The Difference Between Reacting & Responding [Osho]

Osho - React from awareness

Osho : Every person is carrying such a mysterious being but the being is closed to you. Every person can become the door for the divine, any ordinary person is extraordinary. Just behind the surface the mysterious is hidden, but you need a key to open it. And that key is moment-to-moment alert response. Not reaction –response. Reaction is always dead; you do something because he has done something. Response is totally different.

I will tell you one anecdote.

Buddha was passing through a village. The people of that village were against him, against his philosophy, so they gathered around him to insult him. They used ugly words, vulgar words. Buddha listened. Ananda, Buddha’s disciple who was with him, got very angry, but he couldn’t say anything because Buddha was listening so silently, so patiently, rather as if he was enjoying the whole thing.

Then even the crowd became a little frustrated because he was not getting irritated and it seemed he was enjoying. Buddha said, ”Now, if you are finished, I should move – because I have to reach the other village soon. They must be waiting just as you were waiting for me. If you have not told me all the things that you thought to tell me, I will be coming back within a few days, then you can finish it.”

Somebody from the crowd said, ”But we have been insulting you, we have insulted you. Won’t you react? Won’t you say something?”

Buddha said, ”That is difficult. If you want reaction from me, then you are too late. You should have come at least ten years ago, because then I used to react. But I am now no longer so foolish. I see that you are angry, that’s why you are insulting me. I see your anger, the fire burning in your mind. I feel compassion for you. This is my response – I feel compassion for you. Unnecessarily you are troubled.

”Even if I am wrong, why should you get so irritated? That is not your business. If I am wrong I am going to hell, you will not go with me. If I am wrong I will suffer for it, you will not suffer for it. But it seems you love me so much and you think about me and consider me so much that you are so angry, irritated. You have left your work in the fields and you have come just to say a few things to me. I am thankful.”

Just when he was leaving he said, ”One thing more I would like to say to you. In the other village I left behind, a great crowd just like you had come there and they had brought many sweets just as a present for me, a gift from the village. But I told them that I don’t take sweets. They took the sweets back. I ask you, what will they do with those sweets?”

So somebody from the crowd said, ”What will they do? It is easy, there is no need to answer. They will distribute them in the village and they will enjoy.”

So Buddha said, ”Now what will you do? You have brought only insults and I say I don’t take them. What will you do? I feel so sorry for you. You can insult me, that is up to you. But I don’t take it, that is up to me – whether I take it or not.” Buddha said, ”I don’t take unnecessary things, useless things. I don’t get unnecessarily burdened. I feel compassion for you.”

This is response. If a person is angry and you are present there, not with your past, you will feel always compassion. Reaction becomes anger, response always is compassion. You will see through the person. It will become transparent that he is angry, he is suffering, he is in misery, he is ill. When someone is in fever you don’t start beating him and asking, ”Why are you having a fever? Why is your body hot? Why have you got a temperature?” You serve the man, you help him to come out of it.

And when somebody is angry he also is having a temperature, he is in a fever, he is feverish. Why get so angry about it? He is in a mental disease which is more dangerous than any bodily disease, more fatal. So if the wife is angry the husband will feel compassion, he will try in every way to help her to be out of it. This is just mad – that she is angry and you also get angry. This is just mad, insane. You will look at the person, you will feel the misery she is in or he is in, and you will help.

But if the past comes in then everything goes wrong. And it can happen only if you go deep in meditation, otherwise it cannot happen. Just intellectual understanding won’t help. If you go deep in meditation your wounds will be thrown, a catharsis will happen. You become more and more clear inside, clarity is attained, you become like a mirror. You don’t have any wounds really, so no one can hit them. Then you can look at the person, then you can respond.

Response is always good, reaction is always bad. Response is always beautiful, reaction is always ugly. Avoid reactions and allow responses. Reaction is from the past, response is here and now. Enough for today.

Source: " Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi " - Osho

Why Not Use An Opportunity, Whatsoever It Is? - Osho

I would like to dedicate this post to Dear Selva. Hope you enjoy going through it.

