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OSHO ~ COULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT DISCIPLINE AND REPRESSION?

They are as distinct as the earth and the sky. The distance is so great between the two, that it is unbridgeable. Repression is just the opposite of discipline, but for thousands of years repression has been misunderstood and thought of as if it were discipline. It gives a pseudo appearance of it.

And remember one very fundamental thing: that the real is never in danger from the unreal; the real is always in danger from the pseudo. The unreal cannot harm it, but the pseudo can harm it because the pseudo looks like it. It is not it and yet it has the mask of it, the appearance of it.

Repression is cheap. Any stupid person can do it -- it needs no intelligence to repress. Discipline needs great intelligence. Discipline means awareness. Discipline comes from your innermost core; it is not an imposition from the outside. Nobody can discipline you.

The very word "discipline" is beautiful: it means the art of learning. Hence the word "disciple": one who is ready to learn, one who is capable of learning. Learning is an inner process. One has to be always alert, only then can one learn. One has to be awake, only then can one learn. One has to watch all that goes on happening around you and one has to deepen this watchfulness so that you can see even the inner processes of your body, mind and heart. You have to become a mirror. You have to witness everything within yourself, then only do you learn from it, and that learning brings discipline. Then a deep harmony arises in you, because whatsoever is wrong starts falling away from you of its own accord. You are not to drop it. If you have to drop it through effort, then it is repression; if it falls like dry leaves falling from the tree, then it is discipline. Discipline has to be effortless; it has to be out of sheer understanding.

 Repression has nothing to do with understanding, with learning. Others tell you what to do and what not to do; others give you the Ten Commandments. You have simply to follow, you have to be obedient. And who are these others? They are the powerful people -- politically powerful, religiously powerful. They may be the rich people, the people who own the state or the church, the dominant people. They have their vested interests; to safeguard their vested interests they create a certain kind of slavery, a mental slavery. They want people to be obedient, they don't want people to be rebellious; hence they cannot allow intelligence.

Intelligence is basically rebellious; it is radical, it is revolutionary. To be intelligent is the most dangerous thing for those who are in power. Hence every child has to be crippled and paralyzed; no child can be allowed to live his life according to HIS light. Every child is born intelligent, but twenty-five years of conditioning from the primary school to the university creates a stupid person out of an intelligent child -- so much conditioning that the intelligence disappears. He becomes so afraid to say no to anything, he becomes so afraid, so frightened of the crowd that he simply follows like a sheep; he is no more a man. The only way to do it is to teach him how to repress himself. First he has to repress his intelligence, then he has to repress all that can be a danger to the status quo. For example, every society talks about peace but lives for war. Hence sex has to be repressed because sexually repressed people can be changed into soldiers very easily; there is no problem about it. The sexually repressed person is always ready to fight, he is always on the verge of violence. His sex becomes violence, he loses all tenderness, all loving qualities, and the instinct for love becomes perverted; it becomes the instinct for hatred. Up to now all societies have basically been warring societies, always preparing for war; they cannot allow sexual freedom. If a society is sexually free and a person is allowed to live his sexuality totally, then his violence will appear. Then he will not be ready to do such utterly stupid things as killing people for no reason at all; it will be impossible for him even to conceive. He will ask, "Why? Why should I kill? There seems to be no reason. Just because a few power maniacs want to dominate the whole world we have to be victims and we have to turn the whole world into a chaos?"

The sexually free person will be loving, tender; war will become impossible. Unless sex is free, war cannot disappear from the earth.

All psychological research shows one thing very conclusively: that weapons are nothing but phallic symbols. Hence societies which are preparing for war are bound to be repressive. Intelligence has to be crippled, sex has to be repressed. All that can make you capable of being an individual has to be discarded. You have to be forced to be a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Jaina or a Buddhist for the simple reason that if you are part of a crowd you lose your individuality, you start functioning according to the collective mind -- and the collective mind means the lowest mind. The collective mind functions through the lowest common denominator.

It is said that the best teacher in the schools, in the colleges, in the universities, is one who can make himself understood, who can help the students understand him in such a way that the most mediocre student is also capable of understanding him. If only the first grade students understand him he is not a good teacher. The third-rate should be capable of understanding him, then he is a good teacher. But to make himself understood by the third-rate he has to fall that low. He has to speak the language of the mob, of the crowd. And the crowd consists of the mediocre people.

