Flying in love

Even though it is the favourite subject of poets, painters, filmmakers and writers, it is something more talked about and portrayed than actually lived. The phenomenon of love is so vast and complex that it cannot be merely a feeling; it is a seed that has the potential to grow into a massive tree. It may begin with romantic feelings but it grows to something much bigger than that. For love to attain this height, it has to transcend emotions and dark feelings of jealousy, possessiveness, fear and anger.

People are wary of love because it brings torture, pain and misery in its wake. But they fail to understand that it’s no fault of love. People often use the phrase falling in love to describe their experience. To me, it is quite derogatory to use this phrase for this wonderful experience. If someone is struck by love, why is it called ‘falling’?

Intellectuals must have coined the phrase, because to the intellect, loving must appear like falling from the head. For a simple person, the experience of loving is that of flying—flying in love.

Love sutras

Osho has changed the whole game of love and has given it a new identity, given it roots and wings. He says that love and meditation should go hand-in-hand. Love and meditate, meditate and love. Slowly you will see a new harmony arising in you. Only that harmony will make you contented.

Here are some sutras from the treasure trove of Osho’s wisdom to remember while you become lost in love:

• Relationship is a great mirror. The person you love mirrors that part of your being, which you don’t want to see. Or reflect something beautiful about you that you are unaware of. Let yourself be mirrored in love. If you find that something is missing, meditate more—but never escape from love. Let yourself be mirrored in love again, and again; it will be the only criterion that shows you if you are growing. If you are really growing in love, you will soon see that love has remained and jealousy has disappeared; love has remained and possessiveness has disappeared; love has remained and hatred has disappeared. A great purity arises, a great innocence. A fragrance is released into your soul. Let love and meditation be two wings. Let them help each other.
• Unfortunately, modern education and culture nurtures the ego. What we call a developed personality is actually a developed ego. A loving person is simple, unassuming, non-intellectual. The person is intelligent but that intelligence does not make him or her hard-core intellectual. Love is the way of the heart. Its ways are indirect, soft and have a healing touch. Develop the heart more, be in a soft melting space as much as possible.
• Sitting near a tree, just feel the tree and feel that you have become one with it, that there is a flow within you, a communication, a dialogue, a melting. Sitting near a flowing river just feel the flow, feel that you and the river have become one. Lying under the sky, just feel that you and the sky have become one. In the beginning, it will be just imagination but by and by, you will feel that you are touching reality through imagination. Then try it with persons. This may be difficult in the beginning because there is a fear of intimacy, but as you open your petals, you will allow the other to come near you.
• In love, you connect with the other; in meditation, you connect with yourself. Both are enriching. Unless love is based in deep meditation, it will be superficial. It will never be intimate, it will not have any profundity. It will not bring bliss to you; it will bring only agonies, it will never bring ecstasy. The love has to be based on meditation. And a meditation that is against love, will be a dry desert, a wasteland. No flower will ever bloom there.
• Love gives freedom. And when you give freedom, you are free, that’s what detachment is. If you enforce bondage on the other, you will be in imprisonment on your own accord. If you bind the other, the other will bind you; if you define the other, the other will define you; if you are trying to possess the other, the other will possess you. That’s how couples go on fighting for domination for their whole life. It is a continuous nagging and fighting. And the man thinks that in some ways he controls the woman and the woman thinks that in some ways she controls the man. Control is not love.
• Never treat any person as a means. Treat everybody as an end in himself, in herself. Unless love is freedom from the other, from the emotional entanglement it cannot bring joy and consciousness. Love that always presupposes the other is not true love according to the enlightened consciousness.

Love as a relationship—be it with people or things—is a sinking ship. But love as a fragrance of one’s flowering, love as a radiance of the inner glow is free of misery because it has no opposite. This kind of love is born out of meditation, awareness and by transcending feelings. This is the emptiness of the heart, which is serene, silent, and utterly blissful.

Romantic love can be the beginning, a seed which ultimately grows into awakening of consciousness. This kind of love is cool, not too hot to handle.

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If you observe closely, natural sounds create their own music. They soothe tired nerves. Listening to them is important to our wellness because it connects with our inner being.

In a very interesting study, Spanish scientists have found that sound affects us not only because it has vibrations, but because it is an integral part of our genes. Our DNA actually reflects the musical relation between sounds. Somewhere deep inside we all have always felt the connection, and now there is scientific proof.

