[mudra]

The Inner

Question: Last night You said that by changing the outer, the inner remains unchanged, untransformed. But is it not true that the right food, right labor, right sleep, right actions and behaviors are also important factors for inner transformation? Isn't it a mistake to ignore the outer completely?


Osho: The outer cannot change the inner, but the outer can help, or it can hinder. The outer can create a situation in which the inner can explode more easily.

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Remember this: that the inner is important, significant. The outer is helpful, it is good, but you must not become focused on it. It must not become so important that the inner is forgotten. The inner must remain the inner and the central, and the outer, if possible, should be changed just as a help.

Don't ignore it completely. There is no need to ignore it, because really the outer is also part of the inner. It is not something opposite to it, it is not something contrary to it, it is not something imposed upon you -- it is you. But the inner is the central, and the outer is the periphery. So give as much importance as a periphery needs, as a circumference needs, as a boundary needs -- but the boundary is not the house. So take care of it, but don't become mad after it.

Our mind is always trying to find escapes. If you can become involved with food, with sex, with clothes, with the body, your mind will be at ease, because now you are not going towards the inner. Now there is no need to change the mind. Now there is no need to destroy the mind, to go beyond the mind. With the change of food, the same mind can exist. You may eat this or that -- the same mind can exist. Only when you move inwards... the more inside you reach, the more this mind which you have has to cease. The inward path is the path towards no-mind.

The mind becomes afraid. It will try to find some escape-- something to do with the outer. Then the mind can exist as it is. Whatsoever you do makes no difference. It is irrelevant what you do -- this mind can exist, and this mind can find ways for how to remain the same. And sometimes, when you struggle with the natural outlet, your mind will find some perverted outlets which are more dangerous. Rather than being a help, they will become hindrances.

This is what everyone is doing. If one outlet is blocked, then a perversion is bound to happen. And you don't know the ways of the mind-- they are very cunning and subtle.

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Someone is smoking too much and he wants to stop it. But smoking in itself is not a problem; the problem is something else. You can stop smoking, but the problem will remain, and it will have to come out in something else. When do you smoke? When you are anxious, nervous, you start smoking, and smoking helps you. You feel more confident, you feel more relaxed.

Just by stopping the smoking, your nervousness is not going to change. You will feel nervous, you will feel anxious; the anxiety will come. Then you will do something else. And you can find something which is a beautiful substitute; it looks so different. You can do anything. You can just use a mantra instead of smoking, and whenever you feel nervous you can say "Ram Ram Ram":-- anything continuously.
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The problem has not changed; only you have changed the trick. Previously you were doing it with smoke; now you are doing it with a word.
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You can do anything on the surface, but unless deeper roots are changed, nothing happens. So with the outer remember this: be aware of it, and move from the surface towards the roots and find the root -- why are you nervous?

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Once you come to know the roots, once the roots are exposed.... Remember this law: the roots can exist only in darkness -- not only the roots of trees, but the roots of anything. They can exist only in darkness. Once they are brought to light, they die.

So move with your periphery; dig deep and go to the roots, and bring the roots to consciousness, to light. Once you have come to the root, it simply disappears. You have not to do anything about it. You have to do something only because you don't know what the problem is. A problem rightly understood disappears.

From Osho The Book of Secrets

Love Always
mudra