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

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

COURAGE

In the beginning there is no big difference between the coward and the courageous person. Both have fear. The difference is, the coward listens to his fears and follows them. The courageous person puts them aside and goes ahead. The fears are there, he knows them, but the courageous person goes into the unknown in spite of all the fears. Courage does not mean fearlessness, but going into the unknown in spite of all the fears.

When you go into the uncharted sea, like Columbus did, there is fear, immense fear, because one never knows what is going to happen and you are leaving the shore of safety. You were perfectly okay, in a way; only one thing was missing - adventure. Going into the unknown gives you a thrill. The heart starts pulsating; again you are alive, fully alive. Every fiber of your being is alive because you have accepted the challenge of the unknown.

To accept the challenge of the unknown is courage. The fears are there, but if you go on accepting the challenge again and again, slowly, slowly those fears disappear. The joy that the unknown brings, the great ecstasy that starts happening with the unknown, makes you strong enough, gives you a certain integrity, makes your intelligence sharp. You start feeling that life is not just a boredom. Life is an adventure. Slowly, slowly fears disappear and you go on seeking and searching for new adventures.

Courage is risking the known for the unknown, the familiar for the unfamiliar, the comfortable for the uncomfortable arduous pilgrimage to some unknown destination. One never knows whether one will be able to make it or not. It is a gambling, but only the gamblers know what life is.

Osho

Question - Osho, I feel Life is very boring. What should I Do?

Brij Mohan, AS IT IS, YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE ENOUGH. You have made life boring -- some achievement! Life is such a dance of ecstasy and you have reduced it to boredom. You have done a miracle! What else do you want to do? You can't do anything bigger than this. Life and boring? You must have a tremendous capacity to IGNORE life.

Just the other day I was telling you that ignorance means the capacity to ignore. You must be ignoring the birds, the trees, the flowers, the people. Otherwise, life is so tremendously beautiful, so ABSURDLY beautiful, that if you can see it as it is you will never stop laughing. You will go on giggling -- at least inside.

Life is not boring, but MIND is boring. And we create such a mind, such a strong mind, like a China Wall around ourselves, that it does not allow life to enter into us. It disconnects us from life. We become isolated, encapsulated, windowless. Living behind a prison wall you don't see the morning sun, you don't see the birds on the wing, you don't see the sky in the night full of stars. And, of course, you start thinking that life is boring. Your conclusion is wrong. YOU are in a wrong space; you are living in a wrong context.

You must be a religious person, Brij Mohan, because to make life boring one has to be religious; one has to be very scholarly. One has to know Christianity, Hinduism, Islam. One has to learn much from the Vedas and the Koran and the Bible. You must be very well-informed. A man who is too well-informed, too knowledgeable, creates such a thick wall of words -- futile words, empty words -- around himself that he becomes incapable of seeing life.

Knowledge is a barrier to life. Put aside your knowledge! And then look with empty eyes...and life is a CONSTANT surprise. And I am not talking about some divine life -- the ORDINARY life is so extraordinary. In small incidents you will find the presence of God -- a child giggling, a dog barking, a peacock dancing. But you can't see if your eyes are covered with knowledge. The poorest man in the world is the man who lives behind a curtain of knowledge. The poorest are those who live through the mind. The richest are those who have opened the windows of no-mind and approached life with the no-mind.

Brij Mohan, this is not only YOUR experience; you are not alone in it. In fact, the majority of people will agree with you. They don't find any surprise anywhere. And each moment there are surprises and surprises because life is never the same; it is constantly changing, and it takes such unpredictable turns. How can you remain unaffected by the very wonder of it? The only way to remain unaffected is to cling to your past, to your experience, to your knowledge, to your memories, to your mind. Then you cannot see that which is; you go on missing the present.

