First Cleanse Every Centre, Purify It. - Osho

I told you that the MULADHAR has to be relaxed, only then can the energy move upward, inward. And 'inward' and 'upward' mean the same; 'outward' and 'downward' mean the same. Energy can move inward or upward only when the MULADHAR is relaxed. So the first thing is to relax the MULADHAR.

You are holding your sex centre very tightly. The society has made you very much aware of the sex centre; it has made you obsessed with it, so you are holding it tightly. You can simply watch. You are always holding your genital organism very tightly, as if you are afraid that something will go amiss if you relax. Your whole conditioning has been to keep it uptight. Relax it, leave it to itself. Don't be afraid: fear creates tension. Drop the fear. Sex is beautiful; it is not a sin, it is a virtue.
Once you think in terms of its being a virtue, you will be able to relax. I have talked about how to relax the MULADHAR before. And I have talked about how to relax the SWADHISTAN; it is the death centre. Don't be afraid of death. These are the two fears which have been dominating humanity: the fear of sex and the fear of death. Both fears are dangerous; they have not allowed you to grow. Drop both the fears.

The third chakra is MANIPURA; it is loaded with negative emotions. That's why your stomach becomes disturbed -- when you are emotionally disturbed, MANIPURA is affected immediately. In all the languages of the world we have expressions like Ll cannot stomach it.' It is literally true. Sometimes, when you cannot stomach a certain thing, you start feeling nauseous; you would like to vomit. In fact, sometimes it happens -- a psychological vomit. Somebody has said something, and you CANNOT stomach it; and suddenly you feel a nausea, vomit comes, and after vomiting you feel very relaxed.

In Yoga they have methods for it. The yogi has to drink enough water in the morning -- a bucketful of water with salt, the water has to be lukewarm -- and then he has to vomit it. It helps to relax the MANIPURA. It is a great process, a great cleansing process.
You will be surprised, now many modern therapies have become aware of it -- that vomiting helps. Action Analysis is aware of the fact that vomiting helps. Primal Therapy is aware of the fact that vomiting helps. It releases the MANIPURA. Tantra and Yoga have always been aware of it.

Negative emotions: anger, hatred, jealousy, and so on and so forth -- they all have been repressed; your MANIPURA is too loaded. Those repressed emotions don't allow the energy to go up; those repressed emotions function like a rock: your passage is blocked. Encounter, Gestalt and therapies like that, all function unknowingly on the MANIPURA. They try to provoke your anger. they try to provoke your jealousy, your greed; they provoke your aggression, your violence, so that it bubbles up, surfaces. The society has done one thing: it has trained you to repress all that is negative, and pretend all that is positive. Now, both are dangerous. To pretend the positive is false -- hypocrisy, and to repress the negative is dangerous; it is poisonous, it is poisoning your system.

Tantra says: Express the negative and allow the positive. If anger comes, don't repress it; if aggression comes, don't repress it. Tantra does not say: Go and kill a person. But Tantra says that there a thousand and one ways to express the repressed emotions. You can go into the garden and chop wood. Have you watched woodcutters? They look more silent than anybody else. Have you watched hunters? Hunters are very good people. The do a very dirty thing, but they are good people. Something happens to them while they are hunting. Killing animals, their anger, their aggression is dissolved. The so-called 'nonviolent' people are the ugliest in the world. They are not good people, because they are holding down a volcano. You cannot feel at ease with them. Something is dangerously present there. You can feel it, you can touch it; it is oozing out of them. You can just go into the forest and shout, scream -- Primal Therapy is just scream therapy, tantrum therapy. And Encounter and Primal, Gestalt, are of tremendous help in relaxing the MANIPURA.

Once MANIPURA IS relaxed, there arises a balance between the negative and the positive. And when the negative and positive are balanced, the passage is open; then the energy can move higher. MANIPURA is male. If MANIPURA IS blocked, then energy cannot go upwards. It has to be relaxed.

Polarity Balancing can be of great help in bringing about the balance between positive and negative. That's why I am allowing all sorts of methods from all over the world in this ashram. Anything that can be of help has to be used, because man has been damaged so much that all sources of help should be made available. You may not even be able to understand why I am making available all the methods to you: Yoga, Tantra, Tao; Sufi, Jain, Buddhist, Hindu; Gestalt, Psychodrama, Encounter, Primal Therapy, Polarity Balancing, Rolfing, Structural Integration -- why I am making all these things available to you. You have never heard of these things being done in any ashram anywhere in the East at all. There is a reason for it. Man has been damaged so much that all sources should be tapped. Help should be taken from every source possible, only then there is hope -- otherwise man is doomed.

The fourth chakra is ANAHATA. Doubt is the problem with the fourth chakra. If you are a doubting person, your fourth chakra will remain unopened. Trust opens it. So anything that creates doubt destroys your heart. It is the heart chakra: ANAHATA. Logic, logic-chopping, argumentativeness, too much rationality, too much of Aristotle in you, destroy ANAHATA. Philosophy, scepticism, destroy ANAHATA.

If you want to open the ANAHATA you will have to be more trusting. Poetry is more helpful than philosophy, and intuition is more helpful than reasoning, and feeling is more helpful than thinking. So you will have to shift from doubt to trust, only then does your ANAHATA become open, your ANAHATA becomes capable of receiving the male energy from MANIPURA. ANAHATA is female. With doubt it becomes dry; it cannot receive the male energy. With trust it opens, with trust moisture is released in that chakra and it can allow the penetration of the male energy.

Then the fifth: VISUDDHA. Non-creativity, imitativeness, parroting, monkeying -- these are damaging.

Just the other day I was reading a small anecdote:
A schoolchild was asked 'Ten copy-cats are sitting on a fence. One jumped and went away. How many are left?'
And the child says 'None.'
The teacher says 'None? Only one has left!'
And the child says 'They are copy-cats.'
When one jumps, all jump.

VISUDDHA is destroyed by copying. Don't be an imitator, don't be just a carbon copy. Don't try to become a Buddha and don't try to become a Christ. Beware of books like Thomas a Kempis IMITATION OF CHRIST. Beware. No imitation is going to help. VISUDDHA is destroyed by non-creativity, limitation; and VISUDDHA IS helped by creativity, expression, finding your own style of life, being courageous enough to 'do your own thing'. Art, song, music, dance, inventiveness -- all are helpful. But be inventive -- whatsoever you do, try to do it in a new way. Try to bring some individuality into it, bring some authentic signature. Even cleaning a floor, you can do it in your own way. Even cooking food, you can do it in your own way. You can bring creativity to everything that you do; it should be brought. In as much as you are creative -- good, VISUDDHA will open.

And when VISUDDHA opens, then only can the energy move into the AJNA, the third eye centre, the sixth centre.

This is the process. First cleanse every centre, purify it, beware of what damages it, and help it so that it becomes naturally functioning. Blocks are removed... energy rushes.

Beyond the sixth is SAHASRAR, TURIYA, the one-thousand-petalled lotus. You bloom. Yes, that's exactly what it is. Man is a tree: MULADHAR is the root and SAHASRAR is the blooming of it. The flower has bloomed, your fragrance is released to the winds. That is the only prayer; that is the only offering to the feet of the divine. Borrowed flowers won't do, stolen flowers from the trees won't do; you have to flower and offer your flowers.

Osho,
The Tantra Vision, Vol 2
Chapter #1
Chapter title: The Tantra Map