From Darkness to Light Chapter 8

Agony is missing yourself, ecstasy is finding yourself

Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
WHAT IS AGONY AND WHAT IS ECSTASY?
The same. They are not opposites as they are understood to be. They are complementaries,
intrinsic parts of one organic whole. Neither can exist without the other.
It will be a little difficult to understand because they have always been thought to be polar opposites.
They are polar opposites, seen from the outside. But all polar opposites are joined together from
the inside. The negative or positive poles of electricity, the body and soul – from the outside they
are not only different but antagonistic. From the inside they are two aspects of one phenomenon.
Let us first try to understand their meaning.
What is agony?
It is not ordinary suffering, misery, pain.
All these are very superficial things, just like ripples on the surface of a pond. They don’t have any
depth. You have known many pains, many miseries, many moments of suffering, and you know
perfectly well they come and go. They don’t even leave a trace behind them, they don’t leave scars

behind.
Yes, while they are there you feel that you are engulfed completely in pain. But when it is gone
you know perfectly well that that was only a momentary emotional, sentimental, non-intelligent
understanding of the thing. When you were in the cloud, yes, you were engulfed. But the cloud
is gone with the wind and you are out of it, and now you know exactly that even in the cloud you
were out of it, you were not it.
Note this difference, because that is the fundamental difference.
Agony is not separate from you, it is you.
Pain, suffering, misery, they are all separate from you; hence, momentarily they come and go. They
have causes; when the causes are removed they disappear. Mostly they are your creations.
You hope for something, and then it does not materialize: great frustration comes in. You feel pain,
hopelessness, as if you have been rejected by existence. Nothing of the sort has happened – it is
all due to your expectation. The bigger the expectation, the bigger is going to be the frustration.
It is within your hands to be frustrated in life or not. Just your expectations should become smaller,
smaller, smaller, and in the same proportion the frustration will become smaller. A day will come
when there will be no expectation; then you will never come across any frustration.
You think, you imagine, some moments of pleasure – and they don’t materialize, because existence
has no obligation to materialize your imaginations. It has never given you any promise that whatever
you think is going to happen. You have taken it for granted without any enquiry, as if the whole
existence owes you something.
You owe everything to existence.
Existence owes you nothing.
So if you are running to catch shadows, you cannot catch them – it is not in the nature of things.
Then there is pain, because you were so much absorbed in running after the shadows that you were
feeling a kind of fulfillment. A goal was there; although not in your hands but far away, still it was
there. And it was only a question of time, a little more effort. Be a little more American: try and try
and try again – and sooner or later existence is going to yield.
Existence does not care who you are, American or Russian. It never yields to anybody – it simply
goes in its own way. By making an effort to fulfill your desires, to force nature, existence, to come
behind you, you are creating causes of pain, suffering.
The moment you understand, you drop these causes.
And the dropping of the causes is the disappearance of all your misery.
It was your projection.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 7 contd...

To be conscious not a game.
To be conscious is to go through a deep surgery.
And the problem is, you are the surgeon, and you are the patient.
Just think of some surgeon doing surgery on himself. I had one surgeon friend – and it was not
much of a problem .... A certain disease, a very strange disease, started happening to me every
year. First, one of my fingers started being painful in the first joint – immense pain. Sleep was
not possible; no sleeping medicine would help, the pain was so shooting sharp. It continued for
twenty-one days.
I asked my surgeon friend about it. He said, ”This is a troublesome thing, but for one year there is
no problem. Next year the second finger will be affected, and for twenty-one days at the utmost. But
for ten years you will have to suffer; each year one finger will be affected.”
I said, ”I don’t want that kind of business for ten years. Who knows? – if I die tomorrow then my nine
fingers .... No, I cannot leave them just like that. You have to do something.”
He said, ”There is no medicine for it – only surgery can be done. I will have to cut the bone – which
has grown a little – on the joint. That’s how this whole thing is happening.”
So I said, ”There is no problem, you can cut it. But I can’t wait for ten years.”
He prepared everything, but I was so close to him that at the final time he had a nervous breakdown.
He said, ”I cannot do it; on you I cannot do it – I cannot cut your finger. I will call another surgeon. I
have kept him ready in case, because I knew it from the very beginning – last night I could not sleep,
just the idea of cutting your finger ....”
I said, ”What nonsense. My finger, anybody’s finger – you should be able to cut your own finger too
if the time comes. If there is no surgeon available, you should be able to cut your own finger.”
He said, ”I can cut my own finger, but I cannot cut your finger, because then I will repent my whole
life that I did that nasty thing to you. No, I will not do it.”
He simply freaked out; the other surgeon did it. That day I understood how difficult it must be to be
the patient on the table and also the surgeon by the side – the same person cutting his own deepest
layers of being.
Consciousness is self-surgery.
And don’t ask me how can we raise ...? Nobody can do it for somebody else; you can only do it for
yourself.
This is the fundamental of spiritual surgery: you can only be successful on yourself.
Howsoever painful it is ... but there is no other way. Yes, it pays tremendously if you can pass
through the test.