Find music within

It is not only the outer nature but we have to get closer to our inner nature as well. If you want peace and relaxation, you have to ponder: what are my true aspirations, what are my real emotions? Am I putting on a mask to fit into the social structure? To find peace, you need to be your natural self.

Just imagine relaxing with the flow of nature, letting everything come naturally, listening to the musical sounds of water, wind and birds, and becoming aware of the feeling of peace they bring about inside. You can feel your eyes close by themselves, as the relaxation seeps in and the tranquillity penetrates every pore of your body.

Then, the word enjoyment will take on a new, softer and more personal meaning. The joy will bloom in the heart. You will sense that the natural sounds you are listening to are really inside of you, part of you in a very intimate way. They create a lightness within, a spontaneous relaxation that remains with you. Just pause for a few moments and allow yourselves to resonate with them.

Be lonely in a crowd

The great thing is that this experience is there for you whether you are old or young, fat or thin, hardworking or lazy. Moreover, once you know how it feels, you can recall this feeling of relaxation and exquisite wakefulness anywhere in the world. First, amid nature and later even on a crowded city street. Relaxing in a market place is the most ‘other worldly’ experience one can have. It is called meditation.

This way of enjoying the natural music around you can help you find true wellness, which has to do with what you feel inside, not with how others say you should feel. And discovering yourself like this can be full of fun, lightness and joy.

“Anything that can help from the outside will have some music in it, only then can it help. The sound of running water in the hills can help, because it has its own music. The roaring waves of the ocean can help, because they have their own music. The singing of the birds in the morning can help, or the sound of insects in the silent night, or the rain falling on the rooftop — anything that creates music can also create meditation,” Osho had said.

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According to Osho, the roots of terrorism are in the unconscious, which is a million years old. Though we have evolved from being animals, aborigines and the cannibals, our mind is still the mind of the hunter of the stone ages. It’s the mind of the predator, who loves to kill for survival and sees nothing wrong in it. Unfortunately, the new weapons and the advanced technology give this destructive mind the dangerous tools to destroy and play havoc unscrupulously.

The unconscious is a vast archive of human experiences, the conditioning. It is here that change needs to take place. Osho has devised a meditation technique to heal the unconscious mind.

His Dynamic Meditation technique is for the terrorist, the terrorised and anyone feeling traumatised and depressed even by thinking about the events. Using the power breathing, catharsis, silence and celebration, the technique helps us let out fears from the mind and soothes at the innermost level.

The need for therapy

Osho says, “You live in fear, not in joy. If we can clean the basement of the human mind’s unconscious… and it can be cleaned away. Terrorism is not in the bomb, it is in your hands; terrorism is in your unconscious.”

Osho has spoken extensively on terrorism. He feels humanity needs a thorough spring cleaning. Otherwise, the state of affairs will worsen.

He says, “It seems all kinds of blind people have bombs in their hands and are throwing them at random. So individual violence will increase—it is increasing. And all your governments and your religions will go on perpetuating the old strategies without understanding the new situation. The new situation is that every human being needs to go through therapies, needs to understand his unconscious intentions, needs to go through meditations so that he can calm down, become cool—and look towards the world with a new perspective of silence.”

Osho’s solution

Dynamic meditation can be the new weapon that can destroy the age old destructive instincts of man. It uses strong and chaotic breathing to disturb the old patterns of thinking and feeling. This breaks the barrier created by the “civilised” mind and energy enters the emotional reservoir of the inner world expressing repressed primal emotions like anger, hatred, fear, and jealousy. This is called catharsis. It has a deeply purging and healing effect.

There is a lot of research that endorses the value of catharsis or ventilation. “The real, true emotions that need to be expressed are in the body, trying to move up and be expressed and therefore integrated,” says Dr Candace Pert [former director of brain biochemistry at the US National Institute of Health] in her book, The Molecules of Emotion.

In Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy, Osho goes as far as to say, “Life needs expression, life is expression. If you do not allow life, then you are creating, accumulating, explosive forces. They will explode and you will go to bits. Every man is schizophrenic, divided—divided against himself. He cannot be at ease; he cannot be silent; he cannot be blissful. Hell is always there, and unless you become whole, you cannot be freed from this hell.”

Really speaking, every human being is a walking volcano, a suicidal emotional bomb. The bombs in the hands of terrorists are visible, but who can detect and diffuse the emotional bombs within?

This is what the dynamic meditation does. It helps diffuse the emotional bomb.

