Just Be Responsible To Yourself - Osho

Just be responsible to yourself. Do whatsoever you feel like doing. If it is wrong, the punishment will immediately follow. If it is right, the reward will follow immediately, instantly; there is no other way. In this way you will start finding what is wrong, what is right on your own. You will grow a new sensitivity - Indians call it the third eye. You will start seeing a new vision, a new eye. Instantly you will know what is wrong, because in the past so many times you have done it and always suffered in consequence. You will know what is right, because whenever you did existence showered great blessings on you. Cause and effects are together, they are not separated by years and lives..

An Expert Is Anyone From Out Of Town - OSHO

- OSHO, WHEN I HEARD YOU TELLING THE STORY OF BUDDHA SENDING SARIPUTTA BACK TO HIS KINGDOM, THIS SUDDEN FEAR AROSE: IF I GOT ENLIGHTENED, YOU WOULDN'T SEND ME BACK TO TEXAS, WOULD YOU?

- Sarito, it seems you are from Texas. Nobody has ever heard that any Texan has become enlightened, so it is a very faraway possibility. Texan and enlightened? -- it has never been heard!

Moreover, if by being a sannyasin you have dropped the idea of these stupid divisions of nations, states, races, religions, and you have become simply a human being, an inhabitant of this whole beautiful planet, you may become enlightened. But certainly I will not send you to Texas, because there is a famous rule of Mars: An expert is anyone from out of town. In Texas nobody is going to hear you. I will send you somewhere else.

The Market-Place Is The Test Of All Your Meditations - OSHO

- OSHO, I HAVE BEEN DOING ALL THE FIVE MEDITATIONS EVERY DAY REGULARLY FOR THREE YEARS AND BECAUSE OF THESE MEDITATIONS I CANNOT DO ANYTHING ELSE. I AM FEELING VERY HAPPY BUT MY FAMILY IS WORRIED. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

- You are overdoing it, sir. You have to choose one meditation. One is enough. Five is too much. Of course you will feel happy because you have nothing else to do. And if the family is worried it is natural, they are right too.

A big Yorkshire farmer found it necessary to go to London for several months and decided to leave one of his best workers in charge. 'I want you to take care of things, Harry, as if I were here myself. Understand' Harry nodded.
Four months later the boss farmer returned to find everything in shape. Said Harry, pointing things out, "The chicks have been laying plenty of eggs, the wheat has grown double strong, the vegetables are better than they've ever been, and as for those monthly spells your wife used to have, I've even got those to stop.'

This is doing too much. This is going too far.

You please come to one meditation. It will be difficult, I know, after three years. You should have asked before. It will be difficult to go back to the world and to work and you will find it a little hard, but it has to be done. I am not teaching you any escapism here -- this is escapism because now you are not doing anything else.

You are dropping all your responsibilities and I am not for that. Those responsibilities have to be fulfilled -- fulfilled with great joy. Your wife, your children, your parents, your old father, your old mother, need you. That is where God has put you -- into a certain responsibility. Fulfill it.

I am against all those escapists who escape from the world and become twenty-four-hour-a-day meditators. I am against them, I am utterly against them. One hour of meditation is enough. Meditation is such a powerful thing that one hour out of twenty four hours is enough. It will illuminate your whole life.

And the test of whether your meditation is succeeding or not is in life. When you meditate and you go to the shop you will know whether you are succeeding in your meditation or not. Are you still as greedy in the shop as you used to be before? Do you still get angry when somebody says something against you?

Can people still manage to push your buttons as easily as before? In the market-place is the test of all your meditations.

If you just do meditations and nothing else that is like preparing and preparing and never going to the examination. That is not right. The test has to be there every day -- one hour meditation, twenty-three hours test. And you will grow strong.

