WESTERN MYSTICS
The New Alchemy 29
TwentyNinth 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.
Osho,
This meditation seems to be sheer madness!
It is, and it is that way for a purpose. It is madness with a method. It is consciously chosen.
Remember, you cannot go mad voluntarily. Madness takes possession of you. Only then can you go mad. If you go mad voluntarily it’s a totally different thing. You are basically in control, and one who can control even his madness will never go mad.
You can go mad at any moment because you have accumulated everything that is necessary to go into madness. Everyone is just on the verge of madness.
I am reminded of an incident…
One of the greatest psychologists of this century, William James, once went to visit a madhouse, a mental asylum. He was one of the sanest men possible, one who knew much about the human mind, its mechanism and its working.
He visited a madhouse. Suddenly, he became sad. Looking at the madmen he became worried, a deep anguish overcame him. He left, but that night he couldn’t sleep. In the morning he was trembling – a fear, as if a deep fear had been awakened.
His wife became disturbed, his students became disturbed. They asked, “What has happened to you? Your face looks pale, deathly pale. Are you ill? But you were okay. Yesterday you were okay, healthy, everything was good. What happened to you in the madhouse?”
William James said, “A thought came to me. I saw one of my old friends there. He was sane once, as sane as anyone. Now he is mad, and he couldn’t do anything to prevent it. A thought came to my mind that if, tomorrow or the next day, I am taken possession of by madness, how could I prevent it? Man is helpless. This friend of mine was as sane as me, or even more so. He couldn’t do anything, he has become mad. I also can become mad, and nothing can be done to prevent it. That helplessness makes me sad.
“Last night I couldn’t sleep. At any moment madness may come and I cannot do anything to prevent it. I am on the verge.”
And William James remained sad his whole life. He couldn’t forget that mad friend who had once been okay and now there was nothing that could bring him back from that world of madness.
Anyone can become mad at any moment. But I was not there to talk to William James, otherwise I would have said to him that something can be done to prevent it. Go mad voluntarily! Use madness as a method to be relieved of madness. Throw the madness out of your system, don’t go on accumulating and repressing it. Allow it to escape from you, don’t preserve it.
This looks paradoxical. Those who look so sane are mad within. At any moment their layer of sanity can be broken. That layer is only skin deep, anything can break it. And you all go mad temporarily: if someone insults you, that layer is broken. Anger erupts, you explode. What is your anger? – temporary madness. Then you pull yourself back together again, repair the hole, the leakage, and you are sane again. But your sanity is just so-so. At any moment, anything can make you mad. Your sanity is just hidden madness.
My method teaches you to throw out that hidden madness. Don’t allow it to remain in your system; it is poisonous. Don’t accumulate it, release it. If your total madness is released, there is no possibility of your ever going mad. Once you can feel a non-mad being within, you have gone beyond madness, you have transcended.
It is only impossible that a buddha go mad. Everyone else can go mad, only a buddha cannot. Why only a buddha? – because he has thrown all his madness out.
Meditation means throwing out your madness. When there is no poison within you, you will have a different quality of being. You can fly, you become weightless. Then, bliss is not something that happens to you; it is not something that comes to you from without. It is something that arises in you, it is something that is your inherent nature. Then, bliss is not accidental. It is you: it is your nature, it is your Tao, your being, your very existence. Then, no one can take this bliss from you.
Unless this layer of hidden madness is thrown out completely, your source of bliss cannot start functioning, flowing. It cannot become a continuous stream, a river. Throw out this stone, this block, and allow the inner source of bliss to flow. Not only will you be blissful, even others will get the infection.
When you are sad, you make others sad. You may know it or you may not know it. When you are ill you make others ill, because others are not so much “others.” We are linked together: existence is a togetherness. Nothing happens to you without it happening to others also. We vibrate into each other, we penetrate each other. Your sadness, your madness, affects others.
In the West there is now a therapy called “Family Therapy” or “Group Therapy.” They say that if one member of the family is mad, then the whole family has to be treated. The whole family is bound to be mad, otherwise how could one member of the family become mad? And unless the whole family is treated, that one member cannot be helped. But if you look deeply, then why only the whole family? Why not the whole society? And why only the society? Why not the whole world?
We are part of a mad world. This group therapy will not help, we need a world therapy. But who is going to help? – because the psychoanalyst himself is mad. The helper is also helpless, the guide himself is misguided. So everything is just a temporary arrangement: one madman helping another and waiting to be helped by someone else, the blind leading the blind.
You cannot wait for the whole world to be treated. You will die first – you are not going to be here forever. If the whole world is mad, if madness is something like an ocean surrounding us all, then you cannot wait: there is no time.
I say, group therapy, or even world therapy, is not going to help. Only one thing can be of help: you, as an individual, please don’t accumulate madness. Throw it out, release it. Once the madness is released, the source of your bliss opens, becomes flowing. The river is there, you will be filled by it, and then you will be overflowing. And your overflowing bliss will help all the others who are around you, it will penetrate them.
Health is as infectious as disease. You may not have heard that health is infectious, but if disease can be infectious, why not health? I tell you, if there are germs of disease, there are germs of health, but they are more subtle. And if there are currents of madness, I tell you, there are currents of bliss. They are more subtle, more delicate, more invisible.
Release your madness and soon you will find that you are also releasing a blissful current, a river-like flow that goes on and on.
Whenever one becomes a buddha the whole world participates in it. The world may know or may not know, but whenever there is a Buddha, in a way the whole world flowers. It becomes more aware, more alert, more blissful, more silent.