The outline

For almost 39 years, millions of people all over the world have been practicing it. You don’t have to be a believer to do this whirlwind of a meditation; it is pure science. Dynamic meditation is so vigorous that you will feel the body/mind hit by a cyclone. It is a shortcut to physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.

Initially, you may find it strange because it blows up all the concepts of traditional meditation. Firstly, it is done standing, not sitting. This alone makes it radically different from the traditional methods. Secondly, it’s intense activity followed by a deep silence.

It may look like sheer madness, but it is a conscious madness. There is a watcher watching every activity.

After going through intense activity in the first three stages, there is a sudden stop in the fourth stage. You have to freeze like a statue. This extreme change from action to non-action throws you in the abysmal depth of silence which is your own being. This silence stays with you throughout the day. You become so calm and collected, violence becomes impossible. It is the calm of nature in the wake of the storm.

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Procreation vs Recreation

The procreation vs recreation debate is ancient. Sex for procreation came under social and religious domain and there were rituals built around it by priests. The procreative aspect of sex was accepted so naturally that when the husband died childless, his elder brother or a trusted sage was asked to have intercourse with the woman and produce children. Manusmruti called this process Niyoga. This act was a religious ritual and the couple was not supposed to enjoy it! They used to apply oil on their bodies so that they remain detached during the act.

However, the human being is not only a body; he/she also has emotions and intelligence. So his higher sensibilities motivated him to seek pleasure out of sex. The Indian name for sex is Kama which is expansive and all-inclusive. Kama means desire, the lust for life. Lust is yet again a condemned word; in fact, all that allows people to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh and the senses is condemned by moral custodians because they are afraid that people will get lost in sensuous delights. Kama is the libido, the life energy, not necessarily sexual. All creativity is motivated by Kama, it is the desire to create as well as procreate.

Sex as a Natural Instinct

If we want sex to be accepted as a natural instinct, we have to drop the moral firewall built around it. In this nuclear age, sex can be understood as pure energy because we have developed scientific understanding. Once we acknowledge that sex is the bio energy, we can make efforts to transform it. Just as water when boiled becomes vapour, and the vapour travels upwards and becomes clouds, sexual energy can be transformed into higher states. The higher forms of sex energy are love, compassion and enlightened consciousness.

Tantra’s greatest contribution to humanity is that it has created many devices to sublimate the sexual energy and turn it into an experience of higher consciousness.

The Disaster of Repressed Sexuality

Osho is the first master who saw the disaster of repressed sexuality. And the disaster is that human sex has become cerebral. The distorted and perverted humanity of today is the end result of repression. No animal rapes its females like man does. No animal needs artificial stimulants like viagra. Have you ever seen any clinic of sexologists for animals or birds? The whole porno literature is a sign of a sick attitude towards sex.

Sex used for reproduction is biological, and sex as recreation belongs to the human world alone because it has arisen out of the human need for love, sensuality, aesthetics, relating, pleasure and ecstasy. This has always been the case. The art of sex developed due to this need. Men always had two kinds of mates: the housewife and the mistress. The roles of these women were clearly marked. We can divide them into procreation and recreation. Those women who could procreate were usually not so good at recreating their husbands because their total focus was on rearing children. Their bodies changed after the childbirth.

Sex as recreation is a special art, and women were trained to master it. The word is self-explanatory: re-creation: creating again. Recreation is not entertainment, which is the conventional meaning of the word. The flowering of physical sex becomes love which is re-creative. When love is fulfilled, its fragrance is creativity. It is observed that a sexually fulfilled person becomes extremely creative.

Pleasure and Pain Are a Package Deal

If people only seek pleasure out of sex, they are bound to be frustrated sooner or later. Because every pleasure has its opposite: the pain. Sex can really recreate and rejuvenate people, if experienced with consciousness.

Now, women can participate in sex without fear, as contraceptives have dissociated intercourse with pregnancy. Modern women can enjoy the intricacies of lovemaking and transmit their joy to their partners. But the question is: are there sensitive, sexually-trained men who are expert partners of the evolved women?

Normally, girls and boys are conditioned to be husbands and wives, which involves procreative sex. Sex as recreation needs sharpened sensitivity and refined sensuality; it is a skilled job. Just as a trained musician plays on the musical instrument with love and care, a skilled lover has to play on the body of his beloved sensitively, and vice versa.

