Osho on Sex, Love, Prayer
You ask me: “Are all desires the same? What is my desire for love?”
You will have to watch. I cannot give you an answer for it right now. You will have to observe. Be very clear about your own feelings. If it is sexual, nothing to hide, nothing to be worried — it is natural. It has to rise from that natural source; you have to begin from there. Don’t hide it, don’t rationalize it — let it be whatsoever it is. If it is sex, it is sex. Try to understand it. Help it to move towards more loving — more and more towards the person, less and less towards the body. If you feel it is love, then help it to move in the direction of prayer. Then love the person, but remember God. Then hug the person, but remember God. Then hold the person of your love, the hand of your beloved, your lover, but remember that that hand belongs to God. Then let this remembrance go deeper and deeper.
I cannot give you an answer — you will have to find it. Even if I give you an answer, you will interpret it in your own way. I may talk about prayer, but if your energy remains stuck at sex you will interpret it in a sexual way. I have been saying for years that religion is a bridge from sex to superconsciousness. All sorts of people have heard it. Those who are obsessed with sex, they think: “Very good, so samadhi is also sex.” They reduce samadhi to sex. Those who are really flowing into samadhi, they become very happy so they say, “Good, so now there is no need to condemn anything — even sex has an element of samadhi in it. We can accept it, absorb it, and can be deep in peace, because when there is no conflict there is peace.”…
Your understanding is your understanding. Even if I talk about prayer, you will understand whatsoever you can understand. It is better you observe, it is better you go into your own mind, its functionings. Just one thing I would like to tell you: don’t condemn, never condemn. A condemnatory mind will never be able to understand life. Never judge. Never evaluate. Just be a simple observer. Because once you have a judgement, then you don’t allow your mind to open itself completely to you — your judgement becomes a barrier. If you are already convinced that sex is sin, then how can you face your own sexuality? You will garb it. You will deceive yourself. You will rationalize it. You will find ways and means and words and philosophies to hide it.
Never keep any prejudice, so that your existence becomes transparent to you. And whatsoever it is, at least with me, everything is good — whatsoever it is, it is good. It is your mind, it is your body, it is your energy. The first basic requirement is to see it clearly, and from that vision things start moving. If it is sex, nothing to be worried. It is good that you are not impotent — think of that. It is sex, it is good — you have energy. Now you can use that energy. Have you ever heard of any person who was impotent and became enlightened? I have not heard. And, believe me, it has not happened — it cannot happen. An impotent man is the poorest man in the world because enlightenment cannot happen to him. Even if he tries, it cannot happen — because he has no energy in the first place to transform.
And let me tell you another truth: that whenever enlightenment has happened it has happened to a very sexual person — always! Because more energy… and you can ride on it. It has not happened to so-called lukewarm people — nothing happens to them; they are stuck with their lukewarmness. It has happened to very hot people. Buddha was very hot. He had lived a very sexual life, and out of that he became more and more understanding. And one day when he became aware of how much energy he was throwing unnecessarily, he started channelizing that energy into a different direction — towards love, prayer, compassion, meditation.
It is the same energy! There is only one energy in the world and that energy is sexual energy. Even if God has to create something, He has to do it through it. A child is born, life is born, out of sex. A flower blooms — it is sexual energy. The cuckoo goes on singing a crazy song — it is out of sexual energy. Just look all around! The whole world is throbbing with sexual energy. It is the only energy there is! Sex is the stuff the universe is made of. So don’t condemn it. Ride on the waves, the roaring waves of sex, and you will start feeling new dimensions, new altitudes. The first entry will be in love, and the second door will be of prayer. But you can start only from where you are. So the first thing to be absolutely certain about is where you are — and only you can be certain about it.
Watch… and just go on noting. And if you are not condemning, if you are not justifying, if you are not saying good or bad, if you are not a puritan moralist, if you are simply a pure observer, you will be able to see — because it is within you, where your energy is. And once you have known where it is, start working. If it is hanging around the sex centre, then nothing to be worried. Just remember one thing: never make love to a person you don’t love. That is a perversion — because then you will remain obsessed with sex. Make love to a person you really love, otherwise wait — because when you love a person, the very love will pull the energy upwards. And once the energy has started moving towards love, love is so satisfying that who bothers about sex? Sex has never satisfied anybody. It creates more and more dissatisfaction. Sex has never fulfilled anybody — it knows no fulfilment.
Have a sexual relationship only when you have a loving relationship, so love and sex become associated. And love is a greater centre, a higher centre. Once sex is hitched to love, it starts moving upwards. Once you feel that you are loving, then never go to pray in a temple or in a mosque or in a church — that is foolish. Then again do the same as you did in the first place: your first prayer has to happen with your beloved or with your lover. Either before you make love, let there be prayer; or, after you have made love, let there be prayer; or — and the third is the best — while you are making love, let there be prayer.
If love becomes joined with prayer, then it can hitch-hike, then it can be pulled by prayer. Love has to pull sex energy up, and then prayer has to pull love energy up. Once you are at the point of prayer, SAHASRAR — the one-thousand-petalled lotus in your head — opens. It only opens at the moment of prayer.
Source:
Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.
Discourse Series: The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 3 Chapter #2
Question 6
Chapter title: Let There Be Prayer
22 October 1976 am in Buddha Hall
References:
Osho has spoken on ‘sex, love, prayer, energy, consciousness, transformation’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:
- The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here
- Vigyan Bhairav Tantra
- Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 9
- Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 1
- The Tantra Vision, Vol 2
- The Supreme Doctrine
- The Psychology of the Esoteric
- The Last Testament, Vol 4
- From Death to Deathlessness