OSHO TEACHINGS

Awareness & Relaxation

Step 1: Daily Watching
“Start being aware with day-to-day, routine actions, and while you are doing your routine actions, remain relaxed.

“There is no need to be tense. When you are washing your floor, what is the need to be tense? Or when you are cooking the food, what is the need to be tense? There is not a single time in life that requires your tension. It is just your unawareness and your impatience.

“I have not found anything — and I have lived in all kind of ways, with all kinds of people. I have always been puzzled: why are they tense? It seems tension has nothing to do with anything outside you, it has something to do within you. Outside you always find an excuse only because it looks so idiotic to be tense without any reason. Just to rationalize, you find some reason outside yourself to explain why you are tense.

“But tension is not outside you, it is in your wrong style of life.

Step 2: Accept yourself
“You are living in competition — that will create tension. You are living in continuous comparison — which will create tension. You are always thinking either of the past or of the future, and missing the present that is the only reality — that will create tension.

“Just find your own talent. Nature never sends any single individual without some unique gift. Just a little search…. Whatever qualities and whatever talents you have, use them to the fullest, and the energy that is involved in tensions will start becoming your grace, your beauty.

Step 3: Be an Artist of Love
“Whatever you are doing, do it with such love, with such care that the smallest thing in the world becomes a piece of art. It will bring great joy to you. And it will create a world without competition, without comparison; it will give dignity to all people. It will restore their pride, which religions have destroyed.
“Any act done with totality becomes your prayer.”

 - Osho: from The Hidden Splendor

Re: OSHO TEACHINGS

Hello sanmugan, Thanks I needed this today.

Re: OSHO TEACHINGS

This is also about awareness:

 

Re: JKrishnamurti philosophies

Awareness is non-effort.

Does not effort mean a struggle to change what is into what it is not, or what it should be, or what it should become? We are constantly escaping from what is, to transform or modify it. Only when there is no awareness of exactly what is, then effort to transform takes place. So, effort is non-awareness. Awareness reveals the significance of what is, and the complete acceptance of the significance brings freedom. So, awareness is non-effort; awareness is the perception of what is without distortion. Distortion exists whenever there is effort.
- JKrishnamurti, from his Collected Works, Vol. IV - 117

Re: OSHO TEACHINGS

Be Real!

Always remember, no matter what you are doing, observe whether your center is involved in it or not, because if it is not involved it is better not to do a thing. Don't do it! No one is forcing you to do anything.

Preserve your energy for the moment when something real happens to you; then do it. Don't smile, preserve the energy. The smile will come, and then it will change you completely. Then it will be total. Then every cell of your body will smile. Then it will be an explosion ? nothing painted.

Remember this: from the very morning, when you open your eyes, try to be real and authentic. Don't do anything that is false. Only for seven days, go on remembering. Don't do anything that is false. Whatsoever is lost, let it be lost. Whatsoever you lose, lose it. But remain real, and within seven days a new life will be felt within you. The dead layers will be broken and a new living current will come to you. You will feel alive again for the first time ? a resurrection.

Do whatsoever you like to do, but think ? really, are you doing it, or is your mother doing it through you or your father doing it through you? Because dead men, dead parents, societies, old generations gone long ago are still functioning within you. They have created such conditionings that you go on fulfilling them ? and they were fulfilling their dead fathers and mothers, and you are fulfilling your dead fathers and mothers, and no one is fulfilled.

Always observe when you do something, whether your father is doing it through you or you are doing it. When you get angry, is it your anger or is it the way your father used to be angry? You are just imitating. I have seen patterns going on, being repeated. If you marry, your marriage is going to be just approximately the same as your father's and your mother's. You will act like your father, your wife will act like her mother, and you will create the same mess again. When you get angry, observe: are you there or someone else? When you love, remember, are you there or someone else? When you speak, remember, are you speaking or your teacher?

Leave all falsities. You may feel a certain dullness for a time being, because all your falsities will drop and the real will take time to come and assert itself. There will be a period of a gap. Allow that period, and don't be afraid and don't become scared. Sooner or later your false selves will drop, masks will drop, and your real face will come into being.

Osho: Excerpted from The Book of Secrets

Re: OSHO TEACHINGS

 
The alchemy of celebration

Laughter is eternal, life is eternal, celebration continues. Actors change but the drama continues. Waves change but the ocean continues. You laugh, you change and somebody else laughs, but laughter continues. You celebrate, somebody else celebrates, but celebration continues. Existence is continuous, it is a container. There is not a single moment's gap in it. But the village people could not understand and they could not participate in the laughter this day.

Then the body was to be burned, and the village people said, 'We will give him a bath as the ritual prescribes.' But those two friends said, 'No, our friend has said, “Don't perform any ritual and don't change my clothes and don't give me a bath. You just put me as I am on the burning pyre.” So we have to follow his instructions.'

