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

 OSHO QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Osho: ‘The one who questioned all answers.’


[A sannyasin who has Hodgkin's disease and TB says: I'm really scared about the idea that I might die... I tried witnessing it and it just stays there... ]

No, no, witnessing won't help because you will be using witnessing just as a trick to avoid it. Just accept it and then it will disappear.

So what? One is going to die, so one is going to die. What can you do about it? Accept it, and simply by accepting it there is no problem in it. And then it will become a great experience.

Everybody dies but death comes to very few people this way. Death takes you very unawares: one day you are caught in it, it doesn't give you any chance to think about it. Then there is no opportunity to grow into it. You are fortunate; death is coming making much noise.

And it is a bogus death; it is not coming either.

It is just your fear... but the fear has to be accepted: yes, it is okay. If you are going to die, you are going to die. What difference does it make whether it is today or tomorrow or the day after tomorrow?

It does not make much difference. Some day one has to die... any day is a good day. Just by postponing it for a few years, what difference will it make?

It does not make any difference whether you live for fifty years or seventy years or one hundred years: one day one dies. So don't miss this opportunity. Accept it! -- It is perfectly okay. And the moment you accept you will suddenly feel that the fear has disappeared.

Fear is because of non-acceptance -- fear is not of death, remember.

What is there to fear in death? That's something strange -- that people go on being afraid. People should be afraid of life because life brings problems. Death brings no problems; it simply solves all problems.

So now accept it. And tonight, just relax. Entertain the idea of death.

If it is coming, let it be beautiful -- make it a joy; give it a good reception. At least get ready! I don't think it is coming but why not get ready?

Someday it will come, and then you can use that reception again. I may not be here to tell you next time. It is better you prepare now.

Accept it.

OSHO

 Osho: The one who questions all answers.


We have killed people's soul, utterly destroyed them. People are just zombies, just dead bodies walking around, managing somehow, dragging somehow, waiting only for death, and there is nothing else to happen.

Understand it, and if you love each other -- and that is my feeling, that you love; that's why I am saying this -- it is possible. Only if you love is this understanding possible.

You love each other, you understand each other, you give total freedom to each other. It is perfectly good sometimes if she moves with somebody and it is perfectly good when you want to move with somebody. You will find that you are becoming again fresh, young, green. Love will start flowing again... and then there is no need to separate.

The need to separate arises because you don't allow her to be free, she does not allow you to be free; then finally every marriage is on the rocks. Either accept this deadness or escape from it. And I think the people who accept it are impotent people but those impotent people have dominated the whole world.

And when a certain philosophy continues for many centuries it becomes part of our presuppositions; we don't think about it. Now nobody thinks about it; we simply accept it and we believe in it: it is part of our blood and bones.

It is very natural. If you live with a person for seven years and you are not fed up, then something is wrong; if you are not bored, then something is wrong.

You can live in the same room, you can sleep in the same bed, but you are not together -- that's pointless!

Sometimes when you feel like being together, be together. When you feel like moving alone, perfectly good; accept it with great love and understanding. And I don't see that there is any problem.

OSHO
 Osho: The one who questions all answers



I don't ask you to be prayerful -- prayer comes on its own when one is loving; and I don't ask you to go into a temple, because those are just outer things.

The inner temple consists of love.

And I don't ask you to think of a god. Only contemplate love and by and by you will see that god is becoming more and more visible to you. It is through love that we reach god; there is no other way.

The English word 'religion' is not as good as 'dharma', because religion gives the feel of a doctrine, a dogma, scripture, theology. Dharma exactly means 'the way'; it does not give the idea of a dogma.

Religion means Christianity, Islam, Hinduism; dharma does not mean, cannot mean, Islam, cannot mean Christianity, cannot mean Hinduism. Dharma means the essential of all religions, the very essence of religion... just the fragrance of all the religions, the core of it.

And if you want to know the core of religion, there is no other way to know it except through love.

Love is the bridge between the human and the divine.

The moment you are totally in love you are no more here. You are no more part of the world of things -- you are raised high; you move into another dimension, you are transported. When you fall from love you are again in the world of things. When you rise in love you are in the world of persons; that is the revolution.

When you are in this world without love you live among things; even persons are like things then. Your wife is a thing, your friend is a thing; you use them.

