The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 2. THE MAN OF TAO
Because you have created so much tension in your life, you are now meditating. But this is the
opposite of tension, not real meditation. You are so tense that meditation has become attractive.
That is why in the West meditation appeals more than in the East, because more tension exists
there than in the East. The East is still relaxed, people are not so tense, they don’t go mad so easily,
they don’t commit suicide so easily. They are not so violent, not so aggressive, not so scared, not
so fearful – no, they are not so tense. They are not living at such a mad speed where nothing but
tension is accumulated.
So if Mahesh Yogi comes to India, nobody listens. But in America, people are mad about him.
When there is much tension, meditation will appeal. But this appeal is again falling into the same
trap. This is not real meditation, this is again a trick. You meditate for a few days, you become
relaxed; when you become relaxed, again the need for activity arises, and the mind starts thinking
of doing something, of moving. You get bored with it.
People come to me and say, ”We meditated for a few years, then it became boring, then there was
no more fun.”
Just the other day a girl came to me and said, ”Now meditation is not fun anymore, what should I
do?”
Now the mind is seeking something else, now it has had enough of meditation. Now that she is
at ease, the mind is asking for more tensions – something to get disturbed about. When she says
that now meditation is no more fun, she means that now the tension is not there, so how can the
meditation be fun? She will have to move into tension again, then meditation will again become
something worthwhile.
Look at the absurdity of the mind: you have to go away to come near, you have to become tense to
be meditative. But then this is not meditation, then again this is a trick of the same mind; on a new
level the same game continues.
When I say meditation, I mean going beyond the game of the polar opposites; dropping out of the
whole game, looking at the absurdity of it and transcending it. The very understanding becomes
transcendence.
The mind will force you to move to the opposite – don’t move to the opposite. Stop in the middle and
see that this has always been the trick of the mind. This is how mind has dominated you – through
the opposite. Have you felt it?
After making love to a woman you suddenly start thinking of brahmacharya, and brahmacharya has
such an alluring fascination at that moment that you feel as if there is nothing else to achieve. You
feel frustrated, deceived, you feel that there was nothing in this sex, only brahmacharya has the
bliss. But after twenty-four hours, sex again becomes important, significant, and again you have to
move into it.
What is the mind doing? After the sex act it started thinking about the opposite, which again creates
the taste for sex.
The Empty Boat 29 Osho