And then, suddenly, there was a great happening. When the body was put on the fire, that old man had played the last trick. He had hidden many fireworks under his clothes, and suddenly there was diwali! Then the whole village started laughing. These two mad friends were dancing, then the whole village started dancing. It was not a death, it was a new life.

No death is death, because every death opens a new door – it is a beginning. There is no end to life, there is always a new beginning, a resurrection.

If you change your sadness to celebration, then you will also be capable of changing your death into resurrection. So learn the art while there is still time. Don't let death come before you have learned the secret alchemy of changing baser metals into higher metals. Because if you can change sadness, you can change death. If you can be celebrating unconditionally, when death comes you will be able to laugh, you will be able to celebrate, you will go happy. And when you can go celebrating, death cannot kill you. Rather, on the contrary you have killed death. But start it, give it a try. There is nothing to lose. But people are so foolish that even when there is nothing to lose, they won't give it a try. What is there to lose?

If you are sad, then I say celebrate, dance, sing. What are you to lose? At the most, sadness will be lost, nothing else. But you think it is impossible. And the very idea that it is impossible will not allow you to give it a try. And I say it is one of the most easy things in the world, because energy is neutral. The same energy becomes sadness; the same energy becomes anger; the same energy becomes sexuality; the same energy becomes com passion; the same energy becomes meditation. Energy is one. You don't have many types of energies. You don't have many separate pockets of energy where this energy is labelled 'sadness' and this energy is labelled 'happiness'. Energies are not pigeon-holed, they are not separated. There exists no watertight compartment in you. You are simply one. This one energy becomes sadness, this one energy becomes anger. It is up to you.

One has to learn the secret, the art of how to transform energies. You simply give a direction and the same energy starts moving. And when there is a possibility of transforming anger into bliss, greed into compassion, jealousy into love… you don't know what you are losing. You don't know what you are missing. You are missing the whole point of being here in this universe. Give it a try.

Osho,
Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 4
Chapter #10
Chapter title: The alchemy of celebration

Re: OSHO TEACHINGS

ALONE AT LAST!                              
Confronting oneself in aloneness is fearful and it is
painful, and one has to suffer it. Nothing should be done to avoid it, nothing
should be done to divert the mind and nothing should be done to escape from it.
One has to suffer it and go through it. This suffering and this pain is just a
good sign that you are near a new birth, because every birth is preceded by
pain. It cannot be avoided and it should not be avoided because it is part of
your growth
But why is this pain
there?
This should be understood because understanding will help
you to go through it, and if you go through it knowingly you will come out of
it more easily and sooner.
Why is there pain when you are alone? The first thing is
that your ego gets ill. Your ego can exist only with others. It has grown in
relationship, it cannot exist alone. So if the situation is one in which it can
exist no more, it feels suffocated; it feels just on the verge of death. This
is the deepest suffering. You feel as if you are dying. But it is not you who is
dying, only the ego, which you have taken to be yourself, with which you have
become identified. It cannot exist because it has been given to you by others.
It is a contribution. When you leave others you cannot carry it with you.
So in aloneness all that you know about yourself will fall;
by and by it will disappear. You can prolong your ego for a certain period —
and that too you will have to do through imagination — but you cannot prolong
it for long. Without society you are uprooted; the soil is not there from where
to get food. This is the basic pain.
You are no longer sure who you are: you are just a
dispersing personality, a dissolving personality. But this is good, because
unless this false you disappears the real cannot emerge. Unless you are completely
washed and become clean again the real cannot emerge.
This false you is occupying the throne. It must be
dethroned. By living in solitude all that is false can go. And all that is
given by society is false. Really, all that is given is false; all that is born
with you is real. All that is you by yourself, not contributed by someone else,
is real, authentic. But the false must go and the false is a great investment.
You have invested so much in it; you have been looking after it so much; all
your hopes hang on it. So when it starts dissolving you will feel fearful,
afraid and trembling: “What are you doing to yourself? You are destroying your
whole life, the whole structure.”
There will be fear. But you have to go through this fear;
only then will you become fearless. I don’t say you will become brave, no. I
say you will become fearless.
Bravery is just part of fear. Howsoever brave you are, the
fear is hidden behind. I say “fearless.” You will not be brave; there is no
need to be brave when there is no fear. Both bravery and fear become
irrelevant. They are aspects of the same coin. So your brave men are nothing
but you standing on your head. Your bravery is hidden within you and your fear
is on the surface; their fear is hidden within and their bravery is on the
surface. So when you are alone you are very brave. When you think about
something you are very brave, but when a real situation comes you are fearful.
 
