"Everything is changing if you look at life. If you watch life, then Heraclitus is right: you cannot step in the same river twice, because the river is constantly flowing, changing. Old Heraclitus says: The only thing that never changes is change. Only change is constant, otherwise everything is changing.
In fact, life is not a noun but a verb. If one day we want to be really scientific about our language, we will have to drop all nouns. A really scientific language will consist only of verbs. You see these trees all around and you think, "Beautiful trees!" But to call a tree 'a tree' is not true, because a tree is not something static - it is a movement. By the time you utter the word 'tree' it has changed. It is no more the same tree about which you were talking One dead leaf has fallen, a new leaf is just growing, a bud is opening. The tree is growing higher - each moment! Otherwise how is it going to grow?
To be exactly true about it, it is better to call it 'treeing' rather than 'a tree'. But we even call a river 'a river' - a river is a rivering. It is a constant change! Life is not really life but only living - there is no life as such but only living. Our languages give us a very wrong notion of the world. There is nothing like love, but loving.
Always remember... we have to use nouns because otherwise it will be very difficult to explain things to each other. For centuries we have used nouns. But whenever you use the word 'love', remember it is 'loving' - it is a process. It is not a thing, constant."
Osho ,
The Fish in the Sea is not Thirsty #9
Thursday, 30 July 2009
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Osho on Destiny and Free Will
Dedicated to a beloved friend who requested for this post and all the seekers.... seeking and heading towards eternity... divinity.....
Osho : This is not a personal problem, it is a philosophical question. Our lives are both predestined and they are not. Both yes and no. And both answers are true for all questions about life. In a way, everything is predetermined. Whatever is physical in you, material, whatever is mental, is predetermined. But something in you constantly remains undetermined, unpredictable. That something is your consciousness.
If you are identified with your body and your material existence, in the same proportion you are determined by cause and effect. Then you are a machine. But if you are not identified with your material existence, with either body or mind – if you can feel yourself as something separate, different, above and transcendent to body-mind – then that transcending consciousness is not predetermined. It is spontaneous, free.
Consciousness means freedom; matter means slavery. So it depends on how you define yourself. If you say, ”I am only the body,” then everything about you is completely determined. A person who says that man is only the body cannot say that man is not predetermined. Ordinarily, persons who do not believe in such a thing as consciousness also do not believe in predetermination.
Persons who are religious and believe in consciousness ordinarily believe in predetermination. So what I am saying may look very contradictory. But still, it is the case. A person who has known consciousness has known freedom. So only a spiritual person can say there is no determination at all. That realization comes only when you are completely unidentified with the body. If you feel that you are just a material existence, then no freedom is possible.
With matter, no freedom is possible. Matter means that which cannot be free. It must flow in the chain of cause and effect. Once someone has achieved consciousness, enlightenment, he is completely out of the realm of cause and effect. He becomes absolutely unpredictable. You cannot say anything about him. He begins to live each moment; his existence becomes atomic.
Your existence is a river-like chain in which every step is determined by the past. Your future is not really future; it is just a by-product of the past. It is only the past determining, shaping, formulating and conditioning your future. That is why your future is predictable.
Skinner says that man is as predictable as anything else. The only difficulty is that we have not yet devised the means to know his total past. The moment we can know his past, we can predict everything about him. Based upon the people he has worked with, Skinner is right, because they are all ultimately predictable. He has experimented with hundreds of people and he has found that they are all mechanical beings, that nothing exists within them that can be called freedom.
But his study is limited. No Buddha has come to his laboratory to be experimented upon. If even one person is free, if even one person is not mechanical, not predictable, Skinner’s whole theory falls. If one person in the whole history of mankind is free and unpredictable, then man is potentially free and unpredictable. The whole possibility of freedom depends on whether you emphasize your body or your consciousness.
If you are just an outward flow of life, then everything is determined. Or are you something inner also? Do not give any preformulated answer. Do not say, ”I am the soul.” If you feel
there is nothing inside you, then be honest about it. This honesty will be the first step toward the inner freedom of consciousness. If you go deeply inside, you will feel that everything is just part of the outside. Your body has come from without, your thoughts have come from without, even your self has been given to you by others.
That is why you are so fearful of the opinion of others – because they are completely in control of your self. They can change their opinion of you at any moment. Your self, your body, your thoughts are given to you by others, so what is inside? You are layers and layers of outside accumulation. If you are identified with this personality of yours that comes from others, then everything is determined.
Become aware of everything that comes from the outside and become non-identified with it. Then a moment will come when the outside falls completely. You will be in a vacuum. This vacuum is the passage between the outside and the inside, the door. We are so afraid of the vacuum, so afraid of being empty that we cling to the outside accumulation. One has to be courageous enough to disidentify with the accumulation and to remain in the vacuum. If you are not courageous enough, you will go out and cling to something, and be filled with it.
But this moment of being in the vacuum is meditation. If you are courageous enough, if you can remain in this moment, soon your whole being will automatically turn inward. When there is nothing to be attached to from the outside, your being turns inward.
Then you know for the first time that you are something that transcends everything you have been thinking yourself to be. Now you are something different from becoming; you are being. This being is free; nothing can determine it. It is absolute freedom. No chain of cause and effect is possible.
Osho - Your actions are related to past actions. A created a situation for B to become possible; B creates a situation in which C flowers. Your acts are connected to past acts and this goes back to the beginningless beginning and on to the endless end. Not only do your own acts determine you, but your father’s and mother’s acts also have a continuity with yours. Your society, your history, all that has happened before, is somehow related to your present act. The whole history has come to flower in you.
Everything that has ever happened is connected with your act, so your act is obviously determined. It is such a minute part of the whole picture. History is such a vital living force and your individual act is such a small part of it. Marx said, ”It is not consciousness that determines the conditions of society. It is society and its conditions that determines consciousness. It is not that great men create great societies.
It is great societies that create great men.” And he is right in a way, because you are not the originator of your actions. The whole history has determined them. You are just carrying them out. The whole evolutionary process has gone into the making of your biological cells. These cells in you can then become part of another person. You may think that you are the father, but you have just been a stage on which the whole biological evolution has acted and has forced you to act. The act of procreation is so forceful because it is beyond you; it is the whole evolutionary process working through you.
This is one way in which acts happen in relation to other past acts. But when a person becomes enlightened, a new phenomenon begins to happen. Acts are no longer connected with past acts. Any act, now, is connected only with his consciousness. It comes from his consciousness not from the past. That is why an enlightened person cannot be predicted.
Skinner says that we can determine what you will do if your past acts are known. He says that the old proverb, ”You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,” is wrong. You can force him to. You can create an atmosphere so that the horse will have to drink. The horse can be forced, and you also can be forced, because your actions are created by situations, by circumstances. But even though you can bring a buddha to the river, you cannot force him to drink. The more you force him, the more impossible it will be.
No heat will make him do it. Even if a thousand suns shine on him it will not help. A Buddha has a different origin of action. It is not concerned with other acts; it is connected with consciousness. That is why I emphasize that you act consciously. Then, every moment you act, it is not a question of a continuation of other acts. You are free. Now you begin to act, and no one can say how you will act.
Habits are mechanical; they repeat themselves. The more you repeat something, the more efficient you become. Efficiency means that now consciousness is no longer needed. If a person is an efficient typist it means that no effort is needed; typing can be done unconsciously. Even if he is thinking about something else the typing continues. The body is typing; the man is not needed. Efficiency means that the thing is so certain that no effort is possible.
With freedom, effort is always possible. A machine cannot make errors. To err, one has to be conscious. So your acts have a chain relationship with your previous acts. They are determined. Your childhood determines your youth; your youth determines your old age. Your birth determines your death; everything is determined. Buddha used to say, ”Provide the cause, and the effect will be there.” This is the world of cause and effect in which everything is determined.
