will miss the mystery of Tantra. That is pseudo Tantra that is based on techniques. Because if techniques are there, ego will be there, controlling. Then you will be DOING it. And doing is the problem, doing brings the doer. Tantra has to be a non-doing; it cannot be technical. You can learn techniques -- you can learn a certain breathing so that the coitus can become longer. If you breathe very very slowly, if you breathe without any hurry, then the coitus will become longer. But you are controlling. It will not be wild and it will not be innocent. And it will not be meditation either. It will be MIND -- how can it be meditation? The mind will be controlling there. You cannot even breathe fast, you have to keep your breathing slow -- if the breathing is slow then ejaculation will take a longer time, because for ejaculation to happen the breathing has to be fast and chaotic. Now, this is technique but not Tantra.
Real Tantra is not technique but love. Is not technique but prayer. Is not head-oriented but a relaxation into the heart. Please remember it. Many books have been written on Tantra, they all talk about technique. But the real Tantra has nothing to do with technique. The real Tantra cannot be written about, the real Tantra has to be imbibed. How to imbibe real Tantra? You will have to transform your whole approach.
Pray with your woman, sing with your woman, play with your woman, dance with your woman, with no idea of sex. Don't go on thinking 'When are we going to bed?' Forget about it. Do something else, and get lost into it. And some day love will arise out of that being lost. Suddenly you will see that you are making love and you are not making it. It i.s happening, you are possessed by it. Then you have your first Tantra experience -- possessed by something bigger than you. You were dancing or you were singing together or you were chanting together or you were praying together or meditating together, and suddenly you find you both have moved into a new space. And when you have started making love you don't know, you don't remember either. Then you are being possessed by Tantra energy. And then for the first time you will see a non-technical experience.
When you are making love don't control. Go into uncontrol, go into chaos. It will be fearful, frightening, because it will be a kind of death. And the mind will say 'Control!' And the mind will say 'Jump in and keep control, otherwise you will be lost in the abyss of it.' Don't listen to the mind, get lost. Abandon yourself utterly. And without any technique you will come to see a timeless experience. There will be no two in it: oneness. A consciousness will be there, a lucid passive consciousness will be there, you will know what is happening, because you will be fully aware.. But you will not be there. Awareness will be there.
You have to imbibe the Tantra spirit - it is not a technique to be learned.
-Osho, “This Very Body the Buddha, #8, Q2“
Tantra says Never make love while you are excited.- It is not an excitement, it is a relaxation, a deep let-go. -
Tantra will not appeal generally. And if it does appeal, it will appeal for wrong reasons. For example, if you want to indulge in sex then you can rationalize your indulgence through tantra. That can become the appeal. If you want to indulge in wine, in women, in other things, you can feel attracted toward tantra. But really, you are not attracted to tantra. Tantra is a facade -- a trick. You are attracted to something else which you think tantra allows you. So tantra always appeals for wrong reasons.
Tantra is not to help your indulgence, it is to transform it. So do not deceive yourself. Through tantra you can deceive yourself very easily, and because of this possibility of deception Mahavir would not describe tantra. This possibility is always there. And man is so deceptive that he can show one thing when he really means another, he can rationalize. [....]
Tantra is science, and it is deeper than atomic knowledge because atomic science is concerned with matter and tantra is concerned with you, and you are always more dangerous than any atomic energy. Tantra is concerned with the biological atom, with you -- the living cell; with life consciousness itself and how its inner mechanism works.
That is why tantra became so much interested in sex. One who is interested in life and consciousness will automatically become interested in sex because sex is the source of life, of love, of all that is happening in the world of consciousness. So if a seeker is not interested in sex, he is not a seeker at all. He may be a philosopher, but he is not a seeker. And philosophy is, more or less, nonsense - thinking about things which are of no use. [....]
Tantra is not interested in philosophy; tantra is interested in actual existential life. So tantra never asks whether there is a God or whether there is Moksha, liberation, or whether there is hell or heaven. Tantra asks basic questions about life. That is why there is so much interest in sex and love. They are basic. You are through them; you are part of them.
You are a play of sex energy and nothing less, and unless you understand this energy and transcend it you will never be anything more. You are, right now, nothing but sex energy. You can be more, but if you do not understand this and you do not transcend it you never will be more. The possibility is just there as a seed. That is why tantra is interested in sex, in love, in natural life.
But the way to know it is not through conflict. Tantra says you cannot know anything if you are in a fighting mood because then you are not receptive. Then because you are fighting the secrets will be hidden from you -- you are not open to receive. And whenever you are fighting you are always outside. If you are fighting sex you are always outside; if you surrender to sex you reach the very inner core of it; you are an insider. If you surrender; then many things become known.
You have been in sex, but always with a fighting attitude behind it. That is why you have not known many secrets. For example, you have not known the life-giving forces of sex. You have not them known because you cannot know -- that needs you to be an insider.
If you are really flowing with sex energy, totally surrendered, sooner or later you will arrive at the point where you will know that sex cannot only give birth to a new life: sex can give you more life. To lovers sex can become a life-giving force, but for that you need a surrender. And once you are surrendered, many dimensions change. [....]
When there is no anxiety, ejaculation can be postponed for hours -- even for days. And there is no need of it. If the love is deep, both parties can invigorate each other. Then ejaculation completely ceases, and for years two lovers can meet with each other without any ejaculation, without any wastage of energy. They can just relax with each other. Their bodies meet and relax; they enter sex and relax. And sooner or later, sex will not be an excitement. It is an excitement right now. Then it is not an excitement, it is a relaxation, a deep let-go.
But that can happen only if you have first surrendered inside to the life energy -- the life force. Only then can you surrender to your lover or beloved. Tantra says, this happens, and it says how it can happen.
Tantra says, never make love while you are excited. This seems very absurd because you want to make love when you are excited. And normally, both partners excite each other in order that they can make love. But tantra says that in excitement you are wasting energy. Make love while you are calm, serene, meditative. First meditate, then make love, and when making love do not go beyond the limit. What do I mean by "do not go beyond the limit"? Do not become excited and violent, in order that your energy will not be dispersed.
If you see two persons making love you will feel that they are fighting. If small children sometimes see their father and mother making love, they think the father is going to kill the mother. It looks violent; it looks like a fight. It is not beautiful, it looks ugly.
It must be more musical, harmonious. The two partners must be as if they are dancing, not fighting -- as if singing one harmonious melody, just creating an atmosphere in which both may dissolve and become one. And then they relax. This is what tantra means. Tantra is not sexual at all, tantra is the least sexual thing and yet it has so much concern with sex. And if through this relaxation and let-go nature reveals to you its secrets, it is no wonder. Then you begin to be aware of what is happening. And in that awareness of what is happening many secrets come to your mind.
Firstly, sex becomes life-giving. As it is now it is death giving, you are simply dying through it, wasting yourself, deteriorating. Secondly, it becomes the deepest natural meditation. Your thoughts cease completely. When you are totally relaxed with your lover, your thoughts cease. The mind is not there, only your heart beats. It becomes a natural meditation. And if love cannot help you into meditation, nothing will help, because everything else is just superfluous, superficial. If love cannot help, nothing will help!
Love has its own meditation. But you do not know love; you know only sex and you know the misery of wasting energy. Then you get depressed after it. Then you decide to take a vow of BRAHMACHARYA, celibacy. And this vow is taken in depression, this vow is taken in anger, this vow is taken in frustration. It is not going to help. A vow can be helpful if taken in a very relaxed, deeply meditative mood. Otherwise you are simply showing your anger, your frustration and nothing else, and you will forget the vow within twenty-four hours. The energy will have come again, and just as an old routine you will have to release it.
Tantra says, sex is very deep because it is life. But you can be interested in tantra for the wrong reasons. Do not be interested in tantra for wrong reasons, and then you will not feel that tantra is dangerous. Then tantra is life transforming.
-Osho, “Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #32, Q1”
on Tantric Sex and Valley Orgasm- The very deepest valley of relaxation. -
Question 2 How often should one indulge in sex in order to help and not to hinder the meditation process?
The question arises because we go on misunderstanding. Your sex act and the tantric sex act are basically different. Your sex act is to relieve; it is just like sneezing out a good sneeze. The energy is thrown out and you are unburdened. It is destructive, it is not creative. It is good -- therapeutic. It helps you to be relaxed, but nothing more.
The tantric sex act is basically, diametrically opposite and different. It is not to relieve, it is not to throw energy out. It is to remain in the act without ejaculation, without throwing energy out; to remain in the act merged -- just at the beginning part of the act, not the end part. This changes the quality; the complete quality is different then.
Try to understand two things. There are two types of climaxes, two types of orgasm. One type of orgasm is known. You reach to a peak of excitement, then you cannot go further: the end has come. The excitement reaches to a point where it becomes non-voluntary. The energy jumps into you and goes out. You are relieved of it, unburdened. The load is thrown; you can relax and sleep.
You are using it like a tranquilizer. It is a natural tranquilizer: a good sleep will follow -- if your mind is not burdened by religion. Otherwise even the tranquilizer is destroyed. If your mind is not burdened by religion, only then can sex be a tranquilizing thing. If you feel guilt, even your sleep will be disturbed. You will feel depression, you will start condemning yourself and you will begin to take oaths that now you won't indulge anymore. Then your sleep will become a nightmare afterwards. If you are a natural being not too much burdened by religion and morality, only then can sex be used as a tranquilizer.