One becomes fearless only when one has gone through the
deepest fear of all — that is the dissolving of the ego, the dissolving of the
image and the dissolving of the personality.
This is death because you don’t know if a new life is going
to emerge from it. During the process you will know only death. Only when you
are dead as you are, as the false entity, only then will you know that death
was just a door to immortality. But that will be at the end; during the process
you are simply dying.
Everything that you cherished so much is being taken away
from you — your personality, your ideas, all that you thought was beautiful.
All is leaving you. You are being denuded. All the roles and robes are being
taken away. In the process fear will be there, but this fear is basic,
necessary and inevitable — one has to pass through it. You should understand it
but don’t try to avoid it, don’t try to escape from it because every escape
will bring you back again. You will move back into the personality.
Those who go into deep silence and solitude, they always ask
me, “There will be fear, so what to do?” I tell them not to do anything, just
to live the fear.
If trembling comes, tremble. Why prevent it? If an inner
fear is there and you are shaking with it, shake with it. Don’t do anything.
Allow it to happen. It will go by itself. If you avoid it …and you can avoid
it. You can start chanting “Ram, Ram, Ram”; you can cling to a mantra so that
your mind is diverted. You will be pacified and the fear will not be there; you
have pushed it into the unconscious. It was coming out — which was good, you
were going to be free from it — it was leaving you and when it leaves you, you
will tremble.
That is natural because from every cell of the body and of
the mind, some energy that has always been there pushed down is leaving. There
will be a shaking and a trembling; it will be just like an earthquake. The
whole soul will be disturbed by it. But let it be. Don’t do anything. That is
my advice. Don’t even chant. Don’t try to do anything with it because all that
you can do will again be suppression. Just by allowing it to be, by letting it
be, it will leave you — and when it has left, you will be altogether a
different man.
-Osho

Re: OSHO TEACHINGS

I am all for richness in every possible way…..OSHO

Do not be deceived by the old idea that you will be spiritually rich if you starve your body; if you physically torture your body you will be spiritually rich – no. It is absolutely unscientific.
I have seen people who have tortured their body their whole life, but I have not seen their soul being enriched by it. In fact their soul has died long ago. OSHO

Each religion has found some way of consoling the poor. Jainas, Hindus, Buddhists – these three great Indian religions, they say to the poor, “You are poor because in your past life you committed sins.

Accept your poverty, just as a punishment. If you try to avoid it you will be spoiling your next life too. It is better to be finished with this in this life so that in the next life you will not be in such pain, in such suffering. The rich people are not rich because they have created wealth, or exploited, or done something; they are rich because in the past life they were virtuous. And what is virtue? To be poor, to torture yourself, to commit a slow suicide – that is virtue. “So you are fortunate that you are born poor; you have been given a great opportunity to exercise virtue. Don't miss it; accept it.”

Hence, there has been no revolution in India. India must have been the oldest country which has been suffering for thousands of years in poverty – but not a single revolution from the poor, not even the idea of a revolution. Nobody in ten thousand years has even mentioned the idea that the poor should rebel against their situation. No, if you rebel against your situation you are missing an opportunity.

You will be surprised. They believe that if a person is drowning in the river, and shouting, “Help me! Save me!” you simply go on your way. He is suffering because of his past life's bad actions. Don't disturb him, because if you save him he will have to suffer again. Let it be finished, once and forever. If you save him, in his next life maybe he will again have to fall in a river and drown. So why prolong his suffering? Let him close the chapter. He had done the bad action, now he is reaping the crop. He has sown the seed somewhere in the past, who are you to disturb and interfere? You simply go on your way.

And moreover, they say, “If you save him you have disturbed his life pattern; you have disturbed his whole opportunity of being finished with a bad, evil act. And you have done something more: if this man saved by you tomorrow commits a murder, you will be also responsible.” Naturally – if you had not saved him, who would have committed the murder?

So you have disturbed his life, you are disturbing your life, and you are disturbing the life of somebody else, who can be murdered. He may rape a woman, he can do anything, and his whole life he will be doing something or other. You will be responsible for everything he does, you will be a partner in it. Knowingly, unknowingly, you have become an inactive partner in his life that you have saved, so why take such a risk? You are not helping him, you are not helping yourself, you are not helping anybody. You just go on your path, and let him go through whatever is his fate.

Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, all have been teaching India that poverty is a byproduct of your past life. So is richness. It has nothing to do with this life. So, revolution…? The question does not arise. Against whom? You cannot undo your past actions, you have to suffer them; you have to fulfill the existential law of karma. You committed the sin, now who is going to suffer the punishment? You are responsible for it. Against what are you going to revolt? Against whom? The past is no more there, you cannot undo it. You have to simply accept whatsoever you have done and whatsoever it brings to you. Hence there has been no revolution, no possibility at all.

The Christians, the Mohammedans, the Jews, they all have been giving some explanation. It is not an explanation; it is just to explain away the situation, and make people feel that whatsoever is happening is destined to happen. Nothing can be done about it. It is God's will in some religions. In some religions it is your fate, which is written before you are born. In some religions it is your past life. But all the religions agree that it has nothing to do with the present, because once you raise the question that something has to do with the present, then something can be done. Then the situation can be changed.

