---
section: Library
booktitle: "This Very Body the Buddha"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "BODY"
dategiven: "18 December 1977 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #8"
chaptertitle: "Off To Hell -- Yo-Ho!"
acode: "7712180"
shorttitle: "BODY08"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "77mins"
displaytitle: "This Very Body the Buddha: Chapter #8"
---

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The first question:
<p class="question">WHAT IS THE ZEN ATTITUDE TOWARDS DEATH?</p>


LAUGHTER. Yes, laughter is the Zen attitude towards death. And towards life too, because life and death are not separate. Whatsoever is your attitude towards life will be your attitude towards death, because death comes as the ultimate flowering of life. Life exists for death. Life exists through death. Without death there will be no life at all. Death is not the end but the culmination, the crescendo. Death is not the enemy, it is the friend. It makes life possible.


So the Zen attitude about death is exactly the same as is the Zen attitude towards life -- that of laughter, joy, celebration. And if you can laugh at death, in death, you are free from all. You are freedom then. If you cannot laugh at death you will not be able to laugh in life either. Because death is always coming. Each act in life, each move in life, brings death closer. Each moment that you live. You get closer to death. If you cannot laugh with death, how can you laugh with life and in life?


But there is a difference between the Zen Buddhists and the other religions. Other religions are not that deep. Other religions also say that there is no need to fear death, because the soul is immortal. But in the very idea of the immortality of the soul, your mind is seeking eternity and nothing else. In the very idea of immortality you are denying death, you are saying there is no death. You are saying 'So why be afraid? There is no death. I am going to live -- if not as THIS body, still I am going to live as THIS soul. My essential being will continue. So why fear death? Death will not be destroying ME. I will remain, I.will persist, I will continue.' The other religions compromise with your desire to remain for ever. They give you a consolation. They say 'Don't be worried. You will be in some other body, in some other form, but you will continue.' This seems to be a clinging.


But the Zen approach towards death is utterly different, immensely profound. Other religions say death is not to be worried about, not to be feared, because the soul is eternal. Zen says: There cannot be any death, because you are not. There is nobody to die. See the difference -- there is nobody to die. The self exists not, so death cannot take anything away from you. Life cannot give you anything, and death cannot take anything away. There is no purpose in life and no purpose in death. There is nobody to die. Other religions say you will not die, so don't be worried about death. Zen says: You exist not -- for whom are you worrying? There is nobody in life and there will be nobody in death. You are pure emptiness. Nothing has ever happened there.


Zen does not compromise with your desire for eternity. It does not compromise for your security, it does not compromise with your ego in any form. Zen is utterly radical, it cuts the very root. Zen says: The idea to survive for ever is idiotic. What are you going to do if you survive for ever? Are you not yet finished with your doing? Have you not yet become frustrated enough with your doing? Have you not seen the foolishness and the stupidity of your being? What does it bring to you except misery? The more you are an ego, the more miserable you are. Can't you see it, that the ego functions like a wound? It hurts. Still you want to continue this wound, still you want to continue this wound for ever and ever. You don't want to be cured? Ego is illness, to be egoless is to be cured. But you want to be saved for ever.


In your very idea of remaining for ever, being saved for ever, there is a kind of miserliness. Other religions say: Save. Save yourself. Zen says: Spend. Spend yourself. Because to ke utterly spent is to be saved.


A Christian was walking with Mulla Nasruddin, they had gone for a morning walk. And the Christian showed Mulla Nasruddin his church. He said, 'This is my church. Look.' And on the church there was a big board -- on the board was written: Jesus Saves! Mulla Nasruddin looked at it and said 'So what! My wife saves better.'


Saving of any kind is a miserly attitude towards life. Spend -- don't hoard. Relax your clinging. Don't keep your hands clenched like fists. Open them, be spent. Be spent like a flower which has released its fragrance to the winds. Be spent like a candle which has lived its night, danced, and now is no more. The Buddhist word for nirvana means 'putting out the candle'. When you are utterly spent, when you have authentically lived and spent yourself totally and there is nothing left in you except emptiness, you have arrived home. Because emptiness is the home.


You are the world. When you are not, you have come home.


