The Mystic Rose
Meditation
Laughter, Tears, and Silence
This Osho Meditative Therapy has been
described as the most important new meditation since the creation of
Vipassana.
It has three steps. All are designed for a particular purpose: to bring out
all the poison from your being that has been injected by every generation for
centuries. Laughter is the first step. One of the great writers, Norman Cousins,
has just now written of his life-long experiment: that if he laughs for twenty
minutes without any reason, all his tensions disappear. His consciousness grows,
the dust disappears.
You will see it yourself; if you can laugh without
any reason, you will see something repressed within you... From your very
childhood you have been told not to laugh -- "Be serious!" You have to come out
of that repressive conditioning.
The second step is tears. Tears have
been repressed even more deeply. It has been told to us that tears are a symptom
of weakness -- they are not. Tears can cleanse not only your eyes, but your
heart too. They soften you, it is a biological strategy to keep you clean, to
keep you unburdened. It is now a well-known fact that less women go mad than
men. And the reason has been found to be that women can cry and weep more easily
than men. Even to the small child it is said, "Be a man, don't cry like a
woman!"
But if you look at the physiology of your body, you have the
same glands full of tears whether you are man or woman. It has been found that
less women commit suicide than men. And of course, no woman in history has been
the cause of founding violent religions, wars, massacres. If the whole world can
learn to cry and weep again it will be a tremendous transformation, a
metamorphosis.
The third step is silence. I have called it The Watcher
on the Hills. Become as silent as if you are alone on the top of an Himalayan
peak, utterly silent and alone, just watching, listening... sensitive, but
still.
Osho, This,
This, A Thousand Times This: The Very Essence of Zen, Chapter 1
I have chosen one of my therapists to create a new meditative therapy.
The first part will be Yaa-Hoo! ― for three hours, people simply laugh for no
reason at all. And whenever their laughter starts dying they again say,
"Yaa-Hoo!" and it will come back. Digging for three hours you will be surprised
how many layers of dust have gathered upon your being. It will cut them like a
sword, in one blow. For seven days continuously, three hours every day... you
cannot conceive how much transformation can come to your being.
And then
the second part is "Yaa-Boo." The first part removes everything that hinders
your laughter ― all the inhibitions of past humanity, all the repressions. It
cuts them away. It brings a new space within you, but still you have to go a few
steps more to reach the temple of your being, because you have suppressed so
much sadness, so much despair, so much anxiety, so many tears ― they are all
there, covering you and destroying your beauty, your grace, your joy.
In
old Mongolia they had an ancient idea that every life, whatever pain is
suppressed... and pain is suppressed, because nobody wants it. You don't want to
be painful so you suppress it, you avoid, you look somewhere else. But it
remains.
And the Mongolian idea was ― and I agree with it ― that life
after life it goes on accumulating in you; it becomes almost a hard shell of
pain. That's why all the saints and the sages have been telling you, shouting ―
"Go into yourself!" You listen to them, but you don't go. There is a reason why
you don't go: you know that going in, you have to encounter pain; going in, you
have to encounter misery, suffering, agony. It is better to remain outside ―
engaged, busy. Never be alone, because in your aloneness you may unconsciously
start moving inwards. Being alone, having nothing else to do you may start
looking inwards.
People have invented all kinds of things to escape from
themselves: they may smoke cigarettes.
Not that they need them. I have never
felt any need for cigarettes, so I cannot conceive that there is any necessity
for anybody to be so stupid. When pure air is available, he is making his
breathing full of poison, and he is paying for it! But there must be some
reason. Why do millions of people go on smoking? The reason is, it keeps you
occupied. Even if you are alone, it does not leave you unoccupied.
These
are devices of your mind. There are people who are chewing gum. Now what a
nonsense thing to do! ― chewing gum? Are you sane or insane? Can't you chew
anything else? No sane person can do this unnecessary exercise of chewing gum.
But it keeps you occupied, so millions of people are chewing gum.
All
your conversations, your so-called busyness is almost without any purpose,
without any business. But it helps just one thing: you don't come across
yourself. There is too much pain.
So you can listen to the sages, to the
awakened ones, and you can nod ― "You are right, but my time has not come yet.
Please forgive me; I have still to chew gum, I have still to smoke cigarettes.
You are great, you can drop these things. We are small people, how can we drop
cigarettes and chewing gum?"
Just see the stupidity of it all. But
behind the stupidity there must be some psychology and the psychology is:
anything that helps you to avoid yourself becomes useful. Football match,
volleyball, boxing...somebody else is doing it, you are just looking, but that
looking takes you away from your own inside.