If you act with total consciousness, an altogether different situation exists. Then everything is moment to moment. Consciousness is a flow; it is not static. It is life itself, so it changes. It is alive. It goes on expanding; it goes on becoming new, fresh, young. Then, your acts will be spontaneous.
I am reminded of a Zen story.... A Zen master asked his disciple a particular question. The question was answered exactly as it should be answered. The next day the master asked exactly the same question. The disciple said, ”But I answered this question yesterday.”
The master said, ”Now I am asking you again.” The disciple repeated the same answer. The master said, ”You do not know!”
The disciple said, ”But yesterday I answered in the same way and you nodded your head. So I
interpreted that the answer was right. Why have you changed your mind now?”
The master said, ”Anything that can be repeated is not coming from you. The answer has come from your memory, not from your consciousness. If you had really known, the answer would be different because so much has changed. I am not the same man who asked you this question yesterday. The whole situation is different. You also are different, but the answer is the same. I had to ask the question again just to see if you would repeat the answer. Nothing can be repeated.”
The more alive you are, the less repetitive. Only a dead man can be consistent. Living is
inconsistency; life is freedom. Freedom cannot be consistent. Consistent with what? You can
be consistent only with the past. An enlightened person is consistent only in his consciousness; he is never consistent with his past. He is totally in the act. Nothing is left behind; nothing is left out. The next moment the act is finished and his consciousness is fresh again. Consciousness will be there whenever any situation arises, but each act will be made in complete freedom, as if it is the first time that this man has been in this particular situation.
That is why I answered both yes and no to your question. It depends on you, whether you are consciousness, or whether you are an accumulation, a bodily existence. Religion gives freedom because religion gives consciousness. The more science knows about matter, the more the world will be enslaved. The whole phenomenon of matter is of cause and effect: if you know that given this, that happens – then everything can be determined.
Before this century ends, we will see the whole course of humanity being determined in many ways. The greatest calamity that is possible is not nuclear warfare. It can only destroy. The real calamity will come from the psychological sciences. They will learn how a human being can be completely controlled. Because we are not conscious, we can be made to behave in predetermined ways.
As we are, everything about us is determined. Someone is Hindu; someone else is Mohammedan. This is predetermination, not freedom. Parents have decided; society is deciding. Someone is a doctor and someone else is an engineer. Now his behavior is determined. We are already being controlled constantly, and our methods are still very primitive. Newer techniques will be able to determine our behavior to such an extent that no one will be able to say that there is a soul.
If your every response is determined, then what is the meaning of the soul? Your responses can be determined through body chemistry. If alcohol is given to you, you behave differently. Your body chemistry is different so you behave differently. At one time, the ultimate tantra technique was to take intoxicants and remain conscious. If a person remained conscious
when everything indicated that he should be unconscious, only then would tantra say the man was enlightened, otherwise not.
If body chemistry can change your consciousness, then what is the meaning of consciousness? If an injection can make you unconscious, then what is the meaning? Then the chemical drug in the injection is more powerful than your own consciousness. Tantra says it is possible to transcend every intoxicant and remain conscious. The stimulus has been given, but the response is not there.
Sex is a chemical phenomenon. A particular quantity of a particular hormone creates sexual desire. You become the desire. You may repent when your body chemistry has returned to its normal level, but the repentance is meaningless. When the hormones are there again, you will act in the same way. So tantra has also experimented with sex. If you feel no sexual desire in a situation that is totally sexual, then you are free. Your body chemistry has been left far behind. The body is there, but you are not in the body.
Anger is also just chemistry. Biochemists will soon be able to make you anger-proof, or sex-proof. But you will not be a buddha. Buddha was not incapable of anger. He was capable of it, but the effect of feeling anger was not there. If your body chemistry is controlled, you will be incapable of being angry. The chemical condition that makes you feel angry is not there, so the effect of anger is not there.
Or if your sex hormones are eliminated from your body, you will not be sexual. But the real thing is not whether you are sexual or not, or angry or not. The real thing is how to be aware in a situation that requires your unawareness, how to be conscious in a situation that happens only in unconsciousness.
Whenever such a situation is there, meditate on it. You have been given a great opportunity. If you feel jealous, meditate on it. This is the right moment. Your body chemistry is working within you. It will make you unconscious; it will make you behave as if you are mad. Now, be conscious. Let there be jealousy, do not suppress it, but be conscious; be a witness to it.
If there is anger, be a witness to it; if there is sex, be a witness to it. Let whatever is happening inside you happen, and begin to meditate on the whole situation. By and by, the more your awareness deepens, the less possibility there is of your behavior being determined for you. You become free. Moksha, freedom, doesn’t mean anything else. It only means a consciousness that is so free that now nothing can determine it.
Source : from Osho Book "The Psychology of the Esoteric"
Question - Are Our Lives Predestined or Not?
Osho : This is not a personal problem, it is a philosophical question. Our lives are both predestined and they are not. Both yes and no. And both answers are true for all questions about life. In a way, everything is predetermined. Whatever is physical in you, material, whatever is mental, is predetermined. But something in you constantly remains undetermined, unpredictable. That something is your consciousness.
If you are identified with your body and your material existence, in the same proportion you are determined by cause and effect. Then you are a machine. But if you are not identified with your material existence, with either body or mind – if you can feel yourself as something separate, different, above and transcendent to body-mind – then that transcending consciousness is not predetermined. It is spontaneous, free.
Consciousness means freedom; matter means slavery. So it depends on how you define yourself. If you say, ”I am only the body,” then everything about you is completely determined. A person who says that man is only the body cannot say that man is not predetermined. Ordinarily, persons who do not believe in such a thing as consciousness also do not believe in predetermination.
Persons who are religious and believe in consciousness ordinarily believe in predetermination. So what I am saying may look very contradictory. But still, it is the case. A person who has known consciousness has known freedom. So only a spiritual person can say there is no determination at all. That realization comes only when you are completely unidentified with the body. If you feel that you are just a material existence, then no freedom is possible.
With matter, no freedom is possible. Matter means that which cannot be free. It must flow in the chain of cause and effect. Once someone has achieved consciousness, enlightenment, he is completely out of the realm of cause and effect. He becomes absolutely unpredictable. You cannot say anything about him. He begins to live each moment; his existence becomes atomic.
Your existence is a river-like chain in which every step is determined by the past. Your future is not really future; it is just a by-product of the past. It is only the past determining, shaping, formulating and conditioning your future. That is why your future is predictable.
Skinner says that man is as predictable as anything else. The only difficulty is that we have not yet devised the means to know his total past. The moment we can know his past, we can predict everything about him. Based upon the people he has worked with, Skinner is right, because they are all ultimately predictable. He has experimented with hundreds of people and he has found that they are all mechanical beings, that nothing exists within them that can be called freedom.
But his study is limited. No Buddha has come to his laboratory to be experimented upon. If even one person is free, if even one person is not mechanical, not predictable, Skinner’s whole theory falls. If one person in the whole history of mankind is free and unpredictable, then man is potentially free and unpredictable. The whole possibility of freedom depends on whether you emphasize your body or your consciousness.
If you are just an outward flow of life, then everything is determined. Or are you something inner also? Do not give any preformulated answer. Do not say, ”I am the soul.” If you feel
there is nothing inside you, then be honest about it. This honesty will be the first step toward the inner freedom of consciousness. If you go deeply inside, you will feel that everything is just part of the outside. Your body has come from without, your thoughts have come from without, even your self has been given to you by others.
That is why you are so fearful of the opinion of others – because they are completely in control of your self. They can change their opinion of you at any moment. Your self, your body, your thoughts are given to you by others, so what is inside? You are layers and layers of outside accumulation. If you are identified with this personality of yours that comes from others, then everything is determined.
Become aware of everything that comes from the outside and become non-identified with it. Then a moment will come when the outside falls completely. You will be in a vacuum. This vacuum is the passage between the outside and the inside, the door. We are so afraid of the vacuum, so afraid of being empty that we cling to the outside accumulation. One has to be courageous enough to disidentify with the accumulation and to remain in the vacuum. If you are not courageous enough, you will go out and cling to something, and be filled with it.
