The second question:

Question 2

I'M IN SUCH A VORTEX. NEVER IN LIFE HAVE I BEEN SO RIPPED APART, SO FLUID, SO BEAUTIFULLY INSECURE. MY BEING LOVES YOU -- BODY CONSTANTLY VIBRATING -- WORDS COME TO MIND -- SCINTILLATING, OSCILLATING. EVEN THE VALLEYS HAVE A PASSION. SUCH A THIRST, BELOVED OSHO....

Amrita, this is the state of prayer... when your body prays -- not the mind but the body. The body is your truth, the mind is nothing but lies that you have accumulated down the ages. The mind is borrowed, the body is authentically yours. So when the mind prays the prayer is false. But when the body starts vibrating in a new rhythm, in a new joy, when the body starts pulsating with the divine, with a new song, it is real prayer.

The real prayer arises out of your body, not out of your mind. This is my basic insistence: that all that is real has to arise out of your body. I am tremendously in love with the body because the body is your nature. It is the body where you are grounded and rooted, and all the so-called religions, organized religions, have been destroying the bridge between you and the body. They have been telling you that you are not the body; not only that you are not the body, they have been telling you that the body is the enemy, that the body has to be destroyed, that you have to starve the

body in the name of religion, that you have to torture the body in the name of religion, that only by torturing the body will you come closer to God. I say to you: only by living your body will you come closer to God. There is no other way. Torturing your body you are torturing God Himself, because it is God that has become the body in you. And the body is always beautiful, mind rarely so. And when mind is beautiful it is always when it follows the body. The body has its own wisdom. It knows how to dance, how to sing, how to pulsate with God. Matter knows how to dance with the unknown.

When the sun rises in the morning, millions and millions of trees start waking up. They know... matter is thrilled with the sunrays. Birds start singing, the dawn has come, the night is over. Buds open, open to absorb the sun, open to dance with the wind. Matter knows how to go with the unknown in rhythm. Only the mind is a man-made phenomenon, the soul is in God, the body is in God. Only the mind is outside God.

The prayer that arises out of the mind is false prayer. It will be Christian, it will be Hindu, it will be Mohammedan, but it will not be prayer. It will come from the Koran or from the Gita or from the Bible, but it will not be a prayer. It will be an impotent gesture, movement without any soul in it. It will be like a gramophone record, it will just be mechanical. Millions of Christians go on praying and millions of Hindus and millions of Mohammedans, but you don't see prayer alive on the earth anywhere. What has happened? So many people praying, so many churches, mosques, temples, gurudwaras, synagogues -- so much prayer, but God doesn't seem to happen anywhere. So much prayer simply going down the drain? It is not creating any Buddhafield, is not creating any Christ-consciousness on the earth. If so much prayer were true, the earth would have been transformed. Matter would have become divine if so much prayer were true. Matter itself would have become divine. Matter has the capacity to become divine. If the divine has the capacity to become matter, naturally matter has the capacity to become divine. If God becomes the world, the world can become God. They are two phases of the same energy. But those prayers are false, sheer wastage of time, energy. They are mind prayers.

I teach you the prayer of the body. And if you learn the prayer of the body, if you allow it, then the prayer of the soul will arise on its own accord.When the body starts vibrating with the divine, suddenly you will see your soul is also vibrating. Your body and soul are one; it is the mind that is making them separate. Dissolve the mind and you are one, you are absolute unity, integration. Mind is the culprit.

So, Amrita, this is what I call prayer, "BODY CONSTANTLY VIBRATING -- WORDS COME TO MIND -- SCINTILLATING, OSCILLATING. EVEN THE VALLEYS HAVE A PASSION. SUCH A THIRST, BELOVED OSHO."

And prayer is thirst. And only through an intense thirst will you be able to become an arrow and thrust into the reality of that which is. Only through thirst will you become fire, aflame. And that fire will burn you as you and will reveal you as God. That thirst is the fire that burns all that is non-essential, and the essential comes bright, clear, loud. That essence is called God. God is not a person sitting somewhere in heaven, God is your essential being. But you have become too occupied with the non-essential: the money, the politics, the respectability. You have become too concerned with others' opinions about you, what they are saying about you. You are so afraid of their opinions, and you start living according to their opinions. You always follow in line with the mediocre, the stupid, the crowd.

Remember, you are not here to follow the crowd. You are not here to follow anybody, in fact. You are here to realize who you are. You are here to be yourself.

The non-essential has to be dropped. Just go on watching how many non-essential things you go on carrying with yourself, how much unnecessary luggage, junk, you go on carrying with yourself. Drop all that. This thirst will help you to drop it. Allow it to become a fire.

Fear will come -- because when your house is on fire it is very natural that fear arise. You will not know whether anything is going to be saved out of this fire or not. In fact, whatsoever you know about yourself will be gone, and something will surface which you have never known about yourself. Your identity as it is now will be gone, but a new identity, a new vision of life will arise out of it.

Each person has to become the Parable of the Phoenix. Each person has to create his own inner fire -- that's what prayer is.

Amrita, you say, "I AM IN SUCH A VORTEX."

