The third question and the last:

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

YOU SAID BE A TOTAL YEA-SAYER, BE TOTALLY WITH THE BODY. BUT IT IS OUR COMMON EXPERIENCE THAT THEN THERE IS EVERY POSSIBILITY OF THE SENSES BEING PERMISSIVE AND INDULGENT. PLEASE EXPLAIN THE WISDOM BEHIND THE ABOVE SAYING.

So let them be permissive and indulgent. Why be afraid? What is wrong in it? The fear comes from a long tradition of suppression. Why be afraid of your senses being permissive? Why not permit them? Who are you not to permit them and what has happened to you? Do you think that you have enslaved your senses? Quite the contrary is the case: your senses have enslaved you, and you cannot be free unless your senses are free. Unless your total being is free, you cannot be free. This is one of the deepest problems for the human mind. You will have to understand it.

First you say something is wrong, then you become afraid of it. Then you try to suppress it, not to do it. And the more you suppress it, the more your mind is filled with it.

For example, if you suppress sex then your mind will become sexual. Really, no animal is sexual except human beings. Sex exists for animals, but they are not sexual. For animals sex exists, but they are not sexual because they never think about it. They do not go on brooding about it, they do not create nude films, they do not publish nude magazines. They do not do anything about sex. Whenever the desire arises they move; whenever the desire is not you cannot move them. They simply follow their nature.

But man, he creates a sexual mind by suppressing sex. And the more he suppresses, the more he becomes sexual, because whatsoever you suppress goes into your blood, into your bones. It becomes part of your being. When I say be a yea-sayer, you become afraid. Why? It is not because what I am saying is dangerous, but because the moment you think of yea-saying you become aware of all the poisons you have suppressed; if I say yes, all this poison will be released."

You think that if you say yes to sex you will become mad after it -- that you will commit adultery, that you will become a maniac. The situation is just like this: if a man fasts for thirty days, then even a hint about food makes him mad. Not that a hint about food can make anybody mad -- the food is not the cause. The cause is his own suppression. He has been suppressing his hunger, his desire to eat. Any hint, however indirect, and he will become mad. He will say, "Do not say such things."

A word can break his whole suppression and explode his whole being. He will become afraid; he will not look at food. He will pass through the streets and he will not look at the signboards of the restaurants, he will just look down. But whatsoever he is doing... even looking down at the road he will see food.

Really, everything will finally become an indirect invitation to food. If he looks at the moon he will think about bread -- white bread floating in the sky. He cannot see his beloved's face there -- impossible. He will see bread.

Whatsoever you are starved of you will project. Really, if your beloved is not with you, only then can you see her face in the moon. If your beloved is with you, how can you see? You will see simply the moon. And when you see the moon simply as the moon, you are healthy. When you see your beloved's face you are unhealthy. Or when you see bread floating you are unhealthy, you are perverted.

A moon is a moon. Nothing else should be seen in it. Anything else that you see is a projection. Something suppressed goes out and creates an illusion; it is a hallucination. Whatsoever you suppress becomes hallucinatory. Then you are living in it, moving in it, and, of course, you become more and more afraid and scared. So the more you get scared, the more you suppress it.

You are in a suicidal effort; that is why such questions arise: "If I say yes, the first thing that comes to the mind is whatever I have said no to." That thing will assert itself immediately. If you have been starving your body, fasting, dieting, and I say, "Say yes," the first thing that comes to your mind will be to go and eat. And then you will become afraid, because you have been dieting and now the whole thing will go to the dogs if you say yes.

If a man who has been suppressing sex thinks about saying yes to the whole of life, he will be afraid of sex. Whatsoever you have suppressed, whatsoever you have said no to, will demand. It will be the first thing that will come to your mind to say yes to, and this will create trembling. But this trembling is coming not because of yea-saying -- it is coming because you have said no. This is the point to be understood: it is coming because you have said no. The questions come: "What if the society becomes permissive? What if everyone indulges?" It is because the society has been repressive. It is because everyone has said no to life energies.