Miss the present and you live in boredom. BE in the present and you will be surprised that there is no boredom at all. Start by looking around a little more like a child. Be a child again! That's what meditation is all about: being a child again -- a rebirth, being innocent again, not-knowing. That's what we were saying the other day. The Master said: NOT-KNOWING IS THE MOST INTIMATE.

Yes, you must have become very alienated from life, hence boredom. You have forgotten the intimacy, the immediacy You are no longer bridged. Knowledge functions as a wall: innocence functions as a bridge.

Start looking like a child again. Go to the seashore and again start collecting seashells. See a child collecting seashells -- as if he has found a mine of diamonds. So thrilled he is! See a child making sandcastles and how absorbed he is, utterly lost, as if there is nothing more important than making sandcastles. See a child running after a butterfly...and be a child again. Start running after butterflies again. Make sandcastles, collect seashells.

Don't live as if you know. You know nothing! All that you know is about and about. The moment you KNOW something, boredom disappears. Knowing is such an adventure that boredom cannot exist. With knowledge of course it can exist; with knowing it cannot exist.

And let me remind you: I am not talking about some divine knowledge, some esoteric knowledge; I am simply talking about THIS life. Just look around with a little more clarity, with a little more transparency...and life is hilarious!

Osho_"Ah, This!"

OSHO DOES WITNESSING ALWAYS BRING JOY? THE MOMENTS THAT I CALL WITNESSING SOMETIMES FEEL DISTANT -- ALMOST COLD IN THEIR NEUTRALITY. OTHER TIMES IT IS LIKE SPROUTING WINGS AND SOARING IN JOY OVER THE OPEN SEA.

Deva Abhiyana,

THE STATE OF WITNESSING IS NEITHER COLD NOR HOT. It is neither happiness nor unhappiness. It is neither dark nor light. It is neither life nor death. The Upanishads say NETI NETI -- neither this nor that. If you feel joy you have already become identified; witnessing is gone. If you feel sad you are no more a witness; you have forgotten witnessing, you have become involved. You are colored by your psychology of the moment. Joy, sadness, all these qualities, are part of your psychology. And witnessing is a transcendence; it is not psychological. The whole art of meditation consists in witnessing. Then what does it bring? At the most we can say it brings total peace; it simply brings eternal silence. You cannot define it as joy. The moment you define it as joy you have fallen into the world of duality again. Then you have become part of what is passing, you have started clinging to it.

The state of witnessing remains indefinable. That's why Buddha has not used the word 'bliss' at all, because it can give you a wrong idea -- because in your mind bliss will mean happiness. That's how you are going to translate it, to interpret it. Buddha has not used the word 'bliss', he has not used the word 'God'. The word that he has used is 'absolute void' -- SHUNYAM. There will be nothing left,just absolute silence, absolute emptiness -- but not emptiness in the English meaning of the word. SHUNYAM has a totally different connotation; it has been translated and can only be translated as emptiness. But emptiness is negative, emptiness means something is missing, emptiness means loneliness. Emptiness is not a life quality but a death quality. SHUNYAM IS not negative; it is not even positive, how can it be negative? It simply means you are alone -- not lonely, but alone. You are not missing anything. You are spacious, there is great space in you, but it is not empty of something. On the contrary, it is utter plenitude. It is full of emptiness -- if you allow me the expression It is FULL of emptiness, but one is fulfilled. SHUNYAM IS blossoming in you. There is great peace but not joy, because joy becomes positive; but not sadness, because sadness becomes Negative. Peace is exactly the middle, neither cold nor hot. It is not neutrality, it is not indifference. It is not a state where you turn your back towards something, you are no more interested. No, there is no question of disinterest, indifference or neutrality. You are utterly there, absolutely there,totally there, but like a mirror, just reflecting whatsoever is the case. Joy passes by and the mirror reflects it, but the mirror does not become joy itself; it never becomes identified. And sadness comes like a cloud, a dark cloud, and passes by, and the mirror reflects it. The mirror has no prejudice against it. The mirror is not favorable to joy and unfavorable to sadness. The mirror has no liking, no disliking; it simply reflects whatsoever is the case. It is not neutral, otherwise it will not reflect; it does not turn its back towards things. It is not indifferent, because indifference again means you are already prejudiced; you have a certain conclusion. It is not disinterested and you cannot say it is interested -either. It is a transcendence. Abhiyana, don't get identified with the joy that comes -- watch it. Remain a watcher on the hills, a mirror. Reflect it but don't cling to it. A bird on the wing...and the lake reflects it. The Zen people say this is the state of Buddha-hood. The bird has no mind to be reflected in the lake and the lake has no mind to reflect the bird, but the bird on the wing...and the lake reflects it. You see the point: the bird has no mind to be reflected and the lake has no mind to reflect the bird, but the bird IS reflected. It simply happens that the lake is there and the bird is on the wing...the reflection is bound to happen -- it is natural! The bird is gone; the lake does not miss the bird, it does not hanker for it, it does not long for it, it does not hope that it will come again. It does not go into the past, into the memories, or into the future projections. The bird has flown; it never thinks of the lake again, it never desires to be there again. One day it may be there again, and again it will be reflected, but no relationship is created. The HAPPENING IS there but no relationship is there. This is what I call relating, not relationship. It is a fluid phenomenon. This is witnessing.

