Question 1:

You have talked much on love, relationships, union, etc. is there a merging between the tao and tantra?

 

 

Tantra means technique - and Tao can have no relationship with any technique whatsoever.

 

Tao is non-methodological, non-technical. Tao means spontaneity. How can spontaneity have a technique? You cannot practise it; if you practise it you miss it. There is no way to cultivate it; a cultivated spontaneity could be anything else but it could not be spontaneity.

 

Tao means let go. Wherever your energy moves, allow it to move. Don't swim - float with the river.

 

Swimming is a technique - if you are just flowing with the river what technique is needed? Technique means that you have a direction, you want to reach somewhere. Technique means that you want to impose your will on reality, you want to be someone. somewhere, in some state; you have a desire, you have a projection.

 

Tao says you are already there, you are already that. There is nowhere to go and nothing else to be, so just relax and let things happen. And whatsoever happens is good - because there is no denial in Tao, no rejection, no repression. It is the greatest rebellious attitude possible. Never has man's intelligence risen higher than in Tao. But there is no way to it. You cannot be guided to it.

 

Buddha has talked about five ways to reach truth. The first he calls the way of SHEELA, the way of morality, character, virtue. The second he calls the way of knowledge. The third he calls the way of DHYANA, meditation; the fourth he calls the way of devotion; and the fifth he calls ASHEKSHA - that which cannot be taught.

 

That fifth is Tao. It cannot be taught. It can be learned but it cannot be taught. And when I say that it can be learned, I mean that if you relax, if you allow life to happen to you, if you don't create a barrier, if you are ready to go wherever it leads, you will learn it. It is the most dangerous path because you will not be in control. Your mind cannot manipulate; your mind cannot prepare in any way. You will have to live moment to moment - as the trees live, as the stars live, as the mountains live. You will have to live in the same way, the same natural way. Tao is nature.

 

So the Indian Tantra cannot have any merger with Tao. The Indian Tantra is very scientific. It is the science of how to transform sexual energy into spiritual energy; how to create the dynamo that changes, transforms, transmutes energy; how to move from the lower to the higher; how to go from the earth to heaven. It is a way from sex to super-consciousness. It is very technological.

 

Tao has no technique - this is the first thing to be understood. But there is another thing of great importance - that is, Tao has its own tantra. But it is not technique.

 

There is no meeting possible between the Indian Tantra and the Chinese Tao, no meeting is possible.

 

They are far away, poles apart, and it is impossible to mix them. If somebody tries to mix them Tao will be destroyed, Tantra will not be destroyed. Always remember whenever you mix a higher standpoint with a lower, the higher is destroyed not the lower. It is always the higher that loses because the higher is delicate, the higher is very, very vulnerable, fragile, like a flower. If you crush a flower with a rock, the rock is not going to be destroyed. The rock may not even come to know that there has been a clash. But the flower will be gone - crushed, destroyed. Tao is the highest possibility and Tantra can destroy it. So remember not to mix them.

 

But Tao has its own tantra because Tao is a total world view. It has everything that is possible. It is the whole. So there must be something in it for love, for sex there is.

 

What is Taoist tantra? I have to use the word 'tantra remember, but I am not using it in the Indian sense. What is Taoist tantra? It is spontaneity in sexuality; it is spontaneity in love.

 

For example, if you read a Tantra manual, an Indian Tantra manual, there is great ritual in it. Every step is very clearly indicated. It is not easy to practise Indian Tantra - you will have to become adept at it. Don't fool around. Don't think that while you are making love to a woman you are practising Tantra. Tantra is difficult. It is a long process. And it takes years to get trained in it.

 

The greatest training that is involved and the most difficult problem that arises is that Tantra allows a man to make love to a woman only when the man has lost all sexual attraction towards the woman.

 

There is no sexual attraction at all. That is the whole process. The woman becomes almost a mother to you or a sister to you a goddess. She has to be worshipped. In Tantra ritual the woman has to be worshipped like a goddess. And tor months together one has to practise that worship.

 

The woman sits naked in front of you on a throne and you worship and you bow down and you pray to her and you create the idea in the deepest core of consciousness that she is just a representative of all womanhood, motherhood. She is a goddess.

