WESTERN MYSTICS
The New Alchemy 25
TwentyFifth Discourse from the series of 34 discourses - The New Alchemy by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
Something about the Tratak Meditation… At night when you are doing Tratak – staring with unblinking eyes toward me, your hands raised, jumping, crying the mantra hoo – what basically are we doing? What are we doing, what is the inner process, and what is going to happen through it?
The first thing: when you stare with unblinking eyes, your energy becomes concentrated. Eyes are the doors through which you can move out or in.
It is just like breathing: breath goes out and then comes in, then it goes out and comes in. You exhale and inhale. In the same way, you exhale and inhale consciousness through the eyes. This is one of the secrets of Yoga and has to be deeply understood. Just as you exhale and inhale breath through your nostrils, you inhale and exhale consciousness through the eyes. It is very subtle.
Consciousness is all around you, just as breath is all around you; there is air, there is oxygen… You cannot be alive if you are not breathing. You cannot be more conscious if you are not aware of a subtle breathing of consciousness through the eyes.
Concentrating the eyes makes you aware of this. Not only aware, but a master of it. Once you know the secret of how to breathe consciousness through your eyes, you can accumulate more consciousness within you. With more conscious, you will be more alive; with more conscious, you will be more alert. With more conscious, new doors of perception will open.
Have you ever noticed that all over the world we have called those who have known the truth, the seers, drashta: those who have seen. In India we have called the whole phenomenon darshan: seeing. What does it mean?
Darshan is not philosophy. Hermann Hesse has coined a new word to translate darshan: he calls it philosia. Philosophy means love of thinking, love of inquiry. Philosia means love of seeing, not of thinking. Philo means love, sia means to see.
Darshan – seeing, perception – has been used for those who have known, realized. It is deeply related to the eyes. You can breathe consciousness through your eyes, so any concentrated staring makes your eyes more open, and you can be filled with more consciousness.
When I say “Stare at me,” I mean other things also. When you are staring at me, I can communicate with you deeply, without words. When words are used it is an indirect communication. Nothing is certain about words: you may not understand what is being said, or you may misunderstand. The possibility is always of misunderstanding, because when I say something my meaning is not traveling to you, only my words. The content is not reaching you, only the container. And then you will supply the contents.
I say “God” – the word travels toward you, you hear the word God. But what was my meaning? My meaning remains with me. The word comes to you, the container without the content – vacant – and you fill the container, you give meaning to it. That meaning will be yours, not mine. There is no way to convey the truth through words. Only misunderstanding can be conveyed. Language is basically a distortion. Nothing can be done about it, it is so.
But there are methods in which direct communication is possible. When you are staring at me, a moment is possible when your eyes have become fixed, unblinking, and you are sucking in consciousness. The flow of consciousness is wider, more vital. Then I can convey something directly through that current. Mind will not be involved: the communication will go directly to you, there will be no interpretation. Those waves of consciousness can be used as a vehicle. Then you are receiving – through staring eyes.
I ask you to go on jumping. Why? – for a particular reason. When you jump, your energy moves quickly within. When you are jumping your energy is in movement, it circulates more. Life energy circulates just like blood, it is a subtle circulation.
If you have heard about Chinese acupuncture you will be able to understand it more easily. They say that vital energy flows in the body, and there are points in the body, eight hundred points, where that energy can be contacted. When you are ill, a particular contact point in the body has become nonfunctioning: it is not in contact with the universal energy. The contact has to be restructured, the contact has to be renewed. Just pushing or stroking or massaging or inserting pins will hammer that small point of energy to make it alive, and a particular disease will disappear.
According to acupuncture, a disease comes because you are not in contact with the universal energy around you: the contact is missing. Just as blood circulates in your body, subtle energy, your vitality, circulates. I ask you to jump… In that jumping, the energy is circulating more, just as blood begins to circulate more. In that jumping, every cell of your body becomes more alive. Your eight hundred points of contact with the universal energy are more alive and vital, more receptive, more open. Then, even without your eyes, I can contact your other centers. Then, even with a blind man, communication is possible. But eyes are the focal points, no other energy is so great, so big. So use your eyes, but also use the whole circuit of your body energy to make it more alive.