If you can pass through the pain, if you can pass through all the misery, the suffering that you have
repressed will rise again. It is like entering a house which nobody has entered for years. You will
raise so much dust – and that dust is not simple dust, it covers your wounds. It has helped you to
forget yourself. It has made you unconscious of yourself. It is not like taking off your clothes, it is
more like peeling off your skin.
But once you succeed, then all the pain seems to be just nothing, because the bliss that descends
on you is incomparable; the pain that you suffered looks so tiny and so meaningless. But that is in
the end.
Gautam the Buddha used to say, ”My path in the beginning is tremendous pain; in the end,
tremendous blissfulness. But patience is needed.”
I told you, in this surgery you are the patient and you are the surgeon both. Remember the English
word ”patient” comes from ”patience.” It is significant. Why is the sick person called a ”patient?” He
has to be patient, he has to wait. But when you are the patient yourself and also the surgeon, the
difficulty is multiplied. But still it is nothing compared to the bliss.
All that you can do is to pass through this suffering, to pass through this dark night of the soul.
Reach to the dawn of your being.
Blossom. Let your blissfulness explode.
Perhaps somebody’s sleeping soul may be triggered. Somebody’s sleeping consciousness may
have a shock and wake up.
But these are only ”perhaps.” One cannot be certain in these matters. The matters are so subtle you
cannot be certain.
Hope for the best.
And wait for the worst.
And time certainly is short.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 7 contd...

If they were not here, would existence be poorer because of that?
All these considerations have to be looked into before you start raising the consciousness of the
world.
The greater masses of the world are not interested in consciousness.
They are more interested in unconsciousness.
You will be surprised because you may not have heard them saying that they are interested in
unconsciousness, but you can see them drinking alcohol – all kinds of narcotics are being used,
all kinds of drugs are being used. And there are other kinds of unconsciousnesses which are not
produced by chemical drugs.
For example, in a movie, for three hours, for what are you searching? You are searching for three
hours of unconsciousness. For three hours you become so involved in any idiotic story. And they
have been almost the same for centuries: just two men, one woman; two women, one man. There
are only two stories. I tried to find a third story – I have not succeeded. If any of you succeeds,
please inform me, help me, because I have found only two stories. And there is not much difference
in those stories: two women, one man; or two men, one woman. It is really one story. Only three
persons are needed; put them in all kinds of situations, create all different details, but the story
remains the same.
But it is helpful – you get involved in it. Millions of people seeing sports, millions of people
participating in political rallies, shouting slogans, screaming ....
I used to know one man in Jabalpur. I liked that man, I was really impressed by him: he was
something unique .... For one year I was living in a bungalow which was facing six roads, so all
kinds of processions were passing by there. And it was near the high court, the collector’s office,
the commissioner’s office. They were all just within a half-mile radius.
So every kind of procession – protests, either going to the chief justice, or going to the commissioner,
or going to the collector .... I used to enjoy seeing them. The most exciting thing for me was one
who was always in every protest, whether it was the communist party, socialist party, congress party,
president’s party – any party. And in India there are all kinds of parties.
Whether it was a religious protest – Christians protesting that something was being done against
their religion, or Mohammedans, Hindus, Jainas, Buddhists – he was always, inevitably there. I
could not believe it. That man was something! One day I caught hold of him and I said, ”You have
to come inside with me.”
He said, ”Right now I cannot come, I am going in the protest.”
I said, ”You can go later on – I will send you, I will drive you. But for five minutes you just come in –
because now it is too much, I cannot bear it any more.”
He said, ”But what is the problem? What have I done to you?”

