Death as a Door

What can be said about death? How can you say anything about death? It is not possible for any word to carry the meaning of death. What does this word ‘death’ mean? In fact it means nothing. What do you mean when you use the word death? It is simply a door beyond which we don’t know what happens. We see a man disappearing inside a door; we can see up to the door, and then the man simply disappears. Your word death can give only the meaning of the door. But what happens really, beyond the door? — because the door is not the thing.

The door is to be passed through. Then what happens to one who disappears through the door that we cannot see beyond? What happens to him? And what is this door? Just a stopping of the breath? Is the breath the whole of life? Don’t you have anything more than the breath? Breath stops...body deteriorates...if you are body and breath alone, then there is no problem. Then death is nothing. It is not a door to anything. It is simply a stopping, not a disappearance. It is just like a clock.

The clock is tick-ticking, working, then it stops; you don’t ask where the tick-tick has gone — that would be meaningless! It has gone nowhere. It has not gone at all, it has simply stopped; it was a mechanism and something has gone wrong in the mechanism — you can repair the mechanism, then it will tick-tick again. Is death just like a clock stopping? Just like that?

If so, it is not a mystery, it is nothing really. But how can life disappear so easily? Life is not mechanical. Life is awareness. The clock is not aware. You can listen to the tick-tick; the clock has never listened to it. You can listen to your own heartbeat. Who is this listener? If only the heartbeat is life, then who is this listener? If breath is the only life, how can you be aware of your breath? That’s why all Eastern techniques of meditation use breath awareness as a subtle technique...because if you become aware of the breathing, then who is this awareness? It must be something beyond breath because you can look at it and the looker cannot be the object. You can witness it; you can close your eyes and you can see your breath going in and coming out. Who is this seer, the witnessing? It must be a separate force that does not depend on breathing. When the breathing disappears it is the stopping of a clock, but where does this awareness go? Where does this awareness move to?

Death is a door, it is not a stopping. Awareness moves but your body remains at the door — just as you have come here and left your shoes at the door. The body is left outside the temple, and your awareness enters the temple. It is the most subtle phenomenon, life is nothing before it. Basically life is just a preparation for dying, and only those are wise who learn in their life how to die. If you don’t know how to die you have missed the whole meaning of life: it is a preparation, it is a training, it is a discipline.

Life is not the end, it is just a discipline to learn the art of dying. But you are afraid, you are scared, at the very word death you start trembling. That means you have not yet known life, because life never dies. Life cannot die.

Somewhere you have become identified with the body, with the mechanism. The mechanism is to die, the mechanism cannot be eternal, because the mechanism depends on many things; it is a conditioned phenomenon. Awareness is unconditional, it doesn’t depend on anything. It can float like a cloud in the sky, it has no roots, it is not caused, it is never born so it can never die.

Whenever someone dies you have to be meditative near them, because a temple is just near and it is holy ground. Don’t be childish, don’t bring curiosities, be silent so you can watch and see. Something very very meaningful is happening. Don’t miss the moment.

How do you know if someone really loves you?