And all these people have been giving respect to poverty. Why this respect for poverty? Why this respect for suffering? This is just to satisfy the poor man's ego, to make him feel that although he is poor, he is in a respectable situation. So condemn the rich, respect the poor: in this way you keep the poor remaining poor and you keep the rich becoming richer. The rich understand perfectly well: “Go on condemning, that doesn't matter; in fact it is needed.” That condemnation takes away the possibility of revolution.

And what is the condemnation? The rich will not be allowed in the kingdom of God. And the rich are far more educated than the poor, far more sophisticated; they understand. Most of the rich people don't bother a bit about your kingdom of God. They may go to the church, just to show that they are good Christians; to the synagogue, just to show they are good Jews; but they know perfectly well that it is just social conformity.

Synagogues and churches are nothing but social clubs, like the Rotary club, the Lions club. They help you. They are good meeting places, and they give you a certain respect. The rich man comes to the synagogue, and the poor man feels that although he is rich he is so humble: bowing down before the cross in the church… how humble. And to the rich man it is all hypocrisy. He knows it is good diplomacy: to go on pretending to be religious, to go on giving some donations to the churches, to the temples, to the mosques. It helps in every possible way. It helps his taxation problems, it helps his otherworldly problems, it helps his respectability. The poor people think that he is really a nice, good man.

And the rich man also says, “Although I am not so capable, I am a weak person, at least I can respect the saint who has renounced, the saint who has renounced things which I cannot renounce.” So he goes to touch the feet of the saint who has renounced. Kings go, rich people go to touch the feet of the saint in India – just to show to the crowd that, “Although we cannot renounce, we are not strong enough, or perhaps it is not yet time for us, deep down this is our goal. If not today, tomorrow; if not in this life, then in the next life – but this is our goal.”

I teach you to live tremendously, ecstatically, in every possible way. On the physical level, on the mental level, on the spiritual level, live to the uttermost of your possibility. Squeeze from each single moment all the pleasures, all the happinesses possible, so that you don't repent later on that, “that moment passed and I missed.” Do not think of the past, because in thinking about the past you will be missing the present moment, which is the only moment, which is all that exists. And don't think of the future: of another life, of the kingdom of God – all sheer nonsense.

Tomorrow does not exist at all. It is always today – always and always today.

It is always this moment. So squeeze it. Don't leave any juice in it. Once you learn to squeeze all the juice out of it, you will never think of the past. What is there left to think of? Then the past leaves no traces on you. It is only the unlived past which becomes your psychological burden.

Let me repeat: the unlived past… those moments which you could have lived, but you have not lived… those love affairs which could have flowered, but you missed… those songs which you could have sung, but you remained stuck to some stupid thing and missed the song…. It is the unlived past which becomes your psychological burden, and it goes on becoming heavier every day.

That's why the old man becomes so irritable. It is not his fault. He does not know why he is so irritable – why every thing and each thing irritates him, why he is constantly angry, why he cannot allow anybody to be happy, why he cannot see children dancing, singing, jumping, rejoicing, why he wants everybody to be quiet – what has happened to him.

It is a simple psychological phenomenon: his whole unlived life. When he sees a child start dancing his inner child hurts. His inner child was somehow prevented from dancing – perhaps by his parents, his elders, perhaps by himself because it was respected, honored. He was brought before the neighbors and introduced: “Look at this child, how quiet, calm, silent; no disturbance, no mischief.” His ego was fulfilled. Anyway, he missed. Now he cannot bear it, he cannot tolerate this child. In fact it is his unlived childhood that starts hurting. It has left a wound. And how many wounds are you carrying? Thousands of wounds are in line, because how much have you left unlived?

So the people who come here, they come here almost dead, carrying their own dead bodies here. When they see you alive, they are shocked. They would have been immensely happy if they had seen ascetics sitting under juniper trees, naked, starving, praying to God, who does not exist. They would have been immensely happy, because then you were far more dead than they were; in comparison they have managed better than you. They would have respected you because you helped them to feel better. When they come to visit here, seeing you, they feel themselves empty, spent – meaninglessly. It hurts. It hurts deeply, hence the question, “Why do you live so rich a life?”

But richness is your birthright.

You have not come with anything written on your forehead. You can go to the surgeon and let him look into your forehead. Nothing is written there, and nothing is written in the lines of your hand. You come in this world absolutely like a plain, unwritten, open book. You have to write your fate; there is nobody who is writing your fate. And who will write your fate? And how? And for what? You come in the world just an open potentiality, a multidimensional potentiality. You have to write your fate. You have to create your destiny. You have to become yourself.

You are not born with a readymade self. You are born only as a seed, and you can die also only as a seed. But you can become a flower, can become a tree. And out of one seed there can come millions of seeds. Do you see the abundance and richness of existence? One seed can make the whole earth green, the whole universe green – what to say of the earth! Just one seed… how much potential is carried in a single small seed! But you can keep it in your safe, bank account, and live a life which is not life at all.

I am all for richness in every possible way. And remember that richness is possible only if you allow it in all the ways.

