Ask Osho - Answers to Questions asked by truthseekers

Osho on Homosexuality

2014-04-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

[A sannyasin said he had a problem with his homosexuality, and he is afraid to be here.]

The first thing: heterosexual or homosexual, the answer is not in sex -- so it is not the question of homosexuality. Even if you are a heterosexual, the answer is not there. Looking in the direction of sex there is no answer, so they are both the same.

The first thing: drop worrying about it! Just by being a heterosexual nothing better is going to happen -- it will be the same. So accept your homosexuality just as you accept other things -- hunger.... Now life's answer is not there in eating food -- every day you will feel hungry again, again full, and again hungry. The answer is not there, but that does not mean that because the answer is not there you stop taking food, otherwise you will die.

The answer is not in taking a bath, but that doesn't mean you should stop taking a bath, otherwise you will become dirty and nauseous. The answer is somewhere else, that is true, but to look somewhere else the basic requirement is to accept your normal things. Don't bother about them too much. If you feel homosexual it is perfectly good, nothing is wrong in it. That is also a way of relating -- nothing wrong in it... a little strange, but nothing abnormal about it.

[The sannyasin says: But I can't relate, that's the problem: I cannot relate to people.]

You think that heterosexuals are relating? Who is relating? Everybody is in the same boat! Relating is a great problem -- you cannot relate unless you are rooted in your being... you cannot relate. It has nothing to do with relationship to the other; it has something to do with your inner integration.

Only an integrated person can relate, and the paradox is that he does not bother! An integrated person is not bothered about relating or not relating: if it happens, good; if it doesn't happen, it's good. He is happy with himself, his happiness does not depend on relationship... but only he can relate. And the person who is not self-integrated cannot relate, is continuously bothered about how to relate, and thinks that everything will be good if he can relate.

You have to come to your consciousness, and I am saying that the first requirement is: don't be disturbed too much about your ordinary life, don't create any obsession. If you feel to be homosexual, it is good; if it changes some day and you become heterosexual, that too is good. If you again become homosexual, that too is good. These are ordinary things, nothing worth being worried about. You need not force your attention on them -- they should be taken for granted.

If you eat this type of food, that is good; if you eat another type of food, that too is good. The problem is not there. For example, somebody comes and he says, 'I smoke a certain brand of cigarettes -- now this is my problem.' The brand cannot be the problem: you can change the brand of cigarettes, but the problem will remain the same. That is exactly the thing with the heterosexual and the homosexual: you just change the brand of the cigarette, nothing else.

The first and very fundamental thing is to accept the way you are so there is no need to be bothered about it, no more energy is to be put there. Once that has happened, your energy is available to move inwards. Then you can put your energy more into meditation, not into thinking about how to relate. How to be, let that be your problem: not how to relate... because you can relate only when you are. How can you relate? -- because you can relate only when you are. How can you relate when you are not?

A man came to Buddha -- he was a very rich man -- and he wanted to serve humanity. He wanted Buddha to bless him so that he could open many charitable institutions, hospitals, colleges, schools, and serve humanity. Buddha looked at him with deep compassion -- as if he were very sorry for the man. The man became a little embarrassed. and he said, 'Why are you looking at me as if I am in some trouble? I am not in any trouble -- I have enough money, don't be worried about that!' Buddha said, 'I am not worried about that... I am worried about how you can help humanity. You are not, so whatsoever you will do will be harmful. Please, first be, then only do something!'

So shift the emphasis. It has nothing to do with heterosexuality, homosexuality; nothing to do with it. I accept it as it is: It is good; don't make a problem out of it. If you make a problem out of it you will be continuously stuck there. Not making a problem of it means that now your energy is available, you can move somewhere else.

And relationship remains difficult.... Only a very few people who have come home can relate. Those who are rooted, grounded in their being, only they can relate; otherwise communication is difficult. In fact there is nothing to relate to, nobody to relate from. With whom are you trying to relate? You are not and the person you are trying to relate to is not -- just two ghosts trying to relate, trying to hug each other, and passing through each other because they are not; so the hugging never happens. They are shadows.... First become substantial. So please accept your homosexuality -- it is perfectly normal, nothing is wrong about it. And this is my feeling: once you have known the world of the homosexual, the world of the heterosexual will never appeal to you. There are a thousand and one reasons for it....

A man easily understands the language of the other man -- the woman has a different attitude about everything. If you cannot relate with a man, it will be more difficult to relate with women, because they don't speak the same language.

I used to stay with a family and I watched the problem. Both the husband and wife are good people, very good people, but are constantly arguing and nagging and constantly at the edge, never at ease. I watched them and I saw what the problem was: they were not speaking the same language. In fact no woman speaks the same language as the man -- cannot! And no man speaks the same language as the woman -- he cannot! They are different types of creatures.

When a woman wants to think about something she talks about it. When a man wants to think about something he keeps quiet. When a man is thinking and the woman comes and disturbs him -- for small things: she may ask 'Would you like to have another cup of coffee?' -- he is angry and he says, 'If I need, I will ask!'

Now, she was very loving and he is very blunt. On the surface it seems that it is very ugly of the man to rebuff her in that way, but what is happening inside? He was thinking about something -- now she brings a cup of coffee and disturbs his whole track of thought. He thinks only when he is silent, and when the woman wants to think, she talks -- that is her way of thinking: she thinks aloud.

A husband sitting silently looks as if he is angry or something, sad or something, and when the wife continuously talks the husband thinks, 'She never thinks! What is the matter? She just goes on talking -- never thinks. She has nothing to say and goes on talking!' Two different kinds of psychologies... so remember that. Once you are interested homosexually you have found a relationship which is easier, less challenging, less risky, with less conflict. That's why homosexuals are called 'gay' -- they are gay! Heterosexuals are always sad, there is always some problem or other.

Homosexuals are really gay, happy people -- they understand each other. If you understand yourself a little bit, you understand the other man you love. There is a great ' understanding between the persons... and it is so with lesbians.

A woman understands another woman. Once a woman is a lesbian it is very difficult to turn her energy into heterosexuality, very difficult because she relates well -- better -- with a woman. She understands her heart -- it is her own heart; they belong to the same world and the same dimension.

So once it happens it becomes very difficult to change. But I am not saying that there is any need to move to the other -- there is no need: accept it, nothing is wrong in it. Accept yourself totally and be happy the way you are.

[The sannyasin says: Really, I want to just get up and dance all the time.... But I feel very restricted.]

No, no, nobody is restricting you. Be gay!

This Is It Chapter #4 4 May 1977

Osho on Homosexuality

2014-04-13T11:16:00.004-07:00

Original Question:

The questioner says: I have a lover...and I have an eating disorder.
Osho asks: The lover is a man?
The questioner answers: Yes.

* * *

Osho:

... that won’t help much. Your Montreal is almost all homosexual, the whole city. That won’t help much, that cannot become the real thing, because both the energies are the same. It cannot give you a deep fulfillment -- at the most it remains masturbatory. A woman is needed. It is as if you are trying to be reborn from a man. I think sooner or later in Montreal people will try that -- to be finished with women completely.

But you are born out of a woman, and deep inside the unconscious you carry an image of a woman, not a man. And unless you find a woman with whom you can be in the same deep love as you were with your mother, into whom you can again enter as you were in the womb of your mother, you will not be fulfilled. You are deceived -- homosexuality will not help. It can give you a certain comfort -- but it is false.

To fit perfectly a man needs a woman, a woman needs a man. They are polar opposites, and that polarity is needed. It is just as if you are trying to create electricity without polar opposites, without positive and negative.

Sex is a deep function of bio-electricity. You are an electrical phenomenon, a woman is an electrical phenomenon. She is negative, you are positive; she is passive, you are active. When the active energy meets with the passive energy in deep communion, there is a fulfillment, there is orgasm. A cosmic experience happens which leaves no emptiness in you, at least for the time being.

But your making love to a man, or a woman making love to a woman, is not going to help. I am not against homosexuality: I am simply stating a fact. I have no condemnation for it, but it will not be fulfilling -- that much I have to say.

