Characteristics of Samadhi (Osho)

Osho : First is: Oneness, at-one-ment. Duality disappears. The division between the known and the knower disappears. Fusion arises, confusion disappears. There are no longer two. But remember: the moment Buddha says there are no longer two, he is not saying there is one. He keeps utter silence about the one. He says to say only there are not two – because the moment you say one, you bring the two again. One is meaningless without the two. Not two – that’s all. The runner and the running are not there.

You and I are not there. The speaker and the listener are not there. Existence is an organic unity. There is no duality in it. It is all oneness, but Buddha never calls it one. He is very careful. He avoids all kinds of logical pitfalls. He is very, very alert not to fall into any logical fallacy. He will not say existence is one, because what will you mean by one if there are not two? The figure one is meaningful only with the figure two. Without the figure two, one will not mean anything at all.

If we say God is light, it can only be meaningful if darkness exists. Then the Devil becomes darkness. Without the context of the Devil and darkness, what will it mean – ”God is light”? It will not mean anything. Buddha simply says God is neither light nor darkness. God is not two. Truth is not two.

That is the first experience of samadhi, that by and by the twoness of life disappears. Why is the twoness created? It is created by these three egos. When I see THIS body as my body, then YOUR body becomes YOUR body. When I become attached to my form, YOUR form becomes alien – the other. The moment I see my body not as my body, the moment I see myself as formless, then the other also disappears. With the self disappears the other. Without the ’I’, the ’thou’ cannot exist. They exist together in a pair.

So the first characteristic of samadhi is : twoness in life disappears. A great harmony arises. It is ALL one – that is the meaning of fusion. Confusion arises because of the two. Then there is a clash, a continuous clash.

The second characteristic of samadhi is: ’orgasmicness’ – blissfulness, beatitude.Unless you come to this utter annihilation of all the egos, you will never be happy, you will never be blissful. Misery is a by-product of the ego. And because there are three egos, there are three kinds of misery: the physical misery, the psychological misery, and the spiritual misery. You may not have heard of the third kind – the spiritual misery. You may not have even thought about it as misery. But look: a man is poor and he wants to be rich. He is miserable. Everybody knows he is miserable.

And if you go to a religious priest he will say, ”Don’t be greedy. Money is just dirt, don’t bother about it. Blessed are the poor. You be contented with whatsoever you have.” But then the man starts trying to become a better musician, or a better poet, or a better painter. You will not be so much against him as you were when he was very greedy for money. If he was very greedy for politics and power and this and that, everybody would have condemned him.

But now if he wants to try to create a better painting, better art, write better poetry, nobody will be so much against him. But he will be in misery again. Now the misery will be more psychological. He wants to become a Shakespeare. It is the same game played on another plane. First he wanted to become a Rockefeller, now he wants to become a Shakespeare – but the becoming is there. If you go to a perceptive man, he will say this is the same greed asserting itself on another plane, on a deeper plane. Drop it. This is meaningless.

Even if you become a Shakespeare, nothing is attained. Shakespeare is as miserable as you are. Even if you create great works of art you will not be blissful. You can go and see great painters and musicians, and they are not blissful. So, you become Christ or Buddha – that is going to help. You become a Krishna. It is THERE that bliss exists! And then a person starts trying to become a Christ, or a Buddha.... This is creating spiritual misery. It is the same misery. Now it has penetrated even deeper, now it has gone to the third ego level – the spiritual.

Now nobody will condemn you – unless you come across a Buddha, nobody will condemn you! They will say you are a spiritual man. If you are crying and weeping and suffering because you want to attain to God, and you want to attain to samadhi and moksha and nirvana, who is going to condemn you? People will WORSHIP YOU. They will say, ”Look, what a great spiritual man is here! He does not hanker for money, he does not bother for fame. He simply cries and weeps for God. Here is a spiritual man.”

These are your so-called saints. But if you look deeply you will find they are spiritually miserable. Now, the problem is the same. First you wanted to become a Rockefeller, then you wanted to become a Shakespeare, now you want to become Buddha. But YOU WANT TO BECOME! Becoming persists. TANHA – becoming – persists. The desire to be somebody else continues. Now you want to become God! Nothing has changed. There are three kinds of misery because there are three kinds of ego.

When all the egos have been dropped, when there is no point in any desire left, when ALL your desires have failed.... Let me repeat it. In spirituality, in religion, only one who has utterly failed succeeds. It will look like a paradox. To fail UTTERLY with desire is to enter into the real world. As long as you have some hope to succeed somewhere, you will never enter the reality. Then your hope will go on dragging you away and away. The man who is not worried to become anything – not even Buddha....

Just the other day I was reading about a man who has been meditating for many years – almost fifty years. And he has become very, very old. He came to a Master and said to the Master, ”Fifty years! Don’t you think it is long enough? I have been meditating and meditating. Why have I not become a Buddha yet?”

The Master laughed and he said, ”Now that explains why you have not become a Buddha yet – because you want to become. Hence you go on missing. Now it explains everything!” If you want to become a Buddha you will never become, because a Buddha is one who has dropped all kinds of becoming, who is utterly happy in this moment – for no reason at all. He has nowhere to go, no goal to attain, no target. He has dropped the whole desiring mind with all its layers – layer upon layer.
The mind is like the onion: one layer, the physical; another layer, the psychological; another layer, the spiritual. One who has thrown all those layers, one who has peeled his onion utterly, and has come to the innermost core.... And do you know what the innermost core IS? It is empty. If you go on peeling the onion, finally you come to nothingness. Only nothingness is left in your hands. In the nothingness there is orgasmicness, there is bliss.

With becoming there is misery. If you want to become something you will be in pain, misery, anguish, anxiety. If you understand that there is nothing to become... you are already that. Whatsoever you are, you are! There is no way to improve upon it. There is no need to improve upon it. As you ARE  IS PERFECTLY OKAY. Your VERY ordinariness is utterly extraordinary. To realize this is to come to blessings. Then the whole existence starts showering blessings on you. It has been showering always, but because you were too much concerned with your own desires and becomings, you were not available to it, you were not open to it.

The third characteristic of samadhi is: illumination – great inner transparency, light and clarity. When all these egos disappear, all curtains disappear from your eyes, look becomes pure, innocent, transparency is attained. Then you simply see! And truth is so obvious. It is not hidden. It is not hiding somewhere, it is not avoiding you. It is not on some other planet – it is just in front of your nose. But your eyes are closed. When your eyes open and you have the transparency and the clarity to see... the obvious! Truth is the obvious.

And the fourth characteristic of samadhi is: rest, relaxation.
How can you rest with this constant hankering to become something! How is rest possible? You will remain tense. Rest is possible only when all goal-orientation has been dropped; when the achieving mind functions no more in you, there is rest, there is relaxation. Thought is mind in motion. No-thought is mind at rest. Samadhi is witnessing of both – transcendence. You have been running after things – you have seen that and the misery of it. Then you stopped, and you have seen the beauty of it, the rest, the relaxation.

You have seen both, and the one who has seen both suddenly transcends both. There is a relaxation which is no ordinary relaxation. You know some kind of relaxation: when you feel exhausted, you relax. But that relaxation is very rest-less. It is not cessation of becoming, it is just tiredness. You have been working, the whole day; in the night you have to fall into sleep – but your sleep will remain restless.

You will have many dreams and nightmares. And in sleep also you will continue to move; your mind will still go on spinning and weaving a thousand and one dreams. Ordinarily, what rest we know is just the other side of restlessness – tiredness, exhaustion. There is a new kind of relaxation. When you have seen the tiredness of desire and you have seen the rest of desirelessness, a totally new kind of relaxation arises.

