BELOVED OSHO, WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO BE IN A STATE OF LET-GO?

Puja Kavina, the world needs workaholics. It needs people to be slaves, to be proletariats, to be laborers and function just like machines; hence all the so-called moralists and puritans have been teaching people that work has some intrinsic value. It has none.
It has some value, but of the lowest kind. It is a need; because people have stomachs they need bread and butter. They need clothes and a roof over their heads. This natural need has been exploited to the extreme. People are forced to work, but whatever they produce does not come to them; it goes to the people who don't work.
The society has been forever an exploitive society. It has been divided into the haves and the have-nots. The have-nots have to work just to survive, and the haves go on accumulating mountains of money. It is a very ugly situation -- inhuman, primitive, insane. The people who work are poor, hungry, starving; they don't have time for literature, for music, for paintings. They can't even conceive that there are worlds of tremendous beauty, of art. They cannot even imagine that there is something like meditation. It is enough for them to get one meal a day.

It is so difficult, Kavina, to be in a state of let-go -- because it has been always condemned as laziness. It was against the workaholic society. Let-go means you start living in a saner way. You are no longer madly after money, you don't go on working continuously; you work just for your material needs. But there are spiritual needs too! Work is a necessity for material needs. Let-go is necessary for spiritual needs. But the majority of humanity has been completely boycotted from any spiritual growth.
Let-go is one of the most beautiful spaces. You simply exist, doing nothing, sitting silently, and the grass grows by itself. You simply enjoy the songs of the birds, the greenness of the trees, the multidimensional, psychedelic colors of the flowers. You don't have to do anything to experience existence; you have to stop doing. You have to be in an absolutely unoccupied state, with no tensions, with no worries.

In this state of tranquility you come into a certain tuning with the music that surrounds us. You suddenly become aware of the beauty of the sun. There are millions of people who have never enjoyed a sunset, who have never enjoyed a sunrise. They cannot afford it. They are continuously working and producing -- not for themselves, but for the cunning vested interests: those who are in power, those who are capable of manipulating human beings.

Naturally they teach you that work is something great -- it is in their interest. And the conditioning has become so deep that even you don't know why you cannot relax.

Even on holidays people go on doing something or other. They cannot enjoy a holiday, just relaxing on the sea beach and enjoying the ocean and the very fresh and salty air. No, they will do any stupid thing. If they have nothing to do they may just take their refrigerator apart -- which had been functioning perfectly well -- or they may destroy an old grandfather clock, which had been functioning for centuries; they are trying to improve upon it. But basically they cannot sit silently; that is the problem. They have to do something, they have to go somewhere.
On every holiday people are rushing towards health resorts, sea beaches, not to rest there -- they don't have time to rest, because millions of people are going there. Holidays are the best time to remain at home, because the whole city has gone to the sea beach. Bumper to bumper, cars are going... and by the time they reach the beach it is full of people; they cannot even find a small place to lie down. I have seen pictures of sea beaches. Even the ocean must be laughing at the stupidity of these people.
For a few minutes they will lie down, and then they need ice cream and they need Coca Cola. And they have brought their portable television sets and everybody is listening to his transistor. And then the time is over, because again there is the marathon race back towards home.
On holidays more accidents happen in the world than on any other days: more people are killed, more cars are crashed. It is strange! And for five days in the week -- the working days -- people are hoping, waiting with great longing for the holiday. And in those two days which are the weekend, they are simply waiting for their offices and their factories to open.

People have completely forgotten the language of relaxation. They have been made to forget it.
Every child is born with an inner capacity; you don't have to teach the child how to relax. You just watch a child -- he is relaxed, he is in a let-go. But you won't allow him to enjoy this state of paradise. You will soon civilize him.
Every child is primitive, uncivilized. And the parents and the teachers and everybody are after the children to civilize them, to make them part of the society. Nobody bothers that the society is absolutely insane. It will be good if the child remains as he is, is no longer initiated into the society and your so-called civilization.
But with all good wishes the parents cannot leave the child alone. They have to teach him to work, they have to teach him to be productive, they have to teach him to be competitive. They have to teach him, "Unless you are at the top you have failed us."
So everybody is running to be at the top.
How can you relax?

