Vegetarian diet, sex, alcohol, smoking and Enlightenment

excerpt from
From Death to Deathlessness #05
Q4
Bhagwan, when you were testing your enlightenment by smoking, drinking alcohol, and having sex, did you try eating fish and meat? does a vegetarian diet have a real value for our consciousness, or is it optional, like smoking?

"It is not optional. Before enlightenment, it makes you gross, destroys your sensitivity, does not allow you to feel the life that surrounds you. It keeps you blind to the fact that just for your taste, you are killing living beings. Their bodies may be different, but their spirits are not different from yours.
Just think of cannibals. Has any cannibal ever become enlightened? Fortunately, it has not happened. If it had happened, the cannibals would have eaten that enlightened man first, just to have a little taste of enlightenment.
There is not much difference between cannibals and the people who eat meat and fish; they are all killing living beings. And the person who can kill should not expect his heart to become compassionate, full of love.
So before enlightenment, eating meat will prevent you from experiencing the light, experiencing your being. It is not optional.
After enlightenment, it is optional, but no enlightened person can eat meat and fish. Not that by eating meat and fish his enlightenment is going to disappear -- enlightenment cannot disappear, whatever you do. But the enlightened person becomes so sensitive, so aesthetic, that the very idea of killing somebody just for the few buds on your tongue is simply idiotic.
Before enlightenment it is absolutely not optional. After enlightenment, it is optional, but no enlightened person can manage to eat meat or fish. I have tried, but I could not succeed. Fish... I cannot even stand its smell. To think of myself, even in imagination, eating fish, seems to be absolutely impossible. Meat has been placed before me, but I could not touch it. The very idea that life has been destroyed.... And enlightenment is all for life; it cannot accept death just to have a little taste. So it is optional but impossible.
I know many of you are brought up in families where meat and fish are normal, routine. You have been conditioned from your very birth to think that God created all these animals for you to eat. And I don't know why He created you -- for the animals to eat?
Gurdjieff jokingly has proposed a theory -- because Mohammedans, Christians, Jews, all believe God created animals for man to eat. The problem I posed to you was also put before Gurdjieff, that if everything is food for somebody else -- one animal eats another animal, that animal is eaten by another animal, and so on and so forth -- finally there is man. For whom is he food? Or is he an exception?
Gurdjieff was a remarkable man. He said, "Man is also food. He is eaten by the moon."
His disciples could not think what he was talking about, but he had many proofs in his favor. More people go mad on the full-moon night, than on any other night. More people commit suicide on the full-moon night than on any other night. More people commit murder on the full-moon night than on any other night. More people have become enlightened on the full-moon night than on any other night.
There seems to be some reason behind it. On the full-moon night, man's psychology, his body, are all affected by the moon. The people who commit suicide... perhaps the moon has better ways of finding its food than you have.
The moon need not come to you with a gun or with an arrow, but in a subtle way its rays come as death to many people, through suicide, murder. Those who somehow escape become mad. And enlightenment is the ultimate death, because the body will be dissolved and the soul will never be reincarnated into any other body. The moon has eaten the enlightened man completely, not leaving even a trace behind.
Gurdjieff was simply joking, but he made it very clear that you should not think yourself exceptional. Otherwise, when you kill a lion, it is a game. And when a lion kills you, then? Nobody calls it a game. In a game both parties are equal. Sometimes one party is victorious, sometimes the other party is victorious, but the game remains a game. When man kills animals, it is a game. When animals manage somehow to kill a man, this is disaster.
You have been brought up in families where you never gave a single thought to what you were eating. Whatever you were given from the beginning, you accepted. You became accustomed to it. That is one of the reasons why the greatest number of enlightened people happened in India, because that is the only country which is vegetarian. In India also there are non-vegetarians, but from non-vegetarians not a single man has become enlightened.
The case is similar in the West. It hurts your conditioning, but the truth is that Moses, Elijah, Jesus, are nothing compared to Gautam Buddha, Vardhamana, Mahavira, Shankara, Nagarjuna-no, just nothing. Their flowering, their height.... The distance between Jesus and Gautam Buddha is so big for the simple reason that these people -- Jesus, Moses, Elijah -- are all gross, they are not sensitive enough to become enlightened. And because they could not become enlightened, they could not preach vegetarianism to their following. If they had become enlightened, the first thing to teach to their followers would have been vegetarianism.
