Hard to let go

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Question:

BELOVED MASTER,

WHY DO I FEEL SO MUCH PAIN IN LETTING GO OF THE THINGS THAT ARE

CAUSING ME MISERY?

Osho:

Deva Akal, the things that are causing you misery must be giving you

some pleasure too; otherwise the question does not arise. If they

were pure misery you would have dropped them. But in life, nothing is

pure; everything is mixed with its opposite. Everything carries its

opposite in its womb.

What you call misery, analyze it, penetrate into it, and you will see

that it has something which you would like to have. Maybe it is not

yet real, maybe it is only a hope, maybe it is only a promise for

tomorrow, but you will cling to the misery, you will cling to the

pain, in the hope that tomorrow something that you have always

desired and longed for is going to happen.

You suffer misery in the hope of pleasure. If it is pure misery it is

impossible to cling to it. Just watch, be more alert about your

misery. For example, you are feeling jealous. It creates misery. But

look around -- there must be something positive in it. It also gives

you some ego, some sense of your being separate from others, some

sense of superiority. Your jealousy at least pretends to be love. If

you don't feel jealous you will think maybe you don't love anymore.

And you are clinging to jealousy because you would like to cling to

your love -- at least your idea of love. If your woman or your man

goes with somebody else and you don't feel jealous at all, you will

immediately become conscious that you no longer love. Otherwise, for

centuries you have been told that lovers are jealous. Jealousy has

become an intrinsic part of your love: without jealousy your love

dies; only with jealousy can your so-called love live. If you want

your love you will have to accept your jealousy and the misery that

is created by it.

And your mind is very cunning and very clever in finding

rationalizations. It will say, "It is natural to feel jealous." And

it appears natural because everybody else is doing the same. Your

mind will say, "It is natural to feel hurt when your lover leaves

you. Because you have loved so much, how can you avoid the hurt, the

wound, when your lover leaves you?"

In fact, you are enjoying your wound too, in a very subtle and

unconscious way. Your wound is giving you an idea that you are a

great lover, that you loved so much, that you loved so deeply, that

your love was so profound, that you are shattered because your lover

has left you. Even if you are not shattered you will pretend to be

shattered -- you will believe in your own lie. You will behave as if

you are in great misery, you will cry and weep, and your tears may

not be true at all, but just to console yourself that you are a great

lover, you have to cry and weep.

Just watch every kind of misery: either it has some pleasure in it

which you are not ready to lose, or it has some hope in it which goes

on dangling in front of you like a carrot. And it looks so close,

just by the corner, and you have traveled so long and now the goal is

so close, why drop it? You will find some rationalization in it, some

hypocrisy in it.

Just a few days ago a sannyasin wrote to me that her man has left her

and she is not feeling miserable -- what is wrong with her? "Why am I

not feeling miserable? Am I too hard, rocklike? I don't feel any

misery," she wrote to me. And she is miserable because she is not

feeling misery! She was expecting to be shattered. "On the contrary,"

she wrote, "I can confess that I am feeling happy -- and that makes

me very sad. What kind of love is this? I am feeling happy,

unburdened; a great load has disappeared from my being." She asked

me, "Beloved Master, is it normal? Am I alright or is something

basically wrong with me?"

Nothing is wrong with her, she is absolutely right. In fact, when

lovers, after a long long togetherness and all the misery that is

bound to happen when you are together, leave each other, it is a

relief. But it is against the ego to confess it, that it is a relief.

For a few days at least you will move with a long face, with tears

flowing from your eyes -- phony, but this is the idea that has

prevailed in the world.

If somebody dies and you don't feel sad you will start feeling that

something is certainly wrong with you. How can you avoid sadness when

somebody has died? -- because we have been told it is natural, it is

normal, and everybody wants to be natural and normal. It is not

normal, it is only average. It is not natural, it is only a long long

cultivated habit; otherwise there is nothing to weep and cry about.

Death destroys nothing. The body is dust and falls into dust, and the

consciousness has two possibilities: if it still has desires then it

will move into another womb, or if all the desires have disappeared

then it will move into the womb of God, into eternity. Nothing is

destroyed. The body again becomes part of the earth, goes into rest,

and the soul moves into the universal consciousness or moves into

another body.