The Zen attitude towards life is that of laughter, of living, of enjoying, of celebrating. Zen is not anti-life it is life-affirmative. It accepts all that is. It does not say deny this, deny that. It says all is good: live it, live it as totally as possible. Being total in anything is to be religious. Being partial in anything is to be worldly. And live so totally that when death comes you can live death totally too. Laugh so totally that when death comes you can have your last laugh.


A great master, Lo-shan, was coming closer to his death. When he sensed that death was close, Lo-shan called everyone into the Buddha-hall and ascended the lecture seat. First he held his left hand open for several minutes. No one understood, so he told the monks from the eastern side of the monastery to leave. Then he held his right hand open. Still no one understood, so he told the monks from the western side of the monastery to leave. Only the laymen remained. He said to them, 'If any of you really want to show gratitude to Buddha for his compassion to you, spare no efforts in spreading the Dharma. Now, get out! Get out of here!' Then, laughing loudly, the master fell over dead.


Now this man, Lo-shan, is going to die. He gathers all his disciples. He opens one of his hands, nobody understands. He is saying, 'With an open hand I lived, with an open hand I am going. Totally I lived, totally I am going. I was never closed. Now death is knocking on the door, my doors are open.' Then he raised his other hand. People did not understand. Then he said to the people, 'Buddha had such immense compassion on you.'


What is the compassion of Buddha? The compassion of Buddha is this -- that knowing perfectly well that you will not understand, he tried. That is his compassion. Knowing perfectly well that it is impossible to understand something that Buddha says, he tried his whole life to help you to understand. That is his compassion. He is trying to help you see that which you cannot see. Trying to bring into language and words that which cannot be reduced to words. Trying to do the impossible, that is his compassion.


Lo-shan said to the people, 'Do one thing also -- spread Buddha's word, his dharma. Whatsoever he has said, go on spreading it.' Maybe somebody may understand sometime. Even if one understands in thousands, that's enough. Even if one blooms in millions, that is enough. One person flowering fills the whole earth with his fragrance. Yes, a single individual flower of consciousness transforms the whole quality of consciousness on the earth. It raises the consciousness of the whole earth.


And then he told them, 'Now, get out! Get out of here! ' What does he mean by 'Get out, get out of here!'? He is telling them: The mind in which you are, get out, get out of the mind. The ego in which you are, get out of the ego. But Zen masters have their own ways of expression. First he threw out half the monks from one gate, then the other half from another gate. Then only laymen remained. And now he tells them, 'Get out! Get out of here!' Then, laughing loudly, the master fell over dead.


What is his laughter? Why is he laughing? There is a Zen parable:


Thus he arrived before a great castle on whose facade were carved the words 'I belong to no one and to all. Before entering you were already here. When you leave you will remain.'


He is laughing at the ridiculousness, absurdity. The absurdity of everything and all. Everything is so contradictory. Life exists through death, love exists through hate, compassion exists through anger. And only those who are not can be. And those who are cannot be. It is so absurd, it is so contradictory. He is having his last laughter at this whole situation of so-called life. It is not logical, that's why he is laughing. It is so illogical. What can you do with such an illogical phenomenon? You can have a good laugh.


Another master, Etsugen, shortly before he died, called his monks together. It was December first. 'I have decided to die on the eighth of this month,' he told them. 'That's the day of the Buddha's enlightenment. If you have any questions left about the Teaching, you'd better ask them before then.'


Because the master continued with his regular duties during the next few days, some of the monks thought he was having a little fun at their expense. Most, however, were struck with grief.


By the evening of the seventh, nothing unusual had happened. Nonetheless, Etsugen had them all assemble and taught them for the last time about the Buddha's enlightenment. He then arranged his affairs and went into his room.


At dawn he took a bath, put on his ceremonial robes, and sitting erect in the lotus posture composed this death poem:


SHAKYAMUNI DESCENDED THE MOUNTAIN.
I WENT UP.
IN MY TEACHING,
I GUESS I'VE ALWAYS BEEN SOMETHING OF A MAVERICK.
AND NOW I'M OFF TO HELL -- YO-HO!
THE INQUISITIVENESS OF MEN IS PURE FOLLY.


Then, shutting his eyes, and still sitting, he died.


A Zen master can die any moment. He can decide. Why? Because he is already dead. The day he became enlightened, he died. Now only the visible form goes on living -- inside, all is emptiness. He is thoroughly dead. So any day he can drop this form. It is just a soap-bubble: a small prick and it will be gone. And you cannot choose a better day to die than Buddha's enlightenment day, because that day Buddha died.


