The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 4. TO BE DEAD DO NOTHING
You can also do the opposite. You have a headache. You can repeat to yourself, ”I have no
headache.” Now, as many times as you repeat this, you will be repeating the word ’headache’. If you
have a headache, there is no sense in telling yourself there is no headache. The headache is! No
matter how many times you repeat the contrary, you know that your repetition is a lie. Superficially
you may go on saying that there is no headache but inwardly you know that your head is aching.
You are repeating just for the sake of Coue. And the headache will be cured by an inner process –
not by following the suggestions of Coue. Don’t use a negative word ’no’.
Therefore, I say, don’t be in a hurry to renounce the world; instead, strive to attain God! Therefore,
I say, don’t walk the path of renunciation; seek ultimate enjoyment! Don’t concentrate on that which
is wrong because in order to give up the wrong you have to look at it again and again. And the more
you look at it, the more the mantra is being repeated. And you are hypnotized by the thing you watch
constantly.
A great deal of research is going on about car accidents. Nowadays the number of people dying in
car accidents is more than the number died in the world war. The number of people who die every
year in car accidents is twice as high as the number of people who died in World War Two. It is not
a small number. Something has to be done. In examining this phenomenon, it was discovered that
fifty percent of accidents take place between midnight and three a.m. That is the period of sleep, and
the mind is the most drowsy. When the mind is drowsy it gets hypnotized. The driver is hypnotized
by the monotonous purring of the engine and the straight road without any curves for miles on end.
And the psychologists say that thousands of people are dying because of the white line drawn in
the middle of the road. The driver keeps on watching it and gets hypnotized. Then he is not in his
senses, he is in a druggish state. The situation is: it is between midnight and three am; there is the
monotonous sound of the engine; the long, empty road, everything enveloped in darkness; even the
trees and shrubs are invisible; the driver sees only the road and the white centre-strip.
You can try a small experiment. Draw a straight white line on a table. Get hold of a hen and press
its head down for some time so that it can see the line. Now let go of the hen. It will not budge from
that spot for hours. It is hypnotized by the line. It will sit there for hours.
Psychologists say that drivers become hypnotized in the same way. They say not to make the road
too straight and regular; they suggest to change the sound of the engine from time to time. Any
change decreases the drowsiness, and thus many accidents can be avoided.
The number of accidents in your life can be decreased too. One: do not focus your gaze on things
that are wrong, for what you see, slowly begins to penetrate you. You are addicted to fixing your eyes
on the wrong; you pay attention only to what is wrong inside you. The angry man concentrates on his
anger, and how to get rid of it. Though he wants to get rid of the anger, he is actually concentrating
on that white line of anger within him; the more he concentrates the more he is hypnotized by it.
Sexual people go on concentrating on the sex.
Mulla Nasruddin reached the age of one hundred. Journalists rushed to interview him because he
was the only centenarian in the town. Among the many questions they asked him was, ”What do
you have to say about the fair sex?”
Nasruddin said, ”Do not raise such a question. I stopped thinking about women three days ago.”
The Great Path 68 Osho