Osho on French Psychologist Emile Coue Emile Coue was a French psychotherapist and pharmacist in the 19th-20th century. He developed a noted method of psychotherapy and self-improvement through repetition, auto-suggestion, and the placebo effect. His method, or Coueism as it is called, essentially consists of repeating a mantra - “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better”. This method of self-suggestion and healing proved to be effective for many of his patients in group therapies.&nbsp; Coue laid the foundation of his therapy when he observed the placebo effect on the patients of his pharmacy, and moved forward by studying the work of Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault and Hippolyte Bernheim on hypnosis. He believed that a behavior change required a shift in our unconsciousness and thus began his work. He wrote a book titled Self-Mastery through Conscious Autosuggestion (1920) and founded The Lorraine Society of Applied Psychology in 1913. Osho mentions Coue, “Emile Coue discovered, just in this century, the law of reverse effect. Patanjali must have known it, almost five thousand years before. He says prayatna shaithilya, relaxation of the effort. You should have assumed just the reverse: that very much effort should be made to attain to the posture. And Patanjali says, "If you make too much effort it will not be possible. No-effort allows it to happen." Effort should be relaxed completely, because effort is part of the will and will is against surrender. If you try to do something, you are not allowing God to do it. When you give up, when you say, "Okay, let thy will be done. If you are sending sleep, perfectly good. If you are not sending sleep, that too is perfectly good. I have no complaints to make; I am not grumbling about it. You know better. If it is needful to send sleep for me, send. If it is not needful, perfectly good -- don't send it. Please, don't listen to me! Your will should be done": this is how one relaxes effort.”<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="width:100%;height:1px;background:#00000036;margin:10px 0;"></div></div>A FEW THINGS before we enter this sutra of Sosan. In the West, just a few years back, there was a French hypnotist, Emile Coue -- he happened to rediscover one of the basic laws of the human mind. He called it "the law of reverse effect" -- that is one of the oldest sutras in Taoist and Zen thinking. Sosan is talking about this law. Try to understand this law, then his sayings will be simple to understand. For example, if you don't feel sleepy what will you do? You will try to get into sleep -- you will make efforts, you will do this and that, but whatsoever you do will bring just the reverse; just that which you need will not come. Just the opposite will happen, because any activity, any effort, is against sleep. Sleep is a relaxation. You cannot bring it, you cannot do anything for it to happen. You cannot force it, you cannot will it -- it is not a part of your will at all. It is moving into the unconscious and your will is just a fragment of the conscious. When you move into the unconscious, towards the depth, that fragment which is consciousness, that fragment which is will, is left on the surface. You cannot take your surface to the depth, you cannot take your circumference to the center. So when you make efforts to go into sleep, it is a self-destructive thing. You are doing something which will become just the opposite -- you will become more awake.&nbsp; The only way to enter into sleep is: not to do anything. If it is not coming, it is not coming. Wait... don't do anything! Otherwise you will push it further away and a distance will be created. Just wait on the pillow, put off the light, close your eyes, relax and wait. Whenever it comes, it comes. You cannot bring it by any act of your will -- will is against the unconscious. And this happens in many things in life: just the opposite comes out of it. If you want to be silent, what will you do? -- because silence is just like sleep. You cannot force it. You can allow it to happen, it is a let-go, but there is no way to work it out. What will you do if you want to be silent? If you do anything you will be less silent than ever. If you want to be quiet, what will you do? -- because quietness means non-doing. You simply float, you simply relax! And when I say simply relax, I MEAN simply. No method is to be used for relaxation, because method means again you are doing something. There is a book; the title of it is YOU MUST RELAX! And 'must' is just against relaxation; the 'must' should not be brought in, otherwise you will become more tense. This law was discovered by Emile Coue, and he said, "Let things happen, don't force them." There are things which can be forced -- all that belongs to the conscious mind can be forced. But there are things which cannot be forced. All that belongs to the unconscious, to your depth, cannot be forced. It happens many times: you are trying to remember a name or a face and it is not coming, but still you feel it is just on the tip of your tongue. The feeling is so deep that you feel it is going to come and you try to bring it. And the more you try, the more it is not coming. You even become suspicious whether the feeling is true or not. But you feel -- your whole being says it is there, just on the tip of your tongue. But why is it not coming if it is on the tip of your tongue? It will not come. Do whatsoever you want to do, it will not come. Then you get frustrated, then you feel hopeless, then you drop the whole project. You go in the garden, you start working in the garden, or you start reading the newspaper, or you put on the radio and listen to music -- and suddenly it pops up. What happened? It belonged to the unconscious, it was deep in you. And the more you tried, the narrower you became; and the more you tried, the more the unconscious was disturbed. It became a chaos, then everything became unsettled. It was there just on the tip, but because you were too active to bring it out... you were using will, and will cannot bring anything out of your depth. Only surrender brings it, only when you let go. So when you went into the park or into the garden, started reading the newspaper, digging a hole in the earth, listening to the music, you forgot about the whole project... suddenly it is there. This is the law of reverse effect. With the unconscious, remember, will is of no use -- not only of no use, it is also dangerous, harmful. Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Bodhidharma, Sosan -- they are the Masters of this law of reverse effect. And this is the difference between Yoga and Zen. Yoga makes every effort and Zen makes no effort, and Zen is truer than any Yoga. But Yoga appeals, because as far as you are concerned doing is easy -- howsoever hard, but doing is easy. Non-doing is difficult. If someone says, "Don't do anything," you are at a loss. You again ask, "What to do?" If someone says, "Don't do anything," that is the most difficult thing for you. It should not be so if you understand. Non-doing does not require any qualification. Doing may require qualification, doing may require practice. Non-doing requires no practice. That's why Zen says enlightenment can happen in a single moment -- because it is not a question of how to bring it, it is a question of how to allow it. It is just like sleep: you relax and it is there, you relax and it pops up. It is struggling within your heart to come up. You are not allowing it because you have too much activity on the surface. Have you ever noticed the fact that almost ninety percent of children are born in the night, not in the day? Why? It should be fifty-fifty. Why do they choose the night more? And ninety percent! Because the mother is unconscious, in a let-go. She is sleeping and the child can come out easily. If she is aware, she will make effort and the law of reverse effect will be there. When the mother is awake, she will make every effort so that she goes beyond the pain and the thing is finished, the child is born. And every effort is a barrier; she is putting up hindrances. The more she tries, the narrower becomes the passage, and the child cannot come out. In primitive societies mothers have no pain when they give birth to a child, not at all, no pain. And this is a miracle. When for the first time Western medical science discovered this -- that there are still primitive societies where the mothers have no pain at all -- they could not believe it. How is it possible? Then many experiments were tried, many research projects, and it was found that it is because they are unconscious. They live like wild animals; there is no fight, no struggle, no forcing. They don't will anything, they simply float. They are primitive, they don't have a very conscious mind. The more civilized, the more you have a conscious mind. The more civilized, the more your will is trained, and your unconscious goes further and further, deeper, and there exists a gap. If something is to be done, howsoever difficult, you can find the know-how, how to do it. You can learn the technique; there are experts, you can be trained. But in Zen nobody can be trained. In God there are no experts and no authorities -- cannot be, because it is not a question of know-how, it is a question of relaxing into your being, not doing. The greatest thing will happen to you only when you are not there. And if you are doing something you are bound to be there. Sleep comes when you are not there. Enlightenment also follows the same rule -- it comes when you are not there. But when you are doing, how will you be absent at the same time? If you are doing something you will be there. Action feeds the ego. When you are not doing anything the ego cannot be fed. It simply disappears, it dies, it is not there. And when the ego is not there, the light descends. So whatsoever you are doing willfully will be the barrier.&nbsp; In my meditations here, do them, but not willfully. Don't force them; rather, let them happen. Float in them, abandon yourself in them. Be absorbed, but not willfully. Don't manipulate, because when you manipulate you are divided, you become two: the manipulator and the manipulated. Once you are two, heaven and hell are created immediately; then there is vast distance between you and the truth. Don't manipulate, allow things to happen. If you are doing the kundalini meditation, allow the shaking -- don't DO it! Stand silently, feel it coming, and when your body starts a little trembling, help it, but don't DO it! Enjoy it, feel blissful about it, allow it, receive it, welcome it, but don't WILL it. If you force, it will become an exercise, a bodily physical exercise. Then the shaking will be there, but just on the surface. It will not penetrate you. You will remain solid, stonelike, rocklike within. You will remain the manipulator, the door, and the body will only be following. The body is not the question, YOU are the question. When I say shake, I mean your solidity, your rocklike being should shake to the very foundations, so it becomes liquid, fluid, melts, flows. And when the rocklike being becomes liquid your body will follow. Then there is no shaker, only shaking; then nobody is doing it, it is simply happening. Then the doer is not. Enjoy it, but don't will it. And remember, whenever you will a thing you cannot enjoy it. They are reverse, opposites; they never meet. If you will a thing you cannot enjoy it, If you enjoy it you cannot will it. For example, you can will your love. You can do it according to the manuals, but then you will not enjoy it. If you enjoy it you will have to throw all manuals, all Kinseys and Masters and Johnsons -- you have to throw them all. You have to forget completely about all that you have learned about love. In the beginning you will be at a loss, because there are no guidelines, no maps. How to start? Just wait... and let your inner energy move, and follow that energy wherever it leads. It may take a little time, but when love comes it overtakes you. You are no more there. Love is there but there is no lover.