...Find a woman. If you cannot find one, tell me.

The questioner answers: I feel very great friendship towards women....I feel love, but I don’t feel like I want to make love.

Osho: You will have to. It has become a habit and you have to get out of it. It has become a dead routine. Make a friendship with a man -- and that you are doing with women. Make love to a woman -- and that you are doing with men. You are topsy-turvy.

The questioner replies: But I was also married....

Osho: You remained homosexual. You have made love to a woman but you were never in it. So try it again, and try here. Just open your eyes and look again. I know how difficult it is, because once homosexuality settles in the mind you are attracted only towards men. Suddenly women don’t exist; they are no longer attractive.

But this is dangerous. Then this food problem will remain with you your whole life -- and this is not the only problem. Others will remain and it will be difficult to solve them. You just have a look. Find a woman, and even if you just feel friendship, bring her to me, because I will have to talk to the woman to force you out of your habit. You will need a very very wise woman to bring you out of your rut. I will make her wise. You just find one! And if you cannot, I will find a woman and force her to seduce you!

But first you try -- because the very effort will be very very good. So from tomorrow morning you start looking. There are many beautiful women around here, don’t be worried. Somebody will take pity!

Once you enter into a relationship, the right relationship in which things flow, your food problem will disappear. It has to disappear; it is not a problem, it is just symptomatic.

Try, and then we will see. Make it a real search, sincerely try to find a woman, mm? Because it is time...if you delay, then every day it will be later and later, and things will become more difficult.

Osho: Above All Don’t Wobble, Chapter 11

Osho on Vipassana

2014-04-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

Question:
Dear Swamiji
I am from kosovo and wanted to start Vipassana meditation. I heard about it but do not know how to do. Can you guide me since i am far from my home and you.
yours
Singha

Osho Answers:

Buddha's way was VIPASSANA - vipassana means witnessing. And he found one of the greatest devices ever: the device of watching your breath, just watching your breath. Breathing is such a simple and natural phenomenon and it is there twenty-four hours a day. You need not make any effort.
Buddha discovered a totally different angle: just watch your breath - the breath coming in, the breath going out. There are four points to be watched. Sitting silently just start seeing the breath, feeling the breath. The breath going in is the first point. Then for a moment when the breath is in it stops - a very small moment it is - for a split second it stops; that is the second point to watch. Then the breath turns and goes out; this is the third point to watch. Then again when the breath is completely out, for a split second it stops; that is the fourth point to watch. Then the breath starts coming in again... this is the circle of breath.
If you can watch all these four points you will be surprised, amazed at the miracle of such a simple process - because mind is not involved. Watching is not a quality of the mind; watching is the quality of the soul, of consciousness; watching is not a mental process at all. When you watch, the mind stops, ceases to be. Yes, in the beginning many times you will forget and the mind will come in and start playing its old games. But whenever you remember that you had forgotten, there is no need to feel repentant, guilty - just go back to watching, again and again go back to watching your breath. Slowly slowly, less and less mind interferes.
And when you can watch your breath for forty-eight minutes as a continuum, you will become enlightened. You will be surprised - just forty-eight minutes - because you will think that it is not very difficult... just forty-eight minutes! It it is very difficult. Forty-eight seconds and you will have fallen victim to the mind many times. Try it with a watch in front of you; in the beginning you cannot be watchful for sixty seconds. In just sixty seconds, that is one minute, you will fall asleep many times, you will forget all about watching - the watch and the watching will both be forgotten. Some idea will take you far far away; then suddenly you will realize... you will look at the watch and ten seconds have passed. For ten seconds you were not watching. But slowly slowly - it is a knack; it is not a practice, it is a knack - slowly slowly you imbibe it, because those few moments when you are watchful are of such exquisite beauty, of such tremendous joy, of such incredible ecstasy, that once you have tasted those few moments you would like to come back again and again - not for any other motive, just for the sheer joy of being there, present to the breath.
Remember, it is not the same process as is done in yoga. In yoga the process is called PRANAYAM; it is a totally different process, in fact just the opposite of what Buddha calls vipassana. In pranayam you take deep breaths, you fill your chest with more and more air, more and more oxygen; then you empty your chest as totally as possible of all carbon dioxide. It is a physical exercise -- good for the body but it has nothing to do with vipassana. In vipassana you are not to change the rhythm of your natural breath, you are not to take long, deep breaths, you are not to exhale in any way differently than you ordinarily do. Let it be absolutely normal and natural. Your whole consciousness has to be on one point; watching.
And if you can watch your breath then you can start watching other things too. Walking you can watch that you are walking, eating you can watch that you are eating, and ultimately, finally, you can watch that you are sleeping. The day you can watch that you are sleeping you are transported into another world. The body goes on sleeping and inside a light goes on burning brightly. Your watchfulness remains undisturbed, then twenty-four hours a day there is an undercurrent of watching. You go on doing things... for the outside world nothing has changed, but for you everything has changed.
Osho: Dhammapada, The Way of the Buddha Vol.5 # 1

धर्म एक उत्सव है !!

2013-04-14T08:33:00.001-07:00

VIDEO_ Rajneeshpuram- Oregon- USA- Luglio 82- foto di Viharo Santoshi &

2013-04-14T08:32:00.001-07:00

शराब का ईलाज

2013-04-14T08:30:00.002-07:00

Osho back to India, Mumbai after world tour 1986 pt4

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Osho back to India, Mumbai after world tour 1986 pt3

2013-04-14T08:25:00.001-07:00

Ram Naam Sat hai

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2013-04-14T08:18:00.002-07:00

Osho on Awareness

2012-03-12T06:19:00.000-07:00

1. The innermost core is witnessing, awareness, watchfulness. You can call it anything, but it will be another meaning of witnessing.

2. Truth is pure awareness.

3. Just by being aware, thoughts start disappearing. There is no need to fight. Your awareness is enough to destroy them. And when the mind is empty, the temple is ready. And inside the temple the only god worth placing is silence. So those three words you have to remember: relaxation, thoughtlessness, silence. And if these three words are no more words to you but become experiences, your life will be transformed.

4. Only very few people are born with awareness. Those are the people who die in awareness. If the death was conscious, then the birth will be conscious, because the death is the one side and the birth is the other side of the same coin.

5. Awareness is the greatest alchemy there is. Just go on becoming more and more aware, and you will find your life changing for the better in every possible dimension. It will bring great fulfillment.

6. I don't have any choice any more. I am in a choiceless awareness. I don't have to be aware. I am simply aware. Now it is just like my heartbeat or like my breathing. Even if I try not to be aware, it is not possible; the very effort will make me more aware. Awareness is not a quality, a characteristic; it is your whole being. When you become aware, there is no choice left to be otherwise.

7. The technique of positive thinking is not a technique that transforms you. It is simply repressing the negative aspects of your personality. It is a method of choice. It cannot help awareness; it goes against awareness. Awareness is always choiceless.

8. I am absolutely against positive thinking. You will be surprised that if you don't choose, if you remain in a choiceless awareness, your life will start expressing something which is beyond both positive and negative, which is higher than both. So you are not going to be a loser. It is not going to be negative, it is not going to be positive, it is going to be existential.

9. If you want to remain totally free, then don't choose. That's where the teaching of choiceless awareness comes in. Why the insistence of the great masters just to be aware and not to choose? Because the moment you choose, you have lost your total freedom, you are left with only a part. But if you remain choiceless, your freedom remains total. So there is only one thing which is totally free and that is choiceless awareness. Everything else is limited.

10. Don't choose. If you choose, you will be in the quagmire. Don't choose! A choiceless awareness is the goal. Just remain aloof; don't choose. The moment you choose, you have fallen into the trap of the world, or into the trap of the mind.

11. Whatever you choose you will repent because the other will remain and haunt you. If one needs absolute freedom then choiceless awareness is the only thing.

12. Awareness means you come with an inner light, you move fully alert. Each step is taken in awareness -- the walking, the coming, the sitting -- everything is done in full awareness.