This is one type of orgasm -- coming to the peak of excitement. Tantra is centered on another type of orgasm. If we call the first kind a peak orgasm, you can call the tantric orgasm a valley orgasm. In it you are not coming to the peak of excitement, but to the very deepest valley of relaxation. Excitement has to be used for both in the beginning. That is why I say that in the beginning both are the same, but the ends are totally different.
Excitement has to be used for both: either you are going toward the peak of excitement or to the valley of relaxation. For the first, excitement has to be intense -- more and more intense. You have to grow in it; you have to help it to grow towards the peak. In the second, excitement is just a beginning. And once the man has entered, both lover and beloved can relax. No movement is needed. They can relax in a loving embrace. When the man feels or the woman feels that the erection is going to be lost, only then is a little movement and excitement required. But then again relax. You can prolong this deep embrace for hours with no ejaculation, and then both can fall into deep sleep together. This - this - is a valley orgasm. Both are relaxed, and they meet as two relaxed beings.
In the ordinary sexual orgasm you meet as two excited beings -- tense, full of excitement, trying to unburden yourselves. The ordinary sexual orgasm looks like madness; the tantric orgasm is a deep, relaxing meditation. Then there is no question of how often one should indulge. You can indulge as much as you like because no energy is lost. Rather, energy is gained.
You may not be aware of it, but this is a fact of biology, of bio-energy, that man and woman are opposite forces. Negative-positive, yin-yang, or whatsoever you call them, they are challenging to each other. And when they both meet in a deep relaxation, they revitalize each other. They both revitalize each other, they both become generators, they both feel livelier, they both become radiant with new energy, and nothing is lost. Just by meeting with the opposite pole energy is renewed.
The tantric love act can be done as much as you like. The ordinary sex act cannot be done as much as you like because you are losing energy in it, and your body will have to wait to regain it. And when you regain it, you will only lose it again. This looks absurd. The whole life is spent in gaining and losing, regaining and losing: it is just like an obsession.
The second thing to be remembered: you may or may not have observed that when you look at animals you can never see them enjoying sex. In intercourse, they are not enjoying themselves. Look at baboons, monkeys, dogs or any kind of animals. In their sex act you cannot see that they are feeling blissful or enjoying it -- you cannot! It seems to be just a mechanical act, a natural force pushing them towards it. If you have seen monkeys in intercourse, after the intercourse they will separate. Look at their faces: there is no ecstasy in them, it is as if nothing has happened. When the energy forces itself, when the energy is too much, they throw it.
The ordinary sex act is just like this, but moralists have been saying quite the contrary. They say, "Do not indulge, do not `enjoy'." They say, "This is as animals do." This is wrong! Animals never enjoy; only man can enjoy. And the deeper you can enjoy, the higher is the kind of humanity that is born. And if your sex act can become meditative, ecstatic, the highest is touched. But remember tantra: it is a valley orgasm, it is not a peak experience. It is a valley experience!
In the West, Abraham Maslow has made this term "peak experience" very famous. You go into excitement towards the peak, and then you fall. That is why, after every sex act, you feel a fall. And it is natural: you are falling from a peak. You will never feel that after a tantric sex experience. Then you are not falling. You cannot fall any further because you have been in the valley. Rather, you are rising.
When you come back after a tantric sex act, you have risen, not fallen. You feel filled with energy, more vital, more alive, radiant. And that ecstasy will last for hours, even for days. It depends on how deeply you were in it. If you move into it, sooner or later you will realize that ejaculation is wastage of energy. No need of it -- unless you need children. And with a tantric sex experience, you will feel a deep relaxation the whole day. One tantric sex experience, and even for days you will feel relaxed -- at ease, at home, non-violent, non-angry, non-depressed. And this type of person is never a danger to others. If he can, he will help others to be happy. If he cannot, at least he will not make anyone unhappy.
Only tantra can create a new man, and this man who can know timelessness, egolessness and deep non-duality with existence will grow. A dimension has opened. It is not far away, the day is not very far away, when sex will simply disappear. When sex disappears without your knowledge, when suddenly one day, you realize that sex has disappeared completely and there is no lust, then BRAHMACHARYA is born. But this is arduous. It looks arduous because of too much false teaching, and you feel afraid of it also because of your mind's conditioning.
Of two things we are very much afraid -- sex and death -- and both are basic. A really religious seeker will enter both. He will experience sex to know what it is because to know sex is to know life. And he would also like to know what death is because unless death is known you cannot know what eternal life is. If you can enter sex to its very center you will know what life is, and if you can enter into death voluntarily, to its very center, then the moment you touch the center of death you become eternal. Then you are immortal because death is something that happens just on the periphery.
Sex and death both are basic for a real seeker, but for ordinary humanity both are taboo. No one talks about them, and both are basic and both are deeply related. They are so deeply related that even upon entering sex you enter a certain death -- because you are dying. The ego is disappearing; time is disappearing; your individuality is disappearing. You are dying! Sex is also a subtle death. And if you can know that sex is a subtle death, death can become a great sexual orgasm.
A Socrates entering death is not afraid. Rather, he is very much enthusiastic, thrilled, excited to know what death is. There is a deep welcome in his heart. Why? Because if you have known the small death of sex and you have known the bliss that follows it, you would like to know the greater death, the greater bliss that is hidden behind it. But for us both are taboo. For tantra, both are basic dimensions for search. One has to go through them.
-Osho, “Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #34, Q2”
on Tantra Sex and Kundalini- You can relax, and that relaxation with your belovedwill help the energy move higher. -
Question 3 If one experiences kundalini -- the rising of energy up the spinal passage -- does not it deplete one's meditative energies to have orgasm?"
All the questions are basically without understanding of what the tantric sex act is. Ordinarily, it is so. If your energy, your kundalini, goes up, rises and rushes up towards the head, you cannot have an ordinary orgasm. And if you try to have it, you will be in a deep conflict within, because energy is moving up and you are forcing it down. But the tantric orgasm is not a difficulty. It will be a help. Energy moving up is not contradictory to tantric orgasm. You can relax, and that relaxation with your beloved will help the energy move higher.
In the ordinary sex act it is a difficulty. That is why all those techniques which are not tantric are against sex -- because they do not know that a valley orgasm is possible. They know only one kind -- the ordinary orgasm, and then it is a problem for them. For yoga it is a problem because yoga is trying to force your sex energy upwards. Your sex energy moving upwards is what is called kundalini.
In the sex act it moves downwards. Yoga will say to be a celibate, because if you are doing both -- yoga and indulging in sex -- you are creating chaos in your system. On the one hand you are trying to pull energy up, and on the other hand you are "throwing energy out -- down. You are creating chaos.
That is why yoga techniques are against sex, but tantra is not against sex because tantra has a different type of orgasm, a valley orgasm, which can help. And no chaos, no conflict, is created; rather, it will be helpful. If you are escaping, if you are a man and you are escaping from woman or if you are a woman escaping from man, then whatsoever you do the other remains in your mind and goes on pulling you down. This is paradoxical, but this is a truth.
While in a deep embrace with your beloved you can forget the other. Only then do you forget the other. A man forgets that woman exists; a woman forgets that man exists. Only in a deep embrace the other is no more, and when the other is no more your energy can flow easily. Otherwise the other goes on pulling it down.
So yoga and ordinary techniques try to get you to escape from the other -- the opposite sex. You have to escape. You have to be aware -- continuously struggling and controlling. But if you are against the other sex, that very "againstness" is a constant strain and goes on pulling you down.
Tantra says no strain is needed; be relaxed with the other. In that relaxed moment the other disappears and your energy can flow up, but it flows up only when you are in a valley. It flows down when you are at a peak.
-Osho, “Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #34, Q3”
Tantra says go unhurriedly, slowly enjoying- In sex, you are relaxing in it, not controlling it. -
Question 4 Last night you said that the full act should be slow and unhurried, but you also said that one should not have any control over the sexual act and that one should become total. this confuses me. please explain these two things.
It is not control. Control is a different thing and relaxation is totally different. In sex, you are relaxing in it, not controlling it. If you are controlling it, there will be no relaxation. If you are controlling it, sooner or later you will be hurried to finish it because control is a strain. And every strain creates tension, and tension creates a necessity, a need, to release. It is not a control; you are not resisting something. You are simply not in a hurry because sex is not happening in order to move somewhere. You are not going somewhere. It is just a play; there is no goal. Nothing is to be reached, so why hurry?
But a man who is always, in every act, present totally... If you are hurried in everything, you will be hurried in your sex act also, because You will be there. A person who is very much time-conscious will be hurried in his sex act also -- as if time is being wasted. So we ask for instant coffee and for instant sex. With coffee it is good, but with sex it is simply nonsense. There can be no instant sex. It is not work and it is not something which you can hurry. Through hurry you will destroy it; you will miss the very point. Enjoy it because through it a timelessness is to be felt. If you are in a hurry, then timelessness cannot be felt.
Tantra says go unhurriedly, slowly enjoying it just as if you are going for a walk in the morning -- not as if you are going to the office. That is a different thing. When you are going to the office you are in a hurry to reach somewhere, and when you are on a walk in the morning you are not in a hurry because you are not going anywhere. You are simply going, there is no hurry, there is no goal. You can return from any point.
This unhurriedness is basic to create the valley; otherwise the peak will be created. And when this is said, it does not mean that you have to control. You are not to control your excitement, because that is contradictory. You cannot control excitement. If you control it, you are creating a double excitement. Just relax! Take it as a play; do not make any end. The beginning is enough.
