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Osho Yoga
This week, the connection, according to Patanjali, between sound and 
life energy, between using Aum as a chant and a healthy body-mind.
We also look at the phenomenon of disease, at Acupuncture, and at the 
Allopathic and Ayurvedic systems of treatment. Regularly practicing 
yogasanas? Ayurveda will be of more benefit to you than Allopathy.

Aum, Sweet Aum

Patanjali believes — and not only believes, he knows also — that sound 
is the basic element of existence. Just as physicists say that 
electricity is the basic element, yogis say that sound is the basic 
element. They agree with each other in a subtle way.

Physicists say that sound is nothing but a modification of electricity 
and yogis say that electricity is nothing but a modification of sound. 
Then both are true. Sound and electricity are two forms of one 
phenomenon and, to me, that phenomenon is not known yet and will not be 
known ever. Whatsoever we know will be just a modification of it. You 
may call it electricity, you may call it sound, you may call it fire, 
like Heraclitus, you may call it water, like Lao Tzu: that depends on 
you. But all these are modifications, forms of the formless. That 
formless will always remain unknown.

For the yogi, electricity is not relevant. He is working in the inner 
lab of being. There, sound is more relevant, because through sound he 
can change many phenomena inside and through sound he can change the 
inner electricity also. Yogis call it prana — the inner bio-energy or 
bio-electricity. Through sound that can be changed immediately.

That$B!G(Bs why, when listening to classical music, you feel a certain 
silence surrounding you: your inner body energy is changed. Listen to a 
madman and you will feel you are also going crazy: because the madman is 
in a chaos of body electricity and his words and sounds carry that 
electricity to you. Sit with an enlightened person and suddenly you feel 
everything within you is falling in a rhythm. Suddenly you feel a 
different quality of energy arising in you.

That$B!G(Bs why Patanjali says the repetition of Aum and meditation on it 
destroys all obstacles.

For Patanjali, disease means dis-ease. It is a non-rhythmic way of your 
inner bio-energy. You feel uncomfortable. If this uncomfort, this 
disease, continues, sooner or later it will affect your body. Patanjali 
will agree with acupuncture absolutely, and in Soviet Russia a man named 
Kirlian will agree with Patanjali absolutely. All the three trends.... 
Acupuncture is not concerned with enlightenment, but acupuncture is 
concerned with how the body becomes diseased, how illness happens. 
Acupuncture has discovered seven hundred points on the body where the 
inner bio-energy touches the physical body — touchpoints — seven hundred 
all around the body.

Whenever the electricity is not flowing in a circle in these seven 
hundred points — some gaps are there, a few points are no longer 
functioning, through a few points the electricity is no longer moving, 
blocks are there, electricity is cut, it is not a circle — then disease 
happens. So acupuncture believes that without any medicine, without any 
other treatment, if you allow the bio-energy flow to become a circle, 
the disease disappears. And for five thousand years... acupuncture was 
almost born when Patanjali was alive.

In the days of Patanjali, a principle was born. You can call it the 
Principle of Prana — bio-energy. In China it took the form of 
acupuncture, in India it took the form of the whole system of Yoga. How 
does it happen that when the body energy is not flowing rightly you feel 
discomfort? Because a gap exists in you, an absence, and you feel 
something is missing. This is disease in the beginning. First it will be 
felt in the mind. As I told you, first it will be felt in the unconscious.

You may not be aware of it; in your dreams it will come first; in your 
dreams you will see illness, disease, somebody dying, something wrong. A 
nightmare will happen in your unconscious because the unconscious is 
nearest to the body and nearest to nature. From the unconscious it will 
come up to the subconscious; then you will feel irritated. You will feel 
that your stars are wrong, that whatsoever you do goes wrong. You would 
like to love a person, and you try to love but you cannot. You would 
like to help somebody, but you only hinder them. Everything goes wrong.

