WESTERN MYSTICS
The New Alchemy 32
ThirtySecond 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,
Please explain the reasons for your raising your hands upward and then bringing them downward in the night meditation.
It is significant. While doing the night meditation I raise my hands slowly upward, my palms facing the sky. That is just to help your energy to flow upward, a symbolic gesture so that you can jump when my hands are going up and you can feel your energy moving upward: your kundalini uncoiling, the serpent within trying to reach the sky, your sex energy moving upward to the sahasrar.
When I feel that you are ready – your energy has become vibrant, active; you are feeling it and jumping with it and you are attuned to me – then I raise my hands slowly upward, my palms facing toward the sky. The first thing: to indicate to you to move with me, with my hands, to silently move upward with my hands. And secondly: to face the inner sky, to remain open to the sky within. Let your face be toward the inner sky – not the outer face, not your outer eyes. Your outward eyes are fixed on me. Let your inner soul open upward. Only then can your energy meet the cosmic energy, the divine energy.
So be open. Be ready for an encounter with the sky, with the divine, with existence. Go on jumping, moving, and remain open. Then, when I feel you are ready and open, that the energy is moving and a moment has come when contact with the cosmos is possible, I turn my palms downward. Again, this is a gesture, a gesture that now the cosmic energy, the divine force, is surrounding you, you are under it. My palms are just symbolic: now you are under a cosmic force, and the cosmic force is descending upon you.
First, you were jumping upward, you were raising yourself upward. First, you were moving upward to meet the divine. Now, the divine is moving downward to meet you. You have to go on jumping even more vigorously, because this is the moment. When I turn my palms downward, remember, don’t miss the moment. Bring your total energy to the meditation. Stare at me, jump strongly, go completely mad. This is the moment!
If you are ready, and jumping, and vibrant, you have come to the point of evaporation, just as water evaporates at 100 degrees. If it is at 90 degrees it becomes warm, it may become hot, but it cannot evaporate. Only at a fixed point, 100 degrees, is the water transformed so that it is no longer water. And the quality of it changes. Water flows downward, that is its inherent quality. But the moment it evaporates, it moves upward. It has become a vapor. Now, it is moving up, the very quality has changed. It was moving downward, now it is moving upward.
At a particular point you can meet the divine. It is a cosmic orgasm – just like the sex act. Through your sex center you meet with nature. Through sahasrar, your energy is moving into the cosmos through your head, you meet the divine. It is also a sex act, known as samadhi. You are meeting existence itself.
So when I turn my palms downward, remember, you have to go completely mad. Bring your total energy to it; nothing should be left behind. You must be one, whole, moving into it, involved completely and totally in it.
You will feel the contact. The divine has touched you.
A single touch, even for a single moment, and you will never be the same again. You are touched by the divine, you are transformed.
The second question:
Osho,
I can surrender to you if you promise that I will be transformed.
I promise that you will be transformed, but your asking is not good. If you make it a condition you are not surrendering. I promise you will be transformed, but on your part, if you ask for the promise, you are not ready to surrender.
This is my promise, that you will be transformed. But don’t make it a condition because then there is no surrender, and if you are not surrendered, how can I transform you? So please, forget my promise.
It will happen, it is going to happen, but don’t make it a condition, because with a condition there is no surrender. Surrender is unconditional, it cannot be otherwise.
Even if through your surrender I lead you to hell, be ready for it. Only then is heaven possible. Your readiness to move with me to hell – this readiness transforms you.
Really, your surrender transforms you; there is no need of me. I am just an excuse – because you cannot surrender to a vacuum, to emptiness, you can use me. But, really, there is no need for me. If you can simply surrender, without surrendering to anyone, then too it will happen. It happens through surrender.
But it is difficult to surrender without surrendering to anyone. Our whole mind, the whole working of our consciousness, makes it impossible for us to surrender to the empty sky. If I say to you “Love!” you will ask me “Whom should I love?” Can you just love without loving anyone? It is difficult to conceive of how to love when there is no one to be loved.
If you are alone on earth and there is no one except you, can you love? If you even try to imagine it, you will imagine loving some tree or loving some rock – but then again, the someone else has entered. A thou is needed: you cannot love without a thou there, present. The thou may be a tree, the thou may be a flower, the thou may be a rock – it makes no difference. But you must say to someone “I love you.” The you is needed.
If you can love, simply love without there being any object of love, then you can also surrender without there being any object of surrender. It is difficult –rather, it is impossible to conceive of surrender just as an act within you, without there being anyone to be surrendered to.
You can surrender to me. But surrender means that you are not asking for anything. Everything will be given, but don’t ask. Your asking becomes the barrier. Surrender means trust: even if nothing happens you will wait, you will not lose trust. Even if nothing happens and your whole life is wasted you will wait. If you can wait in such a deep way, everything will happen this very moment. It can happen this very moment! There is no need to promise for the future, it can happen here and now.
But surrender, and surrender without any conditions, without asking for any promise. Your very asking will destroy the promise. I promise – but that promise is just a consequence, not a precondition. It will happen, because that’s how the law of the universe works.
It is going to happen, but please, you need not be concerned about the result. Just be concerned with the act of surrendering, not with the result. Leave the result to the divine, to the eternal law, to the Tao.