13. If you are aware, you speak with awareness. But the awareness comes from the inward being. It flows from the inner being towards others.

14. Awareness is an inner quality of consciousness; it has nothing to do with closed or open eyes.

15. Walk, with awareness. Eat, with awareness. Breathe, with awareness.

16. The ego is nothing but condensed unawareness. When you become aware by and by that condensed unawareness we call 'ego' disappears. Just as if you bring a lamp into the room -- and the darkness disappears. Awareness is the lamp, the lamp we were talking about the first day. Be a lamp unto yourself.

17. When you listen with perfect awareness, then listening becomes possible.

18. The body sleeps, the heart sleeps, the mind sleeps -- but you remain alert because you are nothing else but alertness. Everything else is a false identification. Awareness is your nature. The body is your abode. The mind is your computer. Awareness;s you, is your very being.

19. Walk, but make walking a meditation; walk knowingly Breathe, but let your breathing become a constant meditation; breathe knowingly. The breath going in: watch it. The breath going out: watch it. Eat, but eat with full awareness. Take a bite, chew it, but go on watching. Let the watcher be there in every moment, whatsoever you are doing.

20. Sinners live in a sort of hell, and saints imagine themselves in a sort of heaven. And the sage? -- for him it is moksha, for him it is the absolute freedom. He is freed from all duality. The secret key, and the only key, is awareness.

21. For awareness you need not go to the Himalayas; you need not go anywhere. Your life gives you enough opportunities to be aware. Somebody insults you -- listen to it in full awareness. And you will be surprised -- the insult is no more an insult. You may even smile. It does not hurt; it hurts only when received in unawareness. Somebody praises and appreciates you -- listen with alertness. And then nobody can persuade you to do foolish things. Nobody can bribe you; flattery becomes impossible. You will smile at the whole nonsense.

22. Listen. Watch. Be aware. And by and by a different quality of being arises in you which is neither the body nor the feelings nor the thoughts. A different pillar of flame starts gathering within you and becomes more and more crystallized. As this awareness becomes crystallized, for the first time you will feel more and more that you are -- the feeling of being. And then moods will become more and more irrelevant. They will come and go, but you will remain unperturbed. The climate will change around you, but you will remain unchanged. Whatsoever happens on the outside will not in any way change you within. The within remains absolutely pure and uncorrupted.

23. The person who follows the path of awareness finds love as a consequence of his awareness, as a by-product, as a shadow. And the person who follows the path of love finds awareness as a consequence, as a by-product, as a shadow of love. They are two sides of the same coin. And remember: if your awareness lacks love then it is still impure; it has not yet known one hundred percent purity. It is not yet REALLY awareness; it must be mixed with unawareness. It is not pure light; there must be pockets of darkness inside you still working, functioning, influencing you, dominating you. If your love is without awareness, then it is not love yet. It must be something lower, something closer to lust than to prayer.

So let it be a criterion if you follow the path of awareness, let love be the criterion. When your awareness suddenly blooms into love, know perfectly well that awareness has happened, SAMADHI has been achieved. If you follow the path of love, then let awareness function as a criterion, as a touchstone. When suddenly, from nowhere, at the very center of your love. a flame of awareness starts arising, know perfectly well...rejoice! You have come home.

24. Doing brings ego. Ego is the shadow of action. And there is only one thing that is not doing and that is awareness, watchfulness. The only thing that is not part of the world of action is pure awareness. No shadow is created by pure awareness. It is so pure that light can pass through it -- it is transparent and no shadow is created.

25. Consciousness without thinking: that's what awareness is. Being alert and with no thought. Try it! whenever you see thinking gathering, disperse it! pull yourself out of it! Look at the trees with no screens of thinking between you and the trees. Listen to the chirping of the birds with no chirping of the mind inside. Look at the sun rising and feel that inside you also a sun of consciousness is rising... but don't think about it, don't assert, don't state, don't say. Simply be. And, by and by, you will start feeling glimpses of awareness, sudden glimpses of awareness -- as if a fresh breeze has entered into your room which was getting stale and dead; as if a ray of light has entered into the dark night of your soul; as if, suddenly, life has called you back.

26. The deeper your watchfulness becomes, the deeper your awareness becomes, and gaps start arising, intervals. One thought goes and another has not come, and there is a gap. One cloud has passed, another is coming and there is a gap. In those gaps, for the first time you will have glimpses of no-mind, you will have the taste of no-mind. Call it taste of Zen, or Tao, or Yoga. In those small intervals, suddenly the sky is clear and the sun is shining. Suddenly the world is full of mystery because all barriers are dropped. The screen on your eyes is no more there. You see clearly, you see penetratingly. The whole existence becomes transparent.

In the beginning, these will be just rare moments, few and far in between. But they will give you glimpses of what samadhi is. Small pools of silence -- they will come and they will disappear. But now you know that you are on the right track -- you start watching again. When a thought passes, you watch it; when an interval passes, you watch it. Clouds are also beautiful; sunshine also is beautiful. Now you are not a chooser. Now you don't have a fixed mind: you don't say, "I would like only the intervals." That is stupid -- because once you become attached to wanting only the intervals, you have decided again against thinking. And then those intervals will disappear. They happen only when you are very distant, aloof. They happen, they cannot be brought. They happen, you cannot force them to happen. They are spontaneous happenings. Go on watching. Let thoughts come and go -- wherever they want to go. Nothing is wrong! Don't try to manipulate and don't try to direct. Let thoughts move in total freedom. And then bigger intervals will be coming. You will be blessed with small satoris. Sometimes minutes will pass and no thought will be there; there will be no traffic -- a total silence, undisturbed.

27. A Buddha is not a man of concentration, he is a man of awareness. He has not been trying to narrow down his consciousness; on the contrary, he has been trying to drop all barriers so that he becomes totally available to existence. Watch...existence is simultaneous. I am speaking here and the traffic noise is simultaneous. The train, the birds the wind blowing through the trees -- in this moment the whole of existence converges. You listening to me, I speaking to you, and millions of things going on -- it is tremendously rich.

Concentration makes you one-pointed at a very great cost: ninety-nine per cent of life is discarded. If you are solving a mathematical problem, you cannot listen to the birds -- they will be a distraction. Children playing around, dogs barking in the street -- they will be a distraction. Because of concentration, people have tried to escape from life -- to go to the Himalayas, to go to a cave, to remain isolated, so that you can concentrate on God. But God is not an object. God is this wholeness of existence, this moment; God is the totality. That's why science will never be able to know God. The very method of science is concentration and because of that method, science can never know God.

28. If you don't take the lamp of awareness with you, you are going to create a hell around you. Light your lamp wherever you go -- courting, not courting, that is not the point. Wherever you go, whatsoever you do, always do it in the inner light, with awareness.

29. Remember, whenever you have two things, two alternatives, choose the new one, choose the harder, choose the one in which more awareness will be needed. At the cost of efficiency always choose awareness, and you will create the situation in which meditation will become possible. These are all just situations. Meditation will happen. I am not saying that just by doing them you will get to meditation -- but they will be helpful. They will create the necessary situation in you without which meditation cannot happen. Be less efficient but more creative. Let that be the motive. Don't be bothered too much about utilitarian ends. Rather, constantly remember that you are not here in life to become a commodity; you are not here to become an utility, that is below dignity;. you are not here just to become more and more efficient -- you are here to become more and more alive; you are here to become more and more intelligent; you are here to become more and more happy, ecstatically happy. But that is totally different from the ways of the mind.

Osho on Aloneness and Loneliness

2012-03-12T06:10:00.000-07:00

1. The aloneness is total and complete. Not loneliness but aloneness. Loneliness is always concerned with others; aloneness is concerned with oneself.

2. Aloneness is the joy of being just yourself. It is being joyous with yourself, it is enjoying your own company. There are very few people who enjoy their own company. And it is a very strange world: nobody enjoys his company and everybody wants others to enjoy his company! If they don't enjoy he feels insulted -- and alone he feels disgusted with himself. In fact, if YOU cannot enjoy your own company, who else is going to enjoy it?