Here, Osho will be immensely helpful. If you allow me to say so, he alone can redeem humanity from sexual inhibitions. He has brought a new dimension to sexuality. His basic contention is: sex is neither moral, nor immoral, it is amoral. It is a wild, boundless, existential energy. Drop your inhibitions and go natural. Clean your mind of all the perverted ideas about sexuality.

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It takes quite a bit of research to find any one site that has so much to offer on all these fronts, let alone one that can combine all of the needs for your innermost wellness – joy, bliss and beyond.

So many institutes, consultants, packages have popped up around the world in this decade that offer the keys to wellness; there are books written about one phenomenon, which everybody craves and nobody knows how to define. It seems that there is an intensely tangible search for the intangible. People travel long distance to exotic resorts, pay astronomical prices to get a whiff of wellness. For wellness’ sake, you can stop looking out there, and take some time for yourself, the only one-stop-shop that is the source of your own wellbeing.

The search for wellness is not just avoiding illness. Wellness is something positive. In fact, there is no appropriate word for “wellness” in English. The Sanskrit language has a beautiful word that sheds light on the root meaning of wellness, and it is swastha meaning “centred in one’s own being.” Swa is the being and stha is centred. Real wellness is an outcome of the golden healing energy generated in the solar plexus – an energy-centre located under the rib and is supposed to send healing energy throughout the body.

The feeling of wellness is not just a feel-good factor – it is being good, which is a more realistic state of body and mind. The eastern wisdom recognises it as “at homeness” with oneself and with existence. It is not only healthy, it is wholesome as well.

All this sudden concern about wellness is an overflow of affluence. The carnal needs taken care of, now man is looking for higher fulfilment. It shows that man’s consciousness is evolving. He is becoming sensitive, more conscious of his body/mind harmony. But all the ingredients that are part of the conventional wellness programme i.e. nutritious diet, fitness exercises, massages, skin care and so on, only help generate a tingling feeling in the body. The exhilaration felt by these treatments is skin deep. In my view, there are two important aspects of wellness, which are overlooked in the wellness programmes: emotional wellness and financial wellness.

Financial wellness is # 1 concern of most of the people. A survey made by the Center for Financial Well-Being in Hampton, Virginia in 1993 showed that 90 per cent professionals admitted that personal finances affected their important wellness issues. Nine out of 10 respondents agreed that attitudes towards money had a significant effect on self-esteem, their job productivity; that it was difficult to practise healthy lifestyles when worried about money. They rated personal finance as the number one concern of the average family, surpassing crime, drugs, the national debt, and health. It seems that a holistic approach to personal finance is needed, which will be the foundation of wellness. [Refer CW Perspective Jul,2007 for another piece conveys the same idea]

The second aspect, emotional wellness, is also extremely crucial in experiencing overall wellness. No matter how much we pamper our body, feed it with nutritious foods, if we are an emotional wreck, nothing is going to make us feel at ease. Cleansing the emotional muck and transforming it into a serene and silent energy is an essential part of emotional wellbeing.

What is needed for every human being is a thorough purging of the unconscious mind; throwing out the negative emotions, not repressing or rationalising them. Just as we clean our house and clean our body, we have to clean our mind everyday.

The smouldering anger, jealousy, fear and frustrations cause havoc with the body. This has lead to the upsurge of psycho-somatic diseases. They are not illnesses, actually they are a disease of the person. People are ill at ease and that manifests as a physical illness. [Refer Cover Story, CW Jun 2007, on how emotions make us sick]

Osho has created cathartic meditations as well as meditative therapies that cleanse the interior of the mind and the heart. Simple acts like crying and laughing wholeheartedly is such a wonderful release of pent-up emotions. Later, silence easily follows in the empty space. What is needed is emptying the content of the mind, and wait for wellness to open its petals.

Wellness is your innate nature, your swabhav. It is the unattached watcher, the sakshi. All you have to do is, recognise it. Reclaim it! The being is always well, it has never been, and cannot be ill because witnessing is its true nature. It doesn’t get affected by what it sees. Just like the endless sky — seasons come and go, stars are born and die but its emptiness remains unblemished.

Wellness is one portal that no one can afford to miss.

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The modern mind is bombarded with information not just from mainstream print and electronic media but social media as well. This creates a problem because there is no time to digest it. In the past, this was just the reverse. There was less information and more time to assimilate it – so, there were silent spaces in people’s minds. Today, our lifestyle has changed 180 degrees: much of the information remains undigested. It is as if you go on eating and stuffing your body. That which is not digested by the body will prove to be poisonous.