In the act, close your eyes. Feel the other's body, feel the other's energy flowing towards you and be merged in it, melt in it. It will come. The old habit may persist for a few days; then it will go. But do not force it to go. Just go on relaxing, relaxing, relaxing, and if there is no ejaculation do not feel that something has gone wrong. A man feels that something has gone wrong if there is no ejaculation.; he tends to feel that something has gone wrong. Nothing has gone wrong! And do not feel that you have missed something: you have not missed. In the beginning it will be felt as if you are missing something, because the excitement and the peak will not be there. Before the valley comes you will feel that you are missing something, but this is just an old habit. Within a period, within a month or three weeks, the valley will start appearing, and when the valley appears you will forget your peaks. No peak is worth this. But you have to wait, and do not force it and do not control it. Just relax.
Relaxation is a problem -- because when we say, "Relax," in the mind it is translated as if some effort is to be made. Our language gives this appearance. I was reading one book. The book is entitled, You must relax! You must! The very "must" will not allow you to relax, because when it becomes a goal, you "must," and if you are not able you will feel frustrated. The very "must" gives you a feeling of hard effort — of an arduous journey. You cannot relax if you are thinking in terms of "must." Language is a problem. [....]
When I say "sex act" it looks like you need an effort. You do not! Just start playing with your beloved or your lover; just go on playing. Feel each other, be sensitive to each other, just like small children playing or just like dogs playing -- animals playing. Just go on playing, and do not think about the sex act at all. It may happen, it may not happen.
If it happens through just playing, it will lead you to the valley more easily. If you think about it, then you are already ahead of yourself: you are playing with your beloved, but you are thinking of the sex act. Then the playing is false. You are not here and the mind is in the future, and this mind will always move in the future.
When you are in the sex act, the mind is thinking about how to finish it. It is always ahead of you. Do not allow it! Just play, and forget about any sex act. It will happen. Then allow it to happen. Then it will be easy to relax, and when it happens just relax. Be together. Be in each other's presence and feel happy.
Negatively, something can be done. For example, when you get excited you breathe fast because excitement needs fast breathing. For relaxation it is good, helpful, if you breathe deeply -- not fast, but slow, breathing very easily -- being at ease. Then the sex act can be prolonged.
Don't talk, don't say anything, because that creates disturbance. Don't use mind, use bodies. Use mind only to feel what is happening. Don't think, just feel what is happening -- the warmth that is flowing, the love that is flowing, the energy that is encountered. Just feel it.
Be aware, and that too should not be made a strain. Float effortlessly. Then only will the valley appear, and once the valley appears You are transcended. Once you feel and realize the valley, the relaxed orgasm, it is already a transcendence. Then sex is not there. It has become a meditation -- a Samadhi.
-Osho, “Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #34, Q4”
The days of tantra are coming.- Sooner or later tantra will explode for the first time in the masses -
The days of tantra are coming. Sooner or later tantra will explode for the first time in the masses, because for the first time the time is ripe - ripe to take sex naturally. It is possible that the explosion may come from the West, because Freud, Jung, Reich, they have prepared the background. They did not know anything about tantra, but they have made the basic ground for tantra to evolve. Western psychology has come to a conclusion that the basic human disease is somewhere around sex, the basic insanity of man is sex-oriented.
So unless this sex orientation is dissolved, man cannot be natural, normal. Man has gone wrong only because of his attitudes about sex. No attitude is needed. Only then are you natural. What attitude have you about your eyes? Are they evil or are they divine? Are you for your eyes or against them? There is no attitude! That is why your eyes are normal. [....]
Tantra says, accept whatsoever you are. This is the basic note -- total acceptance. And only through total acceptance can you grow. Then use every energy you have. How can you use them? Accept them, then find out what these energies are -- what is sex, what is this phenomenon. We are not acquainted with it. We know many things about sex, taught by others. We may have passed through the sex act, but with a guilty mind, with a suppressive attitude, in haste, in a hurry. Something has to be done in order to become unburdened. The sex act is not a loving act. You are not happy in it, but you cannot leave it. The more you try to leave it, the more attractive it becomes. The more you want to negate it, the more you feel invited. [....]
So tantra says, accept whatsoever you are. You are a great mystery of many multidimensional energies. Accept it, and move with every energy with deep sensitivity, with awareness, with love, with understanding. Move with it! Then every desire becomes a vehicle to go beyond it. Then every energy becomes a help. And then this very world is nirvana, this very body is a temple -- a holy temple, a holy place.
Yoga is negation; tantra is affirmation. Yoga thinks in terms of duality -- that is the reason for the word `yoga'. It means to put two things together, to `yoke' two things together. But two things are there; the duality is there. Tantra says there is no duality. If there is duality, then you cannot put them together. And howsoever you try they will remain two. Howsoever put together they will remain two, and the fight will continue, the dualism will remain.
If the world and the divine are two, then they cannot be put together. If really they are not two, if they are only appearing as two, only then can they be one. If your body and your soul are two, then they cannot be put together. If you and God are two, then there is no possibility of putting them together. They will remain two.
Tantra says there is no duality; it is only an appearance. So why help appearance to grow stronger? Tantra asks, why help this appearance of duality to grow stronger? Dissolve it this very moment! Be one! Through acceptance you become one, not through fight. Accept the world, accept the body, accept everything that is inherent in it. Do not create a different center in yourself, because for tantra that different center is nothing but the ego. Do not create an ego. Just be aware of what you are. If you fight, then the ego will be there. [....]
Tantra says, no fight! Then there is no possibility of the ego. If we understand tantra there will be many problems, because for us, if there is no fight there is only indulgence. No fight means indulgence for us. Then we become afraid. We have indulged for lives together and we have reached nowhere. But for tantra indulgence is not "our" indulgence. Tantra says indulge, but be aware.
You are angry... tantra will not say do not be angry. Tantra will say be angry wholeheartedly, but be aware. Tantra is not against anger, tantra is only against spiritual sleepiness, spiritual unconsciousness. Be aware AND be angry. And this is the secret of the method -- that if you are aware anger is transformed: it becomes compassion. So tantra says anger is not your enemy; it is compassion in seed form. The same anger, the same energy, will become compassion.
If you fight with it, then there will be no possibility for compassion. So if you succeed in fighting, in suppression, you will be a dead man. There will be no anger because you have suppressed it, but there will be no compassion either because only anger can be transformed into compassion. If you succeed in your suppression -- which is impossible -- then there will be no sex, but no love either, because with sex dead there is no energy to grow into love. So you will be without sex, but you will also be without love. And then the whole point is missed, because without love there is no divineness, without love there is no liberation, and without love there is no freedom.
Tantra says that these same energies are to be transformed. It can be said in this way: if you are against the world, then there is no nirvana -- because this world itself is to be transformed into nirvana. Then you are against the basic energies which are the source.
So tantric alchemy says, do not fight, be friendly with all the energies that are given to you. Welcome them. Feel grateful that you have anger, that you have sex, that you have greed. Feel grateful because these are the hidden sources, and they can be transformed, they can be opened. And when sex is transformed it becomes love. The poison is lost, the ugliness is lost.
The seed is ugly, but when it becomes alive it sprouts and flowers. Then there is beauty. Do not throw away the seed, because then you are also throwing the flowers in it. They are not there yet, not yet manifest so that you can see them. They are unmanifest, but they are there. Use this seed so that you can attain to flowers. So first let there be acceptance, a sensitive understanding and awareness. Then indulgence is allowed.
One thing more which is really very strange, but one of the deepest discoveries of tantra, and that is: whatsoever you take as your enemies -- greed, anger, hate, sex, whatsoever -- your attitude that they are enemies makes them your enemies. Take them as divine gifts and approach them with a very grateful heart. For example, tantra has developed many techniques for the transformation of sexual energy. Approach the sex act as if you are approaching the temple of the divine. Approach the sex act as if it is prayer, as if it is meditation. Feel the holiness of it. [....]
Tantra says, approach the sex act as if you are entering a holy temple. That is why they have pictured the sex act on their holy temples. They have said, approach sex as if you are entering a holy temple. Thus, when you enter a holy temple sex must be there in order that the two become conjoined in your mind, associated. Then you can feel that the world and the divine are not two fighting elements, but one. They are not contradictory, they are just polar opposites helping each other. And they can exist only because of this polarity. If this polarity is lost, the whole world is lost. So see the deep oneness running through everything. Do not see only the polar opposites, see the inner running current which makes them one.
For tantra everything is holy. Remember this, for tantra EVERYTHING is holy; nothing is unholy. Look at it this way: for an irreligious person, everything is unholy; for so-called religious persons something is holy, something is unholy.
For tantra, everything is holy. [....]
Tantra says everything is holy, that is why we cannot understand it. It is the deepest non-dual standpoint -- if we can call it a standpoint. It is not, because any standpoint is bound to be dual. It is not against anything, so it is not any standpoint. It is a felt unity, a lived unity.
-Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra Vol 1, #2, Q1"
Tantra uses sex as a vehicle. It is energy; it can be used as a vehicle. It can transform you, and it can give you transcendental states.
But as we are using sex, it looks difficult for us -- because we are using it in a very wrong way, and the wrong way is not natural. Even animals are better than us: they are using it in a natural way. Our ways are perverted. Constant hammering on the human mind that sex is sin has created a deep barrier within you. You never allow yourself a total let-go. Something is always standing aloof condemning, even for the new generation. They may say they are not burdened, obsessed, that sex is not a taboo for them, but you cannot unburden your unconscious so easily. It has been built over centuries and centuries; the whole human past is there. So while you may not be condemning it as sin consciously, the unconscious is there constantly condemning it. You are never totally in it. Something is always left out. That left-out part creates the split.