There are three layers of the human individual: his physiology, the body; his psychology, the mind; and his being, his eternal self. Love can exist on all the three planes, but its qualities will be different. On the plane of physiology, body, it is simply sexuality. You can call it love, because the word ‘love’ seems to be poetic, beautiful. But ninety-nine percent of people are calling their sex, love. Sex is biological, physiological. Your chemistry, your hormones — everything material is involved in it.
You fall in love with a woman or a man. Can you exactly describe why this woman attracted you? Certainly you cannot see her self, you have not seen your own self yet. You cannot see her psychology either, because to read somebody’s mind is not an easy job. So what have you found in the woman? Something in your physiology, in your chemistry, in your hormones, is attracted to the woman’s hormones, her physiology, her chemistry. This is not a love affair; this is a chemical affair.
Just think: the woman you have fallen in love with goes to our doctor, gets her sex changed, starts growing a beard and mustache. Will you be still loving her? Nothing has changed, only chemistry, hormones. Where has your love gone?
Only one percent of people know a little bit deeper. Poets, painters, musicians, dancers, singers have a sensitivity that they can feel beyond the body. They can feel the beauties of the mind, the sensitivities of the heart, because they live on that plane themselves.
Remember it as a ground rule: Wherever you live, you cannot see beyond that. If you live in your body, if you think you are only your body, you can be attracted only to somebody’s body. This is the physiological stage of love. But a musician, a painter, a poet, lives on a different plane. He does not think, he feels. And because he lives in his heart, he can feel the other person’s heart. That is ordinarily called love. It is rare. I am saying only one percent perhaps, once in a while.
Why are many people not moving to the second plane because it is tremendously beautiful? But there is a problem: anything very beautiful is also very delicate. It is not hardware, it is made of very fragile glass. And once a mirror has fallen and broken, then there is no way to put it together. People are afraid to get so much involved that they reach to the delicate layers of love, because at that stage love is tremendously beautiful but also tremendously changing.
Sentiments are not stones, they are like roseflowers. It is better to have a plastic roseflower, because it will be there always, and every day you can give it a shower and it will be fresh. You can put some French perfume on it. If its color fades you can paint it again. Plastic is one of the most indestructible things in the world. It is stable, permanent; hence people stop at the physiological. It is superficial, but it is stable.
Poets are known, artists are known to fall in love almost every day. Their love is like a roseflower. While it is there it is so fragrant, so alive, dancing in the wind, in the rain, in the sun, asserting its beauty. But by the evening it may be gone, and you cannot do anything to prevent it. The deeper love of the heart is just like a breeze that comes into your room, brings its freshness, coolness, and then it is gone. You cannot catch hold of the wind in your fist.
Very few people are so courageous as to live with a moment-to-moment, changing life. Hence, they have decided to fall into a love on which they can depend. I don’t know which kind of love you know — most probably the first kind, perhaps, the second kind. And you are afraid that if you reach your being, what will happen to your love? Certainly it will be gone — but you will not be a loser. A new kind of love will arise which arises only perhaps to one person in millions. That love can only be called lovingness.
The first love should be called sex. The second love should be called love. The third should be called lovingness — a quality, unaddressed — not possessive and not allowing anybody else to possess you. That loving quality is such a radical revolution that even to conceive it is very difficult.
Journalists have been asking me, “Why are there so many women here?” Obviously, the question is relevant, and they are shocked when I answer them. They were not expecting the answer. I have said to them, “I am a man.” They looked at me, unbelieving. I said, “It is natural that many more women will be here, for the simple reason that whatsoever they have known in their life before was either sex, or in rare cases, perhaps a few moments of love. But they have never come to know the taste of lovingness.” I have told these journalists, “Even the men you see here have grown many feminine qualities in them which have been repressed in the outside society.”
From the very beginning a boy is told, “You are a boy, not a girl. Behave like a boy! Tears are okay for a girl, but not for you. Be manly.” So every boy goes on cutting his feminine qualities. And all that is beautiful is feminine. So finally what is left is just a barbarous animal. His whole function is to reproduce children. The girl is not allowed to have anything with manly qualities. If she wants to climb a tree she will be stopped immediately, “This is for boys, not for girls!” Strange! If the girl has the desire to climb the tree, that is enough proof that she should be allowed.
All old societies have created different clothes for men and for women. This is not right; because each man is also a woman. He has come from two sources: his father and his mother. Both have contributed to his being. And each woman is also a man. We have destroyed both. The woman has lost all courage, adventure, reasoning, logic, because those are thought to be the qualities of a man. And the man has lost grace, sensitivity, compassion, kindness. Both have become half. This is one of the greatest problems we have to solve — at least for our people.
My sannyasins have to be both: half man, half woman. That will make them richer. They will have all the qualities that are available to human beings, not only half. At the point of being, you simply have a fragrance of lovingness. The journalists have asked me, “Do you love Sheela?” I said, “Of course. But I love so many women that I don’t know even their names. And not only women — I love so many men, because they are also half woman.” In one million sannyasins around the world, I cannot point to a single person and say, “This is the person I love.” I can simply say, “I love.” Whoever is ready to receive my love...it is available. So don’t be afraid. Your fear is right: what you think of as love will be gone, but what will come in its place is immense, infinite. You will be able to love without being attached. You will be able to love many people because to love one person is to keep yourself poor. That one person can give a certain experience of love, but to love many people....
You will be amazed that every person gives you a new feeling, a new song, a new ecstasy. Hence, I am against marriage. In my vision, marriages in the commune should be dissolved. People can live together their whole life if they want, but that is not a legal necessity. People should be moving, having as many experiences of love as possible. They should not be possessive. Possessiveness destroys love. And they should not be possessed, because that again destroys your love.
All human beings are worthy of being loved. There is no need to be tethered to one person for your whole life. That is one of the reasons why all the people around the world look so bored. Why can’t they laugh like you? Why can’t they dance like you? They are chained with invisible chains: marriage, family, husband, wife, children. They are burdened with all kinds of duties, responsibilities, sacrifices. And you want them to smile and laugh and dance and rejoice? You are asking the impossible. Make people’s love free, make people non-possessive. But this can happen only if in your meditation you discover your being. It is nothing to practice.
I am not saying to you, “Tonight you go to some other woman just as a practice.” You will not get anything, and you may lose your wife. And in the morning you will look silly. It is not a question of practicing, it is a question of discovering your being. With the discovery of being follows the quality of impersonal lovingness. Then you simply love. And it goes on spreading. First, it is human beings, then soon animals, birds, trees, mountains, stars. A day comes when this whole existence is your beloved. That is our potential. And anybody who is not achieving it is wasting his life.
Yes, you will have to lose a few things, but they are worthless. You will be gaining so much that you will never think again of what you have lost. A pure impersonal lovingness which can penetrate into anybody’s being — that is the outcome of meditativeness, of silence, of diving deep within your own being. I am simply trying to persuade you. Don’t be afraid of losing what you have.