3. Aloneness, solitude is positive. It is overflowing joy for no reason. It is our very nature to be joyous; hence there is no need to depend on anybody else. There is no other motive in it, it is simply there. Just as the water flows downwards, your being rises upwards. Just give it a chance -- give it solitude. And remember again, solitude is not solitariness, just as aloneness is not loneliness.

4. Only a no-thought is pure, because then you are utterly yourself, alone, nothing interfering. Jean-Paul Sartre says: The other is hell. And he is right in a way, because whenever you are thinking of the other you are in hell. And all thoughts are addressed to others. When you are in a state of no-thought you are alone, and aloneness is purity. And in that aloneness happens all that is worth happening.

5. Your aloneness is your essential being.

6. Meditation is total freedom, aloneness, the flight of the alone to the alone. There is no other, so there is no question of drowning yourself, but one hundred percent mindfulness will be needed -- less than that won't do.

7. Meditation means being ecstatic in your aloneness. But when you become ecstatic in your aloneness, soon the ecstasy is so much that you cannot contain it. It starts overflowing you. And when it starts overflowing you it becomes love. Meditation allows love to happen. And the people who have not known meditation will never know love. They may pretend that they love but they cannot. They will only pretend -- because they don't have anything to give, they are not overflowing.

8. You can be alone, but that aloneness may not be true aloneness. It may be only loneliness, and you may be thinking and fantasizing about all kinds of things. Aloneness comes out of awareness; it has nothing to do with where you are in the outside world but where you are in the INSIDE world.

9. Through aloneness, the ego is shattered. It has nothing to relate to, so it cannot exist. So if you are ready to be alone, unwaveringly alone, neither escaping nor falling back, just accepting the fact of aloneness as it is -- it becomes a great opportunity. Then you are just like a seed that has much potential in it. But remember, the seed must destroy itself for the plant to grow. Ego is a seed, a potentiality. If it is shattered, the divine is born. The divine is neither "I" nor "thou," it is one. Through aloneness, you come to this oneness.

10. Consciousness has come to the point now where you know that you are alone. And only in aloneness can you attain enlightenment. I am not saying loneliness. The feeling of loneliness is the feeling that comes when one is escaping from aloneness, when one is not ready to accept it. If you do not accept the fact of aloneness, then you will feel lonely. Then you will find some crowd or some means of intoxication in which to forget yourself.

11. The first thing we must do is to accept aloneness as a basic fact and learn to live with it. We must not create any fictions. If you create fictions you will never be able to know the truth. Fictions are projected, created, cultivated truths that prevent you from knowing what is. Live with the fact of your aloneness. If you can live with this fact, if there is no fiction between you and this fact, then the truth will be revealed to you. Every fact, if looked into deeply, reveals the truth.

12. If you become aware of your aloneness, then you become aware of the aloneness of others also. Then you know that to try to possess another is trespassing.

13. You must make a distinction between two words: lonely and alone. In the dictionary they carry the same meaning, but those who have been meditating, they know the distinction. They are not the same, they are as different as possible. Loneliness is an ugly thing; loneliness is a depressive thing -- it is a sadness; it is an absence of the other. Loneliness is the absence of the other -- you would like the other to be there, but the other is not, and you feel that and you miss them. YOU are not there in loneliness, the absence of the other is there. Alone? -- it is totally different. YOU are there, it is your presence; it is a positive phenomenon. You don't miss the other, you meet yourself.

Then you are alone, alone like a peak, tremendously beautiful! Sometimes you even feel a terror -- but it has a beauty. But the presence is the basic thing: you are present to yourself. You are not lonely, you are with yourself. Alone, you are not lonely, you are with yourself. Lonely, you are simply lonely -- there is no one. You are not with yourself and you are missing the other. Loneliness is negative, an absence; aloneness is positive, a presence.

If you are alone, you grow, because there is space to grow -- nobody else to hamper, nobody else to obstruct, nobody else to create more complex problems. Alone you grow, and as much as you want to grow you can grow because there is no limit, and you are happy being with yourself, and a bliss arises. There is no comparison: because the other is not there you are neither beautiful nor ugly, neither rich nor poor, neither this nor that, neither white nor black, neither man nor woman. Alone, how can you be a woman or a man? Lonely, you are a woman or a man, because the other is missing. Alone, you are no one, empty, empty of the other completely.

And remember, when the other is not, the ego cannot exist: it exists with the other. Either present or absent, the other is needed for ego. To feel 'I' the other is needed, a boundary of the other. Fenced from the neighbors I feel 'I'. When there is no neighbor, no fencing, how can you feel 'I'? You will be there, but without any ego. The ego is a relationship, it exists only in relationship.

14. First move from things to thoughts, then from thoughts to the thinker. Things are the world of science, thought is the world of art and the thinker is the world of religion. Just go on moving inwards. The first circumference around you is of things, the second of thoughts, and the third, the centre, your very being, is nothing but consciousness. It is nothing but a witnessing. Drop things and go into thoughts; then one day thoughts also have to be dropped and then you are left alone in your purity, then you are left absolutely alone. In that aloneness is God, in that aloneness is liberation, moksha, in that aloneness is nirvana, in that aloneness for the first time you are in the real.

15. Ordinarily a man is alone, a woman is alone. Loneliness is there. Even if you are attached to a man or woman or a friend, and it is only the attachment of lust, you will remain lonely. Have you not watched it? Attached to a woman, attached to a man, but still you remain lonely. Somewhere deep down there is no communication with the other; you are cut off, like islands. Even dialogue seems to be impossible. Lovers ordinarily never talk to each other, because each talk creates argument, and each talk brings conflict. By and by, they learn to be silent; by and by, they learn somehow to avoid the other, or at the most, tolerate. But they remain lonely. Even if the other is there, there is space; the inner space remains unfulfilled.

16. On the path of meditation, aloneness is sought, desired, hoped for, prayed for. Be alone. So much so that not even in your consciousness does any shadow of the other move. On the path of love, get so dissolved that only the other becomes real and you become a shadow and by and by you completely disappear. On the path of love, God remains, you disappear; on the path of meditation, God disappears, you appear. But the total and the ultimate result is the same. A great synthesis happens.

17. In fact, mountain/valley are one thing, so are love and meditation, so are relationship and aloneness. The mountain of aloneness rises only in the valleys of relationship. In fact, you can enjoy aloneness only if you can enjoy relationship. It is relationship that creates the need for aloneness, it is a rhythm.

18. Aloneness makes you overfull. Love receives your gifts. Love empties you so that you can become full again. Whenever you are emptied by love, aloneness is there to nourish you, to integrate you. And this is a rhythm.

19. I have always been alone on my path. Even today I am absolutely alone. Your being here does not make any difference -- my aloneness remains untouched -- because aloneness is so intrinsic. Nobody can enter into your aloneness. You can be in the crowd and absolutely alone, but you may be alone and not alone at all. You can sit in a cave in the Himalayas and still think of the crowd, of the girlfriend and the boyfriend and the marketplace and what is going on there....

20. Aloneness is also one of the fundamental experiences as you enter silence. In silence there is nobody else, you are simply alone. The deeper your silence will be, thoughts will be gone, emotions will be gone, sentiments will be gone -- just pure being, a flame of light, burning alone. One can get scared because we are so much accustomed to living with people -- in the crowd, in the marketplace, in all kinds of relationships. You may not be aware that in all these relationships -- with friends, with your husbands, with your wives, with your children, with your parents -- you are basically trying to avoid the experience of aloneness. These are strategies so that you are always with somebody.

It is a well-known fact, psychologically established, that if a person is left alone in isolation, after seven days he starts talking... a little like whispering. For seven days he keeps talking inside, keeps himself engaged in the mind, but then it becomes too much -- things start coming out of his mind through his mouth and he starts whispering. After fourteen days you can hear him clearly, what he is saying. After twenty-one days he does not bother about anybody, he has gone insane; now he is talking to walls, to pillars, "Hello friend, how are you?" -- to a pillar, hugging a pillar! And this is true not about somebody special, it is true about everybody. He is trying to find some relationship. If he cannot find it in reality, he will create a hallucination.