Now get ready to be mad!
This meditation seems to be sheer madness!
It is, and it is that way for a purpose. It is madness with a method. It is consciously chosen.
Remember, you cannot go mad voluntarily. Madness takes possession of you. Only then can you go mad. If you go mad voluntarily it’s a totally different thing. You are basically in control, and one who can control even his madness will never go mad.
You can go mad at any moment because you have accumulated everything that is necessary to go into madness. Everyone is just on the verge of madness.
I am reminded of an incident…
One of the greatest psychologists of this century, William James, once went to visit a madhouse, a mental asylum. He was one of the sanest men possible, one who knew much about the human mind, its mechanism and its working.
He visited a madhouse. Suddenly, he became sad. Looking at the madmen he became worried, a deep anguish overcame him. He left, but that night he couldn’t sleep. In the morning he was trembling – a fear, as if a deep fear had been awakened.
His wife became disturbed, his students became disturbed. They asked, “What has happened to you? Your face looks pale, deathly pale. Are you ill? But you were okay. Yesterday you were okay, healthy, everything was good. What happened to you in the madhouse?”
William James said, “A thought came to me. I saw one of my old friends there. He was sane once, as sane as anyone. Now he is mad, and he couldn’t do anything to prevent it. A thought came to my mind that if, tomorrow or the next day, I am taken possession of by madness, how could I prevent it? Man is helpless. This friend of mine was as sane as me, or even more so. He couldn’t do anything, he has become mad. I also can become mad, and nothing can be done to prevent it. That helplessness makes me sad.
“Last night I couldn’t sleep. At any moment madness may come and I cannot do anything to prevent it. I am on the verge.”
And William James remained sad his whole life. He couldn’t forget that mad friend who had once been okay and now there was nothing that could bring him back from that world of madness.
Anyone can become mad at any moment. But I was not there to talk to William James, otherwise I would have said to him that something can be done to prevent it. Go mad voluntarily! Use madness as a method to be relieved of madness. Throw the madness out of your system, don’t go on accumulating and repressing it. Allow it to escape from you, don’t preserve it.
This looks paradoxical. Those who look so sane are mad within. At any moment their layer of sanity can be broken. That layer is only skin deep, anything can break it. And you all go mad temporarily: if someone insults you, that layer is broken. Anger erupts, you explode. What is your anger? – temporary madness. Then you pull yourself back together again, repair the hole, the leakage, and you are sane again. But your sanity is just so-so. At any moment, anything can make you mad. Your sanity is just hidden madness.
My method teaches you to throw out that hidden madness. Don’t allow it to remain in your system; it is poisonous. Don’t accumulate it, release it. If your total madness is released, there is no possibility of your ever going mad. Once you can feel a non-mad being within, you have gone beyond madness, you have transcended.
It is only impossible that a buddha go mad. Everyone else can go mad, only a buddha cannot. Why only a buddha? – because he has thrown all his madness out.
Meditation means throwing out your madness. When there is no poison within you, you will have a different quality of being. You can fly, you become weightless. Then, bliss is not something that happens to you; it is not something that comes to you from without. It is something that arises in you, it is something that is your inherent nature. Then, bliss is not accidental. It is you: it is your nature, it is your Tao, your being, your very existence. Then, no one can take this bliss from you.
Unless this layer of hidden madness is thrown out completely, your source of bliss cannot start functioning, flowing. It cannot become a continuous stream, a river. Throw out this stone, this block, and allow the inner source of bliss to flow. Not only will you be blissful, even others will get the infection.
When you are sad, you make others sad. You may know it or you may not know it. When you are ill you make others ill, because others are not so much “others.” We are linked together: existence is a togetherness. Nothing happens to you without it happening to others also. We vibrate into each other, we penetrate each other. Your sadness, your madness, affects others.
In the West there is now a therapy called “Family Therapy” or “Group Therapy.” They say that if one member of the family is mad, then the whole family has to be treated. The whole family is bound to be mad, otherwise how could one member of the family become mad? And unless the whole family is treated, that one member cannot be helped. But if you look deeply, then why only the whole family? Why not the whole society? And why only the society? Why not the whole world?
We are part of a mad world. This group therapy will not help, we need a world therapy. But who is going to help? – because the psychoanalyst himself is mad. The helper is also helpless, the guide himself is misguided. So everything is just a temporary arrangement: one madman helping another and waiting to be helped by someone else, the blind leading the blind.
You cannot wait for the whole world to be treated. You will die first – you are not going to be here forever. If the whole world is mad, if madness is something like an ocean surrounding us all, then you cannot wait: there is no time.
I say, group therapy, or even world therapy, is not going to help. Only one thing can be of help: you, as an individual, please don’t accumulate madness. Throw it out, release it. Once the madness is released, the source of your bliss opens, becomes flowing. The river is there, you will be filled by it, and then you will be overflowing. And your overflowing bliss will help all the others who are around you, it will penetrate them.
Health is as infectious as disease. You may not have heard that health is infectious, but if disease can be infectious, why not health? I tell you, if there are germs of disease, there are germs of health, but they are more subtle. And if there are currents of madness, I tell you, there are currents of bliss. They are more subtle, more delicate, more invisible.
Release your madness and soon you will find that you are also releasing a blissful current, a river-like flow that goes on and on.
Whenever one becomes a buddha the whole world participates in it. The world may know or may not know, but whenever there is a Buddha, in a way the whole world flowers. It becomes more aware, more alert, more blissful, more silent.
Now get ready to be mad!