A really healthy person is one who takes 50 per cent of his/her time to assimilate their experiences. 50 per cent action, 50 per cent inaction – that is the right balance. 50 per cent mental activity and 50 per cent meditation is the cure for today’s men and women.

Meditation, need of the hour

Meditation is the dire need for contemporary life and also humanity.

What is meditation? It is nothing but a time when you can relax utterly into yourself, and when you close the doors of your senses to outside stimulus. You are alone in your innermost being, relaxed, at home. In these moments, all that has become accumulated is assimilated and that which is worthless is thrown out. Meditation functions like a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it assimilates all that is nourishing. On the other, it throws out all that is junk.

But, you ask, who has time to meditate? People have to manage so many things that everybody feels the day is not long enough. In these changed times the concept of meditation has taken a summersault. Now, people need meditation techniques that can be woven into their daily routine, which means they should be able to meditate while doing their job.

Sounds impossible? Not at all, if you do it the Osho way.

Osho has changed the whole structure of meditation and has created hundreds of short but effective meditation techniques for busy people. These techniques can be practised while you are working, talking, walking, or doing any kind of activity. Because, basically meditation is not an activity, it is being aware of your activity. If you are watchful of your acts at physical, emotional and mental level, you are in meditation.

Meditation techniques for the busy

Here are some delightful and effective meditation techniques by Osho—for people who have everything, but time.

Razor’s edge

This can be done while you are booting the computer, waiting for the elevator, and so on.

This is literally a one-minute meditation. Hold your watch in front of you. Look at the second hand, witness its movement and try to go on witnessing it. You will find that you can watch for 2-4 seconds – and, the witness is gone, some other thought has come. Then you will be a witness for 4-5 seconds and forget again. In completing one minute you will lose it two, four, or 10 times. If you practise it every day, the span of your attention will increase. If you can watch the second hand for 60 seconds, you will feel integrated.

Rub your ear lobes

When you are feeling sad, worried, or angry, hold your ear lobes and rub them hard; there is no need to pierce the ears. You will find a change in your state of mind.

Warm hands, cool head

Physiologists agree that if you work with the hands, you can change the energy that moves from the head. Your right hand is joined with your left brain whereas your left hand is joined with your right brain.

Try this: whenever you feel that there is too much thinking, and you cannot stop it, rub both your hands fast, make them hot by rubbing, and suddenly you will feel the thinking has stopped, the energy is moving in the hands.

This is the best medicine for people who cannot sleep—better than any tranquilliser. Just close your eyes and rub your hands, and feel them getting warmer and warmer. Support it by your imagination – see how they are getting warmer in your mind’s eye. When the hands are warm, the head becomes cool. Now, you can sleep like a baby!

Throwing the bad mood

Breathing is a powerful tool we have, and it can be used intelligently for managing our emotions. If you are in a bad mood –

• Exhale deeply; as much as you can, throw the air out. With the air, the mood will be thrown out too, because breathing carries the mood. And, then expel the breath as far as possible. Contract the belly in; don’t inhale for a few seconds.
• Then, allow the body to inhale deeply – as much as you can. Again, stop for a few seconds. The gap should be the same as when you retain the breath out. Exhale totally and inhale totally, and make a rhythm.

You will feel a change immediately coming into your whole being. The mood will disappear and a new climate will enter you.

Gibberish and silence

This is a perfect method when the mind is too stressed and you can’t think coherently. Close your eyes and begin to make nonsensical sounds. Just speak any language that you don’t know! Allow yourself to express whatever needs to be expressed within you. Let your body express the accumulated stress, too. Imagine you are emptying a garbage can. After 10 minutes, sit silently. The relaxation and silence that follow will be magical.

Talk telegraphically

For one day, talk telegraphically. Use absolutely only the necessary words, as if you are sending a text message. Use only the essential words. Your words will have more power as you will be uttering them consciously, and the impact will be deep.

Last updated on 23^rd September 2019

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Normally, we presuppose that the other person is going to be difficult.

It all depends on how you think about it. If you set up a base that it is “conflict,” you will create conflict. You will create what you don’t want. Think of it as a magical opportunity of expanding yourself, possibility of being flexible, coming up with new creative solutions, then you don’t create the idea of it being a conflict. In all human communications, there are moments of tensions. If you shy away from that, that’s what you tend to create. Think of human relations as full of many different things. those moments when there isn’t an easy flow could be moments when you can learn the most, and come up with new ways of relating with people.