You will see: just stand by the side of the road and watch people going from the office to the house, and you will be surprised. They are alone -- although there is a crowd all around -- but they are talking to themselves. They are making gestures, they are telling somebody something... because the crowd around them is not related to them. They are alone in the crowd, so they are trying to create their own illusion. Maybe they are talking to their wife, to their boss -- there are many things which cannot be said but right now they can say them. In front of the wife they cannot say it, but in this crowd, where everybody is engaged in his own thing, everybody is doing his own thing, they can say things to the wife. Nobody is listening, and at least one thing is certain -- the wife is not there! But they need the wife, they need someone to talk to. And after thirty days of isolation, a dramatic change happens: it is not only one- sided; it is not only that they are talking to the pillar, the pillar also starts talking to them! They do both things: first, "Hello, how are you?" and then, "I am good. I am fine, doing well." They answer from the side of the pillar too -- in a different voice. Now they have created a world of their own, they are no longer alone. No madman is alone. Either you are mad or not. If you don't know aloneness, there is something of madness in you.

Only pure aloneness gives you a clean sanity. You don't need the other; the dependence on the other is no more there, you are enough unto yourself. Language is meaningless because language is a medium to relate with the other. The moment you are no longer dependent on the other, language is meaningless, words are meaningless. In your silence -- when there are no words, no language, nobody else is present -- you are getting in tune with existence. This serenity, this silence, this aloneness will bring you immense rewards. It will allow you to grow to your full potential. For the first time you will be an individual, for the first time you will have the touch and the taste of freedom, and for the first time the immensity, the unboundedness of existence will be yours with all its blissfulness.

So whatever happens in silence -- either sadness or aloneness -- remember, in silence nothing wrong can ever happen. Whatever happens is going to enhance the beauty of it, deepen the charm of it; anything that happens will bring more and more flowers, more and more fragrance to it.

21. Loneliness is a negative state of mind. Aloneness is positive, notwithstanding what the dictionaries say. In dictionaries, loneliness and aloneness are synonymous -- they are synonyms; in life they are not. Loneliness is a state of mind when you are constantly missing the other, aloneness is the state of mind when you are constantly delighted in yourself. Loneliness is miserable, aloneness is blissful. Loneliness is always worried, missing something, hankering for something, desiring for something; aloneness is a deep fulfillment, not going out, tremendously content, happy, celebrating. In loneliness you are off center, in aloneness you are centered and rooted. Aloneness is beautiful. It has an elegance around it, a grace, a climate of tremendous satisfaction. Loneliness is; beggarly; all around it there is begging and nothing else. It has no grace around it. In fact it is ugly. Loneliness is a dependence, aloneness is SHEER independence. One feels as if one is one's whole world, one's whole

Osho on Addiction

2012-03-12T06:05:00.000-07:00

1. To me transcendence comes out of your experience. You see the futility of something and the addiction drops. Then once in a while, just for a change, if you want to smoke I don't see any harm; if you want to make love I don't see any harm. The harm is in the addiction -- the harm is not in the act. And transcendence is not concerned with the act; transcendence is concerned with the addiction.

2. To be addicted is bad. It gives you a kind of dependence. And all addictions are bad. There are no good addictions -- addiction as such is bad.

3. I am not against anything -- but nothing should become an addiction. Otherwise you are in a very very confused state.

4. These therapists came from the West to me because in the West therapy was going out of fashion. People were tired, because what is the point? -- for a few days you feel great and then come the dumps. You feel worse than before. Then to go again to the therapist becomes a kind of addiction.

And there is no end to it. People go on moving from one therapy to another therapy their whole life, always feeling, "This is going to work." And it seems to work for a while, but it does not change anything basic, just superficial touches, so you are again back to zero.

5. People don't believe in what you say, people believe in the way you say it. And once you have learned the art of telling lies it becomes an addiction, because people start believing in you, you start becoming powerful. And then, if you can manage a few more things, your power will be immense.

6. Work is good but it should not become an addiction. Many people have made their work like a drug so they can forget themselves in their work -- just like a drunkard forgetting himself in alcohol.

7. The chewing gum keeps them engaged, and that's how cigarettes keep them engaged. That's how people go on gossiping with each other. That keeps them engaged. Nobody bothers whether it is true or false, that is not the point. The question is: How to keep engaged and away from yourself? So the workaholics are against meditation. Every addiction is going to prevent you from becoming a meditator. All addictions have to be dropped. But to be total in your work is a totally different thing. To be total in your work is not addiction, it is a kind of meditation. When you are totally in your work, your work has a possibility of perfection, you will have a joy arising out of a perfect work.

8. A very strange thing about addiction is that if you have the drug, it is nothing; if you don't have it, you are missing. You never think what you are missing because when you have it, it is nothing. Each time you have it you feel that it is just a futile effort, nothing comes out of it. You don't move a single inch in evolution. You just jump for a moment in the air and with a thump you fall back on the ground.

Osho on money

2012-03-12T06:01:00.001-07:00

1. Look at American newspapers and you will see that you are missing: happiness can be purchased just through money. They create a feeling that you are missing something; then you start working for it, then you earn money, then you purchase it. And then you feel that you have been deceived. But that feeling is not very deep, because before you feel that you have been deceived some new deceptions have entered the mind, and now they are pulling you ahead. You must have a hill station house, or you must have a summer resort, or you must have a yacht -- something is always there to be achieved. Only then will you be happy. They will go on pulling you up to your death. Until you die, those advertisements, that propaganda, will go on pulling you.

2. The materialistic pattern of life is that where money predominates over everything. The non-materialistic life is that where money is just a means — happiness predominates, joy predominates; your own individuality predominates. You know who you are and where you are going, and you are not distracted. Then suddenly you will see your life has a meditative quality to it.

3. One of the greatest problems that money creates is that you never know whether you are loved or your money is loved, whether you are desirable or your money is desirable. And it is so difficult to figure out, that one would have preferred not to have had money; at least life would have been simple.

4. A real spirituality must be rooted in earthliness. Any spirituality that denies the earth, rejects the earth, becomes abstract, becomes airy-fairy. It has no more blood in it; it is no more alive. Yes, Jews are very earth-bound. And what is wrong in having money? One should not be possessive; one should be able to use it. And Jews know how to use it! One should not be miserly. Money has to be created and money has to be used. Money is a beautiful invention, a great blessing, if rightly used. It makes many things possible. Money is a magical phenomenon.

If you have a ten-rupee note in your pocket, you have thousands of things in your pocket. You can have anything with those ten rupees. You can materialize a man who will massage your body the whole night! Or you can materialize food or you can materialize ANYTHING! That ten-rupee note carries many possibilities. You cannot carry all those possibilities with you if there is no note; then your life will be very limited. You can have a man who can massage your body, but then that is the only possibility you have with you. If you suddenly feel hungry or thirsty, then that man cannot do anything else. But a ten-rupee note can do many things, millions of things; it has infinite possibilities. It is one of the greatest inventions of man; there is no need to be against it. I am not against it.

Use it. Don't cling to it. Clinging is bad. The more you cling to money, the poorer the world becomes because of your clinging, because money is multiplied if it is always moving from one hand to another hand. In English we have another name for money which is more significant -- it is "currency." That simply indicates that money should always remain moving like a current. It should always be on the move from one hand to another hand. The more it moves the better. For example, if I have a ten-rupee note and I keep it to myself, then there is only one ten-rupee note in the world. If I give it to you and you give it to somebody else and each person goes on giving, if it goes through ten hands then we have a hundred rupees, we have used a hundred rupees' worth of utilities; the ten rupees is multiplied by ten. And Jews know how to use money; nothing is wrong in it. Yes, greed is bad. Greed means you become obsessed with money; you don't use it as a means, it becomes the end. That is bad, and it is bad whether you are a Jew or a Jaina, Hindu or Mohammedan; it doesn't matter.

