This temptation of the mind to reduce every wonder, every mystery, to a question, is basically fear-oriented. We are afraid, afraid of the tremendousness of life, of this incredible existence. We are afraid. Out of fear we create some small knowledge around ourselves as a protection, as an armor, as a defense. It is only cowards who reduce the tremendously valuable capacity of wondering to questions. The really brave, the courageous person, leaves it as it is.

Osho

The heart is like a flower - unless it is open it cannot release its fragrance into the world. The fragrance of the heart is made up of the qualities and virtues of our spirit. Most of us have learned how to keep our heart closed in a world that would trample all over us if we let it. Being open hearted today seems to require tremendous courage. A closed heart is in need of opening, and when you do, you will have begun to heal yourself.

Osho

Never obey anyone's command unless it is coming from within you also. Truth is within you; do not search for it elsewhere.

Osho

Dont waste your life for that which is going to be taken away. Trust life. If you trust, only then can you drop your knowledge, only then can you put your mind aside. And with trust, something immense opens up. Then this life is no longer ordinary life, it becomes full of God, overflowing. When the heart is innocent and the walls have disappeared, you are bridged with infinity. And you are not deceived; there is nothing that can be taken away from you. That which can be taken away from you is not worth keeping, and that which cannot be taken away from you... why should one be afraid of its being taken away? It cannot be taken away, there is no possibility. You cannot lose your real treasure.

Osho

Freedom is the basic thing. Consciousness grows in freedom and starts dying, becomes paralyzed and crippled, when things are forced. And up to now, this has been done. This is the greatest crime that parents have always committed against children.

Osho

Live and love, and love totally and intensely — but never against freedom. Freedom should remain the ultimate value.

Osho

If there is passion in love, then love will become hell.

If there is attachment in love, then love will be a prison.

If love is passionless it will become heaven.

If love is without attachment then love itself is the divine.

Osho

A person who lives moment to moment, who goes on dying to the past, is never attached to anything. Attachment comes from the accumulated past. If you can be unattached to the past every moment, then you are always fresh, young, just born. You pulsate with life and that pulsation gives you immortality. You are immortal, only unaware of the fact.

Osho

I have heard... 

When Pompei was burning, and the whole town was rushing out, and people were carrying whatsoever they could carry  – jewels, gold, silver, valuable things.... And they were all crying and weeping because they had much that they could not carry  –somebody has missed his child, somebody has missed his wife. It was a mad crowd  – the whole town on fire-and they were all rushing out of the town just to save their lives. It was a chaos.

Only one man, it is said  – it was three o'clock in the morning  – only one man was coming out of the town very quietly, silently, as if nothing had happened. He was a mystic. He had only a walking-stick. And many people looked at him and said, 'You look undisturbed.' He said, 'For what to get disturbed? I have nothing else  – just this walking-stick; and this is my time to go for a morning walk. So, for what?... I have nothing to lose!'

Live here in such a way that the 'here' does not become too important for you  – don't become obsessed. It is good to live in a house, but when the time comes to leave the house one should be able to go without looking back. Be with people  – but if your wife dies, one should be able to say goodbye silently, lovingly, with no complaint, with no grudge. Live in such a way that you don't become entangled too much.

So live here, my brother, 

That you may cross with ease to that other shore.

And that other shore is not very far away, the other shore surrounds you everywhere. If you start living rightly... and what do I mean by 'rightly'? Those four steps: be herenow, learn to transform your poisons into honey, share your positivity, and be nothing. That's what I mean by 'living rightly.'

If you live rightly, in twenty  – four hours' time you will cross many times to this shore from that, from that to this, from this to that  – many times God will penetrate you, radiate within you. Many times you will be suddenly on the other shore. Walking on the street... and suddenly he is there. The sun is falling on you, the sunrays falling behind the trees... and suddenly the other shore is there. It is not somewhere far away near other galaxies; it is always here. It is a quality of your awareness, it is a quality of your understanding, it is a quality of your meditation. If you are unburdened here, unobsessed with the worldly things....