It works if you take the word conflict out. Imagine that your relationships are going to have moments of high energy and sometimes low energy. Then, it is not a problem.

Osho has a very good insight about conflict. He says, when we meet somebody, we carry a baggage of the history of that person. We are not fresh in the moment. We are responding to many previous stories about that person. So, it is not a meeting of two persons in the moment, it is a meeting of stories from history.

Difficult situations

I have some frames that are helpful in dealing with difficult situations. One frame is to say, “I am responsible for my relationships with people. If there are difficulties, what can I do to be more flexible?” The difficulties arise because one person says that the others are wrong and he is right. So, the other should change. That is usually the basis for conflict. If you say that I am responsible for my relating, and I don’t necessarily say that I am right, and others are wrong, I say I have my position and others have their positions, where can there be a meeting? There can be a point of view where we can come together as a shared value; after this a lot of difficulties can go away. It is important to learn how you can build this frame into your communication. And, that needs practice.

You can practice it by what frame of glasses you wear when you approach your relationships. What you do inside when you start relating to somebody can lead to difficulties or create possibilities. And, a lot of that literally is the belief you start with. If you believe that you are right and the other is wrong, very quickly you can get into difficulties. Each of us lives in his/her own unique world and there is no right or wrong. If you believe that you are right and the other believes that he is right, then the two rights hit each other and emotions come up quickly. Both feel hurt, offended and it does get into conflict and out of control.

Beliefs play a major part in beginning or ending conflicts. If you believe that there are no difficult people, it is you who has to be more flexible; the communication starts on a different level. If you step out of this belief and say that we are different, and meet and share values, then difficulties clear up.

Everybody has to see how I am creating the conflict before I have even gone to see this person. With awareness you will find that you have set up that s/he is going to be difficult, and s/he sure will be!

Communicate

The meaning of communication is the response that is created in the other. So, if you intend to be polite to somebody, you speak in a nice way, and yet they react in an angry way, you can either blame them or say “I was responsible for my communication. If I have to put a particular message across, I need to put it in a way that that person will understand. If they don’t understand it, all that it means is that the way I went about it is not appropriate. I drop the way I behave and do something else.” It is a great responsibility. It is important not to blame others and not to beat yourself.

Communication with people is a possibility of learning something new, developing new capabilities; time will come when what you call difficulties will be opportunities to learn. Instead of putting the energy in blaming others or blaming yourself, say, “Oh! It didn’t work, let me try another way.” When you have this attitude of learning, you develop more and more flexibility in human relationships.

Coloured tools

Imagine that you have many coloured glasses – wear yellow glasses for one mood, wear green ones for the other. Now, see how your vision changes. This is a very delightful game you can play with yourself. You will enjoy it secretly and nobody will know about it.

Try this

I want my boss to support my project, but whenever I approach him with this kind of demand, the answer is “No!” Now, the traditional way is to blame the boss. The new way will be to try to look at your own ways: What time I choose to approach him? How do I stand in front of his table? Can’t I ask him to come for coffee and approach in a more cordial atmosphere? So, you are now being creative about your own patterns of behaviour. Normally, if you look at your conflict it is the same old pattern repeated over and over again. Garbage in; garbage out. We keep doing the same thing; we keep getting the same response.

And, it’s the same situation with lovers. You normally find conflicts between lovers because it is the same physiology, same gestures, same words, same tone of voice. How could we do something different to get a different response?

But, I tell you, sometimes conflict is good! In relationships, sometimes, it is good not to use your communication skills. Have a good fight, instead. It cleanses the system!

So, the keys to good communication are: accepting yourself and others, rejoicing in your weakness, going beyond right and wrong, celebrating your own unique world, and allowing others to live in their world.

The post Be Flexible, Avoid Conflict appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

It seems there is a morbid satisfaction in imagining that they have big problems that cannot be resolved. First, they create misery mentally, and they somatise it – which means their psychological wound is translated into a physical wound. They start treating the physical ailment, forgetting completely that the origin is in their mind.

Tantra has a totally opposite approach. It is extremely life affirmative and asks people to look at the brighter side of things.

Osho has spoken extensively on the ancient Tantra treatise, Vigyan Bhirav Tantra. His vision is in tune with Tantra in terms of positive approach to life. There are 112 meditation techniques in Tantra that open the door to meditation. One of the beautiful and simple techniques is: Wherever satisfaction is found, in whatsoever act, actualise it.

