Music Is Meditation

Question to Osho – MY BODY IS EXTRAORDINARILY ILL – ROGI. MY MIND IS SCIENTIFICALLY INDULGENT – BHOGI. MY HEART IS APPROXIMATELY YOGI. NEARING TO CHILD’S TOTALITY OF ACTION, NONPOLITICALNESS, INNOCENT AND TRUTH LOVING, ARE THERE ANY CHANCES OF ENLIGHTENMENT FOR ME IN THIS LIFE? GUIDE ME AND EXPEDITE MY CASE FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD. PREPARED FOR THE WORST, I HOPE FOR THE BEST.

Osho replied – The body is helpful if it is healthy, but it is not an absolute condition – helpful, but not absolutely necessary. If you can drop the identity with the body, if you start feeling that you are not the body, then it doesn’t matter whether the body is ill or healthy. If you start going beyond it, transcending it, becoming a witness to it, then even in an ill body the enlightenment is possible.

I am not saying that you should all go and become ill. If you are ill then don’t feel desperate, then don’t feel hopeless. A healthy body is helpful. It is easier to go beyond a healthy body than beyond an ill body because the ill body needs attention. It is difficult to forget an ill body. It constantly reminds you of its misery and pain and illness. It constantly calls you back to it. It needs care; it needs no attention. It is difficult to forget it – and if you cannot forget it, it is difficult to go beyond it. But difficult – I don’t say impossible.

So don’t be worried by it. If you feel it is ill, chronically ill, and there is no way to make it healthy, forget to shout it. You will have to make a little more effort, a little extra effort, to gain witnessing, but it can be gained.

Mohammed was not very healthy. Buddha was constantly ill; he had to always carry a physician with him. Jeevak was the name of the physician who constantly had to attend to Buddha. Shankara died when he was thirty-three. That shows the body was not in very good condition; otherwise he would have lived a little longer. Thirty-three is not the time to die. So don’t be worried; don’t make it a hindrance.

Secondly, you say, “My mind is scientifically indulgent – bhogi.” If it is really scientifically indulgent then you can come out of it. Only an unscientific mind can go on repeating the stupidity of indulgence. If you are really a little alert, scientifically observant, then sooner or later you will come out of it – because how can you go on repeating?

For example, sex. Nothing bad in it, but to go on repeating it for your whole life shows that you are a little stupid. I don’t say there is some sin in it – no. It simply shows that you are a little stupid. The religions have been telling you that sex is sin. I don’t say so. It is simply foolishness. Allowed, nothing wrong in it, but if you are intelligent you will come out of it – one day or other. Greater the intelligence, sooner the day will come when you will understand that, “Yes, it’s okay. It has a time, it has a meaning at a certain stage of life, but then one comes out of it.” It is a little childish.

Let me tell you a story: Two elderly people were appearing in court suing for divorce. The man was ninety-two and the woman was eighty-four. The judge spoke first to the man, “How old are you?”

“Ninety-two, Your Honor.”

Then he spoke to the woman.

“I am eighty-four,” she admitted shyly.

Said the judge to the man, “How long have you two been married?”

“Sixty-seven years,” grimaced the old-timer.

“And you mean you actually want to terminate a marriage that has lasted almost seventy years?” demanded the judge unbelievingly.

The old man shrugged and said, “Look, Your Honor, whichever way you look at it, enough is enough.”

Whichever way you look at it…. If you are intelligent you will not wait for ninety-two years – enough is enough will come sooner. The more intelligent you are, the sooner it will come. Buddha left the world of indulgence when he was just young. His first child was born, and the first child was only one day old when he left. Enough is enough came to him too early. He was really a very, very intelligent man. The more intelligence is there, the sooner the point of transcendence.

So if you think you are really scientific, it is time – old-timer – to understand enough is enough.

And you say, “My heart is approximately yogi.” Approximately? That is not the language of the heart. Approximately is the language of the mind. The heart knows only totality – this way or that. Either all or none – the heart does not know anything like approximately. Just go to a woman and tell her, “I love you approximately.” Then you will know.

How can you love approximately? What does it mean in fact? That you don’t love.

No, the heart still doesn’t seem to function. You may have heard a rumor from the heart, but you have not understood it. The heart is always total. For or against does not matter, but it is always total. The heart knows no division; all divisions are of the mind.

The body is ill, there is no problem. A little more effort, that’s all. The mind is in indulgence, there is also not much problem. Sooner or later you will understand and come out of it. But the real problem comes with the third; approximately won’t do. So look again, deep in your heart. As deep as you can, watch.

Allow the heart to say and whisper to you. If the heart really loves yoga – yoga means the search, the effort to find out what is the truth of life – if really the heart has moved on the search- then nothing can prevent it.

