OSHO QUESTION AND ANSWERS 2

Abridged from:
Get Out of Your Own Way
(Chapter # 11)

(Osho talks to Vinod Khanna, who said, “Osho it is all futile”)

It is futile. Understand that it is futile... but everything is futile. If you start dropping out of things, then by and by you will see that everything is futile.

The wife is futile, the children are futile; the family is futile. Then one goes on shrinking, because wherever you go, everything is futile. One day one feels, 'What is the use of eating? Why get up every day in the morning?' That will become a suicide.

Die -- but don't commit suicide because that will be a slow type of shrinking in.

If you see that something is futile, understand it is futile and don't get disturbed by it. Whether you succeed or fail you know it is futile, so success and failure become the same. But now you are no longer worried.

One goes on doing the same things; knowing it is a dream, one goes on enjoying it. What is the point of disturbing it? It is just a dream so why disturb it?

The very idea that something is meaningless is a deep desire for something meaningful -- and there is nothing meaningful. Everything is meaningless except the witness. So the witness can be anywhere.

I don't see that there can be any better profession for witnessing than acting. Actors can move into meditation better than other people because their whole art consists of just creating a dream and being someone, knowing you are not that person.

You are playing the role of Rama. You know you are not Rama; you are acting it. The witnessing remains there spontaneously.

So whatsoever you are doing on stage, bring the same quality into the world also. When you come home, then too remember that this is acting. Be a husband and remember that this too is acting. Be a father and remember that this too is acting.

If the twenty-four hours of your day become an acting, your quality as an actor will become superb and your witnessing will increase.

This is my observation from working with so many people -- that a good actor can become very easily meditative. People are sometimes surprised that actors become so interested. The reason is their profession. Their very work by and by will give them the feeling that they are separate from their roles. One day or other they will see everything as a role.

So I would like you to remain there (in the film world). Don't get disturbed -- enjoy the whole thing. It is nonsense but why not enjoy it? It is futile but why ask for more? Why shouldn't it be futile?

Whatsoever it is, enjoy it as a gift. The day I feel that now there is no growth for you there I will tell you to get out of it. But be there, because much is possible there which will not be so easily possible outside.

OSHO


Osho: ‘The one who questioned answers.’

Abridged from:
Get Out of Your Own Way
(Chapter # 12)

Issues cannot be resolved by choosing one alternative, as both are valid needs.

It is like trying to decide between eating and sleeping -- both have to be integrated. To do either to excess is foolish and that one has to learn a balance -- this is the art of living.

I have heard about one Sufi mystic, Byazid. He came back home one day and he was very hungry, so he asked for food. The friend and disciple who was looking after him said, 'There is nothing in the house, and I have no money sol couldn't purchase anything.'

Byazid said nothing. He simply sat there, prayed to God and thanked him. The disciple couldn't believe what he was doing, for what he was thanking God. That was his master's usual habit -- to thank God after he had eaten, but today he had not eaten and he was still hungry!

So the disciple asked, 'For what are you thanking God?'

Byazid said, I am thanking him that at least I have a good appetite! Food will be coming tomorrow, but I have a good appetite. Think of those people who have food and no appetite. Are they, or I, more miserable?'

So always remember: two valid needs are not to be chosen in opposition And life has many valid needs. They are not contradictory to each other, but if you try to fix them in one time, they are contradictory.

Spread them and make your life more rich. Move with people... love people. Friendship is good, love is good -- but in proportion. Never take too much of anything. Be alone for a few hours and together with people for a few hours.

OSHO

OSHO, OSHO QUESTION AND ANSWERS 1

Abridged from:
Get Out of Your Own Way
(Chapter # 9)

Love and meditation are just like two wings, and if love is stuck, meditation is stuck. If meditation is stuck, then love will be stuck. They go together.

So one has to be very delicately balancing.

Love gives much turmoil, excitement, thrill -- and in the end you have empty hands if it is not joined with meditation.

This happens almost always -- that when a person is frustrated with love, he becomes interested in meditation. Then he avoids love because he is fed up with it so much and he just wants to meditate. That too is not going to fulfill you.