THEN YOU ARE RELAXED BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT. YOU are relaxed because there is NOBODY to get tense! The very complex has disappeared. How can you be tense? There is nobody. You cannot create a knot inside you because you are not! You have simply disappeared. It is an emptiness inside you. You cannot create knots in emptiness.

The fifth characteristic of samadhi is : awareness – consciousness, seeing, knowing, witnessing; the fourth state the Hindus call TURIYA. This is what Ikkyu means when he says, ”LOOK, LOOK, LOOK.” And when he is asked, ”What do you mean by ’LOOK’?” He says, ”LOOK means LOOK.”  Have eyes open. Be alert, be mindful. See things as they are. Don’t create fictions, don’t project. You go to the movies.... Sometimes try one experiment. Sometimes try an experiment with a projector in your home.

You have to put the screen at a certain distance from the projector, then the projected pictures are clear. Then start bringing the screen closer to the projector.  Soon they start becoming blurred, they are no more clear. You cannot make any distinction as to what is what, which is which. Bring it still closer. Now it is impossible to make any sense out of which is the tree and which is the man and which is the dog and which is the car. All are diffused. Bring it still closer... the closer you bring it, the more distinctions are lost.

Then there comes a point when the screen has come very close to the projector: there is only white light left. Black shadows have disappeared... pure white light. When the beam leaves the projector, it is pure white light. the farther it goes, then it divides into black and white. A certain distance is needed to see the pictures clearly.In awareness, exactly this happens. When you become very very alert, you start looking very closely at reality, and distinctions start disappearing.

Trees are no more trees and rivers are no more rivers and mountains are no more mountains. ALL starts melting into one. Then you become even more aware. And the more clearly you see into things... the screen comes even closer. Then there is only pure white light – all the divisions have disappeared. That is what is called awareness. Then all the illusions of life are no more valid, there is only pure light – the light of awareness.

The sixth characteristic of samadhi is: deathlessness, timelessness, eternity. When you are not, how can you die? When there is no ego in you, how can you die? Many people used to ask Buddha in his lifetime, thousands of times the question has been asked: ”What will happen to you, Sir, when you die?” And Buddha always smiles and he says, ”There is nobody to die.” But he makes it clear that ”I am not saying that I am immortal. There is not nobody to be immortal either.”

Now our stupidity is such that first we think we will die, because the ego is there and we are afraid whether we will be able to keep it, protect it, or not. Then comes somebody who knows. And he says, ”Nothing dies.” Then we project another falsity: we start thinking we are immortal. But the basic error remains the same. First we were thinking ”we are going to die” – WE WERE and we were going to die. Still WE ARE – now we are not going to die. Buddha says: ”I am not going to die because I am not. It is not that I am immortal.

There is nobody to die, and there is nobody to be immortal. There is no self, so how is death possible?” This is a totally different standpoint! This is the difference between Vedanta and Buddha. This is the difference between Shankara and Buddha. And Buddha’s insight IS FAR MORE penetrating than Shankara’s. Shankara goes on saying, ”You are immortal because the soul is immortal. It cannot die – it is deathless.” Buddha also says that you will not die, but he never says that you are immortal.

He says, ”You will never die because you cannot die – in the first place you are not.”

To see it – that ”I am not” – is to drop both mortality and immortality. Time disappears. What is your immortality? It will be just an extension of time, more and more duration. What will it be? Seventy years you are going to live – seven hundred years? seven million years? but it will be just duration. What is your eternity? Nothing but a desire to cling, a desire to remain always. For what? Just a blind desire to cling to existence? Just a blind desire, a blind lust for life?

Buddha says: ”Why are you concerned with mortality and immortality?” Deep down, those who say they will die and those who say they will never die, both are the same, because both believe in the ego. The Charvakas, the materialists, say, ”We will die”; and the so-called spiritualists say, ”We will not die.” But BOTH are concerned with the ego. Buddha brings a new breeze into the human mind, into human consciousness. He says: ”You will not die – not because you are immortal – but because you ARE NOT! ” See the point of it! the radical change, the basic revolution of it! Deathlessness is part of the phenomenon of samadhi.

And the seventh is: infinity. Space disappears. You are nowhere and yet everywhere. You are nobody and yet everybody.

Enlightenment (Osho)

Osho on Chikanzenji Enlightenment

Enlightenment is finding that there is nothing to find. Enlightenment is to come to know that there is nowhere to go. Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go. You are already there -- you have never been away. You cannot be away from there. God has never been missed. Maybe you have forgotten, that's all. Maybe you have fallen asleep, that's all.

Maybe you have gotten lost in many, many dreams, that's all -- but you are there. God is your very being. So the first thing is, don't think about enlightenment as a goal, it is not. It is not a goal; it is not something that you can desire. And if you desire it you will not get it. In desiring a thousand and one things, by and by you come to understand that all desire is futile. Each desire lands you in frustration; each desire again and again throws you into a ditch. This has been happening for millions of years but again you start hoping, again you start thinking that this new desire that is arising, sprouting in you, will maybe lead you to paradise.

That this will give you what you have longed for, that it will fulfill you. Again and again hope arises. Enlightenment is when all hope disappears. Enlightenment is disappearance of hope. Don't be disturbed when I say that enlightenment is a state of hopelessness -- it is not negative. Hope arises no more; desire is created no more. Future disappears. When there is no desire there is no need for the future. The canvas of the future is needed for the desire. You paint your desires on the canvas of the future -- when there is nothing to paint, why should you carry the canvas unnecessarily? You drop it.

When there is nothing to paint, why should you carry the brush and the color tubes? They come from the past. The canvas comes from the future and the color and brush and technique, and all that, comes from the past. When you are not going to paint you throw away the canvas, you throw away the brush, you throw away the colors -- then suddenly you are here now. This is what Buddha calls chittakshana -- a moment of awareness, a moment of consciousness. This moment of consciousness can happen any moment.

There is no special time for it, there is no special posture for it, there is no special place for it -- it can happen in all kinds of situations. It has happened in all kinds of situations. All that is needed is that for a single moment there should be no thought, no desire, no hope. In that single moment, the lightning....

One day Chikanzenji was mowing down the weeds around a ruined temple. When he threw away a bit of broken tile it clattered against a bamboo tree. All of a sudden he was enlightened. Whereat he sang:

Upon the clatter of a broken tile
All I had learned was at once forgotten.
Amending my nature is needless.
Pursuing the task of everyday life
I walk along the ancient path.
I am not disheartened in the mindless void.
Wheresoever I go I leave no footprint
For I am not within color or sound.
Enlightened ones everywhere have said:
"Such as this is the attainment."

This poor monk, Chikanzenji, had been working for at least thirty years. He was a hard seeker; he was a very, very honest and sincere and serious seeker. He practiced all that was told to him, he visited many masters, he lived in many monasteries. He did all that was humanly possible. He practiced yoga, he practiced zazen, he did this and that -- but all to no avail. Nothing was happening; in fact, his frustration was growing more and more. The more the methods failed, the more and more frustrated he became.

He had read all the Buddhist scriptures -- there are thousands of them. It is said about this Chikanzenji that he had all these scriptures in his room, and he was constantly reading, day and night. And his memory was so perfect he could recite whole scriptures -- but still nothing happened.

Then one day he burned his whole library. Seeing those scriptures in the fire he laughed. He left the monastery, he left his guru, and he went to live in a ruined temple. He forgot all about meditation, he forgot all about yoga, he forgot all about practicing this and that. He forgot all about virtue, sheela; he forgot all about discipline, and he never went inside the temple to worship the Buddha.

But he was living in that ruined temple when it happened. He was mowing down the weeds around the temple -- not a very religious thing to do. Not anything specific, not anything special, just taking the weeds out. When he threw away a bit of broken tile, it clattered against a bamboo tree -- in that moment, chittakshana, the moment of awareness, happened. In that very clattering of the tile against the bamboo, a shock, a jerk happened and his mind stopped for a moment. In that very moment he became enlightened.