But this moment of being in the vacuum is meditation. If you are courageous enough, if you can remain in this moment, soon your whole being will automatically turn inward. When there is nothing to be attached to from the outside, your being turns inward.
Then you know for the first time that you are something that transcends everything you have been thinking yourself to be. Now you are something different from becoming; you are being. This being is free; nothing can determine it. It is absolute freedom. No chain of cause and effect is possible.
Osho - Your actions are related to past actions. A created a situation for B to become possible; B creates a situation in which C flowers. Your acts are connected to past acts and this goes back to the beginningless beginning and on to the endless end. Not only do your own acts determine you, but your father’s and mother’s acts also have a continuity with yours. Your society, your history, all that has happened before, is somehow related to your present act. The whole history has come to flower in you.
Everything that has ever happened is connected with your act, so your act is obviously determined. It is such a minute part of the whole picture. History is such a vital living force and your individual act is such a small part of it. Marx said, ”It is not consciousness that determines the conditions of society. It is society and its conditions that determines consciousness. It is not that great men create great societies.
It is great societies that create great men.” And he is right in a way, because you are not the originator of your actions. The whole history has determined them. You are just carrying them out. The whole evolutionary process has gone into the making of your biological cells. These cells in you can then become part of another person. You may think that you are the father, but you have just been a stage on which the whole biological evolution has acted and has forced you to act. The act of procreation is so forceful because it is beyond you; it is the whole evolutionary process working through you.
This is one way in which acts happen in relation to other past acts. But when a person becomes enlightened, a new phenomenon begins to happen. Acts are no longer connected with past acts. Any act, now, is connected only with his consciousness. It comes from his consciousness not from the past. That is why an enlightened person cannot be predicted.
Skinner says that we can determine what you will do if your past acts are known. He says that the old proverb, ”You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,” is wrong. You can force him to. You can create an atmosphere so that the horse will have to drink. The horse can be forced, and you also can be forced, because your actions are created by situations, by circumstances. But even though you can bring a buddha to the river, you cannot force him to drink. The more you force him, the more impossible it will be.
No heat will make him do it. Even if a thousand suns shine on him it will not help. A Buddha has a different origin of action. It is not concerned with other acts; it is connected with consciousness. That is why I emphasize that you act consciously. Then, every moment you act, it is not a question of a continuation of other acts. You are free. Now you begin to act, and no one can say how you will act.
Habits are mechanical; they repeat themselves. The more you repeat something, the more efficient you become. Efficiency means that now consciousness is no longer needed. If a person is an efficient typist it means that no effort is needed; typing can be done unconsciously. Even if he is thinking about something else the typing continues. The body is typing; the man is not needed. Efficiency means that the thing is so certain that no effort is possible.
With freedom, effort is always possible. A machine cannot make errors. To err, one has to be conscious. So your acts have a chain relationship with your previous acts. They are determined. Your childhood determines your youth; your youth determines your old age. Your birth determines your death; everything is determined. Buddha used to say, ”Provide the cause, and the effect will be there.” This is the world of cause and effect in which everything is determined.
If you act with total consciousness, an altogether different situation exists. Then everything is moment to moment. Consciousness is a flow; it is not static. It is life itself, so it changes. It is alive. It goes on expanding; it goes on becoming new, fresh, young. Then, your acts will be spontaneous.
I am reminded of a Zen story.... A Zen master asked his disciple a particular question. The question was answered exactly as it should be answered. The next day the master asked exactly the same question. The disciple said, ”But I answered this question yesterday.”
The master said, ”Now I am asking you again.” The disciple repeated the same answer. The master said, ”You do not know!”
The disciple said, ”But yesterday I answered in the same way and you nodded your head. So I
interpreted that the answer was right. Why have you changed your mind now?”
The master said, ”Anything that can be repeated is not coming from you. The answer has come from your memory, not from your consciousness. If you had really known, the answer would be different because so much has changed. I am not the same man who asked you this question yesterday. The whole situation is different. You also are different, but the answer is the same. I had to ask the question again just to see if you would repeat the answer. Nothing can be repeated.”
The more alive you are, the less repetitive. Only a dead man can be consistent. Living is
inconsistency; life is freedom. Freedom cannot be consistent. Consistent with what? You can
be consistent only with the past. An enlightened person is consistent only in his consciousness; he is never consistent with his past. He is totally in the act. Nothing is left behind; nothing is left out. The next moment the act is finished and his consciousness is fresh again. Consciousness will be there whenever any situation arises, but each act will be made in complete freedom, as if it is the first time that this man has been in this particular situation.
That is why I answered both yes and no to your question. It depends on you, whether you are consciousness, or whether you are an accumulation, a bodily existence. Religion gives freedom because religion gives consciousness. The more science knows about matter, the more the world will be enslaved. The whole phenomenon of matter is of cause and effect: if you know that given this, that happens – then everything can be determined.
Before this century ends, we will see the whole course of humanity being determined in many ways. The greatest calamity that is possible is not nuclear warfare. It can only destroy. The real calamity will come from the psychological sciences. They will learn how a human being can be completely controlled. Because we are not conscious, we can be made to behave in predetermined ways.
As we are, everything about us is determined. Someone is Hindu; someone else is Mohammedan. This is predetermination, not freedom. Parents have decided; society is deciding. Someone is a doctor and someone else is an engineer. Now his behavior is determined. We are already being controlled constantly, and our methods are still very primitive. Newer techniques will be able to determine our behavior to such an extent that no one will be able to say that there is a soul.
If your every response is determined, then what is the meaning of the soul? Your responses can be determined through body chemistry. If alcohol is given to you, you behave differently. Your body chemistry is different so you behave differently. At one time, the ultimate tantra technique was to take intoxicants and remain conscious. If a person remained conscious
when everything indicated that he should be unconscious, only then would tantra say the man was enlightened, otherwise not.
If body chemistry can change your consciousness, then what is the meaning of consciousness? If an injection can make you unconscious, then what is the meaning? Then the chemical drug in the injection is more powerful than your own consciousness. Tantra says it is possible to transcend every intoxicant and remain conscious. The stimulus has been given, but the response is not there.
Sex is a chemical phenomenon. A particular quantity of a particular hormone creates sexual desire. You become the desire. You may repent when your body chemistry has returned to its normal level, but the repentance is meaningless. When the hormones are there again, you will act in the same way. So tantra has also experimented with sex. If you feel no sexual desire in a situation that is totally sexual, then you are free. Your body chemistry has been left far behind. The body is there, but you are not in the body.
Anger is also just chemistry. Biochemists will soon be able to make you anger-proof, or sex-proof. But you will not be a buddha. Buddha was not incapable of anger. He was capable of it, but the effect of feeling anger was not there. If your body chemistry is controlled, you will be incapable of being angry. The chemical condition that makes you feel angry is not there, so the effect of anger is not there.
Or if your sex hormones are eliminated from your body, you will not be sexual. But the real thing is not whether you are sexual or not, or angry or not. The real thing is how to be aware in a situation that requires your unawareness, how to be conscious in a situation that happens only in unconsciousness.
Whenever such a situation is there, meditate on it. You have been given a great opportunity. If you feel jealous, meditate on it. This is the right moment. Your body chemistry is working within you. It will make you unconscious; it will make you behave as if you are mad. Now, be conscious. Let there be jealousy, do not suppress it, but be conscious; be a witness to it.
If there is anger, be a witness to it; if there is sex, be a witness to it. Let whatever is happening inside you happen, and begin to meditate on the whole situation. By and by, the more your awareness deepens, the less possibility there is of your behavior being determined for you. You become free. Moksha, freedom, doesn’t mean anything else. It only means a consciousness that is so free that now nothing can determine it.
Source : from Osho Book "The Psychology of the Esoteric"
Monday, 27 July 2009
The Secret - A Very UnExpected Turn - Osho
Osho, you tell us so many jokes - what is the basic secret of a joke and why do you tell them?