But when you rise in love even things are no more things. Even the chair has a personality, even the pillar is no more just a thing. You cannot neglect it, you cannot ignore it.

Then the whole existence is full of personality... throbbing with it. Everything has a soul because everything deep down exists in god, everything participates in god. How can it be otherwise? Everything partakes of god. In that very partaking it becomes a person.

OSHO

Osho: The one who questions all answers



Money is not power, prestige is not power, respectability is not power, political status is not power. These are ways to hide our deep-rooted inferiority complex from the world.

There is only one thing that makes a man really powerful -- that is love.

And another strange thing: when love makes you powerful you become humble. A powerful man is always humble. A powerful man is naturally, inevitably unpretending; he is not presumptuous.

He does not claim... he need not claim. He never tries to prove; he is so there is no point in proving.

People who try to prove are the people who know they are not. The man of power is unassuming. The really powerful man is one who has no need to prove to anybody that he is powerful.

He knows he is powerful -- he will not feel insulted; nobody can insult him.

People can insult you only because deep down you know their insults are true. But when you know they are not true, then they don't relate to you, they don't refer to you; they are just pointless, meaningless.

So love gives power but in a very new way. The quality is different: the quality is that of a humble man.

Jesus is powerful but so humble. His disciples were waiting thinking that he might show them some miracle when he was crucified.

But Jesus simply died. Nothing happened. That is the miracle! He didn't try to prove; that's the miracle. If he had done something he would have been an ordinary man on a power trip. No, he simply relaxed and died; he died like such an ordinary man.

That is real power.

OSHO

Osho: ‘The one who questioned all answers.’

In Zen, they say that if you want to become a real painter, for twelve years learn painting then for twelve years forget all about it. Throw the canvas, throw the brush, throw the colours and forget all about painting.

For twelve years do something else -- gardening, farming, anything will do -- and after twelve years start painting again. And then there will be something original... because when you don't know the technique you may be original but you will be amateurish and your art cannot be very valuable; it will be childish, juvenile.

When you only know the technique your art will have the technical quality in it but it will not have the genuineness of the heart. The technique has to be known and then forgotten so the technique enters in your bloodstream -- it becomes part of you; you don't know what it is.

First you learn, then you unlearn. Now you are again like a child but not really a child; you have all the expertise hidden in your bones.

It will work but it will not work any more like a technology. It will not dominate you, it will not be predominant, it will not be dictatorial. It will simply serve you, and it will serve in a very unconscious way... and then original things are born.

So everything has to be learned and then forgotten, unlearned. Then one is innocent and yet technically correct; that is the right process.

Start being a little more inventive, intuitive, liquid... go by the feeling. Do not attach much importance to the technique and do not follow a rigid pattern.

Become more innovative.

OSHO


A fifteen-year-old tells Osho he left school, in the West, because he had some problems there.

Osho: “Very good, the earlier the problems start, the better, so one can start solving them.”

The boy said: “I always imitate people -- talk the way they do, make the same gestures as them, the body says. It just happens.”

Osho: “Do it more perfectly, that's all, make it an art. If it is unconscious it is bad, so do it very consciously and you can become a great actor. It can become a great experience because your consciousness will grow: you will have to be aware when you are studying someone.

Select one sannyasin each day to imitate. Make it perfect, in fact, improve it. Do it so well that the  person feels as if he is imitating you! Let imitating happen through you.

And remember when I say, 'Let things happen', I don't mean don't do, otherwise how will they happen?

I am simply saying that while you are doing things let them happen through you. I'm not saying to just sit silently and let things happen; then how will they happen?

And when I say, 'Let things happen', I don’t mean that you become lazy and drop all doing; then nothing happens. Never be lazy.

When I say to let things happen, I mean let things happen through you. They cannot happen from anywhere else, they will not happen out of the blue. You will have to do but you need not become a doer. Doing will be there, the doer will disappear  -- that's the whole point -- and then you are never trapped.

And sometimes you would like to do too much because in that moment it may be your natural desire to do. Then go into it -- just don't become a doer; don't pay too much attention to doing.

Doing is okay; just remember that you are not to become an ego. Don't say, 'I have done this'. Keep the attitude, 'It has happened through me; god has done it'.

When you imitate say, 'God is imitating through me; I was instrumental'. That's all... it is simple.