It may give you a silence, a stillness, but that stillness will be something dead. It will not throb with life... because without love, nothing throbs. Love is the very beat, the pulse; everything pulsates with it.

So my whole effort here is how to give you both.

Otherwise both are lopsided and create a sort of imbalance. You have to sort out your love affair, otherwise that will work like a load and you will not be able to soar high in meditation.

And the second thing -- about your meditation.

Technique are good, but only a beginning. I have never come across a man yet who has come to any fulfillment through it.

It is only the door. You can enter through it but you cannot reach anywhere. Good -- it introduces a new world to you -- but if you are caught by the door and you cling to the door, you will not be able to go deeper.

A technique is very structured... too much technique. Maybe that's why it is so appealing to the mind. The mind is now one of the most addicted to technology -- material or spiritual, it makes no difference.

A technique is just a technique. It is good... it has prepared you for something.

So now you have to make a much unstructured life ... more spontaneous.

And meditation should not be made a technique.

OSHO


Abridged from:
Get Out of Your Own Way
(Chapter # 10)


It is difficult to love real people because a real person is not going to fulfill your expectations. He is not meant to.

He is not here to fulfill anybody else's expectations. He has to live his own life. And whenever he moves somewhere which goes against you or is not in tune with your feelings, emotions, your being, it becomes difficult.

It is very easy to think about love. It is very difficult to love.

It is very easy to love the whole world. The real difficulty is to love a single human being. It is very easy to love God or humanity. The real problem arises when you come across a real person and you encounter him.

To encounter him is to go through a great change and a great challenge.

He is not going to be your slave and neither are you going to be a slave to him. That's where the real problem arises.

If you are going to be a slave or if he is going to be a slave, then there is no problem. The problem arises because nobody is here to play a slave -- and nobody can be a slave.

Everybody is a free agent... the whole being consists of freedom. Man is freedom.

So remember -- the problem is real. It has nothing to do with you personally. The problem has to do with the whole phenomenon of love.

In the East people have escaped just seeing the difficulty in it. They started denying their love, rejecting their love. They became loveless and they called it non-attachment. By and by they became deadened.

The eastern man is less anxious, less tense... almost lives in his own inner cave, protected, with eyes dosed. He does not allow his energy to move. He makes a short circuit... a small energy movement inside his being and he is happy. But his happiness is a little dead. His happiness is not a jubilation... it is not a joy.

So in the East we have tried to live without love, to renounce the world -- that means to renounce love -- to renounce the woman, the man, and all possibilities where love can flower.

In the West just the opposite has happened. People have tried to find happiness through love and they have created much trouble. They have lost all contact with themselves.

They don't know where the path is, where their home is. So they feel meaningless, homeless, and they go on making more and more love efforts with this woman, with that man -- heterosexual, homosexual, autosexual.

They go on trying every way and again they feel empty, because love alone can give you happiness but there will not be any silence in it. And when there is happiness and no silence, again something is missing.

Both these ways have failed. The East has failed because it tried meditation without love. The West has failed because it tried love without meditation.

My whole effort is to give you a synthesis, the whole -- which means meditation plus love.

One should be able to be happy alone and one should also be able to be happy with people. One should be happy inside and one should also be happy in relationships.

One should make a beautiful house inside and outside too. You should have a beautiful garden surrounding your house and a beautiful bedroom too. The garden is not against the bedroom; the bedroom is not against the garden.

OSHO

                    OSHO QUESTION AND ANSWERS

There are many problems in life. Obviously they are there. When I say celebrate, I don't mean there are no problems. Problems are there. They have to be encountered; they have to be transcended. And celebration is a way to encounter them.

I am not saying there are no problems, I am not telling you fairy tales, I am not telling you that there are no problems and that life is simply beautiful and there are no thorns and only rose flowers. There are not. For every one rose, there exist one thousand thorns.

I am not creating a dream for you, a utopia. I am utterly realistic and pragmatic.

But the way to get beyond the thorns is to celebrate life, is to celebrate that one flower.

