Osho Rajneesh Book "The Tantra Vision, Vol 1"

The Tantra Vision, Vol 1

The most basic thing about Tantra is this – and very radical, revolutionary, rebellious – the basic

vision is that the world is not divided into the lower and the higher, but that the world is one piece.

The higher and the lower are holding hands. The higher includes the lower, and the lower includes

the higher. The higher is hidden in the lower – so the lower has not to be denied, has not to be

condemned, has not to be destroyed or killed. The lower has to be transformed. The lower has to

be allowed to move upwards... and the lower becomes the higher. There is no unbridgeable gap

between the Devil and God – the Devil is carrying God deep down in his heart. Once that heart

starts functioning, the Devil becomes God.

That is the reason why the very root of the word’devil’ means the same as’divine’. The word’devil’

comes from’divine’; it is the Divine not yet evolved, that’s all. Not that the Devil is against the Divine,

not that the Devil is trying to destroy the Divine – in fact, the Devil is trying to find the Divine. The

Devil is on the way towards the Divine; it is not the enemy, it is the seed. The Divine is the tree fully

in bloom and the Devil is the seed – but the tree is hidden in the seed. And the seed is not against

the tree; in fact, the tree cannot exist if the seed is not there. And the tree is not against the seed –

they are in deep friendship, they are together.

Poison and nectar are two phases of the same energy, so are life and death – and so is everything:

day and night, love and hate, sex and superconsciousness.

Tantra says: Never condemn anything – the attitude of condemnation is the stupid attitude. By

condemning something, you are denying yourself the possibility that would have become available

to you if you had evolved the lower. Don’t condemn the mud, because the lotus is hidden in the mud;

use the mud to produce the lotus. Of course, the mud is not the lotus yet, but it can be. And the

creative person, the religious person, will help the mud to release its lotus so that the lotus can be

freed from the mud.

Saraha is the founder of the Tantra vision. It is of tremendous import, and particularly for the present

moment in human history, because a new man is striving to be born, a new consciousness is

knocking on the doors. And the future is going to be that of Tantra, because now no more dual

attitudes can hold man’s mind.

They have tried for centuries and they have crippled man and they have made man guilty. And they

have not made man free they have made man a prisoner. And they have not made man happy

either; they have made man very miserable. They have condemned everything from food to sex

they have condemned everything; from relationship to friendship they have condemned all. Love is

condemned, body is condemned, mind is condemned. They have not left a single inch for you to

stand on; they have taken away all and man is hanging, just hanging.

This state of man cannot be tolerated any more. Tantra can give you a new perspective hence I

have chosen Saraha.

Saraha is one of my most loved persons. It is my old love affair.

You may not even have heard the name of Saraha, but Saraha is one of the great benefactors of

humanity. If I were to count on my fingers ten benefactors of humanity, Saraha would be one of

those ten. If I were to count five, then too I would not be able to drop Saraha.

BEFORE WE ENTER into these Songs of Saraha, a few things about Saraha’s life: Saraha was

born in Vidarbha; Vidarbha is part of Maharashtra, very close to Poona. He was born when King

Mahapala was the ruler. He was the son of a very learned Brahmin who was in the court of King

Mahapala. The father was in the court so the young man was also in the court. He had four other

brothers; they were all great scholars, and he was the youngest and the most intelligent of them all.

His fame was spreading all over the country, by and by, and the king was almost enchanted by his

superb intelligence.

The four brothers were also very great scholars, but nothing to be compared with Saraha. As they

became mature, the four got married. The king was willing to give his own daughter to Saraha, but

Saraha wanted to renounce all – Saraha wanted to become a sannyasin. The king was hurt; he tried

to persuade Saraha – he was so beautiful and he was so intelligent and he was such a handsome

young man. His fame was spreading all over the country, and because of him Mahapala’s court was

becoming famous. The king was very much worried, and he didn’t want this young man to become

a sannyasin. He wanted to protect him, he wanted to give him all comfort possible – he was ready

to do anything for him. But Saraha persisted and the permission had to be given – he became a

sannyasin, he became a disciple of Sri Kirti.

Sri Kirti is in the direct line of Buddha – Gautam Buddha, then his son Rahul Bhadra, and then

comes Sri Kirti. There are just two Masters between Saraha and Buddha; he is not very far away

from Buddha. The tree must have been still very, very green; the vibe must have been still very, very

alive. Buddha had just left. The climate must have been full of his fragrance.