Do not be deceived by the old idea that you will be spiritually rich if you starve your body; if you physically torture your body you will be spiritually rich – no. It is absolutely unscientific. I have seen people who have tortured their body their whole life, but I have not seen their soul being enriched by it. In fact their soul has died long ago.

Your body and soul are not enemies. They live in harmony.

You are a harmonious whole. Everything is integrated with everything else. You cannot make one part rich and another part poor. The whole becomes affected, becomes either poor or rich. You have to accept your wholeness.

So live, and live intensely. Burn the torch of your life from both the ends together. Only such a man can die blissfully, smiling.

OSHO


Why this respect for poverty? Why this respect for suffering? This is just to satisfy the poor man's ego, to make him feel that although he is poor, he is in a respectable situation. So condemn the rich, respect the poor: in this way you keep the poor remaining poor and you keep the rich becoming richer. The rich understand perfectly well: “Go on condemning, that doesn't matter; in fact it is needed.” That condemnation takes away the possibility of revolution. - osho

Re: OSHO TEACHINGS

am dead and alive at the same time. As a person, I am dead. As somebody, I am dead. As nobody, I am

A wave rises in the ocean, then falls back into the ocean, then rises again. It will have another day, it will be born again in some other form. And then it falls again and disappears.

Death is just disappearing into the source. Death is going to the unmanifested. Death is falling asleep into God. You will bloom again. You will again see the sun and the moon, and again and again till you become a Buddha – till you are capable of dying consciously, till you are capable of relaxing consciously, knowingly, into God.

Then there is no coming back. That is utter death, that is ultimate death. The ordinary death is a temporary death; you will be coming back again. When a Buddha dies, he dies forever. His death has the quality of eternity. But even the temporary death is beautiful.

And you are right, I am dead and alive at the same time. As a person, I am dead. As somebody, I am dead. As nobody, I am alive.

You will have to put your fear aside, because the fear can prevent you – can prevent you from enjoying this opportunity that is available to you. It is very difficult to find a nobody; you have found one. And unless you also become a nobody, go on remembering you are missing the opportunity. Die as I have died, and then you will be alive as I am alive.

There is a life which has nothing to do with any person. There is a life which has nothing to do with any self. There is a life of emptiness, innocent and virgin. I make it available to you. Put your fears aside, come closer to me. Let me become your death and your resurrection.

A Zen master, Bunon has said, “While living, be a dead man, be thoroughly dead, and behave as you like and all is well.”

OSHO

Re: OSHO TEACHINGS

Being Telegraphic

Speak only the essential — as if you are giving a telegram, so you have to go on choosing just ten words.

Just watch people talking, and you will be amazed: everywhere there is misunderstanding. You are saying one thing, something else is understood. The world would be a more silent and peaceful place if people were only saying five percent of what they are saying now — although that five percent will cover absolutely everything that is essential.

Your telegram means more than your long letter, condensed. Be telegraphic and you will be surprised that in the whole day there are very few times when you have to speak.

Osho: The Golden Future, #7

Re: OSHO TEACHINGS

A Wonderful Agastya Story - Osho

A beautiful story has arisen out of its situation. One great enlightened master, Agastya, was going towards the south. And Vindhya bent down to touch the feet of Agastya, and the master said, “Vindhya, remain in this position – because it will be easier for me to pass over you in this position. When you are standing erect – I am old… it will be very difficult for me. And soon I will be returning. My disciples have been inviting me continually, and now, seeing that death is very close, I should fulfill their desire. So I am going to see them, and I will be coming back soon – so don't stand back up in your erect position.”

Agastya died in the south, he never came back; and Vindhya is still waiting, bent over, for the master to come back. It must have been thousands of years ago when the master went to the south….

The story must have arisen because of the situation of Vindhyachal. Vindhya is the oldest mountain in the world; it came out of the ocean in the very early days of this planet. And Himalaya is the latest, the youngest – almost a child in comparison to Vindhyachal.

If you can remain in a space of being no-self, no-ego, in a state of egolessness, then there is the possibility of a sudden rising up of the Himalayan peak of your own being. You will be, for the first time, your reality; and at the same time you will know what it is. It is immortality, it is eternity. It is there from the very beginning – and it is going to remain there to the very end. - from: The Rebellious Spirit Chapter 15

Re: OSHO TEACHINGS

A religious man is in search of authentic experience, not borrowed words,

People come to me and ask, “What is God?” And I ask them, “Did this question come out of your own life or have you read some book which talks about God and so you have become curious? If your curiosity has arisen out of learning it is useless. It is not your question. And if the question is not yours, no answer can be of any help. When the basic thing is borrowed, when even the question is borrowed, you will go on borrowing the answers. Seek your authentic question. What is your question?”


The words of a buddha may not be able to communicate the truth, but they can communicate the music, the music that exists in one who is enlightened. They carry the melody, something of the source, a tiny part, a very tiny part, but something of the source.