Live in the world but don't allow the world to live in you. And then you will be alone even in the crowd... and even in the crowd you will see the other shore. The other shore becomes so close that you can cross the barrier any moment you want. It is so easy, like breathing  – but the art has to be learned. It is a question of art, skill. Be skillful. Love, but don't allow your love to become lust. Love, but don't allow your love to become attachment. Love, but don't allow your love to become a dependence, a slavery. And then... then love tremendously. Then there is no fear. And loving, you will be able to cross to the other shore without any difficulty.

Use money, but don't become money-minded. I'm not saying escape from money, and I'm not saying escape from your wife and children and desert them and go to the Himalayan caves  – I am not teaching any sort of foolishness to you. And neither is Kabir in favor of that. Kabir is tremendously life-affirmative, he's absolutely for life. In fact, anybody who knows God will be for life, because this life is of God. If you escape from life you are escaping from God himself-from the very opportunity where he was available. Don't escape anywhere. Rather than putting effort into escaping, put more effort into becoming aware. That will be the real escape: without escaping anywhere, you will create a cave in your heart... and you will start living there.

And the other shore is always by the corner. Any moment you want, you can move... and you can have as many drinks out of God in the day as you like. Looking at a flower, you can drink him... and the other shore opens. It is a vision  – it is not a material thing. Looking at a rose flower silently, lovingly, without any verbalization inside  – total silence... and the silence becomes luminous, and the silence becomes a song, and a vision arises. The flower disappears, you disappear... and God is there. In the disappearance of the subject and the object, the gap arises. Between the two notes, the pause... and suddenly you are on the other shore.

Osho, The Divine Melody, Talk #9

PROTECTION OF JOY

Step 1: Preparation
“For the first seven days, the first step: Lying down on the bed, or sitting, put the light off, be in darkness.

Step 2: Remember a Beautiful Moment
“Just remember any beautiful moment that you have experienced in the past. Any beautiful moment — just choose the best. It may be very ordinary…because sometimes extraordinary things happen in very ordinary grounds.

“You are just sitting still, doing nothing, and the rain is falling on the roof…the smell, the sound...you are surrounded, and something clicks. You are in a sacred moment. Or one day walking along the road, suddenly the sunlight falls on you from behind the trees...and click! something opens. For a moment you are transported into another world.

“Once you have chosen it, continue it for seven days. Just close your eyes and relive it. Go into the details. The rain is falling on the roof...the drip drip — the sound...the smell...the very texture of the moment...a bird is singing, a dog is barking...a plate has fallen, and the sound….

“Go into all the details, from all sides; multi-dimensionally, from all the senses. Every night you will find that you are moving into deeper details — things that you may even have missed in the real moment, but that your mind has recorded. Whether you miss the moment or not, the mind goes on recording.

“You will come to feel subtle nuances which you were not aware that you had experienced. When your consciousness is focused on that moment, the moment will be there again. You will start feeling new things. You will suddenly come to recognize that they were there but you had missed them at that moment. But the mind records it all. It is a very very reliable servant, tremendously capable.

“By the seventh day you will be able to see it so clearly that you will feel that you have never seen any real moment as clearly as this one.

Step 3: Week 2: The Climate of Joy
“After seven days do the same thing but add one more thing. On the eighth day, feel the space around you; feel the climate is surrounding you from all sides…up to three feet. Just feel an aura surrounding you of that moment. By the fourteenth day you will almost be able to be in a totally different world, although conscious that beyond that three feet a totally different time and a totally different dimension is present.

Step 4: Week 3: Live the Moment
“Then the third week, something more has to be added. Live the moment, be surrounded by it, and now, create imaginary anti-space. For example you are feeling very good; for three feet you are surrounded by that goodness, that divinity. Now think of a situation — somebody insults you but the insult comes only up to the limit. There is a fence, and the insult cannot enter you. It comes like an arrow...and falls there. Or remember some sad moment: you are hurt but that hurt comes to the glass wall that is surrounding you, and falls there. It never reaches you. You will be able to see — if the first two weeks have gone right — by the third week, that everything comes up to that three-foot limit, and nothing penetrates you.

