Whenever the healer is treating a person who is psychologically disturbed, in a mess, he is constantly broadcasting his vibes. He is constantly throwing out his own energy, his negative waves upon the healer, and the healer has to listen to him. The healer has to  be very attentive. The healer has  to care, have to love and be compassionate towards him; only then healer can  help him. He is constantly throwing negative-charged energy — and the healer is absorbing it. In fact the more attentively the healer listen, the more the healer absorb it.

The healer living continuously with neurotic and psychotic people, the healer start thinking, in an unconscious way, that this is what humanity is. We become by and by like the people we live with, because nobody is an island. So if you are working with sad people, you will become sad. If you are working with happy people, you will become happy, because everything is infectious.  Neurosis is infectious; suicide also is infectious.

If you live around people who are enlightened, very aware, then something in you starts responding to this higher possibility. When you live with people who are very low, abnormally low, in a perverted state, then something morbid in you starts corresponding and relating to them.

So to be continuously surrounded by ill people, is in a way dangerous, unless the healer protects himself. And there is nothing like meditation to give the healer protection. Then the healer can give more than he was giving and yet the healer will remain unaffected. The healer can help more than he was helping, because the higher the healers energy, the more is the possibility to help.

In fact, in a better world, every healer should be trained deeply in meditation, that is the only way that he can protect himself and not be vulnerable — and then the healer can really help.

An ill person is one who has simply developed blocks between himself and the whole, so something is disconnected. The function of the healer is to reconnect him.   The function of the healer is to reconnect him, the healer has to do nothing. The healer is just a function. The doer is God, the whole.

Everybody can become a healer. Healing is something like breathing; it is natural.  Somebody is ill; it means he has lost his capacity to heal himself. He is no longer aware of his own healing source. The healer is to help him to be rejoined. That source is the same from which the healer draws, but the ill man has forgotten how to understand the language of it. The healer is in relationship with the whole, so he can become a via-media. The healer touches the body of the ill person and becomes a link between him and the source. The patient is no longer connected directly with the source so he becomes indirectly connected. Once the energy starts flowing, he is healed.

And if the healer is really a man of understanding…because it is possible that you can become a healer and you may not be a man of understanding. There are many healers who go on doing it but they don’t know how it happens; they don’t know the mechanism of it.  If you understand also, you can help the patient to be healed and you can help him to be aware of the source from where the healing is happening.  So not only is he healed of his present illnesses, he is prevented from future illnesses. Then the healing is perfect. It is not only curative, it is also preventative.

Healing almost becomes an experience of prayer, an experience of God, of love, of the whole.

should I be. You have a very clear-cut goal, and because of that clear-cut goal you fall short and you cannot accept yourself, you go on rejecting. And out of that rejection, you feel miserable.

Just destroy those goals and ideals: those ideals and goals that you are keeping in your mind of how things should be, how you should be. Drop them! And there is nothing missing, nothing is lacking; your energy can start flowing. Once you are in the moment, your body will start losing weight. It is continuous antagonism with the body that is making it fat, because when you are continuously against the body the body feels insecure, and out of insecurity it goes on eating.

It is like a child who cannot trust its mother. If the child cannot trust the mother, once he has the mother’s breast he will not leave it because he cannot trust; he does not know when he will get the breast again. It is not certain, he cannot remain secure in it — so he will grab. He will go on drinking as much as he can. He will stuff himself because the future is uncertain. When the child knows the mother loves him and knows the mother will be available — whenever she is needed she will be available — he does not bother to stuff himself. He can rest, he can eat as much as he needs in that moment, there is no need to hoard.

In fact fat is a hoarding; for some uncertain future one goes on hoarding. A man can live three months without food, one can gather that much fat. It is an old, ancient habit, biological. There were times, thousands of years hack, when man was a hunter and the food was not certain. One day it was there, and in abundance, and for days together it was not there at all. Man carries that biological habit. That is associated with insecurity. Now there is no problem — at least not in America: you have enough food. For the first time society has enough food. Americans should not be fat at all.  Indians can be allowed to be fat because the food is not certain.