Then I ask you to go on loudly repeating the mantra hoo. This is to hit your sex center from within, because the sex center is the source of all energies. If the source is not hit, nothing great is possible; no transformation is possible.
So three things… One: with staring eyes, you will be sucking in consciousness, and I can communicate through that sucking. Secondly: by jumping, the life energies begin to circulate more, and you will be in deep contact with the universal force. I can communicate through that also. And thirdly: your sex center is hit by the mantra hoo. The sex center is the most vital energy point, the source of all energies. With that hitting, the sex center opens within.
The sex center can open in two ways. One is opening outwardly. What happens when you become attracted to the opposite sex: it opens outward, your energy starts flowing outward. Even if the attraction was just in your imagination, and the other is not aware of it, you are losing energy.
Don’t be confused and think that semen is sex energy. Semen is just the vehicle – not exactly sex energy, just the vehicle for it. It is just the material part of it, not the real, psychic energy. So when you become attracted to the opposite sex you are not losing semen, but you are losing energy. Energy is dissipated. Whenever you think about sex you are dissipating energy – the sex is through your imagination, but energy is still moving outward.
When you hit the sex center from within, through the mantra hoo… I am not using om because of this point: when you say om only the heart center is hit. Om cannot move deeper than the heart. But om was used in past days because man was more simple, more centered at the heart and less centered at the sex. Now so many things have changed and man is quite different. He is more centered near the sex than at the heart. Om has become less useful.
Hoo goes directly to the sex center and hits it. If you say “Hoo!” loudly, you will feel your sex center hit from within. This constant hammering within… When I am communicating with you, when your eyes are staring at me and you are concentrated on me, when your whole body is jumping and alive and in deep contact with the cosmic forces – if you hit your sex center at the right moment, at that moment, it is broken from within and energy rushes up. And when sex energy rushes up… It is not semen, remember, it is sex energy: the spiritual part of semen. Just as you have a body and a soul, the semen’s body is material and the soul is sex energy.
The energy rushes upward, it passes through your spine. It moves through your seven centers and comes to the last center, the sahasrar. This passing rush, this flood of energy cleanses you completely. Every center in you is cleansed, becomes fresh, alive, moving. When the energy reaches the last center, the sahasrar, you are a different man.
With each center that is passed, you are a different man. Gurdjieff has talked about seven types of men. He calls them “Man Number One,” “Man Number Two,” “Man Number Three,” and so on. If you had gone to Gurdjieff – and he was one of the greatest masters of this age – if you had gone to him and asked him something about man he would have immediately asked, “What type of man are you talking about? Tell me the number: number one, number two, number three – because the word man is meaningless. There are seven types of man, so if you are asking about Man Number One my answer will be one thing, if you are talking about Man Number Two my answer will be different. About whom are you asking?”
Seven chakras, and with each chakra you are a different man. With the first chakra, the sex center, you are just an animal. Just an animal. Just above the animal but not far away – just on the boundary. Below you is the animal world, above you is the world of humanity, and you are just on the boundary. That’s why religions have been so against sex, because it is the highest point for animals and the lowest for man. If you remain centered at the sex center you are only the highest animal, nothing more.
When the energy moves to the second center, you become Man Number Two. New qualities develop in you. When energy moves to the third center, again more, new dimensions become open to you. And when the energy comes to the last, the sahasrar, you transcend humanity: you are no longer man. And unless man transcends humanity, he cannot find the ultimate.
Man must transcend himself. Only then is he fulfilled.
Nietzsche has said that the worst day in the world will be the day when man forgets about transcending himself. Man is just an arrow. If you remain at the bow you are useless. An arrow that remains at the bow is useless. Unless you leave the bow you are not really an arrow. At the sex center, man is just like an arrow at the bow. The journey has not yet started: ready to start, but never starting.
