Question was asked to Osho – SAMYAMA AS THE SYNTHESIS OF CONCENTRATION, MEDITATION, AND SAMADHI. PLEASE EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SAMYAMA AND THE FINAL ENLIGHTENMENT.
HOW COME PATANJALI HAS NOT TALKED ABOUT CATHARSIS WHEREAS YOU STRONGLY EMPHASIZE CATHARSIS?
PLEASE EXPLAIN THE PREPARATORY ANTIDOTE FOR THE MISUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS.
HOW CAN ONE DIFFERENTIATE IF ONE IS UNDOING HIS PRARABDHA KARMA, DESTINY, OR ONE IS CREATING NEW KARMAS?
IF THE TIME FOR THE DEATH OF A PERSON IS FIXED BY SECONDS, DOES IT MEAN THAT MAN HAS NO FREEDOM TO DIE EARLIER OR PROLONG HIS LIFE SPAN?
First: “Please explain the difference between samyama and the final enlightenment” Don’t be worried about final enlightenment. And there is no way to explain it or even to describe it.
If you are really interested, I am ready to give you final enlightenment; but don’t ask for explanations about it. That is easier – to give it to you – rather than describe it. Because no description will do justice. Nobody has ever described it. Samyama can be described because samyama is the method. Enlightenment cannot be described; that happens out of samyama.
Samyama is like planting a seed, watering the plant and protecting the tree. Samyama is like that. Then come flowers, they bloom. It is difficult to say anything about the flowers. Everything can be said before the flower comes into being because everything else is just a method, technique.
I can talk to you about technique and methods. If you follow those techniques and methods, one day you will wake into enlightenment. That can happen just now, also, if you are ready to sacrifice yourself completely. What do I mean when I say sacrifice yourself completely? That means to surrender yourself completely.
If you allow me, it can happen right now because the light is burning within me. The flame can jump to you, but you don’t allow it. You are so defensive – as if you have something to lose. I can’t see that you have anything to lose. You have nothing to lose, but you are so defensive, as if treasures are hidden there and if you open your heart those treasures may be stolen. And there is nothing – just darkness, just the dirt of many, many Lives.
If you open to me, if you become vulnerable to me, you sacrifice yourself; and unless a disciple sacrifices himself to the Master, the contact has not been made. And the sacrifice has to be utter; you cannot withhold anything. If you are ready for enlightenment, then don’t waste time: sacrifice yourself utterly. Become vulnerable to me.
Difficult. One feels lost. One feels, where is one going? One feels as if all of one’s treasures are being taken away. And there is nothing – no treasure – even if you are not there to be lost. And one who is there cannot be lost. The one that can be lost is not you; that which cannot be lost is you. By becoming vulnerable you will lose something, that is your ego; you will lose something, but you will not lose yourself. In fact by losing all else you will for the first time attain your authentic being.
So don’t ask about final enlightenment. Buddha has said, “Buddhas can only indicate the path; nobody can tell you.” I can show you the water, but don’t ask me how it feels when water quenches the thirst. How can I tell you? The water is here. Why not taste it? Why not drink it? Drink me, and let your thirst be quenched. Then you will know how it is, how it feels – it is a feeling, and there is no way to describe it. It is like love: if you have fallen in love, you know what it is; but if somebody asks what is love, you will get puzzled.
There is a famous saying of Augustine: “I know what time is, but when somebody asks me, ‘What is time?’ suddenly I don’t know.” You also know what time is, and if somebody asks you, it will be difficult to say.
I have heard about one Russian, Leo Tolstoy, a great novelist. He was in London, and he didn’t know much English, and he wanted to know what time it is, so he asked a gentleman, “Please, tell me, what is time?” The Englishman shrugged his shoulders, and he said, “Go and ask some philosopher.” What is time? You can say, “What is the time?” but you cannot say, “What is time?” You know, you feel it, because you live in time. Continuously it is there and passing, passing by you. You live in time as a fish lives in water, but even a fish cannot define what water is.
In fact I have heard a story that once a philosophic fish became very much worried because she heard the talk, too much talk, about the ocean, and she had never come across it. So she was meditating. The king fish came and looked at the fish, and he thought that there seemed to be some trouble, she was very much worried. So the king fish asked, “What is the matter with you? What has gone wrong?” And the fish said, “I am very much worried – I want to know what this ocean is. So much talk about it and I never come across it.” And the king fish laughed and said, “You fool, you are in it!”
But when something is so close, it is difficult to know. You never come across it. You are – in time, but you never come across it; you cannot grasp it. Becomes difficult to define it.
You are in God: it becomes difficult to define God. You are in enlightenment already! Just a turning, just a clarity, a recognition, a remembrance. That’s why I say I am ready to give it to you: because it is already there. Nothing is to be done.
Just if you allow me to hold your hand for a while.
The second thing: “How come Patanjali has not talked about catharsis whereas you strongly emphasize catharsis?”
Let me tell you one anecdote:
A staggering drunk stopped a passerby and asked the time. The passerby looked at his watch and told him.
The drunk looked bewildered, and shook his head. “I just can’t work it out,” he said drunkenly. “All night I have been getting different answers.”