 

The Way of the Sly Man

Osho, I can feel myself moving from anger into sadness. I don’t know whether I should try and get the anger out or just let it explode inside.
Anger and sadness are both the same. Sadness is passive anger and anger is active sadness. Because sadness comes easy, anger seems to be difficult. because you are too much in tune with the passive.
It is difficult for a sad person to be angry. If you can make a sad person angry, his sadness will disappear immediately. It will be very difficult for an angry person to be sad. If you can make him sad, his anger will disappear immediately.
In all our emotions the basic polarity continues — of man and woman, yin and yang, the male and the female. Anger is male, sadness is female. So if you are in tune with sadness, it is difficult to shift to anger, but I would like you to shift. Just exploding it within won’t help much because again you are seeking some way of being passive. No. Bring it out, act it out. Even if it looks nonsense, then too. Be a buffoon in your own eyes, but bring it out.
If you can float between anger and sadness, both become similarly easy. You will have a transcendence and then you will be able to watch. You can stand behind the screen and watch these games, and then you can go beyond both. But first you have to be moving easily between these two. otherwise you tend to be sad and when one is heavy, transcendence is difficult.
Remember, when two energies, opposite energies, are exactly alike, fifty-fifty, then it is very easy to get out of them, because they are fighting and cancelling each other and you are not in anybody’s grip. Your sadness and your anger are fifty-fifty, equal energies, so they cancel each other. Suddenly you have freedom and you can slip out. But if sadness is seventy percent and anger thirty percent, then it is very difficult. Thirty percent anger in contrast with seventy percent sadness means forty percent sadness will still be there and it will not be possible; you will not be capable of easily slipping out. That forty percent will hang over you.
So this is one of the basic laws of inner energies — to always let the opposite polarities come to an equal status, and then you are able to slip out of them. It is as if two persons are fighting and you can escape. They are so engaged with themselves that you need not worry, and you can escape. Don’t bring the mind in. Just make it an exercise.
You can make it an everyday exercise; forget about waiting for it to come. Every day you have to be angry — that will be easier. So jump, jog. scream, and bring it. Once you can bring it for no reason at all, you will be very happy because now you have a freedom. Otherwise even anger is dominated by situations. You are not a master of it. If you cannot bring it, how can you drop it?
Gurdjieff used to teach his disciples never to start by dropping anything. First start by bringing it in, because only a person who can create anger on demand can be capable of dropping it on demand — simple mathematics. So Gurdjieff would tell his disciples to first learn how to be angry. Everybody would be sitting and suddenly he would ay, “Number One, stand up and be angry!” It looks so absurd.
But if you can bring it.... And it is always available, just by the comer, you just have to pull it in. It comes easily when anybody provides an excuse. Somebody insults you — it is there. So why wait for the insult? Why be dominated by the other? Why can’t you bring it yourself? Bring it yourself!
In the beginning it looks a little awkward, strange, unbelievable, because you have always believed in the theory that it is somebody else whose insult has created the anger. That’s not true. Anger has always been there; somebody has just given an excuse for it to come up. You can give yourself an excuse. Imagine a situation in which you would have been angry, and become angry. Talk to the wall and say things, and soon the wall will be talking to you. Just go completely crazy. You have to bring anger and sadness to a similar status, where they are exactly proportionate to each other. They will cancel each other out and you can slip away.
Gurdjieff used to call this “the way of the sly man” — to bring inner energies to such a conflict that they are engaged together cancelling each other, and you have the opportunity to escape. Try it, mm?