OSHO


'Tat Twam Asi', intellectually there is no way to understand it; it has nothing to do with intellect and it is not a philosophical statement. It is just an exclamation, a realisation.

It is not a theory -- it has no logic behind it; it is very illogical but it is an experience, an existential moment when you see it as: 'That Art Thou'.

It is a realisation that you are not separate from existence. 'That' means the existence; you and the existence that surrounds you are not separate.

But this is an experience; there is no way to understand it intellectually.

Intellectually you are separate... in fact it is intellect that makes you separate, so how can you understand it intellectually? It is asking the very disease to prescribe the medicine. It is intellect that makes us separate.

When you are deep in your sleep, you are 'Tat Twam Asi'. You don't know you are separate; you are that, that is you.

When you are awake and intellectually functioning it is very difficult to think that you are that. How can you be this rock and how can you be this tree and how can you be me? You are certainly separate. If I am killed you will not be killed; if I die the whole existence is not going to die, so how can you be one with it? You are certainly separate.

Intellect creates separation, so intellect is the instrument to separate thou from that.

Now you are trying the absurd: you are trying to understand intellectually; then it becomes just a philosophy. Even if you understand intellectually it is of no use.

Intellectual understanding is not an understanding at all. The only understanding that can be called understanding is non-intellectual, intuitive.

Get absorbed in things.

Sometimes dancing, become the dance and you will know.

Not that somebody will shout at you 'Tat Twam Asi'... not that it will come like that statement written somewhere inside your mind. No god is going to give it to you as a commandment, nothing will happen, but you will simply know.

So start getting absorbed; that is my suggestion.

OSHO

PREPARING FOR MEDITATION

PREPARING FOR MEDITATION

Just sit comfortably. You can sit on a chair, on bed, on earth in lotus pose (cross legged) or in any way of your liking. 

Close your eyes and send thoughts of good will to everybody. Just say in your mind – ” I love everybody. My love compassion and kindness is for everyone. ”

It may be the case that somebody has hurt you. Somebody has deceived you or you have been the victim of other people’s bitterness, ignorance, smallness or insecurities.

 Even if such is the case, you must thank God for not making you like those people. 

Things could be worse. You could be one of them ! Forgive them honestly and say in you heart” Now I forgive them”

I know that it is really difficult to forgive many times. Sometimes we have to suffer badly for no faults of ours and it really hurts. 

However, I earnestly request you to please consider this golden advice that to err is human and to forgive is divine.

Please forgive those who have hurt you. Think over this: Had you been in their shoes, had you gotten the same kind of upbringing, education, had you been in the same sort of environment, then in all likelihood, you would be just like them . 

Please realize that we all are the result of our circumstances and thoughts. If people are bad, it is not that they have chosen to be bad. 

There are many factors like circumstances, financial & domestic conditions, educational background, friends-circle etc. that shape our lives.

Just think from the perspective that people are bad because of many external factors over which perhaps they do not have any control. 

Have sympathy with them, be compassionate and loving towards them and…….forgive them.

It appears difficult but is not very tough. To forgive somebody requires some real effort but the mental peace it provides is worth that effort. Now spread feelings of goodwill to all.

Say- “May I find true happiness.”
Say- “May all people who are close to my heart- my family, my parents, my very close friends; they all find true happiness.”
Slowly start expanding your area of goodwill.

Say , May all people on earth- whether I know them or not, whether I like them or not, they all find true happiness. 

“Spread this good will to not just people but to all living creatures in all directions.

“May they all find true happiness. I love them all. Everybody is my friend. No one is my enemy”

This internal preparation is a very powerful way of preparing body for meditation and will make you very calm. You must try it to feel its power.

BE YOUR OWN INNER MENTORS

Be your own inner mentors

　　Do not think in mind. Really, it should not be thinking. As long as the action. In some cases take a look. That is not easy, because old habits began to fall into thought. You have to be very alert: Do not think about but inwardly feel. There may be times you do not know what good comes from your inner guide, which is out from the surface of the mind. But soon you will understand the difference between these two feelings.

　　When some internal things appear, it comes from the top of your navel. You feel the flow and temperature from above the navel. When you use the brain to think, it only remains on the surface of the mind, and then sent down from the mind. If your mind decide something, you have to force it down. If you decide something intrinsic mentor, then it will boil up; it from the depths of your core Self transmitted to mind. Mind receives this message, it is not the mind of the decision.It comes from the transcendent place - that is why the mind afraid of it. It is easy to understand why the mind is so frightened at it: Because you never know when it will occur? There is no reason, without any verification. It is up to boil.