About Buddha there is a beautiful story. He was born on a certain day, the same day he became enlightened, and the same day he died. The birth, the enlightenment and death, all these three great things happened on the same day. This is very indicative -- it says birth, enlightenment and death are all the same. It has a message: They are all alike. They are not different, their quality is the same.


Birth is a kind of death. When a child is born out of the womb, if the child can verbalize what is happening he will say 'I am dying.' Because he has lived for nine months in the womb in such comfort, in such luxury, in such convenience. No worry, no problem, no work. Everything is available, you need not even ask for it. He need not even breathe on his own, the mother breathes for him. He need not eat, the mother eats for him. He simply lives. It is paradise.


Psychologists say that the search for paradise is nothing but the memory, the nostalgia, of the womb. Because you have lived in those nine months at the highest peak of comfort, luxury. And the whole search for paradise is for nothing but how to enter into that kind of warm womb again.


In India, the innermost part of the temple is called GARBHA, womb -- very meaningfully. Where the deity of the temple sits, the innermost shrine, is called GARBHA -- the womb. In ordinary life also we are searching the same comfort. When you feel a room is cozy, what do you really remember when you say that the room is cozy? Warm, alive, receptive, welcoming. You are not a stranger, you are a welcome guest. You are reminded of something of those nine months. Science goes on improving comfort, luxury, but not yet have we been able -- and I think we will never be able -- to create the womb situation again.


The child has lived in such abundance, it is just a continuous celebration. In silence, in utter silence. Now he is being thrown out. And he does not know anything about the outside world, whether there is any world or not. He is thrown out of his home. If the child can say anything he will say 'I am dying.' You call it birth, you who are outside -- but ask the child, just think of the child. The child will think, 'I am being uprooted, I am thrown out. I am being rejected.' The child clings, the child does not want to go out. The child feels it a kind of death. On one side it is death, on another side it is birth.


And so is enlightenment, again. On one side, on the side of the mind, it is death. The mind feels 'I am dying. ' The mind clings. The mind tries in every way to prevent this enlightenment happening. The mind creates a thousand and one questions, doubts, inquiries, distractions. Wants to pull you back -- 'Where are you going? You will die.'


This happens here every day. Whenever a person starts moving closer to meditation, fear arises. Great fear. His whole being is at stake, he starts trembling. Actual trembling arises in his being. Now he is facing the abyss -- on one side it is death, on another side it will be birth. If the mind dies he will be born as consciousness. If thought dies he will be born as samadhi, as no-thought. If the mind disappears he will be born as no-mind. If this noise of the mind disappears then he will be born as silence. On one side it will be death, another side birth.


And so is death. Each death is also a birth, and each birth is also a death.


This story of Buddha's being born on a certain day at a certain time, then at the same time and the same day becoming enlightened, at the same time and the same day dying, is meaningful. It simply says that all these three things are the same. One thing is missing, I would like to add that too. If you REALLY fall in love then the whole list is complete. All these four things, then your whole life is complete. If I am to write Buddha's story again, I will add this too, that he fell in love on the same day at the same time. Because that too is a birth and a death. The people who were writing Buddha's story were not so courageous. They have dropped the idea of love, that seems to be dangerous.


These are the four greatest things in life, the four directions of life. This is the whole sky of life.


Etsugen decided to die on Buddha's enlightenment day. Many Zen monks have been deciding to die on that day. And they die on that day. And they don't commit suicide and they don't take any poison -- they just collapse. But their collapse is beautiful. They collapse with a smile, with laughter.


And this is a tradition in Zen, that before a master dies he has to compose a death poem. That too is very significant. Death should be received with poetry, with joy. That is your last statement, your testament. It should be in poetry. It should be poetry -- prose won't do, prose will look a little too worldly. Something more, something of a song. Etsugen wrote this poem. 'Shakyamuni' is the name of Buddha.

SHAKYAMUNI DESCENDED THE MOUNTAIN.
I WENT UP.


He is saying 'I have been just the opposite of Buddha.' Only a Zen master can say that. Otherwise, followers are followers -- they are imitators, they are carbon-copies. But real followers are not, they are authentic beings. They live their life. They live with great respect for the master, with IMMENSE respect for the master, but they live their life. In fact, that immense respect for the master will make you capable to live your own life.