It should be so, because when a word comes out of a buddha it carries something of the buddha. It has to be so. The word has been vibrating in his being, it has been in touch with buddha's heartbeat, it has passed through the buddha's silence, it has been in the womb, the womb of the buddha. It carries the scent, the fragrance. It is a very far off cry, but still….

You may be lost in the words – then you miss the buddha – but if you are aware that the word cannot carry the truth, then you will always put aside the word and follow the perfume, put aside the word and follow the music, put aside the word and follow the presence. If I suddenly say, “Hey!” you look at me. The word is meaningless, but the look…. Suddenly you become aware of me. That awareness has to be followed, so then, words can become a help. They may not tell the truth but they can become a help, a step towards the truth.

This story is beautiful. A master is on his dying bed, and soon he has to leave this earth and its vehicle, the body, and he would like to have a successor who can carry the flame that he has kindled, one who will be able to continue the work that he has started. He chooses a disciple, calls him near, and says to him, “You are the most capable of those around me and you are going to be my successor. You will have to continue this work. For seven generations a book has been passed from the master to the disciple who is going to be the successor. I received this book from my master and I give it to you.

It is a very precious, a unique treasury. Seven enlightened persons have noted down their experiences of truth in it, and I have also added a few of my own understandings. Preserve it. Don't lose it; don't let it be lost.”

The disciple said, “But I have achieved the experience without any book, and I am happy and blissful. I am not even a little bit dissatisfied, so why add this burden to me, why give an unnecessary responsibility to me? I have already experienced the truth and the book was not needed. It is unnecessary.”

The master still insisted, “Much that is valuable is written in it. It is no ordinary book, it isthe book, The Bible. So don't be sacrilegious, pay respect to this book, keep it and hand it over to your successor. By giving this book to you I certify this book is a representation that you are my successor.”

The master gave the book to the disciple. It must have been a cold night because the fire was burning. In one hand the disciple received the book, and in the same instant he thrust it into the fire. The master, who had never been angry in his life, shouted, “What are you doing?”

And the disciple shouted, even louder than the master, “What are you saying?”

This is beautiful, the master must have died peacefully. This was the right man. The book had to be thrust into the fire or the disciple would have missed. If he had kept the book he would have missed, and then he would not have been the successor. You keep the book only when the thing has not happened to you. Who is bothered about words when the truth is with you? Who is bothered about a book when the real thing has happened within?

Who is bothered about explanations when the experience is there? Explanations are precious because the experience is lacking; theories are significant because there is no knowledge. When you know, you can throw theories – they are rubber bands. And when the notes are with you, you can throw the rubber band. Preserving a rubber band shows foolishness.

This book was not precious – no book is precious – and the master was playing a game, the same that his master must have played with him. Nobody knows what was written in the book, but I tell you nothing was written in it. It was empty. Had the disciple preserved it, when the master died he would have opened it, and then he would have cried. Nothing was written in the book.

It was just a game, an old game. Every master tries to test the experience of a disciple, whether he knows. And if he knows, he will not be addicted to the book. Why? – there is no point in it. That is why the disciple said, “What are you saying? To preserve the book when I have achieved without it, when I have already achieved? What are you saying?

The master provoked a situation, and in that situation the disciple proved his mettle. He proved that he knew. Even a slight inclination to preserve and he would have missed, he would not have been the successor. He didn't even look in the book to see what was there. He was not even curious, because only ignorance is curious. If you know, you know.

What is curiosity? What would have happened to you? The first thing the mind would have said was: At least look in it, see what is there. But that gesture would have been enough to prove that you had not achieved. Curiosity means ignorance. Wisdom is not curious. Curiosity asks questions; wisdom has no questions to ask.

What would you have done? The first thing that comes to the mind: At least see what is there. If my master insists that this precious book has to be preserved, handed down from one generation to another with seven enlightened persons having written in it, and with my own master having added his own understanding to it, at least have a look before you throw it in the fire.

But I tell you – if he had looked, he would have been thrown out of the house with the book: Get out, and never come back again! He acted out of a deep understanding. How can the master who knows insist that the book is precious? There must be some game. The master had never been angry, never in his life, and suddenly he was angry and said, “What are you doing?” He created the whole situation.

In the anger the disciple may have yielded, may have said, “I have done something wrong, forgive me. This is how the mind functions. The mind might have come in and thought, “I have done something wrong. The master may not appoint me as successor now. If my master is so angry, it means I have done something wrong, and I may miss being the successor. I was going to be the chief, I was going to be the master of the monastery and millions would have followed me.

Thousands would have been my disciples, and now I have done something wrong. A man who has never been angry is angry, shouting.”

If you had been there, you would have touched the feet of the master and said, “Forgive me, but appoint me.” But the disciple said, “And what are you saying?” If the master can play at anger the disciple can also play. but this can happen only when both know. He answered in the right coin. He answered correctly and the master was satisfied: This is the man. He became the successor, he was the successor.