　　Any time when you are in a state of confusion and disarray direction, stop thinking; deep inner thinking back to non-space for your inner mentor to guide you. When at first you may feel scared, upset, but if every time you have to get the right result every time to find the right avenue, and soon you will become more daring and trust.

　　Trust occurs when I say that is the real religious belief - the inner mentors trust. Reasons, the inference is part of the self. Trust is their inner beliefs. When you enter the inner depth of that moment, you've come to the core of the soul of the universe. Your mentor is part of the inherent divinity guide, follow it, would be tantamount to follow the divine nature; If you follow your own mind, will only make things more complicated no solution, but do not know what they are doing. You might think yourself very wise. Not at all.

　　Local wisdom from the heart, from the depths of the nature of the core and not from the mind. Cut off your mind, follow your nature. No matter where it takes you brought, even if it brings lead you to dangerous place, follow it, that paved the way for you, it is your growth. You will grow through the dangerous and mature.

Osho: Adapted from the book Mystery of The Book of Secrets

WHY ACTIVE MEDITATION ?

WHY ACTIVE MEDITATION ?

Modern man is a very new phenomenon. No traditional method can be used exactly as it exists because modern man never existed before. So, in a way, all traditional methods have become irrelevant.

For example, the body has changed so much. It is so drugged that no traditional method can be helpful. The whole atmosphere is artificial now: the air, the water, society, living conditions. Nothing is natural. You are born in artificiality; you develop in it. So traditional methods will prove harmful today. They will have to be changed according to the modern situation.

Another thing: the quality of the mind has basically changed. In Patanjali's [the most famous commentator on Yoga] days, the center of the human personality was not the brain; it was the heart. Before that, it was not even the heart. It was still lower, near the navel. The center has gone even further from the navel. Now, the center is the brain. That is why teachings like those of Krishnamurti have appeal. No method is needed, no technique is needed – only understanding. But if it is just a verbal understanding, just intellectual, nothing changes, nothing is transformed. It again becomes an accumulation of knowledge.

I use chaotic methods rather than systematic ones because a chaotic method is very helpful in pushing the center down from the brain. The center cannot be pushed down through any systematic method because systemization is brainwork. Through a systematic method, the brain will be strengthened; more energy will be added to it. Through chaotic methods the brain is nullified. It has nothing to do. The method is so chaotic that the center is automatically pushed from the brain to the heart. If you do my method of Dynamic Meditation vigorously, unsystematically, chaotically, your center moves to the heart. Then there is a catharsis. 

A catharsis is needed because your heart is so suppressed, due to your brain. Your brain has taken over so much of your being that it dominates you. There is no place for the heart, so the longings of the heart are suppressed. You have never laughed heartily, never lived heartily, never done anything heartily. The brain always comes in to systematize, to make things mathematical, and the heart is suppressed. So firstly, a chaotic method is needed to push the center of consciousness from the brain toward the heart.

Then catharsis is needed to unburden the heart, to throw off suppressions, to make the heart open. If the heart becomes light and unburdened, then the center of consciousness is pushed still lower; it comes to the navel. The navel is the source of vitality, the seed source from which everything else comes: the body and the mind and everything.

I use this chaotic method very considerately. Systematic methodology will not help now, because the brain will use it as its own instrument. Nor can just the chanting of bhajans help now, because the heart is so burdened that it cannot flower into real chanting. Consciousness must be pushed down to the source, to the roots. Only then is there the possibility of transformation. So I use chaotic methods to push the consciousness downward from the brain.

Whenever you are in chaos, the brain stops working. For example, if you are driving a car and suddenly someone runs in front of you, you react so suddenly that it cannot be the work of the brain. The brain takes time. It thinks about what to do and what not to do. So whenever there is a possibility of an accident and you push the brake, you feel a sensation near your navel, as if it were your stomach that is reacting. Your consciousness is pushed down to the navel because of the accident. If the accident could be calculated beforehand, the brain would be able to deal with it; but when you are in an accident, something unknown happens. Then you notice that your consciousness has moved to the navel.