How can one become enlightened in one single moment? One can, because one is enlightened -- one just has to recognize the fact. It is not something that happens from the outside, it is something that arises from the inside. It has always been there but you were clouded, you were full of thoughts.

Chikanzenji burned all the scriptures. That was symbolic. Now he no longer remembered anything. Now he had forgotten all search. Now he no longer cared. Unconcerned, he lived a very ordinary life -- he was no longer even a monk. He had no pretensions anymore, he had no ego goals any more. Remember, there are two kinds of ego goals: the worldly and the otherworldly. Some people are searching for money; some people are searching for power, prestige, pull. Some people are searching for God, moksha, nirvana, enlightenment -- but the search continues. And who is searching? The same ego.

The moment you drop the search, you drop the ego also. The moment there is no seeking, the seeker cannot exist. Just visualize this poor monk -- who was no longer a monk -- living in a ruined temple. He had nowhere else to go, he was just clearing the ground -- maybe to put some seeds there for vegetables or something. He came across a tile, threw it away, and was taken unawares. The tile clattered against the bamboo tree and with the sudden clattering, the sudden sound, he becomes enlightened.

And he said: Upon the clatter of a broken tile.  All I had learned was at once forgotten. Enlightenment is a process of unlearning. It is utter ignorance. But that ignorance is very luminous and your knowledge is very dull. That ignorance is very alive and luminous, and your knowledge is very dark and dead. He says, All I had learned was at once forgotten. In that moment he knew nothing. In that moment there was no knower, in that moment there was no observer -- just the sound. And one is awakened from a long sleep.

And he says, Amending my nature is needless. That day he felt that he was just struggling unnecessarily. Amending my nature is needless. You need not amend yourself, you need not improve yourself -- that is all just tommyrot! Beware of all those who go on telling you to improve yourself, to become this or to become that, to become virtuous. Who go on telling you that this is wrong, don't do it; that this is good, do it; that this will lead you to heaven and this will lead you to hell.

Those who go on telling you to amend your nature and improve upon yourself are very dangerous people. They are one of the basic causes for your not being enlightened. Nature cannot be amended; it has to be accepted. There is no way to be otherwise. Whosoever you are, whatsoever you are, that's how you are -- that's what you are. It is a great acceptance. Buddha calls it tathata, a great acceptance. Nothing is there to be changed -- how can you change it, and who is going to change it? It is your nature and you will try to change it?

It would be just like a dog chasing its own tail. The dog would go crazy. But dogs are not as foolish as man. Man goes on chasing his own tail, and the more difficult he finds it the more he jumps and the more he tries and the more and more bizarre he becomes. Nothing has to be changed, because all is beautiful -- that is enlightenment. All is as it should be, everything is perfect. This is the most perfect world, this moment lacks nothing -- the experience of this is what enlightenment is.

Satori (Osho)

Drop all beliefs. Then the relative disappears and the real arises.

A small story, a Tibetan story.

Once long ago a pilgrim found himself in. the desert beyond Tibet. It was a starless night, the sky like black lacquer, the dusty wind importunately pulling at his hair and beard, and the jagged rocks rising to wound his stumbling feet. The pilgrim had hoped to reach a great spiritual teacher beyond the wilderness, but now that hope was gone. He might well die of thirst before morning. Fervently, the pilgrim prayed to Amida Buddha – the Lord of Light – for help.

Immediately, his foot struck something that was not a stone. It was a silver bowl filled to the brim with pure cold melting snow. The pilgrim drank all he could, in his weakened condition, and then, with a cracked prayer of gratitude, sank down upon the sand. He fell asleep. When dawn awakened him, the pilgrim reached once again for the saving silver bowl. It proved to be a human skull. Bits of flesh, fringing the bare bone still, showed that the skull must have beenfull of life until quite recently. 

Besides, the hollow of it held what seemed to be brain-fluid, swimming thick with maggots like dirty grey thoughts. The pilgrim vomited at the sight. As he did so, SATORI came to him. He turned homeward, without delay. That which he sought was accomplished. He had found his teacher, and his temple as well – the temple of the skull.

This story is of tremendous importance. What happened? How did the SATORI happen? In the night he believed in his thirst that Buddha has given him this silver bowl. It was a dark night, starless – it was just his belief; created by his thirst. He was dying, he was on the verge of death – his mind must have dreamed, must have projected. In a human skull he saw a silver bowl – he projected. And he thought the brain-fluid was just pure ice-water – he drank it. 

And it was so – when he thought it was pure ice-water, it was pure ice-water; and when he thought it was a silver bowl, it was a silver bowl. You live in your projections. Happy, he thanked Buddha and fell asleep. In the morning when the sun was rising, he opened his eyes. He wanted to see the silver bowl that had saved his life... and it was a human skull. bits of flesh fringing the bare bone still, showed that the skull must been full of life untill quite recently, Disgusting. 

Besides, the hollow of it held what seemed to be brain-Fluid... nauseating...Swimming thick with Maggots like dirty Grey thoughts. You can think of that man, that poor man. He vomited. Now it was no more a silver bowl, and it was no more pure ice-water. He vomited. And in that vomiting, something dawned in his consciousness. He could see that it is all a mind game: if you see it as a silver bowl, it becomes a silver bowl. In the night, there was no nausea. 

He had drunk the brain-fluid with maggots in it, but there was no nausea and no question of vomiting. And he had thanked God, thanked Buddha, in great gratitude. And he had fallen asleep, and he slept the whole night beautifully, and there was nothing wrong. And now, seeing it, the vomiting comes – after hours. A great understanding happened – that it is all the mind. If it is all the mind, then there is no need to go anywhere: you can drop the mind at your own home. That was the satori, just seeing the point of it – it is just an idea. 

If he had got up early in the morning and had left, then there would never have been any vomiting. It is just an idea. And who knows? – in the night, maybe Amida Buddha had managed to produce a silver bowl. Mm? these Buddhas are strange people, they can do things like that. In the night he may have drunk out of a silver bowl – who knows? – and there was nothing to vomit over. Or maybe in the morning Amida Buddha had managed to produce this skull filled with brain-fluid, streaming with maggots, dirty maggots. Who knows?

But that is not the point. One thing is certain – that when you believe one thing you live in one reality, when you believe another thing you live in another reality. It is only a question of belief. All your worlds are belief-worlds.  Hence the satori. He must have laughed: that vomit was a great experience. He must have laughed, he must have understood the very root of it all. And then there was no need to seek the teacher, the teacher has been found. And there was no need to go to the temple where he was going, the temple has been found... in the human skull.

He must have come back dancing, he must have come back celebrating, he must have come back a totally different man. A man who is no more asleep in thoughts, in the mind – a man who lives no more in projections, a man who dreams no more. A man who now sees – whose clarity has become absolute, whose consciousness now has a transparency. This is what satori is.

Free

Consciousness (Maharishi Ramana)

Existence or Consciousness is the only reality. Consciousness plus waking we call waking. Consciousness plus sleep we call sleep. Consciousness plus dream, we call dream. Consciousness is the screen on which all the pictures come and go. The screen is real, the pictures are mere shadows on it.

Meditation

Sunrise Nature

Buddha

Awesome Nature

Eyes who have seen it!

You are amazing!

Illness from choice and distinctions, Chuang Tzu (Osho)

Whenever you are healthy you don’t know anything about your body – the body is forgotten. When there is some illness, only then can you not forget the body. Do you know if there is any head without a headache? When there is a headache you cannot forget the head. When the shoe is pinching then it doesn’t fit. When you don’t have any headache, where is the head? You completely forget about it. Whatsoever is healthy is forgotten but whatsoever is ill is remembered – it becomes a continuous note in the mind, a continuous tension in the mind.