Osho_Be Still and Know

Remember one thing: except for silence, everything else is your imagination – howsoever beautiful. Only your silence I can say has my support, because only in your silence are you close to the very center of existence. In absolute silence, you become the very center yourself. But remember to avoid any kind of imagination – all imagination – even beautiful imagination, apparently looking like the divine.

Osho

What is Meditation?

Meditation Is a Jump

You can never go beyond the mind if you go on using it. You have to take a jump, and meditation mean that jump. That's why meditation is illogical, irrational. And it cannot be made logical; it cannot be reduced to reason. You have to experience it. If you experience, only then do you know. So try this: don't think about it, try - try to be a witness to your own thoughts. Sit down, relaxed, close your eyes, let your thoughts run just like pictures run on a screen. See them, look at them, make them your objects. One thought arises: look at it deeply. don't think about it, just look at it. If you begin to think about it then you are not a witness - you have fallen in a trap.

There is a horn outside; a thought arises, some car is passing; or a dog barks, or something happens. Don't think about it; just look at the thought. The thought has arisen, taken form. Now it is before you. Soon it will pass. Another thought will replace it. Go on looking at this thought process. Even for a single moment, if you are capable of looking at this thought process without thinking about it, you will have gained something in witnessing and you will have known something in witnessing. This is a taste, a different taste than thinking - totally different. But one has to experiment with it. Religion and science are poles apart, but in one thing they are similar and their emphasis is the same: science depends on experiment, and religion also. Only philosophy depends just on thinking. Religion and science both depend on experiment: science on objects, religion on subjectivity. Science depends on experimenting with other things than you, and religion depends on experimenting directly with you.

It is difficult, because in science the experimenter is there, the experiment is there and the object to be experimented upon is there. There are three things: the object, the subject and the experiment. In religion you are all the three simultaneously. You are the experiment upon yourself. You are the subject and you are the object and you are the lab. Don't go on thinking. Begin, start somewhere, to experiment. Then you will have a direct feeling of what thinking is and what witnessing is. And then you will come to know that you cannot do both simultaneously, just as you cannot run and sit simultaneously. If you run, then you cannot sit, then you are not sitting. And if you are sitting, then you cannot run. But sitting is not a function of the legs. Running is a function of legs. Rather, sitting is non-function of the legs. When the legs are functioning, then you are not sitting. Sitting is a non-function of the legs: running is the function. The same is with the mind: thinking is a function of the mind; witnessing is a non-function of the mind. When the mind is not functioning, you have the witnessing, then you have the awareness.