I said, ”You have not done anything to me; I just want to know to which party you belong.”
He laughed. He said, ”As far as parties are concerned, I am a member of all the parties.”
I said, ”But ...?”
He said, ”You will not understand, nobody understands. I enjoy shouting, screaming. Now, who is
screaming against whom, that is not material. I simply enjoy – I shout, jump, have a flag. I don’t care
whose flag, I don’t have any flag of my own. And I am not interested in what they are demanding,
whether they get it or not, but I enjoy it.”
Now this man has no political interest, no religious interest. What his interest is, is in finding
unconsciousness in shouting, screaming, getting involved in something in which he has no
ideological interest. But he has psychological involvement, he forgets himself. For the two, three
hours that the protest continues, he forgets himself. Now, how can he miss if some other party is
protesting? His psychological interest is the same.
He said, ”It is not very costly.” In India you can become a member for one fourth of a rupee; that is a
one-year membership. And that too you don’t have to pay, somebody will pay for you, you have just
to vote for him.
So I asked him, ”So many parties, so many religions and you must be paying so much money ....”
He said, ”No, they pay it. And those idiots don’t even ask, ‘Are you a member of any other party?’
I have not yet been asked, so I have not yet been forced to lie. Nobody asks me. I say, ‘I want to
become a member of your party.’ They say, ‘Very good, you just become a member of the party,
fill in the form.’ I have filled in all the forms of all the parties. I go to all religious prayers, religious
meetings. I believe in the unity of all.”
I said, ”That’s very good.”
But he was really getting juice. You try protesting, shouting, and soon you get involved in it. Your
thinking disappears, your past, your present, disappear. You are suddenly herenow – but not in a
conscious way – through an unconscious trick. You can do it by alcohol, you can do it by politics,
you can do it by religion. You can do it in a church, you can do it in a movie house. You can do it in
a thousand and one ways, and people are using all kinds of ways.
People are not interested in consciousness.
Consciousness is painful, because you will have to drop so much which you have carried your whole
life thinking it very valuable.
You will have to uncover your wounds which you have covered and completely forgotten.
You will have to revive all worries and anguishes that somehow you have repressed.
You will have to face again your original face which you have lost far back. You have become
somebody else. You have been somebody else so long, that now to face your original face is going
to shatter you completely.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 7 contd...

And, in India, there are two types of coconuts – coconuts which people eat, and coconuts which
people use religiously. They offer it to gods, to temples, to gurus. Those coconuts for centuries have
the same price, their price has not changed. For one rupee you can get three – because they are
the same coconuts! For centuries ....
In my village, just in front of my house there was a temple of Krishna, and by the side of the temple,
a coconut shop. A coconut shop is always very close. If you find a temple, you can believe without
any trouble that within a five-minute radius there must be a coconut shop; mostly it is just by the side
of the temple.
You go on offering to the god, and the same coconuts go on getting back to the side shop. So the
price remains the same because ... and they are all rotten. The coconut shell is so hard that what is
inside nobody knows. These are religious coconuts. Nobody will purchase coconuts from a religious
coconut shop for eating, or for anything, because inside you will find nothing. Their function is just
to move from the shop to the temple, and from the back door again to the shop. In the morning they
are again for sale – and this round goes on and on.
And the coconut is a strange fruit. You can work with it for centuries. Its consciousness remains the
same, no change. In India it is so cheap – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi may not have been able to raise
the consciousness of the people but he has raised the price of transcendental meditation from one
coconut to two hundred and fifty dollars. I don’t know how many coconuts that will be ... because for
one rupee you can get three coconuts – religious coconuts, don’t forget that. For one rupee, three
religious coconuts; for one dollar you can have at least sixty religious coconuts; for two hundred and
fifty dollars ... now you can work it out.
And now he is not only trying to raise the consciousness of people. He has been doing that for
almost thirty years, and now people are fed up because nothing is raised. Simply their pocket
becomes lighter, and nothing is raised. They are getting fed up. And how long can you cheat
people?
So now these people have to go on inventing something new. His new thing is even more idiotic:
now he is trying to levitate people. First he was trying to levitate their consciousness, now he is
trying to levitate people. The fees have also gone higher – of course, because he is raising your
body too. Now he says he has found the secret. Joined with transcendental meditation your body
will rise, float in the air; your head will touch the roof. And there are fools in the world who are ready
to pay for this kind of nonsense.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has been asked again and again, ”Give a public demonstration, at least one
person.” That he is not doing, because it is such a secret thing that you cannot do it in public. It
can be done only in private. But strangely, if it is done only in privacy, how are the photographs
appearing in his magazines? At least the photographers must be there. It is public; the person is
not isolated.
The whole thing is, it is a simple photographic trick. It is not much of a thing; any person who
understands a little photography can manage it. He just has to mix two negatives; in one negative
you are sitting on the floor, and in the other negative it has to be managed that you are touching the
roof. You can be put on a tall stool, with the same mattress on which you were sitting on the floor, in the same room. And there is no problem – you just have to arrange these two photographs together
to show that this man’s body has levitated.
Time is short, and people are trying to levitate bodies. For what purpose? Even if, for argument’s
sake, we accept that people can learn to levitate their bodies, and their heads start touching their
roofs, how is it going to make humanity better?
If just touching the roof with your head is the thing, then simpler methods can be used. Just make a
tall stool – ask Asheesh; he can make you a beautiful tall stool so your head touches the roof. A stool
can be adjustable, so if you are short or tall the stool can be adjusted. You can adjust it yourself, so
your head touches the roof. If that makes you a superman, then why bother about meditation and
such long procedures? Time is very short.
But I am not interested either in raising people’s consciousness, or in raising their bodies. In fact
for decades I have not been interested in doing anything for the world, for humanity, because to me
these are bogus words. I am interested only in a few chosen people.
The whole mass of humanity – whether it lives or disappears makes no difference.
I may look hard to you, but I am simply being factual. Just look at the past. Millions of people have
lived and died – what does it matter? Where does it lead? Millions of people are living today – in
what way are they enriching life? Just breathing, just vegetating; is that enough?
Just today I have received a news item: in Miami, a man’s situation has become really terrible. He
had a brain cancer, and to remove that cancer they had to use, for the first time, some poison without
which it was not removable. That poison entered into his brain by mistake. The cancer was removed
but the poison entered into his brain and killed his brain. Now the man is alive, the brain is dead.
He can live for years, there is no problem; you just have to take care of him. His brain is completely
dead, so everything that his brain was doing, you will have to do. And it was your mistake.
But the doctor can also not be condemned. That poison was used for the first time, so there is no
way to say that he used it wrongly because there is no precedent. He tried his best – just an unlucky
man.
Now, between this man, I thought as I was reading the news, and the millions of masses, is there
any difference? That was the question that came to me. Their brains are not dead, but their souls
are dead – which is far worse. And nobody else is responsible – they themselves are responsible.
They are living, but do you call it life?
What is the point of their living?
What have they found out about it, what have they experienced?
Where have they arrived?
If they were not born, would you have missed them?

