Osho on Psychic Binding Continued

Osho - One has to suffer in order to grow into understanding. A transformation is needed for the understanding to happen. Understanding is an effort, a sadhana. Understanding needs endeavor, understanding is a revolution. In understanding a transformation takes place, everything changes. The old has to be changed into the new. Why go through all this bother? It is better to hold on to one who knows.

Osho on Psychic Binding

But the fact is that no one can attain to truth by following someone else. One has to go alone. It is a path of total aloneness. Therefore any kind of attachment is a hindrance. Learn, understand, welcome the glimpse wherever you get it. But do not stop anywhere; do not make an abode out of any resting place; do not catch hold of the hand that is extended to you and take it as the destination.

You will, however, find many who will say, ”Go no further. Stay here; this is the other shore.” As I said before, some fearful people desire to be bound and there are other fearful ones who want to bind them in order to feel fearless themselves. When a man sees a thousand people following him he is bound to feel that he is wise – or else why should these people follow him?

He says to himself, ”Surely, I know something, or why should these people believe in me?” It will surprise you to know that many a time the phenomenon of gurudom is caused by an inferiority complex that seeks to gather a crowd around itself. So a guru gets busy increasing the number of followers – a thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand.

The greater the number, the more he is assured of his knowledge – or else why should these people follow him? This reasoning helps to boost his morale. If these followers are lost, everything is lost. Then he would feel that all is lost and that he does not know. Many mind games go on and it is better to be aware of them. And this game can be played from both the sides. The disciple is bound to the guru, and he who is bound today will bind someone else tomorrow because all this is a chain reaction.

He who is a disciple today will be a guru tomorrow. How long can he remain a disciple? If he has caught hold of someone today he will see that someone catches hold of him tomorrow. Slavery runs in a series, and the intrinsic reason for all this is the nondevelopment of the fourth body. If you set about developing this body you can be independent.

Then there is no bondage. This does not mean that you become inhuman, that you will have no connection with people. Rather, the opposite will be the case: where there is bondage there is no relationship. Between a husband and wife there is bondage. Do we not use the expression ”bound in holy matrimony”? We send out invitations reading that ”My son or daughter is being joined by the thread of affection....” Where there is servitude there is no relationship. How can there be? Perhaps in some distant future a father might send out an invitation saying that ”My daughter is becoming free in someone’s love.”

And it feels intelligent that somebody’s love is making her free in life; now there will be no bondage; she is becoming free in love. And love should give birth to freedom. If even love enslaves then what else in this world will liberate? Where there is bondage, there is misery, there is hell. Appearances are deceptive; inside everything is rotten.

Be this the bondage of guru-disciple, father-son, husband-wife or even of two friends: where there is bondage there cannot be relationship. If a relationship is there then the bondage is not possible. And though outwardly it seems correct that where there is a bond there should be relationship, the fact is that we can have a relationship only with that person to whom we are not tied in any way. This is the reason why many times it happens that you tell a stranger things which you would never tell your son.

I was surprised to know that a woman talks more openly to a stranger whom she has met just an hour before and even tells things which she would not dream of telling her husband. It is a fact that when there is no bondage relationship becomes easier. This is why we are always so nice to strangers and not so nice to those we know. With strangers there are no bonds, and hence no relationship; otherwise there are bonds, and hence no relationship.

Then even if you wish someone good morning, it seems like a task. There can be a relationship between guru and disciple, however, and all relationships can be beautiful. But bondage cannot be beautiful. Relationship means that which liberates. There was a beautiful custom among the zen masters. When a disciple finished his training, the master ordered him to join the campus of his antagonist and study there.

He would say, ”You have gained knowledge from one side, now know it from the other.” Then the meditator would go from one monastery to another for years and sit to learn at the feet of his master’s rivals. His master would say, ”It could be possible that what my opponent says is correct. Go and hear all that he has to say; then you decide for yourself.

It may also be possible that you will be able to decide things better after hearing both of us. Or perhaps what remains after discarding both of us may turn out to be the truth. Therefore, go and seek.” This only happens when spiritual genius reaches its ultimate growth. Then nothing can bind. My feeling is that when the condition of this country becomes such that masters will send their disciples out into the world without binding them, then there will be wonderful results.

And who knows what the final outcome will be! Now such a man who sends you out to learn and hear others cannot be wrong, even if all that he himself has taught you turns out to be wrong. When such a man says to you, ”Go, seek elsewhere; perhaps I may be wrong,” then even if all his teachings prove false, you will be grateful to him. He can never be wrong, because it is he who has sent you out.

Today what is happening is that everybody binds the meditator and stops him from going out. One guru forbids his disciple from hearing another guru. The scriptures say, ”Never go to another temple. It is better to be trampled by a mad elephant than to take refuge in someone else’s temple.”

The fear is always there that something might fall on the meditator’s ears. So even if the teachings of a guru who binds you are correct, still the man is wrong and you can never be grateful to him. Such a man has only made you a slave. He has crushed your spirit and killed your soul. If this is understood, there is no question of bondage.

^Top Back to Psychic World