Osho - from the book What is Meditation?

meditation/the beloved

meditation transforms you

into a beloved of the whole existence

as the meditator becomes centered, silent, aware

the whole existence starts converging upward

the same world, but no more the same

before it was cold, alien

now it is cosy, a home

a man without meditation

lives in the world as a stranger

as you enter meditation

you enter a love affair with existence

and for love everything is possible

even the impossible is not impossible

all that is needed is

a deep profound silence in your being

that becomes a magnetic pull

then whatsoever is beautiful in existence

starts moving towards you

meditation creates gravitation for truth

for beauty, for love

for freedom, for godliness

for all that is really valuable

one need not go searching for anything

one has to simply rest in one’s own being

and all that is needed follows in its own course

meditation is the only magic

that has yet been known

and I don’t think it can ever be transcended

there will not be any magic greater than meditation

Osho

painting credit: Candy Matthews 

Gangotri/The source

deep in the Himalayas, from virgin peaks

where snow has never melted, the Ganges starts

the point where Ganges starts is called Gangotri

it is a very small place

just a small face of a cow

somebody has sculpted a rock into the face of a cow

and from that face of the cow

the great river Ganges starts

it starts as a small stream and then goes on

becoming bigger and bigger

finally it becomes the very ocean itself

that is also the way of love

it starts in a very small way

but one should not stop there

one should go on flowing, moving

love should never become static

it should remain dynamic

the moment it becomes static it starts stinking

the moment it becomes static it loses

the freshness of a river, the aliveness of a river

it becomes just a muddy pool

people call it marriage

it was just a muddy pool and such a small pool

and they go on round and round chasing each other

and creating more mud

and throwing mud at each other

love should be a river, always moving

from the known into the unknown

and from the unknown to the unknowable

the beginning has to be small

but the end has to be the infinite, the oceanic

if one can remain aware of it

then love is all that there is to spirituality

except love, whatsoever goes on

in the name of spirituality is all bullshit

esoteric bullshit, occult bullshit

remember it - beause it is very easy

to fall into that bullshit

it has great attraction

it has great systems of thought and strange ideas

and all inventions of crafty people

life is very simple - so is love

and if you can remember these three l’s:

life, love, light

nothing else is needed to be remembered

live totally, live lovingly

and live not in a state of unconsciousness

live consciously - that is living with light

just these three words are enough

and one need not bother about anything else

Osho

The sacred

love is sacred

in fact the only thing that can give you

the feeling of the sacred is love

love exists on the earth but is not part of the earth

it is a ray from the beyond

so those who can catch hold of the ray

they can go on moving in the direction

from which the ray is coming

and ultimately can find the source of all love

the religions have called that source god

it is better to call it godliness

so the idea of a person is dropped

and only the idea of energy remains

love is sacred, divine, godly

and also, love is a noble giver

one can give but there is an expectation

of something to gain out of it

then it is not noble, then it is just pure business

it has no nobility about it

one can give with certain conditions

then it loses all nobility

love is a noble giver

because it gives for the sheer joy of giving

there is no desire for any return

not that rewards don’t come

thy come - they come thousandfold

but that is another matter

that is not your expectation

you were not desiring it, you were not demanding it

you had no idea of any return

in fact the lover is surprised when the gifts come

what he had given was nothing

and what comes is almost infinite, immeasurable

love is sacred

it is really sacred

because it is the art of noble giving

give for the sheer joy of giving

share for sharing’s sake, for no other reason

and you will be rewarded immeasurably

you will come to the inexhaustible source

just by giving you will become everytime

more and more rich - that’s the economics of love

a totally different economics

if you give you will be poor

in the ordinary economical world

if you go on giving soon you will be a beggar

but in the inner world the laws are just the reverse

give and you become richer

the more you give, the more you have

the less you give, the less you have

if you don’t give you are poor, you are a beggar

one has to learn it, but the oly way to learn

is to give and see what happens

to share and see what happens

there is no other way to learn except experiencing it

Osho

Osho on Suppression or Transformation of Sexual Energy

Question: Beloved Master, When do I know if my sexual energy is transformed or just repressed?