A perfect man of Tao does not know himself; YOU know, because you are ill. Ego is illness, a substantial illness, because you continuously have to remember that you are somebody. This shows that you are in a deep ’dis-ease’. Disease creates the ego; a perfectly healthy natural being forgets completely. He is like a cloud, like a breeze, like a rock, like a tree, like a bird – but never like a man. He is not, because only illness, like a wound, has to be remembered.
Remembering is a mechanism for safety and security: if there is a thorn in your foot, you have to remember. The mind will go continuously again and again to the spot because the thorn has to be thrown out. If you forget it, the thorn will remain there and it will become dangerous; it may poison the whole body. When there is a headache the body tells you to remember it, something has to be done. If you forget it, the headache may become dangerous.

The body tells you whenever there is some illness, something wrong – it attracts your attention. But when the body is healthy, you forget it; you become ’body-less’ when the body is healthy. And this is the only definition of health: health is when there is no consciousness of the body. If there is any sort of consciousness of the body, then that part is not healthy.
The same applies to the mind. When your consciousness is healthy, there is no ego – you don’t know anything about yourself. You don’t go on reminding yourself that ’I am something,’ you simply relax. You are, but there is no ’I’. It is a simple ’am-ness’, an ’is-ness’, but there is no ’I’, no crystallised ego. The self is not there.

SO, WHEN THE SHOE FITS, THE FOOT IS FORGOTTEN; WHEN THE BELT FITS, THE BELLY IS FORGOTTEN; AND WHEN THE HEART IS RIGHT, ’FOR’ AND ’AGAINST’ ARE FORGOTTEN.

This is one of the deepest things to be understood. When the heart is right, all ’for’ and ’against’ are forgotten. When the heart is wrong, ill, then you go on continuously being burdened, worried: this is right and that is wrong – and the right should be followed, the wrong should be avoided. The whole of life becomes a struggle how to avoid the wrong and how to achieve the right. And this is not the way to achieve the right! This is the way to miss it forever.

Look.... You have anger, sex, greed. If you say anger is wrong then your whole life will be passed in an angry state. Sometimes you will be angry, and sometimes you will be angry because of your anger – that will be the only difference. Sometimes you will be angry, and when the anger is gone you will be angry because of the anger; you call this repentance. And then you will decide never to be angry again, but you will be angry again, because both states are anger. Sometimes you are angry against someone else, sometimes you are angry against yourself because you were angry.

If you are against sex and you say that it is wrong, – as the whole world has said – then you will be sexual, and, after your sexuality has passed, you will feel guilty. In that guilt you will ponder and think about sex again and again; it will become cerebral. So sometimes you will be physically sexual, and sometimes cerebrally sexual – sometimes sexual in the body, sometimes sexual in the mind.

Once you make a distinction, once you make a conflict, you will be divided.
Once I was staying with Mulla Nasrudin. A very beautiful widow came to see him to ask for his advice. She said: I am in trouble, and you have to help me. I am in love with a very handsome man, younger than me, but he is poor. And an old man who is very, very rich and very ugly is in love with me. So what should I do? Which one should I marry? Mulla Nasrudin closed his eyes, pondered, and said: Marry the rich man, and be good to the poor.

This is how all conflict arises, this is how you choose both the alternatives. Then you become divided. Whenever you say that this is right and that is wrong you are already divided, and your whole life will be a conflict – from this polarity to the other you will move like a pendulum.
Don’t be against anything. Why? Because whenever you are against anything it means that deep down you are for it, otherwise why be against it?

A man who is not angry deep down will not be against anger. Why should he be? A man who is not greedy deep down will not be against greed. Why should he be against it? There is no problem for him, it is not a choice, he has not made any distinction. Remember, it is always greedy persons who are against greed, sexual persons who are against sex, angry persons who are against anger, violent persons who are against voilence. Then what do they do? They create an opposite goal.

If you are violent, non-violence will become the goal. And how can a violent man become non- voilent? What will he do? There is only one possibility, he will be violent towards himself, that’s all. What else can he do? A violent man... how can he be non-violent? An angry person... how can he be without anger? And if an angry person cultivates non-anger, in his non-anger there will also be anger because you cannot cultivate anything without you entering it. The anger will enter the non-anger; the violence will enter the non violence.

If you look around, if you watch rightly, you cannot find more violent people than those who have non violence as their goal. And you cannot find more sexual, pervertedly sexual people than those who have BRAHMACHARYA, celibacy, as their goal.

Chuang Tzu says: Don’t make distinctions, otherwise you will be divided. Once divided, you are two, split.

A person who is split cannot be natural. Nature exists in unity, it is a deep harmony, there is no conflict at all. Nature accepts everything – there is no choice, it is a choiceless let-go. Don’t choose. And this is the miracle: if you don’t choose to be against anger, then when anger comes you are simply angry. Don’t choose against anger. When anger comes simply be angry, and when anger goes, let it go. Don’t repent, don’t let it continue inside the mind, don’t make it a continuity, don’t be against it. When anger comes, it comes! What can you do? When it doesn’t come, it doesn’t come! You have no choice.

Then a miracle happens. Without choice you become so alert that your energies are divided no longer. And when energies are undivided they are so powerful, so tremendous that anger becomes impossible – because anger is part of weakness. Remember this... the weaker you are, the more angry; the stronger you are, the less angry. If you are absolutely strong, there will be no anger. Remember this... the weaker you are, the more greedy – really, the weak has to be greedy to protect himself – and the stronger you are, the less greedy.

When the energy is total in you, not divided, not split, you are a unity. Greed disappears, because greed belongs to a weak mind, a split mind. And when you are split, there will be anger, and you will fight against it, and a bigger split will be created and more energy will be dissipated. And you will become full of inner turmoil, anarchy, not one harmonious note anywhere. Everything will be out of tune.

And the more you make an effort to bring it to a tuning, the more trouble there will be – because you have missed the first step, and you will go on missing it to the very last. 

No description, Just experience

Mind thrives on the flux of life, lives in duality, lives on effort!

So anything arising out of mind cannot describe the non-dual being in the center.

Description is not possible.

But description will happen when mind stops, drops, pauses!

The description is always there. We just cannot see it.

To experience it, one must open the inward watcher's eye -- the 3rd dimension of sight.

To see things from inside out. To integrate the world outside with the world within.

To enter another dimension.

Sitting in you (Siddharth)

Thanks to Siddharth for the following wonderful blog!

http://siddharthaspiritualjourney.blogspot.com/2007/07/sitting-in-you.html

Obstacles can be transformed into spiritual growth

Poison can be transformed into nectar

Evil can be transformed into virtues

Distraction can be counted into devotion on the path.

People around can remind you of yourself

Of your ego

Of your mistakes

Of your childish nature

As Osho says where will you run…?

Where will you go…?

Wherever you will go there will be you

& you is the problem,

You is the obstacle

So be in this you….completely….

Without running…without doing…..by being

By watching…by waking up from sleep.

As Milarepa says mukti is hidden in samsara

The evils brings chances of more growth

Those distracting, illusionary and confusing thoughts

Make me remind of myself….

Of this samsara, of this big play.

They make me more accomplish yogi.

As Gorakh says Die O Yogi Die

Die do completely that death becomes the amrit

Die here and now…wherever you are….you can die....

This is the promise of Gorakh….

Finding a way in...

Into the super conscious...!

Becoming a watcher inwards.

Keep separating your consciousness bit by bit from the mind into becoming a watcher.

Reinforce this bit of consciousness by reminding "I am" "I am watching" "I am now"

Be careful that it doesn't become a mind thing or concentration. It must be out of mind. Pure consciousness.

It is creating -- a mini-watcher within you from part of your existing consciousness.

So you may feel there is 2 of you.