TANTRA TEACHES MAN TO TRANSCEND BOTH HIS CRAVING FOR HIS ANIMALISTIC PAST, AND ALSO HIS CRAVING FOR THE DIVINE

YOU HAVE SAID THAT TANTRA TEACHES MAN TO TRANSCEND BOTH HIS CRAVING FOR HIS ANIMALISTIC PAST, AND ALSO HIS CRAVING FOR THE DIVINE.
DOES IT MEAN THAT DIVINITY IS PART OF THE WORLD, AND THAT TOO HAS TO BE TRANSCENDED? AND WHAT IS IT THAT GOES BEYOND BOTH?

You will have to understand many things. First: the nature of desire. Divinity is not what you call it. The god that you talk about is not the god of reality; it is the god of your desire. So it is not a question of whether the divine is part of the world. That is not the question. The real question is, can you desire the divine without making him part of the world?
Look at it in this way. It has been said again and again that unless you leave desiring, you cannot attain to him, the ultimate. You cannot attain to the divine if you don't leave desiring. Leave desiring and you can attain to him. You have heard it many times, but I wonder whether you understand it or not. More or less, you will be misunderstanding it. Hearing this, you start desiring the divine - and that is to miss the whole point.
If you leave desiring, the divine will happen to you. Then you start desiring the divine, so your divine will be part of the world. That which can be desired is the world. This is how I define it: that which can be desired is the world. So the divine cannot be desired, and if you desire it, it has become part of the world.
When desiring stops, the divine happens. When you are not desiring anything, the divine is there - then the whole world is divine. You will not find the divine somewhere in contradiction, in opposition to the world - contrary to the world. When you are not desiring, everything is divine; when you are desiring, everything is the world. Your desiring creates the world: whatsoever you desire becomes the world. This is not the world that you see - the trees, and the sky, and the sea, and the rivers, and the earth, and the stars. This is not the world - that which you desire is the world.
A flower is there in the garden. The moment you pass the tree, and you look at the flower, and the smell of the flower comes to you, look within. If you are not desiring that flower, if there is not even a slight urge to possess it, not even a slight ripple of desire to have it, that flower becomes divine.
You will have the divine face through it. But if the desire is there to possess it, or a jealousy arises about the owner of the tree, you have created a world; the divine has disappeared. It is your desire that changes the quality of existence; your desire makes it the world. When you are non-desiring, the whole world becomes divine.
Now I will read this question again. YOU HAVE SAID THAT TANTRA TEACHES MAN TO TRANSCEND BOTH HIS CRAVING FOR HIS ANIMALISTIC PAST, AND ALSO HIS CRAVING FOR THE DIVINE.
Tantra teaches only to transcend craving. It is irrelevant what you crave - that you crave is the point.
You can go on changing the objects. You crave money, you crave power, you crave prestige - you crave for the world. Then you change. You get fed up with it, you are bored. Or, you have attained whatsoever you craved, and now you are not fulfilled; you feel frustrated. You start a new craving.
Now you crave the divine. You crave moksha, nirvana, liberation - now you crave for the god. The object has changed; you have not changed - your craving remains the same. It was running after prestige and power and money. Now it is running after divine power. It is running after the ultimate, moksha, the absolute freedom, but the craving is there.
Ordinarily, religious people go on changing their objects of desire. Desire remains the same, unchanged. And it is not the objects which create the problem; it is the desire, the craving, which creates the problem. Tantra says it is futile to go on changing objects. It is wasting time and life and energy. Changing objects won't help - drop craving. Don't crave. Don't crave for freedom, because craving is bondage. Don't crave for the divine, because craving is the world. Don't crave for the inner, because craving is the outer. So it is not a question of transcending this craving or that - simply drop craving. Don't crave, don't desire. Just be yourself.
When you don't desire, what happens? When you don't crave, what happens? You are non-moving; all movement ceases. You are not in a hurry to reach anywhere. You are not serious. There is no hope and there is no frustration. You don't expect anything; nothing can frustrate you. There is no desire; you cannot be a failure. Of course, there is not going to be any success either.
When you are not craving, not desiring, what happen? You are simply left alone, moving nowhere.
There is no goal, because craving creates the goal. There is no future, because craving creates the future. There is no time, because craving needs time to move. Time stops. Future drops. And when there is no craving, mind drops, because mind is nothing but craving, and because of that craving you have to plan and think and dream and project.
When there is no craving, everything drops. You are simply in your purity. You exist without moving anywhere; inside, all ripples disappear. The ocean remains, but the waves are not there. This is what divineness is for tantra.