- I have to tell jokes to you, otherwise you will fall asleep. A joke shocks you back into awareness. It is a small electric shock. That's the beauty of a joke, and that's the secret of a joke. It is impossible even for the dullest mind to remain unalert when a joke is being told. Even the dullest, the most stupid, will become interested - even one who is snoring will come out of his snoring and will start listening to what is going on.
That's the beauty of a joke. A joke is something that brings in you a subtle awareness. The awareness comes because you have to listen to the joke very alertly, otherwise you will miss the punchline. If you miss a single word in a joke, it is lost. A joke is a very small thing - a few lines. You cannot afford to be unaware. If you miss one line, you will not be able to catch hold of it.
And a joke takes a sudden turn - that is its secret - a very unexpected turn. A joke is not logical, that's why I love jokes - they are illogical. Still, they have a logic of their own. A joke is illogical and yet logical - very paradoxical. A joke takes such an illogical turn that you had never expected. If you can expect, then that much pleasure will be lost.
If a joke is a simple syllogism, an Aristotelian syllogism, that you can simply go on and you can feel what conclusion is coming, and you can conclude because the premises are given already; if you can conclude logically, as if two plus two is four, this cannot be a joke - because two plus two is four. When somebody is saying 'two plus two' you have already known the conclusion: it is going to be four. If a joke is absolutely logical and the conclusion is not absurd, then it is not a joke, it will not shock you into awareness.
The joke takes a very unexpected turn. And yet, when you have listened to the punchline, you suddenly realise that there is a logic in it - not Aristotelian, non-Aristotelian. When you have heard the punchline, then you suddenly recognize, yes, everything becomes clear. If a joke is absolutely absurd, then too it will be meaningless, because then the conclusion will not be in continuity with the whole story; then there will be discontinuity and you will not be able to know how to connect them.
The joke has not to be absolutely logical, the joke has not to be absolutely illogical - it has to be somewhere in the middle, very ambiguous, vague, surrounded by mist. You cannot figure out where it is going, and that's why it becomes intriguing. And it takes the turn so suddenly that in a single line it is there in its totality.
Let me tell you one joke:
A Jewish synagogue was collecting money for a new building for the synagogue - the old one was rotten and was falling apart. They were doing everything that can be done to collect more money.
They had sold lottery tickets and then the lottery was opened, and the president of the community declared the third prize: it was a beautiful TV set, and the man who got it was very happy. Then he declared the second prize - of course, the man whose name was declared was hoping for something like a Cadillac, Impala, Mercedes, something like that. But when he came the president gave him a small box. He immediately opened it - mm? - he was puzzled as to what was there in the box. And there was nothing much: chocolates, cookies. He said, "What is this? You must have forgotten, you must have misplaced something. For the third prize you have given a TV set - and second prize, just cookies? This is nonsense!"
The president said, "You don't understand it: the rabbi's wife herself has prepared it for you."
The man was annoyed. He said, "Screw the rabbi's wife!"
The president said, "That's the first prize."
Now this is a joke! You cannot expect, it is impossible, but once it is there then everything becomes clear. The conclusion makes the whole story clear. But if the conclusion has not been given to you, you will not be able to come to it logically.
Logic proceeds in steps, from the beginning to the end. A joke spreads backwards, from the end to the beginning - that is the beauty of it. And it brings laughter, because when the story is going on you become tense - mm? - you want the conclusion immediately. You become very curious about it, what is going to happen. You start throbbing with energy. You become alert, more alert, more alive - and the energy is there; you cannot release it. It becomes a crescendo. Then comes the shattering punchline and the whole energy spreads all over your being. That's what laughter is.
And I have to tell jokes, because the things that I am saying are so subtle, so deep and profound, that if I simply go on telling you those things, you will fall asleep and you will not be able to listen or to understand. You will remain almost deaf.
The profounder the truth I have to tell you, the worst joke I choose for it. The highest the truth I am trying to relate, then the lowest I have to go in search for a joke. That's why even dirty jokes... I don't bother. Even a dirty joke can be helpful - more so because it can shock you to the very roots, to the very guts. And that's the whole point! It helps you to come again and again to your alertness. When I see you are alert, I again go relating that which I would like to relate to you. When I see again you are slipping into your sleep, I have to bring in a joke again.
If you really listen with alertness, there will be no need - I can say the truth directly. But it is difficult. You start yawning... and it is better to laugh than to yawn.
Osho,
The Discipline of Transcendence, vol.3 #2
- I have to tell jokes to you, otherwise you will fall asleep. A joke shocks you back into awareness. It is a small electric shock. That's the beauty of a joke, and that's the secret of a joke. It is impossible even for the dullest mind to remain unalert when a joke is being told. Even the dullest, the most stupid, will become interested - even one who is snoring will come out of his snoring and will start listening to what is going on.
That's the beauty of a joke. A joke is something that brings in you a subtle awareness. The awareness comes because you have to listen to the joke very alertly, otherwise you will miss the punchline. If you miss a single word in a joke, it is lost. A joke is a very small thing - a few lines. You cannot afford to be unaware. If you miss one line, you will not be able to catch hold of it.
And a joke takes a sudden turn - that is its secret - a very unexpected turn. A joke is not logical, that's why I love jokes - they are illogical. Still, they have a logic of their own. A joke is illogical and yet logical - very paradoxical. A joke takes such an illogical turn that you had never expected. If you can expect, then that much pleasure will be lost.
If a joke is a simple syllogism, an Aristotelian syllogism, that you can simply go on and you can feel what conclusion is coming, and you can conclude because the premises are given already; if you can conclude logically, as if two plus two is four, this cannot be a joke - because two plus two is four. When somebody is saying 'two plus two' you have already known the conclusion: it is going to be four. If a joke is absolutely logical and the conclusion is not absurd, then it is not a joke, it will not shock you into awareness.
The joke takes a very unexpected turn. And yet, when you have listened to the punchline, you suddenly realise that there is a logic in it - not Aristotelian, non-Aristotelian. When you have heard the punchline, then you suddenly recognize, yes, everything becomes clear. If a joke is absolutely absurd, then too it will be meaningless, because then the conclusion will not be in continuity with the whole story; then there will be discontinuity and you will not be able to know how to connect them.
The joke has not to be absolutely logical, the joke has not to be absolutely illogical - it has to be somewhere in the middle, very ambiguous, vague, surrounded by mist. You cannot figure out where it is going, and that's why it becomes intriguing. And it takes the turn so suddenly that in a single line it is there in its totality.
Let me tell you one joke:
A Jewish synagogue was collecting money for a new building for the synagogue - the old one was rotten and was falling apart. They were doing everything that can be done to collect more money.
They had sold lottery tickets and then the lottery was opened, and the president of the community declared the third prize: it was a beautiful TV set, and the man who got it was very happy. Then he declared the second prize - of course, the man whose name was declared was hoping for something like a Cadillac, Impala, Mercedes, something like that. But when he came the president gave him a small box. He immediately opened it - mm? - he was puzzled as to what was there in the box. And there was nothing much: chocolates, cookies. He said, "What is this? You must have forgotten, you must have misplaced something. For the third prize you have given a TV set - and second prize, just cookies? This is nonsense!"
The president said, "You don't understand it: the rabbi's wife herself has prepared it for you."
The man was annoyed. He said, "Screw the rabbi's wife!"
The president said, "That's the first prize."
Now this is a joke! You cannot expect, it is impossible, but once it is there then everything becomes clear. The conclusion makes the whole story clear. But if the conclusion has not been given to you, you will not be able to come to it logically.
Logic proceeds in steps, from the beginning to the end. A joke spreads backwards, from the end to the beginning - that is the beauty of it. And it brings laughter, because when the story is going on you become tense - mm? - you want the conclusion immediately. You become very curious about it, what is going to happen. You start throbbing with energy. You become alert, more alert, more alive - and the energy is there; you cannot release it. It becomes a crescendo. Then comes the shattering punchline and the whole energy spreads all over your being. That's what laughter is.
