Massage is something that you can start learning but you never finish. It goes on and on, and the experience becomes continuously deeper and deeper, and higher and higher. Massage is one of the most subtle arts — and it is not only a question of expertise. It is more a question of love.

Learn the technique — then forget it. Then just feel, and move by feeling. When you learn deeply, ninety percent of the work is done by love, ten percent by the technique. By just the very touch, a loving touch, something relaxes in the body.

If you love and feel compassion for the other person, and feel the ultimate value of him; if you don’t treat him as if he is a mechanism to be put right, but an energy of tremendous value; if you are grateful that he trusts you and allows you to play with his energy — then by and by you will feel as if you are playing on an organ. The whole body becomes the keys of the organ and you can feel that a harmony is created inside the body. Not only will the person be helped, but you also.

Massage is needed in the world because love has disappeared. Once the very touch of lovers was enough. A mother touched the child, played with his body, and it was massage. The husband played with the body of his woman and it was massage; it was enough, more than enough. It was deep relaxation and part of love. But that has disappeared from the world. By and by we have forgotten where to touch, how to touch, how deep to touch. In fact touch is one of the most forgotten languages. We have become almost awkward in touching, because the very word has been corrupted by so called religious people. They have given it a sexual colour. The word has become sexual and people have become afraid. Everybody is on guard not to be touched unless he allows it. Now in the West the other extreme has come. Touch and massage have become sexual. Now massage is just a cover, a blanket, for sexuality. In fact neither touch nor massage are sexual. They are functions of love. When love falls from its height it becomes sex, and then it becomes ugly. So be prayerful. When you touch the body of a person be prayerful — as if God himself is there, and you are just serving him. Flow with total energy. And whenever you see the body flowing and the energy creating a new pattern of harmony, you will feel a delight that you have never felt before. You will fall into deep meditation.

While massaging, just massage. Don’t think of other things because those are distractions.  Be in your forgers and your hands as if your whole being, your whole soul is there. Don’t let it be just a touch of the body. Your whole soul enters into the body of the other, penetrates it, relaxes the deepest complexes. And make it a play. Don’t do it as a job; make it a game and take it as fun. Laugh and let the other laugh too.”

Massage is to come to a rapport with the energy of somebody else’s body and to feel where it is missing, to feel where the body is fragmentary and to make it whole…to help the energy of the body so it is no longer fragmentary, no longer contradictory. When the energies of the body are falling into line and becoming an orchestra, then you succeed.  So be very respectful about a human body. It is the very shrine of God, the temple of God. So with deep reverence, prayer, learn your art. It is one of the greatest things to learn.”

Massage is not simply massage. You are sharing energy; and unless you have energy flowing in you, soon you will become tired. Then it is very risky. It is not physical tiredness that comes — that is not important; you will sleep, you will eat, and it will go. But massage is a deeper sharing of energy. When you are massaging somebody’s body, not only are your bodies involved — your subtle bodies, two energy bodies, two bio-plasmas. The person who is taking massage can take too much of your bio-plasma, and unless you are a constant inner supply, unless you are joined to the source, you will become very much dissipated by it. It may not immediately affect you because you are young. Even for months and years you may not feel it, but one day suddenly you will feel you are collapsed.

First one should work upon oneself, and one should become very, very centred. When you are centred, you are not. When you are centred, the source starts functioning. Then you are just a passage. The cosmos starts flowing through you — then there is no problem. You can share as much energy as you want, and you will be constantly getting new energy. Then you are not like a reservoir of water which has no springs to it.  You are like a well which has many springs to it; you go on taking the water out and new water is flowing in — you cannot exhaust it. In fact you take the old, rotten, stale water out, and the fresh and alive water comes in. So the well is very happy — you are unburdening it from the past and the old and the stagnant. So if you are in a flow and your energy is flowering then there is no problem.

So massage and healing and these phenomena are very subtle. And it is not only a question of knowing the technique, the bigger question is how to be at the source then there is no problem.  Don’t bother about the technique and whether you know it or not. You can simply start playing with somebody’s body and energy will be flowing, and there will be great benefits.  But there is only real benefit when the person who is massaging is also benefited through it — then there is a real benefit. Then the healer is benefited, and the healee too — both are benefited, Nobody is at loss.