So look at it in this way: craving is the barrier. Don't think of the object, otherwise you will be deceived by yourself. You will change one object for another, and then time will be wasted. Again you will get frustrated, and then you will again change the object. You can go on changing objects infinitely, unless you realize that it is not the object which creates the problem, it is your craving. But craving is subtle and the object is gross. The object can be seen, and craving can be seen only when you go deep down and meditate upon it; otherwise, craving is not seen.
You can marry a woman or a man with great dreams and hope, and the greater the dreams, the greater the hope, the greater will be the frustration. An ordinary arranged marriage cannot be such a failure as a love-marriage is bound to be, because with an ordinary arranged marriage there is not much hope, there is not much dreaming. It is business-like; there is no romance, no poetry. There is no peak to it; you are travelling on plain ground. So arranged marriages never fail. They cannot fail, because there is no point. How can you fail in an arranged marriage? You were never on a height, so you cannot fall. Love-marriages fail. Only love-marriages can fail, because with a great poetry, with a great dreaming force, they come up. They touch heights, on the waves you rise high, and then you will have to fall down.
So old countries, those who have knowledge, experience, they have come to settle for arranged marriages. They don't talk about love-marriages. In India they never talk about love-marriages.
They have also tried in the past, and then they felt that a love-marriage is going to be a failure.
Because you expect too much, you will be frustrated, and the proportion of frustration will be the same. Whatsoever you desire and dream gives you expectations - they cannot be fulfilled.
You marry a woman; if it is a love-marriage, you expect much. Then you get frustrated. The moment you get frustrated, immediately you start thinking about another woman. So if you say to your wife, 'I am not interested in any other woman,' and she feels you have become indifferent to her, you cannot convince her - it is impossible, it is unnatural. The moment you become indifferent to your wife, the wife knows instinctively that you have become interested in someone else.
This is how mind functions. You become aware of the woman that you have married, and you feel the frustration is coming because of her - 'This was not a right choice.' This is ordinary logic. 'This was not a right choice. This woman is not for me. I have chosen a wrong partner, so the conflict has arisen.' Now you will try to find another partner.
You can go on that way ad infinitum. You may marry all the women on the earth, and still you will be thinking in the same way - that 'This woman is not right for me'. And the subtle craving which is creating all trouble is not seen. It is subtle. The woman is seen; the craving is not seen. It is not the woman or the man who is frustrating you; it is your craving, your desire, which is frustrating you.
If you can come to understand this, you have become wise. If you go on changing objects, you are ignorant. If you can come to feel yourself and the craving which is creating the whole thing, you have become wise. Then you don't go on changing one object for another; you simply drop the very effort to possess, to desire, to crave.
The moment this craving is not there, the whole world becomes divine. It has always been so, only your eyes were not open to see. Your eyes were filled with craving. Eyes filled with craving, the divine appears as the world. Open eyes, unfilled, unclouded by craving, the world appears as the divine.
The world and the divine are not two things, not two existences, but two ways of looking at the same thing, two approaches to the same thing, two outlooks, two types of perception. One perception clouded with craving, another perception unclouded with craving. If you can look unclouded, and your eyes are not filled with tears of frustration and dreams of hope, there is nothing like the world; only the divine exists - existence is divine. This is what tantra means. And when tantra says transcend both, tantra is not concerned with either this or that - tantra is concerned only with transcendence, so there is no craving.
AND WHAT IS IT THAT GOES BEYOND BOTH? That cannot be said, because the moment anything is said about it, it comes within the two. Whatsoever can be said about God will be false, just because it is said.
Language is dualistic. There is no non-dual language; cannot be. Language is meaningful only because of dualism. I say 'light'; immediately in your mind bubbles up the word 'darkness' or 'black'.
I say 'day', and immediately in your mind comes 'night'. I say 'love', and just behind it is hidden 'hate'. If I say light and there is no darkness, how will you define it?j We can only define words because of their opposite terms. I say light, and if you ask me what light is, I say that which is not darkness. If someone asks you what mind is, you say that which is not body. If someone asks what body is, you have to say that which is not mind. All terms are circular, so, basically meaningless, because neither you know anything about the mind, nor do you know anything about the body. When I ask about the mind, you define it with the body, and the body is undefined. When I ask you about the body, you define it with the mind, which is itself undefined.
This is good as a game. Language is good as a game - language is a game. But we never feel that the whole thing is absurd, circular; and nothing is defined, so how can you define anything? When I ask about the mind, you bring in the body - and the body is undefined. With an indefined term, you define mind. And then when I ask, 'What do you mean by body?' you have to define it with the mind. This is absurd - but there is no other way.