But you cry and weep and you carry your sadness for many days. It is

just a formality, or if it is not a formality then there is every

possibility that you never loved the man who has died and now you are

feeling repentant; you never loved the man totally and now there is

no more time. Now the man has disappeared, now he will never be

available. Maybe you had quarreled with your husband and he died in

the night in his sleep. Now you will say that you are crying because

he has died, but really you are crying because you have not even been

able to ask his forgiveness, you have not even been able to say a

goodbye. The quarrel will hang over you like a cloud forever.

If a man lives moment to moment in totality, then there is never any

repentance, no guilt. If you have loved totally, there is no

question. One day if the lover leaves that simply means, "Now our

ways are parting. We can say goodbye, we can be thankful to each

other. We shared so much, we loved so much, we have enriched each

other's lives so much -- what is there to cry and weep about and why

be miserable?"

But people are so entangled in their rationality that they can't see

beyond their rationalizations. And they always rationalize

everything; even things which are obviously simple become very

complicated.

 

"I am in love with my horse," said Andrew to the psychiatrist.

"That's nothing," replied the shrink. "A lot of people love animals.

My wife and I have a dog that we love very much."

"Ah, but doctor, it is a physical attraction that I feel towards my

horse!"

"Hmm!" said the analyst. "What kind of horse is it? Male or female?"

"Female, of course!" said Andrew. "What do you think I am -- queer?"

 

You ask me, Akal, "Why do I feel so much pain in letting go of the

things that are causing me misery?"

You are not yet convinced that they are causing you misery. I am

saying that they are causing you misery, you are not yet convinced.

And it is not a question of MY saying it. The basic thing is: YOU

will have to understand, "These are the things which are causing me

misery," and you will have to see that there are investments in your

misery. If you want those investments you will have to learn to live

with the misery; if you want to drop the misery, you will have to

drop those investments too.

Have you watched it, observed it? -- if you talk about your misery to

people, they give great sympathy to you. Everybody is sympathetic to

the miserable man. Now, if you love getting sympathy from people you

cannot drop your misery; that is your investment.

The miserable husband comes home, the wife is loving, sympathetic.

The more miserable he is, the more his children are considerate of

him; the more miserable he is, the more his friends are friendly

towards him. Everybody takes care of him. The moment he starts

becoming happy they withdraw their sympathy, of course -- a happy

person needs no sympathy. The more happy he is, the more he finds

that nobody cares about him. It is as if everybody becomes suddenly

hard, frozen. Now, how can you drop your misery?

You will have to drop this desire for attention, this desire for

getting sympathy from people. In fact, it is very ugly to desire

sympathy from people -- it makes you a beggar. And remember, sympathy

is not love; they are obliging you, they are fulfilling a kind of

duty -- it is not love. They may not like you, but still they will

sympathize with you. This is etiquette, culture, civilization,

formality -- but you are living on false things. Your misery is real

and what you are getting in the bargain is false. Of course, if you

become happy, if you drop your miseries, it will be a radical change

in your life-style; things may start changing.

Once a woman came to me, the woman of one of the richest men in

India, and she told me, "I want to meditate, but my husband is

against it."

I asked her, "Why is your husband against meditation?"

She said, "He says, 'The way you are, I love you. I don't know what

will happen after meditation. If you start meditating you are bound

to change; then I don't know whether I will be able to love you or

not, because you will be another person.'"

I said to the woman, "Your husband has a point there -- certainly

things will be different. You will be more free, more independent.

You will be more joyous, and your husband will have to learn to live

with a new woman. He may not like you that way, he may start feeling

inferior. Right now he is superior to you."

That's why down the ages man has not allowed women to meditate, to

participate in deep religious experiences. Man has not allowed women

to read the Vedas, the Upanishads, the great scriptures of the world.

In many religions the women are not allowed to enter into the mosque

or the synagogue. In Jainism it is said that you cannot be liberated

from the body of a woman; first you will have to be born as a man,

then only can you be liberated. From the body of a woman there is no

way to God.