And I have to tell jokes, because the things that I am saying are so subtle, so deep and profound, that if I simply go on telling you those things, you will fall asleep and you will not be able to listen or to understand. You will remain almost deaf.
The profounder the truth I have to tell you, the worst joke I choose for it. The highest the truth I am trying to relate, then the lowest I have to go in search for a joke. That's why even dirty jokes... I don't bother. Even a dirty joke can be helpful - more so because it can shock you to the very roots, to the very guts. And that's the whole point! It helps you to come again and again to your alertness. When I see you are alert, I again go relating that which I would like to relate to you. When I see again you are slipping into your sleep, I have to bring in a joke again.
If you really listen with alertness, there will be no need - I can say the truth directly. But it is difficult. You start yawning... and it is better to laugh than to yawn.
Osho,
The Discipline of Transcendence, vol.3 #2
Monday, 20 July 2009
When Love Exists With Freedom It Has Tremendous Beauty
Love can be of two types. One is when you say to somebody, "I need you, I really love you." This is ugly love, because it is based in need. You say, "I need you": you want to use the other. You are not yet able to be alone; you want to be together with somebody, you want to cling to the other. The other keeps you occupied -- without eh other you become afraid of your own aloneness.
And this is what people say, and lovers enjoy it very much. When somebody says to you, "I need you, I really love you," you feel you are entering into something beautiful. You are not; you are entering into something destructive. This is the wrong kind of love.
And this is the love that exists in the world. Everybody is afraid of his loneliness and clings to the outer, uses the other as a means, someone to cling to. And when you use the other, the other is reduced to a thing. He is no longer a person, he becomes a husband or a wife. Freedom is lost. You cannot allow the other to be free, because if you allow freedom then you will have to face your loneliness. And that you don't want to do.
So you cling. You hold the other, you possess the other. Even if it means being possessed by the other, you are ready to lose your freedom. You become mutual slaves, mutual imprisonments to each other.
Love-as-need creates what the other day I was calling "tunnel vision." You become focussed on one person and you are afraid that if the other person leaves you, you will not be able to live at all. The very idea of the other leaving you gives you immediate thoughts of committing suicide. Your life will not have meaning.
This is tunnel vision. One is willing to admit only a narrow range of sensations; all else is regarded as insignificant. And when such expectations fail, then one feels life is not wroth living. And they always fail, because nobody can really be possessed. How can you possess a presence, a person? He is not a thing, you can never be the master. The other will go on asserting his freedom, the other will go on sabotaging your efforts to possess him. The other is trying to possess you, and you are trying to possess the other. Nobody wants to be possessed, and everybody wants to be the possessor. Now, this is doomed to fail.
Sooner or later, you will start feeling life has no meaning. This kind of love is pathological, and this is the only kind that exists and is available in the world. It drives people neurotic and psychotic. It should be changed into love which is not a need but a state. Then one can love life in more richness. Then one can love and yet allow the other freedom. Then love is nonpossessive.
But that love is possible only when you have learned how to live with your aloneness. When you can be alone and perfectly happy and you don't miss the other at all, only then can you love. But now a totally different kind of love arrives -- even to think of it will shock you.
Then the lover says, "I don't need you, I love you." It will be almost incomprehensible, a lover saying to somebody, "I don't need you, I love you." It will look contradictory, because you have always heard, "I need you, I love you very much" -- you are acquainted with that approach.
But this is TRUE love, the other is destructive. It destroys both the people, it destroys all the possibilities of growing. This is true love, this is creative love, when you can say, "I don't need you, I simply love you."
Just meditate over it. Repeat it silently within yourself: "I don't need you, I love you" -- and a totally different dimension opens up. Now there is no need to possess, now there is no need to reduce the other to a thing, now there is no need to destroy his or her freedom, now there is no need to allow the other to destroy your freedom. Now love can exist with freedom.
When love exists with freedom it has tremendous beauty; it has something of the ultimate in it. But now it is pure sharing. Now it is a luxury, it is no more a need.
I teach you love-as-luxury, not love-as-need. It is just an overflowing. You have so much that you cannot bear it any more, you have to give it to somebody. And from where are you getting so much? It comes if you learn how to live in your aloneness. If you learn how to live in your aloneness, enjoy it and celebrate it, if you learn how to be empty without any desire to fill yourself up, to stuff yourself with anything -- food, love, money, power -- when you are not in any way interested in stuffing your emptiness, then suddenly emptiness changes its color, its quality is transformed. You relax into it.
Then you don't feel, "I am empty." You feel, "I am emptiness -- and if I am emptiness, I am emptiness."
And the purity of emptiness is tremendous. In emptiness not even a particle of dust can collect. Emptiness cannot be polluted by anything, its purity is total and absolute. That emptiness is always virgin. Out of that emptiness, living in that emptiness, great joy and great peace arise and well up.
This is what I call creativity. It can become a song, it can become a painting, it can become a dance, it can become love, it can become all kinds of things. But one thing is similar: it overflows. This overflowing love is a state, a luxury, a sharing for the sheer joy of sharing. This love is celebration.
And, Tada, you have been avoiding your aloneness, you have been avoiding your emptiness. If you go on avoiding it you will never come to know this love, this creative love. And this is the greatest experience there is. You are avoiding your own great possibility and potential.
Don't be serious, please. Drop it. It is not going to give you anything except more and more misery.
Meditate on these words of Kahlil Gibran:
Sing and dance together and be joyous
But let each of you be alone
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
Though they quiver with the same music.
Stand together, yet not too near together,
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
Be alone: that is meditation. And in aloneness wells up love: that is creation. Then love can do miracles.
But the person who remains serious remains unavailable to his own sources, his own juice; he remains unavailable to his own soil and roots. The person who is serious goes on moving round and round outside his being.
Drop your seriousness. Laugh a little, love a little, and you will know what God is.
Osho,
Unio Mystica, Vol 1
Chapter #6
And this is what people say, and lovers enjoy it very much. When somebody says to you, "I need you, I really love you," you feel you are entering into something beautiful. You are not; you are entering into something destructive. This is the wrong kind of love.
And this is the love that exists in the world. Everybody is afraid of his loneliness and clings to the outer, uses the other as a means, someone to cling to. And when you use the other, the other is reduced to a thing. He is no longer a person, he becomes a husband or a wife. Freedom is lost. You cannot allow the other to be free, because if you allow freedom then you will have to face your loneliness. And that you don't want to do.
So you cling. You hold the other, you possess the other. Even if it means being possessed by the other, you are ready to lose your freedom. You become mutual slaves, mutual imprisonments to each other.
Love-as-need creates what the other day I was calling "tunnel vision." You become focussed on one person and you are afraid that if the other person leaves you, you will not be able to live at all. The very idea of the other leaving you gives you immediate thoughts of committing suicide. Your life will not have meaning.
This is tunnel vision. One is willing to admit only a narrow range of sensations; all else is regarded as insignificant. And when such expectations fail, then one feels life is not wroth living. And they always fail, because nobody can really be possessed. How can you possess a presence, a person? He is not a thing, you can never be the master. The other will go on asserting his freedom, the other will go on sabotaging your efforts to possess him. The other is trying to possess you, and you are trying to possess the other. Nobody wants to be possessed, and everybody wants to be the possessor. Now, this is doomed to fail.
Sooner or later, you will start feeling life has no meaning. This kind of love is pathological, and this is the only kind that exists and is available in the world. It drives people neurotic and psychotic. It should be changed into love which is not a need but a state. Then one can love life in more richness. Then one can love and yet allow the other freedom. Then love is nonpossessive.
But that love is possible only when you have learned how to live with your aloneness. When you can be alone and perfectly happy and you don't miss the other at all, only then can you love. But now a totally different kind of love arrives -- even to think of it will shock you.
