Pranayama
April 28, 2016
Sex and Headache or Migraine
April 28, 2016

Relaxation

Start relaxing. Start from the circumference — that’s where we are, and we can start only from where we are. Relax the circumference of your being — relax your body, relax your behaviour, relax your acts. Walk in a relaxed way, eat in a relaxed way; talk, listen in a relaxed way. Slow down every process. Don’t be in a hurry and don’t be in haste. Move as if all eternity is available to you — in fact, it is available to you. We are here from the beginning and we are going to be here to the very end, if there is a beginning and there is an end. In fact, there is no beginning and no end.  We have always been here and we will be here always. Forms go on changing, but not the substance; garments go on changing, but not the soul.

 

Tension means hurry, fear, doubt. Tension means a constant effort to protect, to be secure, to be safe. Tension means preparing for the tomorrow now, or for the afterlife — afraid tomorrow you will not be able to face the reality, so be prepared.  Tension means the past that you have not lived really but only somehow bypassed; it hangs, it is a hangover, it surrounds you.

 

Remember one very fundamental thing about life: any experience that has not been lived will hang around you, will persist: “Finish me! Live me! Complete me!”  There is an intrinsic quality in every experience that it tends and wants to be finished, completed. Once completed, it evaporates; incomplete, it persists, it tortures you, it haunts you, it attracts your attention. It says, “What are you going to do about me? I am still incomplete — fulfill me!”

 

Your whole past hangs around you with nothing completed because nothing has been lived really, everything somehow bypassed, partially lived, only so-so, in a lukewarm way. There has been no intensity, no passion. You have been moving like a somnambulist, a sleepwalker. So that past hangs, and the future creates fear. And between the past and the future is crushed your present, the only reality.

 

You will have to relax from the circumference. The first step in relaxing is the body.  Remember as many times as possible to look in the body, whether you are carrying some tension in the body somewhere — at the neck, in the head, in the legs. Relax it consciously. Just go to that part of the body, and persuade that part, say to it lovingly “Relax!”

 

And you will be surprised that if you approach any part of your body, it listens, it follows you — it is your body! With closed eyes, go inside the body from the toe to the head searching for any place where there is a tension. And then talk to that part as you talk to a friend; let there be a dialogue between you and your body. Tell it to relax, and tell it, “There is nothing to fear. Don’t be afraid. I am here to take care —you can relax.” Slowly, slowly, you will learn the knack of it. Then the body becomes relaxed.

 

Then take another step, a little deeper; tell the mind to relax. And if the body listens, the mind also listens, but you cannot start with the mind — you have to start from the beginning.  You cannot start from the middle. Many people start with the mind and they fail; they fail because they start from a wrong place. Everything should be done in the right order.

 

If you become capable of relaxing the body voluntarily, then you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily. Mind is a more complex phenomenon. Once you have become confident that the body listens to you, you will have a new trust in yourself. Now even the mind can listen to you. It will take a little longer with the mind, but it happens.

 

When the mind is relaxed, then start relaxing your heart, the world of your feelings, emotions — which is even more complex, more subtle. But now you will be moving with trust, with great trust in yourself. Now you will know it is possible. If it is possible with the body and possible with the mind, it is possible with the heart too. And then only, when you have gone through these three steps, can you take the fourth. Now you can go to the innermost core of your being — which is beyond body, mind, heart — the very centre of your existence. And you will be able to relax it too. And that relaxation certainly brings the greatest joy possible, the ultimate in ecstasy, acceptance.

 

You will be full of bliss and rejoicing. Your life will have the quality of dance to it.  The whole of existence is dancing, except man. The whole of existence is in a very relaxed movement there is, certainly, but it is utterly relaxed. Trees are growing and birds are chirping and rivers are flowing, stars are moving: everything is going in a very relaxed way…no hurry, no haste, no worry, and no waste. Except man. Man has fallen a victim of his mind.

 

Man can rise above gods and fall below animals. Man has a great spectrum. From the lowest to the highest, man is a ladder.

 

Start from the body, and then go slowly, slowly deeper. And don’t start with anything unless you have first solved the primary. If your body is tense, don’t start with the mind. Wait. Work on the body. And just small things are of immense help.

 

You walk at a certain pace; that has become habitual, automatic. Now try to walk slowly. Buddha used to say to his disciples: “Walk very slowly, and take each step very consciously.” If you take each step very consciously, you are bound to walk slowly. If you are running, hurrying, you will forget to remember. Hence Buddha walks very slowly.

 

Just try walking very slowly, and you will be surprised — a new quality of awareness starts happening in the body. Eat slowly, and you will be surprised — there is great relaxation. Do everything slowly…just to change the old pattern, just to come out of old habits.

 

First the body has to become utterly relaxed, like a small child, then only start with the mind. Move scientifically: first the simplest, then the complex, then the more complex.  And then only can you relax at the ultimate core….

 

Relaxation is one of the most complex phenomena — very rich, multidimensional.  All these things are part of it: let-go, trust, surrender, love, acceptance, going with the flow, union with existence, egolessness, ecstasy. All these are part of it, and all these start happening if you learn the ways of relaxation.

 

Your so-called religions have made you very tense, because they have created guilt in you.  My effort here is to help you get rid of all guilt and all fear. I would like to tell you: there is no hell and no heaven. So don’t be afraid of hell and don’t be greedy for heaven. All that exists is this moment. You can make this moment a hell or a heaven —that certainly is possible — but there is no heaven or hell somewhere else. Hell is when you are all tense, and heaven is when you are all relaxed. Total relaxation is paradise.

The whole society is geared for work. It is a workaholic society. It does not want you to learn relaxation, so from the very childhood it puts in your mind anti-relaxation ideas.

 

It is not that you relax the whole day. Do your work, but find out some time for yourself, and that can be found only in relaxation. And you will be surprised that if you can relax for an hour or two hours out of each twenty-four hours, it will give you a deeper insight into yourself. It will change your behaviour outwardly — you will become more calm, more quiet. It will change the quality of your work — it will be more artistic and more graceful. You will be committing fewer mistakes than you used to commit before, because now you are more together, more centred. Relaxation has miraculous powers.

 

It is not laziness. The lazy man may look, from the outside, as if he is not working at anything, but his mind is going as fast as it can; and the relaxed man — his body is relaxed, his mind is relaxed, his heart is relaxed. Just relaxation on all three layers — body, mind, heart — for two hours he is almost absent. In these two hours his body recovers, his heart recovers, his intelligence recovers, and you will see all that recovery in his work.

 

He will not be a loser — although he will not be frantic anymore, he will not be unnecessarily running hither and thither. He will go directly to the point where he wants to go. And he will do things that are needed to be done; he will not be doing unnecessary trivia. He will say only that which is needed to be said. His words will become telegraphic; his movements will become graceful; his life will become a poetry.

 

Relaxation can transform you to such beautiful heights — and it is such a simple technique. There is nothing much in it; just For a few days you will find it difficult because of the old habit…. Relaxation is bound to come to you. It will bring new light to your eyes, a new freshness to your being, and it will help you to understand what meditation is. It is just the first steps outside the door of the temple of meditation. With just deeper and deeper relaxation it becomes meditation.

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