In fact, that one flower is more precious because there are one thousand thorns. If there were all flowers and flowers and no thorns, flowers would be meaningless. It is because of darkness that the morning is so beautiful, it is because of death that life has such joy, it is because of illness that health is significant.

I am not saying there is nothing to be worried about. There are many things, but there is no need to worry about them. They can be encountered. They can be encountered without any worry; they can be encountered through celebration. There are only two ways to encounter them: one is the way of worry and the other is the way of celebration !

❤OSHO❤

Abridged from:
Get Out of Your Own Way
(Chapter # 8)

Nobody can frustrate you.

Always remember that you are your world.

And if you feel frustrated, just look into it; somewhere deep down you are frustrating yourself. You don't want to succeed in your analysis.

For example when a person is angry, he tries to analyse and go to the very root of it. It may be just a maneuver, just a superficial thing. He may not really want to go deep into it, because he may find something which he is not yet ready to face. Because behind every anger, you will find the ego.

So whenever there is anger, the mind doesn't really want to go into it, because if you go into it you will find yourself the culprit.

So you will learn a thousand and one things to avoid.

Nobody can prevent you from your inner analysis, nobody.

Go into your anger and find the root of it. You must be trying to find the root in your friend; then the friend will frustrate you because he will want to find the root in you. There can be no conclusion.

My emphasis is that the individual is wholly and solely responsible, and it is all his game that he is playing. If he allows others to participate, that too is part of the game.

Always try to find out how you are helping to create the problem -- because that's all that you can do. Then drop your participation.

... The problem is not really in the relationship, it is in the related persons, and reflected in the relationship.

OSHO

                                       OSHO QUESTION AND ANSWERS SERIES

Get Out of Your Own Way
(Chapter # 6)

Whatsoever can be done under the limits, you have to do. And don't be too worried about too many problems.

Because this is my observation -- that if you wait just a little, ninety-five percent of problems disappear on their own. Nothing is to be done; they disappear on their own. It is just as they say about the common cold. If you treat it, it takes seven days. If you don't treat it, it goes in one week -- but it goes!

More problems are like that. They are momentary.

It happens every day -- somebody has a problem and he goes to the office for an appointment. After two days the appointment is given. By the time he comes, he says the problem is gone!

Just time. The mind is so momentary that whenever something arises, it takes it and becomes excited about it.

There is a simple sutra, a simple sentence: 'This too will pass.' Just this much. Remember it.

Almost ninety-five percent of problems will pass; they just need a little time. Don't be worried about them.

Then five percent are left. Four percent can be solved by methods. They are like diseases which can be cured by allopathy, homeopathy, naturopathy -- anything. They just need the attention of the therapist.

So it doesn't matter what type of medicine is being used. If the doctor knows how to tackle the patient, how to give attention to him, how to be caring about him, these four percent will be solved.

Remaining one percent is the real problem. That goes only when understanding arises.

Nobody can help that, nobody.

That one percent goes only when you try to understand, when you rise in awareness, when you become so understanding that you don't create that problem.

Otherwise it remains, it continues. This has to be understood.

If you are alert, aware, conscious then there is no problem. Cannot be.

OSHO

Abridged from:
Get Out of Your Own Way
(Chapter # 7)

If the desire is there, it is there; there is nothing wrong in it. When you start doing something you have already taken the standpoint that something is wrong in it.

It may be simply that you have come to feel the illusoriness of life, and the desire for it has disappeared or is disappearing. You interpret it as a desire to die. It is not a desire to die.

This is how the mind goes on giving wrong interpretations.

When life seems illusory, when nothing seems worthwhile -- and nothing is -- then suddenly the mind says, 'What is the point of living? Die!' --  as if death is going to be more meaningful than life! When life is not meaningful how can death be meaningful? When even life is illusory, death is going to be more of an illusion. So what is the point in choosing?

One simply understands that life is illusory. Finished!

No enlightened person has ever committed suicide. They should all commit suicide because they say life is meaningless; it is an illusion; there is nothing in it. So why should they go on living?

They go on living because they say in death also there is nothing left to be chosen. The whole of life is meaningless -- death included!

When death comes they will accept. If it is not coming they will not do anything to bring it about.