Then the lover says, "I don't need you, I love you." It will be almost incomprehensible, a lover saying to somebody, "I don't need you, I love you." It will look contradictory, because you have always heard, "I need you, I love you very much" -- you are acquainted with that approach.
But this is TRUE love, the other is destructive. It destroys both the people, it destroys all the possibilities of growing. This is true love, this is creative love, when you can say, "I don't need you, I simply love you."
Just meditate over it. Repeat it silently within yourself: "I don't need you, I love you" -- and a totally different dimension opens up. Now there is no need to possess, now there is no need to reduce the other to a thing, now there is no need to destroy his or her freedom, now there is no need to allow the other to destroy your freedom. Now love can exist with freedom.
When love exists with freedom it has tremendous beauty; it has something of the ultimate in it. But now it is pure sharing. Now it is a luxury, it is no more a need.
I teach you love-as-luxury, not love-as-need. It is just an overflowing. You have so much that you cannot bear it any more, you have to give it to somebody. And from where are you getting so much? It comes if you learn how to live in your aloneness. If you learn how to live in your aloneness, enjoy it and celebrate it, if you learn how to be empty without any desire to fill yourself up, to stuff yourself with anything -- food, love, money, power -- when you are not in any way interested in stuffing your emptiness, then suddenly emptiness changes its color, its quality is transformed. You relax into it.
Then you don't feel, "I am empty." You feel, "I am emptiness -- and if I am emptiness, I am emptiness."
And the purity of emptiness is tremendous. In emptiness not even a particle of dust can collect. Emptiness cannot be polluted by anything, its purity is total and absolute. That emptiness is always virgin. Out of that emptiness, living in that emptiness, great joy and great peace arise and well up.
This is what I call creativity. It can become a song, it can become a painting, it can become a dance, it can become love, it can become all kinds of things. But one thing is similar: it overflows. This overflowing love is a state, a luxury, a sharing for the sheer joy of sharing. This love is celebration.
And, Tada, you have been avoiding your aloneness, you have been avoiding your emptiness. If you go on avoiding it you will never come to know this love, this creative love. And this is the greatest experience there is. You are avoiding your own great possibility and potential.
Don't be serious, please. Drop it. It is not going to give you anything except more and more misery.
Meditate on these words of Kahlil Gibran:
Sing and dance together and be joyous
But let each of you be alone
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
Though they quiver with the same music.
Stand together, yet not too near together,
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
Be alone: that is meditation. And in aloneness wells up love: that is creation. Then love can do miracles.
But the person who remains serious remains unavailable to his own sources, his own juice; he remains unavailable to his own soil and roots. The person who is serious goes on moving round and round outside his being.
Drop your seriousness. Laugh a little, love a little, and you will know what God is.
Osho,
Unio Mystica, Vol 1
Chapter #6
Saturday, 18 July 2009
Good News - Osho Trademarks finally cancelled in the US: Order released by Federal Court
Beloved friends,
A good news for you all. I just received a mail from Osho Friends International stating that the case pertaining to trademark of Osho has been finally cancelled. You can read the complete mail below.
Wow! Such a good news. Even the result of the poll that I have been conducted resonated the same message as the final verdict.
The Master has heard our prayers.. and finally delivered the final verdict in the interest of all the Seekers.
Good bless.
Take care.
CoolDeep for OshoOnline.
------------------------------- Read Mail Below -------------------------------------------
"Beloved Friends,
A good news for you all. I just received a mail from Osho Friends International stating that the case pertaining to trademark of Osho has been finally cancelled. You can read the complete mail below.
Wow! Such a good news. Even the result of the poll that I have been conducted resonated the same message as the final verdict.
The Master has heard our prayers.. and finally delivered the final verdict in the interest of all the Seekers.
Good bless.
Take care.
CoolDeep for OshoOnline.
------------------------------- Read Mail Below -------------------------------------------
"Beloved Friends,
This is to update you with the latest developments about the trademarks of Osho and his meditations in the US.
Osho Trademarks finally cancelled in the US: Order released by Federal Court
On January 13, 2009, the Trials and Appeals Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office in its strongly worded decision said that Osho cannot be trademarked. This decision was the culmination of a legal battle started nearly 10 years ago by Osho Friends International (OFI), an association of Osho meditation centers and disciples from all over the world.
Osho International Foundation (OIF), Zurich, filed a Notice of Appeal on March 12, 2009 with respect to the January 13, 2009 decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. OIF filed their appeal in the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit in Washington DC. The appeal was about the correctness of the decision rendered by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board on January 13.
Later on, OIF decided to withdraw the appeal and filed for withdrawal in the Court of Appeals on June 19, 2009. Osho Friends agreed for the withdrawal. Recently the Federal Court released the order dismissing the Appeal. The trademarks of Osho in the US now finally stand cancelled. It is expected that the cancellation may soon be reflected on the website of USPTO where the trademarks had been listed.
Free downloadable Osho audio-video discourses will soon be live again @ www.oshoworld.com.
Please wait. Thank you for your patience.
Ma Prem Naina
Media Coordinator
Osho Friends International team"
Friday, 17 July 2009
Only Through Intensity That One Arrives - Osho
Osho, What is Intensity?
It is important, because it is only through intensity that one arrives. When all your desires, when all your passions, fall and become one flame, it is intensity. When there is only one left inside you and your total being supports that one, it is intensity.
It is exactly what the word says: in tensity. The opposite word is ex tensity: you are spread out, you have a thousand and one desires, many fragmentary desires, one going to the north, one going to the south. You are being pulled apart. You are not one, you are a crowd. And if you are a crowd you will be miserable, if you are a crowd you will never feel any fulfillment. You don't have any center. Intensity means creating a center in yourself.
There are two words which are significant to understand. One is 'centrifugal': it means arrows moving from the center going in different directions, extroversion. Small pieces, small parts of your being flying all over the place, in all directions, in all possible directions: that is centrifugal. That's how people are - they are centrifugal. Another word is 'centripetal': when all the arrows are coming towards the center, when all the fragments are joined together. In the first you are falling apart, you are in a kind of de-centering. In the second you are falling together, a kind of integration arises. You are getting centered, concentrated IN: that is the meaning of intensity.
Sometimes you have known moments, in some danger... suddenly, in a dark night, you are faced with a naked sword, and you will know what intensity is. Suddenly ALL your thought will disappear, the crowd will become one. In that moment you will be one single individual.
The word 'individual' means indivisible. You will be undivided, you will be a unity - not only a union but a unity. You will be utterly one. The death facing you has created the intensity.
Or in love sometimes.... You fall in love and there is an intensity. All else becomes irrelevant, peripheral. Only the love is all and the whole of your heart. When such intensity arises in meditation it brings you to God; or in prayer, then it brings you to God.
A story:
The scene was the last Olympic games. In the quarters of the American wrestling team stood John Mack, the trainer, warning his protege, Mike 'Bull' Flamm, about the forthcoming match.
"You know," Mack said, "the Soviet wrestler you are about to tackle, Ivan Katruvsky, is one of the greatest wrestlers in the world. But he really is not as good as you are. The only thing he's got that makes him a terror is his pretzel-hold. If he once gets a man in his pretzel-hold, that man is doomed. He has used the pretzel-hold on twenty-seven competitors, and in each case his opponent gave up within ten seconds.
"So, listen to me, Bull, you have got to be damned careful. Never let him get you in that pretzel-hold. If he once clamps you in it, you're a goner!"
Bull listened carefully to Mack's instructions on how to avoid that crippling grip of Ivan's.
For the first three minutes of the bout, neither the American nor the Russian could gain an advantage. The crowd was on edge.
Then, suddenly, pandemonium broke loose - Bull Flamm had fallen into the clutches of Ivan's pretzel-hold and was moaning in agony. Mack knew the match was lost, and he left the arena in deep gloom. Down the corridor, the echoes of Bull's anguished cries still reached him.