Money is not a problem! It can be used! If you have it, use it; if you don't have it, then use that freedom that comes when you don't have the money. This is my approach. If you are rich, enjoy; richness has a few things which no poor person can enjoy. I have been both rich and poor, and I tell you honestly, there are a few things only rich people can enjoy. Enjoy when you are rich. And I tell you again, I have been both rich and poor, and there are a few things which only poor people can enjoy. And there is no way to enjoy both together.

So, whenever, whatsoever is happening, enjoy it. A poor person has a kind of freedom. Poverty has a kind of cleanness, a relaxedness, contentedness. Mind is not very much worried; there is nothing to worry about. You can sleep perfectly well; insomnia is impossible for a poor man. So sleep well and snore, and enjoy the freedom that comes from poverty.

And sometimes when you find yourself rich, enjoy richness, because there are a few things only a rich person can enjoy. You can have the greatest paintings on your walls; a poor man cannot have that. You can have the best music in your house; the poor man cannot have that. You create a Zen garden around your house; the poor man cannot have that. You can read poetry, you can paint, you can play on the guitar, you can sing, you can dance, you can meditate -- a thousand and one things that become available.

My approach is: whatsoever is the case, just see what you can make out of it. If it is poverty, become a Buddha, start wandering; take a begging-bowl -- and enjoy that beauty that only a beggar can have. He belongs nowhere. Today he is here, tomorrow he is gone. He is a flow; he clings nowhere, he has no home. He need not worry that the rains are coming and the roof has to be fixed. He need not worry that somebody may steal something from him -- he has nothing.

Enjoy poverty when you are poor, and enjoy richness? then become a JANAKA, an emperor, and enjoy all the beauties that become available through money.

My approach is total. I don't teach you to choose. I simply say: whatsoever is the case, the intelligent person will make something beautiful out of it. The unintelligent person suffers. If he has money he suffers because money brings worries; he does not enjoy the music that money can bring, the dance that money can bring, the painting. If he has money, he does not go to the Himalayas for a rest, to meditate and to sing and to shout in the valleys and to talk with the stars. He worries, loses his sleep, loses his appetite -- he chooses the wrong when he has money. And this man, if somehow he becomes poor, by God's grace if he becomes poor, then he suffers poverty. Then he is continuously worried that "I don't have this and I don't have that." You have POVERTY! Enjoy it!

But there are people who are wrong in every situation: wherever they are, they will always chose the negative part of it, and they will suffer. And there are people, and I call those people intelligent people, and I would like my people to be INTELLIGENT people... wherever you are, try to enjoy it.


In my childhood it happened: once my father was very angry, so he locked me into the bathroom. I meditated! -- what is the point...? After three, four hours, he became worried. He was at the shop, but he was restless. He became worried about what had happened to me, and no message had come from the home -- mother had not sent any message, no servant had come to say what had happened to me. Have I disappeared? or what? Or has somebody opened the bathroom? So he could not do his work there; he had to come.

He came close and he listened and there was silence. He knocked and I told him, "Don't disturb me." That was the last time he punished me that way. It is pointless! He said, "I became so worried I could not do my work in the shop -- I had to come."

I said. "This is nonsense! -- I enjoyed it."

In my school when I was small, second grade, my teacher was a very strict one and he used to punish by giving: "Go running seven times round the school, run!" And he gave me this punishment -- go seven times -- I said, "Why not seventeen?" He said, "Are you mad?" I said, "This is such a good exercise and every morning I would like to do it."

And I started doing it every morning. He would see me and he would beat his head -- he would say this.... I destroyed his punishment by making it an exercise. I USED it! Then he stopped giving me punishment.

Why not use an opportunity, whatsoever it is? And if you are alert you can find opportunities everywhere -- even if you are imprisoned you can use that as a great opportunity. And there are people who are under the sky, free, and not using that opportunity.
Money or no money, house or no house... the question is not what you should have: the question is what you should do, whatsoever you have.