If you ask a Zen monk, "From where do you think?" he puts his hands on his belly. When Westerners came into contact with Japanese monks for the first time they could not understand. "What nonsense! How can you think from your belly?

But the Zen reply is meaningful. Consciousness can use any center of the body, and the center that is nearest to the original source is the navel. The brain is furthest away from the original source, so if life energy is moving outward, the center of consciousness will become the brain. And if life energy is moving inward, ultimately the navel will become the center.

Chaotic methods are needed to push the consciousness to its roots, because only from the roots is transformation possible. Otherwise you will go on verbalizing and there will be no transformation. It is not enough just to know what is right. You have to transform the roots; otherwise you will not change.

When a person knows the right thing and cannot do anything about it, he becomes doubly tense. He understands, but he cannot do anything. Understanding is meaningful only when it comes from the navel, from the roots. If you understand from the brain, it is not transforming.

The ultimate cannot be known through the brain, because when you are functioning through the brain you are in conflict with the roots from which you have come. Your whole problem is that you have moved away from the navel. You have come from the navel and you will die through it. One has to come back to the roots. But coming back is difficult, arduous.

Traditional methods have an appeal because they are so ancient and so many people have achieved through them in the past. They may have become irrelevant to us, but they were not irrelevant to Buddha, Mahavira, Patanjali or Krishna. They were meaningful, helpful. The old methods may be meaningless now, but because Buddha achieved through them they have an appeal. The traditionalist feels: "If Buddha achieved through these methods, why can't I?”

But we are in an altogether different situation now. The whole atmosphere, the whole thought-sphere, has changed. Every method is organic to a particular situation, to a particular mind, to a particular man. The fact that the old methods don't work doesn't mean that no method is useful. It only means that the methods themselves must change. As I see the situation, modern man has changed so much that he needs new methods, new techniques.

Osho: The Psychology of the Esoteric, #4

MEDITATION IS PLAYFULNESS

Meditation is playfulness

"Meditation is not anything of the mind, it is something beyond the mind. The first step is to be playful about it. If you are playful about it, mind cannot destroy your meditation. Otherwise it will turn it into another ego trip; it will make you very serious. You will start thinking, 'I am a great meditator. I am holier than other people, and the whole world is just worldly – I am religious, I am virtuous.' That's what has happened to thousands of so-called saints, moralists, puritans: they are just playing ego games, subtle ego games.

"Hence I want to cut the very root of it from the very beginning. Be playful about it. It is a song to be sung, a dance to be danced. Take it as fun and you will be surprised: if you can be playful about meditation, meditation will grow in leaps and bounds. But you are not hankering after any goal; you are just enjoying sitting silently, just enjoying the very act of sitting silently – not that you are longing for some yogic powers, siddhis, miracles. All that is nonsense, the same old nonsense, the same old game, played with new words, on a new plane....

"Life as such has to be taken as a cosmic joke – and then suddenly you relax because there is nothing to be tense about. And in that very relaxation, something starts changing in you – a radical change, a transformation – and the small things of life starts having new meaning, new significance. Then nothing is small, everything starts taking on a new flavor, a new aura; one starts feeling a kind of godliness everywhere. One does not become a Christian, does not become a Hindu, does not become a Mohammedan; one simply becomes a lover of life. One learns only one thing, how to rejoice in life.

"But rejoicing in life is the way towards God. Dance your way to God, laugh your way to god, sing your way to God!" 

Osho, The Golden Wind. Tak #8

HOW TO USE MANTRA IN BUSY LIFE,HOW TO DO MANTRA MEDITATION

HOW TO USE MANTRA IN BUSY LIFE

Allocate 30 minutes for mantra meditation.

Though early morning or late evening is best time, you can chooses any time as per  your convenience. 

In those 30 minutes, 20 minutes will be for chanting (repeating)  the mantra and the last 10 minutes for being watchful of your inner consciousness.


HOW TO DO MANTRA MEDITATION

Sit comfortably at a quiet place.

Close your eyes.

Start chanting the mantra (either silently or loudly ).

Repeat the mantra with faith and respect.

Repeat it with the full awareness of its meaning.

Keep chanting the mantra for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes….
stop chanting. Be quiet. Keep sitting silently.

The mantra will keep echoing in your mind for some more time. Just be watchful of what happens inside you.

Don’t judge, act or react.

Just be aware of all that is happening inside you.