5. The mind always hankers for more and more. If you have money, it hankers for more money; if you have prestige, it hankers for more prestige; if you have knowledge, it hankers for more knowledge. Mind lives in the “more.”

6. Our whole attitude about life is money-oriented. And money is one of the most uncreative things one can become interested in. Our whole approach is power-oriented and power is destructive, not creative. A man who is after money will become destructive, because money has to be robbed, exploited; it has to be taken away from many people, only then can you have it. Power simply means you have to make many people impotent, you have to destroy them -- only then will you be powerful, can you be powerful. Remember: these are destructive acts. A creative act enhances the beauty of the world; it gives something to the world, it never takes anything from it. A creative person comes into the world, enhances the beauty of the world -- a song here, a painting there. He makes the world dance better, enjoy better, love better, meditate better. When he leaves this world, he leaves a better world behind him. Nobody may know him; somebody may know him -- that is not the point. But he leaves the world a better world, tremendously fulfilled because his life has been of some intrinsic value.

Money, power, prestige, are uncreative; not only uncreative, but destructive activities. Beware of them! And if you beware of them you can become creative very easily. I am not saying that your creativity is going to give you power, prestige, money. No, I cannot promise you any rose-gardens. It may give you trouble. It may force you to live a poor man's life. All that I can promise you is that deep inside you will be the richest man possible; deep inside you will be fulfilled; deep inside you will be full of joy and celebration. You will be continuously receiving more and more blessings from God. Your life will be a life of benediction.

But it is possible that outwardly you may not be famous, you may not have money, you may not succeed in the so-called world. But to succeed in this so-called world is to fail deeply, is to fail in the inside world. And what are you going to do with the whole world at your feet if you have lost your own self? What will you do if you possess the whole world and you don't possess yourself? A creative person possesses his own being; he is a master. That's why in the East we have been calling sannyasins 'swamis'. 'Swami' means a master. Beggars have been called swamis -- masters. Emperors we have known, but they proved in the final account, in the final conclusion of their lives, that they were beggars. A man who is after money and power and prestige is a beggar, because he continuously begs. He has nothing to give to the world.

7. Everybody is immensely strong because everybody is immensely divine. Everybody is strong because everybody is rooted in God, in the very origin of existence. Remember it The human mind tends to forget it. When you forget it, you become weak. When you become weak,.you start trying some artificial ways to become strong. That's what millions of people are doing. Searching for money, what are you really searching? You are searching power, you are searching strength. Searching for prestige, political authority, what are you searching? You are searching power, strength -- and strength is all the time available just by the corner. You are searching in wrong places.

8. Don't be too much concerned about money, because that is the greatest distraction against happiness. And the irony of ironies is that people think they will be happy when they have money. Money has nothing to do with happiness. If you are happy and you have money, you can use it for happiness. If you are unhappy and you have money, you will use that money for more unhappiness. Because money is simply a neutral force.

I am not against money, remember. Don't misinterpret me: I am not against money -- I am not against anything. Money is a means. If you are happy and you have money, you will become more happy. If you are unhappy and you have money, you will become more unhappy because what will you do with your money? Your money will enhance your pattern, whatsoever it is. If you are miserable and you have power, what will you do with your power? You will poison yourself more with your power, you will become more miserable. But people go on looking for money as if money is going to bring happiness. People go on looking for respectability as if respectability is going to give you happiness. People are ready, at any moment, to change their pattern, to change their ways, if more money is available somewhere else.

9. You earn money, and one day money is there -- then life says to you, 'What have you got?' But you don't listen. Now you think you have to put your money into politics, you have to become a prime minister or a president -- then everything will be okay. One day you are a prime minister, and life again says, 'What have you got?' You don't listen. You go on thinking of something else and something else and something else. Life is vast -- that's why many lives are wasted.

10. We have been distracted into unnatural motivations: money, prestige, power. Listening to the cuckoo is not going to give you money. Listening to the cuckoo is not going to give you power, prestige. Watching the butterfly is not going to help you economically, politically, socially. These things are not paying, but these things make you happy.

11. People go on postponing everything that is meaningful. Tomorrow they will laugh; today, money has to be gathered… more money, more power, more things, more gadgets. Tomorrow they will love — today there is no time. But tomorrow never comes, and one day they find themselves burdened with all kinds of gadgets, burdened with money. They have come to the top of the ladder — and there is nowhere to go except to jump in a lake.

12. You earn money, you become the richest man in the world -- you become an Andrew Carnegie. And at the peak, when you have become the richest man in the world, suddenly you see your whole life has been a wastage. Money is there, but there is no contentment inside -- and life has gone down the drain.

What is life

2012-03-12T05:45:00.001-07:00

Is Osho still alive?

2011-09-25T01:20:00.000-07:00

Osho never born and never died only visited this planet earth between December 11, 1931 and 19 January 1990. But yes he is still alive not in terms of body but in terms of consciousness. I have been feeling his presence for years. Seekers of truth have been connecting with Osho through several ways. In his discourses he had been saying about what after he is gone.

Once I am unembodied, my consciousness is universal. Fight now you have to come to me.
'Then, you will not need to seek and search for me.
Wherever you are ... your thirst, your love ... and you will find me in your very heart, in your very heartbeat.
Beyond Enlightenment
October 13, 1986 Evening

Osho and Buddha

2011-03-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

In terms of inner dimentions Osho and Buddha are not two but, as person they are separate. In osho one can see Buddha,Mahavira,Jesus,Srikrishna,and all other enlightened beings. It is because He is the essence of all the enlightened beings in the mankind up to now. Moreover we can say all thease beings have become alive again in Osho.

Osho on Past Life Regression

2011-03-28T08:37:00.000-07:00

According to Osho Past life Regression is very essential in the progress of meditation. As a person can never be the same if he recognizes what he is doing now, he was doing in past as well, and he suddenly gets enlightened of the fact that he is just repeating the things. And a meditator can not repeat the things blindly.

OSHO ONLINE

2010-12-06T20:44:00.000-08:00

oshoonline.blogspot.com is a very nice place to download, listen OSHO online. There is good collection of OSHO Music,Bhajans,Videos,Quotes. Thanks to Cooldeep for doing this work for our Master.

2010-09-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

According to Osho fear is also the kind of energy. You can transcend it through being conscious whenever fear arises.
Let us see what Osho has to say on fear of death.

The first thing I would like to tell you about death is that there is no bigger lie than death. And yet, death appears to be true. It not only appears to be true but even seems like the cardinal truth of life–it appears as if the whole of life is surrounded by death. Whether we forget about it, or become oblivious to it, everywhere death remains close to us. Death is even closer to us than our shadow….

What I wish to say is that it is essential to see death, to understand it, to recognize it. But this is possible only when we die; one can only see it while dying. Then what is the way now? And if one sees death only while dying, then there is no way to understand it–because at the time of death one will be unconscious.

Yes, there is a way now. We can go through an experiment of entering into death of our own free will. And may I say that meditation or samadhi is nothing else but that. The experience of entering death voluntarily is meditation, samadhi. The phenomenon that will automatically occur one day with the dropping of the body–we can willingly make that happen by creating a distance, inside, between the self and the body. And so, by leaving the body from the inside, we can experience the event of death, we can experience the occurrence of death.

We can experience death today, this evening–because the occurrence of death simply means that our soul and our body will experience, in that journey, the same distinction between the two of them as when the vehicle is left behind and the traveler moves on ahead….

If the shell, the body, and the kernel, the consciousness, separate at this very instant, death is finished. With the creation of that distance, you come to know that the shell and the kernel are two separate things–that you will continue to survive in spite of the breaking of the shell, that there is no question of you breaking, of you disappearing. In that state, even though death will occur, it cannot penetrate inside you–it will occur outside you. It means only that which you are not will die. That which you are will survive.