You think some bad influence, some star high in the sky; no, something 
in the subconscious, some discomfort, and you get irritated, angry, and 
the cause is somewhere in the unconscious. You are finding the cause 
somewhere else. Then the cause comes to the conscious. Then you start 
feeling that you are ill, and then it moves to the body. It has been 
always moving to the body, and suddenly you feel ill.

Disease for Patanjali is some disturbance in the body aura, in the 
prana, in the bio-energy, in the electricity of your body. That$B!G(Bs why 
through Aum it can be cured. Some time, you sit lonely in a temple. Go 
through some old temple where nobody goes, and sit under the dome — a 
circular dome is just to reflect the sound.... So sit under it, chant 
Aum loudly and meditate on it. Let the sound reflect and fall upon you 
like rain. Suddenly you will feel, after a few minutes, that your whole 
body is becoming peaceful, calm, quiet: the body energy is getting settled.

Patanjali makes it a first rule that you should be healthy, because if 
you are not healthy you cannot go far. Your illness, your discomfort, 
your inner broken circle of energy, will be a stone on your neck. When 
you will meditate you will feel ill at ease. When you would like to 
pray, you cannot pray, you would like to rest. A low energy level will 
be there, and with low energy how can you go far? How can you reach the 
divine? And for Patanjali the divine is the farthest point: much energy 
is needed. A healthy body, a healthy mind, a healthy being is needed. 
Disease is disease — disease in the body energy. Aum will help, and 
other things also we will discuss.

If a man can become a perfect chanting so that the chanter is completely 
lost — only a pure consciousness, a flame of light and all around, 
chanting — the energy falls into a circle, becomes a circle. Then you 
have one of the most euphoric moments in life. When the energy falls 
into a circle, becomes a harmony, when there is no discord, no conflict, 
you have become one. But ordinarily, also, disease will be a hindrance. 
If you are ill, you need treatment.

Patanjali$B!G(Bs Yoga system and Hindu system of medicine, Ayurveda, 
developed simultaneously. Ayurveda is totally different from allopathy. 
Allopathy is suppressive of the disease. Allopathy has developed side by 
side with Christianity; it is a byproduct. Because Christianity is 
suppressive, allopathy is suppressive. If you are ill, allopathy 
immediately suppresses the illness. Then the illness tries to come up in 
some other weak point; then from somewhere else it explodes. You 
suppress it there; then from somewhere else it explodes. But with 
allopathy, you go on from one illness to another, from another to 
another, but it is never-ending process.

Ayurveda has a totally different concept. Illness should not be 
suppressed: it should be released. A catharsis is needed. Ayurvedic 
medicine is given to the ill person so that the illness comes up and is 
thrown out...a catharsis. So the beginning doses of Ayurvedic medicine 
may make you more ill, and it takes a long time because it is not a 
suppression. It cannot be done right now: it is a long process. The 
illness has to be thrown, and your inner energy has to become a harmony 
so the health comes from within. The medicine will throw the illness 
out, and the healing force will replace it from your own being.

They developed Ayurveda and Yoga together. If you are doing yogasanas, 
if you are following Patanjali, then never go to an allopathic doctor. 
If you are not following Patanjali, then there is no problem. But if you 
are following the Yoga system and working many things in your body 
energy, then never go to Allopathy because they are contrary. Then seek 
an Ayurvedic doctor or Homeopathy or Naturopathy — anything that helps 
catharsis.

But if there is a disease, first tackle it. Don$B!G(Bt move with the disease.

With my methods it is very easy to get rid of a disease. Patanjali$B!G(Bs 
method of Aum, of chanting and meditating, is a very mild one. But in 
those days, that was strong strong enough because people were simple, 
they lived with nature. Illness was rare; health was common. Now just 
the opposite is the case: health is rare, illness is common, and people 
are very complex; they don$B!G(Bt live near nature.Then Patanjali$B!G(Bs mild 
methods won$B!G(Bt help much.