Then one becomes absolutely serene and tranquil. One lives, but as if in a drama.

Somebody asked Lin-Chi, 'What did you used to do before you became enlightened?'

He said, 'I used to chop wood and carry water.'

And then the man asked, 'What have you been doing since enlightenment?'

Lin-Chi said, 'I am doing the same -- chopping wood, carrying water. But before I used to do it with great expectations. Now I simply do it -- there is nothing else to do! I chop wood because I know how to, and I know how to carry water. The activity remains the same -- the quality of awareness changes.'

OSHO

Get Out of Your Own Way
(Chapter # 8)

Relationships bring up many things which are hidden in you. A relationship never creates anything. It can only bring out something which is already there.

So never throw the responsibility on the other. The other is, at the most, a help to show the undercurrents of your mind. And that's how a relationship helps. It is almost a mirror -- you see your face.

Whatsoever we do, we are the source.

So whenever you feel angry, remember -- it is you who is feeling angry. Never make the other feel guilty. That's the strategy of the mind. That's how one goes on avoiding one's own encounter.

When you feel angry just say, 'I am feeling angry.' Don't say; 'You have made me angry.' And that is the same with all emotions.

You are feeling sad. Say, 'I am feeling sad,' but never say to the other, 'You have made me sad.' Nobody can make you sad; nobody can make you happy. If you decide to be happy, you are.

So use the relationship as a mirror and become more and more aware and alert.

But always fall back on yourself; then it can become a very very great situation for growth. And if you love, love is capable enough of surviving everything: sadness, anger, unhappiness, a little conflict here and there.

If love is there it will survive all. And through surviving all these situations it becomes intense... more understanding, more mature.

If you love a person you can be patient. And love is so valuable that anything else is, at the most, a cost to be paid for it. But it is worth it.

The problem arises only when you don't have love. Then there is only anger and sadness and unhappiness. If you see that in some relationship, drop out of it.

To be miserable is not only bad for you, it is bad for the other. Just for the other's sake, get out of it. Don't cling, and don't continue in it because that will be destructive.

And once a person learns how to cling to misery -- that means once a person starts taking a morbid interest in misery, in fact has learned how to be happy in unhappiness -- then it is very difficult.

You may change the partner but with the other partner you will do the same. Or you may be alone, but with yourself you will be the same.

So just watch. Love and watch and be aware.

OSHO

                                       

 OSHO QUESTION AND ANSWERS SERIES

Get Out of Your Own Way
(Chapter # 4)

Anger and sadness are both the same. Sadness is passive anger and anger is active sadness.

It is difficult for a sad person to be angry. If you can make a sad person angry, his sadness will disappear immediately. It will be very difficult for an angry person to be sad. If you can make him sad, his anger will disappear immediately.

In all our emotions the basic polarity continues -- of man and woman, yin and yang, the male and the female.

Anger is male, sadness is female. So if you are in tune with sadness, it is difficult to shift to anger, but I would like you to shift.

If you can float between anger and sadness, both become, similarly easy.

You will have transcendence and then you will be able to watch. You can stand behind the screen and watch these games, and then you can go beyond both.

But first you have to be moving easily between these two. Otherwise you tend to be sad and when one is heavy, transcendence is difficult.

Remember, when two energies, opposite energies, are exactly alike, fifty-fifty, then it is very easy to get out of them, because are fighting and cancelling each other and you are not in anybody's grip.

Your sadness and your anger are fifty-fifty, equal energies, so they cancel each other. Suddenly you have freedom and you can slip out.

But if sadness is seventy percent and anger thirty percent, then it is very difficult thirty percent anger in contrast with seventy percent sadness means forty percent sadness will still be there and it will not be possible; you will not be capable of easily slipping out. That forty percent will hang over.

So this is one of the basic laws of inner energies -- to always let the opposite polarities come to an equal status, and then you are able to slip out of them.

It is as if two persons are fighting and you can escape. They are so engaged with themselves that you need not worry, and you can escape.

Don't bring the mind in. Just make it an exercise.