Try saying yes. In the beginning it may happen that you will become permissive. In the beginning it may happen that you will become indulgent, because whenever a suppressed force is released it moves to the other pole forcibly. But wait and be a witness. Sooner or later the suppressed force will be lost, and for the first time in your life you will become healthy. And then the pendulum will come and stand in the middle.

When the pendulum comes in the middle you are healthy, but you have been keeping it to the left, pulling it to the left. Now you are afraid that if you leave it, it will go to the very right. Of course it will go, but it is going to the right not because you are leaving it; it is going to the right because you have been clinging to it and pulling it to the left. Leave it, and the sooner the better. It WILL go to the right. Allow it to go, and do not pull it to the left. Allow it to go! By and by, it will move from right to left, from left to right. The momentum that you have given it by suppressing has to be released, so it will have to move. But do not give it a new momentum; just become a witness.

By and by, the pendulum will become static in the middle. When the pendulum is in the middle of your mind and you are not afraid of indulgence or permissiveness, you have become free. Now you are healthy and natural.

My whole emphasis is to be natural. The more natural, the nearer you are to the divine. Nature is not against the divine; nature is the expression of the divine. But you have been taught again and again that nature is against the divine, so "Kill nature so that you can reach God."

You will never reach in this way because nature is not against the divine. If it is against, it cannot exist. How can it exist? How can anything exist which is against the divine? It is part of the total, part of the game. Do not be against it. And how can you be? You are part of nature. You can go on deceiving yourself, that is all.

Allow it to flow in a natural way, allow it a natural rhythm, and by and by it settles. And when it has settled you will find that suddenly you are standing in the divine. When there is no fight with nature, just an acceptance, you have moved beyond nature. But this 'beyond nature' is not against nature. It is really a growth THROUGH it. You will come to brahmacharya -- to a beautiful celibacy -- but not through fighting sex. No one has come that way ever, no one can ever come that way.

When you are growing through sex, becoming more and more alert through sex, sex will be transformed. This is the way: if you suppress sex it becomes sexuality; if you express sex it becomes love. And through sexuality you cannot reach the divine. It is a perversion. But through love you can reach -- it is a natural growth.

The more you accept natural instincts totally, without any condemnation at all, by and by they subside and the fever is lost. And when they subside you have tremendous energy left with you. That energy can become the arrow toward the divine. It becomes! There is a celibacy which comes through growth and there is a celibacy which comes simply through negation, denial. The celibacy that comes through denial is perverted: your mind will be filled with sexuality. The celibacy that happens gracefully, through alertness, through acceptance, becomes a grace. It has a beauty of its own, and by and by it goes beyond itself.

Then it is love. Then it is prayer. And the love that was flowing toward the opposite sex starts flowing toward the divine -- the same love, the same energy.

So keep it in your mind: I am not against anything. I am for transcendence, but not against anything. God is not against the world: it is a transcendence. It has to be achieved through the world; that is why you have been thrown into the world. But you feel, and you go on thinking, that you are more wise than God himself. He has thrown you into the world to grow, to experience, to be anguished through it. And you are so wise....

Be a little foolish; do not be so wise. Allow the divine to have its own way through you; experience life with a yea-saying heart. And when you say yes, the very life becomes divine.

Now get ready for the meditation. A few things before you get into it: for fifteen minutes you have to stand and stare at me with your hands raised above as if a divine force is to come to you, and you are receptive and welcoming. While standing, you have to stare at me without blinking the eyes. Even if tears start flowing, do not bother -- allow them to flow. And you have to go on jumping so that your energy is dynamic, not static.

I will give you indirect suggestions by my hands. I will raise my hands slowly upwards, and when I raise my hands upwards you have to bring your total energy up to jump, to dance. Be totally active when I raise my hands upwards. When I feel that now you have become a storm, that now the group soul has taken place, that now the individuals are thrown, that they have melted down and here only a group soul exists, whenever I feel this I will put my palms down this way. That means that now God can descend upon you. In that moment go completely mad so that you are totally open and something can happen within you.