Tantra says move in it totally. Just forget yourself, your civilization, your religion, your culture, your ideology. Forget everything. Just move in the sex act: move in it totally; do not leave anything out. Become absolutely non-thinking. Only then does the awareness happen that you have become one with someone. And this feeling of oneness can then be detached from the partner and it can be used with the whole universe. You can be in a sex act with a tree, with the moon, with anything. Once, you know how to create this circle, it can be created with anything -- even without anything.
You can create this circle within yourself because man is both man and woman, and woman is both woman and man. You are both because you were created by two, You were created by man and woman both, so half of you remains the other. You can forget everything completely, and the circle can be created within you. Once the circle is created within you -- your man is meeting your woman, the inner woman is meeting the inner man -- you are in an embrace within yourself. And only when this circle is created is real celibacy attained. Otherwise all celibacies are just perversions, and then they create their own problems. When this circle is created inside, you are freed.
This is what tantra says: "Sex is the deepest bondage, yet it can be used as a vehicle for the highest freedom." Tantra says poison can be used as medicine, but wisdom is needed. So do not condemn anything. Rather, use it. And do not be against anything. Find out ways how it can be used and transformed. Tantra is a deep, total acceptance of life. It is the only approach of its kind. All over the world, in all the centuries that have gone by, tantra is unique. It says don't throw anything and don't be against anything and don't create any conflict, because with any conflict you will be destructive with yourself.
All the religions are against sex, afraid of it, because it is such a great energy. Once you are in it you are no more, and then the current will take you anywhere. That is why the fear. So create a barrier in which you and the current become two, and do not allow this vital energy to have any possession over you: be the master of it.
Only tantra says that this mastery is going to be false, diseased, pathological, because you cannot really be divided with this current. You are it! So all divisions will be false, arbitrary, and basically, no division is possible because you are the current -- a part and parcel of it, just a wave in it. You can become frozen and you can separate yourself from the current, but that frozenness will be deadness. And humanity has become dead. No one is really alive; you are just dead weights floating in the stream. Melt!
Tantra says try to melt. Do not become like icebergs: melt and become one with the river. Becoming one with the river, feeling one with the river, merging in the river, be aware and there will be transformation. There IS transformation. Transformation is not through conflict; it is through awareness.
- Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #33"
Tantra is not Technique
Tantra is not teaching sexuality. It is simply saying that sex can be a source of bliss. And once you know that bliss, you can go further because now you are grounded in reality. One is not to remain with sex forever, but you can use sex as a jumping point. That is what tantra means: you can use sex as a jumping point. And once you have known the ecstasy of sex, you can understand what mystics have been talking about -- a greater orgasm, a cosmic orgasm. [....]
Sex is just the beginning, not the end. But if you miss the beginning, you will miss the end also, and you cannot escape the beginning to reach the end.
Tantra says take life naturally; do not be unreal. Sex is there as a deep possibility, a great potentiality. Use it! And what is wrong in being happy in it? Really, all moralities are against happiness. Someone is happy, and you feel something has gone wrong. When someone is sad, everything is okay. We live in a neurotic society where everyone is sad. When you are sad, everyone is happy because everyone can sympathize with you. When you are happy, everyone is at a loss. What to do with you? When someone sympathizes with you, look at his face. The face gleams; a subtle shining comes to the face. He is happy sympathizing. If you are happy, then there is no possibility for this. Your happiness creates sadness in others; your unhappiness creates happiness. This is neurosis! The very foundation seems to be mad.
Tantra says be real, be authentic to yourself. Your happiness is not bad; it is good. It is not sin! Only sadness is sin, only to be miserable is sin. To be happy is virtue because a happy person will not create unhappiness for others. Only a happy person can be a ground for others' happiness.
Secondly, when I say that tantra is neither moral nor immoral I mean that tantra is basically a science. It looks at you, at what you are. It means that tantra is not trying to transform you, but it actually does transform you through reality.
-Osho, "The Book of Secrets, Vol 1, #34, Q1"
Real Tantra is not technique but love. Is not technique but prayer. Is not head-oriented but a relaxation into the heart. Please remember it. Many books have been written on Tantra, they all talk about technique. But the real Tantra has nothing to do with technique. The real Tantra cannot be written about, the real Tantra has to be imbibed. How to imbibe real Tantra? You will have to transform your whole approach.
-Osho, "This Very Body the Buddha, #8, Q2"
You will be able to understand why the great mystics down the ages have been teaching you how to go beyond sex - because unless you go beyond sex, you will not go into God. Unless you go beyond sex, you will never go beyond the two, you will remain tethered to the duality of the world. The 'world' means God manifest, and 'God' means the world disappearing into unmanifestation again. That too is a duality
-Osho, "The Secret of Secrets, Vol 1, #05"
Tantra is an effort to make you more conscious. The very word 'Tantra' means expansion of awareness. It comes from a Sanskrit root 'tan': 'tan' means expansion. Tantra means expansion of consciousness -- and the basic fact, and the most fundamental fact to be understood is that you are fast asleep, you have to be awakened.
-Osho, "The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, #5"
Tantra Failed for Two Reasons
Question : Osho, Do You see shortcoming in the Teachings of Tantra that incline you to feel Tantric methods are not suitable for us?
It is not a complete system. There is a basic fallacy that human beings fall into: they find a small truth, a part of the truth, and rather than discover the whole, the remaining part they imagine to fill up the gap. Because they have part of the truth, they can argue and they can manage to make a system, but the remaining part is simply their invention.
All the systems have done that. Rather than discovering the whole truth, it is the human tendency to say, “Why bother? We have found a small piece which is enough for the showcase, which is enough to silence any enemy who raises any question” — and the remaining is just invention.
For example, tantra is right that sexual energy is the basic energy, so this energy should be transformed into higher forms. It is a truth. But what happened is that they never went very deep into meditation; meditation remained just secondary. And man’s sexuality shows itself so powerfully that in the name of tantra it became simply sexual orgy.
Without meditation that was going to happen. Meditation should have been the most primary thing because that is going to transform the energy, but that became secondary. And many people who were sexually perverted, sexually repressed, joined the tantra school. These were the people who brought all their perversions, all their repressions. They were not interested in any transformation, they were interested only in getting rid of their repressions; their interest was basically sexual.
So although tantra has a piece of truth, it could not be used rightly. Unless that piece of truth is put in second place, and meditation moves into first place, it will always happen that in tantra, people will be doing all kinds of perversions. And with a great name, they will not feel that they are doing anything wrong; they will feel they are doing something religious, something spiritual.
Tantra failed for two reasons. One was an inner reason — that meditation was not made the central point. And second, tantra had no special methodology for the perverted and the repressed, so that first their repressions and perversions are settled and they become normal. And once they become normal, then they are introduced to meditation. Only after deep meditation should they be allowed in tantra experiments. It was a wrong arrangement, so the whole thing became, in the name of a great system, just an exploitation of sex.
That’s what many of the therapists are doing. Just the other day I saw Rajen’s advertisement for a tantra group — with an obscene picture. It will attract people because this is real pornography. Why bother to go to see just pictures printed on paper when you can see real people doing pornography? And Rajen has no understanding of meditation, has never meditated.
And these people will feel good, relieved, because the society does not allow them… In the group they will be allowed to do everything they want to do, so much repression will be thrown out, and they will feel relieved and light and they will feel thankful that they have gone through a great tantra experience. And there has been no tantra experience — it was simply a sexual orgy. And within a few days, they will again collect repressions because they cannot do it outside in the society. So they become permanent customers, chronic tantrikas.
And the so-called therapists enjoy the money that they bring. They have nothing to lose, they simply allow freedom. They start with all the great words that I have been using — “freedom,” “expression,” “no repression,” “just be yourself, and don’t be worried what others are thinking,” “do your own thing.” And those idiots start doing their own thing! First people should be introduced to meditation, and then they should be introduced to tantra methods. This is not tantra. Tantra methods are totally different. These people who are doing tantra, they don’t know anything about tantra.
For example, Ramakrishna meditated deeply, and whenever he felt any sexual urge disturbing his meditation he would ask his wife Sharda — who was a beautiful woman — to sit on a high stool, naked, and he would sit in front of her just looking at her, meditating on her till that sexual urge subsided. Then he would touch the feet of Sharda, his own wife, and he would thank her, saying, “You have been helping me immensely; otherwise, where would I have gone? The urge needed some expression, and just watching you was enough.”
The temple of Khajuraho has beautiful statues in all sexual postures. It was a tantra school that made the temple and those statues. And the first thing the student had to do was to meditate on each statue — and they are arranged in such a way that from one corner you go around the temple in a circle. It may take six months, but you have to watch each statue until you can see it just as a statue with no sexuality in it - and it is in a sexual posture. But just in your watching it, seeing it for months, it becomes a pure piece of art; all pornography disappears. Then you move to another. And all the perversions of human mind have been put into the statues.
And when you have circled the whole temple, only then will the master allow you inside the temple. Those six months are of immense meditation and of tremendous release, all repressions gone: you are feeling absolutely light. Then the master allows you in. And inside the temple there is no sexual statue; inside the temple there is nothing — emptiness.
Then the master teaches you how to go deeper into your meditation which has arisen in the six months, and now you can go very deep because there is no hindrance, no problem, no sexuality. And this going deep into meditation with no sexual disturbance means the sexual energy is moving with the meditation, not against it. That’s how it is transformed and takes higher forms.