Osho

Thanks to Bodhi from Facebook for providing us with this note. You can check more of his notes @:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42891949173

The Full Moon Night Is The Best For Meditation - Osho

Sannyasins should use the time of night more and more for meditation. You can go deeper, and easily, because the winds are blowing that way; you can move with the winds with less effort. In the day you are moving against the winds. In the day active meditations are good; dynamic meditation is good in the day, dancing meditation is good in the day. But in the night vipassana, silent meditations, just sitting and doing nothing, just relaxing because the whole atmosphere is relaxing.... The sun has gone down, the trees have fallen asleep; it is a totally different quality of energy that surrounds you in the night. It is easy to meditate.
Buddha says: THE MASTER SHINES IN MEDITATION in the night.

Sir Ken Robinson asks "Do schools kill creativity?" [video]

Why Do People Judge? - Osho

Why do people judge?

Why do people judge, why are people so interested in gossiping about others, in finding fault with others, in looking into others' loopholes and defects?


The mind tends to discuss the defects of others. It helps the ego to feel good. Everybody is such a sinner; when everybody is such a sinner, comparatively one feels like a saint. When everybody is doing wrong, it feels good that "At least I am not doing that much wrong."

Hence people talk about others' defects; not only do they talk about them, they go on magnifying them. That's why there is so much joy in gossiping. When the gossip passes from one hand to another hand, it becomes richer. And when it passes back again, something will be added to it. By the evening, if you come to know the gossip that you started in the morning, you will be surprised. In the morning it was just a molehill, now it is a mountain. People are very creative, really creative and inventive.

Steal more and more from me... Osho

I would like more and more writers, poets, film makers to steal as much as they can, because truth is not my property, I am not its owner. let it reach in any way, in anybody's name, in any form, but let it reach.

Beyond Psychology#3 Q#2 : Osho

At Least Make Yourself Happy - OSHO

If you really want to be happy you have to remain young, alive, available to crying, laughter, available to all dimensions, flowing all over, streaming. Then you will remain happy. But remember, you will not get any sympathy. People may throw rocks at you, but that is worth it. People may think that you are irreligious, they may condemn you, they may call names to you, but don't be worried about it. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is your happiness.

Not Just Men, Even Women Are Polygamous. Keep Freedom As A Higher Value Than Love Itself - OSHO

- OSHO, WHENEVER, I AM IN LOVE WITH A MAN, FOR THOSE YEARS NO OTHER MAN ATTRACTS ME. BUT FOR THE MAN, IT'S NOT THE SAME. THOUGH HE IS HAPPY AND SATISFIED WITH ME, AND WANTS TO KEEP THE RELATIONSHIP WITH ME, HE HAS HIS SHORT LOVE AFFAIRS EVERY FEW MONTHS. I UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENT NATURE OF MAN AND WOMAN. I ALSO UNDERSTAND EVERY LOVE RELATIONSHIP HAS ITS PEAKS AND VALLEYS. STILL, SADNESS IN ME KEEPS ON COMING FOR A SHORT WHILE, AND LEAVING. I GIVE A LONG ROPE TO THE MAN. MY FRIENDS SAY I MAKE MYSELF SO AVAILABLE THAT I LET THE MAN TAKE ME FOR GRANTED AND I LOSE MY SELF-RESPECT. OSHO, IS IT SO? I'M NOT CLEAR. I DON'T EXPECT ANYTHING FROM HIM. YOU KNOW ME BETTER. WOULD YOU PLEASE LIKE TO COMMENT?

Neelam, there are many things in your question. First, you have a misunderstanding about man's nature.

You think, as many people in the world think, that man is polygamous, and the woman is monogamous... that the woman wants to live with one man, to love one man, to devote and dedicate herself totally to one man, but man is different in nature -- he wants to love other women too, at least, once in a while.

The reality is: both are polygamous. The woman has been conditioned by man for thousands of years into thinking that she is monogamous. And man is very cunning; he has exploited the woman in many ways. One of the ways is: he has been telling her that man is, by nature, polygamous. All the psychologists, all the sociologists are agreed upon the fact that man is polygamous; and none of them says the same thing about woman.