If you go in you will find
both, laughter and tears. That's why sometimes it happens that by laughing,
suddenly you find tears also start coming together with it ― very confusing,
because ordinarily we think they are contrary. When you are full of tears it is
not a time to laugh, or when you are laughing it is not the right season for
tears. But existence does not believe in your concepts, ideologies. Existence
transcends all your concepts, which are dualistic, which are based on duality.
Day and night, laughter and tears, pain and blissfulness, they both come
together.
When a man reaches into his innermost being he will find the
first layer is of laughter and the second layer is of agony, tears.
So
for seven days you have to allow yourself to weep, cry, for no reason at all ―
just the tears are ready to come. You have been preventing them. Just don't
prevent, and whenever you feel they are not coming, just say, "Yaa-Boo!"
These are pure sounds, used as a technique to bring all your laughter
and all your tears and clean you completely, so that you can become an innocent
child.
This is absolutely my meditation.
You will be surprised
that no meditation can give you so much as this small strategy. This is my
experience of many meditations, that what has to be done is to break two layers
in you. Your laughter has been repressed; you have been told, "Don't laugh, it
is a serious matter." You are not allowed to laugh in a church, or in a
university class.
So the first layer is of laughter, but once laughter
is over you will suddenly find yourself flooded with tears, agony. But that too
will be a great unburdening phenomenon. Many lives of pain and suffering will
disappear. If you can get rid of these two layers you have found yourself.
Maneesha, there is no meaning in the words, `Yaa-Hoo' or `Yaa-Boo'.
These are simply techniques, sounds which can be used for a certain purpose to
enter into your own being.
And you may have felt it ― when you shout,
"Yaa-Hoo!" you may have felt a sudden breeze of freshness and joy.
I
don't want so many people to cry here; that's why I have not used the other
part. That is to be used in special groups.
I have invented many
meditations, but perhaps this will be the most essential and fundamental one. It
can take over the whole world. Already from every country news cuttings are
coming to me ― "What is this Yaa-Hoo!?" People are making up meanings of their
own, but it has taken over around the world. Now the second thing is Yaa-Boo!
And the whole process of Yaa-Hoo and Yaa-Boo, the couple, married...arranged
marriage!
Every society has done so much harm by preventing your joys
and your tears. If an old man starts crying you will say, "What are you doing?
You should feel ashamed; you are not a child, that somebody has taken your
banana and you are crying. Have another banana, but don't cry."
Just see
― stand on the street and start crying and a crowd will gather to console you:
"Don't cry! Whatever has happened forget all about it, it has happened." Nobody
knows what has happened, nobody can help you, but everybody will try ― "Don't
cry!" And the reason is that if you go on crying, then they will start crying,
because they are also flooded with.
Those tears are very close to the
eyes.
And it is a healthy thing to cry, to weep, to laugh. Now
scientists are discovering that crying, weeping, laughter, are immensely
healthful; not only physically but also psychologically, they are very much
capable of keeping you sane. The whole of humanity has gone a little cuckoo, for
the simple reason that nobody laughs fully because all around there are people
who will say, "What are you doing? Are you a child? ― at this age? What will
your children think? Keep quiet!"
If you cry and weep without any
reason, just as an exercise, a meditation...nobody will believe it. Tears have
never been accepted as meditation. And I tell you, they are not only a
meditation, they are a medicine also. You will have better eyesight and you will
have better inner vision.
I am giving you a very fundamental technique,
fresh and unused. And it is going to become worldwide, without any doubt,
because its effects will show anybody that the person has become younger, the
person has become more loving, the person has become graceful. The person has
become more flexible, less fanatic; the person has become more joyful, more a
celebrant.
All that this world needs is a good cleansing of the heart of
all the inhibitions of the past. Laughter and tears can do both. Tears will take
out all the agony that is hidden inside you and laughter will take all that is
preventing your ecstasy. Once you have learned the art you will be immensely
surprised: why has this not been told up to now? There is a reason: nobody has
wanted humanity to have the freshness of a rose flower and the fragrance and the
beauty.
I have called this series of lectures The Mystic Rose.
"Yaa-Hoo!" is the mantra to bring the mystic rose in your very center, to open
your center and release your fragrance. Your life becomes for the first time
significant, not just useful. Right now it is only useful ― you are a father,
useful. Without you what will your children do? You are a mother, useful; you
are a wife, useful ― without you what will your husband do? He may go astray.