Step 5: Week 4: Carry the Aura Everywhere
“Then from the fourth week continue to keep that aura with you; going to the market, talking to people, continuously have it in the mind.

“You will be tremendously thrilled. You will move in the world having your own world, a private world, continuously with you.

“That will make you capable of living in the present, because, in fact, you are continuously bombarded by thousands and thousands of things, and they catch your attention. If you don’t have a protective aura around you, you are vulnerable. A dog barks: suddenly the mind has been pulled in that direction. The dog comes into the memory. Now you have many dogs in the memory from the past. Your friend has a dog: now from the dog you go to your friend. Then to the friend’s sister with whom you had fallen in love. Now the whole nonsense starts. The barking of this dog was in the present, but it led you somewhere else into the past. It may lead you into the future — there is no way of saying. Anything can lead to anything; it is very complicated.

“So one needs a surrounding, a protective aura. The dog goes on barking, but you remain in yourself — settled, calm, quiet and centered.

Step 6: Dropping the Aura
“Carry that aura for a few days or a few months. When you see that now it is not needed, you can drop it. Once you know how to be herenow, once you have enjoyed the beauty of it, the tremendous bliss of it, you can drop the aura of it.”

Osho, Be Realistic: Plan for a Miracle

Remain in wonder if you want the mysteries to open up for you. 

The mysteries never open up for those who go on questioning. 

The questioners sooner or later end up in a library.

 The questioners sooner or later end up with scriptures,

 because scriptures are full of answers.

 And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder.

Osho

The less people know, the more stubbornly they know it.

Osho

LOVE

During my whole life, I always thought that I loved somebody. Now, being here for the first time with you, I ask myself: have I ever really been in love? Am I even able to love? Am I able to love you? Or has life brought me to a point where happiness in love does not happen anymore?

The basic fallacy that you are carrying within you is that you always loved somebody.

This is one of the most significant things about all human beings; their love is always for somebody, it is addressed – and the moment you address your love, you destroy it. It is as if you are saying, “I will breathe only for you – and when you are not there, then how can I breathe?”

Love should be like breathing. It should be just a quality in you – wherever you are, with whomsoever you are, or even if you are alone, love goes on overflowing from you. It is not a question of being in love with someone – it is a question of being love.

People are frustrated in their love experiences, not because something is wrong with love…they narrow down love to such a point that the ocean of love cannot remain there. You cannot contain the ocean – it is not a small stream; love is your whole being – love is your godliness. One should think in terms of whether one is loving or not. The question of the object of love does not arise. With your wife, you love your wife; with your children, you love your children; with your servants, you love your servants; with your friends, you love your friends; with the trees, you love the trees; with the ocean, you love the ocean.

You are love.

Love is not dependent on the object, but is a radiation of your subjectivity – a radiation of your soul. And the vaster the radiation, the greater is your soul. The wider spread are the wings of your love, the bigger is the sky of your being.

You have lived under a common fallacy of all human beings. Now you are asking, “Am I able to love you?” – again, the same fallacy.

Just ask: Am I able to become love?

When you are in my presence, you need not think of loving me; otherwise, you have not come out of your ordinary fallacies. Here, you have to learn…just being loving. Of course your love will reach me too; it will reach others too. It will be a vibe surrounding you, spreading all over; and if so many people are simply broadcasting their love, their song, their ecstasy, the whole place becomes a temple. There is no other way of making a temple. Then the whole area is filled with a new kind of energy, and nobody is at a loss – because on you is showering the love of so many people: on each single person, so many people’s love is showering.

Drop that fallacy. And because of that fallacy, another question arises in you: “…or has life brought me to the point where happiness in love does not happen anymore?” Life is nothing but an opportunity for love to blossom. If you are alive, the opportunity is there – even to the last breath. You may have missed your whole life: just the last breath, the last moment on the earth, if you can be love, you have not missed anything – because a single moment of love is equal to the whole eternity of love.

Osho, The Rebellious Spirit

Only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core into the other person without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without creating "the other", reducing the other into a thing, and without becoming addicted with the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.

