Tag: devendra

Thorn And Flower: One Energy

Dont’ be afraid to love; all you have to do is to make it more prayerful, advises OSHO

OSHOSPEAK
1. Love is not a single phenomenon; it is stretched between two polarities — sex and prayer
2. The sex part of love brings misery while the prayer part brings joy, so make sex a prayer
3. Dont’ renounce sex. It does bring moments of egolessness, and gives you a glimpse of the Divine

Love is both. It is rich and it is painful, it is agony and it is ecstasy — because love is the meeting of the earth and the sky, of the known and the unknown, of the visible and the invisible.
Love is the boundary that divides matter and consciousness, the boundary of the lower and the higher. Love has roots in the earth; that is its pain, its agony. And love has its branches in the sky; that is its ecstasy.
Love is not a single phenomenon, it is dual. It is a rope stretched between two polarities. You will have to understand these two polarities: one is sex, another is prayer. Love is the rope stretched between sex and prayer; part of it is sex, part of it is prayer.
The sexual part is bound to bring many miseries, the part that belongs to prayer will bring many joys. Hence it is difficult to renounce love, because in renouncing one is afraid the joys that come will also be renounced. One is not able either to be totally in it, because all those pains again and again remind you to renounce it. This is the misery of the lover: the lover lives in a tension, pulled apart.
This is the basic problem of all lovers, because love brings both, many thorns and many flowers, and they both come together. Love is a rosebush. One does not want those thorns, one would like the rosebush to be all flowers and no thorns; but they come together, they are all aspects of one energy.
But I am not asking you to become detached. What I am saying is: make it more and more prayerful. My whole approach is that of transformation, not of renunciation. You must have misunderstood me. I am not against sex but I am all for making sex a prayer. The lowest can be possessed by the highest, then the pain of it disappears.
What pain is there in sexuality? Because it reminds you of your animality — that is the pain. It reminds you of the past, it reminds you of your biological bondage, it reminds you that you are not free, you are under the slavery of the instincts given by nature; that you are not independent from nature, that you are just a puppet in the hands of unknown unconscious forces.
Sex is felt like a humiliation. In sex, you start feeling you are losing you dignity, hence the pain. And then fulfilment is so momentary; sooner or later any intelligent person will become aware that the satisfaction is momentary and followed by long nights of pain.
The ecstasy is just like a breeze, it comes and goes and leaves you in a desert-like state, utterly frustrated, disappointed. You had hoped much; many things were promised by the instinctual part of you, and nothing has been delivered.
In fact, sex is a strategy of nature to perpetuate itself. It is a mechanism that keeps you reproducing, otherwise people will disappear. Just think of a humanity where sex is no longer an instinct and you are free, at your own will, to go into sex or not.
Then the whole thing will look so absurd, the whole thing will look ridiculous. Just think — if there is no instinctive force pulling you, I don’t think anybody will be ready to go into sex. Nobody goes by consent; reluctantly, resisting, one goes into it.
But it brings a few moments of utter purity and joy and innocence too. It brings a few moments of timelessness, when suddenly there is no time left.
It brings a few moments of egolessness too, when in deep orgasmic spasm, the ego is forgotten. It gives you a few glimpses of the Divine, hence it cannot be renounced either.

The Book of Wisdom, courtesy Osho International Foundation.
The Speaking Tree, page: 04, 29, May, 2011

No Trouble

The carpenter I hired to help me restore an old farmhouse had just finished a rough first day on the job. A flat tire made him lose an hour, his electric saw quit, and now his ancient pickup truck refused to start. While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence. On arriving, he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands, When opening the door he underwent an amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss. Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier. “Oh, that’s my trouble tree,” he replied. “I know I can’t help having troubles on the job, but one thing’s for sure– troubles don’t belong in the house with my wife and the children. So I just hang them on the tree every night when I come home. Then in the morning I pick them up again.” he smiled, “When I come out in the morning to pick ’em up, there ain’t nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before.”

Kama as Means to Moksha

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Sexual desire is give importance in Indic philosophy; kama is one of the four ends of purushartha or life, writes K M Gupta

In Indic philosophy, kama or sexual desire has been acccorded an important place. There are four kinds of purushartha, ends of life, and one of them is kama. This is because the world was born out of kama. We know that all beings are born out of kama. What we don’t know is that the cosmos itself is a product of kama. How was the world born?

In the very beginning, according to the Upanishads, was sah akamayata. There was the ‘worldstuff’ or sad vastu in the begining, and it was seized with kama or desire. It agitated in kama and desired expansion. At the height of this agitation, there was bindu visphota or what we now called the Big Bang.