Language exists through the opposite, so language is dualistic. It cannot be otherwise. So nothing can be said about the non-dual experience. Whatsoever is said will be wrong. It can be indicated, symbols can be used for it, but silence is the best. That which can be said about it is silence.
Everything else can be defined, talked about - not the ultimate. You can know it, taste it, you can be it, but nothing can be said about it. Only negatively we can say something, but only negatively. We cannot say what that is; we can only say what that is not.
The whole mystic tradition is simply using negative terms for it. If you ask what that ultimate is, they will say, 'That ultimate is not this, not that. It is neither life nor death. It is neither light nor darkness.
It is neither near nor far. It is neither I nor you.' They will say in this way, but this makes no sense.
Drop craving and you come to know it face to face. And the experience is so deep and individual, non-verbal, non-linguistic, that even when you come to know it, you cannot say anything about it.
You will become silent. Or, at the most, you can say this that I am saying. You can say, 'Nothing can be said about it.'
Then what is the point of talking so much? Then why do I go on saying something to you if nothing can be said? Just to bring you to that point where nothing can be said. Just to push you to that abyss where you can take a jump out of language. Up to that point, language can be helpful. Up to the point when you take the jump, language can be helpful, but the moment you have taken the jump, it is silence, it is beyond language.
So I can push you to the very end of the world through language - to the very end of the world - but not a single inch into the divine through language. But this pushing you up to the very end will be helpful, because then you can see with your own eyes that there is this blissful abyss beyond. And then that beyond will call you by itself; then the beyond will attract you; then the beyond will become a magnet, a pull. It is impossible then for you to come back, to retreat. The abyss is so enchanting - the abyss of silence - that before you know, you will have taken a jump.
That's why I go on talking, knowing well that all that I am saying will not help you to know it. But it will help you to take a jump. It is methodological. It will look contradictory, paradoxical, if I say that all language that I am using, or that the mystics have ever used, is to bring you to the temple of silence; to force you into silence, to call you unto silence. It looks paradoxical. Then why use language? I can use silence also, but then you will not understand.
When I have to talk to madmen. I have to use a mad language. It is because of you I am using language. It is not that anything can be expressed by it; only your inner chattering can be destroyed by it. It is just as if you have a thorn in your foot - another thorn can pull it out. The other one is also a thorn. Your mind is filled with words, with thorns. What I am trying to do is to pull those words out of you. What I am using are also words. You are filled with poison. What I am giving you is again a dose of poison, just an antidote. It is also a poison. But a thorn can pull out another thorn - then they both can be thrown.
When I have talked to you to the point where you are ready to be silent, throw all that I have said to you; it is useless, it is even dangerous to carry it. When you have come to realize that language is useless, dangerous, that inner verbalization is the only barrier, and when you are ready to be silent, then remember well - don't carry whatsoever I have said to you. Because the truth cannot be said, and all that can be said cannot be true. Be unburdened of it.
The last thing Zarathustra said to his disciples is very beautiful. He had taught them. He had given them glimpses. He had stirred their souls. He had challenged them to the ultimate adventure. The last thing he said to them was, 'Now I am leaving you. Now beware of Zarathustra.'
So they asked, 'What are you saying? Beware of Zarathustra? You are our teacher, our master, our only hope.'
And Zarathustra said, 'All that I have said to you, now beware of it. Don't cling to me, otherwise I will become a bondage to you.'
When one thorn has pulled out your thorn, throw the other one also with it. When I have prepared you to move into silence, then beware of me. Then whatsoever I have said has to be thrown; it is rubbish, of no use. It has utility only up to the point before you are ready to take a jump into silence.
Nothing can be said about that which transcends both. Only this much can be said - and this is too much really. If you can understand, this is enough to indicate towards it.
I am saying this - that if your mind becomes totally vacant of words, you will know it. When you are not burdened with thoughts, you will realize it, because it is already there. It is not something which is going to happen; it has already happened within you. You are just an expression of it. But you are so much engrossed, involved, with thoughts, with clouds, that you miss the key. You are too concentrated on the clouds; you have forgotten the sky. Allow the clouds to disperse, and the sky has always been there just waiting for you. The beyond is waiting for you. Just drop the duality and it is there.