Smoking is a different matter. It does not kill anybody. At the most it can take two or three years off your life. But it is your life, you are not killing anybody else. You are simply settling for seventy years instead of seventy-three. This is purely your personal business. Enlightenment cannot be affected by taking the smoke in and throwing it out. It is just silly, it is nothing like sin.
Alcohol can disturb before enlightenment, because it can make you more unconscious -- that's its whole purpose. Your consciousness is burdened so much with anxieties, worries, anguish, that you take a drink and feel good because your consciousness goes to sleep. Hence, before enlightenment, any kind of intoxicant is absolutely to be dropped. It affects your consciousness and drags it downwards towards darker realms of unconsciousness. And the whole effort of the seeker is to pull the darker parts out into the light, so this is just the reverse process.
But after enlightenment you are free. There is no problem; now no intoxicant can make your consciousness drop from the height it has reached. You can enjoy intoxicants if you like, there is no danger. But ordinarily, all the enlightened people in the past have not used intoxicants after their enlightenment.
Gautam Buddha was asked once, "Do you think taking something alcoholic would be a disturbance to your achievement?"
He said, "No, but if I start drinking, the problem is for my followers who are not enlightened. Seeing me drink, they will say, `Aha! Isn't it groovy to be a follower of Gautam Buddha?'" But I don't want you to remain in darkness about anything. Gautam Buddha was trying to keep his followers in ignorance, howsoever compassionate his act. But keeping anybody in ignorance I cannot accept as compassion.
So I want to tell you that after enlightenment one can drink any alcoholic beverage. But there is no need, because the enlightened one has no tensions, no anxiety. He has nothing to drown in alcohol, so there is no need for him. But just to be a good companion to you, he can drink a little bit once in a while. That will keep him more human, and that will give you more hope! It will destroy the distance between the enlightened and the unenlightened. And that is my greatest effort -- to destroy any distance between the enlightened and the unenlightened.
Of course, there is some existential difference which I cannot destroy. But this is not the existential difference -- that you smoke and I don't smoke, that you drink and I don't drink. This is not existential. The existential difference is very small, and that is: I am awake and you are asleep. It is not much, because I am just sitting on the same bed where you are asleep. Just a little effort will make you awake.
Your sleep gives a guarantee: anybody who is capable of sleeping is capable of awakening, they come together. So what is the fuss about? Take your time. Whenever you want to wake up, wake. There is no hurry, you have the whole eternity available to you. Yes, I may not be there to wake you up, that is the only unfortunate thing about it. But somebody else....
One day you are going to be awake. If you love me, you would like me to wake you up. That is the only real indication of your love. If your love is just a word, you will go on sleeping and snoring. And you can talk in sleep. I can hear your snoring, and I can see you asleep, and still you are bubbling, "I love you, Osho."
If you really love me, then wake up, because only in your awakened state can we have a communion, a feeling of oneness -- not just a feeling, but really a melting into each other.
You have mentioned sex too. Biologically, sex is natural. It is not a hindrance to enlightenment. It is just like eating food, drinking water, breathing the air in and out, waking up in the morning, going to sleep in the night. Your digested food becomes your blood, your semen. It is a natural phenomenon.
Sex in itself is not a barrier to enlightenment, but all the religions have made it a barrier by repressing it. It is not sex that is the barrier, it is perverted sex that becomes the barrier. Homosexuality is a barrier, lesbianism is a barrier.
But because all your religions have been teaching you to be celibate if you want to attain to God, self-realization, liberation, enlightenment -- whatsoever their name is for the ultimate experience -- then celibacy has been taught to be the basic requirement. It is that idea of celibacy which has driven people into all kinds of perversions.
Celibacy has led humanity to the perfect perversion, AIDS. This is a religious disease. This is the blessing your popes and your shankaracharyas and your imams have given to you.
Certainly whenever nature is not allowed to be natural, it takes you off the route of your growth, you start growing in a different direction. Enlightenment is your natural growth. The more natural you are, the easier the growth. Sex is not a problem; celibacy is.
Before enlightenment, enjoy sex as much as you can because after enlightenment there will not be any sex at all. So do your best and be quick! Life is short, who knows? Tomorrow you may become enlightened. After enlightenment, love is the reality. Sex becomes just a past thing; you are out of the bondage of biology.
