Tibet… is the most ancient, primitive, innocent culture

In Tibet, in the past they used a very strange method, very primitive; but you cannot be angry against them, they had to use it. It was a very barbarous method. Whenever a child was born, immediately it was dipped in ice-cold water seven times. Out of ten children, nine children used to die – the ice cold water… Immediately after the child is born, the first thing is to dip him into ice-cold water. He will become blue by the seventh time; you are just dipping a corpse.

But it was absolutely necessary, because Tibet is the highest land in the world, at the top of Himalayas. Life is very hard, it needs very strong people, and the cold is killing. Unless a child is able to cope, it is better he dies. It was out of compassion, not out of cruelty. It is better that he dies rather than suffer his whole life. He will not be able to function, will not be able to work. And the land needs people who can tolerate that much cold and still work, produce. This was an ancient type of genetics. They were choosing – although they had no idea how to do it. But somehow they managed to choose the healthiest people.

Hence the outcome has been that Tibetans have lived the longest, because all the people who would have died in the middle somewhere have been finished on their first entry into the world. They were returned unopened! And the people who remained were really strong, really stubborn. They have lived a long life and a very healthy life, because they eliminated all the weaklings from the very beginning. And it was part of compassion. Why allow a person to live who is going to suffer his whole life from all kinds of diseases, sicknesses, weakness? He will not be able to enjoy life at all.

Osho, The New Dawn, Ch 21, Q 1

[In a darshan, Osho speaks to a sannyasin who has been practicing Tibetan techniques in the Himalayas.]

Bodhen (a new sannyasin from England): I’ve been with a Tibetan group up in the Himalayas, and then I went back to England. Now I’ve just come back to India.

Osho: Very good. What have you been doing with the Tibetan group?

Bodhen: I did the ‘mandra’ – the prostrations and the mantras. And then I did what they call ‘the consciousness transference’.

Osho: And how were you feeling with these Tibetan methods?

Bodhen: Very up and down actually.

Osho: Mm mm. Those methods are good but they were meant for a totally different kind of people…

Bodhen:  And a different era too.

Osho: …and a different era. And in fact Tibet has lived in a different era, Tibet has not been contemporary. It has lived very secluded, isolated. It has not known anything of the twentieth century, so it is the most ancient, primitive, innocent culture.

Those techniques are good but to be helped by them you will have to prepare something which is not in those techniques themselves. You will have to pass through other methods, then one day you can do them and they will be helpful. You learned; that’s very good.

Osho, The Zero Experience, Ch 2