But this has been done by every religion: they preserve books and do nothing else. Christians preserve their Bible, Mohammedans preserve their Koran, Hindus preserve their Gita – and they have missed. They are not the successors. Mohammedans do not belong to Mohammed; they cannot belong. The Koran must be in the fire before they can belong. Christians don't know anything about Christ because they preserve The Bible, and Hindus have no understanding of Krishna because of the Gita – they go on carrying the burden. All the Vedas, and all the Bibles, and all the Korans are for those who don't understand. They carry the burden and the burden becomes so much that they are crushed under it, they are not freed through it, they become slaves to it.

A religious person is always beyond the book; a religious consciousness is never addicted to words and the verbal. The whole thing is childish. A religious man is in search of authentic experience, not borrowed words, not experiences of others. Unless he knows – buddhas may have existed, but they are useless. Unless he knows, there is no truth because truth can only be his experience. Only then is it there. The whole world may say there is light and there is a rainbow in the sky and the sun is rising, but if my eyes are closed what does it mean to me?

The rainbow, the colors, the sunrise, the whole thing is nonexistential to me. My eyes are closed, I am blind. And if I listen to them too much, and if I start believing in them too much, and if I borrow their words and I also start talking about the rainbow that I have not seen, about colors which I cannot see, about the sunrise which is not my experience, I may be lost in the forest of words.

It is better to say, “I am blind. I don't know any color and I don't know any light, and unless my eyes open, there is no sun and there can be no sunrise.” Insist, so that you can work upon your eyes. Don't carry the books; they talk about rainbows seen by others, they talk about sunrises experienced by others. Don't carry the borrowed God when you can encounter him directly, immediately. Why create barriers of books between you and him? Burn the books! – that is the message – throw them in the fire.

That doesn't mean go and throw your Gita in the fire – that will not be of much help, because if a Gita cannot help towards truth how can burning a Gita be helpful? That is not the point. You can throw away all the books and you can remain addicted to theories, doctrines. When I say burn the books, I say: Burn the mind, drop the mind. Don't be verbal. Seek authentic experience. But your inquiry may have arisen out of the books – that is the problem – your questions may have arisen out of books. If your questioning is itself bookish, your whole inquiry has started in a wrong direction.

People come to me and ask, “What is God?” And I ask them, “Did this question come out of your own life or have you read some book which talks about God and so you have become curious? If your curiosity has arisen out of learning it is useless. It is not your question. And if the question is not yours, no answer can be of any help. When the basic thing is borrowed, when even the question is borrowed, you will go on borrowing the answers. Seek your authentic question. What is your question?”

 - OSHO

Re: OSHO TEACHINGS

Be more creative. Dance, and don't bother whether somebody likes your dance or not. OSHO

Be creative. In the past the majority of the religious people proved to be uncreative. That was a calamity, a curse. Saints were simply sitting doing nothing. That is not real religion. When real religion explodes into people's lives, suddenly much creativity explodes also.

When Buddha was here a great creativity exploded. You can find proofs in Ajanta, Ellora. When Tantra was an alive religion a great creativity exploded. You can go to Puri, Kanorak, Khajuraho and see. When Zen Masters were alive they created really many new dimensions – out of small things, but very creative.

If you are uncreative it simply means that you must have practised your religion, you must have forced yourself into a certain pattern, and you have got blocked, frozen in that pattern. A religious person is flowing, streaming, river-like; seeking, exploring, always seeking and exploring the unknown, always dropping the known and going into the unknown, always choosing the unknown for the known, sacrificing the known for the unknown. And always ready. A religious man is a wanderer, a vagabond; into the innermost world he goes on wandering moving from one place to another. He wants to know all the spaces that are involved in his being.

Be more creative. Dance, and don't bother whether somebody likes your dance or not – that is not the question. If you can get dissolved into it, you are a dancer. Write poetry. There is no need even to show it to anybody. If you enjoy it, write it and burn it. Play on your flute or guitar or sitar. You must see our tabla-player, Bodhi. How meditatively he plays on his tabla! That's his meditation. He is growing: going into it, dissolving, melting.

The subjective is the realm of all art and creativity. These are the two ordinary realms of being.

OSHO

Re: OSHO TEACHINGS

A Magic Key       
            
First be one with yourself. This is the first step of Unio Mystica: be one with yourself. And then the second step, and the last, is: be one with existence. The second is easy. The first has become difficult because of so much conditioning, so much education, and so many civilizing efforts. The first has become difficult.

If you have taken the first step of just accepting yourself and loving yourself as you are, moment to moment…. For example, you are sad. This moment you are sad. Your whole conditioning says to you “You should not be sad. This is bad. You should not be sad. You have to be happy.” Now the division, now the problem.

You are sad: that is the truth of this moment.

And your conditioning, your mind says, “You should not be like this, you have to be happy. Smile! What will people think of you?”

