The Neo Tantra…

 The Neo Tantra… 

[A sannyasin talks to Osho about a book project on Tantra.]

A few things will be helpful... 

One: call it Neo-Tantra, because the traditional Tantra is very ritualistic and most of it is mumbo-jumbo. 

Make it very simple, no ritualism, and divide it in four parts. You will find my statements for all the parts, so collect them. 

The first part has to be sex. The second part has to be love. The third part has to be prayer, and the fourth has to be transcendence. 

So from the gross to the subtle you move.

In the first part you can use all kinds of pictures you want. That will be the gross part.

In the second, make it more subtle, indicative only, symbolic, metaphoric.

In the third make it even more subtle... just a far-away echo, a shadow.

And in the fourth, sex has to completely disappear, love too, prayer too. Make it absolutely silent, peaceful, meditative... not even a trace is left. These are the four stages of Neo-Tantra, and you will find statements about all these stages, so collect them, separate them.

And don't feel puzzled at all. Start working. Start with full freedom. Finally I will have a look, so if I feel that something will not be right I can tell you.

But right now start working and with full freedom, otherwise you will continuously be in confusion about what to do and what not to do. Do whatsoever you feel like doing but keep these four in mind.

A few things you can use in a symbolic form. For example you can use a few Khajuraho pictures. Particularly the faces of the lovers can be used in the second love part... and a few faces are very ecstatic. In fact, no other sculpture in the world has been able to express ecstasy, orgasmic ecstasy through stone, except Khajuraho. So those few faces, that ecstatic expression, can go in the third part too. And in the fourth, everything becomes absolutely centered in the innermost core. In the fourth you can use a few natural pictures, of nature, or a few paintings or a few sketches, sannyasins meditating, sitting just silently. The fourth has to be just the transcendence. And then there is no problem -- even if in the first you use a few gross pictures, in the context of all the four stages they will be relevant.

And start working with full freedom. So you need not be worried whether to take a photograph of this or not; if you feel like taking, take it. And go through all the books, because you will have to find... [The Publications department] can be helpful; [they have] collected all the references, and then sort them out in four parts. And you can put all the commentaries in.

It is going to become one of the most beautiful books, but call it Neo-Tantra so we can take it out of the old context. Then you can be more inventive and a few other things can be involved in it.

For example, when you collect my statements you will find that in many darshan books I have talked to people about how to enter into love-making -- so just see and collect photographs so each stage can be depicted by the photographs -- that love should not be a direct thing: it should start by meditation, music, dancing. The lovers should dance. First they should start falling into a deep rhythm with each other -- love has to be the culmination of it. And that is the misery that is happening in the world: it has become the beginning, so it never reaches to the orgasmic state. It has to be the culmination, the crescendo, and the crescendo has to be built up slowly.

So start working and as you collect my statements you will find indications about what to do, what kind of photographs to collect.

But these four sections will be of immense help. In the fourth sex completely disappears. In the first there is sex; in the second sex becomes joined with something which is non-sexual. Sex becomes the body and the non-sexual love becomes the soul. In the third love becomes the body and prayer becomes the soul. In the fourth all disappears, emptiness has been arrived at. In the fourth even partners are not to be there -- just single meditators, because a person has become able to join with the inner woman or the inner man.

In the first, two bodies are very prominent. In your photographs also those two bodies have to be very prominent. In the second, the bodies become shadows, secondary. The heart becomes prominent. In the third the heart itself becomes secondary; it is no more human love. Something of the divine has entered in. So you can have a few pictures... pictures of bells ringing, prayer, incense burning, flowers. You have to create the quality of the temple in the third.

The first is gross, animal, the second is human, the third is divine, and the fourth is beyond. In the fourth it is pure poetry without words. It is music without notes. So in the fourth you will have to be very inventive, because the fourth will be the most important part. And everything will depend on the fourth -- if the fourth can come up then everything else falls into an organic unity. If the fourth is not there and only the first is, then it becomes pornographic. These same pictures become pornographic if they have no wider context.

Pornography is taking the body as the sole and whole. It is just trying to titillate the sexual desire. But if the context of love is there it is no more pornographic; it is aesthetic. And if the context of prayer is also there it is religious. And in the fourth it is transcendental, it has no levels left... it is the state of Buddhahood, nirvana.

- OSHO

The Tongue-Tip Taste of Tao

Chapter #1

Chapter title: None