So please, don't call your sex "making love." It is not making love. Only when you are enlightened is it possible to make love, because then it is no longer a biological necessity, but just beautiful fun; you can enjoy it. And the enlightened person can enjoy it more than anybody else. He enjoys everything more than anybody else. His capacity to enjoy is tremendous. But there is no necessity. If he chooses not to play tennis, there is no biological necessity. If he chooses not to play football, existence is not going to ask him, "Why are you not playing football?" It is simply up to him.
Making love is simply a game between two body energies. If you like the game, and likings differ -- if you like the game, play it, and play it the best you can. If you don't like the game, there is no necessity, and then celibacy is natural.
After enlightenment, sex is no longer a need, but you have all the mechanism: the whole body of a woman or a man. You are still eating, you are still drinking. You are still creating the energy that used to become sex when you were unenlightened. You can use that energy in making love, or in painting, or in creating poetry, or in dancing. And if you don't want to do anything with the energy, a great change in your chemistry and biology happens. You don't create that energy anymore if you don't use it. But then remember, you will become fatter.
You can see in India, sannyasins.... Muktananda's master -- perhaps you have seen his picture. I don't think anybody in the whole world can compete with that man as far as his belly is concerned. It is almost as high as Everest. It was so difficult for Nityananda, Muktananda's master, to sit -- his belly was so big. He was always lying down, and you could see the great slope!
Now the energy accumulates. It is better to use it. This is ugly! An enlightened person should become more beautiful, nicer, more proportionate. But the idea that you have to be celibate creates people like Nityananda. And after a certain point....
For example, Nityananda, even if I had met him and told him... he died before I reached his place. He did well; otherwise I was going to tell him, "Your belly looks like a very foolish thing, attached to a man who is enlightened. Why don't you make love?"
But I think he would be incapable of making love -- the belly would keep the woman miles away! I cannot imagine.... I have looked into the ancientmost scriptures on sexology, Vatsyayana's SUTRAS. He describes all the positions, eighty-four positions of making love; there is not a single exercise applicable to Nityananda. Perhaps Vatsyayana never came across such a personality.
I have looked into the second great treatise on sex written by Pundit Koka. I think sometimes that Coca-Cola must be some relation to Pundit Koka; perhaps Cola was his girlfriend. And they both together have created such a juicy thing....
The Coca-Cola company does not reveal its secrets to anybody. They are preserved in Switzerland in a bank, locked. The company is not ready for any price to sell the secret of the drink. It is ready to lose great markets. For example, in India Coca-Cola became prohibited for the simple reason that the government wanted to know the formula, how it is made -- "because unless the Indian medical board passes it, we don't know what you are supplying." But the company refused. The company said, "We never give our formula to anybody. We are ready to get out of your market." And since then in India, they have been trying, making many cold drinks, but nothing comes close to Coca-Cola. It cannot, it has a very ancient source.
I looked in Pundit Koka's book of exercises. He is certainly far more advanced than Vatsyayana, because Vatsyayana is three thousand years old; Coca-Cola is only one thousand years old. The name of the wife or the girlfriend is not known. Just the male chauvinist world -- the man gives his name to his wife. Why can't it be vice versa, that the wife gives her name to the man? No man will be ready for that.
I have searched Pundit Koka's book of sexual exercises in every detail. He has more postures, but still nothing for Nityananda. The belly is so big that it seems almost impossible to reach the woman. Before it happens to you, don't accumulate energy. It is good that the energy remains flowing, that it remains fresh, it remains young. Your sex energy becoming stale is dangerous; it will create a certain staleness in all dimensions of your life.
Sex is perfect, no celibacy is needed before enlightenment. After enlightenment sex disappears, giving place to love -- a far more delicate phenomenon. You can have as much fun as you like, in no way can it disturb your enlightenment. It is something bodily, chemical, physiological. How can it affect your consciousness?
The enlightened man can make love, and while he is making love he is still centered in his being. He is just a witness, he is seeing himself and the woman making love; he is a third party. And this is what I mean when I say the enlightened man transcends sex, because he becomes a third party. He can see his own body and the body of his woman completely as a witness. His witnessing is not disturbed by anything.