The fifth question

Question 5

OSHO, DURING THE TWO MONTHS THAT I HAVE BEEN HERE, I OFTEN FEEL THE THREAT OF A NEW KIND OF TOTALITARIANISM. IT IS CONTINUALLY PRESENTED AS THE SOLUTION: BE TOTAL IN THIS AND THAT EVEN IN NOT BEING TOTAL. BEING TOTAL, WITHOUT FRAGMENTATION ANY MORE, IS NOT THAT A FINAL STATE, THE LAST STAGE ON THE WAY? SO IS NOT THIS ADAGE CREATING A NEW IDEAL WITH ALL ITS FRUSTRATIONS AND NEUROSIS TO FOLLOW? ANYWAY, FOR ME, NOT BEING A SUPERMAN, IT IS VERY RARE THAT I AM ABLE TO DO, TO EXIST, TO FEEL MYSELF TOTAL IN ANYTHING, AND I HAVE NO REASON TO HOPE THAT IT WILL EVER HAPPEN AS A CONTINUOUS STATE. SINCE IT SEEMS TO BE THE CONDITION FOR THE THINGS THAT ARE PROMISED HERE IS THERE STILL ANY HOPE FOR ME?

Eduard Povel,

TOTALITY IS NOT A GOAL. Totality is not perfectionism. Totality is simply a vision of seeing the life in a different light. For example, you are angry. You can be half-heartedly angry, then the remaining part that has not been expressed will remain in you as a poison.

And if again and again this has been done, you go on accumulating poison in yourself. Then a moment comes when you may not be angry in particular, but you are still in anger for no reason at all. That's how people are -- they are just angry, illogically angry, because right now there is no reason to be angry, but all the anger that they have repressed in the past has accumulated, has gone deep into their bloodstream, has poisoned them, has become toxic. It has created a certain musculature, a wrong kind of musculature in their bodies. And that is going to destroy many many beautiful things in their lives.

If such a man is going to see a sunset, he will not see any beauty in it. He is in such a rage! If such a man goes to listen to music, he will not be able to listen to it, because to be able to listen to great music you need a relaxed state. He cannot relax. He is carrying so many tensions, the whole life's accumulated tensions....

When I say be total I simply mean... I am not giving you a superhuman ideal. I am simply giving you a very human vision that when you are angry, then BE angry! Then don't repress it. If it is too risky to be angry with somebody, then go into your room and be angry alone, but express it. Beat the pillow, shout at the walls, make a picture of your wife and beat it! But do something -- do what you really wanted to do with the wife.

It is really a good idea to have an effigy of your wife, or if you are a wife then an effigy of your husband, so whenever the need arises you can go and be as nasty as you feel like being -- and with no danger of retaliation. And you will be surprised: after beating your wife, in her absence, after shouting nasty things, using four-letter words, then when you see your wife you will be surprised -- you will feel compassion for her. You may even feel ready to apologize. You may be able to see her in a different way, because you are no longer carrying that subtle layer of anger -- it has been released. You may be able to see her face again after years.

When I say be total I simply mean don't repress things, because the repressed things are bound to rebound on you, those repressed things are going to take revenge, they are going to explode with vengeance one day. Those repressed feelings are creating all kinds of neurotic, psychotic people in the world. To be total is not a goal! To be total is only a way of life.

And you say: BEING TOTAL WITHOUT 'FRAGMENTATION ANY MORE, IS NOT THAT A FINAL STATE...?

Yes, it is a final state too -- but the first step is the last step, and the beginning is the end. It is a means and an end too. You have to begin. I know you cannot be total right now. Slowly slowly, you will be able to become total, because the society has not allowed you to be total in anything; it has allowed you only so far. It has made you very lukewarm; it has taken away all passionate energy from your being. Hence, you don't really love madly, you don't really go into anger madly, you don't share totally, you cannot commune -- everything is just so-so. And, hence, so much dust has gathered on your face.

Totality has to be started; it is the beginning and the end too. In the beginning it is going to be difficult because you will be going against the current of the society, but that's what sannyas is: taking courage to be oneself And I don't expect you to become total right now, But the decision will help. If you decide to be total, slowly slowly you will be more and more total, degrees and degrees, by degrees one day you will attain to the hundred-degree point.

And the miracle is: when one can go into one's emotions a hundred percent, all that is wrong starts disappearing. That is the miracle! And all that is right starts growing. A really total person will not be able to be angry. In the beginning when you start you will be more and more angry, but soon the point comes when you are totally angry and you have seen the naked futility of anger, the utter absurdity of anger, the insanity of anger -- When YOU have seen it -- not because Buddha has said so or I have said so -- when you have seen it, it will drop. The seeing is enough. You need not drop it: it drops of its own accord.

A total person will be able to love and will be unable to hate. A total person will be able to be compassionate and will be unable to be angry. But that is the end. I am not telling you to be a Buddha right now. But one has to begin somewhere; one has to start moving in the direction of being a Buddha.

You are right: it is the final state, the last stage on the way. But the w ay is also part of the last stage. The way and the goal are not separate. The goal is just the other end of the way. And the beginning is THIS end and the goal is THAT end, and the way joins both, is the bridge.

Eduard, I am not teaching you any kind of perfectionism, I am not saying you any ideals. Totality is certainly not all ideal -- it sounds as if it is. It is just a different style of life. Right now you are living a life-style which can be called partial -- only parts of your being are allowed to surface, only the tip of the iceberg. You are living in fragments, you are living split. This is a kind of schizophrenic life.

Misery is bound to be the outcome of it -- misery and only misery. Bliss is the consequence of being one, integrated. That's exactly the meaning of the word 'yoga': union, integration, oneness.

YOU say: I HAVE NO REASON TO HOPE THAT IT WILL EVER HAPPEN AS A CONTINUOUS STATE.

Who is telling you to make it a continuous state? Why do we always think of the future? Why do we make things unnecessarily difficult? For a certain reason -- there is a motive. First you make something very difficult, then you can say, "This is not possible. I cannot do it," and it is finished. There is no need for it to be total, there is no need for it to be continuous.