This is the very meaning of meditation or samadhi: learning how to separate the shell from the kernel. They can be separated because they are separate. They can be known separately because they are separate. That’s why I call meditation a voluntary entry into death. And the man who enters death willingly, encounters it and comes to know that, “Death is there, and yet I am still here.”…

In meditation, too, one has to enter slowly within. And gradually, one after another, things begin to drop away. A distance is created with each and every thing, and a moment arrives when it feels as if everything is lying far away at a distance. It will feel as if someone else’s corpse is lying on the shore–and yet you exist. The body is lying there and still you exist–separate, totally distinct and different.

Once we experience seeing death face-to-face while alive, we will never have anything to do with death again. Death will keep on coming, but then it will be just like a stopover–it will be like changing clothes, it will be like when we take new horses and ride in new bodies and set out on a new journey, on new paths, into new worlds. But death will never be able to destroy us. This can only be known by encountering death. We will have to know it; we will have to pass through it.

Because we are so very afraid of death, we are not even able to meditate. Many people come to me and say that they are unable to meditate. How shall I tell them that their real problem is something else? Their real problem is the fear of death…and meditation is a process of death. In a state of total meditation we reach the same point a dead man does. The only difference is that the dead man reaches there in an unconscious state, while we reach consciously. This is the only difference. The dead man has no knowledge of what happened, of how the shell broke open and the kernel survived. The meditative seeker knows that the shell and the kernel have become separate.

The fear of death is the basic reason why people cannot go into meditation–there is no other reason. Those who are afraid of death can never enter into samadhi. Samadhi is a voluntary invitation to death. An invitation is given to death: “Come, I am ready to die. I want to know whether or not I will survive after death. And it is better that I know it consciously, because I won’t be able to know anything if this event occurs in an unconscious state.”

So, the first thing I say to you is that as long as you keep running away from death you will continue to be defeated by it–and the day you stand up and encounter death, that very day death will leave you, but you will remain.

These three days, all my talks will be on the techniques of how you can encounter death. I hope that, these three days, many people will come to know how to die, will be able to die….

Knowing death causes it to dissolve; then suddenly, for the first time, we become connected with life.

That’s why I told you that the first thing about meditation is that it is a voluntary entry into death. The second thing I would like to say is that one who enters into death willingly, finds, all of a sudden, entrance into life. Even though he goes in search of death, instead of meeting death he actually finds ultimate life. Even though, for the purpose of his search he enters the mansion of death, he actually ends up in the temple of life. And one who escapes from the mansion of death never reaches the temple of life….

I say both things simultaneously: meditation is entering voluntarily into death, and the one who enters death voluntarily attains to life. That means: one who encounters death ultimately finds that death has disappeared and he is in life’s embrace. This looks quite contrary–you go in search of death and come across life–but it is not….

These three days we shall do the meditation of entering into death. And I shall speak to you on many of its dimensions. Tonight we shall do the first day’s meditation. Let me explain a few things about it to you….

Osho on Marriage - Marriage should be transcended

2010-04-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

Question - Why do you appear to put down Marriage and yet tell people to get Married?
Osho - This is from Anurag. To me, marriage is a dead thing. It is an institution, and you cannot live in an institution; only mad people live in institutions. It is a substitute for love. Love is dangerous: to be in love is to be in a storm, constantly. You need courage and you need awareness, and you are to be ready for anything. There is no security in love; love is insecure. Marriage is a security: the registry office, the police, the court are behind it. The state, the society, the religion -- they are all behind it. Marriage is a social phenomenon. Love is individual, personal, intimate.

Because love is dangerous, insecure.... And nobody knows where love will lead. It is just like a cloud -- moving with no destination. Love is a hidden cloud, whereabouts unknown. Nobody knows where it is at any moment of time. Unpredictable -- no astrologer can predict anything about love. About marriage? -- astrologers are very, very helpful; they can predict.

Man has to create marriage because man is afraid of the unknown. On all levels of life and existence, man has created substitutes: for love there is marriage; for real religion there are sects -- they are like marriages. Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, Jainism -- they are not real religion. Real religion has no name; it is like love. But because love is dangerous and you are so afraid of the future, you would like to have some security. You believe more in insurance companies than in life. That's why you have created marriage.

Marriage is more permanent than love. Love may be eternal, but it is not permanent. It may continue forever and forever, but there is no inner necessity for it to continue. It is like a flower: bloomed in the morning, by the evening gone. It is not like the rock. Marriage is more permanent; you can rely on it. In old age it will be helpful.

It is a way to avoid difficulties, but whenever you avoid difficulties and challenges you have avoided growth also. Married people never grow. Lovers grow, because they have to meet the challenge every moment -- and with no security. They have to create an inner phenomenon. With security you need not bother to create anything; the society helps. Marriage is a formality, a legal bondage. Love is of the heart; marriage is of the mind. That's why I am never in favor of marriage.

But the question is pertinent, relevant, because sometimes I tell people to get married. Marriage is a hell, but sometimes people need it. What to do? So I have to tell them to get into marriage. They need to pass through the hell of it, and they cannot understand the hell of it unless they pass through it. I am not saying that in marriage love cannot grow; it can grow, but there is no necessity for it. I am not saying that in love marriage cannot grow; it can grow, but there is no necessity, no logical necessity in it.

Love can become marriage, but then it is a totally different kind of marriage: it is not a social formality, it is not an institution, it is not a bondage. When love becomes marriage it means two individuals decide to live together -- but in absolute freedom, nonpossessive of each other. Love is nonpossessive; it gives freedom.

When love grows into marriage, marriage is not an ordinary thing. It is absolutely extraordinary. It has nothing to do with the registry office. You may need the registry office also, the social sanction may be needed, but those are just on the periphery; they are not the central core of it. In the center is the heart, in the center is freedom.

And sometimes out of marriage also love can grow, but it rarely happens. Out of marriage love rarely happens. At the most, familiarity. At the most, a certain kind of sympathy, not love. Love is passionate; sympathy is dull. Love is alive; sympathy is just so-so, lukewarm.

But why do I tell people to get married? When I see that they are after security, when I see that they are after social sanction, when I see they are afraid, when I see that they cannot move into love if marriage is not there, then I tell them to go into it -- but I will go on helping them to go beyond it. I will go on helping them to transcend it.

Marriage should be transcended; only then real marriage happens. Marriage should be forgotten completely. In fact the other person you have been in love with should always remain a stranger and never should be taken for granted. When two persons live as strangers, there is a beauty to it, a very simple, innocent beauty to it. And when you live with somebody as a stranger....

And everybody is a stranger. You cannot know a person. Knowledge is very superficial; a person is very profound. A person is an infinite mystery. That's why we say everybody carries a god within. How can you know a god? At the most you can touch the periphery. And the more you know about a person, the more humble you will become -- the more you will feel that the mystery is untouched. In fact the mystery becomes more and more deep. The more you know, the less you feel that you know.

If lovers are really in love, they will never reduce the other person to a known entity; because only things can be known -- persons never. Only things can become part of knowledge. A person is a mystery -- the greatest mystery there is.

Transcend marriage. It is not a question of legality, formality, family -- all that nonsense. Needed, because you live in a society, but transcend; don't be finished at that. And don't try to possess a person. Don't start feeling that the other is the husband -- you have reduced the beauty of the person into an ugly thing: husband. Never say that this woman is your wife -- the stranger is no longer there; you have reduced it to a very profane level, to a very ordinary level of things. Wives and husbands belong to the world. Lovers belong to the other shore.

Remember the sacredness and holiness of the other. Never impinge on it; never trespass it. A lover is always hesitant. He always gives you space to be yourself. He is grateful; he never feels that you are his possession. He is thankful that sometimes in rare moments you allow him your innermost shrine to enter and to be with you. He is always thankful.

But husbands and wives are always complaining, never thankful -- always fighting. And if you watch their fight it is ugly. The whole beauty of love disappears. Only a very ordinary reality exists: the wife, the husband, the children, and the day-to-day routine. The unknown no longer touches it. That's why you will see dust gathers around -- a wife looks dull, a husband looks dull. Life has lost meaning, vibrancy, significance. It is no longer a poetry; it has become gross.