It is so simple! You don’t have to own a Mercedes, or win the Nobel Prize, to feel satisfied. If your mind is not habituated to satisfaction, it will not feel satisfied even if you are made the king of the world.

Eternal satisfaction is about quality over quantity

Satisfaction is dripping through every moment of life, if you know the art of squeezing it. There are so many moments of gratification in a day. You feel thirsty, you drink water. Can anything match the satisfaction felt after the thirst is quenched? Tantra says, forget the water, forget the thirst—just remain with the subtle satisfaction that you are feeling. Be filled with it.

We wake up in the morning; a welcoming sun awaits us. We have a hot cup of tea; sipping the beverage gives us vibrations of satisfaction.

We go on missing satisfying moments because we are interested in quantity. We are interested in how to get more rich—in quantity, not in quality. We can have two houses and two cars, a big bank account, a collection of imported things.

Quantity changes: it becomes more and more. But, the quality of our mind remains the same. Basically, richness is not of things. Richness depends on the quality of the mind. If the mind that is earning knows how to enjoy the assets, it will enrich the quality of life. Even a poor man can be a rich man as far as quality is concerned. Likewise, even a rich man can be a poor man. Almost always this is the case, because a person concerned with things or quantity is totally unaware that a different dimension is there within him—the dimension of quality. And, that dimension changes only when the mind is positive.

Write it down

Try one experiment tomorrow: for the whole day, whenever you feel something beautiful, satisfactory, or something blissful, write it down. There are many moments in our day—be aware of it. You don’t notice them because the mind is bogged down by problems. The sun rises, the flowers open, the birds sing, and the breeze blows through the trees. A small child looks at you with innocent eyes, and a subtle feeling of bliss enters into you; or, someone smiles and you feel blissful.

Whenever you feel satisfied, verbalise it. Say loudly, “I am satisfied.” Or, may be, whisper to yourself, or sing that you are satisfied. Because, actualising satisfaction is like having a bouquet of fragrant roses in the room. Its fragrance permeates inside and outside of your being.

Last updated on 23^rd October 2019

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It is a less known fact that women love to be touched; and, relationships will be much juicier if men take some time to caress and stroke their partners without sex on their minds.

Osho has spoken in great detail about women’s orgasm and her needs.

Couples often asked him about their relationship problems, and he would come up with some novel insights. This helped them to see a different angle.

Message in a massage

As Osho once guided a man, “If you love and feel compassion for the other person, and feel the ultimate value of her; if you don’t treat her as if she is a mechanism to be put right, but an energy of tremendous value; if you are grateful that she trusts you and allows you to play with her energy — by and by, you will feel as if you are playing on an organ. The whole body becomes the keys of the organ and you can feel that a harmony is created inside the body. Not only will the person be helped, but you also.”

“Massage is needed in the world because love has disappeared. The very touch of lovers was enough at one time. A mother touched the child, played with his body, and it was massage. The husband played with the body of his woman, and it was massage; it was enough, more than enough. It was deep relaxation and part of love.”

“But, this has disappeared from the world. By and by, we have forgotten where to touch, how to touch, how deep to touch. In fact, touch is one of the most forgotten languages. We have become almost awkward in touching, because the very word has been corrupted by so-called religious people. They have given it a sexual colour. The word has become sexual and people have become afraid. Everybody is on guard, not to be touched unless s/he allows it.”

Touch is sublime

Because of our repressed sexuality, touch has become synonymous with sex. We cannot imagine a man touching a female body without any sexual motive. However, the interesting fact about a loving touch is that one who touches is equally nourished by the touch as the one who is being touched. This is a mystery of the spiritual world. The more you give, the more you get filled with fresh energy. Because, the energy comes from an inexhaustible source!

The art of touch flows with the total energy of the other. And, if the man will feel the fluidity of the body and the energy creating a new pattern of harmony, he will also feel a delight that he has never felt before. In other words, the giver and the receiver create an electric circle of energy, like yin and yang, merged into each other in an intimate embrace.

Health benefits

Scientists have found that stroking stimulates the brain which secretes a chemical called oxytocin. This slows the heart rate down. In stroking, women produce 20 per cent more oxytocin than normal. It is a calming hormone which produces effects, such as stimulating milk release during breastfeeding. Men and women both release it during orgasm

Touch messages are transmitted to our brain through a network of over 100 billion neurons. Once the brain receives the touch message, it has powerful effects. It stimulates the production of chemicals that provide physical good feelings, as well as good emotions by combining with certain hormones and enzymes in the blood.