All night! When you start thinking about me and Patanjali, remember the difference of five thousand years. And all night you have been getting different answers?
When Patanjali was here on the earth, man was a totally different being. A totally different quality of humanity existed. Catharsis was not needed. People were primitive, simple, childlike. A child does not need catharsis; an old man needs. A child has not accumulated anything.
Watch a child. When a child is angry he becomes angry – he jumps, screams, yells. And then the anger is gone and he is smiling and he has forgotten – he has been through catharsis. When he is loving, he comes and hugs you and kisses you. And he is not worried about etiquette and manners and things like that. And you are also not worried; you say, “He is a child, yet not civilized” – that is, yet not poisoned, yet not educated; that is, yet not conditioned.
When the child wants to scream he screams. He lives in total freedom; there is no need for catharsis.
He is already every moment throwing whatsoever comes up; he never accumulates. But an old man?
The same child will become old after fifty, sixty, seventy years; he has accumulated too much. When he wanted to be angry, he could not be.
There are a thousand and one situations when you would like to be angry but you cannot be – it is “uneconomical,” or “financial]y dangerous.” When your boss yells at you, you go on smiling. You would like to kill him, but you go on smiling. Now what will happen to the anger that has arisen? It will be repressed.
The same happens in the life of a society. Patanjali was here when people were primitive. If you go to interior parts of India, where primitive tribes still exist, they will not need the Dynamic Meditation, remember. They will laugh at you; they will say, “What?… What are you doing? What is the point?” Every night after the day’s work is over they dance, they dance to orgasm. Twelve, one o’clock in the night, they will continue dancing with their drums, primitive, with great energy, with ecstasy. And then they will fall asleep under the trees. And the whole day their work is such… chopping wood; then how can you collect anger inside you? They are not clerks in an office. They are not yet civilized.
They live life as it comes by. Chopping wood they become nonviolent – they need not any Mahavir to teach them. They do not need any philosophy of Jainism to be nonviolent.
Yes, a businessman needs a philosophy of nonviolence; that’s why all the Jains are businessmen.
Just sitting on the gaddi the whole day, smiling and smiling. Hmm?… One gets almost crazy. Then one needs a philosophy of nonviolence to keep oneself in control. Otherwise one will jump on anybody – for no excuse, for no reason. But when a man is chopping wood, what need does he have for any philosophy of nonviolence? When he comes home he has thrown violence so completely, he is nonviolent.
That’s why Patanjali never talked about catharsis. It was not needed. Society was just in the childhood stage. People were childlike, innocent; they were living their life without any repression.
Catharsis is needed when repression enters into the human mind. The more repressive a society, the more cathartic methods will be needed. Then you will have to do something to bring it out.
And I tell you it is better to do Dynamic Meditation than to throw your anger on somebody else, because if you throw it on somebody else, your sanchita karma will become bigger and bigger. If you throw it in a Dynamic Meditation, your sanchita karma is being emptied. You are not throwing at anybody. You are simply angry – not at anybody. You are simply yelling – not against anybody. You are simply crying. This simple crying, yelling, screaming, being angry, violent, cleanses you; and it creates no chain in the future.
So what Patanjali says about samyama, I will make catharsis also a part of it; because I am not worried about Patanjali. I am worried about you – and I know you well. If you don’t throw it to the sky, you will throw it on somebody somewhere; and then it will create a chain of karma.
Catharsis is a must for days to come. The more man will become civilized, the more catharsis will be needed.
The third thing in the question: “Please explain the preparatory antidote for the misuse of psychic powers.”
The only antidote for the misuse of psychic powers is love; otherwise power corrupts. All power corrupts. It may be wealth, it may be prestige, it may be politics, or it may be psychic – it makes no difference. Whenever you feel powerful, if you don’t have love as an antidote, your power is going to become a calamity to others, a curse; because power blinds the eyes. Love opens the eyes, love cleanses the eyes… your perception becomes clear. Power clouds.
Let me tell you one anecdote:
A wealthy miserly man never gave to the needy. His rabbi asked him to help a poor family in need of food and medicine. He refused.
The rabbi handed him a mirror and said, “Look into this. What do you see?”
He said, “I see my face in it, nothing else.”
“Now,” replied the rabbi, “look through that window. What do you see?”
He said, “I see men and women. I see two lovers engrossed in each other. And children playing. Why? Why do you ask me?”
“You answered your own question,” replied the rabbi. “Through the window you looked at life; in the mirror you saw yourself. A mirror is of glass, like the window, but coated on the back with silver. As this silver concealed your view of life, you saw only yourself; so has your silver, your wealth, concealed all else from your sight so you see and think of yourself.”
The rich man hung his head. “You are right,” he said. “I have been blinded by silver.”
But all power blinds. Whether it is of silver or gold or psychic achievement, all power blinds. Then you go on seeing only yourself. Hence Patanjali’s insistence, the moment samyama is achieved, immediately – bring friendliness, love. Let that be the first thing after samyama, so your whole energy becomes a flow of love, of sharing, so whatsoever you have you go on sharing. Then there is no possibility of any misuse.
Tags: No Way To Explain Patanjali