All these so-called therapists know nothing about tantra, know nothing of why it failed. But they are not interested in that, they are interested in exploiting repressed people. And the repressed people are happy because after a seven or ten day tantra session, they feel relieved; they think this is some spiritual growth. But within two or three days all that spiritual growth will be gone, and they are ready for another group. There are some people - you can call them “groupies” - that move from one group to another group to another group. Their whole life is just a movement from group to group. Just like hippies… but you can call them “groupies.”
- Osho, “The Path of Mystic, #38”
Osho on Tantra
Tantra Is the Science of Transforming Ordinary Lovers Into Soul Mates
"In the East, we have developed a science: if you cannot find a soul mate, you can create one. And that science is Tantra. To find a soul mate means to find the person with whom all your seven centers meet naturally. That is impossible. Once in a while, a Krishna and a Radha, a Shiva and a Shakti. And when it happens it is tremendously beautiful. But it is like lightning – you cannot depend on it. If you want to read your Bible, you can't depend on it that when the lightning is there you will read. The lightning is a natural phenomenon, but not dependable.
"If you wait for your natural soul mate to meet with you, it will be just like waiting for lightning with which to read your Bible. And you will not be able to read much either. For a moment it is there, and by the time you have opened the Bible it is gone.
"Hence, Tantra was created. Tantra is a scientific approach. Tantra is alchemy; it can transform your centers, it can transform the other's centers, it can create a rhythm and harmony between you and your beloved. That is the beauty of Tantra. It is like bringing electricity into your house. Then you can turn it on and off whenever you want. And you can have a thousand and one uses of it; it can cool your room, it can heat your room. Then it is a miracle. These seven centers in you are nothing but centers of body electricity. So, when I am talking about lightning, don't think of it only as a symbol – I mean it literally.
“In your body, there exists a subtle current of electricity, very subtle. But the subtler it is, the deeper it goes. It is not very visible. Scientists say that all the electricity that is in your body, if put together, can be used to light a five-candle bulb. It is not much. Quantitatively it is not much, quantitatively the atom is not much, but qualitatively… If it explodes, it has tremendous energy in it.
“These seven centers, these seven chakras Yoga and Tantra have talked about down the ages, are nothing but five knots in your body electric current. They can be changed; they can be rearranged. They can be given a new shape, form. Two lovers can be transformed so deeply that all their seven centers can start meeting.
“Tantra is the science of transforming ordinary lovers into soul mates. And that is the grandeur of Tantra. It can transform the whole earth; it can transform each couple into soul mates.”
- Osho, "Philosophia Perennis, Vol. 1, Talk #8"
You Have to Imbibe the Tantra Spirit
"When you are making love don't control. Go into uncontrol, go into chaos. It will be fearful, frightening, because it will be a kind of death. And the mind will say "Control!" And the mind will say, "Jump in and keep control, otherwise you will be lost in the abyss of it." Don't listen to the mind, get lost. Abandon yourself utterly and without any technique you will come to see a timeless experience. There will be no two in it: oneness. A consciousness will be there, a lucid passive consciousness will be there, you will know what is happening because you will be fully aware. But you will not be there; awareness will be there.
"You have to imbibe the Tantra spirit – it is not a technique to be learned."
- Osho, "This Very Body the Buddha, Vol. 1, Talk #8"
Tantra Trusts In You – In Toto
"This Tantra vision is one of the greatest visions ever dreamed by man: a religion without the priest, a religion without the temple, a religion without the organization; a religion which does not destroy the individual but respects individuality tremendously, a religion which trusts in the ordinary man and woman. And this trust goes very deep. Tantra trusts in your body; no other religion trusts in your body. And when religions don't trust in your body, they create a split between you and your body. They make you enemies of your bodies, they start destroying the wisdom of the body.
"Tantra trusts in your body. Tantra trusts in your senses. Tantra trusts in your energy. Tantra trusts in you – in toto. Tantra does not deny anything but transforms everything.
"How to attain to this Tantra vision? This is the map to turn you on, and to turn you in, and to turn you beyond.
"The first thing is the body. The body is your base, it is your ground, it is where you are grounded. To make you antagonistic towards the body is to destroy you, is to make you schizophrenic, is to make you miserable, is to create hell. You are the body. Of course you are more than the body, but that 'more' will follow later on. First, you are the body. The body is your basic truth, so never be against the body. Whenever you are against the body, you are going against God. Whenever you are disrespectful to your body you are losing contact with reality, because your body is your contact, your body is your bridge. Your body is your temple.
"Tantra teaches reverence for the body, love, respect for the body, gratitude for the body. The body is marvelous, it is the greatest of mysteries."
- Osho, "Tantric Transformation, Talk #7"
Tantra Says, First Purify the Body
"Tantra says, first purify the body – purify it of all repressions. Allow the body energy to flow, remove the blocks. It is very difficult to come across a person who has no blocks, it is very difficult to come across a person whose body is not tight. Loosen this tightness; this tension is blocking your energy, the flow cannot be possible with this tension. Why is everybody so uptight? Why can't you relax? Have you seen a cat sleeping, dozing in the afternoon? How simply and how beautifully the cat relaxes. Can't you relax the same way? You toss and turn in your bed; you can't relax. And the beauty of the cat's relaxation is that it relaxes utterly and yet is perfectly alert. A slight movement in the room and it will open its eyes, it will jump and be ready. It is not that it is just asleep. The cat's sleep is something to be learned; man has forgotten.
"Tantra says: Learn from the cats – how they sleep, how they relax, how they live in a non-tense way. And the whole animal world lives in that non-tense way. Man has to learn this, because man has been conditioned wrongly, man has been programmed wrongly."
- Osho, "Tantric Transformation, Talk #7"
Tantra Is Not a Philosophy
"Tantra is not a philosophy, Tantra is absolutely existential. And remember, when I say that Tantra is existential, I don't mean the existentialism of Sartre, Camus, Marcel, and others. That existentialism is again a philosophy, a philosophy of existence, but not the Tantra way. And the difference is vast.
"The existential philosophers in the West have only stumbled upon the negative: anguish, angst, depression, sadness, anxiety, hopelessness, meaninglessness, purposelessness – all the negatives. Tantra has stumbled upon all that is beautiful, joyful, blissful. Tantra says: Existence is an orgasm, an eternal orgasm going on and on and on. It is forever and forever an orgasm, an ecstasy.
"They must be moving in different directions. Sartre goes on thinking about existence. Tantra says: Thinking is not the door. It leads nowhere, it is a blind alley; it brings you only to a cul-de-sac. Philosophy is great – if you are just fooling around, then philosophy is great; you can make mountains out of molehills and you can enjoy the trip...
"Philosophy has proved to be the most futile of efforts…but still man continues, knowing perfectly well that it never delivers anything. Why? It goes on promising, but never delivers anything. Then why does man continue with this effort? It is cheap. It does not require any involvement, it is not a commitment. You can sit in your chair and go on thinking. It is a dream. It does not require that you should change in order to see reality.
"That's where courage is needed, adventurous courage is needed. To know the truth, you are moving into the greatest adventure there is. You may be lost, who knows? You may never come back, who knows? Or you may come back utterly changed, and who knows whether it will be for the good or not?"
- Osho, "Tantric Transformation, Talk #9"
Saraha Is the Founder of Tantra
"Saraha was born about two centuries after Buddha; he was in the direct line of a different branch. One branch moves from Mahakashyapa to Bodhidharma, and Zen is born – and it is still full of flowers, that branch. Another branch moves from Buddha to his son, Rahul Bhadra, and from Rahul Bhadra to Sri Kirti, and from Sri Kirti to Saraha, and from Saraha to Nagarjuna – that is the Tantra branch. It is still bearing fruit in Tibet. Tantra converted Tibet, and Saraha is the founder of Tantra just as Bodhidharma is the founder of Zen. Bodhidharma conquered China, Korea, Japan; Saraha conquered Tibet.
"These songs of Saraha are of great beauty. They are the very foundation of Tantra. You will first have to understand the Tantra attitude towards life, the Tantra vision of life. The most basic thing about Tantra is this – and very radical, revolutionary, rebellious – the basic vision is that the world is not divided into the lower and the higher, but that the world is one piece. The higher and the lower are holding hands. The higher includes the lower, and the lower includes the higher. The higher is hidden in the lower – so the lower has not to be denied, has not to be condemned, has not to be destroyed or killed. The lower has to be transformed. The lower has to be allowed to move upwards…and the lower becomes the higher. There is no unbridgeable gap between the devil and God: the devil is carrying God deep down in his heart. Once that heart starts functioning, the devil becomes God.
"That is the reason why the very root of the word devil means the same as divine. The word devil comes from divine; it is the divine not yet evolved, that's all."
- Osho, "The Tantra Experience, Talk #1"
Samadhi and Sex Are Both Expressions of the Same Energy
"Tao has its own Tantra. The first thing: Tao never divides into the lower and the higher, that is the beauty of it. The moment you divide reality into the lower and the higher you are getting schizophrenic. The moment you say something is sacred and something is profane you have divided. The moment you say something is material and something is spiritual you have divided, you have split reality. Reality is one. There is neither matter nor spirit. Reality is one. It expresses itself in many forms: on one level as matter, on another level as spiritual. The spiritual is not higher and the material is not lower – they stand on the same level. That is the Taoist attitude. Life is one. Existence is one. It is a tremendous oneness and there is no evaluation.