Neither indulgence will be a barrier nor illness will be a barrier. The heart can override any situation; the heart is the real source of your energy. Listen to the heart. Trust the heart. And move with the heart. And don’t be worried about enlightenment, because that worry is also of the mind; The heart knows nothing about the future; it lives here now. Search, meditate, love, be here-now; and don’t be worried about enlightenment. It comes on its own accord. Who bothers?

If you are ready it is to come. If you are not ready, thinking constantly about it will not make you ready. In fact, that thinking will function as an obstacle. So forget about enlightenment and don’t be worried whether or not it is going to happen in this life.

Whenever you are ready it will happen. It can happen this moment. It depends on your readiness. Whenever the fruit is ripe it falls to the ground. Ripeness is all. So don’t create unnecessary problems around yourself. Enough. You have illness, that is a problem. Indulgence, that is a problem. Approximate love for yoga and enlightenment, that is a problem. Now no more problems. Please, don’t bring this enlightenment in. Forget about it. It has nothing to do with you and your thinking and your expectations, with your hopes or desires. It has nothing to do with them. Whenever you are desireless and ready and the fruit is ripe, it happens on its own accord.

Another question – WHEN YOU DIE? CAN YOU MAKE ME DIE TOO?

I am ready right now to help you. Why wait that long? Why – postpone it?

And if you miss me while I am alive, how can you get to me when I am dead? If you cannot flow with me while I am here with you, it will become very, very difficult for you when I am gone. Why postpone?

You are thirsty and I am ready to quench it right now, then why say tomorrow?

Why are you afraid? And if you are afraid today, you will be afraid tomorrow.

You will be more afraid tomorrow because today’s fear will have gathered. Every day you will go on gathering fear. Drop it. The very readiness to die is the readiness to be reborn.

I am reminded of a very beautiful story. I would like to share it with you: Three tortoises, aged 201, 135, and 97, decided to go on a pub-crawl in London.

They first visited the Star and Garter. A fortnight later they reached the next pub.

Just as they were going in, the oldest one said, “Oh, dear. I left my wallet back at the other pub.” The youngest of the three said, “You are too old to go all the way back. I will fetch it for you.” And he went off. Ten days later, just as the two older tortoises reached the bar rail, one of them said, “Young Arnold has been a heck of a long time fetching your money.” The other said, “Just like him. He is absolutely unreliable and terribly slow.”

A voice from the doorway suddenly said, “Damn the pair of you! Just for that I won’t go!” Don’t be that lazy, and don’t go on postponing.

Another question – WHENEVER I AM NEAR YOU L FEEL TENSE, AND I APPARENTLY SEE THREE REASONS FOR THE SAME. FIRST; I FEEL I AM BEING TESTED AND SO I HAVE TO REMAIN ALERT. SECONDLY: I HAVE RECEIVED SO VERY TREMENDOUSLY FROM YOU THAT IN RETURN I WOULD LIKE TO GIVE SOMETHING ALSO AND THAT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE. AND THIRDLY: EVEN SO, I FEEL I STILL HAVE TO RECEIVE SOMETHING FROM YOU AND I AM AFRAID OF MISSING IT.

Osho replied – All the three reasons are true, and I am happy that he is alert and aware and can see into things. Yes, all the things are true.

Whenever he is near me, I also feel that he is a little nervous, a little trembling inside. And these are the reasons. And it is good; it is nothing wrong. One has to be that way.

If you start feeling my presence, then you can see the gap. Then much has to be bridged. One starts feeling nervousness, whether it will be possible or not. I am giving you much, and the more you receive, the more you become capable of receiving more; and the very possibility that more has to be received creates a nervousness, because it is a responsibility. Growth is a responsibility. It is the greatest responsibility there is… and then the fear that maybe the opportunity comes and you miss it. And, right, when I give to you, immediately your heart says give something in return, and that is impossible. That I understand. What can you give… except yourself?

All the three; causes are true, and it is good that one becomes aware.

Sannyasin asked – PLEASE TALK ABOUT MUSIC AND MEDITATION.

Osho replied – They are not two. Music is meditation – meditation crystallized in a certain dimension. Meditation is music – music melting into the dimensionless. They are not two.

If you love music, you love it only because around it somehow you feel meditation happening. You are absorbed by it, you become drunk in it.

Something of the unknown starts descending around you… God starts whispering. Your heart beats in a different rhythm, one in tune with the universe. Suddenly you are in a deep orgasm with the whole. A subtle dance enters into your being and doors that have remained closed forever start opening. A new breeze passes through you; dust of the centuries is blown away.

You feel as if you have taken a bath, a spiritual bath; you have been under a shower – clean, fresh, virgin.

Music is meditation; meditation is music. These are two doors to approach the same phenomenon.