Slowly slowly, being with somebody who has taken the jump, you become infected. Religion is infection – there is no other way to learn religion. It cannot be taught; it can only be caught!

The second question:

Osho,
The other day you talked about the guy who is afraid of touching his own navel. Osho, he is not alone here, because I suffer from the same problem.

Everybody can suffer who has a navel. And if you don’t have a navel, still you will suffer, you will find some other excuse. You may become afraid to touch your own ears.

Remember, the excuse is not the real problem; the problem is somewhere deep down. Why is the person afraid of touching his own navel? To touch the navel seems so innocent an activity, just as touching any part of the body is. The problem is somewhere else; this is only a symptom.

The navel is connected with the two vital centers of your life, the most vital. One is sex; the other is death. And these two are the only fears in the world. The navel is not the question, but the navel is very close to the sex center. If you have repressed your sexuality then your navel becomes very sensitive, because sexuality repressed starts gathering behind the navel, hence the fear. The fear is basically that of sex, not of the navel.

When you repress your sex energy, where is it going to go? It will start accumulating; it will start overspreading the sex center. And the closest center to the sex is the navel. It will start touching the boundaries of the navel.

And because the navel has been your life-connection with your mother… Your mother’s life used to flow into you through the navel, so the navel is a hollow bamboo, a very, very efficient vehicle of energy. It used to take your mother’s energy into your life; for nine months in the mother’s womb you lived through the navel. It was the navel that was the passage; energy has flowed through it, it is like a tunnel.

The tunnel is not empty. If you repress your sex, the sex energy will fill the tunnel – and that is the fear. Somebody touching your navel will make you afraid, because he can immediately make you aware of your sexuality.

A repressed person’s navel becomes one of the most erogenous zones. It is not naturally an erogenous zone, but it happens only if natural sex has been repressed too much. Then the empty tunnel, which has always been capable of carrying much energy, starts carrying sexuality, hence the fear.