Osho: It will not be difficult. It will be the simplest thing to know. When sexual energy is repressed you will have sexual dreams, you will have sexual fantasies -- you cannot avoid them. When sex energy is transformed, you will not have any sexual dreams, you will not have any sexual fantasies. This is the simple criterion. 

I will end with a small story.... In Gautam Buddha's time there was one beautiful woman -- she was a prostitute, Amrapali. One Buddhist monk was just going to beg when Amrapali saw him. She was simply amazed because kings have been at her door, princes, rich people, famous people from all walks of life. But she had never seen such a beautiful person -- and he was a monk, a beggar with a begging bowl. She was going on her golden chariot to her garden. She told the bhikkhu, "If you don't mind, you can sit with me on the chariot and I will lead you wherever you want."

She was not thinking that the bhikkhu would be ready to do it, because it was known that Buddha did not allow his bhikkhus to talk to women, or to touch any woman. And to ask him to sit on a golden chariot in the open street where there were thousands of people, hundreds of other bhikkhus, other monks...She was not hoping that he would accept the invitation, but he said, "That's good," and he climbed on the chariot and sat by her side. It was a scene. She was one of the wealthiest women the world had known. 

The world knows only two women -- one in the West, Cleopatra, and one in the East, Amrapali -- who are thought to be the world's most beautiful women. And a bhikkhu with a begging bowl...!A crowd was following the chariot, "What is going on there? Nobody has ever heard..."

And then the bhikkhu said, "My camp has come. Thank you for your being so kind to a poor man. You can drop me here."

But Amrapali said, "From tomorrow, the rainy season is going to be here." In the rainy season the bhikkhus, the monks, don't move. They stay in one place -- only for the rainy season. The remaining months they are always on the move from one village to another village. "From tomorrow, the rainy season is going to begin. I invite you to stay with me. You can ask your master."

He said, "Jolly good, I will ask the master. And I don't see that he will object, because I know him -- he knows me, and he knows me more than I know him."

But before he reached, many others had reached and complained that the man had broken the discipline, the prestige, the respectability... that the man should be expelled immediately. The bhikkhu came -- Buddha asked him, "What happened?"

He told the whole thing and he said, "The woman has asked me to stay with her for the coming four months' rainy season. And I have said to her, `As I know my master I don't think there is any problem, and my master knows me better than I know him.' So what do you say?"

There were ten thousand monks, and there was pindrop silence. Gautam Buddha said, "You can accept her invitation."

It was a shock. People were thinking he would be expelled, and he was being rewarded! But what could they do. They said, "Just wait. After four months Buddha will see that he has committed a grave mistake. That young man will be corrupted in that place, in a prostitute's house. Have you ever heard of a monk staying for four months...?"

The man stayed for four months, and every day rumors were coming that "this is going wrong" and "that is going wrong." And Buddha said, "Just wait, let him come. I know he is a man who can be trusted. Whatever happens he will tell himself. I don't have to depend on rumors." And when the monk came, Amrapali was with him. He touched Buddha's feet and said, "Amrapali wants to be initiated."

Buddha said, "Look, about all these rumors... When a real meditator goes to a prostitute, the prostitute has to change into a meditator. When a repressed person who has all the sexuality and is sitting on a volcano goes to a prostitute, he falls down. He was already waiting for it -- not even a prostitute was needed. Any woman would have done that."

The question is saying that all the religions have taught you to repress your sexual energy, and they have created repressed people all around. And those repressed people are very angry with me for the simple reason that I am saying repression is not going to help you.The energy has to be transformed, otherwise the energy will drag you down more into darkness than towards light.