Now food is available, good food, good nourishment, there is no physical need to eat more, but now psychological insecurity triggers the mechanism of the body, and the body starts feeling insecure. It knows only one way of how to avoid insecurity, and that is to eat more, to go on eating and stuff itself. It becomes an occupation.

Drop the ideals! There is nothing that you have to improve; you are perfectly beautiful as you are. And start living! Rather than thinking that you will live in the future when you are perfect, when you are like this, like that, you will live when you have attained a certain standard according to your mind…. But life is herenow and slipping out of our hands. Tomorrow there is death — only today there is life… it is always today.

Start living and start enjoying. The more you enjoy, the less you will eat. A really happy person does not eat much. It is out of misery, out of pain, out of emptiness, out of a meaninglessness that one wants to grab on to something — at least food, something, the body has accumulated much wisdom, the body is very wise. If you eat too much the body says, “Stop!” The mind is not so wise. The mind says, “The taste is beautiful — a little more.” And if you listen to the mind, then the mind becomes destructive to the body, this way or that. If you listen to the mind, first it will say, “Go on eating,” because mind is foolish, a child. He does not know what he is saying.  He is a new arrival, he has no learning. He is not wise, he is still a fool. Listen to the body. When the body says, “Hungry” — eat. When the body says, “Stop” — stop.

If you listen to the mind, it is as if a small child is leading an old man — they will both fall in a pit. If you listen to the mind, then first you will be in the senses too much; and then you will get fed up. And every sense will bring you misery, every sense will bring you more anxiety, conflict, pain. If you eat too much there will be pain and there will be vomiting, and the whole body will be disturbed. Then the mind says, “Eating is bad, so go on a fast.” And a fast is also dangerous. If you listen to the body it will never overeat, it will never under-eat — it will simply follow the Tao.

A few scientists have been working on this problem and they have discovered a very beautiful phenomenon: small children eat whenever they feel hungry, they go to sleep whenever they feel that sleep is coming — they listen to their bodies. But parents disturb them, they go on forcing: “It is dinnertime, or lunchtime, or this and that, or sleeping-time — go!” They don’t allow their bodies. So one experimenter tried leaving children on their own. He was working with twenty-five children. They were not forced to go to sleep, they were not forced to get up. They were not forced at all for six months. And a very deep understanding came.

They slept well. They had less dreams — no nightmares, because nightmares were coming from the parents who were forcing them. They ate well, but never too much never less than necessary, never more than necessary. They enjoyed eating and sometimes they would not eat at all. When the body was not feeling well they would not eat, and they never fell ill because of eating. And one more thing which no one ever suspected came to be understood, and it was miraculous. Only Sosan can understand, or Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu, because they are the masters of Tao. This was such a discovery: they came to understand that if a child was ill, then he would not eat particular foods. Then they tried to understand why he was not eating those foods.  The foods were analyzed and it was found that for that disease, those foods were dangerous. How did the child decide? — just the body.

When the child was growing he would eat more of whatsoever was needed for his growth. Then they analyzed and they found that these ingredients were helpful and the food would change, because the needs changed, One day a child would eat something and the next day the same child would not eat it. And the scientists felt that there is a body-wisdom.

If you allow the body to have its say, you are moving on the right path, the great way. And this is so not only with food — this is so with the whole life. Your sex goes wrong because of your mind, your stomach goes wrong because of your mind. You interfere with the body. Don’t interfere! Even if you can do it for three months — don’t interfere, and suddenly you will become so healthy, and a well-being will descend on you.”

First, at the age of seven the child is no longer a child; a totally different world starts. Up to then he was innocent. Now he starts learning the cunningness of the world, the cleverness, all the deceptions, games; he starts learning to be pseudo, he starts wearing masks. The first layer of falsity starts surrounding him.

At the age of fourteen, sex, which was never a problem up to now suddenly arises in his being…and his world changes, utterly changes! For the first time he becomes interested in the other sex…. A totally new vision of life arises and he starts dreaming and fantasizing. And this way it goes on….

At the age of twenty-one, again: now a power trip, an ego trip, ambition — now he is ready to go into some power trip, to attain more money, to become more famous, this and that. That is the age of twenty-one; again a cycle is complete.