This night meditation, Tratak Meditation, is for all these things. I am trying to push your arrow to leave the bow. Once you leave the bow, you enter a different world.
The first thing: when you stare with unblinking eyes, your energy becomes concentrated. Eyes are the doors through which you can move out or in.
It is just like breathing: breath goes out and then comes in, then it goes out and comes in. You exhale and inhale. In the same way, you exhale and inhale consciousness through the eyes. This is one of the secrets of Yoga and has to be deeply understood. Just as you exhale and inhale breath through your nostrils, you inhale and exhale consciousness through the eyes. It is very subtle.
Consciousness is all around you, just as breath is all around you; there is air, there is oxygen… You cannot be alive if you are not breathing. You cannot be more conscious if you are not aware of a subtle breathing of consciousness through the eyes.
Concentrating the eyes makes you aware of this. Not only aware, but a master of it. Once you know the secret of how to breathe consciousness through your eyes, you can accumulate more consciousness within you. With more conscious, you will be more alive; with more conscious, you will be more alert. With more conscious, new doors of perception will open.
Have you ever noticed that all over the world we have called those who have known the truth, the seers, drashta: those who have seen. In India we have called the whole phenomenon darshan: seeing. What does it mean?
Darshan is not philosophy. Hermann Hesse has coined a new word to translate darshan: he calls it philosia. Philosophy means love of thinking, love of inquiry. Philosia means love of seeing, not of thinking. Philo means love, sia means to see.
Darshan – seeing, perception – has been used for those who have known, realized. It is deeply related to the eyes. You can breathe consciousness through your eyes, so any concentrated staring makes your eyes more open, and you can be filled with more consciousness.
When I say “Stare at me,” I mean other things also. When you are staring at me, I can communicate with you deeply, without words. When words are used it is an indirect communication. Nothing is certain about words: you may not understand what is being said, or you may misunderstand. The possibility is always of misunderstanding, because when I say something my meaning is not traveling to you, only my words. The content is not reaching you, only the container. And then you will supply the contents.
I say “God” – the word travels toward you, you hear the word God. But what was my meaning? My meaning remains with me. The word comes to you, the container without the content – vacant – and you fill the container, you give meaning to it. That meaning will be yours, not mine. There is no way to convey the truth through words. Only misunderstanding can be conveyed. Language is basically a distortion. Nothing can be done about it, it is so.
But there are methods in which direct communication is possible. When you are staring at me, a moment is possible when your eyes have become fixed, unblinking, and you are sucking in consciousness. The flow of consciousness is wider, more vital. Then I can convey something directly through that current. Mind will not be involved: the communication will go directly to you, there will be no interpretation. Those waves of consciousness can be used as a vehicle. Then you are receiving – through staring eyes.
I ask you to go on jumping. Why? – for a particular reason. When you jump, your energy moves quickly within. When you are jumping your energy is in movement, it circulates more. Life energy circulates just like blood, it is a subtle circulation.
If you have heard about Chinese acupuncture you will be able to understand it more easily. They say that vital energy flows in the body, and there are points in the body, eight hundred points, where that energy can be contacted. When you are ill, a particular contact point in the body has become nonfunctioning: it is not in contact with the universal energy. The contact has to be restructured, the contact has to be renewed. Just pushing or stroking or massaging or inserting pins will hammer that small point of energy to make it alive, and a particular disease will disappear.
According to acupuncture, a disease comes because you are not in contact with the universal energy around you: the contact is missing. Just as blood circulates in your body, subtle energy, your vitality, circulates. I ask you to jump… In that jumping, the energy is circulating more, just as blood begins to circulate more. In that jumping, every cell of your body becomes more alive. Your eight hundred points of contact with the universal energy are more alive and vital, more receptive, more open. Then, even without your eyes, I can contact your other centers. Then, even with a blind man, communication is possible. But eyes are the focal points, no other energy is so great, so big. So use your eyes, but also use the whole circuit of your body energy to make it more alive.