"The first thing in Tao is to drop duality. Sex is not lower and samadhi is not higher. Samadhi and sex are both expressions of the same energy. There is nothing laudable about samadhi and there is nothing condemnable about sex. The Tao acceptance is total, absolute. There is nothing wrong about the body and there is nothing beautiful about the spirit – they are both beautiful. Devil and God are one in Tao, heaven and hell are one in Tao, good and bad are one in Tao – it is the greatest non-dual understanding. There is no condemnation and no preparation. To prepare for what? One has simply to relax and be."
- Osho, "Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol. 2, Talk #4"
From Sex to Tantra: a Great Revolution
"Now, one thing to be remembered always: if you are not very alert you may go on believing that you are moving into tantra, and you may be simply rationalizing your sexuality – it may be nothing but sex, rationalized in the terminology of Tantra. If you move into sex with awareness, it can turn into tantra. If you move into tantra with unawareness, it can fall and become ordinary sex. It has happened in India – because only India has tried it.
"All Tantra schools in India, sooner or later, were reduced to sex orgies. It is very difficult to keep aware…it is almost impossible to keep aware. If from the very beginning the discipline has not gone very deep in you, there is every possibility that you will start deceiving yourself. Tantra schools arose in India with great energy, with great insight. And they had something – because that is the last center humanly available: the seventh is superhuman, the seventh is divine. The sixth is the spiritual center.
"From sex to tantra: a great revolution, a mutation, is possible in man. And in the East, people became aware that if you become meditative while making love, the quality of sex changes and something new enters into it – it becomes tantric, it becomes prayerful, it becomes meditative…it becomes samadhi."
- Osho, "The Divine Melody, Talk #6"
Tantra Uses Sex to Rise Higher than It
“Tantra uses sex to rise higher than it, but it uses it. Sex becomes instrumental. Bauls say that is not very respectful: “How can you use some energy? How can you use some energy as a means?” They don’t use sex as a means; they delight in it, they enjoy it. They make a worship out of it, but without any technique. It is not technological. They love it, and through love the transformation happens on its own accord.
“In Tantra, you are to remain unattached. Even while using sex as a means to go towards samadhi, you have to remain unattached to sex, absolutely neutral, absolutely like an observer, a witness, just like a scientist working in his lab. In fact, the tantrikas say that Tantra techniques cannot be used with the woman you love, because love will be a disturbance. You will be too attached. You will not be able to remain detached and outside it. So tantrikas will find women with whom they are not in love at all so the attitude can remain absolutely of the observer.”
- Osho, "The Beloved, Vol. 1, Talk #1"
With Tantra, Easy Is Right
"Tantra is the natural way; the loose and the natural is the goal. You need not fight with the current; simply move with it, float with it. The river is going to the sea so why fight? Move with the river, become one with the river: surrender. Surrender is the keyword for Tantra; will is the keyword for Yoga. Yoga is the path of will; Tantra is the path of surrender.
"That's why Tantra is the path of love – love is surrender. This is the first thing to understand; then Tilopa's words will become very, very crystal-clear. The different dimension of Tantra has to be understood – the vertical dimension, the dimension of surrender, of not fighting, of being loose and natural, relaxed – what Chuang Tzu calls, "Easy is right." With Yoga, difficult is right; with Tantra, easy is right.
"Relax and be at ease, there is no hurry. The whole itself is taking you on its own accord. You need not make any individual striving, you are not asked to reach before your time, you will reach when the time is ripe – simply wait. The whole is moving; why are you in a hurry? Why do you want to reach before others?"
- Osho, "Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, Talk #6"
Sex Energy Is Nothing But Divine Energy
“Christianity understands sex to be just a fall, and tantra thinks sex to be the right answer. Christianity and tantra are just opposed to each other. Not only Christianity: Jainism and many other religions are also opposed to sex. They are opposed for a reason. The reason is the fifty percent possibility of falling down. It is dangerous.
“So try to travel in some other way where this fifty percent fall is not a possibility. And it is mathematically fifty percent. Actually it is ninety-nine percent, because sex is such an attraction and sex is such an unconscious force that it is difficult to remain alert, meditative. While experimenting in it, you will become unconscious. And if you become unconscious in orgasm it leads you nowhere.
“Ninety-nine percent is the possibility that you will fall through sex. Only one percent is the possibility that you may rise. But tantra says that that percentage of fall can be reduced through right techniques and a man or a woman can be trained. Then making love becomes an art – the greatest art. And if you know the art, then you approach very cautiously, very delicately. And then it is not just a temporary release, a relief. It becomes a sacred worship…
“Sex can give you the answer and if you have become too intellectual then only sex can give you the answer. Any intellectual age will have to ask through sex. If you have moved too much in the head you will have to fall back to the other extreme. Only then do your two opposites within meet and you become a unity…
“Through deep sex experience, meditative sex experience, you will come to know that this sex energy is nothing but divine energy. Then sex becomes samadhi.”
- Osho, "The Supreme Doctrine, Talk #14"
Tantra Is Not a Religion
"Tantra is not a religion, because religion basically means: for the divine against the animal – so every religion is part of the conflict. Tantra is not a struggle technique, it is a transcendence technique. It is not to fight with the animal, it is not for the divine. It is against all duality. It is neither for nor against really. It is simply creating a third force within you, a third center of existence where you are neither animal nor divine. For Tantra that third point is advait, that third point is non-duality. Tantra says you cannot reach the one by fighting through duality. You cannot come to a non-dual point by choosing one thing in the struggle in duality. Choice will not lead you to the one; only a choiceless witnessing.
"This is very foundational to Tantra, and because of this Tantra was never really understood rightly. It has suffered a long, a centuries-old misunderstanding, because the momentTantra says it is not against the animal, you start feeling as if Tantra is for the animal. And the moment Tantra says it is not for the divine, you then start thinking that Tantra is against the divine. Really, Tantra is for a choiceless witnessing. Don't be with the animal, don't be with the divine, and don't create a conflict. Just go back, just go away, just create a gap between you and this duality and become a third force, a witnessing, from where you can see both the animal and the divine."
- Osho, "The Book of Secrets, Talk #59"
Tantra Says Sex Is Sex
"There are teachings which are based on celibacy – brahmacharya. They say that brahmacharya is good, sex is bad. Tantra says sex is sex, brahmacharya is brahmacharya. One is a brahmachari and one is not. But these are simple facts, no values are attached to them. And Tantra will never say that brahmacharya is good – the celibate is good – and that the one who is in sex is bad. Tantra will not say that. Tantra accepts things as they are. And why? Just to create a unity within you.
"This is a technique to create a unity within you, to have a total existence within, undivided, non-conflicting, not opposed. Only then is silence possible. One who is trying to move to some place against something can never be at peace. How can he be? And one who is divided within himself, fighting with himself, how can he win? It is impossible. You are both, so who is going to win? No one is going to win, and you will be at loss because you will dissipate your energy in fighting unnecessarily. This is a technique to create a unity in yourself. Allow valleys to disappear; don't judge."
- Osho, "The Book of Secrets, Talk #41"
Tantra Starts With the Beginning
“Tantra says, sex is very deep because it is life. But you can be interested in Tantra for the wrong reasons. Do not be interested in Tantra for wrong reasons, and then you will not feel that Tantra is dangerous. Then Tantra is life transforming…
“It has been asked, “What is the central subject matter of Tantra?” The answer is you! You are the central subject matter of Tantra: what you are right now and what is hidden in you that can grow, what you are and what you can be. Right now you are a sex unit, and unless this unit is understood deeply you cannot become a spirit, you cannot become a spiritual unit. Sexuality and spirituality are two ends of one energy.
"Yoga starts with the end; Tantra starts with the beginning. And it is good to start with the beginning. It is always good to begin with the beginning, because if the end is made the beginning, then you are creating unnecessary misery for yourself. You are not the end – not the ideal. You have to become a god, the ideal, and you are just an animal. And this animal goes berserk because of the ideal of the god; it goes mad, it goes crazy.
"Tantra says, forget the god. If you are the animal, understand this animal in its totality. In that understanding itself, the god will grow. And if it cannot grow through that understanding then forget it, it can never be. Ideals cannot bring your possibilities out; only the knowledge of the real will help. So you are the central subject matter of Tantra, as you are and as you can become, your actuality and your possibility – they are the subject matter.
"Sometimes people get worried. If you go to understand Tantra God is not discussed, moksha – liberation – is not discussed, nirvana is not discussed. What type of religion is Tantra? Tantra discusses things which make you feel disgusted, which you do not want to discuss. Who wants to discuss sex? Everyone thinks he knows about it. Because you can reproduce, you think you know…
"No one wants to discuss sex and sex is everyone's problem. No one wants to discuss love because everyone feels he is a great lover already. And look at your life! It is just hatred and nothing else. And whatsoever you call love is nothing but a relaxation, a little relaxation, of the hatred. Look around you, and then you will know what you know about love."
- Osho, "The Book of Secrets, Talk #32"
Tantra Says, Know the Body
"So those traditions which are against sex will be against the body. Those traditions which are not against sex can only be friendly toward the body. Tantra is absolutely friendly, and Tantra says that the body is sacred, holy. For Tantra, to condemn the body is a sacrilege. To say that the body is impure or to say that the body is sin is nonsense for Tantra – a very poisonous teaching. Tantra accepts the body – not only accepts it, but says that the body is holy, pure, innocent. You can use it and you can make it a vehicle, a medium, to go beyond! It helps even in going beyond.
"But if you start fighting with body, you are lost. If you start fighting with it, you will become more and more diseased. And if you go on fighting with it, you will miss an opportunity. Fighting is negative; Tantra is a positive transformation. Do not fight with it – there is no need. It is as if you are sitting in a car and you start fighting with the car. Then you cannot move because you are fighting with the vehicle – which has to be used, not fought against. And you will destroy the vehicle by your fighting, and then it will be more and more difficult to move.