Celebrating Osho.. and his Divine Love and Blessings

OSHO
NEVER BORN NEVER DIED,
ONLY VISITED THIS PLANET EARTH
BETWEEN
11 DECEMBER 1931 AND 19 JANUARY 1990

You Are Here Because Existence Needs You - Osho

You are here because this existence needs you as you are. Otherwise somebody else would have been here! – the existence would not have helped you to be here, would not have created you. You are fulfilling something very essential, something very fundamental, AS YOU ARE.

And your so-called mahatmas go on teaching you, ”Become a Buddha, become a Christ, become a Krishna.” Nobody tells you just to be yourself. Why should you become a Buddha? If God wanted a Buddha he could have produced as many Buddhas as he wanted. He produced only one Buddha, and that was enough. And he was satisfied to his heart’s desire, utterly satisfied. Since then he has not produced another Buddha or another Christ. He has created you instead. Just think of the
respect that the universe has given to you. You have been chosen! – not Buddha, not Christ, not Krishna.

You will be needed more, that’s why. YOU fit more now. Their work is done, they contributed their fragrance to existence. Now you have to contribute YOUR fragrance. But the moralists, the puritans, the priests, they go on teaching you, they go on driving you crazy. They say to the rose, ”Become a lotus.” And they say to the lotus, ”What are you doing here? You have to become something else.” They drive the whole garden crazy, everything starts dying – because nobody can be anybody else, that is not possible. The rose is a rose and the lotus is a lotus. And the lotus is good as a lotus, it can live only as a lotus. If it tries to be a rose it will die, it will become paralyzed – that is not possible because that is not intrinsic to it; that cannot arise.
And if the lotus really becomes a victim of the priests and starts trying to be a rose, or the rose tries to be a lotus, what is going to happen? The lotus will become pseudo; as a lotus it will start dying, and as a rose it will pretend.
That’s what has happened to humanity. Everybody is pretending. Authenticity is lost, truth is lost, everybody is trying to show that he is somebody else. Just look at yourself: you are pretending to be somebody else. And you can be only yourself – there is no other way, there has never been, there is no possibility that you can be anybody else. You will remain yourself. You can enjoy it and bloom, or you can wither away if you condemn it."

Osho,
Take it Easy, volume 2

When I Say 'Freedom', I Mean Be Responsible - Osho

People go on talking about freedom, but they don't want freedom exactly, they want irresponsibility.

They ask for freedom, but deep down, unconsciously, they ask for irresponsibility, licence.

Freedom is maturity; licence is very childish. Freedom is possible only when you are so integrated that you can take the responsibility of being free. The world is not free because people are not mature.

Revolutionaries have been doing many things down through the centuries, but everything fails. Utopians have been continuously thinking of how to make man free, but nobody bothers -- because man cannot be free unless he is integrated. Only a Buddha can be free, a Mahavira can be free, a Christ, a Mohammed can be free, a Zarathustra can be free, because freedom means the man now is aware. If you are not aware then the state is needed, the government is needed, the police is needed, the court is needed. Then freedom has to be cut from everywhere. Then freedom exists only in name; in fact it doesn't exist. How can freedom exist when governments exist? -- it is impossible. But what to do?

If governments disappear, there will simply be anarchy. Freedom will not come in if governments disappear, there will simply be anarchy. It will be a worse state than it is now. It will be sheer madness. The police are needed because you are not alert. Otherwise, what is the point of having a policeman standing on the crossroad? If people are alert, the policeman can be removed, will have to be removed, because it is unnecessary. But people are not conscious.

So when I say 'freedom', I mean be responsible. The more responsible you become, the more free you become; or, the more free you become, the more responsibility comes on you. Then you have to be very alert to what you are doing, what you are saying. Even about your small unconscious gestures you have to be very alert -- because there is nobody else to control you, it is only you. When I say to you that you are free, I mean that you are a God. It is not licence, it is tremendous discipline.

Osho

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.