The need for catharsis

The need for catharsis

FOR sixty minutes every day, just forget about the world. Let the world disappear from you, and you disappear from the world. Take an about-turn, a one hundred and eighty degree turn, and just look inside. In the beginning, you will see only clouds. Don’t be worried about them; those clouds are created by your repressions. You will come across anger, hatred, greed, and all kinds of black holes. You have repressed them, so they are there. And your so-called religions have taught you to repress them, so they are there like wounds. You have been hiding them.

That’s why my emphasis is first on catharsis. Unless you go through great catharsis you will have to pass through many clouds. It will be tiring, and you may be so impatient that you may turn back into the world. And you will say, “There is nothing. There is no lotus and no fragrance, there is only stink, rubbish.”

You know it. When you close your eyes and you start moving in, what do you come across? You don’t come across those beautiful lands Buddhas talk about. You come across hells, agonies, repressed there, waiting for you. Anger of many lives accumulating. It is all a mess there, so one wants to remain outside. One wants to go to the movie, to the club, to meet people and gossip. One wants to remain occupied till one is tired and falls asleep. That’s the way you are living, that’s your style of life.

So when one starts looking in, naturally one is very much puzzled. Buddhas say that there is great benediction, great fragrance, you come across lotus flowers blooming – and such fragrance that it is eternal. And the colour of the flowers remains the same; it is not a changing phenomenon. They talk about this paradise, they talk about this kingdom of God that is within you. And when you go in, you only come across hell.

You see not Buddhalands but Adolf Hitler concentration camps. Naturally, you start thinking that this is all nonsense, it is better to remain outside. And why go on playing with your wounds? – it hurts too. And pus starts oozing out of the wounds and it is dirty.

But catharsis helps. If you cathart, if you go through chaotic meditations, you throw all these clouds outside, all these darknesses outside, then mindfulness becomes easier.

That is my reason why I emphasize first chaotic meditations and then silent meditations, first active meditations, then passive meditations. You can move into passivity only when all that is there like junk has been thrown out. Anger has been thrown out, greed has been thrown out ... layer upon layer, these things are there. But once you have thrown them out, you can easily slip in. There is nothing to hinder.

And suddenly the bright light of the Buddhaland. And suddenly you are in a totally different world – the world of the Lotus Law, the world of Dhamma, the world of Tao.

Pillow-beating

WHEN you feel angry, there is no need to be angry against someone; just be angry. Let it be a meditation. Close the room, sit by yourself, and let the anger come up as much as it can. If you feel like beating, beat a pillow.

Do whatsoever you want to do; the pillow will never object. If you want to kill the pillow, have a knife and kill it! It helps, it helps tremendously. One can never imagine how helpful a pillow can be. Just beat it, bite it, throw it. If you are against somebody in particular, write their name on the pillow or stick a picture on it.

You will feel ridiculous, foolish, but anger is ridiculous; you cannot do anything about it. So let it be and enjoy it like an energy phenomenon. It is an energy phenomenon. If you are not hurting anybody there is nothing wrong in it. When you try this you will see that the idea of hurting somebody by and by disappears.

Make it a daily practice – just twenty minutes every morning. Then watch the whole day. You will be calmer, because the energy that becomes anger has been thrown out; the energy that becomes a poison is thrown out of the system. Do this for at least two weeks, and after one week you will be surprised to find that whatsoever the situation, anger is not coming up. Just give it a try.

Pant like a dog

IT is difficult to work with anger directly because it may be deeply repressed. So work indirectly. Running will help much anger and much fear to evaporate. When you are running for a long time and breathing deeply, the mind stops functioning and the body takes over.

And a small exercise will be very helpful. Whenever somebody is not going below the stomach, below the belly, is somehow superficial, he can walk and pant like a dog. He can let his tongue be out and hang down, and go around just like a dog and pant.

The whole passage will become open. Whenever somebody has some block there, panting can be very significant. If he pants for half an hour, his anger will flow very beautifully. His whole body will become involved in it.

So you can try this in your room sometimes. You can use a mirror and bark and growl at it. Within three weeks you will feel things going very very deeply. Once anger is relaxed, gone, you will feel free.