A balance has to be achieved.
And balance can be achieved only when you use both polarities. If you use one you become dead.
     Many have done that; even whole societies have become dead. This has happened to India. If you choose one, then unbalance, lopsidedness, happens.
     It happened in India, in the East, that the silent part, the still point, was chosen and the active part denied. So the whole of the East became dull. The sharpness was lost. The sharpness of intelligence, the sharpness of body vigor – everything was lost. The East became more and more dull, ugly, as if life was just a burden to be carried somehow and dropped, a duty to be fulfilled, a karma to be suffered…not an enjoyment, not a vigorous dance, but a dull, lethargic movement.
     It had its consequences. The East became weak, because with a still point you cannot remain strong forever, for long. Strength needs activity, strength needs movement. If you deny activity, strength disappears. The East lost its muscles completely; the body became flabby, so anybody who desired to could conquer the East.
     The East became silent, but dead and dull also. This type of silence is not worth anything.
     The opposite is happening in the West. It has happened in other societies also. They have chosen the active part, the periphery, and they think that there is no soul. They think this activity is all, and to be active and to enjoy, and to achieve and to be ambitious and to conquer, is all that life consists of.
     The ultimate result is going to be more and more madness in the West – because without that still point you cannot remain sane. You will become insane. With only the still point, you cannot remain alive, you become dead; with only the active, you become insane. People who are insane, what has happened to them? They have lost all contact with their still point. That's what their insanity is.
     The West is turning into a big madhouse. More and more people are being psychoanalyzed, psychiatrically treated; more and more people are being put into madhouses. And those who are out, they are out not because they are sane, but only because so many people cannot be put in houses for the insane; otherwise, the whole society would have to be put in a prison. They are normal, workably normal. But Western psychology says that now it is difficult to say that any man is normal. And they may be right. In the West it has happened: no man is normal. Activity alone creates madness – balance is impossible.
     Active civilizations become mad in the end. Inactive civilizations become dead. This happens to societies, this happens to individuals.

     To me, balance is all. Don't choose, don't reject. Accept both – and create an inner balance.
    Dynamic meditation is an effort towards that balance.
    Active...enjoy it, be ecstatic, be fully with it. Then silent...enjoy it, be ecstatic about it.
     Move between these two as freely as possible and don't create any choice.
     Don't say: I am this or that. Don't get identified. Say: I am both. Don't be afraid of contradicting yourself. Contradict, be both, and move easily.
     And when I say this, I say it unconditionally – not only for activity and inactivity. Whatsoever is called bad and good, that too is included; whatsoever is called the devil and the divine, that too is included.
     Always remember: everywhere there are banks, and if you want to be a river use both the banks…unconditionally. Don't say: Because I was active, how can I be inactive? Don't say: Because I was inactive, now how can I be active? Don't say: I am this, so how can I be that?
     You are both, and there is no need to choose. The only thing to remember is to be balanced between the two. Then you will transcend both.
     Both legs are yours, and in both legs your energy flows…undivided! Have you ever felt that the right leg has one energy and the left leg some other energy? You are flowing in both. Close your eyes: left disappears, right disappears. They are both you, and while moving, you can use them. Use both! If you become addicted to the right, as many people have become, then you will be crippled, you cannot use the left. Then you can stand, but you will be crippled, and by and by you will become dead.
     Move, and constantly remember the unmoving center.
     Do and constantly remember the non-doer.
     Make effort and remain effortless.

     Once you know this secret alchemy of using the opposite, the contradictory, you are free. Otherwise, you create inner imprisonments.
     There are people who come to me and say: How can I do this? I have never done this. Just the other day there was somebody who said to me: How can I do active meditation, because for many years I have been sitting silently?
     He has chosen, and he has reached nowhere. Otherwise there was no need to come to me. But he cannot do the active meditation because he has become identified with an inactive posture. This is getting frozen.
     Become more of a movement. Be moving and allow life to flow.
     Once you know that between the opposites balance is possible, once you have a glimpse of it, then you know the art. Then everywhere in life, in every dimension of life, you can attain that balance very easily. Really, to say that you can attain is not good. Once you know the knack of it, whatsoever you do, the balance follows you like a shadow.
     This inner balance between the opposites is the most significant thing that can happen to a man.

Osho My Way: The Way of the White Clouds

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