Hence, my dynamic, chaotic methods.... Because you are almost mad, you 
need mad methods which can bring out all that is suppressed within you 
and throw it out. But health is a must.

Through the chanting of Aum and meditating on it, your low energy level 
will become high.

How does it happen? Why are you on a low energy level always, always 
feeling exhausted, tired? Even in the morning when you get up, you are 
tired. What is happening to you? Somewhere in your system there are 
leakages; you leak energy. You are not aware, but you are like a bucket 
with holes. Every day you fill the bucket, but you see it is always 
empty, getting empty. This leakage has to be stopped.

How does energy leak through the body? These are deep problems for 
bio-energetics. The body leaks always from fingers of the hand, of the 
feet, eyes. The energy cannot leak through the head: it is round. 
Anything round helps the body to preserve. That$B!G(Bs why Yoga postures — 
siddhasana, padmasana: they make the whole body round.

A person who is sitting in a siddhasana puts his hands together because 
the body energy leaks through the fingers. When both the hands are put 
together on top of each other, the energy moves from one hand into the 
other. It becomes a circle. Feet, legs, are also put on each other so 
that the energy moves in your own body and doesn$B!G(Bt leak.

The eyes are closed because eyes release almost eighty percent of your 
bio-energy. That$B!G(Bs why, if you continuously are traveling and you go on 
looking out of the train or the car, you will feel so tired. If you 
travel with closed eyes you will not feel so tired. You go on looking at 
unnecessary things, even reading advertisements on the walls. You use 
your eyes too much, and when eyes are tired the whole body is tired. 
Eyes give the indication that now it is enough.

A yogi tries to remain with closed eyes as much as possible, with hands 
and legs crossing each other, so the energy moves into each. He sits 
with the spine straight. If the spine is straight while you are sitting, 
you will preserve more energy than any other way — because when the 
spine is straight, the gravitation of the earth cannot force much energy 
out of you: it touches only one point of the spine. That$B!G(Bs why, when you 
are sitting in such a leaning posture, slanting, you think you are 
resting. But Patanjali says you are leaking energy, because more of your 
body is under the influence of gravitation.

When the energy is flowing into yourself again and again, not moving 
out, then languor disappears. It will not disappear by talking; it will 
not disappear by reading scriptures; it will not disappear by 
philosophizing. It will disappear only when your energy is not leaking.

Try to preserve it. The more you preserve, the better. But in the West, 
something just the opposite is being taught — that it is good to release 
energy through sex, this and that; release energy. It is good if you are 
not using it in any other way; otherwise you will go mad. And whenever 
there is too much energy, it is better to release it through sex. Sex is 
the simplest method to release it.

But it can be used, can be made creative It can give you a rebirth, a 
resurrection. You can know millions of euphoric stages through it; you 
can rise higher and higher through it. It is the ladder to reach the 
divine. If you go on releasing it everyday, you will never have such 
built up energy that you can take even the first step towards the 
divine. Preserve it.

Patanjali is against sex, and that is the difference between Patanjali 
and Tantra. Tantra uses sex as a method; Patanjali wants you to bypass 
it. There are people, almost fifty percent, whom Tantra will suit; and 
fifty percent whom Yoga will suit. One has to find what will suit him. 
Both can be used, and through both, people reach. Neither is wrong or 
right; it depends on you. One will be right for you and one wrong for 
you, but remember, for you. It is not an absolute, categorical 
statement. Something may be right for you and wrong for somebody else.

The systems were born together, Tantra and Yoga...twin systems, exactly 
at the same time. This is the synchronicity. Just as man and woman need 
each other, Tantra and Yoga need each other; they become a complete 
thing. If there is only Yoga, then only fifty percent can reach; fifty 
percent will be in trouble. If there is only Tantra, then fifty percent 
can reach; the other fifty percent will be in trouble. This has 
happened. Trouble arises whenever you don$B!G(Bt understand who you are.

Yoga: The Alpha and Omega

Next Week: More about the Benefits of Chanting Aum




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