“When you are in anger, and if you feel you are in anger, it means that a point exists within you which is still undisturbed and which can be a witness.
“You may not look at that point, that is another thing. You may not see yourself at that point, that is another thing. But it is there always in its pristine purity; it is there.
“This sutra says,
In moods of extreme desire, be undisturbed.
“What can you do? This technique is not for suppression. This technique is not saying that when there is anger suppress it and remain undisturbed – no! If you suppress, you will create more disturbance.
If the anger is there and an effort to suppress is there, it will double the disturbance.
“When anger is there, close your doors, meditate on the anger, allow the anger to be. You remain undisturbed, and don’t suppress it.
“It is easy to suppress; it is easy to express. We do both. We express if the situation allows, and if it is convenient and not dangerous for you. If you can harm the other and the other cannot harm you, you will express the anger. If it is dangerous, if the other can harm you more, if your boss or whoever you are angry at is more strong, you will suppress it.
Expression and suppression are easy, witnessing is difficult.
“Witnessing is neither; it is not suppressing, it is not expressing. It is not expressing because you are not expressing it to the object of anger. It is not being suppressed either. You are allowing it to be expressed – expressed in a vacuum. You are meditating on.
“Stand before a mirror and express your anger – and be a witness to it. You are alone, so you can meditate on it. Do whatsoever you want to do, but in a vacuum.
If you want to beat someone, beat the empty sky. If you want to be angry, be angry; if you want to scream, scream.
“But do it alone, and remember yourself as a point which is seeing all this, this drama. Then it becomes a psychodrama, and you can laugh at it and it will be a deep catharsis for you. Afterwards you will feel relieved of it – and not only relieved of it, you will have gained something through it. You will have matured; a growth will have come to you. And now you will know that even while you were in anger there was a center within you which was undisturbed. Now try to uncover this center more and more, and it is easy to uncover it in desire.
“That is why Tantra is not against desire. It says be in desire, but remember the center which is undisturbed. So Tantra says that even sex can be used. Move in sex, but remain undisturbed. Be a witness. Go on being a deep observer. Whatsoever is happening, is happening on the periphery; you are just an onlooker, a spectator.
“This technique can be very useful, and much benefit can happen to you through it. But it will be difficult because when you become disturbed, you forget everything. You may forget that you have to meditate. Then try it in this way: don’t wait for the moment when anger happens to you. Don’t wait for the moment!
Just close your room, and think of some past experience of anger when you went mad. Remember it, and re-enact it. That will be easy for you. Re-enact it again, do it again, relive it.
“Do not just remember it, relive it. Remember that someone had insulted you and what was said and how you reacted to him. React again, replay it.
“You may not know that mind is just a tape-recording device. And now scientists say, now it is a scientific fact, that if your memory centers are touched with electrodes, they start replaying. For example, you were once angry: the incident is recorded, in the same sequence as it happened, just as if on a tape-recording in your brain. If it is touched by an electrode, it mill start replaying. You will have the same feeling again. Your eyes will go red, your body will start trembling and will become feverish, the whole thing will be re-enacted. The moment the electrode is put away, it stops. If you give it energy again, it starts from the very beginning again.
“Now they say that mind is a recording machine, and you can re-enact anything. But don’t just remember: relive.
Start feeling the experience again, and the mind will get the idea. The incident will come to you; you will relive it.
“In reliving it, remain undisturbed. Start from the past. This is easy because now it is a play, the actual situation is not there. And if you become capable of doing this, then you will be able to do it when the situation for anger is really there, when a real situation is there. And this can be done with every desire, and it is to be done with every desire.
“This re-enacting something from the past will do much. Everyone has scars in his mind; unhealed wounds are there. If you re-enact them, you will be unburdened. If you can go to your past and do something which has remained incomplete, you will be unburdened from your past. Your mind will become fresher; the dust will be thrown away. Remember in your past something which you feel has remained suspended. You wanted to kill someone, you wanted to love someone, you wanted this and that, and that has remained incomplete.
That incomplete thing goes on hovering on the mind like a cloud. It influences everything that you are and that you are doing.
“That cloud has to be dispersed. Move back on the time track and bring back desires which have remained incomplete, and relive the wounds which are still green. They will be healed. You will become more whole, and through this you will have the knack of how to remain undisturbed in a situation which is disturbed.”
END
To continue reading and see all available formats of this talk:
Osho, The Book of Secrets,Talk #37 – Techniques to Witness the Flux-like Film of Life