He is already going astray, so you have to hang around! If the husband
is too joyous the wife cannot believe that he is joyful because of her. There
must be some other woman: "Just tell us, what is her name? Who is the other
woman? Why are you laughing!?"
The husband cannot cry, because the wife
will say, "What is the matter? I have been telling you continually, these love
affairs won't do. Has the woman gone, leaving you behind crying and weeping?"
Two old people appeared in the court, husband and wife ― the husband was
ninety-five years old, the wife ninety years old, and they wanted a divorce. The
magistrate could not believe it. He said, "My god, at this age! For what? How
long have you been married?" They said, "Who remembers? Maybe sixty years,
seventy years, but we cannot give you a certain date. It was long before."
The magistrate said, "If you have lived together so long that you cannot
even remember when you started living together, then why are you divorcing now?
If life was not good, and things were not going well, you should have appeared
before the court long ago!" The old man said, "We wanted to come, but the
children... Now all the children are dead, so we decided there is no point in
torturing each other. Now we should get a divorce: you torture somebody else if
you can find anybody; I will torture somebody else if I can find. Otherwise we
can be alone far better than we are together. Together we become so sad that
`This woman destroyed my life' or, `This man destroyed my life.' "
People
marry not because of love ― love knows no marriage, because love will not create
any contract. It is not business. Love knows no marriage because it is not
business, it is not law. It won't reduce the freedom of the other. If anything,
it will increase and enhance the freedom of the other.
Love cannot cut the
wings of the other. It will give you more wings, more skies, vast spaces to fly
and to be.
But that does not happen. Marriage is a utility. It is a need, it
is not a celebration. Everything in life has become so mundane, so burdensome,
but you don't know what else to do, where to go. Everybody is suffering his own
suffering. You cannot change places. Even if it were possible to change places
you would not change, because our own misery is at least ours and we are well
acquainted.
At a party one man was asked by his wife, "I hear that the
woman sitting over there is your mistress?"
The man did not want to create a
fuss in the party, so he whispered; he said, "Yes, everybody has mistresses
here, so don't make any trouble."
She said, "Then tell me who is whose
mistress?"
So he told her: "This man has that mistress, and his wife is
somebody else's mistress. Things are so puzzled..."
He told her about
everybody. The same women, the same men, but all have mistresses, all have
wives.
The woman looked at all of them and finally said, "But ours is the
best."
Her husband's mistress! It was an agony, but OURS...! "Others are
being more idiotic ― these horrible women... I know all of them."
Even the
agony, the pain becomes by and by an acquaintance, old and familiar. You cannot
part with it, you will miss it.
I have seen people missing their wives, just
after two or three days when the wife has gone to her parents. For two or three
days they are so joyful, but the fourth day they start missing the wife. And I
have said to my friends, "You always wanted to get rid of your wife. It is good
that she is prolonging her holiday ― enjoy!"
And what have I heard from my
friends? "Yes, it is true, when she is here I feel like killing her. But when
she goes somewhere else I feel so alone, that I go on writing letters and
sending telegrams and every day a phone call ― `Come back soon; without you,
life is not life!' "
Strange people! And when she comes then they want to
kill her. They don't kill, just because they know it is very risky. If there
were rewards for killing wives, I don't think you would find anybody who would
not participate in the competition. Afterwards they will cry and weep and they
will remember the golden days, but right now it is a nightmare.
The
whole of life has become just a utility: either you are an inspector, or you are
a police commissioner, or you are a minister, or you are a teacher ― just a
function which any robot can do.
The only thing that the robot cannot do
is meditation. In other words, I am saying that those who are not in meditation
are being robots, without being aware that they are just utilities, functions,
they are needed.
But a man of meditation for the first time realizes
that it does not matter whether he is needed or not ― he himself is a joy unto
himself. He himself is bliss, he does not depend on anybody to make him
blissful. That is the only freedom possible in the world. Otherwise everybody is
a slave.
I would like people to understand it absolutely that unless you
become blissful on your own accord, unless your rose opens within your own
being, you are just a commodity, just a thing, an object. Meditation reveals
your subjectivity. Subjectivity is your consciousness, and your consciousness
and its experience makes your life significant, meaningful, eternal, immortal,
without any beginning and without any end. A celebration, moment-to-moment a
dance.
And unless you have transformed your life into a moment-to-moment
dance you have missed the opportunity that existence gives you.
Osho, YAA-HOO!
The Mystic Rose, Chapter 30