Buddha lived his own life. If you are really respectful towards him you will live your own life, that's how you will pay your homage.

SHAKYAMUNI DESCENDED THE MOUNTAIN.
I WENT UP.
IN MY TEACHING,
I GUESS I'VE ALWAYS BEEN SOMETHING OF A MAVERICK.
AND NOW I'M OFF TO HELL -- YO-HO!
THE INQUISITIVENESS OF MEN IS PURE FOLLY.


He is saying 'Now I am off to hell.' He is joking. Only a Zen master can joke at the last moment. Only a Zen master can have the guts to say 'Now I am off to hell.' In fact, Zen people say that wherever a master is, there is heaven. If he is in hell, hell will be heaven. Heaven is his climate, he carries it with himself.


'Then, shutting his eyes, and still sitting, he died.' So silently, so poetically, so radically.
And the third story.


When the master, Tenno, was dying, he called to his room the monk in charge of food and clothing in the temple. When the monk sat down by the bed, Tenno asked, 'Do you understand?'


Now, he has not said anything and he asks, 'Do you understand?'
'No,' the monk was puzzled and said.
Tenno laughed, and said, 'Do you understand?'
The monk said, 'No.' And was more puzzled.


Then Tenno, picking up his pillow, hurled it through the window, and said, 'Do you understand?'


And the monk said, 'No. And you are making me more and more confused.'


Then he said, 'Okay, then I will do the real thing.' He closed his eyes, gave a lion's roar, and died.


He was dying. This disciple was not yet insightful. He was dying -- if you have loved your master, if you have really loved your master, you will know what is happening to him. That's why he asked 'Do you understand?' He is asking 'Have you not come to know that I am dying? Has it not reached to your heart yet that I am dying?' At the last moment he is testing his disciple. Even death is being used as a kind of teaching. Even death is being used as the last effort to awaken the disciple. Then he laughed, and asked 'Do you understand?' The laughter was so total, if the disciple had looked into the eyes of the master and heard the laughter, there was the whole teaching of Buddha in it, all the scriptures in it. The totality of it. And he would have seen that the master is leaving the body.


But he must have got into thinking. The master asked 'Do you understand?' And he has not said anything -- what does he mean by 'Do you understand?' The disciple must have gone into his mind. Because he had gone into his mind, the master laughed to bring him out of his mind. Because nothing brings you out of your mind like laughter.


Somebody has asked 'Why, Osho, do you go on telling jokes?' That's why. Nothing brings you out of your mind like laughter. When you have a good laugh the logic disappears -- at that moment, at least. And the jokes are so absurd. They are jokes because they are absurd; you laugh because they are ridiculous, you laugh because they don't follow the rules of logic, they go just against it. They take such an unexpected turn that your thinking could not have concluded. Because of that unexpected turn, because of that sudden leap...the whole joke goes in one way, then comes the punchline. And the punchline is a leap, it is discontinuous.
A joke is a great meditation.


The master laughed. Loud was his laughter, total was his laughter. He wanted to bring this disciple out of his mind -- he had gone too much into thinking. He was thinking 'Why has he asked "Do you understand?" What does he mean?' He has asked a simple question -- a question to provoke the disciple to be alert of the master's situation, what is happening to him. If the disciple was really in tune with the master, that would have been a shock: 'Do you understand?' And he would have opened his eyes and he would have looked into the being of the master and would have felt that the master is ready to leave the body. But he went into thinking and missed the point. Hence the master tried again by laughing. And asked 'Do you understand?' Still the disciple was more puzzled, because he could not see why the master is laughing. He started thinking 'Why?'


The moment you bring the question 'Why?' you are moving into the rut, the dead rut, of the mind. Once you have asked why, you miss the meditative moment. Seeing that the disciple is very gross, he had to be gross. He had to throw his pillow out of the window -- he had to do something absolutely meaningless, just to shock. But the disciple was more puzzled, even more puzzled.


Then he gave a lion's roar. And died. It is said that for many centuries the roar was heard in his monastery. Whenever people would sit silently and meditate they would hear the lion's roar. This was his last shock. And then he died. Why did he do this, this lion's roar? Maybe nothing is bringing him out of his mind -- this utterly absurd thing, a lion's roar for no reason at all, may bring him out of the mind. And then he died. If nothing else brings him out of his mind, then death will bring him. And if even for a single moment you can taste the space called no-mind, then you know that there is nobody to die.