The word bindu means both a point and semen. When the guru advises his disciples to practice celibacy, he says: “Falling of bindu is death; keeping of bindu is life.” Visphota means bursting out. Therefore bindu visphota denotes the orgasm. The world was born out of bindu visphota. One can think of this bindu visphota as what modern scientists speak of as the ‘Big Bang’ that generated the universe. The big bang is the orgasm of kama in the worldstuff.

Bindu is also known variously as teja, prana, kam and vaishwanara. It is the bindu’s kam or energy that becomes kham or space. From this energy was born matter in the form of the panchabhutas. The panchabhutas are mostly misunderstood. As Vedanta explains it, the panchabhutas include the solid prithvi, the liquid apa, the gaseous vayu, the energy within matter, agni, and the amount of space an object takes up for its shape, called akasha. This way, the world was born out of kama.

Since energy is kama, the universe is imbued with kama. Matter in all its states and diversity is kama, and the space that houses matter is also an expanse of kama. Kama is the substance of the universe. That is why kama is such an indomitable force in the life of beings. There is no beating it.

In the Mahabharata, Kamadeva, the God of Kama and love, brags: “If anyone tries to beat me, I grow manifold over his beating.” The atempt to subdue or win kama makes it burst out with greater force. Since kama is the origin and quiddity of existence, it has to be accorded its rightful place. Therefore kama is considered as one of the purusharthas. The ultimate purushartha is moksha — liberation of the soul from the clutches of finite existence.

Generally, kama is regarded as an obstacle to moksha and brahmacharya while celibacy is seen as an essential prerequisite. The guru commands: keep the bindu, don’t let it fall. The reason given as to why kama has to be overcome for the attainment of moksha is that kama is the opening up of cosmic energy while moksha is its opposite — which is shutting energy in all its diversity up in its primordial cause, the worldstuff or sad vastu, So they are deemed natural contraries.

However, anything that belongs to this world can be turned into an instrument for moksha and kama is no exception. Kama also can be a means to moksha. But actually doing this needs extraordinary skill. Some sects of tantra use kama as an instrument of moksha. For these, kama is more spiritual and less carnal. Genuine practitioners of tantra achieve an experience of oneness with the Divine at the height of the physical orgasm. For them, kama is a magnetic pull towards the divine and the orgasm is a perfect communion.

Kama as a means for moksha is extremely individualistic, slippery, esoteric and unreliable as far as lay practitioners are concerned, and therefore its use is not advisable for the general public. An example is Osho, who took this individualistic practice to the public domain and became controversial.

The Speaking Tree, Page: 4, June, 6, 2010.

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AN INTRODUCTION TO BRAHMACHARYA (CELIBACY)

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Brahmacharya is a divine word. It is the sum and substance of Yoga. Brahmacharya is the Achara or conduct by which you attain or reach Brahman (God). It is life in the Absolute. It is movement towards God or the Atman (Self).

Brahmacharya is absolute freedom from sexual thoughts and desires. It is the vow of celibacy. It is control of all the senses in thought, word and deed.

Brahmacharya is not mere bachelorhood. There should be strict abstinence not merely from sexual intercourse but also from auto-erotic manifestations, from masturbation, from homosexual acts and from all perverse sexual practices. It must further involve a permanent abstention from indulgence in erotic imagination and voluptuous reverie.

In a narrow sense, Brahmacharya is celibacy. In a broad sense, it is absolute control of all the senses. The door of Nirvana (liberation) or perfection is complete Brahmacharya.

Celibacy is to a Yogi what electricity is to an electric bulb. Without celibacy no spiritual progress is possible. It is a potent weapon and shield to wage war against the internal evil forces of lust, anger and greed. It serves as a gateway for the bliss beyond, and opens the door of liberation. It contributes perennial joy and uninterrupted bliss. It is the only key to open the Sushumna (the chief among astral tubes in the human body running inside the spinal column) and awaken the Kundalini (the primordial cosmic energy located in the individual).

There cannot be any language without words. You cannot draw a picture without a canvas or a wall. You cannot write anything without paper. Even so, you cannot have health and spiritual life without celibacy.

An established celibate will not feel any difference in touching the opposite sex, a piece of paper, a block of wood, or a piece of stone. A true celibate only can cultivate Bhakti (devotion). A true celibate only can practice Yoga. A true celibate only can acquire jnana (wisdom).

Brahmacharya is meant both for men and women. Bhishma, Hanuman, Lakshmana, Jesus, Mirabai, Sulabha and Gargi were all celibates.

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