Other traditions are divisive. They divide you, they create a fight within you. Tantra is not divisive, it doesn’t believe in fight. Tantra is absolutely positive; it doesn’t believe in saying no. Tantra believes in saying yes – yes to the whole of life. And through “yes” the transformation happens, and through “no” there is only disturbance – no transformation is possible. Against whom are you fighting? Against yourself? How can you win? And the major part of you is from the animal, so the major part will win. So those who fight, they are creating their own defeats. If you want to be defeated, fight. If you want to win, do not fight.

Victory needs knowledge, not fight. Fight is a subtle violence. And this is strange, but this has happened: those who talk about nonviolence to others are very much violent against themselves. There are teachings and traditions which say, “Do not be violent to anyone,” but those same teachings are very much violent as far as you are inwardly concerned. They teach you to be violent with yourself, but not to be violent with others.

All types of asceticism, renunciation, negative attitudes, life-denying philosophies, are based on maintaining a violent attitude toward yourself. They tell you to be violent with yourself.

Tantra is absolutely nonviolent. It says, if you cannot be nonviolent with yourself, you cannot be nonviolent with anyone else – that is impossible. A person who is violent to himself will be violent to everyone; in his nonviolence also he will be just hiding his violence. Aggression can be turned against yourself, but that aggressive attitude is destructive.

But that doesn’t mean to remain the animal which you are. The moment you accept your heritage, the moment you accept your past, the future becomes an opening. Through acceptance is the opening. The animal is the past; it need not be the future. There is no need to go against the past – and you cannot go. Use it creatively.

What can be done to use it creatively? The first thing is to be profoundly aware of its existence. Those who fight are not aware of it. Because they are afraid, they push the animal behind, they push the animal into the unconscious. Really, there need not be any unconscious, but because of suppression the unconscious is created. You feel many things within which you condemn without understanding them. A man who understands condemns nothing; there is no need. He can even use poison as a medicine because he knows. Everything can be used creatively. Because you do not know, in ignorance poison is poison. With wisdom it can become the elixir.

The person who is fighting against his sex, anger, greed, against the animal, what will he do? He will suppress. Fighting is suppression. He will push down anger, sex, greed, hatred, jealousy. He will push everything down somewhere underground, and he will create a false structure above ground. The structure will be false because the energies have not been transformed which can make it real. The structure is phony; underground, the real energies have been repressed. Those real energies will always remain there working, any moment they can explode. You are just sitting on a volcano, and every moment that volcano is trying to erupt. If it does, your structure will be shaken.