Nobody lives, nobody dies. Nothingness lives, nothingness dies. You are not. Have a good laugh at this situation. You are not and you exist. You are not and you are. This is the cosmic joke.

You ask me, WHAT IS THE ZEN ATTITUDE TOWARDS DEATH?


Laughter. But that is their attitude towards life too.

The second question:
<p class="question">WHAT IS TANTRIC SEX? AFTER 'MONKEY SEX' AND AFTER 'LOVE-BLISS SEX', BEFORE THE HIGHEST COSMIC AND RELIGIOUS SEX IN WHICH NO PARTNER IS NEEDED, IN WHICH THE COSMOS IS THE PARTNER, ISN'T THERE TANTRIC SEX IN WHICH TWO PARTNERS ARE INVOLVED, A SEX ACT WHICH IS A MEDITATION BASED ON CERTAIN TECHNIQUES?</p>


It is good that after meditating on death you will be meditating on Tantra and Tantra sex. Because sex is also a small death. And because of that small death in sex, there is so much release of joy in you. For a single moment you disappear, and that moment is the climax, the orgasm. In that single moment you don't know who you are. In that single moment you are pure energy vibrating, pulsating. With no center to it, with no ego in it.


In that single moment of orgasmic space you lose all boundaries, separation. You become vast, huge. You are no more separate from the other. That's why there is so much joy -- although the moment is very small. And once it is gone you feel very frustrated, because it has been so short, it was so fleeting. And you start hankering again. And each time that moment comes you reach to a pinnacle and then you fall into a deep darkness, into the abyss.


So sex brings you joy, and sex brings you great misery too. It takes you to sunlit peaks and then drops you into the darkest valleys. After each sex act one feels frustrated. Something was happening, happening, and it happened...and you could not even catch hold of it and it was gone. So sex remains the greatest fascination and the greatest frustration.


Because of these two things in the act of sex, there are two types of people. Those who become too much fascinated with the fascination, addicted with sex. They are the people who go on indulging in all kinds of sexualities, and their whole life is nothing but a search for more sex, better sex. And the other, who become addicted with the frustration of sex. They renounce the world, the woman, the man, they escape to the Himalayas or into the monasteries. But both have reacted to sex. Your worldly and your other-worldly, they are not different -- they both are sexual, they have chosen one part of the sex act. They have chosen opposite parts, but they have chosen out of the sex act.


That's why your so-called religions are so much against sex -- they have chosen the frustration part. The indulgent and the renunciate are two aspects of the same coin. They are not different people, they are the same people, and both have chosen out of sex.


Tantra is a totally different attitude. It says: There is joy in sex and there is frustration in sex. Because the moment of orgasm is very small. That moment can become very deep, that moment can remain there for hours. That moment, once you know the art of remaining in it, can surround you twenty-four hours. Tantra transforms sex. Tantra is the true religion. It does not choose between the fascination and the frustration, it transcends both. It uses sex as a key. And it is a key -- because all life comes through it, all flowers bloom through it and all birds sing through it. All that you see around you, the green and the red and the gold, all comes through sex and is sex energy. All the poetry and all the songs and all the music is rooted in sex-energy. All art, all creativity, is nothing but an expression of sex.


So Tantra sex has to be understood. A few things: 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.


There you have to understand -- the first thing to remember -- Freud does not understand sex' ultimate depth. Freud has only looked into the repressed sexuality of man. What christianity has done in the West, the wrong, Freud was trying to put it right. But Christianity remains superficial and Freud remains superficial. Why? Because the cure cannot go deeper than the disease. The disease was superficial, the cure cannot be deeper than that.


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.


Somebody has asked a question: 'If people become authentic as you say they should become, authentic and natural, and if they don't smile because a smile is phony, and if they go on screaming and shouting in the streets, what will happen to the world?'


Many things will happen to the world. First, wars will become impossible. 'There will be no Vietnams and no Israels, because people will never accumulate so much anger in them that they have to kill, and kill millions. Many things will happen to the world if people are natural. Then they will not shout so much as you think they will shout. Right now they are allowed to shout they will shout -- but for how long? If they are given complete freedom, shouts and abusing and condemnation and fights will start disappearing from the world. It is a vicious circle. It is as if you have been starving a person and you don't allow him to go close to the fridge. And you say 'If we allow him he will eat too much. ' And you have been starving him -- and now you are afraid if you allow him any freedom he will eat too much, he will fall ill. So you don't allow him to come to the fridge. He has to live by his quota -- whatsoever you give, he has to live on.