- OSHO
Take It Easy, Vol 1

There Are Many Many Layers, Many Planes Of Love-Osho

It depends. There are as many loves as there are people. Love is a hierarchy, from the lowest rung to the highest, from sex to superconsciousness. There are many many layers, many planes of love. It all depends on you. If you are existing on the lowest rung, you will have a totally different idea of love than the person who is existing on the highest rung. Adolf Hitler will have one idea of love, Gautam Buddha another; and they will be diametrically opposite, because they are at two extremes.

At the lowest, love is a kind of politics, power politics. Wherever love is contaminated by the idea of domination, it is politics. Whether you call it politics or not is not the question, it is political. And millions of people never know anything about love except this politics -- the politics that exists between husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. It is politics, the whole thing is political: you want to dominate the other, you enjoy domination.

And love is nothing but politics sugar-coated, a bitter pill sugar-coated.

Love : Whenever You Find a Difficulty, Make It a Challenge - Osho

It is a very common phenomenon: whenever you want to go into a relationship a part of your mind always wants to avoid it. And there are reasons . . . .

First: because you are lonely you want to go into relationship -- so you have a desire and a need to go into relationship. But each relationship brings problems, difficulties, challenges, miseries, conflicts, so another part of the mind says 'Why get into this trouble?' And both are right!

Alone you feel lonely, alone you feel sad, alone you feel 'What is the meaning of life?' -- because the poetry arises only when you are together with somebody. A life takes on meaning only when you are in love, otherwise it seems meaningless -- why go on living, for what? for whom?
So one part of the mind thinks, 'Love somebody, be loved by somebody, share your energy, celebrate.' Another part of the mind says 'Beware, because each relationship turns out to be a problem.' Alone there are no problems -- only you are the problem, there is no other problem -- but with the second person, the other person, come many problems and then both together you multiply problems.

So one part of the mind goes on saying 'Beware, don't get into this trouble. Alone, at least you are peaceful: not happy -- right -- but at least peaceful. In relationship, who knows if happiness will happen or not? -- but one thing is certain: peace will be destroyed!'

That's why the conflict. It is in every human being! Each likes to love and each likes to avoid.

Now, one has to understand it. One thing is that right now if you avoid relationship you will not grow, you will remain stuck, because those challenges that relationship brings are a must. They are growth opportunities -- don't take them just as problems; they are tasks to be done. One has to do that homework, otherwise one never grows. Just think of a man who has never been in any trouble -- he will never become mature -- who has never been in anxiety, anguish, turmoil; he will never mature, he will remain childish, he will not have any backbone. And any small thing will destroy him. He will not have any stamina to stand up against anything.

So these troubles, conflicts, anger, hatred, jealousy, possessiveness, domination, and a thousand and one things come with the relationship. They are all great opportunities to be used to go beyond them. It is good! Yes, one day will arrive when you will not need anyone, anybody, but then there is no problem. Then you are so happy alone that there is no problem, there is no question of being related. But right now it will be very very harmful for you to avoid relationships. Plunge into them, and while young go through all sorts of problematic situations so by the time you start becoming physically mature you also attain psychological maturity. Otherwise what happens? -- people become physically mature and psychologically they remain childish. You can find them everywhere: their face looks as if they are fifty -- if you just scratch the surface you will find a twelve-year-old child; inside they are just stupid children.

So this is for you to decide . . . but growth comes through difficulties. I am always for difficulties -- never avoid them! Whenever you find a difficulty, make it a challenge. Forget everything and jump into the difficulty. And to love a difficult person is one of the most beautiful experiences. Never find a person who has no difficulties! He will not be of any help; nothing will come out of him. Find a really difficult person, mm? And there is no need to go anywhere -- be here, meditate.

Osho

Don’t Waste A Single Moment In Anything Else - Osho

Man is born only as a potential. If you don’t develop your potential, if you don’t grow spiritually, you are just like an ox. The body will go on becoming bigger and bigger, but that is not growth. Growing old is not growing up, growing physically is not growing spiritually. And unless you grow spiritually you are wasting a precious opportunity.

Man is the only being on the earth who can attain to buddhahood. Elephants and lions and tigers can’t become buddhas. Only man can become a buddha, only man can become a thousand-petaled lotus, only man can release the fragrance called God.