Osho

Painting credit: Steve Henderson

You go on dreaming, imagining beautiful things for the coming days, the future. But in moments when danger is imminent, then suddenly you become aware that there may be no future, no tomorrow, that this is the only moment you have got. So times of disaster are very revealing. They don´t bring anything new in the world; they simply make you aware of the world as it is. They wake you up. If you don´t understand this, you can go mad; if you understand this, you can become awakened.

Osho

Life should be surrounded by love, not by fear. It is fear that creates anger. It is fear that ultimately creates violence.

Osho

If a man is crossing a river and an empty boat collides with his own skiff, even though he be a bad-tempered man he will not become very angry. But if he sees a man in the boat, he will shout at him to steer clear. If the shout is not heard, he will shout again, and yet again, and begin cursing. And all because there is somebody in the boat. Yet if the boat were empty, he would not be shouting, and not angry. If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world, no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you…. Who can free himself from achievement, and from fame, descend and be lost amid the masses of men? He will flow like Tao, unseen, he will go about like Life itself with no name and no home. Simple is he, without distinction. To all appearances he is a fool. His steps leave no trace. He has no power. He achieves nothing, has no reputation. Since he judges no one, no one judges him. Such is the perfect man: His boat is empty.

Osho

Man is born as a seed; he can become a flower, he may not. It all depends on you, what you do with yourself; it all depends on you whether you grow or you don´t. It is your choice — and each moment the choice has to be faced; each moment you are on the crossroads.

Osho

Many of our problems — perhaps most of our problems — are because we have never looked face to face, encountered them; and not looking at them is giving them energy. Being afraid of them is giving them energy, always trying to avoid them is giving them energy — because you are accepting them. Your very acceptance is their existence. Other than your acceptance, they don´t exist.

Osho 

Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny (s)he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed. You are not here accidentally, you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you.

Osho

Any man who has any sense of his individuality lives by his own love, by his own work, without caring at all what others think of it.

Osho

Mind exists in time, in fact mind is time; it exists in the past and the future. And remember, time consists only of two tenses, past and future. The present is not part of time, the present is part of eternity.

Osho

People have judged you;

you have accepted their idea without any scrutiny. 

And you are suffering from all kinds of people's judgments, 

and you are throwing those judgments on other people. 

And this game has become out of proportion.

The whole humanity is suffering from it. 

If you want to get out of it, the first thing is:

Don't judge yourself.

Osho

Nobody can teach you love. 

Love you have to find yourself, 

within your being, by raising 

your consciousness to higher levels.

Osho

Desire has not to be destroyed, 

it has to be purified. 

Desire has not to be dropped,

it has to be transformed. 

Your very being is desire;

to be against it is to be against yourself

and to be against all.

Osho

Truth is not a belief, it is utter intelligence. It is a flare-up of the hidden sources of your life, it is an enlightening experience of your consciousness. But you will have to give the right space for it to happen. And the right space is accepting yourself as you are.

Osho

It takes time to grow up, to mature, to come to such a maturity where you can say yes and yet remain free, where you can say yes and yet remain unique, where you can say yes and yet not become a slave.

Osho

Go into the mystery that you are, 

penetrate that mystery. 

Let that become your only work in life.

Knowing it, all is known.

Being it, you have arrived.

Osho

Someone asked Osho: " if one were to make only one New year's resolution, what would you suggest?"

Osho said: " This and only this can be the new year's resolution: I resolve never to make any resolutions because all resolutions are restrictions for the future. All resolutions are imprisonments. You decide today for tomorrow? You have destroyed tomorrow.

Allow the tomorrow to have its own being. Let it come in its own way! Let it bring its own gifts.

"Resolution means you will allow only this and you will not allow that. Resolution means you would like the sun to rise in the west and not in the east. If it rises in the east, you will not open your windows; you will keep your windows open to the west.

What is resolution? Resolution is struggle. Resolution is ego. Resolution is saying, "I cannot live spontaneously." And if you cannot live spontaneously, you don't live at all -- you only pretend.

"So let only one resolution be there: I will never make any resolutions. Drop all resolutions! Let life be a natural spontaneity. The only golden rule is that there are no golden rules."

Osho: Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings and Think Without Mind