Become Your Own Inner Guide

Become Your Own Inner Guide, Don't think with the head. Really, don't think at all. Just move. Try it in some situations. It will be difficult, because the old habit will be to start thinking. You will have to be alert: not to think, but to feel inwardly what is coming to the mind. You may be confused many times because you will not be able to know whether it is coming from the inner guide or from the surface of the mind. But soon you will know the feeling, the difference. When something comes from the inner, it comes from your navel upwards. You can feel the flow, the warmth, coming from the navel upwards. Whenever your mind thinks, it is just on the surface, in the head, and then it goes down. If your mind decided something, then you have to force it down. If your inner guide decides, then something bubbles up in you. It comes from the deep core of your being towards the mind. The mind receives it, but it is not of the mind. It comes from beyond ― and that is why the mind is scared about it. For reason it is reliable because it comes from behind ― without any reason with it, without any proofs. It simply bubbles up. Whenever you are puzzled in a situation and you cannot see how to get out of it, don't think; just be in a deep non-thinking and allow the inner guide to guide you. In the beginning you will feel afraid, insecure, but soon, when you come every time to the right conclusion, when you come every time to the right door, you will gather courage and you will become trusting. If this trust happens, I call it faith. This really is religious faith ― the trust in the inner guide. Reasoning is part of the ego. It is you believing in yourself. The moment you go deep within you, you have come to the very soul of the universe. Your inner guide is part of the Divine guidance. When you follow it, you follow the Divine; when you follow yourself, you are complicating things, and you don't know what you are doing. You may think yourself very wise. You are not. Wisdom comes from the heart, it is not of the intellect. Wisdom comes from the innermost depth of your being, it is not of the head. Cut your head off, be headless ― and follow the being, whatsoever, where-ever it leads. Even if it leads into danger, go into danger, because that will be the path for you and your growth. Through that danger you will grow and become mature.