It will be a chaos, because the old will start disappearing and the new will take time. And there will be a gap, and that gap requires courage. In fact a Master is needed just to help you in that gap. When your whole mind says, "Go back, cling to the past. At least you used to know who you are. Now you are losing all identity. You are becoming more and more vague. You are becoming a mist, a cloud. Where are you going? Slowly, slowly you may disappear completely. This may be a death, and not a spiritual birth. Go back! Cling to the past! At least it was familiar, known. You have lived it, you were very skillful about it. Yes, there were miseries and there were downs and there were darknesses -- so what? But at least you were there. Now, searching for light, you are disappearing. Even if there is light and you are gone, what is the point?"

All logic will be in favor of going back. That is the moment when a Master is needed, somebody in whom you trust so tremendously that you can distrust your logic and go with him. Just a little while, and the thing has happened. Once the new starts arising in your consciousness, then there is no problem. Then you know you are on sure ground, and great joy arises with it.

It is going to be a vortex to all those who have gathered around me. It is going to be a chaos. First you will become like nebulae, vaporous. First you will disappear as you are, only then....

Remember the story we started these talks with, 'The Wisdom of the Sands'? The river is afraid: "How to cross the desert?" And the desert says, "Don't be afraid. The only way to cross me is to evaporate. Ride on the wings of the wind. Let the wind carry you beyond the desert." But the river is naturally afraid: "Who knows? Once you evaporate what is the guarantee that you will again be the same, that you will BE again?" And the river is logical, and she argues, and the desert says, "The argument is not going to help, and I cannot prove it. I cannot give you any guarantee, but this is so. I have seen many rivers crossing me. This is the only way. You will have to take the risk."

That risk is sannyas. You have to take the risk to evaporate in me, with me; only then can you go through the desert. Otherwise you will become a mire in the desert, you will be lost.

"I'M IN SUCH A VORTEX. NEVER IN LIFE HAVE L BEEN SO RIPPED APART..."

True, because the whole life tries to keep you as you are -- the parents, the school, the college, the university, the church. The structure of the society tries to keep you as you are. The whole structure is bent upon you remaining stagnant, that you should not become dynamic, because the people who are dynamic are dynamite. They are dangerous people. The people who are growing, the people who are evolving, are bound to be dangerous to the status quo, to the state, to the society, to the church -- because the people who are growing can't remain with the old ideologies. Their growth will require new Gods, new Bibles, new Korans. Their growth will require new Visions of reality.

If a child grows, how long can you keep him satisfied with his toys? The only way to keep him satisfied with his toys is not to allow him growth. Force him to remain retarded; then he will go on playing with his toys, but you have made an imbecile. That's what the society is doing to millions of people: it keeps them imbeciles. It does not allow them to grow because once they start growing then nobody will be able to contain them. And once they have tasted growth they will not believe in any boundaries, they will go on growing till they become God.

And man can be a slave; God cannot be a slave. And the man can be forced to do stupid things: the man can be forced to go to war, the man can be forced to fight, to kill, to murder. You cannot force God. If people go on growing you will not find Englishmen and Germans and Japanese and Indians in the world. If a person goes on growing soon he will have gone beyond being a German or an American or a Chinese or an Indian. Soon he will see the stupidity of it. Soon he will become a universal citizen. Then what will happen to your politicians? What will happen to your nations and your stupid flags? What will happen to all that nonsense that goes on and on and has become too important? That nonsense can remain important and your capitals can remain capitals and your politicians can remain great leaders only if man remains retarded. If man grows, who wants a leader? Everybody will have his own inner guide. Who bothers about listening to politicians? They will be simply out of date. If man grows there can't be any politics; politics is so juvenile. If man grows there can't be any poverty and any richness. If a man grows, he will see; not that communism comes, because that is again another politics. If man grows, a new vision comes: that we all belong to the same earth, that our happiness and our misery is together. If a single man is unhappy, then the whole humanity will have something stuck. That one unhappy man will function like a wound on the body of humanity.

We are together! If we really want to be happy, the everybody has to be happy. Only in a happy atmosphere can you be happy. Not that the proletariat comes and starts dominating the society -- that is going from one polarity to another, it doesn't change anything. That's why all the revolutions in the past have failed -- the French, the Russian, the Chinese, the Indian All the revolutions have failed because the pendulum simply moves to the opposite pole. Rich people were in domination -- the czar was the dictator -- now they are thrown; now the proletariat is in domination. In fact the same bourgeoisie, in the name of the proletariat, starts ruling. And in fact, the czar was never such a czar as Stalin proved to be. Stalin was a reincarnation of Peter, or Ivan the Terrible.

The oppressed become the oppressors, and the oppressors become the oppressed. But the story continues, the story is the same: A becomes B, B becomes A, and the problem remains where it was.

If people grow up, if people become more conscious, if people become more centered -- not that they all will become public servants, but they will simply see that whatsoever they do helps humanity to be more happy. Whatsoever they do, they should see to it that it does not create more misery in the world. That will happen spontaneously. States will disappear, nations will disappear, religions will disappear. There will be a kind of religiousness, a milieu of spirituality around the earth, an atmosphere. That is totally different. But nobody is in favor that you should change, because with your change, so many people's investments will be at stake.