Gradually this watcher becomes stronger.

And your consciousness all of a sudden has a new place for alighting outside of mind.

And a point will come when you can be aware of the super consciousness which is just hidden around the corner, into which you consciousness constantly takes a dip.

At some point you can let go of your watcher consciousness and drop it, and merge with the super consciousness.

Mindlessness (Osho)

Mindlessness is mind without any content, without any thought. It is just like a mirror not reflecting anything.

The silence of being a mirror not reflecting anything is the greatest bliss that existence allows man to have. And from there things go on expanding -- mysteries upon mysteries...no questions, no answers, but tremendous experiences...nourishing, fulfilling, giving contentment to the hungry soul which has been wandering for lives upon lives.

It is time to stop this wandering.

To stop this wandering there is a simple method, and that is to start watching your mind, your body, your actions. Whatever you are doing or not doing, one thing you have to be alert of -- that you are watching. Don't lose the watcher.

The watcher is no one. It is just pure consciousness.

There is only one thing in existence, and that is watchfulness.

...A monk is going to spread Gautam Buddha's message. He himself is not enlightened yet; that's why Gautam Buddha calls him and tells him, "Remember, I have to say this because you are not enlightened yet...you are articulate, you speak well, you can spread the message. You may not be able to sow the seeds but you may be able to attract a few people to come to me -- but use this opportunity also for your own growth."

The monk asked, "What can I do, how can I use this opportunity?"

And Buddha said, "There is only one thing that can be done in every opportunity, in every situation, and that is watchfulness. You will sometimes find people irritated by you, angry because you have hurt their ideologies, their doctrines, their prejudices. Remain silent and watchful. You may have days when you cannot get food because the people are against you, they will not even give you water. Watch...watch your hunger, watch your thirst...but don't get irritated, don't get annoyed. What you will be teaching people is of less importance than your own watchfulness.

If you come back to me watchful, I will be immensely joyful. How many people you approached does not matter; how many people you spoke to does not matter. What ultimately matters is whether you have come home, whether you yourself have found the solid basis of witnessing. Then all else is insignificant."

This is the only meditation there is; all other meditations are variations of the same phenomenon.

So this sutra of Ta Hui is one of the most fundamental ones.

Keeping the mind still vs mindlessness (Osho)

There has been a long misunderstanding about these two things: keeping the mind still and mindlessness. There have been many people who have thought that they are synonymous. They appear to be synonymous, but in reality they are as far apart as two things can be, and there is no way to bridge them.

So first let us try to find the exact meanings of these two words, because the whole of Ta Hui's sutra this evening is concerned with the understanding of the difference.

The difference is very delicate. A man who is keeping his mind still and a man who has no mind will look exactly alike from the outside, because the man who is keeping his mind still is also silent. Underneath his silence there is great turmoil, but he is not allowing it to surface. He is in great control.

The man with no mind, or mindlessness, has nothing to control. He is just pure silence with nothing repressed, with nothing disciplined -- just a pure empty sky.

Surfaces can be very deceptive. One has to be very alert about appearances, because they both look the same from the outside -- both are silent. The problem would not have arisen if the still mind was not easy to achieve. It is easy to achieve. Mindlessness is not so easy to achieve; it is not cheap, it is the greatest treasure in the world.

Mind can play the game of being silent; it can play the game of being without any thoughts, any emotions, but they are just repressed, fully alive, ready to jump out any moment. The so-called religions and their saints have fallen into the fallacy of stilling the mind. If you go on sitting silently, trying to control your thoughts, not allowing your emotions, not allowing any movement within you, slowly slowly it will become your habit. This is the greatest deception in the world you can give to yourself, because everything is exactly the same, nothing has changed, but it appears as if you have gone through a transformation.

The state of no-mind or mindlessness is just the opposite of stilling the mind -- it is getting beyond the mind. It is creating such a distance between yourself and the mind that the mind becomes the farthest star, millions of light years away, and you are just a watcher. When the mind is stilled you are the controller. When the mind is not, you are the watcher. These are the distinguishing marks.

When you are controlling something you are in tension; you cannot be without tension, because that which is controlled is continuously trying to revolt against you, that which is enslaved wants freedom. Your mind sooner or later will explode with vengeance.

Meditation is not concentration (Osho)

MEDITATION is not concentration. In concentration there is a self concentrating and there is an object being concentrated upon. There is duality. In meditation there is nobody inside and nothing outside. It is not concentration . There is no division between the in and the out. The in goes on flowing into the out, the out goes on flowing into the in. The demarcation, the boundary, the border, no longer exists. The in is out, the out is in; it is a no-dual consciousness.

Concentration is a dual consciousness; that's why concentration creates tiredness; that's why when you concentrate you feel exhausted. And you cannot concentrate for twenty-four hours, you will have to take holidays to rest. Concentration can never become your nature. Meditation does not tire, meditation does not exahaust you. Meditation can become a twenty-four hour thing - day in, day out, year in, year out. It can become eternity. It is relaxation itself.

Concentration is an act, a willed act. Meditation is a state of no will, a state of inaction. It is relaxation. One has simply dropped into one's own being, and that being is the same as the being of All. In Concentration the mind functions out of a conclusion: you are doing something. Concentration comes out of the past. In meditation there is no conclusion behind it. You are not doing anything in particular, you are simply being. It has no past to it, it is pure of all future, It what Lao Tzu has called wei-wu-wei, action through inaction. It is what Zen masters have been saying: Sitting silently doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. Remember, 'by itself - nothing is being done. You are not pulling the grass upwards; the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. That state - when you allow life to go on its own way. When you don't want to give any control to it, when you are not manipulating, when you are not enforcing any discipline on it - that state of pure undisciplined spontaneity, is what meditation is.

Meditation is in the present, pure present. Meditation is immediacy. You cannot meditate, you can be in meditation. You cannot be in concentration, but you can concentrate. Concentration is human, meditation is divine.

Present Moment (Eckhart Tolle)

Meet life, freedom, joy in the present moment.

Be in the moment, however it is, whatsoever it is. Be alert to welcome it. Fall for it.

Be in it totally. Do something totally. Witness something totally. Do not think about it. Do it.

When you are in it totally, present moment is free of time. It's vast. Eternal.

It's is the meditation!

Present moment is liberating. Breaking off the time. Because time only gets perceived when we are thinking about something. Thusly,  breaking off from the story of our life which only exists in time.

It is like seeing the same things like for the first time. Being with nature, totally engrossed without thought. Where the mind doesn't intervene. Where we don't exist, we have died. As the only way to know us is knowing of us in time. 

If we are not in present moment we are just creating time -- either thinking about past or projecting future. Imprisoned.  Sleeping to life, yet awake.

I am (Osho)

Wherever you are, remember yourself, that you are. This consciousness that you are should become a continuity. Not your name, your caste, your nationality — those are futile things, absolutely useless. Just remember that: I am. This must not be forgotten. Walking, sitting, eating, talking, remember that: I am.

It will be difficult, very arduous. In the beginning you will keep forgetting: there will be only single moments when you will feel illuminated, then it is lost. But don’t get miserable; even single moments are much. Go on, whenever you can remember again catch hold of the thread. When you forget, don’t worry — remember again, and by and by the gaps will lessen, the intervals will start dropping, a continuity will arise.

And whenever your consciousness becomes continuous, you need not use the mind. Then there is no planning, then you act out of your consciousness, not out of your mind. Then there is no need for any apology, no need to give any explanation. Then you are whatsoever you are; there is nothing to hide. Whatsoever you are, you are. You cannot do anything else. You can only be in a state of continuous remembrance. Through this remembrance, this mindfulness, comes the authentic religion, comes the authentic morality.