OSHO

Get Out of Your Own Way
 (Chapter # 5)

I talk about spontaneity, but to achieve that spontaneity, one has to pass through years of training and discipline.

That spontaneity is not available right now. Right now if you become spontaneous, you will just be a victim of the lower self, the instinctive.

Then you will not be rising higher in your consciousness, and you will not become integrated. On the contrary, you may just become a driftwood.

I was just reading about a great a king, Harun-al-Rashid. He had a buffoon in the court, as was the custom in the old courts.

He asked the buffoon, 'Don't you sometimes think that it would be good if you could become an emperor yourself?'

The buffoon said, 'No, never. I have never even dreamt about it. Nobody can tell me that I have ever been greedy in that respect.'

Harun-al-Rashid said, 'Why? Everybody wants to be somebody.'

The buffoon said, 'Think of yourself in a desert, thirsty for one glass of water. How much will you be ready to give?'

Harun said, 'I will give half my kingdom.'

And the buffoon said, 'If you are not satisfied and another glass is needed, and the same price is asked, what are you going to do?'

Harun said, 'I will give the other half.'

The buffoon laughed and said, 'So your whole kingdom is worth nothing more than a glass of water!'

All that we achieve in life is dreamstuff, unless you come across something -- something which is deathless and which death cannot destroy.

But to come to that, one has to work hard. It is an uphill task. So don't remain just interested -- move into it.

Whenever a good interest is there, do something to materialise it.

OSHO

OSHO QUESTION AND ANSWERS

Osho: ‘The one who questioned all answers.’

Get Out of Your Own Way

I am not saying that every couple has to remain together -- no need. But I am not saying the opposite either -- that every couple has to separate. One has to be understanding.

There are people who are divorce-addicted, so even before the marriage they are thinking about how to divorce.

The moment they think of marriage, they also think of divorce -- as if their meeting is only for separation; separation is the goal. Don't become that way. Just watch what you are doing.

If you go on this way nothing will settle. This is taking the plant up again and again and looking at the roots to see whether they are growing or not. The plant will die! And nobody else will be responsible.

So when you are with a person, try to be a little more alert.

He has difficulties, you have difficulties -- everybody has difficulties. So don't be cruel and don't be violent and aggressive. Try to understand -- as you have difficulties, he also has difficulties.

Sort them out together; figure out where the problem is It is easier to sort them out together rather than separately. And don't hide problems... everything should be opened. There should be no secret.

In the meditation and therapy group learn things, but don't expect things from people that you have seen in the groups. You will never find that anywhere -- and then you will have to go again and again into meditation and therapy groups.

There are many people who live from one group to another. Their whole life consists of marathons, encounters, tathata, kundlinees. That's not life! These are holidays from life... Sundays.

Don't make the week a week of Sundays, or else it will be difficult to live. One day it is good to go to the beach and rest in the sun, but for six days even God has to work!

OSHO


Get Out of Your Own Way


I never say what to do -- that is not my way.

I say whatsoever you do, do it, but do it totally.

If it is good it will become part of you. If it is not good you will come out of it. That is the beauty of being total... that is the secret of being total. You cannot be totally with the devil. You can only be totally with God. So totality is the criterion.

I don't say don't commit a sin. I have no commandments. I don't say, 'Do this. This is moral and virtuous' -- nothing I say whatsoever you want to do, do.

If you want to be a thief, be a total thief. If it is virtue it will become part of you. If it is not virtue you will come out of it.

If you want to be angry, be totally angry. If it is worthwhile you will enjoy it. If you feel it is simply nonsense, it will simply drop of its own accord.

Totality is the criterion. So drift -- but don't resist.

If you want to resist, then resist it totally and don't drift!

Remember always that I never give you direction. Who am I to give you direction? And people who direct you are manipulators. I simply give you an understanding.

So choose. With one foot on one boat and another foot on another boat you will be in trouble.

And the boats are moving in diametrically opposite directions; you will be torn apart

That's what is happening to millions of people -- torn into pieces, everything falling apart. Then life becomes a misery, has to become.

Life is happy when you are together. Happiness is a function of togetherness. Misery is a function of dividedness, fragmentariness. So just decide

OSHO