Osho

Out of one hundred possibilities there is only one possibility that you may reach. But the closer you come to the peak, the higher the joy rises in you. Your spirit soars high. You earn it; it is not free. And the more you have paid for it, the more you will enjoy it. Then think: you can be dropped from a helicopter on the top. You will stand on the top and you will just look silly, stupid – what are you doing here? Within five minutes you will be finished, you will say, ’So I have seen it! There is nothing much here!’

The journey creates the goal. The goal is not sitting there at the end of the journey, the journey creates it at each step. The journey is the goal. The journey and the goal are not separate, they are not two things. The end and the means are not two things. The end is spread over all the way; all the means contain the end in them.

So never miss any opportunity of living, of being alive, of being responsible, of being committed, of getting involved. Don’t be a coward. Face life, encounter it. And then slowly slowly something inside you will crystallize. Yes, it takes time. The Skin Horse is right: ’Generally, by the time you are REAL, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are REAL, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand... Once you are REAL, you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.’ It is forever. But one has to earn it. Let me repeat it: in life you cannot get anything free. And if you do get it, it is useless. You have to pay, and the more you pay for it the more you will get out of it.

If you can risk your whole life in love, great will be your attainment. Love will send you back to yourself; it will give you a few reflections of meditation. The first glimpses of meditation happen in love. And then a great desire arises in you to attain to those glimpses, not only as glimpses but as states, so that you can live in those states forever and forever. Love gives you the taste of meditation.
A loving orgasmic experience is the first experience of SAMADHI, of ecstasy. It will make you more thirsty. Now you will know what is possible and now you cannot be satisfied with the mundane. The sacred has penetrated you, the sacred has reached your heart. God has touched your heart, you have felt that touch. Now you would like to live in that moment forever, you would like that moment to become your whole life. It does become – and unless it becomes man remains discontented. Love on the one hand will give you great joy and on the other hand will give you a thirst for eternal joy.

 

 

Let Go Into Your Fighting Nature

I am fighter. I don’t know anything except fighting — and even worse, I love it! I love to stand in the face of the strongest storm and laugh. I don’t like to lie in the sun and melt.
 

There is no problem in it. If you feel you are a fighter, if you enjoy fighting, not only that, if you are proud of being a fighter — then relax. Fight totally! Don’t fight your fighting nature. That will be a let-go for you.

It is perfectly beautiful to stand before the strongest storm and laugh. Don’t feel guilty. Just try to understand one thing: when I say let-go, I don’t mean you have to change anything. I simply mean, whatever you feel you are, just allow it its totality.

Be a fighter with your whole being, and in this totality you will find the melting of the heart. That will be the reward of your being total. You do not need to do anything for it; rewards come on their own. Just be total in anything that you feel you love, which you feel proud of — just be total in it. Don’t create a split. Don’t be half — and — half; don’t be partial. If you are total, one day — standing against the strongest storm, laughing — you will suddenly feel your heart melting in the sun. That will come to you as a reward.

Man unnecessarily creates problems. I want you to understand that there are no problems in life except those you create. Just try to see: whatsoever feels good for you is good. Then go the whole way. Even if the whole world is against it, it doesn’t matter. And whether you have gone total and whole will be decided by the reward.

If you start feeling at one point a sudden melting then you know that you have not cheated yourself, that you have been sincere and true. That now is really the point where you can be proud.