 

Day by day, slowly, slowly, you lose all sexual interest in her. You become auto-hypnotised with your own idea. The day you lose all sexual interest in her body and you can look through and though her and her body is no longer a thrill, her body is not even seen at all, she becomes luminous, she is just a presence only then does the Master allow you to make love to her. Now love will have a totally different quality. There is no sex involved in it, no attraction involved in it, no physicality involved in it. It is absolutely spiritual - a meeting of two souls.

 

But it is a long process. Many rituals, many prayers,. many YANTRAS, many meditations are needed. After years of training you come to the point where the woman is no longer a woman to you, she has almost become a mother - 'motherhoodness' has arisen. You have projected that motherhoodness on her. You see her breasts but they no longer provoke any sexuality in you, only the idea of a mother. You see her body and you start feeling that you are part of her body just as you were part of your mother. It is recreating the mother. And it is a long process. Tantra is very procedural, ritualistic, and a great experiment in hypnosis, auto-hypnosis.

 

And it is a great experiment in getting rid of the idea of sex. It is not sexual at all, as is commonly misunderstood. It is a totally different attitude not sexual at all. It is very prayerful. And when you make love to a woman after you have become an adept in Tantra and the Master has allowed you....

 

It has to depend on the Master's agreement, it does not depend on you. When the Master sees in your eyes that all sex has disappeared, that your body has become almost asexual, he sees that now you are standing before the woman as a small child, unaware of sexuality - you are naked, she is naked but you are not at all interested in sexuality - when the Master confirms it, when he gives you a signal, then you are allowed. It depends on the Master. He has to watch, watch carefully. It takes months, sometimes years, to prepare for it.

 

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.

 

If you can love a woman spontaneously.... In fact, Tao will say that Tantra has a wrong attitude, because you have to prepare. Preparation means that you are preparing for the future. Tao knows only one time - which is now; and only one place - which is here. Now is the only time and here is the only place. Here is heaven and now is nirvana. So don't prepare.

 

If in some moment love flows, love takes possession of you, go with it. Don't push the river. Don't try to give it any shape. Don't try to fix it into any ritual. Just go with it. In deep trust, in deep gratitude, go with it. While making love to a woman don't try to prove anything - as they are trying to do in the West. Don't try to prove anything - because when you start trying to prove, your mind has come in. While you are making love to a woman forget all about the fact that you are a man and she is a woman. Let boundaries merge and mix. Don't remain a man otherwise you will miss - because again a dualism comes in: you are the man and she is the woman. Nobody knows why two persons really make love. Many times it happens that the man becomes the woman and the woman becomes the man. Who bothers who is who?

 

And if you are thinking about it then the mind is there and the mind is the barrier; it does not allow the unison to happen totally. So Tao simply says: go spontaneously, with no ritual, with no idea to prove. And remember, never use sexuality for anything. Tantra uses it as a step towards samadhi.

 

Tao says: never use anything as a means. Everything is an end unto itself. The moment you start thinking of somewhere to go, something to reach, some result to attain out of it, you are not total, your mind is divided, you are already in the future. There are no means and no ends. Everything simply is an intrinsically beautiful end unto itself.

 

In Tao this is very basic. Love, eat, go for a morning walk, swim in the river, sit in the sun, watch the stars - but let everything be simple, not for anything else. Sing a song, but not for any result. Look at this tree, but not for any result. Go for a morning walk, but not for health! Don't be a naturopath!

 

Just go for a walk, it is beautiful. Health is a by-product; you need not worry about it, it happens. Lie down in the sun, enjoy it, but not for anything else. Lie there for its own sake. That is what Tao is.

 

And in that relaxed attitude life starts pouring into you from everywhere. All doors open, all windows open. Existence flows into you, you flow into existence.

 

Tao is very simple; therefore, because we are very complex, it is very difficult. Simple things don't appeal to us. Tantra appeals to many people but Tao has not that much appeal. Tao appeals very rarely. If Tao appeals to you, consider yourself to be fortunate. The very possibility of your getting interested in Tao is a great blessing.

 

When you translate everything in terms of Tao it becomes spontaneity.

 

-Osho, “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol. 2, #4, Q1”