Scientists have discovered that caressing a woman non-sexually can lower her blood pressure as much as prescription drugs. Regular stroking, researchers believe, can be viewed as an important part of a healthy lifestyle. The finding, however, holds good for women. As for men, stroking has no perceptible effect on their blood pressure

It has been found that animal lovers live a longer and healthier life because they caress their pets. This reduces their stress and blood pressure. It is a kind of a tonic for both the giver and the receiver. For the receiver, it is, of course, powerfully invigorating.

It is recommended that a man should stroke and caress his woman at least three times a day – may be, while listening to music, watching TV, or just talking. This will make a great difference and bring harmony to their relationship.

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Exasperated, you search the back of your bare cupboards and finally locate the ingredients for a cheese sandwich. What is at the root of your urge? A part of the answer lies in the brain’s reward system. This network of neurons, or nerve cells, is activated when we perform functions that help us stay alive, such as eating. It provides rewards and associated pleasurable feelings, which lead us to repeat the activity.

Scientists are researching the brain areas that release neurotransmitters called dopamine. Normally, when the brain experiences something pleasurable, it releases more dopamine.

Dopamine can be released not only by gross addictive substances like alcohol, or tobacco or caffeine; it can also be released by psychological addictions.

Shock absorber

Researchers have found that most abused drugs stimulate our brain system, and can even induce greater feelings of pleasure than natural functions. Addictions do not depend on the thing people are addicted to; it has something to do with the sensations in the brain, and that typical human desire to be unconscious. Yes, unconscious!

Life is so painful that a thick layer of unconsciousness is needed between us and the daily experiences of life – as a shock absorber. The latest data from inside the brain may offer a better idea of how the brain monitors its behaviour and how that monitoring system might go askew.

Neuroscientists Joshua Berke of Boston University and Steven Hyman of the National Institute of Mental Health, US, have found that a major part of addiction may be governed by the same brain systems involved in normal learning and memory. The fact is: researchers have always been fascinated by the complex structure of the brain, but in spite of more than half-a-century of research, they have not been able to nail down the cause of addiction and find a cure for it. The answer, perhaps, is not hidden in the brain. The brain is just a machine; it uses the mind as an apparatus to function in the world. And, there is consciousness behind this operation which makes the brain and the mind come alive. What we know about the brain, at this stage, is infinitesimal.

But, who knows, in the future, scientists may find a different kind of dopamine, the source of inner pleasure which is generated by meditation, relaxation and the joy of solitude!

Mystics have, of course, experienced it and called it the inner juice, or rasa.

Simple remedy

The remedy for all kinds of addictions may sound very simple, but it is effective. The remedy is active meditations. Active meditations are scientific methods devised by Osho for the modern man. They involve breathing, dancing, catharsis, and sounds – all integral parts of their structure. After you go through these exercises, silence and relaxation follow like a shadow. Once you find your own reservoir you need not hanker after a boost of energy through addictions.

According to Osho, all our compulsive habits are addictions. Whether it be addiction to learning, or misery, psychoanalysis, or spiritual experiences.

Relationships comprise a major part of our addictions. It is useful to watch closely whether you are addicted to your girlfriend or boyfriend, or you really love them.

It is only when you watch and act will you come to a deeper understanding of addiction.

Watch & act

What is most needed to beat addiction is creating a distance between our desires and ourselves. This distance can be created by being watchful in our activities. After doing active meditations, it is easier to watch the mind and bring more consciousness in small acts. The more we become conscious, the more happiness springs from within. It makes us self-sufficient. The constant need of the other and the outer is finished.

An unconscious mind keeps clinging to things outside of itself instead of finding the innate source of strength inside. To an average human being, it seems to be a natural tendency to cling to anything it experiences. With meditation one can be a master of oneself, and not necessarily be a slave of one’s habits. When the brain works as a whole, it imparts deeper coherence and synchronicity.

The remedy to each and every clinging is: watch with relaxed awareness. A watcher is always distanced from what it watches. Watching is something like standing in the balcony, and observing the traffic on the road.

As the watching grows roots, you are centred within and detached from the outside. Addiction ceases to have any hold over you, sooner than later.

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