Just be a witness of all your emotions, feelings, and other activities in and around you.

You will feel a sense of calm and bliss.

All thought activities will start decreasing and eventually come to a stand still.

Slowly slowly open your eyes and move out of the meditation.

This Mantra Repetition is an extremely powerful and widely used meditation technique which will deepen your meditation practice in almost no time.

When you begin meditating this way on daily basis, slowly you will start experiencing a thought free mind –  a state of choiceless awareness.

Your self will be revealed to you.

Please remember that the 10 minutes watchfulness after the 20 minutes of chanting is a must.

Later you may increase your timing. But the ratio between chanting and witnessing should remain as 2:1


.

CATHARTIC MEDITATION METHODS

Cathartic methods are modern inventions

MIND is very serious, and meditation is absolutely nonserious. When I say this you may be bewildered, because people go on talking about meditation very seriously. But meditation is not a serious thing. It is just like play – nonserious. Sincere, but nonserious. It is not something like work; it is more like play. Play is not an activity. Even when it is active, it is not an activity. Play is just pleasure. The activity is not going anywhere; it is not motivated. Rather, it is just pure, flowing energy.

But it is difficult, because we are so involved in activity. We have always been so active that activity has become a deep-rooted obsession. Even while asleep we are active. Even when we are thinking about relaxing we are active. We even make relaxation an activity; we make an effort to relax. This is absurd! But it happens because of the robotlike habits of the mind.
So what to do? Only nonactivity leads you to your inner centre, but the mind cannot conceive of how to be nonactive. So what to do?

I have devised a means. And the means is to be active to such an extreme that activity simply ceases; to be so madly active that the mind that is hankering to be active is thrown out of your system. Only then, after a deep catharsis, can you fall down into inactivity and have a glimpse of the world that is not the world of effort.

Once you know this world, you can move into it without any effort. Once you have the feeling of it – how to be just here and now, without doing anything – you can move into it at any moment; you can remain in it anywhere. Ultimately, you can be outwardly active and inwardly deeply inactive.

Cathartic methods are modern inventions. In Buddha’s time they were not needed because people were not so repressed. People were natural, people lived primitive lives – uncivilised, spontaneous lives. So Vipassana – vipassana means insight – was given by Buddha directly to people. But now you cannot go into Vipassana directly. And the teachers who go on teaching Vipassana directly don’t belong to this century; they are two thousand years backward. Yes, sometimes they may help one or two persons out of one hundred persons, but that can’t do much. I am introducing cathartic methods, so that first what the civilisation has done to you can be undone, so that you become primitive again. From that primitiveness, from primal innocence, insight becomes easily available.

RUNNING, JOGGING AND SWIMMING CAN BE MEDITATION

Running, Jogging and Swimming

IT is natural and easy to keep alert while you are in movement. When you are just sitting silently the natural thing is to just fall asleep. When you are lying on your bed it is very difficult to keep alert because the whole situation helps you to fall asleep. But in movement naturally you cannot fall asleep, you function in a more alert way. The only problem is that the movement can become mechanical.

Learn to melt your body, mind and soul. Find out ways where you can function as a unity.
It happens many times to runners. You might not think of running as a meditation, but runners sometimes have felt a tremendous experience of meditation. And they were surprised, because they were not looking for it – who thinks that a runner is going to experience God? But it has happened. And now, more and more, running is becoming a new kind of meditation.

It can happen when running. If you have ever been a runner, if you have enjoyed running in the early morning when the air is fresh and young and the whole world is coming back from sleep, awakening – you were running and your body was functioning beautifully, the fresh air, the new world born again out of the darkness of the night, everything singing all around, you were feeling so alive ... a moment comes when the runner disappears, and there is only running. The body, mind and soul start functioning together: suddenly an inner orgasm is released.

Runners have sometimes come accidentally on the experience of the fourth, turiya, although they will miss it – they will think it was just because of running that they enjoyed the moment: that it was a beautiful day, the body was healthy and the world was beautiful, and it was just a certain mood. They will not take note of it – but if they do take note of it, my own observation is that a runner can come close to meditation more easily than anybody else.

Jogging can be of immense help, swimming can be of immense help. All these things have to be transformed into meditations.

Drop the old ideas of meditations, that just sitting underneath a tree in a yoga posture is meditation. That is only one of the ways, and it may be suitable for a few people but it is not suitable for all. For a small child it is not meditation, it is torture. For a young man who is alive and vibrant it is repression, it is not meditation.