Why? Why this fear? The reason is very psychological: man has always

been afraid of women becoming happier than him, more peaceful than

him, more attuned, more integrated than him -- because once they are

more integrated, more attuned to their beings and to the being of the

whole, more in harmony with existence, more in accord.... And women

can attain to harmony more easily than men, remember. For certain

biological reasons, a woman is more capable of going into meditation

than a man is. The male energy is aggressive, violent, outgoing,

extrovert, and the female energy is introvert, passive, ingoing.

Hence what Jainism says is absolutely wrong -- not only absolutely

wrong: just the opposite may be the truth. It is easier to enter into

God through the body of a woman than through the body of a man. The

woman's body is more harmonious, the man's body is not so harmonious.

The woman's body is more balanced, more rounded; that's why she looks

so beautiful. Her body is less tense, more relaxed.

Mothers become aware after a few months' pregnancy whether it is a

male child or a female child in their womb, because the male child

starts parading and doing things inside the womb, kicking... he

cannot be at rest. You can watch small girls -- they are perfectly

happy sitting in a corner with their dolls. And the boys? -- they

can't sit.

Just a few days ago a little boy took sannyas. I had to ask him, "Can

you be silent for one minute so I can explain your name to your

mother?" But he was not even able to be silent for one minute. Small

girls come for sannyas; when I say to them, "Close your eyes and sit

silently," they sit so beautifully; they can sit for hours. When

small boys come and I say to them, "Close your eyes," they have to

clench their eyes! They are afraid that if they don't do too much

they will open. They are so curious about what is happening, what is

going on outside.

When small girls take sannyas they look at me. And the boys? -- they

look at Krishna Bharti and his camera! They are all over the place! I

am putting a mala on them and they are looking at people to see what

the response is. "Are people laughing, enjoying, watching?" They are

great performers! And a great curiosity keeps them constantly tense.

 

While on their honeymoon, Kit and Netty bought a talkative parrot and

took it back to their hotel room. As they made love the bird kept up

a running commentary. Finally Kit flung a bath towel over the cage

and said, "If you don't shut up I am sending you to the zoo!"

Getting ready to leave the following morning, they could not close a

bulging suitcase and decided one of them would stand on it while the

other attempted to fasten it.

"Darling," said Kit, "you get on top and I will try."

That didn't work. So he said, "Now I will get on top and you try."

That didn't work either.

"Look," said Kit, "let us both get on top and try."

The parrot yanked away the towel and said, "Zoo or no zoo, this I've

gotta see!"

 

The parrot must have been a male!

I told the woman, "Your husband is right: before you enter on the

path of meditation you have to consider it, because there are dangers

ahead."

She didn't listen to me; she started meditating. Now she is divorced.

She came to see me after a few years and said, "You were right. The

more silent I became, the more my husband became furious at me. He

was never so violent -- something strange started happening," she

told me. "The more silent and quiet I was becoming, the more

aggressive he was becoming." His whole male chauvinist mind was at

stake. He wanted to destroy the peace and the silence that was

happening to the woman so he could still remain superior. And because

it could not happen the way he wanted, he divorced the woman.

It is a very strange world! If you become peaceful your relationship

with people will change, because you are a different person. If your

relationship was because of your misery it may disappear.

 

I used to have a friend. He was a professor in the same university

where I was a professor; he was a great social worker. In India, what

to do with the widows is still a problem. Nobody wants to marry them,

and widows are not in favor of marrying either; that seems like a

sin. And this professor was determined to marry a widow. He was not

concerned whether he was in love with the woman or not -- that was

secondary, irrelevant -- his only interest was that she should be a

widow. And he persuaded her slowly slowly, and she was ready.

I told the man, "Before you take the plunge, consider it for at least

three days -- go into isolation. Are you in love with the woman, or

is it just a great social service that you are doing?" Marrying a

widow in India is thought to be something very revolutionary,

something radical. "Are you just trying to prove that you are a

revolutionary? If you are trying to prove that you are a

revolutionary, then you are bound for trouble -- because the moment

you are married she will no longer be a widow and your whole interest

will be gone."