Then I ask you to go on loudly repeating the mantra hoo. This is to hit your sex center from within, because the sex center is the source of all energies. If the source is not hit, nothing great is possible; no transformation is possible.
So three things… One: with staring eyes, you will be sucking in consciousness, and I can communicate through that sucking. Secondly: by jumping, the life energies begin to circulate more, and you will be in deep contact with the universal force. I can communicate through that also. And thirdly: your sex center is hit by the mantra hoo. The sex center is the most vital energy point, the source of all energies. With that hitting, the sex center opens within.
The sex center can open in two ways. One is opening outwardly. What happens when you become attracted to the opposite sex: it opens outward, your energy starts flowing outward. Even if the attraction was just in your imagination, and the other is not aware of it, you are losing energy.
Don’t be confused and think that semen is sex energy. Semen is just the vehicle – not exactly sex energy, just the vehicle for it. It is just the material part of it, not the real, psychic energy. So when you become attracted to the opposite sex you are not losing semen, but you are losing energy. Energy is dissipated. Whenever you think about sex you are dissipating energy – the sex is through your imagination, but energy is still moving outward.
When you hit the sex center from within, through the mantra hoo… I am not using om because of this point: when you say om only the heart center is hit. Om cannot move deeper than the heart. But om was used in past days because man was more simple, more centered at the heart and less centered at the sex. Now so many things have changed and man is quite different. He is more centered near the sex than at the heart. Om has become less useful.
Hoo goes directly to the sex center and hits it. If you say “Hoo!” loudly, you will feel your sex center hit from within. This constant hammering within… When I am communicating with you, when your eyes are staring at me and you are concentrated on me, when your whole body is jumping and alive and in deep contact with the cosmic forces – if you hit your sex center at the right moment, at that moment, it is broken from within and energy rushes up. And when sex energy rushes up… It is not semen, remember, it is sex energy: the spiritual part of semen. Just as you have a body and a soul, the semen’s body is material and the soul is sex energy.
The energy rushes upward, it passes through your spine. It moves through your seven centers and comes to the last center, the sahasrar. This passing rush, this flood of energy cleanses you completely. Every center in you is cleansed, becomes fresh, alive, moving. When the energy reaches the last center, the sahasrar, you are a different man.
With each center that is passed, you are a different man. Gurdjieff has talked about seven types of men. He calls them “Man Number One,” “Man Number Two,” “Man Number Three,” and so on. If you had gone to Gurdjieff – and he was one of the greatest masters of this age – if you had gone to him and asked him something about man he would have immediately asked, “What type of man are you talking about? Tell me the number: number one, number two, number three – because the word man is meaningless. There are seven types of man, so if you are asking about Man Number One my answer will be one thing, if you are talking about Man Number Two my answer will be different. About whom are you asking?”
Seven chakras, and with each chakra you are a different man. With the first chakra, the sex center, you are just an animal. Just an animal. Just above the animal but not far away – just on the boundary. Below you is the animal world, above you is the world of humanity, and you are just on the boundary. That’s why religions have been so against sex, because it is the highest point for animals and the lowest for man. If you remain centered at the sex center you are only the highest animal, nothing more.
When the energy moves to the second center, you become Man Number Two. New qualities develop in you. When energy moves to the third center, again more, new dimensions become open to you. And when the energy comes to the last, the sahasrar, you transcend humanity: you are no longer man. And unless man transcends humanity, he cannot find the ultimate.
Man must transcend himself. Only then is he fulfilled.
Nietzsche has said that the worst day in the world will be the day when man forgets about transcending himself. Man is just an arrow. If you remain at the bow you are useless. An arrow that remains at the bow is useless. Unless you leave the bow you are not really an arrow. At the sex center, man is just like an arrow at the bow. The journey has not yet started: ready to start, but never starting.
This night meditation, Tratak Meditation, is for all these things. I am trying to push your arrow to leave the bow. Once you leave the bow, you enter a different world.