From Darkness to Light Chapter 7 contd...

Remember one thing:
Consciousness is always individual.
There is no way for consciousness to become collective. It is always ”I,” it is never ”we.”
Why this concern? And this is not only your concern – millions of people around the world are
concerned with raising the consciousness of the world. And not only now; as far back as you can
find any records they have been concerned with raising human consciousness, humanity, making
the world divine, sacred. And the same problems ....
In Mesopotamia – where one of the oldest civilizations existed once and is no longer in existence,
but ruins are there – a pillar has been found which is six thousand years old at least. That is the
minimum, it cannot be more recent than that; it can be twelve thousand years old, but six thousand
is the bottom line. With all the scientific observations they have concluded that it is at least six
thousand years old, more perhaps.

What does it say? The pillar says: ”Man has fallen to such a rotten state that we have to teach
humanity again to become human. Sons are no longer listening to their fathers” – there is a
generation gap – ”wives are no longer faithful to their husbands. Husbands are doing all kinds
of things, which make them disrespected and fathers are not fulfilling their duties.” The whole pillar
seems as if it is in some newspaper, just today’s editorial.
In India the RIG VEDA is the oldest book. According to the Hindu scholar Lokmanya Tilak, a great
scholar, it is ninety thousand years old. He has immense proof and evidence, and as yet he has not
been challenged. It is almost sixty years or more since he proved that it is ninety thousand years
old. In these sixty years nobody has been able to disprove his evidence; it is now either forgotten or
accepted.
Whatsoever the case, the RIG VEDA is certainly the most ancient book in existence – but it raises
the same problems that you face today, the same questions: Is it possible to change man’s nature?
Is there time enough? Ninety thousand years before, they were worried: Is there time enough? And
the time has not proved enough, that’s certainly true, because the problems are still the same –
perhaps worse.
You are asking me the same questions but I am a different kind of man, a little bit eccentric ...
otherwise, if you had asked the question to any mahatma, any great religious personality, he would
have answered, ”Yes, we can raise humanity’s consciousness. Of course time is very short but my
methods are very quick too.”
That’s what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi goes on telling people. Time is short, according to all the
prophecies, all the astrologers; as this century closes there is every possibility that the earth will be
finished. Time is really short. It is 1985 – only fifteen years more. Ninety thousand years have not
proved enough. Fifteen years! But Maharishi Mahesh Yogi goes around the earth with jet speed. Of
course he has to use the jet speed – time is short!
But he says his method is quick: just ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes in the evening you
do transcendental meditation. And what is transcendental meditation? You repeat one word that is
given to you. Of course you have to pay a fee for it, two hundred and fifty dollars. And what does he
give? He asks you, ”Are you a Christian?” You say, ”Yes.”
He says, ”Catholic? Protestant?” – just to figure out who you are so he can give you a mantra
suitable to your religion.
If you say, ”I am a Catholic,” he will say, ”That’s very good. You start the mantra, ‘Ave Maria.’ Repeat
continuously: Ave Maria, Ave Maria, Ave Maria, anywhere, in any posture, just for ten minutes.
Between two Ave Marias don’t leave any gap, go as fast as you can.” One Ave Maria almost entering
another Ave Maria, just as when sometimes there is an accident of a railway train, and compartments
go over other compartments, and inside other compartments. All the buffers are broken and the train
is for the first time in a real unity.
This is a very traditional method in India. It is nothing new, and it is used by everybody; in every
village you can get it, very cheap .... If you are very rich then the price is eleven rupees, which is
less than one dollar. If you are poor it can be reduced; for the very poor, a coconut.