When you are centred, the source starts functioning

Nitya (newly arrived from England): I’m very attracted to doing massage. I have some resistance to it as well. I’d like your guidance on that.

Have you taken some training? And have you done some massage work?

Nitya: Yes, I have.

Mm. That’s very good. So would you like to start massage immediately or would you first like to do a few groups and then start massage?

Nitya: I don’t know.

I think it will be better, mm? A little work on you, and then you do massage. And massage is not simply massage. You are sharing energy; and unless you have energy flowing in you, soon you will become tired. Then it is very risky. It is not physical tiredness that comes – that is not important; you will sleep, you will eat, and it will go. But massage is a deeper sharing of energy.

When you are massaging somebody’s body, not only are your bodies involved – your subtle bodies, two energy bodies, two bio-plasmas. The person who is taking massage can take too much of your bio-plasma, and unless you have a constant inner supply, unless you are joined to the source, you will become very much dissipated by it. It may not immediately affect you because you are young. Even for months and years you may not feel it, but one day suddenly you will feel you have collapsed.

So my understanding is that first one should work upon oneself, and one should become very very centred. When you are centred, you are not. When you are centred, the source starts functioning. Then you are just a passage. The cosmos starts flowing through you – then there is no problem. You can share as much energy as you want, and you will be constantly getting new energy, mm? Then you are not like a reservoir of water which has no springs to it. You are like a well which has many springs to it; you go on taking the water out and new water is flowing in – you cannot exhaust it. In fact you take the old, rotten, stale water out and the fresh and alive water comes in. So the well is very happy – you are unburdening it from the past and the old and the stagnant.

So if you are in a flow and your energy is flowering then there is no problem. But right now I see that you will be taking a risk. So first do one or two camps, do a few groups, and then wait for me. But go on reminding me, so that when I feel that now the right moment has come and you can move into massage, you will move. Otherwise later you will repent. When somebody is young it is not difficult. But later on, when one is going downhill – after thirty-five years, and the downhill slope comes – one starts feeling many problems. And you may not even connect them with your massage unless you know. This happens to many healers: they heal people, but one day they fall very badly ill, and then nobody can heal them because their own energy is almost spent, exhausted.

So massage and healing and these phenomena are very subtle. And it is not only a question of knowing the technique. The bigger question is how to be at the source – then there is no problem. Then I don’t bother even about the technique and whether you know it or not. Mm? you can simply start playing with somebody’s body and energy will be flowing, and there will be great benefits. But there is only real benefit when the person who is massaging is also benefitted through it – then there is a real benefit. Then the healer is benefitted, and the healee too – both are benefitted. Nobody is at loss.

Do the camp, and then I will see. After each group you will be seeing me, then I will see how things are going. Once your energy is flowing, start massage in the ashram. Mm? Good!

Osho, The Shadow of the Whip, Ch 9