Don’t waste a single moment in anything else. Do the necessary things, the essential things, but pour more and more energy into watchfulness, awareness. Wake up! Unless you become a buddha you have not lived at all, because you will not know the great poetry of life, the great music of existence. You will not know the celestial celebration that goes on and on, you will not know the dance of the stars. It is for you to become part of this celebration. This bliss is for you! All these flowers and all these songs and all these stars are for you. You are entitled to miracles — but grow up, wake up!

Osho,
Book “Dhammapada Vol 5″

Quotes by OSHO [video] - Explains why you need to 'Practise Meditation for 21 days' initially!

Why are 21 days needed when you begin practising meditation... Osho explains it beautifully here....

Thank you beloved master...

:)

The First Truth To Be Learned in Life: That you Are Always Responsible - Osho

 Life has the potential to become a song of bliss, but there is every possibility of missing it too. It is not a certainty, there is no inevitability about it. It depends: you can make it, you can destroy it. Out of one hundred, ninety-nine point nine percent of people destroy their song of bliss. Then their life is nothing but a cry, a scream of pain and agony. But they have chosen it that way; nobody else is ever responsible.

This is the first truth to be learned in life: that you are always responsible, nobody else. With that comes great freedom, because with that all alternatives are open. If you think that somebody else is responsible then you are a slave; then nothing is open. Then you have to be what you are. If your life is a tragedy then it has to be a tragedy, because others are responsible; unless they change, nothing can be done about it. You don’t have any freedom.

And that is the reason why millions of people live in misery: they think others are creating their misery. Nobody is creating your misery, nobody can create it; and nobody can create your bliss either. It is a totally individual phenomenon. It is just your work upon yourself. And the most strange thing is: to create misery is difficult and to create bliss is easy, but people always choose the difficult thing, because the difficult thing  always gives them an ego-trip.

The ego is not interested in easy things; the ego is interested only in difficult things. The more impossible a thing looks, the more attractive it feels for the ego, because the ego feels a challenge, and only through challenge can it conquer, can it prove to the world ’I am somebody special.’ Misery gives you challenge: bliss is very simple. Trees are blissful, birds are blissful. It needs no special talent to be blissful. To be miserable needs talents, one has to be really very very clever to be miserable. Bliss is innocent; you can be blissful without any education, but you cannot be miserable without any education, remember! It is very difficult. You need degrees, universities, mm? then only do you become skilful.

So the first truth has to sink deep in the heart: ’I am always responsible for whatsoever I am. Bliss or misery, this is my choice. If I have chosen to be miserable, then there is no need to be sad about it; this is my choice and I am doing my thing.’ Feel happy that you have succeeded in being miserable! If this is not your choice, drop it immediately, drop all those patterns that create it and start creating new patterns, new doors from where bliss starts flowing.

For example, the person who wants to be miserable has to think in terms of fighting with life; that is his gestalt. He is always fighting. The person who wants to be blissful has to be a non-fighter, surrendered to life, in a kind of let-go. The person who wants to be miserable has to create great ideals, has to make impossible demands upon himself. Then only can you be miserable; otherwise you will not be miserable. You have to be this, you have to be that, and when you cannot be, frustration settles in.

The man who wants to be blissful has no ideals at all, he is a non-idealist; he is a realist. The miserable person is always an idealist. The happy person, the blissful person, is a realist: he lives moment to moment with no ideals. You cannot frustrate him because he has no expectations.

The miserable person always condemns himself because he is not rising high enough to fulfil the demands. He is a constant condemnor; he lives in self-condemnation.

The blissful person is very accepting of himself. He makes no demands. He is relaxed, at ease with himself; he loves himself as he is. So you have to watch: that which creates misery, drop; and that which brings bliss like a flood, create that space in you. And my whole effort here is to make each of my sannyasins a song of bliss: not miserable saints, not long faces, but celebrants! I am interested in celebrants, not in saints at all. So let your life become a celebration; and it is up to you!

Osho,
“Turn On, Tune In and Drop the Lot”

Thanks to Bodhi who shares all these beautiful post with us in Facebook.