You say, "I'M IN SUCH A VORTEX. NEVER IN LIFE HAVE I BEEN SO RIPPED APART..."

You have never been with a Master. To be with a Master is to learn how to die. Yes, you will be ripped apart. And the paradox is that only in this death will you be born, only this cross will help you to resurrect.

You say, "... SO FLUID, SO BEAUTIFULLY INSECURE."

I am happy, Amrita, that you are feeling the beauty of insecurity, because there is only one security, and that is of insecurity. All other securities are false, make-believes. There is only one security which is not a make-believe, and that is to live and love insecurity, to live moment to moment, to live continuously available to the unknown. To live without a past is to live without security. Security comes from the past. Those who live afraid of insecurity are confined by their past. They live a dead life, they live in their graves. They don't live, they only pretend to live. The people who really want to live have to live in the present, and the present is insecure. Insecurity is built-in in life. It is its very lifeblood. Insecurity means things are changing, moving, that life is a pilgrimage, that we have to go on moving till we reach the ocean and disappear into it. That ocean is God.

"MY BEING LOVES YOU -- BODY CONSTANTLY VIBRATING..."

Allow the body, let it vibrate and dance, let it pray. Listen to the body. Follow the body. Never in any way try to dominate the body. The body is your foundation. Once you have started understanding your body, ninety-nine percent of your miseries will simply disappear. But you don't listen.

The body says, "Stop! Don't eat!" You go on eating, you listen to the mind. The mind says, "It is very tasty, delicious. A little more." You don't listen to the body. The body is feeling nauseous, the stomach is saying, "Stop! Enough is enough! I am tired!" but the mind says, "Look at the taste... a little bit more." You go on listening to the mind. If you listen to the body; ninety-nine percent of problems will simply disappear, and the remaining one percent will be just accidents, not really problems.

But from the very childhood we have been distracted from the body, we have been taken away from the body. The child is crying, the child is hungry and the mother is looking at the clock because the doctor says that only after three hours is the child to be given milk. She is not looking at the child. The child is the real clock to look at, but she goes on looking at the clock. She listens to the doctor, and the child is crying, and the child is asking for food, and the child needs food right now. If the child is not given food right now you have distracted him from the body. Instead of giving him food you give him a pacifier. Now you are cheating and you are deceiving. And you are giving something false, plastic, and you are trying to distract and destroy the sensitivity of the body. The wisdom of the body is not allowed to have its say, the mind is entering in. The child is pacified by the pacifier, he falls asleep. Now the clock says three hours are over and you have to give the milk to the child. Now the child is fast asleep, now his body is sleeping; you wake him up, because the doctor says the milk has to be given. You again destroy his rhythm. Slowly, slowly you disturb his whole being. A moment comes when he has lost all track of his body. He does not know what his body wants -- whether the body wants to eat or not eat, he does not know; whether the body wants to make love or not, he does not know. Everything is manipulated by something from the outside. He looks at a Playboy magazine and feels like making love. Now this is stupid, this is mind. The love cannot be very great; it will be just a sneeze, nothing else, an unburdening. It is not love at all. How can love happen through the mind? Mind knows nothing of love. It becomes a duty. You have a wife, you have a husband, you have to make love -- it becomes a duty. Dutifully, religiously, every night, you make love. Now the spontaneity is not there. And then you are worried because you start feeling it is not fulfilling you. Then you start looking for some other woman. You start thinking logically, "Maybe this woman is not the right woman for me. Maybe she is not my soulmate. Maybe she is not made for me. I am not made for her, because she's not turning me on."

The woman is not the problem, the man is not the problem: you are not in the body, she is not in the body. If people were in their bodies, nobody would miss that beauty called orgasm. If people were in their bodies, they would know God's first glimpses through their orgasmic experiences. You can't know God through the church, you can know God only through love, because only in a loving experience you dissolve, you melt, you become vast. In that vastness you have the taste of God, the taste of Tao. That is the foundation of a real, religious life.

Why are people so irreligious today? -- not because churches are lacking or missionaries are lacking or people are not continuously sermonizing. Millions of books are written, and millions of sermons are given, but all fall flat because the real witness is not available. Nobody has witnessed God in his life in any way. How can you convince people that God is? It all remains just an argument. It does not convert, it does not convince. If people were in their bodies they would know God in love, and then they would start searching for God. They would search for that vastness, that hugeness, that has happened to them. They know it by their own experience; it is existential, it is not theological, it is not philosophical. They know God is, that something like God is.

Now God has to be searched for. Now one has to go on a great exploration.

Listen to your body, follow the body. Mind is foolish, body is wise. And if you have gone deep into the body, in those very depths you will find your soul. The soul is hidden in the depths of the body. The soul is the innermost core of the body, and the body is the outermost circumference of the soul. Mind is a social by-product. The less mind, the better. And all effort here is how to lessen your mind, how to lessen your burden.

That's why Sufis call that state of meditation FANA, a state of no-mind.