This is what Hindus call self-remembrance, what the Buddha called right-mindfulness, what Gurdjieff used to call self-remembering, what Krishnamurti calls awareness. This is the most substantial part of meditation, to remember that: I am.

You need not repeat it in the mind, “I am walking.” If you repeat it, that is not remembrance. You have to be non-verbally aware that “I am walking, I am eating, I am talking, I am listening.” Whatsoever you do, the ‘I’ inside should not be forgotten; it should remain.

It is not self-consciousness. It is consciousness of the self. Self-consciousness is ego. Consciousness of the self is asmita — purity, just being aware that ‘I am’.

Ordinarily, your consciousness is arrowed towards the object. You look at me: your whole consciousness is moving towards me like an arrow. But you are arrowed towards me. Self-remembering means you must have a double-arrow — one side of it showing to me, another side showing to you. A double-arrow is self-remembrance.

Living moment-to-moment means living a life always fresh (Osho)

For man there are only two possibilities of existing in the world: one is through the mind and the other is through meditation. Through the mind there is misery, anxiety, anguish, death; through meditation there is bliss, benediction, immortality, godliness. And the choice is always yours.

Man always stands on the crossroad. Each moment is a crossroad. You can turn towards the mind or you can turn towards meditation. And means living in the past. Mind is an accumulation of all the experiences, memories, which have passed. They are no more in existence; only traces are left on your memory film. Memory is exactly a recording mechanism. It is very talented and has infinite capacity, almost infinite. One simple memory system can record all the information contained in all the libraries of the world. But memory means that which is no more.

Because we live in the past we project a future. The future is a by-product of the past. The future also does not exist; it is another non-existential thing just like the past. At least the past has been — the future has yet to be. And whatsoever you can conceive of the future is just a reflection of your past, a modified past.

You would like all the pleasures that you lived through in the past, magnified, on a bigger scale, and you would like to drop all the miseries that you had to go through in the past. Your future is a selected past: that which you like you project and that which you don’t like you reject. But the problem is that in life everything is intertwined with everything else. You cannot choose the nice part and reject the bitter part — that is impossible. They are one parcel, they come together.

If you choose anything from the past thinking that it was beautiful, you have also chosen the ugly. Whether you like it or not is not the question; it will come inevitably — just as days are with nights. You cannot choose the day and drop the night; the night and day are two aspects of the same phenomenon. You cannot choose one aspect of the coin. You can hide the other, but it is there, and sooner or later you will have to give it its due. And if you want your pleasures to be on a bigger scale, your misery will grow in the same proportion. That is the dilemma man goes on living, suffering, hoping that some miracle will happen and he will be able to choose only the roses without the thorns. But they come together!

But there is a totally different way of life, a different style — and that is to live in the present. That’s what I call meditation. Meditation is an opening into the present, dropping the whole past without any choice. If you can drop the whole past, future disappears. Then there is no future, future evaporates, and all that is left is the existential moment. This moment is all there is: now, here. And then life starts moving in a different dimension, altogether different; then you are on an adventure, because you have never know the present. It is the most unknown phenomenon in life.

It seems strange that the only thing that is existential is the most unknown. And the non-existential is very much known; you go on brooding about the past and the future. Mind is a brooding about the non-existential; meditation is living the existential. And the moment your whole being is herenow, god is. God is existence, another name for existence, and the present is a door into his temple the only door. There are no other doors.

To be a sannyasin means to live your life moment-to-moment, without any expectation because all expectations come from the past. And when there are no expectations, there are no frustrations either. Living moment-to-moment means living a life always fresh, young, alive. The past makes you old, dull, dead, the more it gathers on you — and it is gathering every moment. It is like dust gathering on a mirror: soon you cannot see anything in the mirror.

That’s how we are live — like blind persons because we cannot see a anything, we cannot feel anything, we cannot experience anything. All beautiful things have become mere words; love, god, bliss are just words. People use them but they know that they don’t mean anything. Meaning can come only through experience, and the only experience possible is of the present.

But always remember: once you have lived the moment it is past. Then drop it; howsoever beautiful it was, don’t cling to it. When it is no more, it is no more. That’s what Jesus means when he says ‘Let the dead bury their dead.’

The past is dead. Go on dying to the past — and every moment die to the past so that every moment you are born anew. That’s the way of sannyas. Then you know what a gift life, what a splendour, what a joy to be… Just to be is enough, more than enough! It is such a benediction that we cannot repay existence in any way; we can only feel grateful.

Meditation means awareness, alertness, watchfulness, witnessing (Osho)

The last words of Gautam the Buddha to his disciples were ‘Be a lamp unto yourself.’ This is the most pregnant message ever. The whole philosophy of meditation is contained in it.

Meditation means that no outer light is going to help, no outer treasure is going to make you rich, no outer conquest is going to make you a real conqueror. The real treasure is within you and the real conquest has to be made there. 

It is such a ridiculous thing that we go on searching for something which we have already got, but we never look within. We look everywhere else we can go to the very corners of the earth or even to the moon in search of some illusory pleasure — just one territory we never enter, and that is our own being.

Meditation is a simple technique of entering it. Meditation means awareness, alertness, watchfulness, witnessing. Witness your actions, witness your thoughts witness your feelings so that slowly slow you can see you are neither the body nor the mind nor heart — that you are the witness of it all.

The moment you know that you are only a witness, a pure mirror reflecting everything, and you are not identified with any reflection, suddenly you discover your inner light. It is already there, but we have to shift our consciousness. A one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn is needed, and it happens only by witnessing, there is no other method. When you are witnessing, anything one thing becomes clear, that you are not the thing that you are witnessing, obviously; you are the witness of it.

Go on, deeper and deeper. When nothing is left to witness, you have witnessed all objects that you can witness and you have rejected them knowing ‘I am not that,’ when everything is eliminated, only you are left — just the mirror and nothing else; suddenly the shift: consciousness turns upon itself.

That moment of turning in is the greatest moment in life. In that very moment you know who you are and you know what god is, and you know what bliss is, you know what truth is, freedom is, what eternity is. All that is worth knowing is known — immediately, instantly. And then you can go on living in the world but you will be living with a totally different centre, with a totally different perspective: you will be in the world but absolutely out of it. That’s the way of sannyas: to be in the world and absolutely out of it.

Life is a curse if you are not aware. (Osho)

Then it is nothing but misery. It is only thorns, not a single rose. From the cradle to the grave there are hopes and man goes on living because of those hopes, but they are never fulfilled.

In the end there is only despair, hopelessness, anguish. That’s our whole anguish. But this tragedy happens only because we are not aware. Awareness functions like magic: it transforms everything into its opposite. Anger becomes compassion, greed becomes sharing, hate becomes love, the very darkness of life becomes light. And then suddenly one discovers that the thorns were not there outside; they were our projection of an unconscious state.

Once you are conscious, there are only roses and roses. The person who coined the proverb that life is not a bed of roses must have been unconscious, unaware, because all the awakened ones say just the opposite: Life is a bed of roses. Hence all that a sannyasin has to do is to shift a gear inside himself from unconscious to consciusness.

And the process is very simple. It cannot be simpler than it is. In fact because it is so simple, people go on missing it. If it was a little complicated, difficult, there would be a challenge for the ego; but there is no challenge for the ego. Ego is always interested in something difficult. The more difficult it is, the better. The ego is interested in going to the moon, to Mars; it is not interested in going within oneself.

The process can be reduced into a simple formula: whatsoever you do, do it but remain alert. Walking, watch your walking; eating, watch you. eating just don’t go on stuffing youself mechanically. The mind is somewhere else, you are thinking a thousand-and-one things and the hands go on stuffing and the mouth goes on chewing. That is a mechanical process. You are not aware of what you are doing.