"The body is a beautiful vehicle – very mysterious, very complex. Use it, do not fight with it. Help it. The moment you go against it you are going against yourself. It is as if a man wants to reach somewhere, but he fights with his own legs and cuts them. Tantra says, know the body and know the secrets of it. Know the energies of it and know how those energies can be transformed – how they can be moved and turned into different dimensions.
"For example, take sex, which is the basic energy in the body. Ordinarily, sex energy is just used for reproduction. One body creates another body and it goes on. The biological utility of sex energy is only in reproduction. But that is only one of the uses, and the lowest. No condemnation is implied, but it is the lowest. The same energy can do other creative acts also. Reproduction is a basic creative act – you create something. That is why a woman feels a subtle well-being when she becomes a mother: she has created something…
"Tantra has no condemnations, only secret techniques for how to transform. That is why Tantra talks so much about the body – it is needed. The body has to be understood, and you can start only from where you are."
- Osho, "The Book of Secrets, Talk #20"
Tantra Accepts Everything
"Tantra accepts everything. Whatsoever is, is accepted wholeheartedly. That is why Tantra could accept sex totally. For five thousand years Tantra has been the only tradition which has accepted sex totally, the only one all over the world. Why? Because sex is the point where you are, and any movement is going to be from the point where you are.
"You are at the sex center; your energy is at the sex center. And from that point it has to move up, far beyond. If you reject the center itself, then you can go on deceiving yourself that you are moving, but you cannot move. Then you are rejecting the only point from where movement is possible. So Tantra accepts the body, accepts sex, accepts everything. And Tantra says, wisdom accepts everything and transforms it; only ignorance rejects. Only ignorance rejects – wisdom accepts everything. Even a poison can become a medicine, but only through wisdom.
"The body can become a vehicle to that which is beyond body, and sex energy can become a spiritual force."
- Osho, "The Book of Secrets, Talk #20"
Tantra Says, Accept Whatsoever You Are
"Tantra says, accept whatsoever you are. You are a great mystery of many multidimensional energies. Accept it, and move with every energy with deep sensitivity, with awareness, with love, with understanding. Move with it! Then every desire becomes a vehicle to go beyond it. Then every energy becomes a help. And then this very world is nirvana, this very body is a temple – a holy temple, a holy place.
"Yoga is negation; Tantra is affirmation. Yoga thinks in terms of duality – that is the reason for the word yoga. It means to put two things together, to "yoke" two things together. But two things are there; the duality is there. Tantra says there is no duality. If there is duality, then you cannot put them together. And howsoever you try they will remain two. Howsoever put together they will remain two, and the fight will continue, the dualism will remain.
“If the world and the divine are two, then they cannot be put together. If really they are not two, if they are only appearing as two, only then can they be one. If your body and your soul are two, then they cannot be put together. If you and God are two, then there is no possibility of putting them together. They will remain two.
“Tantra says there is no duality; it is only an appearance. So why help appearance to grow stronger? Tantra asks, why help this appearance of duality to grow stronger? Dissolve it this very moment! Be one! Through acceptance you become one, not through fight. Accept the world, accept the body, accept everything that is inherent in it. Do not create a different center in yourself, because for Tantra that different center is nothing but the ego. Do not create an ego. Just be aware of what you are. If you fight, then the ego will be there.“
- Osho, "The Book of Secrets, Talk #2"
Osho Quotes on Tantra
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.
- Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 10, #12, Q4"
Tantra says that before you make love to a woman or to a man, first pray -- because it is going to be a divine meeting of energies. God will surround you. Wherever two lovers are, there is God. Wherever two lovers' energies are meeting and mingling, there is life, alive, at its best; God surrounds you. Churches are empty; love-chambers are full of God. If you have tasted love the way Tantra says to taste it, if you have known love the way Tao says to know it, then by the time you reach forty-two, love starts disappearing on its own accord. And you say goodbye to it with deep gratitude, because you are fulfilled. It has been delightful, it has been a blessing; you say good-bye to it.
- Osho, "The Beloved, Vol 1, #4"
Tantra belongs to Shiva, and the Baul is an offshoot of the same tree. Tantra says, "Everything happens in its own right time, you need not force it. Your force will not help. It will be a disturbance. It may destroy, but it can never be creative. One has to be very effortless, spontaneous. One has to be in a let-go."
- Osho, "The Beloved, Vol 1, #9"
Tantra has special methods how to go on drinking and yet remain aware. YOU cannot be aware even without drinking. Tantra has methods to slowly slowly drink, and keep awareness, not to lose track of your awareness. Slowly slowly, the quantity of your drug has to be increased as you increase in your awareness. A moment comes when -- you will be surprised to know, still there are people in the East who practice it -- a moment comes, when no drug can affect your consciousness at all.
Then the last thing they try is this: they keep poisonous snakes and they allow the snake to bite them on their tongue; that is the last method. Ordinarily a man will die.... These snakes are absolutely poisonous. Three percent of the snakes in India are dangerous; you cannot survive their bite -- once bitten you are gone. But these tantra masters will remain alert even in that moment and they will not die. Their bodies have become accustomed to all kinds of poisons and they have become alert, so alert that no drug can affect them.
- Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 8, #10"
Tantra has an attitude about sex. The reason? -- it tries to redress what the society has done. Tantra is medical. The society has repressed sex; Tantra comes as a remedy to help you redress balance. You have leaned too much to the left; Tantra comes and helps you to lean to the right. And to redress the balance sometimes you have to lean too much to the right, only then the balance is gained. Have you not seen a rope walker, a tightrope walker? He carries a staff in his hand to keep balance. If he feels he is leaning too much to the left, he immediately starts leaning to the right. Then again he feels that now he has leaned too much to the right, he starts leaning towards the left. This is how he keeps in the middle. Tantra is a remedy.
- Osho, "The Diamond Sutra, #2"
One thing to be remembered always: if you are not very alert you may go on believing that you are moving into tantra, and you may be simply rationalizing your sexuality -- it may be nothing but sex, rationalized in the terminology of tantra. If you move into sex with awareness, it can turn into tantra. If you move into tantra with unawareness, it can fall and become ordinary sex. It has happened in India -- because only India has tried it. All tantra schools in India, sooner or later, were reduced to sex orgies. It is very difficult to keep aware... it is almost impossible to keep aware. If from the very beginning the discipline has not gone very deep in you, there is every possibility that you will start deceiving yourself. Tantra schools arose in India with great energy, with great insight. And they had something -- because that is the last center humanly available: the seventh is superhuman, the seventh is divine. The sixth is the spiritual center.
From sex to tantra: a great revolution, a mutation, is possible in man. And in the Eat, people became aware that if you become meditative while making love, the quality of sex changes and something new enters into it -- it becomes tantric, it becomes prayerful, it becomes meditative... it becomes SAMADHI. And a natural flow happens: from the third you can jump to the sixth -- you can bypass the fourth and the fifth. It is a great temptation, a great leap -- you can bypass, a shortcut -- but dangerous too, because you may be simply deceiving yourself... and man is very clever -- very clever in finding rationalizations.
- Osho, "The Divine Melody, #6, Q1"
You can find rationalizations. The temptation is always there -- you can find good reasons for wrong motives.
Tantra can any moment become just a garbed sexuality; just in the guise of tantra, nothing but sexuality. Then it is dangerous, more dangerous than ordinary sex -- ordinary sex is at least honest. You don't pretend, you don't claim something higher; you simply say it is ordinary sex. But tantra can be dangerous: you start pretending that this is something higher, something superhuman, something not of this world. Keep this in mind.
- Osho, "The Divine Melody, #6, Q1"
In tantra they say: Never make love unless you have checked your nostril -- never make love. If the man is breathing from the feminine nostril then the woman has to breathe from the male nostril. Then there will be real orgasm. Otherwise, love will be just a wastage of energy -- not more than sneezing. You will feel relived after a sneeze -- a good sneeze, one feels relieved -- but nothing much will happen out of it.
- Osho, "The Divine Melody, #8, Q3"
Tantra is basically spiritual sexology ... because man's mind is perverted throughout the world by religions teaching repression of sex. Tantra is the only science which teaches you expression of sex -- not as indulgence, but as a spiritual discipline. This is a transformation of a biological phenomenon into spirituality.
- Osho, "From Darkness to Light, #27"
It is only Tantra that has never been male chauvinistic. In fact, to go into Tantra you will need the cooperation of a wise woman; without a wise woman you will not be able to enter into the complex world of Tantra. He saw a vision: a woman there in the marketplace. So first a woman. Second -- in the marketplace. Tantra thrives in the marketplace, in the thick of life. It is not an attitude of negation; it is utter positivity.
- Osho, "The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, #1"
Only a woman can teach Tantra. Somebody asked me why I have chosen Kaveesha to be the group leader for Tantra -- only a woman can be a Tantra group leader. It will be difficult for a man. Yes, sometimes a man can also be, but then he will have to become very very feminine. A woman is already; she has already those qualities, those loving, affectionate qualities; she naturally has that care, that love, that feeling for the soft.
- Osho, "The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, #1"
Tantra believes in being, not in action and character.
That's why it is also called 'The Song on Human Action' -- because once being is transformed, your actions are transformed. That is the only way to change your actions. Who has ever been able to change his actions directly? You can only pretend.