Your woman may leave you if you are so sad, your friends may desert you if you are so sad, and your business will be destroyed if you remain so sad. You have to laugh, you have to smile, and you have to at least to pretend that you are happy. If you are a doctor your patients will not feel good if you are so sad. They want a doctor who is happy, jolly, healthy, and you are looking so sad. Smile — even if you cannot bring a real smile, bring a false smile, but smile. At least pretend, act.

This is the problem: you pretend, you act. You can manage to smile, but then you have become two. You have repressed the truth, you have become phony.

And the phony is appreciated by the society. The phony becomes the saint, the phony becomes the great leader, and the phony becomes the mahatma. And everybody starts following the phony. The phony is your ideal.

That’s why you are unable to know yourself. How can you know yourself if you don’t accept yourself? You are always repressing your being. What has to be done then? When you are sad, accept the sadness: this is you. Don’t say, “I am sad.” Don’t say that sadness is something separate from you. Simply say, “I am sadness. This moment, I am sadness.”

Live your sadness in total authenticity.

And you will be surprised that a miraculous door opens in your being. If you can live your sadness with no image of being happy, you become happy immediately, because the division disappears. There is no division any more. “I am sadness” and there is no question of any ideal to be anything else. So there is no effort, no conflict. “I am simply this” and there is relaxation. And in that relaxation is grace, and in that relaxation is joy.

All psychological pain exists only because you are divided. Pain means division. and bliss means no-division. It will look paradoxical to you: if one is sad, accepting one’s sadness how can one become joyous? It will look paradoxical, but it is so. Try it.

I am not saying try to be happy; I am not saying that, “Accept your sadness so that you can become happy” — I am not saying that. If that is your motivation then nothing will happen; you are still struggling. You will be watching from the corner of your eye: “So much time has passed and I have accepted even sadness, and I am saying ‘I am sadness”, and joy is still not coming. “It will not come that way.

Joy is not a goal, it is a by-product.

It is a natural consequence of oneness, of unity. Just be united with this sadness, for no motivation, for no particular purpose. There is no question of any purpose. This is how you are this moment, this is your truth this moment. And next moment you may be angry: accept that too. And next moment you may be something else: accept that too.

Live moment to moment, with tremendous acceptance, without creating any division, and you are on the way towards self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is not a question of reading the Upanishads and sitting silently and reciting, “Aham Brahmasmi, I am God.” These are all foolish efforts. Either you know you are God, or you don’t know it. You can go on for your whole life repeating, “Aham Brahmasmi, I am God.” You can waste your whole life in repeating it, but you will not know it.

If you know it, there is no point in repeating it. Why are you repeating it? If you know, you know. If you don’t know, how can you know by repetition? Just see the whole stupidity of it.

But that’s what is being done in this country and in other countries also, in monasteries and ashrams. What are people doing? Parrot-like repetition.

I am giving you a totally different approach. It is not by repetition of the Bible or Vedas that you will become a knower, no. You will only become knowledgeable. Then how does one come to know oneself?

Drop the division: the division is the whole problem. You are against yourself. Drop all ideals, which create this antagonism in you.

You are the way you are: accept it with joy, with gratitude.

Suddenly a harmony will be felt. The two selves in you, the ideal self and the real self, will not be there to fight any more. They will meet and merge into one.

It is not really sadness that gives you pain. It is the interpretation that sadness is wrong that gives you pain, and that becomes a psychological problem. It is not anger that is painful; it is the idea that anger is wrong that creates psychological anxiety. It is the interpretation, not the fact. The fact is always liberating.

Jesus says, “Truth liberates.” And that is of tremendous import. Yes, truth liberates, but not knowing about truth. Be the truth, and it liberates. Be the truth, and there is liberation. You need not bring it, you need not wait for it: it happens instantly.

How to be the truth? You are already the truth. You are just carrying false ideals; they are creating the trouble. Drop the ideals: for a few days be a natural being. Just like trees and animals and birds, accept your being as you are. And a great silence arises. How can it be otherwise? There is no interpretation: then sadness is beautiful, it has depth.

Then anger too is beautiful it has life and vitality. Then sex too is beautiful, because it has creativity.

When there is no interpretation, all is beautiful.

When all is beautiful, you are relaxed.

In that relaxation you have fallen into your own source, and that brings self-knowledge. Falling into one’s own source is what is meant by “Know thyself.” It is not a question of knowledge, it is a question of inner transformation.

And what transformation am I talking about? I am not giving you any ideal that you have to be like; I am not saying that you have to transform from what you are and become somebody else. You have simply to relax into whatsoever you are, and just see.

Have you heard what I am saying? Just see the point: it is liberating. And a great harmony, a great music is heard. That music is of self-knowledge. And your life starts changing.

You then have a magic key, which unlocks all the locks.

If you accept sadness, sadness will disappear. How long can you be sad if you accept sadness? If you are capable of accepting sadness you will be capable of absorbing it in your being; it will become your depth.

 - Osho: Unio Mystica, Vol. I, #3