And then, as Mack was about to enter his quarters, he heard an enormous shout arise from the stadium, a cheer the likes of which he had never heard in all his long experience. The stands were in absolute uproar. >From the shouts, Mack knew that Bull had won the match, but he couldn't understand it. What could have caused the unthinkable turnabout?
A minute later Flamm came trotting into the American dressing room. His trainer threw his arms around him, and said, "Bull, how in hell did you ever get out of that pretzel-hold?"
"Well," answered Flamm, "he twisted me into such shapes that I never felt such agony in my life. I thought my bones were going to break. And as I was just about to faint I saw two balls hanging in front of me. With one desperate lunge, I bit those balls. Well, Mack, you can't imagine what a man is capable of when he bites his own balls."
Osho ,
The Wisdom of the Sands, vol. 1 #2
Thursday, 16 July 2009
First Cleanse Every Centre, Purify It. - Osho
I told you that the MULADHAR has to be relaxed, only then can the energy move upward, inward. And 'inward' and 'upward' mean the same; 'outward' and 'downward' mean the same. Energy can move inward or upward only when the MULADHAR is relaxed. So the first thing is to relax the MULADHAR.
You are holding your sex centre very tightly. The society has made you very much aware of the sex centre; it has made you obsessed with it, so you are holding it tightly. You can simply watch. You are always holding your genital organism very tightly, as if you are afraid that something will go amiss if you relax. Your whole conditioning has been to keep it uptight. Relax it, leave it to itself. Don't be afraid: fear creates tension. Drop the fear. Sex is beautiful; it is not a sin, it is a virtue.
Once you think in terms of its being a virtue, you will be able to relax. I have talked about how to relax the MULADHAR before. And I have talked about how to relax the SWADHISTAN; it is the death centre. Don't be afraid of death. These are the two fears which have been dominating humanity: the fear of sex and the fear of death. Both fears are dangerous; they have not allowed you to grow. Drop both the fears.
The third chakra is MANIPURA; it is loaded with negative emotions. That's why your stomach becomes disturbed -- when you are emotionally disturbed, MANIPURA is affected immediately. In all the languages of the world we have expressions like Ll cannot stomach it.' It is literally true. Sometimes, when you cannot stomach a certain thing, you start feeling nauseous; you would like to vomit. In fact, sometimes it happens -- a psychological vomit. Somebody has said something, and you CANNOT stomach it; and suddenly you feel a nausea, vomit comes, and after vomiting you feel very relaxed.
In Yoga they have methods for it. The yogi has to drink enough water in the morning -- a bucketful of water with salt, the water has to be lukewarm -- and then he has to vomit it. It helps to relax the MANIPURA. It is a great process, a great cleansing process.
You will be surprised, now many modern therapies have become aware of it -- that vomiting helps. Action Analysis is aware of the fact that vomiting helps. Primal Therapy is aware of the fact that vomiting helps. It releases the MANIPURA. Tantra and Yoga have always been aware of it.
Negative emotions: anger, hatred, jealousy, and so on and so forth -- they all have been repressed; your MANIPURA is too loaded. Those repressed emotions don't allow the energy to go up; those repressed emotions function like a rock: your passage is blocked. Encounter, Gestalt and therapies like that, all function unknowingly on the MANIPURA. They try to provoke your anger. they try to provoke your jealousy, your greed; they provoke your aggression, your violence, so that it bubbles up, surfaces. The society has done one thing: it has trained you to repress all that is negative, and pretend all that is positive. Now, both are dangerous. To pretend the positive is false -- hypocrisy, and to repress the negative is dangerous; it is poisonous, it is poisoning your system.
Tantra says: Express the negative and allow the positive. If anger comes, don't repress it; if aggression comes, don't repress it. Tantra does not say: Go and kill a person. But Tantra says that there a thousand and one ways to express the repressed emotions. You can go into the garden and chop wood. Have you watched woodcutters? They look more silent than anybody else. Have you watched hunters? Hunters are very good people. The do a very dirty thing, but they are good people. Something happens to them while they are hunting. Killing animals, their anger, their aggression is dissolved. The so-called 'nonviolent' people are the ugliest in the world. They are not good people, because they are holding down a volcano. You cannot feel at ease with them. Something is dangerously present there. You can feel it, you can touch it; it is oozing out of them. You can just go into the forest and shout, scream -- Primal Therapy is just scream therapy, tantrum therapy. And Encounter and Primal, Gestalt, are of tremendous help in relaxing the MANIPURA.
Once MANIPURA IS relaxed, there arises a balance between the negative and the positive. And when the negative and positive are balanced, the passage is open; then the energy can move higher. MANIPURA is male. If MANIPURA IS blocked, then energy cannot go upwards. It has to be relaxed.
Polarity Balancing can be of great help in bringing about the balance between positive and negative. That's why I am allowing all sorts of methods from all over the world in this ashram. Anything that can be of help has to be used, because man has been damaged so much that all sources of help should be made available. You may not even be able to understand why I am making available all the methods to you: Yoga, Tantra, Tao; Sufi, Jain, Buddhist, Hindu; Gestalt, Psychodrama, Encounter, Primal Therapy, Polarity Balancing, Rolfing, Structural Integration -- why I am making all these things available to you. You have never heard of these things being done in any ashram anywhere in the East at all. There is a reason for it. Man has been damaged so much that all sources should be tapped. Help should be taken from every source possible, only then there is hope -- otherwise man is doomed.
The fourth chakra is ANAHATA. Doubt is the problem with the fourth chakra. If you are a doubting person, your fourth chakra will remain unopened. Trust opens it. So anything that creates doubt destroys your heart. It is the heart chakra: ANAHATA. Logic, logic-chopping, argumentativeness, too much rationality, too much of Aristotle in you, destroy ANAHATA. Philosophy, scepticism, destroy ANAHATA.
If you want to open the ANAHATA you will have to be more trusting. Poetry is more helpful than philosophy, and intuition is more helpful than reasoning, and feeling is more helpful than thinking. So you will have to shift from doubt to trust, only then does your ANAHATA become open, your ANAHATA becomes capable of receiving the male energy from MANIPURA. ANAHATA is female. With doubt it becomes dry; it cannot receive the male energy. With trust it opens, with trust moisture is released in that chakra and it can allow the penetration of the male energy.
Then the fifth: VISUDDHA. Non-creativity, imitativeness, parroting, monkeying -- these are damaging.
Just the other day I was reading a small anecdote:
A schoolchild was asked 'Ten copy-cats are sitting on a fence. One jumped and went away. How many are left?'
And the child says 'None.'
The teacher says 'None? Only one has left!'
And the child says 'They are copy-cats.'
When one jumps, all jump.
VISUDDHA is destroyed by copying. Don't be an imitator, don't be just a carbon copy. Don't try to become a Buddha and don't try to become a Christ. Beware of books like Thomas a Kempis IMITATION OF CHRIST. Beware. No imitation is going to help. VISUDDHA is destroyed by non-creativity, limitation; and VISUDDHA IS helped by creativity, expression, finding your own style of life, being courageous enough to 'do your own thing'. Art, song, music, dance, inventiveness -- all are helpful. But be inventive -- whatsoever you do, try to do it in a new way. Try to bring some individuality into it, bring some authentic signature. Even cleaning a floor, you can do it in your own way. Even cooking food, you can do it in your own way. You can bring creativity to everything that you do; it should be brought. In as much as you are creative -- good, VISUDDHA will open.
And when VISUDDHA opens, then only can the energy move into the AJNA, the third eye centre, the sixth centre.
This is the process. First cleanse every centre, purify it, beware of what damages it, and help it so that it becomes naturally functioning. Blocks are removed... energy rushes.
Beyond the sixth is SAHASRAR, TURIYA, the one-thousand-petalled lotus. You bloom. Yes, that's exactly what it is. Man is a tree: MULADHAR is the root and SAHASRAR is the blooming of it. The flower has bloomed, your fragrance is released to the winds. That is the only prayer; that is the only offering to the feet of the divine. Borrowed flowers won't do, stolen flowers from the trees won't do; you have to flower and offer your flowers.