- Osho, "The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, #1"
Yoga says make an effort, and Tantra says don't make any effort. Yoga is ego-oriented, finally it will take the jump, but Tantra is, from the very beginning, non-ego-oriented. Yoga, in the end, attains to such significance, such meaning, such depth, that it says to its seeker, "Now drop the ego" -- only in the end; Tantra from the very beginning, from the very first step....
I would like to say it in this way, in such a way: where Yoga ends, Tantra starts. The highest peak of Yoga is the beginning of Tantra -- and Tantra leads you to the ultimate goal. Yoga can prepare you for Tantra, that's all, because the final thing is to be effortless, "loose and natural."
- Osho, "Tantra -The Supreme Understanding, #1"
Tantra is absolutely beyond society, culture and civilization. It says if you are too much cultured you will lose all that is natural, and then you will be a mechanical thing, not floating, not flowing. So don't force a structure around you -- live moment to moment, live with alertness. And this is a deep thing to be understood.
- Osho, "Tantra -The Supreme Understanding, #1"
The third thing to be remembered about Tantra: it says the more cultured, the more civilized a person, the less is the possibility of his Tantric transformation. The less civilized, the more primitive, the more alive a person is. The more you become civilized, the more you become plastic – you become artificial, you become too much cultivated, you lose your roots into the earth. You are afraid of the muddy world. You start living away from the world; you start posing yourself as though you are not of the world. Tantra says: To find the real person you will have to go to the roots.
- Osho, "The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, #1"
Tantra avoids mind and encounters life face to face, neither thinking, "This is good," nor thinking, "This is bad": simply facing that which is. So it is difficult to say that this is an attitude -- in fact it is a no-attitude.
- Osho, "Tantra -The Supreme Understanding, #5"
Tantra is not concerned with your clothes, tantra is concerned with you. If you ask a question it shows where you are. It shows also that wherever you are you cannot see; that is why there is the question.
- Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #1"
Tantra says a transformation is possible, but destruction? -- no. And a transformation comes when you accept your total being. Then suddenly everything falls in line, then everything takes its own place; then anger is also absorbed, then greed is also absorbed. Then without trying to cut anything out of your being, your whole being rearranges itself. If you accept and say yes, a rearrangement happens, and whereas before there was a noisy clamor inside, now a melody, a music is born, a harmony comes in.
In noise and in harmony, what is the difference? The same sound waves arranged in a different way. In a noise there is no center; the notes are the same. A madman playing on the piano; the notes are the same, the sound is the same, but a madman playing -- it has no center to it. If you can give center to noise it becomes music, then it converges on a center and everything becomes organic. If a madman is playing on the piano, then every note is separate, individual; it is a crowd of notes, not a melody. And when a musician plays on the same piano with the same fingers, there comes an alchemical change: now the same notes have fallen into a pattern, the same notes have joined into an organic unity, now they have a center to them. Now they are not a crowd, now they are a family; a subtle love joins them together -- now they are one. And that is the whole art: to bring notes into a loving phenomenon -- they become harmonious.
Tantra says you are a noise right now as you are. Nothing is wrong in it -- simply you don't have a center. Once you have a center, everything falls in line, and everything becomes beautiful.
- Osho, "Tantra -The Supreme Understanding, #5"
Tantra says, "Be yourself" -- and that is the only being you can achieve ever. With acceptance desires fall. With acceptance, a desirelessness comes into being by itself. You don't practice it, you don't force it upon yourself. You don't cut your desires -- just by accepting, they disappear.
- Osho, "Tantra -The Supreme Understanding, #5"
For tantra, doing is knowing, and there is no other knowing. Unless you do something, unless you change, unless you have a different perspective to look at, to look with, unless you move in an altogether different dimension than the intellect, there is no answer. Answers can be given -- they are all lies. All philosophies are lies. You ask a question and the philosophy gives you an answer. It satisfies you or doesn't satisfy you. If it satisfies you, you become a convert to the philosophy, but you remain the same. If it doesn't satisfy you, you go on searching for some other philosophy to be converted to. But you remain the same; you are not touched at all, you are not changed.
- Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #1"
Tantra is a great teaching. It doesn't teach about acts, it teaches only about your being. Who you are is the point -- fast asleep, snoring, or awake? Who are you -- alert, conscious, or moving in a hypnosis? Are you a sleepwalker? or are you awake, alert, whatsoever you do? Do you do it with self-remembrance? No. It happens -- you don't know why, from where it comes, from what part of the unconscious comes an urge which possesses you, and you have to act.
- Osho, "Tantra -The Supreme Understanding, #6"
Love is a spiritual experience – nothing to do with sexes and nothing to do with bodies, but something to do with the innermost being.
- Osho, "Satyam Shivam Sundram, #4"
The staircase has two ends: on one end it is the lowest, on another end it is the highest. So tantra and yoga are not opposites – complementary. Yoga is the primary, the basic, from where you have to start. But then one should not cling. A moment comes when one has to transcend yoga and move into tantra; and finally you have to leave the whole staircase – yoga and tantra both. Alone in yourself, deep in rest, one forgets everything.
- Osho, "Tantra -The Supreme Understanding, #8"
The word `tantra' means technique, the method, the path. So it is not philosophical -- note this. It is not concerned with intellectual problems and inquiries. It is not concerned with the "why" of things, it is concerned with "how"; not with what is truth, but how the truth can be attained.
TANTRA means technique. So this treatise is a scientific one. Science is not concerned with why, science is concerned with how. That is the basic difference between philosophy and science. Philosophy asks, "Why this existence?" Science asks, "How this existence?" The moment you ask the question, how?, method, technique, become important. Theories become meaningless; experience becomes the center.
You will need a change... rather, a mutation. Unless YOU are different tantra cannot be understood, because tantra is not an intellectual proposition, it is an experience. Unless you are receptive, ready, vulnerable to the experience, it is not going to come to you. Philosophy is concerned with the mind. Your head is enough; your totality is not required.
Tantra needs you in your totality. It is a deeper challenge. You will have to be in it wholly. It is not fragmentary. A different approach, a different attitude, a different mind to receive it is required. Because of this, Devi is asking apparently philosophical questions. Tantra starts with Devi's questions. All the questions can be tackled philosophically.
- Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #1"
Tantra says accept yourself as you are. It is a deep acceptance. Do not create a gap between you and the real, between the world and NIRVANA. Do not create any gap. There is no gap for tantra; no death is needed. For your rebirth, no death is needed -- rather, a transcendence. For this transcendence, use yourself.
For example, sex is there, the basic energy -- the basic energy you are born through, born with. The basic cells of your being and of your body are sexual, so the human mind revolves around sex. For yoga you must fight with this energy. Through fight you create a different center in yourself. The more you fight, the more you become integrated in a different center. Then sex is not your center. Fighting with sex -- of course, consciously -- will create in you a new center of being, a new emphasis, a new crystallization. Then sex will not be your energy. You will create your energy fighting with sex. A different energy will come into being and a different center of existence.
For tantra you have to use the energy of sex. Do not fight with it, transform it. Do not think in terms of enmity, be friendly to it. It is your energy. It is not evil, it is not bad. Every energy is just natural. It can be used for you, it can be used against you. You can make a block of it, a barrier, or you can make it a step. It can be used. Rightly used, it becomes friendly; wrongly used, it becomes your enemy. But it is neither. Energy is just natural. As ordinary man is using sex, it becomes an enemy, it destroys him; he simply dissipates in it.
- Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #2, Q1"
The book is not for sex; it is the only book in the whole existence against sex, but strange .... The book says that there is a way to go beyond sex, you can transcend sex -- that's the meaning of "from sex to superconsciousness." You are at the stage of sex while you should be at the stage of superconsciousness. And the route is simple: sex just has to be part of your religious life, it has to be something sacred.
- Osho, "From Darkness to Light, #17"
"Surrender" is the keyword for tantra; "will" is the keyword for yoga. Yoga is the path of will; tantra is the path of surrender. That's why tantra is the path of love -- love is surrender.
That's why tantra is the path of love -- love is surrender. This is the first thing to understand, then Tilopa's words will become very very crystal-clear. The different dimension of tantra has to be understood -- the vertical dimension, the dimension of surrender, of not fighting, of being loose and natural, relaxed -- what Chuang Tzu says, "Easy is right." With yoga, difficult is right; with tantra, easy is right.
- Osho, "Tantra -The Supreme Understanding, #6"
When you transcend sex, you reach to a higher sex. Ordinary sex is gross, higher sex is not gross at all. Ordinary sex is outward-moving, higher sex is inward-moving. In ordinary sex, two bodies meet, and the meeting happens on the outside. In higher sex, your own inner energies meet. It is not physical, it is spiritual -- it is Tantra. Tantra is transcendence.
- Osho, "The Beloved, Vol 1, #4"
Remember, tantra says life is wild. One has to live it through all the dangers, hazards -- and it is beautiful because then there is adventure. Don't try to make a fixed pattern of your life. Allow it to have its own course. Accept everything; transcend duality through acceptance and allow the life to have its own course -- and you will reach, you will certainly reach. This "certainly" I say, not to make you secure -- this is a fact, that's why I say it. This is not your certainty of security. Those who are wild always reach.
- Osho, "Tantra -The Supreme Understanding, #7"
People who transcend sex are people who accept it very naturally. It is difficult, I know, because you are born in a society which is neurotic about sex. Either this way or that, but it is neurotic all the same. It is very difficult to get out of this neurosis, but if you are a little alert, you can get out of it. So the real thing is not how to transcend sex, but how to transcend this perverted ideology of the society: this fear of sex, this repression of sex, this obsession with sex.
- Osho, "The Beloved, Vol 1, #4, Q1"
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