If you are totally in the moment — only then can you be aware. So forget the whole world while you are eating. Eating, just eat; walking, just walk; listening, just listen; talking, just talk and remain totally in it, alert, aware of each gesture, each nuance. And slowly you will get the knack of it, the hang of it.

It is not a science, it is not even an art. It is only a knack, like swimming — you have just to start throwing your hands. First start in shallow water so there is no fear, then go deeper. First begin with the body — that is the shallowest part of our being. Then go into the mind. Then watch your thoughts, desires, memories. Then go still deeper, dive still deeper — watch your emotions, your moods. And then the fundamental and the ultimate plunge, the fourth, where your centre is. Then become aware of your awareness itself. The moment one is aware of awareness itself the circle is complete . And that is the moment we in the East have called enlightenment.

Man is not imprisoned by outside forces. He is imprisoned by his own unconscious, by his own instincts, by his own biological past. So one can try to be politically free — that is not difficult — but it is not going to bring real freedom.

So almost every counrty is politicallty free but the people are in the same misery. One can try to be economically free. The moment you become rich you are economically free. You can purchase anything you want, you can have all the things of the world. There is no limitation. You can have the best house, the best of everything; still, something will be missing. You will not feel contented. You will not really feel free . On the other hand, you will feel hampered by all your possessions.

The richer a person gets, the more and more he is imprisoned in his richness. He cannot even sleep well. He cannot live in a relaxed way, although he always wished that when the money would be there he would live in a relaxed way. Then life would be just a long holiday. He now has a house in the mountains, a house on the beach, a beautiful yacht in the sea, an aeroplane and everything, but he has no will to relax. In fact in earning all this money he has learned one thing: how to remain constantly tense. He has been always on his tiptoes. Now it is too late to relax.

Relaxation needs a totally different kind of skill — the rich person misses it. Hence the rich person only appears rich. Really he is as poor as anybody else, maybe far poorer than the poor ones. Apparently he has all but inside there is only nothingness, and the freedom that he was thinking would come through econonic prosperity has not arrived.

Money can be earned, freedom cannot be earned. Freedom has to grow within you. It grows simultaneously as a by-product of awarness. The more aware you are, the freer. The moment your awareness is at the peak, your freedom is also at the peak. So only a Buddha, a Christ, a Zarathustra — these few people — have lived and known freedom. And that is the goal of sannays: absolute freedom. The method is awareness.

What does it mean to live dangerously? (Osho)

DANGEROUSLY? To live dangerously means to live. If you don’t live dangerously, you don’t live. Living flowers only in danger. Living never flowers in security; it flowers only in insecurity. If you start getting secure, you become a stagnant pool. Then your energy is no more moving. Then you are afraid, because one never knows how to go into the unknown.

And why take the risk? The known is more secure. Then you get obsessed with the familiar. You go on getting fed up with it, you are bored with it, you feel miserable in it, but still it seems familiar and comfortable. At least it is known. Unknown creates a trembling in you. The very idea of the unknown and you start feeling unsafe.

There are only two types of people in the world. People who want to live comfortably — they are seeking death. They want a comfortable grave. And people who want to live — they choose to live dangerously, because life thrives only when there is risk. Have you ever gone climbing the mountains? The higher the climb, the fresher you feel, the younger you feel.

The greater the danger of falling, the bigger the abyss by the side, the more alive you are… between life and death, when you are just hanging between life and death. Then there is no boredom, then there is no dust of the past, no desire for the future. Then the present moment is very sharp like a flame. It is enough. You live in the here and now.

Or surfing… or skiing… or gliding. Wherever there is a risk of losing life, there is tremendous joy. Because the risk of losing life makes you tremendously alive. Hence people are attracted to dangerous sports. People go climbing the mountains. Somebody asked Hillary, ‘Why did you try to climb Everest? Why?’ And Hillary said, ‘Because it is there — a constant challenge.’

It was risky, many people had died before. For almost sixty, seventy years, groups had been going, and it was almost a certain death. But still people were going. What was the attraction? Reaching higher, going farther away from the settled, the routine life, you again become wild, you again become part of the animal world. You again live like a tiger or a lion or like a river.

You again soar like a bird into the skies, farther and farther away. And each moment the security, the bank balance, the wife, the husband, the family, the society, the church, the respectability… all are fading away and away, distant and distant. You become alone. This is why people are so much interested in sports.

But that too is not real danger because you can become very very skilled. You can learn it, you can be trained for it. It is a very calculated risk — if you allow me the expression, calculated risk. You can train for mountaineering and you can take all precautions. Or driving, speed-driving. You can go a hundred miles per hour. It is dangerous, it is thrilling.

But you can become really skillful about it, and the danger is only for outsiders; for you it is not. And even if it is there, it is very marginal. And then, these risks are only physical risks, only the body is involved. When I say to you, live dangerously, I mean not only bodily risk, but psychological risk, and finally spiritual risk. Religion is spiritual risk.

It is going to such heights from where maybe there is no return. That is the meaning of Buddha’s term, anagamin — one who returns never. It is going to such a height of point of no return; then one is simply lost. One never comes back. When I say live dangerously, I mean don’t live the life of ordinary respectability — that you are a mayor in a town, or a member of the cooperation. This is not life.

Or you are a minister, or you have a good profession and are earning well and money goes on accumulating in the bank and everything is going perfectly well. When everything is going perfectly well, simply see it — you are dying and nothing is happening. People may respect you, and when you die a great procession will follow you. Good, that’s all.

And in the newspapers your pictures will be published and there will be editorials, and then people will forget about you. And you lived your whole life only for these things. Watch — one can miss one’s whole life for ordinary, mundane things. To be spiritual means to understand that these small things should not be given too much importance.

I am not saying that they are meaningless. I am saying that they are meaningful, but not as meaningful as you think. Money is needed. It is a need. But money is not the goal and cannot be the goal. A house is needed, certainly. It is a need. I am not an ascetic and I don’t want you to destroy your houses and escape to the Himalayas. The house is needed — but the house is needed for you. Don’t misunderstand it.

As I see people, the whole thing has gone topsy-turvy. They exist as if they are needed for the house. They go on working for the house. As if they are needed for the bank balance — they simply go on collecting money and then they die. And they had never lived. They had never a single moment of throbbing, streaming life.

They were just imprisoned in security, familiarity, respectability. Then if you feel bored, it is natural. People come to me and they say they feel very bored. They feel fed up, stuck. What to do? They think that just by repeating a mantra they will become again alive. It is not so easy. They will have to change their whole life pattern.

Love, but don’t think that tomorrow the woman will be available to you. Don’t expect. Don’t reduce the woman into a wife. Then you are living dangerously. Don’t reduce the man into a husband, because a husband is an ugly thing. Let your man be your man and your woman your woman. And don’t make your tomorrow predictable. Expect nothing and be ready for everything. That’s what I mean when I say live dangerously.

What do we do? We fall in love with a woman and immediately we start going to the court, or to the registry office, or to the church to get married. I’m not saying don’t get married. It is a formality. Good, satisfy the society. But deep in your mind never possess the woman. Never for a single moment say that ‘you belong to me’.

Because how can a person belong to you? And when you start possessing the woman, she will start possessing you. Then you both are no more in love. You are just crushing and killing each other, paralyzing each other. Love — but don’t let your love degrade into marriage. Work — work is needed — but don’t let work become your only life. Play should remain your life, your center of life.

Work should be as a means towards play. Work in the office and work in the factory and work in the shop, but just to have time, opportunity, to play. Don’t let your life be reduced into just a working routine. Because the goal of life is play. Play means doing something for its own sake. You come to me even to meditate, and you take meditation also as work.

You think something has to be done to achieve god. It is nonsense. Meditation cannot be done that way. You have to play, you have to take it as fun. You have not to be serious about it. You have to enjoy it. When you enjoy it, it develops. When you start taking it as work, as a duty to be done — because you have to do, you have to achieve moksha, nirvana, liberation — then again you have brought your foolish categories into the world of play.