Love is poetry. Marriage is ordinary prose, good for ordinary communication. If you are purchasing vegetables, good; but if you are looking at the sky and talking to God, not enough -- poetry is needed. Ordinary life is proselike. A religious life is poetrylike: a different rhythm, a different meter, something of the unknown and the mysterious.

I am not in favor of marriage. Don't misunderstand me -- I am not saying to live with people unmarried. Do whatsoever the society wants to be done, but don't take it as the whole. That is just the periphery; go beyond it. And I tell you to get married if I feel that this is what you need. In fact if I feel that you need to go in hell I would allow you -- and push you -- to go in hell, because that is what you need, and that is how you will grow.

Source: from Osho Book "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 6"

Osho on love.

2010-04-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

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.

You talk about love but the deep desire is to exploit the other. And I am not saying that you are doing it deliberately or consciously. People are falling in love with horses, dogs, animals, machines, things. Why? Because to be in love with human beings has become an utter hell, a continuous conflict -- nagging, always at each other's throats. This is the lowest form of love. Nothing is wrong with it if you can use it as a steppingstone , if you can use it as a meditation.

If you can watch it, if you try to understand it, in that very understanding you will reach another rung, you will start moving upwards. Only at the highest peak, when love is not a relationship any more, when love becomes a state of your being, the lotus opens totally and great perfume is released -- but only at the highest peak. At its lowest, love is just a political relationship. At its highest, love is a religious state of consciousness. I love you too, Buddha loves, Jesus loves, but their love demands nothing in return.

Their love is given for the sheer joy of giving it; it is not a bargain. Hence the radiant beauty of it, hence the transcendental beauty of it. It surpasses all the joys that you have known. When I talk about love, I am talking about love as a state. It is unaddressed: you don't love this person or that person, you simply love. You are love. Rather than saying that you love somebody, it will be better to say you are love. So whosoever is capable of
partaking, can partake.

Whosoever is capable of drinking out of your infinite sources of being, you are available -- you are available unconditionally. That is possible only if love becomes more and more meditative. `Medicine' and `meditation' come from the same root. Love as you know it is a kind of disease: it needs the medicine of meditation. If it passes through meditation, it is purified. And the more purified it is, the more ecstatic.

Nancy was having coffee with Helen.
Nancy asked, "How do you know your husband loves you?"
"He takes out the garbage every morning."
"That's not love. That's good housekeeping."
"My husband gives me all the spending money I need."
"That's not love. That's generosity."
"My husband never looks at other women."
"That's not love. That's poor vision."
"John always opens the door for me."
"That's not love. That's good manners."
"John kisses me even when I've eaten garlic and I have curlers in my hair."
"Now, that's love."

Everybody has their own idea of love. And only when you come to the state where all ideas about love have disappeared, where love is no more an idea but simply your being, then only will you know its freedom. Then love is God. Then love is the ultimate truth. Let your love move through the process of meditation. Watch it: watch the cunning ways of your mind, watch your power-politics. And nothing else except continuous watching and observing is going to help.

When you say something to your woman or your man, look at it: what is the unconscious motive? Why are you saying it? Is there some motive? Then what is it? Be conscious of that motive, bring it to consciousness -- because this is one of the secret keys for transforming your life: anything that becomes conscious disappears. Your motives remain unconscious, that's why you remain in their grip. Make them conscious, bring them to light, and they will disappear.

It is as if you pull up a tree and bring the roots to the sunlight: they will die, they can exist only in the darkness of the soil. Your motives also exist only in the darkness of your unconsciousness. So the only way to transform your love is to bring all the motivations from the unconscious into the conscious. Slowly slowly, those motives will die. And when love is unmotivated, then love is the greatest thing that can ever happen to anybody. Then love is something of the ultimate, of the beyond.

That is the meaning when Jesus says, "God is love." I say to you: Love is God. God can be forgotten, but don't forget love -- because it is the purification of love that will bring you to God. If you forget about God completely, nothing is lost. But don't forget love, because love is the bridge. Love is the process of alchemical change in your consciousness.

What is Meditation?

2010-04-30T21:29:00.000-07:00

When people come to me and they ask, "How to meditate?" I tell them, "There is no need to ask how to meditate, just ask how to remain unoccupied. Meditation happens spontaneously. Just ask how to remain unoccupied, that's all. That's the whole trick of meditation - how to remain unoccupied. Then you cannot do anything. The meditation will flower.

When you are not doing anything the energy moves towards the centre, it settles down towards the centre. When you are doing something the energy moves out. Doing is a way of moving out. Non-doing is a way of moving in. Occupation is an escape. You can read the Bible, you can make it an occupation. There is no difference between religious occupation and secular occupation: all occupations are occupations, and they help you to cling outside your being. They are excuses to remain outside.

Man is ignorant and blind, and he wants to remain ignorant and blind, because to come inwards looks like entering a chaos. And it is so; inside you have created a chaos. You have to encounter it and go through it. Courage is needed - courage to be oneself, and courage to move inwards. I have not come across a greater courage than that - the courage to be meditative.

But people who are engaged outside - with worldly things or nonworldly things, but occupied all the same, they think ....and they have created a rumor around it, they have their own philosophers. They say that if you are introvert you are somehow morbid, something is wrong with you. And they are in the majority. If you meditate, if you sit silently, they will joke about you: "What are you doing? - Gazing at your navel? What are you doing? - Opening the third eye? Where are you going? Are you morbid? Because what is there to do inside? There is nothing inside."

Inside doesn't exist for the majority of people, only the outside exists. And just the opposite is the case - only inside is real; outside is nothing but a dream. But they call introverts morbid, they call meditators morbid. In the West they think that the East is little morbid. What is the point of sitting alone and looking inwards? What are you going to get there? There is nothing.

David Hume, one of the great British philosophers, tried once... because he was studying the Upanishads and they go on saying: Go in, go in, go in - that is their only message. So he tried it. He closed his eyes one day - a totally secular man, very logical, empirical, but not meditative at all - he closed his eyes and he said, "It is so boring! It is a boredom to look in. Thoughts move, sometimes a few emotions, and they go on racing in the mind, and you go on looking at them - what is the point of it? It is useless. It has no utility."

And this is the understanding of many people. Hume's standpoint is that of the majority: What are going to get inside? There is darkness, thoughts floating here and there. What will you do? What will come out of it? If Hume had waited a little longer - and that is difficult for such people - if he had been a little more patient, by and by thought disappear, emotions subside. But if it had happened to him he would have said, "That is even worse, because emptiness comes. At least first there were thoughts, something to be occupied with, to look at, to think about. Now even thoughts have disappeared; only emptiness....What to do with emptiness? It is absolutely useless."

But if he had waited a little more, then darkness also disappears. It is just like when you come from the hot sun and you enter your house: everything looks dark because your eyes need a little attunement. They are fixed on the hot sun outside; comparatively, your house looks dark. You cannot see, you feel as if it is night. But you wait, you sit, you rest in a chair, and after few seconds the eyes get attuned. Now it is not dark, a little more light........

You rest for an hour, and everything is light, there is no darkness at all.

If Hume had waited a little longer, then darkness also disappears. Because you have lived in the hot sun outside for many lives your eyes have become fixed, they have lost flexibility. They need tuning. When one comes inside the house it takes a little while, a little time, a patience. Don't be in a hurry.

In haste nobody can come to know himself. It is a very very deep awaiting. Infinite patience is needed. By and by darkness disappears. There comes a light with no source there is no flame in it, no lamp is burning, no sun is there. A light, just like it is morning: the night has disappeared, and the sun has not risen.... Or in the evening - the twilight, when the sun has set and night has not yet descended. That's why Hindus call their prayer time sandhya. Sandhya means twilight, light without any source.
When you move inwards you will come to the light without any source. In that light, for the first time you start understanding yourself, who you are, because you are that light. You are that twilight, that sandhya, that pure clarity, that perception, where the observer and the observed disappear, and only the light remains.

Osho - from the book What is Meditation