All methods of meditation are nothing but methods to help you to remember the art of let-go. I say remember, because you knew it already. And you know it still, but that knowledge is being repressed by the society.
Simple principles have to be remembered: The body should be the beginning. Lying down on your bed -- and you lie down on your bed every day, so nothing special is necessary -- when you lie down on the bed, before sleep comes, start watching with closed eyes the energy from your feet. Move from there -- just watch inside: Is there some tension somewhere? in the legs, in the thighs, in the stomach? Is there some strain, some tension? And if you find some tension somewhere, simply try to relax it. And don't move from that point unless you feel the relaxation has come.
Go through the hands -- because your hands are your mind; they are connected with your mind. If your right hand is tense, the left side of your brain will be tense. If your left hand is tense, the right side of your brain will be tense. So first go through the hands -- they are almost the branches of your mind -- and then reach finally to the mind.
When the whole body is relaxed the mind is already ninety percent relaxed, because the body is nothing but extensions of the mind. Then the ten percent tension that is in your mind... simply watch it, and just by watching the clouds will disappear. It will take a few days for you; it is a knack. And it will revive your childhood experience, when you were so relaxed.

Have you ever watched? Children go on falling every day, but they don't get hurt, they don't get fractures. You try it; whenever the child falls you also fall.
....
My own understanding is that laughter is far more important than any prayer, because prayer will not relax you. On the contrary, it may make you more tense. In laughter you suddenly forget all the conditioning, all the training, all seriousness. Suddenly you are out of it, just for a moment.
....
You have to gather experiences of let-go from different sources, and soon you will have the whole secret in your hands. And it is one of the most fundamental things, particularly for my people. It will free you from the workaholic conditioning.
It does not mean that you will become lazy; on the contrary, the more relaxed you are, the more powerful you are, the more energy gathers when you are relaxed. Your work will start having a quality of creativity -- not production. Whatever you will do, you will do with such totality, with such love. And you will have tremendous energy to do it.
So let-go is not against work. In fact, let-go transforms work into a creative experience.

A few jokes for you, Kavina, and for you all to have a total laughter. It takes away all tensions from your face, from your body, from your stomach, and you feel suddenly a totally different kind of energy within you; otherwise most people are continuously feeling knots in their stomachs.

Nathan Nussbaum went to consult a world-famous specialist about his medical problem.
"How much do I owe you?" asked Nat.
"My fee is five hundred dollars," replied the doctor.
"Five hundred dollars? That's impossible!" exclaimed Nathan.
"In your case," the specialist replied, "I suppose I could adjust my fee to three hundred dollars."
"Three hundred dollars for one visit? Ridiculous!" cried Nathan.
"Well then," asked the doctor, "can you afford one hundred and fifty dollars?"
"Who has so much money?" Nathan moaned.
"Listen," said the doctor, "just give me fifty dollars and be gone."
"I can give you twenty dollars," said Nathan. "Take it or leave it."
"I don't understand you," said the specialist. "Why did you come to the most expensive doctor in New York?"
"Listen, doctor," explained Nathan, "when it comes to my health, nothing is too expensive."

Paddy's friend, Joe, was taking a night course in adult education. "Who is Ronald Reagan?" he asked Paddy.
"I don't know," Paddy replied.
"He is the president of the United States," said Joe. "Now, do you know who Margaret Thatcher is?"
"No," said Paddy.
"She is the prime minister of Britain," said Joe. "You see, you should go to night school like I do."
"Now I have a question for you," said Paddy. "Do you know who Mick O'Sullivan is?"
"I don't," admitted Joe.
"Well," said Paddy, "he is the guy who is screwing your wife while you are at night school."

From: Osho, Satyam, Shivam Sundram