Baron And Chrysanthemums

Choicelessly Watchful

For a Jain monk, to take a bath is an obsession. People who are taking baths every day once or twice are obsessive; they are too much concerned about their body, body-oriented. The Jaina monk condemns them. The Jaina monk does not take a bath. Jaina monks used to come to see Osho. It was really a difficult time for him – they stink! But they think they are doing great austerity.

According to them, you are too much, concerned about your body odor, about your breath, about your teeth. And this is materialism, and they are spiritual people! But except a Jaina, nobody will think that these are obsessive things.

Remember one thing: that obsessions differ from society to society, from country to country, from religion to religion. What is really obsession? Anything that becomes a dominating force upon you, that dominates you, that becomes master of your being. Anything that reduces you into a slave, that’s my definition of an obsession.

Watch it, meditate. Be, silently with it, because that is how you will become master again. Silence makes you a master of everything. Don’t fight, and don’t become identified. If you become identified you are mad. If you fight you are mad from the other extreme.

If you want to become ANYTHING in your life, that is obsession. It is not a question only of becoming: if you want to become the president of a country or the prime minister or sannyasin, it is the same. There are people who are obsessed with the idea that they will not take any rest unless they become the president. And then they are at a loss when they become the president; they don’t know what to do now because all that they know is how to become the president. Their whole life they have devoted to a single purpose: how to become the president. Now they have become the president and they are certainly at a loss; they don’t know what to do.

There are people who want to become rich; they become rich. If you persist you can fulfill any kind of stupidity. Man has immense powers. Yes, you can become rich if you persist; nobody can prevent you. But then? Then you are suddenly empty. Then suddenly you find yourself without any goal, lost.

All obsessive people, when their obsessions are fulfilled, will feel lost. If you become identified with an obsession, sooner or later you will feel lost. If it is fulfilled you will be the loser; if it is not fulfilled, certainly you are the loser.

The other way is to repress it, to throw it into the basement of your being, somewhere deep in the unconsciousness, so you don’t come across it. But it goes on growing there, and it goes on affecting you and your behavior; it goes on pulling your strings from the back. And the enemy is more powerful when it is hidden. You don’t see it, but still you have to follow its dictates – it becomes a dictator.

Both extremes have to be avoided. That’s what Buddha also would have suggested: Be exactly in the middle, watchful, choicelessly watchful. Neither choose to be identified nor choose to be repressive. Just see. It is a fact of your psychic life, whatsoever it is. Don’t say good, bad, XYZ – whatsoever it is, watch it. And see the tremendous power of watchfulness: how it transforms wounds into flowers, how it releases entangled energy knots into great forces, positive forces, nourishing forces.