It is because of centuries of conditioning, otherwise it would not have been so; it is a man-made calamity. So many people need not be so mediocre and stupid. They are not born that way, they are manufactured. Individuality has to be effaced, completely effaced, because individuals seem to be dangerous to the power-holders because individuals will think, and they will say yes only if they agree with it, otherwise they will say no. I have heard:

It happened in the Second World War. Many people were needed in the army so all kinds of people were being recruited. Everybody was asked to sacrifice for the country, for the motherland, for the fatherland and all that nonsense. A professor of philosophy was also recruited. The first day the corporal calls the newly enlisted men for their first training and starts shouting, "Platoon, attention! Platoon, halt! Platoon, attention! Platoon, about face! Platoon, halt! Platoon, right face!" The professor steps out of formation and starts to walk away. "Hey! you!" shouts the corporal. "Where are you going?" "To the pub," says the professor, "I'll come back when you've made up your mind."

Naturally, a man who thinks will see the whole nonsense of it. What is the point of it? Why should one do all these things? But they have a certain reasoning behind it: this is how your intelligence is killed, this is how you are slowly transformed into a robot, into a machine. The man is slowly killed; then you start functioning like a machine. "Right turn!" and you need not think, you simply turn right. Not that you think why -- there is no question of why -- no question arises in you. In fact, your body functions almost mechanically. Just as you push a button and the light goes on or off or the machine starts functioning. So when the soldier hears "Right turn!" he simply turns right without paying any attention to what is being done by him; it simply happens.

I have heard about William James -- one of the most significant psychologists that America has contributed to the world. He was sitting with a friend in a restaurant talking about conditioning. It was the talk all over the world because just recently the Russian psychologist Pavlov had discovered the conditioned reflex: that a man can be conditioned so deeply that he starts functioning like a machine.

And Pavlov has become the father of Russian psychology and communists have been following his ideas for all these sixty years. William James was talking to his friend, but the friend was not willing to accept the idea so easily -- it was so new.

At that very moment a retired soldier was passing along the street with a bucket full of eggs. To demonstrate, William James shouted, "Attention!" and the poor old soldier simply went into the attitude of attention. The bucket fell; all the eggs were destroyed. He was very angry. He said, "Who has done this?" William James said, "But we didn't say that you had to follow!" He said, "It is no longer a question of following, it has become my nature. Attention means attention! I was in the army for twenty-five years: attention means attention; it does not mean anything else. And it is not a question of my deciding whether to follow or not; it has become automatic."

This is what all the societies have been doing and all the so-called religions have been doing: they have been automatizing you. And this is done through the process of repression -- repress everything that can be dangerous to the establishment.

That's why Jesus is crucified and Socrates is poisoned and Al-Hillaj Mansoor is killed, for the simple reason that these people were bringing rebellion, these people were releasing others from their bondage, from their mental slavery. They were telling people to be intelligent, to be individuals, to be a light unto themselves. That's the message of Gautam the Buddha: Be a light unto yourself. Follow your own light, follow your own intelligence. Don't listen to those with vested interests because they are working for their own purposes. They have nothing to do with your welfare, they are not concerned about it.

And once you repress anything, the energy that is being repressed starts turning sour in you. The same energy that would have become a flower becomes a thorn. The same energy that would have helped yoU to grow becomes stagnant, starts stinking. Energy needs to remain in a flowing state; repression makes your life stagnant.

People's mental age is not more than twelve years. That means at the age of twelve they stopped growing psychologically They may be eighty years old, but their minds are childish -- remember, not childlike but just childish. It is beautiful to be childlike but it is ugly to be childish. And why have they stopped at the age of twelve? For what reason? How does it happen? And this is the average all over the world. It is the same in the East, in the West; it is the same for the Hindu and for the Christian. All the societies in their own ways have been able to repress everybody before the age of twelve -- why? Because the age of thirteen is the dangerous age. At that time a person becomes sexually mature; before then all his growth has to be stopped. Once he becomes sexually mature then it will be very difficult to repress him. He will have so much energy that all your measures for repression are bound to fail. So repression has to happen before thirteen.

All kind of nonsense has to be put in people's minds before they are thirteen; by the time they reach twelve the work should be finished. Then they will only be growing old but not growing up.