&nbsp; Love happens as an energy, but it has no ego within it. Then it is tremendous, then it is a great release. And then love becomes an ecstasy, and you know something that has been known to those who have come to the divine. You know a fragment of it, a drop of the ocean. You know a ray -- and then the taste comes to you. Meditation, God, enlightenment, nirvana, they all came into being through love, because through love a glimpse was achieved. And when the glimpse was there, daring souls went on an adventure to find the source from where this glimpse comes. Through love, God has been discovered. That's why Jesus goes on saying... whenever somebody asks, "What is God?" he says, "God is love," because through love the first glimpse comes. But the process is the same: you cannot will love. If you will, the whole beauty is lost, the whole thing becomes mechanical. You go through the whole ritual, but nothing happens. There is no ecstasy -- it is something to be done and be finished. It never reaches to your center, it never shakes your foundations, it never becomes an inner dance. It is not a throbbing of your being, it is just an act on the periphery. Remember, love cannot be willed, and neither can meditation. Throw all knowledge, because knowledge is needed only when you have to do something. When you don't have to do anything, what knowledge is needed? You don't need any knowledge. You need just to have a feel, a knack -- how to drop, how not to be. And when I say 'how' I don't mean technically, when I say 'how' I don't mean that you have to know a technique. You have simply to search for it. Two things I will suggest which will be helpful. One is sleep: try to find out how sleep happens, how you fall into sleep. You may have a ritual but that ritual is not creating sleep, it helps. Everybody has a ritual. Small children have their rituals, a particular posture. Every child has his own posture. He may take his thumb in his mouth... It does not give you sleep, but it helps for that child -- he has found his own ritual. If YOU follow that child you will not fall into sleep. And the same is the case with all techniques of meditation -- everybody finds his own ritual. It helps because it gives you a climate. You put off the light, you have a certain incense burning in the room, you have a certain type of pillow, a certain height, softness. You have a certain type of rug, you have a certain posture. This all helps, but this is not a cause of it. If somebody else follows it, this may become the hindrance. One has to find one's own ritual. A ritual is simply to help you to be at ease and wait. And when you are at ease and waiting, the thing happens. Just like sleep comes God to you, just like love comes God to you. You cannot will it, you cannot force it. And your whole life has become a problem because you have learned too much how to do things. You have become very efficient in mechanical things because they can be done, but you have become absolutely inefficient in human things, because they cannot be learned and they cannot be technically done; you cannot become efficiency experts in them.&nbsp; Whenever there is a mechanical thing to do there can be a training place for it, but consciousness cannot be trained. And you go after gurus, this and that, to find some technique, some mantra, so that you become enlightened... There is no mantra which can make you enlightened. This is the mantra: Sosan says that you will have to become more understanding -- less will, more let-go; less effort, more effortlessness; less doing of the conscious, more swimming in the unconscious. Source: Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link. Discourse Series: <a href="the-book-of-nothing-hsin-hsin-ming-02" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing, Chapter #2</a> Chapter title: The way is perfect 22 October 1974 am in Buddha Hall References: Osho has spoken on notable Psychologists and philosophers like Adler, Jung, Sigmund Freud, Assagioli, Wilhelm Reich, Aristotle, Berkeley, Confucius, Descartes, Feuerbach, Hegel, Heidegger, Heraclitus, Huxley, Jaspers, Kant, Kierkegaard, Laing, Marx, Moore, Nietzsche, Plato, Pythagoras, Russell, Sartre, Socrates, Wittgenstein and many others in His discourses. Some of these can be referred to in the following books/discourses: 1. The Hidden Splendour&nbsp; 2. The Wild Geese and the Water 3. This, This, A Thousand Times This: The Very Essence of Zen 4. Nirvana: The Last Nightmare&nbsp; 5. Beyond Enlightenment 6. Beyond Psychology 7. Dang Dang Doko Dang 8. The Discipline of Transcendence 9. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha 10. From Bondage to Freedom 11. From Darkness to Light 12. From Ignorance to Innocence 13. The Secret of Secrets, Vol 1 14. From Personality to Individuality 15. I Celebrate Myself: God Is No Where, Life Is Now Here 16. Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 4 17. Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 1 &nbsp;