Madness -- the mind vs the body -- Osho

(AB: Comments by Alexander Braun)

Madness, generally speaking, is reference to the state of the mind and as such one has to look at it as part of the dichotomy with serenity on the opposite end of the mental conditions spectrum. The mind is reflecting the state of affairs arising from physical health and needs of the body, the desire to attain and retain control of inner and outer sense of self, to get the available needed and wanted resources, along with developing and maintaining the perceived spiritual values, emotional attachments, expectations, feelings & passions.

As Osho so eloquently wrote in The Book of Secrets p.350-351 Chanter 25 From Words to Pure Sounds to Being.

"The mind is your ego. That is your "I." If the body feels sexuality, you can divide. You can say, "This is the body, not me. I am against it. I have taken a vow of celibacy, I am against it. This is the body; this is not me." Then who are you? The mind which has taken a vow? This mind is your ego, and you go against the body because the body is very ego-destroying. Whatsoever you decide, it never listens.

All the ascetic nonsense was born because of this: the body will not listen. The body is nature, the body is a part of the cosmic whole, the body has its own laws. Those laws are unconscious; it functions according to them. The mind tries to create its own laws over and above the body. Then a conflict is created. Then the mind starts fighting the body. Then the mind will starve the body; it will try in every way to kill it.

That is what has happened in the past: so-called religious people have been really mad against their bodies. And whatsoever they were doing was less for God and more against the body. (AB: God *IS* the body.) Really, to be in search of God became synonymous with being against the body. Religious persons took the attitude, "Kill the body, destroy the body. The body is the enemy." (AB: but in truth, the body is holy, the rest is a story.) And really, this is not a religious attitude, but one of the most irreligious attitudes, because it is the most egoistical. This is the ego; (AB: ego in Latin means I am.) the ego feels offended.

You decide not to be angry again, and then anger comes: your ego feels defeated. Your decision is thrown overboard, and the anger comes. And when the anger comes you feel this is coming from the body. You decide against sex and sex comes: you feel offended, so you try to punish the body. Asceticism is nothing but punishment -- punishing your own body in order to force it to behave according to the ego. (AB: according to the ancient Egyptians, such souls will have hard time explaining their decisions in life to their formal body after death.)

This mind, this process of thinking, this ego, is just a fragment of your whole total being, and this fragment is trying to be the sovereign. This is not possible, the fragment cannot be the sovereign. It is going to fail; that is why there is so much frustration in life. You can never succeed -- you are trying the impossible. The fragment cannot be the sovereign. The whole is bigger and the whole is more powerful.

It is just as if a branch of a tree tries to control the whole tree, even the roots. How can a branch control the whole tree, and how can it force the roots to follow it? That is impossible. Whatsoever it thinks, it is mad; the branch has gone mad. It may go on thinking and dreaming, conceiving of some future where the tree will be following it, but it is not possible; it will have to follow the tree. And the roots were there before it was. The roots are the source of it also.

Your mind is just a fragment of your body; it cannot control it. (AB: at any moment the subconscious mind registeres 6 to 7 billion bits of information then narrows it down to 2 to 3 thousand bits of information made aware to the conscious mind.) The very effort to control the body will create frustration and failure. And the whole humanity has been a failure because of this. Everyone is suffering, in conflict, in anguish, in anxiety, trembling, because the impossible is being tried. But the ego always likes to try the impossible. The possible has no challenge for it; the impossible is a challenge. And if the impossible can be done, then the ego will feel very good -- because this cannot be done. You can try to do it, but you will waste your life trying that which cannot be done. (AB: or should not for good reasons.)

Because of this inner effort to become the master, you are identified with the mind. Who would like to be identified with a slave? Who would like to be identified with the unconscious? It is useless. The unconscious is negated because it cannot be grasped. And with the unconscious there is no ego; you cannot feel "I." (AB: there is no I in team.)

Try to understand it in this way: when sex overpowers you, really you cannot say "I." It is as if something greater than you has taken possession -- as if you are in a strong current. You are no more; something else is driving you. That is why these words are meaningful...that is why those who are against sex will say, "Sex possessed me." (AB: Catholic priests, for example, are not even allowed to masturbate for Christ's sake, no wonder many go evil cookoo in their head! Then many of the priests get possessed and need an exorcism, hence the Church is such an expert at it.)

Anger possesses you, hunger possesses you. They are something greater than you, and you are just taken by the current. It is fearful. It is very fearful because then you are no more. It is a sort of death. That is why you are so much against sex -- it is a sort of death. Those who are against sex will always be afraid of death, and those who are not against sex and can flow in it easily, spontaneously, will never be afraid of death. See the association: those who are against sex will always be afraid of death, and those who are afraid of death will be always against sex.

Those who are afraid of death will always create theories of immortality; they will always think about life beyond death. Those who think about immortality will always be against sex -- these are alternatives. Sex gives you a fear. What is the fear? You are no more in it, something greater than you possesses you. You are thrown overboard; you are no more in it.

So even those who are not against sex, they too never move really deep into sex. They never move; they are always holding back, trying to remain there, not allowing themselves, not ready for a letgo. That is why orgasm, such a natural thing, has become so impossible for man and woman. A deep orgasm means you have been in something which was greater than oyu. You have been in something where you were not, the ego was not.

The ego is struggling to control everything, and mind helps you. In the effort you become identified with the mind, and this identification is the misery, it is a false shadow. Mind is a very utilitarian instrument. You have to use it, but do not become identified with it. It is a good instrument -- necessary. Use it! But do not feel that you are the mind, because once you start feeling you are the mind, you cannot use it. The mind starts using you. (AB: Our leaders are leading the way.) Then you are simply drifting with the mind.

All the meditation techniques are an effort to give you a glimpse of that which is not mind. So how to go beyond it? How to leave it and look at it even for a single moment?"

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happy trails.