The king was shocked, because Saraha was a Brahmin. If he wanted to become a sannyasin he

should have become a Hindu sannyasin, but he chose a Buddhist Master. Saraha’s family was also

very much worried. In fact, they all became enemies... this was not right. And then things became

even worse – we will come to know about it.

Saraha’s original name was’Rahul’, the name given by his father. We will come to know how he

became Saraha – that is a beautiful story. When he went to Sri Kirti, the first thing Sri Kirti told him

was: ”Forget all your Vedas and all your learning and all that nonsense.” It was difficult for Saraha,

but he was ready to stake anything. Something in the presence of Sri Kirti had attracted him. Sri

Kirti was a great magnet. He dropped all his learning, he became unlearned again.

This is one of the greatest renunciations: it is easy to renounce wealth, it is easy to renounce a great

kingdom, but to renounce knowledge is the most difficult thing in the world. In the first place, how to

renounce it? It is there inside you. You can escape from your kingdom, you can go to the Himalayas,

you can distribute your wealth – how can you renounce your knowledge? And then it is too painful

to become ignorant again. It is the greatest austerity there is, to become ignorant again, to become

again innocent like a child... but he was ready.

Years passed and, by and by, he erased all that he had known. He became a great meditator.

Just the same as he had started to become very famous as a great scholar, now his fame started

spreading as a great meditator. People started coming from far and away just to have a glimpse of

this young man who had become so innocent, like a fresh leaf, or like dew-drops on the grass in the

morning.

One day while Saraha was meditating, suddenly he saw a vision – a vision that there was a woman

in the marketplace who was going to be his real teacher. Sri Kirti has just put him on the way, but

the real teaching is to come from a woman. Now, this too has to be understood. It is only Tantra that

has never been male chauvinistic. In fact, to go into Tantra you will need the cooperation of a wise

woman; without a wise woman you will not be able to enter into the complex world of Tantra.

He saw a vision: a woman there in the marketplace. So first a woman. Second – in the marketplace.

Tantra thrives in the marketplace, in the thick of life. It is not an attitude of negation; it is utter

positivity. He stood up. Sri Kirti asked him, ”Where are you going?” And he said, ”You have shown

me the Path. You took my learning away. You have done half the work – you have cleaned my slate.

Now I am ready to do the other half.” With the blessings of Sri Kirti who was laughing, he went away.

He went to the marketplace. He was surprised: he really found the woman that he had seen in the

vision. The woman was making an arrow; she was an arrowsmith woman.

The third thing to be remembered about Tantra: it says the more cultured, the more civilized a

person, the less is the possibility of his Tantric transformation. The less civilized, the more primitive,

the more alive a person is. The more you become civilized, the more you become plastic – you

become artificial, you become too much cultivated, you lose your roots into the earth. You are afraid

of the muddy world. You start living away from the world; you start posing yourself as though you

are not of the world. Tantra says: To find the real person you will have to go to the roots.

So Tantra says: Those who are still uncivilized, uneducated, uncultured, they are more alive, they

have more vitality. And that’s the observation of the modern psychologist too. A negro is more

vital than the American – that is the fear of the American. The American is very much afraid of the

negro. The fear is that the American has become very much plastic, and the negro is still vital, still

down-to-earth.

The conflict between the blacks and the whites in America is not really the conflict between black

and white, it is the conflict between the plastic and the real. And the American, the white man, is very

much afraid, basically because he is afraid that if the negro is allowed, he will lose his woman, the

American will lose his woman. The negro is more vital, sexually more vital, more alive; his energy

is still wild. And that is one of the greatest fears of civilized people: to lose their women. They know

that if more vital persons are available, they will not be able to hold their women.

Tantra says: In the world of those who are still primitive, there is a possibility of starting to grow. You

have grown in a wrong direction; they have not grown yet – they can still choose a right direction,

they are more potential. And they don’t have anything to undo; they can proceed directly.

An arrowsmith woman is a low-caste woman, and for Saraha – a learned Brahmin, a famous

Brahmin, who had belonged to the court of the king – going to an arrowsmith woman is symbolic.

The learned has to go to the vital. The plastic has to go to the real.

He saw this woman, young woman, very alive, radiant with life, cutti

ng an arrow-shaft, looking

neither to the right nor to the left, but wholly absorbed in making the arrow. He immediately felt

something extraordinary in her presence, something that he had never come across. Even Sri Kirti,

his Master, paled before the presence of this woman. Something so fresh and something from the

very source....

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