Tantric Healing Lessons
On Supression, Expression and Transformation - Osho
On Supression, Expression and Transformation
OSHO
Why does man suppress so much and become unhealthy? Because the society teaches you to control, not to transform, and the way of transformation is totally different. For one thing, it is not the way of control at all, it is just the opposite.
First thing: in controlling you repress, in transformation you express.
But there is no need to express on somebody else because the ‘somebody else’ is just irrelevant. Next time you feel angry go and run around the house seven times, and after it sit under a tree and watch where the anger has gone. You have not repressed it, you have not controlled it, you have not thrown it on somebody else — because if you throw it on somebody else a chain is created, because the other is as foolish as you, as unconscious as you. If you throw it on another, and if the other is an enlightened person, there will be no trouble; he will help you to throw and release it and go through a catharsis. But the other is as ignorant as you — if you throw anger on him he will react. He will throw more anger on you, he is repressed as much as you are. Then there comes a chain: you throw on him, he throws on you, and you both become enemies. ....
There is no need to throw anger on anybody. You can go to your bathroom, you can go on a long walk — it means that something is inside that needs fast activity so that it is released. Just do a little jogging and you will feel it is released, or take a pillow and beat the pillow, fight with the pillow, and bite the pillow until your hands and teeth are relaxed. Within a five-minute catharsis you will feel unburdened, and once you know this you will never throw it on anybody, because that is absolutely foolish. ....
The second thing to remember: be aware.
In controlling, no awareness is needed; you simply do it mechanically, like a robot. The anger comes and there is a mechanism and suddenly your whole being becomes narrow and closed. If you are watchful control may not be so easy. Society never teaches you to be watchful, because when somebody is watchful, he is wide open. That is part of awareness — one is open, and if you want to suppress something and you are open, it is contradictory, it may come out. The society teaches you how to close yourself in, how to cave yourself in and don't allow even a small window for anything to go out. But remember: when nothing goes out, nothing comes in either. When the anger cannot go out, you are closed.
Sensitivity grows with awareness.
Through control you become dull and dead and that is part of the mechanism of control: if you are dull and dead then nothing will affect you, as if the body has become a citadel, a defense. Nothing will affect you, neither insult nor love. But this control is at a very great cost, an unnecessary cost; then it becomes the whole effort in life: how to control yourself and then die! The whole effort of control takes all your energy, and then you simply die. And the life becomes a dull and dead thing; you somehow carry it on. A deep condemnation enters about all that is alive. And sex is the most alive thing has to be! It is the source.
Anger is also a most alive thing, because it is a protective force. If a child cannot be angry at all, he will not be able to survive. You have to be angry in certain moments. The child has to show his own being, the child has to stand in certain moments upon his own ground; otherwise he will have no backbone.
Anger is beautiful; sex is beautiful. But beautiful things can go ugly. That depends on you. If you condemn them, they become ugly; if you transform them, they become divine. Anger transformed becomes compassion, because the energy is the same. A buddha is compassionate: from where does his compassion come? This is the same energy that was moving in anger; now it is not moving in anger, the same energy is transformed into compassion. From where does love come? A Buddha is loving; a Jesus is love. The same energy that moves into sex becomes love. So remember, if you condemn a natural phenomenon it becomes poisonous, it destroys you, it becomes destructive and suicidal. If you transform it, it becomes divine, it becomes a God-force, it becomes an elixir; you attain through it to immortality, to a deathless being. But transformation is needed.
OSHO
from "And the Flowers"