He didn't listen to me. He got married... and after six months he

told me, "You were right." He cried. He said, "I could not see the

point: I was in love with her widowhood, not with her for herself,

and now certainly she is no longer a widow."

So I said, "You do one thing -- commit suicide! Make her a widow

again and give somebody else a chance to be a revolutionary! What

else can you do?"

 

Man's mind is so stupid, so unconscious. Buddha says it is in deep

sleep, slumber, snoring.

Akal, you cannot let go of things that are causing you misery because

you have not yet seen the investments, you have not yet looked deeply

into them. You have not seen that there is some pleasure you are

deriving out of your misery. You will have to drop both -- and then

there is no problem. In fact, misery and pleasure can only be dropped

together. And then arises bliss.

Bliss is not pleasure, bliss is not even happiness. Happiness is

always bound together with unhappiness and pleasure is always bound

together with pain. Dropping both.... You want to drop misery so that

you can be happy -- that is an absolutely wrong approach. You will

have to drop both. Seeing that they are together, one drops them; you

cannot choose one part.

In life, everything has an organic unity. Pain and pleasure are not

two things. Really, if we make a more scientific language, we will

drop these words: pain and pleasure. We will make one word:

painpleasure, happinessunhappiness, daynight, lifedeath. These are

one word because they are NEVER separable.

And you want to choose one part: you want to have only the roses and

not the thorns, you want only the day and not the night, you want

only love and not hate. This is not going to happen -- this is not

the way things are. You will have to drop both, and then arises a

totally different world: the world of bliss.

Bliss is absolute peace, undisturbedness, neither disturbed by pain

nor disturbed by pleasure.

 

To celebrate their fortieth anniversary, Seymour and Rose went back

to the same second-floor hotel room where they had spent their

honeymoon.

"Now," said Seymour, "just like that first night, let us undress, get

in opposite corners of the room, turn off the lights, then run to

each other and embrace."

They undressed, went to opposite corners, switched off the lights and

ran towards each other. But their sense of direction was dulled by

forty years, so Seymour missed Rose and he went right through the

window. He landed on the lawn in a daze.

Seymour tapped on the lobby window to get the clerk's attention. "I

fell down from upstairs," he said. "I am naked and I gotta get back

to my room."

"It's okay," said the clerk. "Nobody will see you."

"Are you crazy? I gotta walk through the lobby and I am all naked!"

"Nobody can see you," repeated the clerk. "Everybody is upstairs

trying to get some old lady off a doorknob!"

 

People are so foolish! Not only the younger ones -- the older you

get, the more foolish you become. The more experienced you are, it

seems the more stupidity you accumulate through life. It really

rarely happens that a person starts watching, observing his own life

and his own life patterns.

See what your misery is, what desires are causing it, and why you are

clinging to those desires. And it is not for the first time that you

are clinging to those desires; this has been the pattern of your

whole life and you have not arrived anywhere. You go on in circles,

you never come to any real growth. You remain childish, stupid. And

you are born with the intelligence that can make you a buddha, but it

is lost in unnecessary things.

 

A farmer who had only two impotent old bulls bought a new, young,

vigorous bull. Immediately the stud began mounting one cow after

another in the pasture. After watching this for an hour, one of the

ancient bulls started pawing the ground and snorting.

"What's the matter?" asked the other. "You getting young ideas?"

"No," said the first bull, "but I don't want that young fellow to

think I am one of the cows."

 

So even in their old age people go on carrying their egos. They have

to pretend, they have to pose, and their whole life is nothing but a

long long story of misery. Still they defend it. Rather than being

ready to change it, they are very defensive.

Akal, drop all defensiveness, drop all armors. Start watching how you

live your day-to-day life, moment to moment. And whatsoever you are

doing, go into its details. You need not go to a psychoanalyst, you

can analyze each pattern of your life yourself -- it is such a simple

process! Just watch and you will be able to see what is happening,

what has been happening. You have been choosing -- and that has been

the problem -- you have been choosing one part against the other, and

they are both together.

Buddha says: Attain to choiceless awareness -- don't choose at all.

Just watch and be aware without choosing, and you will attain to

bliss, you will attain to the lotus paradise.