Meditation is play, it is a leela. You enjoy it for its own sake. If you enjoy many more things for their own sake, you will be more alive. Of course, your life will always be in a risk, danger. But that’s how life has to be. Risk is part of it. In fact the better part of it is risk, the best part of it is risk. The most beautiful part of it is risk. It is every moment a risk.

You may not be aware. You breathe in, you breathe out. There is risk. Even breathing out, who knows whether the breath will come back or not? It is not certain, there is no guarantee. But there are a few people whose whole religion is security. Even if they talk about god, they talk about god as the supreme security.

If they think about god, they think only because they are afraid. If they go to pray and meditate, they are going just in order that they remain in the good books — in god’s good books. ‘If there is a god, he will know that I was a regular church-goer, a regular worshipper. I can claim.’ Even their prayer is just a means.

To live dangerously means to live life as if each moment is its own end. Each moment has its own intrinsic value. And you are not afraid. And you know death is there and you accept the fact that death is there, and you are not hiding against death. In fact, you go and encounter death. You enjoy those moments of encountering death — physically, psychologically, spiritually.

Enjoying those moments where you come directly in contact with death, where death becomes almost a reality, is what I mean when I say live dangerously. Love brings you face to face with death. Meditation brings you face to face with death. Coming to a master is coming to your own death. Facing somebody who has disappeared, is entering an abyss in which you can be lost, and you can become an anagamin.

Those who are courageous, they go headlong. They search all opportunities of danger. Their life philosophy is not that of insurance companies. Their life philosophy is that of a mountain climber, a glider, a surfer. And not only in the outside seas they surf; they surf in their innermost seas. And not only on the outside they climb Alps and Himalayas; they seek inner peaks. But remember one thing — never forget the art of risking, never never.

Always remain capable of risking. And wherever you can find an opportunity to risk, never miss it, and you will never be a loser. Risk is the only guarantee for being truly alive.

Meditation is Witnessing (Osho)

Meditation starts by being separate from the mind, by being a witness. That is the only way of separating yourself from anything. If you are looking at the light, naturally one thing is certain: you are not the light, you are the one who is looking at it. If you are watching the flowers, one thing is certain: you are not the flower, you are the watcher.

Watching is the key of meditation.

Watch your mind.

Don't do anything - no repetition of mantra, no repetition of the name of god - just watch whatever the mind is doing. Don't disturb it, don't prevent it, don't repress it; don't do anything at all on your part. You just be a watcher, and the miracle of watching is meditation. As you watch, slowly mind becomes empty of thoughts; but you are not falling asleep, you are becoming more alert, more aware.
As the mind becomes completely empty, your whole energy becomes aflame of awakening. This flame is the result of meditation. So you can say meditation is another name of watching, witnessing, observing - without any judgement, without any evaluation. Just by watching, you immediately get out of the mind....

It is like the experience of people who have sometimes got lost in a desert. At first, thirst is a word in their mind: "I am feeling thirsty and I am looking for water." But as time goes on, and there is no sign of any oasis -- and as far as the eyes can see, there is no possibility of finding water -- the thirst goes on spreading all over the body. From the mind, from just a word, `thirst', it starts spreading to every cell and fiber of the body. Now it is no longer a word, it is an actual experience.

Your every cell -- and there are seven million cells in the body -- is thirsty. Those cells don't know words, they don't know language, but they know that they need water; otherwise life is going to be finished. In meditation, the longing becomes just a thirst for enlightenment and a patient awaiting; because it is such a great phenomenon and you are so tiny. Your hands cannot reach it; it is not within your reach. It will come and overwhelm you but you cannot do anything to bring it down to you.

You are too small; your energies are too small. But whenever you are really waiting with patience and longing and passion, it comes. In the right moment, it comes. It has always come.

Exploring Awareness

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Osho on Art of meditation

Zen fakirs say: ”If you want to go to the house of God, you must learn the burglar’s art.” You need as much alertness as the thief uses. You also must transform your fear and enter like the thief, as if it is your own house.

There is a Zen story: There was a very well known thief who was considered number one in the hierarchy of thieves. He was so adept at his art that he had never been caught, yet everyone knew he was a thief. The news even reached the ears of the king who called him, and honored him for his wonderful efficiency and skill.

As he became older his son said to him, ”Father, it is time for you to teach me your art, because who knows when death may come?’ The thief replied, ”If you wish to learn I shall teach you. Come with me tomorrow night.” The next night both father and son set out. The father broke through the wall as the son stood watching. His absorption in breaking in would have put any artist to shame. He was lost in his work as if he were lost in prayer. The son was awed by his father’s proficiency. He was a master thief, the guru of so many thieves.

The son was trembling from head to foot, though it was a warm night. Fear arose again and again, chilling his spine. His eyes darted everywhere, watching all directions, but his father was lost in his work and didn’t lift his eyes even once. When they entered through the hole the son was trembling like a leaf; never had he felt so afraid in all his life, but the father moved about as though the place belonged to him. He took the son in, broke the locks, opened the lock of a huge wardrobe filled with clothes and jewels, and told the son to get inside.

No sooner did the son enter but the father closed the cupboard, locked it, and taking the key with him, left the house shouting, ”Thief, thief!” and returned home. By then everyone had awakened. The son was caught in the worst dilemma of his life. What was he to do? He was worried about the footprints and the hole in the wall. At that moment the servant come right up to the wardrobe. The poor boy was at his wits end, his mind completely blank. At such a time the mind does not work, because it is full of stale knowledge and doesn’t know how to deal with fresh situations. He had never heard of such a thing arising in the whole history of thieving.

His intellect became useless. At the moment the intellect became useless, the consciousness within was awakened. Suddenly, as this energy caught him, he began making a noise as if a rat was gnawing at the clothes inside the cupboard. He was shocked at himself; he had never done such a thing before. The woman servant brought a bunch of keys and opened it. He immediately puffed out the lamp she was holding and, giving her a push, ran out of the house through the hole in the wall. Some ten or twenty people gave chase.

There was a great deal of noise, because the whole village was awake. The thief ran for his life – ran as he had never run before. He had no idea it was he who was running. Suddenly, as he reached a well, he picked up a big stone and threw it in the well – all this without the slightest idea of what he was doing. It seemed to him it was not he but someone else directing him. At the sound of the stone falling in the water the crowd gathered around the well, thinking the thief had fallen in. He stood behind the tree to rest a bit, then continued home muttering to himself.

When he went in he found his father fast asleep with the blanket over his head. The son pulled off the cover and said, ”What are you doing?” The father continued snoring away. He shook him hard. ”What did you do to me? Did you want to see me killed?” The father opened his eyes for a minute and said, ”So you have returned? Good. I’ll hear the rest in the morning,” and appeared to fall back asleep. The son pleaded with him, ”Say something, father. Ask me what I went through or I shall not be able to sleep.”

The father said, ”Now you are an expert; you don’t need to be taught. Anyway, say it if you must.” After the son recounted all that had happened the father answered, ”Enough! Now you know even the art that cannot be taught. After all you are my son! My blood flows in your veins. You know the secret. If a robber uses his intelligence he gets caught. You have to leave your intelligence behind, because each time it is a totally new experience, a new moment; each time you are entering a different person’s house and every house is new. The old experience never comes of use.

Use your intelligence and you land yourself in trouble. Rely on your intuition and you succeed.” Zen masters always mention this story. They say the art of meditation is like house-breaking – you need as much awareness. Intelligence should be put aside and awareness should come into play. Where there is fear there is bound to be awareness. Where there is danger you become absolutely alert and all thoughts stop.

Source: from Osho Book "The True Name, Vol 2 "