Osho,
The Tantra Vision, Vol 2
Chapter #1
Chapter title: The Tantra Map
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Unless a Buddha becomes absolutely ordinary, it is still an ego trip - Osho
A tremendously beautiful pack of cards existed in China, in the days of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu.
It has ten cards describing the search, the pilgrimage. Those ten cards are called The Ten Bulls of Zen.
In the first picture, the bull is lost. And naturally, the owner is looking all around, thick forest, and he cannot see his lost bull.
In the second picture he finds footprints; now he has some clue. In the third picture he sees the bull -- not completely, but just his tail -- by the side of a huge tree. But now things are becoming more certain.
In the fourth picture he sees half of the bull.
In the fifth picture he has found the bull in its completeness.
In the sixth picture he holds the bull by the horns.
In the seventh picture he is riding home on the bull.
In the eighth picture the bull is put in his place, and in the ninth picture the man is sitting outside his house, playing a flute.
When these ten pictures were transferred to Japan, they cut out the last picture. They accepted only nine pictures. What more is there? You have come home, you are playing the flute, everything is beautiful. That which was lost has been found.
But when I looked at the tenth picture I said, "These people got stuck at the ninth. The tenth is the most important." But it went against their ideological, religious, moral training. The tenth picture is: the man is going towards the marketplace with a bottle of wine. The buddha has now really come home.
Unless a buddha becomes absolutely ordinary, it is still an ego trip. To be as ordinary as the trees, as the birds, as the animals, as the mountains -- no bragging about any spirituality, because even the bragging about spirituality is nothing but a very subtle ego trip...
It hurts me to say to you that Gautam Buddha declared, "I am the only enlightened man in the whole history of man. My enlightenment will never be superseded" -- this is the ninth picture. The same was the situation with J. Krishnamurti; he could never get out of the ninth picture. He could not become what he has always been.
Mind's ways are very cunning. It will become the richest man, it will become the most powerful man, it will become the "most" of anything. But it has to be on the top. It will be difficult for you if you find a Buddha in a pub, but that is the right place. He has come home, he has accepted his natural spontaneity.
Don't ask , about total acceptance -- ask rather about more clarity, more spontaneity, more naturalness, and acceptance will come just like a shadow. You don't have to bother about it.
Osho
It has ten cards describing the search, the pilgrimage. Those ten cards are called The Ten Bulls of Zen.
In the first picture, the bull is lost. And naturally, the owner is looking all around, thick forest, and he cannot see his lost bull.
In the second picture he finds footprints; now he has some clue. In the third picture he sees the bull -- not completely, but just his tail -- by the side of a huge tree. But now things are becoming more certain.
In the fourth picture he sees half of the bull.
In the fifth picture he has found the bull in its completeness.
In the sixth picture he holds the bull by the horns.
In the seventh picture he is riding home on the bull.
In the eighth picture the bull is put in his place, and in the ninth picture the man is sitting outside his house, playing a flute.
When these ten pictures were transferred to Japan, they cut out the last picture. They accepted only nine pictures. What more is there? You have come home, you are playing the flute, everything is beautiful. That which was lost has been found.
But when I looked at the tenth picture I said, "These people got stuck at the ninth. The tenth is the most important." But it went against their ideological, religious, moral training. The tenth picture is: the man is going towards the marketplace with a bottle of wine. The buddha has now really come home.
Unless a buddha becomes absolutely ordinary, it is still an ego trip. To be as ordinary as the trees, as the birds, as the animals, as the mountains -- no bragging about any spirituality, because even the bragging about spirituality is nothing but a very subtle ego trip...
It hurts me to say to you that Gautam Buddha declared, "I am the only enlightened man in the whole history of man. My enlightenment will never be superseded" -- this is the ninth picture. The same was the situation with J. Krishnamurti; he could never get out of the ninth picture. He could not become what he has always been.
Mind's ways are very cunning. It will become the richest man, it will become the most powerful man, it will become the "most" of anything. But it has to be on the top. It will be difficult for you if you find a Buddha in a pub, but that is the right place. He has come home, he has accepted his natural spontaneity.
Don't ask , about total acceptance -- ask rather about more clarity, more spontaneity, more naturalness, and acceptance will come just like a shadow. You don't have to bother about it.
Osho
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
Wishing all Seekers a Blessed Guru Purnima!
On this beautiful occasion of Guru Purnima, Osho Online wishes all the spiritual lovers and seekers form the world a "Blessed Guru Purnima."
"The word 'guru' is untranslatable.
Neither does the word 'teacher' nor the word 'Master' have that beauty.
Guru literally means 'the light'.
Meeting with the Master on the outside is the beginning of a great hope, a great aspiration.
Between a master and disciple the greatest mystery is lived, the deepest is lived, the highest flows.
It is a relationship between the known and the unknown, between the finite and infinite, between time and eternity, between the seed and the flower, between the actual and the potential, between past and future.
A disciple is only the past; the master is only the future.
The disciple is all that he knows, and a master is all that cannot be known.
When the bridge happens between a master and a disciple, to bridge the known with the unknown, and time with eternity it is a miracle.
Guru Purnima is the day of all the Buddhas, all those who have become aware.
In their remembrance, become aware. "
Osho
Thank you all for your love and support.
Thursday, 2 July 2009
How to decide whether it is true enlightenment or untrue? - Osho
There is a possibility of an untrue enlightenment. The ego can play the last trick: the ego can start pretending 'I am enlightened.' And it is so subtle that it is almost impossible for others to detect it, because you can talk like enlightened people very easily. Scriptures are available, you can cram them; you can repeat the Upanishads, the Bible, the Koran. You can analyse in such a subtle way, with such philosophical acumen, that it can be easily proved to others that you have attained. You can live a life according to people's expectations of how an enlightened person should live. If they expect that you should live naked, you can live naked. If they expect that you should kiss lepers, you can kiss lepers. If they expect that you should serve the poor and the ill, you can serve the poor and the ill. It is easy to manage.
That is the last trick that the ego can play upon oneself. One has to be very very aware at that moment, otherwise one slips back to the original place, one again falls to the same ground from where one was trying and trying hard to rise.
How to decide whether it is true enlightenment or untrue? The only decisive factor is: the absence of I. In true enlightenment, the idea of I simply disappears, it is not found. There is nobody to claim 'I am enlightened', there is simply nobody to claim anything. It is a pure nothingness, full of light, full of joy -- very spacious, it can contain the whole sky, but the 'I' is found nowhere, not even a trace of it. Then it is satbodhi, then it is true enlightenment.
Osho
That is the last trick that the ego can play upon oneself. One has to be very very aware at that moment, otherwise one slips back to the original place, one again falls to the same ground from where one was trying and trying hard to rise.
How to decide whether it is true enlightenment or untrue? The only decisive factor is: the absence of I. In true enlightenment, the idea of I simply disappears, it is not found. There is nobody to claim 'I am enlightened', there is simply nobody to claim anything. It is a pure nothingness, full of light, full of joy -- very spacious, it can contain the whole sky, but the 'I' is found nowhere, not even a trace of it. Then it is satbodhi, then it is true enlightenment.
Osho
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
OSHO: A Buddha Will Always Be Misunderstood!
In the videos below Osho explains why a Buddha will always be misunderstood!
A Buddha Will Always Be Misunderstood!(Part 1 of 2)
A Buddha Will Always Be Misunderstood!(Part 2 of 2)
A Buddha Will Always Be Misunderstood!(Part 1 of 2)
A Buddha Will Always Be Misunderstood!(Part 2 of 2)
Bhagwan Yeh Kaun Aaya - Osho Hindi Video
A beautiful song along with beautiful pictures of Bhagwan...
Love.. love.. you.. Oh beloved Bhagwan.. always and forever...
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