Now be ready for the night meditation.
Please explain the reasons for your raising your hands upward and then bringing them downward in the night meditation.
It is significant. While doing the night meditation I raise my hands slowly upward, my palms facing the sky. That is just to help your energy to flow upward, a symbolic gesture so that you can jump when my hands are going up and you can feel your energy moving upward: your kundalini uncoiling, the serpent within trying to reach the sky, your sex energy moving upward to the sahasrar.
When I feel that you are ready – your energy has become vibrant, active; you are feeling it and jumping with it and you are attuned to me – then I raise my hands slowly upward, my palms facing toward the sky. The first thing: to indicate to you to move with me, with my hands, to silently move upward with my hands. And secondly: to face the inner sky, to remain open to the sky within. Let your face be toward the inner sky – not the outer face, not your outer eyes. Your outward eyes are fixed on me. Let your inner soul open upward. Only then can your energy meet the cosmic energy, the divine energy.
So be open. Be ready for an encounter with the sky, with the divine, with existence. Go on jumping, moving, and remain open. Then, when I feel you are ready and open, that the energy is moving and a moment has come when contact with the cosmos is possible, I turn my palms downward. Again, this is a gesture, a gesture that now the cosmic energy, the divine force, is surrounding you, you are under it. My palms are just symbolic: now you are under a cosmic force, and the cosmic force is descending upon you.
First, you were jumping upward, you were raising yourself upward. First, you were moving upward to meet the divine. Now, the divine is moving downward to meet you. You have to go on jumping even more vigorously, because this is the moment. When I turn my palms downward, remember, don’t miss the moment. Bring your total energy to the meditation. Stare at me, jump strongly, go completely mad. This is the moment!
If you are ready, and jumping, and vibrant, you have come to the point of evaporation, just as water evaporates at 100 degrees. If it is at 90 degrees it becomes warm, it may become hot, but it cannot evaporate. Only at a fixed point, 100 degrees, is the water transformed so that it is no longer water. And the quality of it changes. Water flows downward, that is its inherent quality. But the moment it evaporates, it moves upward. It has become a vapor. Now, it is moving up, the very quality has changed. It was moving downward, now it is moving upward.
At a particular point you can meet the divine. It is a cosmic orgasm – just like the sex act. Through your sex center you meet with nature. Through sahasrar, your energy is moving into the cosmos through your head, you meet the divine. It is also a sex act, known as samadhi. You are meeting existence itself.
So when I turn my palms downward, remember, you have to go completely mad. Bring your total energy to it; nothing should be left behind. You must be one, whole, moving into it, involved completely and totally in it.
You will feel the contact. The divine has touched you.
A single touch, even for a single moment, and you will never be the same again. You are touched by the divine, you are transformed.
The second question:
Osho,
I can surrender to you if you promise that I will be transformed.
I promise that you will be transformed, but your asking is not good. If you make it a condition you are not surrendering. I promise you will be transformed, but on your part, if you ask for the promise, you are not ready to surrender.
This is my promise, that you will be transformed. But don’t make it a condition because then there is no surrender, and if you are not surrendered, how can I transform you? So please, forget my promise.
It will happen, it is going to happen, but don’t make it a condition, because with a condition there is no surrender. Surrender is unconditional, it cannot be otherwise.
Even if through your surrender I lead you to hell, be ready for it. Only then is heaven possible. Your readiness to move with me to hell – this readiness transforms you.
Really, your surrender transforms you; there is no need of me. I am just an excuse – because you cannot surrender to a vacuum, to emptiness, you can use me. But, really, there is no need for me. If you can simply surrender, without surrendering to anyone, then too it will happen. It happens through surrender.
But it is difficult to surrender without surrendering to anyone. Our whole mind, the whole working of our consciousness, makes it impossible for us to surrender to the empty sky. If I say to you “Love!” you will ask me “Whom should I love?” Can you just love without loving anyone? It is difficult to conceive of how to love when there is no one to be loved.
If you are alone on earth and there is no one except you, can you love? If you even try to imagine it, you will imagine loving some tree or loving some rock – but then again, the someone else has entered. A thou is needed: you cannot love without a thou there, present. The thou may be a tree, the thou may be a flower, the thou may be a rock – it makes no difference. But you must say to someone “I love you.” The you is needed.
If you can love, simply love without there being any object of love, then you can also surrender without there being any object of surrender. It is difficult –rather, it is impossible to conceive of surrender just as an act within you, without there being anyone to be surrendered to.
You can surrender to me. But surrender means that you are not asking for anything. Everything will be given, but don’t ask. Your asking becomes the barrier. Surrender means trust: even if nothing happens you will wait, you will not lose trust. Even if nothing happens and your whole life is wasted you will wait. If you can wait in such a deep way, everything will happen this very moment. It can happen this very moment! There is no need to promise for the future, it can happen here and now.
But surrender, and surrender without any conditions, without asking for any promise. Your very asking will destroy the promise. I promise – but that promise is just a consequence, not a precondition. It will happen, because that’s how the law of the universe works.
It is going to happen, but please, you need not be concerned about the result. Just be concerned with the act of surrendering, not with the result. Leave the result to the divine, to the eternal law, to the Tao.
Now be ready for the night meditation.