At the age of twenty-eight, again — he becomes settled, starts thinking of security, comfort, the bank balance. So hippies are right if they say, “Don’t trust anybody beyond thirty.” In fact they should say twenty-eight, because that is the time when a person becomes straight.

By the age of thirty-five again a change starts happening, because thirty-five is almost the peak of life. If a man is going to die at seventy, which is normal, then thirty-five seems to be the peak. The bigger cycle has come halfway and a man starts thinking of death, starts being afraid. Fear arises. This is the age, between thirty-five and forty-two, where ulcers and blood pressure, heart attacks and all sorts of things happen — because of the fear. Fear creates all these things — cancer, TB…. A man becomes prone to all sorts of accidents because the fear has entered into his being_ Now death seems to be coming close: he has taken the first step towards death the day he passes thirty-five.

At the age of forty-two a person starts becoming religious. Now death is not an intellectual thing; he becomes more and more alert about it and wants to do something, really do something — because if he waits anymore it will be too late…. At the age of forty-two a person needs some religion, just as at the age of fourteen he needed a woman or she needed a man to relate to. Sexual relationship was needed; exactly the same happens at forty-two — now a religious relationship is needed. One needs a God, a master, somewhere to surrender, somewhere to go and unburden oneself.

At the age of forty-nine a person becomes settled about religion. The search is over, he settles.

At the age of fifty-six, if things go naturally and a person follows his rhythm, a person will start attaining a few glimpses of the divine.

At the age of sixty-three, if everything goes naturally, he will have his first satori. And if this happens at the age of sixty-three, that he has had his first satori, he will die a beautiful death at the age of seventy. Then death will not be death — it will be a door to the divine, it will be a meeting with the beloved.”

The second cycle is emotional. It takes twenty-eight days to complete, just as it takes twenty-eight days in the feminine body for the menstruation to come. Just now science is becoming alert that even man has a kind of monthly period and that after each twenty-eight days it happens. The feminine period is visible and physical. Man’s period is not visible and not physical; more psychological, more emotional, but it happens. The emotional cycle governs creativity, sensitivity, mental health, mood, perception of the world and ourselves.

When a woman has her period, for three, four or five days she is in misery, sad, negative, dull, dead, feeling very low, jumpy, shaken. But women become accustomed to it because it is so visible. By and by they learn that it has to be so, so by and by they are not so miserable. It is an every month thing and so visible, so things settle. But man’s problem is more difficult. The period is there — the male period —but it is not visible and you don’t know where it comes from and when it goes…. This is a twenty-eight day cycle in the body; it follows the moon. So whenever there is a moon you will be more happy, and when there is no moon you will be less happy.

And then, finally, the third cycle. The third cycle is the intellectual cycle. It takes place over a thirty-three day period. It regulates memory, alertness, receptivity to knowledge and the logical and analytical functions. The first half of each period is positive and the second half, negative. Sometimes you have a time in the negative phase, others in the positive, and vice versa. When all the three cycles are in the positive, peaks of joy and ecstasy happen. And when all the three are in the negative, one lives in hell. Heaven means all the three are in the positive and hell is the other end. And to be free of both is nirvana, moksha, absolute freedom….

You have just to understand your phases, and you have to be a little more watchful. Start keeping a diary about these negative phases. Within three, four months, you will be able to make your chart, and then you can predict that the next Monday you are going to be in a bad mood.

In ancient days yogis used to make such charts. The science of bio-rhythm was well-known and practiced in the Yoga and Sufi schools. And these charts were very helpful because if you know that for the first week of every month you become very, very negative, then a few things can be avoided. In the first week don’t do anything for which you can repent later on; don’t fight, don’t get angry. The people who are really following these charts will not move out of their rooms. They will not do anything for those seven or four or three days, because whatsoever they do will be wrong.

And then you know when your positive mood comes. That is the time to relate, to go to people, to meet, and nothing will go wrong. You will be in a different state altogether.  Watching this way, within six, eight months you will be able to become a witness, and then nothing disturbs. Then you know it is just part of nature —nothing to do with you. Seeing it, you start transcending the cycles.