Start running in the morning on the road. Start with half a mile and then one mile and come eventually to at least three miles. While running use the whole body. Don’t run as if you are in a straitjacket. Run like a small child, using the whole body – hands and feet – and run. Breathe deeply and from the belly. Then sit under a tree, rest, perspire and let the cool breeze come; feel peaceful. This will help very deeply.

Sometimes just stand on the earth without shoes and feel the coolness, the softness, the warmth. Whatsoever the earth is ready to give in that moment, just feel it and let it flow through you. And allow your energy to flow into the earth. Be connected with the earth.
If you are connected with the earth, you are connected with life. If you are connected with the earth, you are connected with your body. If you are connected with the earth, you will become very sensitive and centered – and that’s what is needed.

Never become an expert in running; remain an amateur so that alertness may be kept. If you feel sometime that running has become automatic, drop it; try swimming. If that becomes automatic, then dancing. The point to remember is that the movement is just a situation to create awareness. While it creates awareness it is good. If it stops creating awareness, then it is no more of any use, change to another movement where you will have to be alert again, never allow any activity to become automatic

MEDITATION IS RELAXATION

Meditation is Relaxation

"Meditation is rest, absolute rest, a full stop to all activity – physical, mental, emotional. When you are in such a deep rest that nothing stirs in you, when all action as such ceases – as if you are fast asleep yet awake – you come to know who you are. Suddenly the window opens. It cannot be opened by effort because effort creates tension – and tension is the cause of our whole misery. Hence this is something very fundamental to be understood that meditation is not effort.

"One has to be very playful about meditation, one has to learn to enjoy it as fun. One has not to be serious about it – be serious and you miss. One has to go into it very joyously. And one has to keep aware that it is falling into deeper and deeper rest. It is not concentration, just the contrary, it is relaxation. When you are utterly relaxed, for the first time you start feeling your reality; you come face to face with your being. When you are engaged in activity you are so occupied that you cannot see yourself. Activity creates much smoke around you, it raises much dust around you; hence all activity has to be dropped, at least for a few hours per day.

"That is only so in the beginning. When you have learnt the art of being at rest you can be both active and restful together, because then you know that rest is something so inner that it cannot be disturbed by anything outer. The activity goes on at the circumference, at the center you remain restful. So it is only in the beginning that activity has to be dropped for a few hours. When one has learned the art, then there is no question: for twenty-four hours a day one can be meditative and one can continue all the activities of ordinary life.

"But remember, the key word is rest, relaxation. Never go against rest and relaxation. Arrange your life in such a way, drop all futile activity because ninety per cent is futile; it is just for killing time and remaining occupied. Do only the essential and devote your energies more and more to the inner journey. Then that miracle happens when you can remain at rest and in action together, simultaneously. That is the meeting of the sacred and the mundane, the meeting of this world and that, the meeting of materialism and spiritualism."

Osho, The Golden Wind, Talk #15

WAITING FOR THE SUNRISE CAN BE MEDITATION

Waiting for the sunrise

JUST fifteen minutes before the sun rises, when the sky is becoming a little lighter, just wait and watch as one waits for a beloved: so tense, so deeply awaiting, so hopeful and excited – and yet silent. And just let the sun rise and go on watching. No need to stare; you can blink your eyes. Have the feeling that simultaneously inside something is also rising.

When the sun comes on the horizon, start feeling that it is just near the navel. It comes up over there; and here, inside the navel, it comes up, comes up, slowly. The sun is rising there, and here an inner point of light is rising. Just ten minutes will do. Then close your eyes. When you first see the sun with open eyes it creates a negative, so when you close your eyes, you can see the sun dazzling inside.

And this is going to change you tremendously.

Praise for the rising sun

GET up at five o’clock before the sunrise and for half an hour just sing, hum, moan, groan. These sounds need not be meaningful; they have to be existential, not meaningful. You should enjoy them, that’s all – that is the meaning. You should sway. Let it be a praise for the rising sun and stop only when the sun has risen.
That will keep a certain rhythm in you the whole day. You will be attuned from the very morning and you will see that the day has a different quality; you are more loving, more caring, more compassionate, more friendly – less violent, less angry, less ambitious, less egoistic.