Osho,
Will you say something more about relaxation? I am aware of a tension deep at the core of me and suspect that I have probably never been totally relaxed.
“Total relaxation is the ultimate. That’s the moment when one becomes a buddha. That is the moment of realization, enlightenment, christ-consciousness.
“You cannot be totally relaxed right now. At the innermost core a tension will persist.
But start relaxing. Start from the circumference – that’s where we are, and we can start only from where we are.
“Relax the circumference of your being – relax your body, relax your behavior, relax your acts. Walk in a relaxed way, eat in a relaxed way, talk, listen in a relaxed way.
“Slow down every process. Don’t be in a hurry and don’t be in haste. Move as if all eternity is available to you – in fact, it is available to you.
“We are here from the beginning and we are going to be here to the very end, if there is a beginning and there is an end. In fact, there is no beginning and no end.
“We have always been here and we will be here always. Forms go on changing, but not the substance; garments go on changing, but not the soul.
Tension means hurry, fear, doubt. Tension means a constant effort to protect, to be secure, to be safe.
“Tension means preparing for the tomorrow now, or for the afterlife – afraid tomorrow you will not be able to face the reality, so be prepared.
Tension means the past that you have not lived really but only somehow bypassed; it hangs, it is a hangover, it surrounds you.
“Remember one very fundamental thing about life: Any experience that has not been lived will hang around you, will persist: ‘Finish me! Live me! Complete me!’
“There is an intrinsic quality in every experience that it tends and wants to be finished, completed.
“Once completed, it evaporates; incomplete, it persists, it tortures you, it haunts you, it attracts your attention. It says, ‘What are you going to do about me? I am still incomplete – fulfill me!’
Your whole past hangs around you with nothing completed – because nothing has been really lived, everything somehow bypassed, partially lived, only so-so, in a lukewarm way.
“There has been no intensity, no passion. You have been moving like a somnabulist, a sleepwalker.
“So that past hangs, and the future creates fear. And between the past and the future is crushed your present, the only reality.
You will have to relax from the circumference. The first step in relaxing is the body.
“Remember as many times as possible to look into your body, whether you are carrying some tension in the body somewhere – in the neck, in the head, in the legs.
Relax it consciously. Just go that part of your body, and persuade that part, say to it lovingly ‘Relax.’
“And you will be surprised that if you approach any part of your body, it listens, it follows you – it is your body!
“With closed eyes, go inside the body from the toe to the head searching for any place where there is a tension.
“And then talk to that part as you talk to a friend; let there be a dialogue between you and your body. Tell it to relax, and tell it, ‘There is nothing to fear. Don’t be afraid. I am here to take care – you can relax.’
“Slowly slowly, you will learn the knack of it. Then the body becomes relaxed.”
END
Excerpted from Osho, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 1, Talk #8 — A New Phase
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