Now he fantasizes, he dreams: What to do? How to reach to the fridge? How to eat more? His whole imagination becomes focused on food, he dreams of food.


A famous Sufi story says: Three persons were travelling. They purchased a Sufi sweet, halvah. But they had not enough money and the halvah was very costly. It was not enough for three, so there was great debate -- who should eat it? They decided 'We should do one thing: we all should sleep, and in the morning whosoever has dreamt the best dream, he will be the person to eat it all.' Agreed, they fell asleep.


Early morning, they related their dreams. One said, he was a Christian, he said 'I dreamt of Jesus. And Jesus said "Come to Heaven, I have prepared the place for you." And he was calling me, inviting me. It was such a beautiful dream, I have never dreamt such a thing. And Jesus was so radiant, and I feel so good that I have been accepted by Jesus.'


The second was a Hindu. He said 'This is nothing. I dreamt I have become Krishna. And thousands of gopis are dancing around me, beautiful damsels, and I am playing on the flute. It was such a beautiful dream.'


And the third was a Mohammedan Sufi. And they asked 'What about you?' He said 'Mohammed appeared and said "You fool! What are you doing here? Go and eat the halvah!" So I have eaten it! Because how can you reject when Mohammed commands?'


If you are hungry, if you are kept starving, then the fear arises that if you are left loose in the streets you may enter into a restaurant, kill the owner, or do something. But if you are well fed then nobody does anything like that. This is what has happened -- for thousands of years you have been repressed, you have been made more and more phony. Now the fear arises. The questioner is right -- the fear arises, if people become authentic and start screaming and shouting and doing things the way they always wanted to do and were never allowed to do, the world will go mad.


Yes, for a few years the world will go mad. But that madness will be therapeutic, it will help immensely. After that nobody will ever go mad. Neurosis will disappear, psychosis will disappear, wars will disappear, politicians will become meaningless. Nations and the militaries and armies will become irrelevant -- they will not be needed. That's why the politician and the priest are so much in favour of repressing people, because they depend on these repressions. Wars will not be there. Generals won't like it, army people won't like it, if there is no Vietnam -- then their whole purpose is lost. If there are no nations then what is the point of having prime ministers and presidents? They are irrelevant.


Government becomes irrelevant if people are natural. Less and less government will be needed. So, so many people have investments. And their fear looks right, logical, because for so many centuries man has been repressed that they are afraid that things may explode. Yes, for a few years, for one generation at least, there will be great explosion. Then things will disappear.


Bertrand Russell has written that when he was a child, even legs of chairs were covered with cloth. Legs, because they look sexual. And he says 'I had not seen any legs of a woman.' The garments had to be so long that you could not see. And Bertrand Russell says in those days people used to fantasize about legs, dream about legs. Even a dream about a leg was enough of an excitement, an ecstasy. Now nobody bothers about the legs. Once you have seen men and women naked you stop worrying about, dreaming about, their nakedness. Dreams change.


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.

And the last question:
<p class="question">IF AT THIS VERY MOMENT I CAN BECOME AWAKENED OR ENLIGHTENED, WHY THEN DO YOU ALLOW ALL THOSE CHAOTIC BRAIN-WASHING GROUPS, GROUP-LEADERS AND THERAPISTS TO HAPPEN AT THE ASHRAM AND WHAT CONNECTION IS THERE BETWEEN THEM AND MY ENLIGHTENMENT?</p>


No connection at all. But they destroy your 'if'. They are needed just to make you alert that nothing is needed. And you can become aware only the hard way; you cannot become easily aware. You have been asleep so long. Your slumber has been of centuries, of millennia. Those therapy groups simply hit hard on your head, they are a kind of hammering to destroy your 'if'. Going through all those hard arduous trips, one day you will realize that nothing is needed, that enlightenment has not to be searched. That you lose the desire for enlightenment -- that is their purpose.


And the moment you don't desire enlightenment, it is there. It comes when the desire disappears.
			

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> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
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