In an oral exam in biology the teacher asks a student, "Which organ of man's body once stimulated can grow up to three hundred times its size?" The girl replies, "I am not going to answer such questions!" and she walks out. So the teacher asks the same question of another student who answers, "The pupil of the eye." "Very good!" replies the teacher. "Now go and tell your friend that she's going to be disillusioned!"

This is the work of repression: if you repress something your mind slowly slowly becomes colored by it; everything becomes colored by it. A sexually repressed person is constantly concerned with sex. He may talk of celibacy, he may try to be a celibate, but his whole mind is full of sexuality; he dreams of sex and nothing else. And it is not so only when you are young...

Mahatma Gandhi writes in his autobiography that even at the age of seventy he was suffering from sexual dreams. That is bound to happen -- it is a seventy-years-old repression; otherwise, by the time one is seventy one should be mature enough to drop all these toys. Repression keeps things hanging in the air. The repressed person, even when he is dying, will be thinking of the thing that he has repressed his whole life.

I am against repression, I am all for expression.

Express yourself. Existence is God's expression -- that's what creativity is all about. Express yourself, and don't condemn anything. Nothing is wrong with you; all that is is beautiful. It may need transformation, but it is not wrong. It has not to be dropped, it has to be transformed. And transformation happens through discipline; discipline comes through meditation. Become more aware, watchful. But don't carry conclusions, a PRIORI conclusions.

If you are already convinced that sex is wrong then you cannot watch your mind. How can you watch if yoU have already concluded? Whenever a sexual thought arises you will shrink back; you will want to throw that idea out of your being. You will immediately jump upon it, you will start struggling and fighting. You cannot be simply watching; you will start evaluating.

A meditator has to be absolutely unprejudiced, with no conclusions. He has to be an utterly scientific observer. He simply observes, takes note of whatsoever happens in his mind. Notice, don't let anything go unnoticed, that's all. And the beauty of watchfulness is that whatsoever is meaningless starts disappearing of its own accord and whatsoever is meaningful starts growing. Your energies start gathering around the meaningful and they start deserting the meaningless. Then a certain discipline is born, not imposed by anybody from the outside.

Many people, particularly Indians, write to me asking why I am not giving a certain discipline to my sannyasins. I cannot -- I am not their enemy. I am not in any way here to dominate anybody, I am not here to dictate. I can help you to understand, then it is up to you. Out of your understanding if something happens in your life, good, but if it happens because I have said it then it is ugly. Then sooner or later you will repent, then sooner or later you will take revenge on me. I am your friend. I can help you to be more alert; that's my whole function. And then whatsoever is good follows so silently, just like your shadow. It makes no noise and it does not give any ego to you. As you become more aware, all ego disappears. YoU become more and more humble, more and more simple, more and more ordinary. And that ordinariness is divine, that simplicity is sacred. But discipline has to arise in you. I can commune with you my understanding, I can share with you my experience, that's all; then it is for you to decide what to do and what not to do.

My sannyasins have to learn how to live in freedom. I know it is very difficult for you, too -- even my sannyasins ask: "If you give us definite rules it will be easier for us to follow them." I know it will be easier because that's what you have been doing your whole life. Somebody has been giving you orders and you have been following; that has become your habit. YoU would like me also to be a father figure, just to tell yoU that this has to be done and this has not to be done. That makes things cheap and simple you need not bother, you can simply depend on me. But that creates dependence and you lose something immensely valuable: you lose your freedom, you lose your independence, you lose your individuality, you lose yourself. And that is not my purpose here.

My purpose here is to make you more and more unique individuals, more and more authentic individuals. I would like you to take the responsibility of your life upon your own shoulders totally so that you become completely free of all kinds of father figures. That brings great blessing and great benediction.

Osho.

Tao: The Golden Gate, Vol 1 Chapter #2 Chapter title: Existence is God's expression

[tante-litfass]

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The 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training program at Om Yoga Ashram Dharamsala is appropriate for anyone at a beginner or intermediate and advanced level of yoga. The Yoga Alliance certification received on successful completion of the course allows you to teach yoga anywhere in the world. Whether you want to pursue yoga teaching as part of a career or to practice yoga in daily life, it is crucial to know the basics of this sacred knowledge. All the Yoga topics covered in the 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training program, like meditation, asanas, and pranayama, are based on the course content recommended by Yoga Alliance, also including teaching methodologies, anatomy, and philosophy.

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