Do not repress anything. Whatever is natural is good. Whatever is natural is to be accepted with totality. You have to do just one thing: don't be against nature but just be a watcher. Just remain a witness in everything, whether it is eating, whether it is walking, whether it is making love... just remain a witness and you will be surprised. Witnessing is an absolute guarantee of transformation, and you will see the difference. You won't have any sexual dreams, you won't have any sexual fantasies. And if you repress, then you are going to be in trouble. 

Even Mahatma Gandhi, who was repressing his sexuality, at the age of seventy years was having nocturnal emissions. It is ugly. But I am grateful to him because he was truthful. He at least accepted it. Your so-called saints will not accept it. Repression will show itself -- there is no doubt about it. Some day or other it will bring sex to your mind, either waking or sleeping. 

But if the energy is transformed then you will have a radiance, a glow, a certain light around you, a certain silence surrounding you; a blissfulness, a coolness that not only you will feel but those who are open also will feel. If you just pass by their side they will feel that not only a person has passed but a phenomenon has passed. Something of your inner core will have touched them. Some music is bound to be heard by those who have ears. And as far as you are concerned there is an absolute distinction: you won't have any ideas, waking or sleeping, about sex.

Source: from book "The Sword and the Lotus " by Osho

When love wears thin it lets in the emotional weather

When love wears thin it lets in the emotional weather

I am in a beautiful relationship right now; everything is going so harmoniously between us.

Love is always beautiful in the beginning because you don’t bring your destructive energies into it. In the beginning you bring your positive energies into it — both pool their energies positively, the thing goes simply fantastically. But then by and by the negative energies will start overflowing; you cannot hold them back forever. And once you have finished with your positive energy, which is very small...and the negative is very big. The positive is just a small quantity, so within days the honeymoon is over and then comes the negative. Then hell opens its doors and one cannot understand what has happened — such a beautiful relationship, why is it on the rocks?

If one is alert from the very beginning, it can be saved. So pour your positive energies into it, but remember that sooner or later the negative will start coming in. When the negative starts coming in you have to release the negative alone. Go into a room, release the negative; there is no need to throw it on the other person.

If you want to scream and shout and be angry, go into a room, shout, be angry, beat the pillow. Because nobody should be so violent as to throw things on other people. They have not done anything wrong to you, so why should you throw things on them? It is better to throw all that is negative into the dustbin.

If you remain alert, you will be surprised to see that it can be done; and once the negative is released, again the positive is overflowing.

The negative can be released together only very late in a relationship — when the relationship has become very established — and then too it should be done as a therapeutic measure. When the two partners of a relationship have become very very alert, very positive, have become consolidated as one being and are able now to tolerate — and not only tolerate but use the other’s negativity — they have to come to an agreement that now they will be negative together also, as a therapeutic measure.

Then too my suggestion is to let it be very conscious, not unconscious; let it be very deliberate. Make it point that every night for one hour you will be negative with each other — let it be a game — rather than being negative anywhere, any time. Because people are not so alert — for twenty-four hours they are not alert — but for one hour you can both sit together and be negative. And then it will be a game, it will be like a group. After one hour you are finished with it and you don’t carry the hangover, you don’t bring it into your relationship.

The first step: the negative should be released alone. The second step: the negative should be released at a particular time with the agreement that you are both going to release the negative. At the third stage only should one become natural, and then there is no need to be afraid. Then you can be negative and positive and both are beautiful — but only at the third stage.

If in the first stage you start feeling that now anger comes no more — you sit before the pillow, anger does not come. It will come for months, but one day you will find that it is no more flowing, it has become meaningless, you cannot be angry alone. Then the first stage is over. But wait for the other person also to feel whether his first stage is over or not. If his is also over, the second stage starts. Then for one or two hours — whether morning or evening, you can decide — you become negative, deliberately. It is a psychodrama, it is very impersonal.

You don’t hit hard — you hit, but still you don’t hit the person. In fact you are simply throwing out your negativity. You are not accusing the other, you are not saying ‘You are bad’; you are simply saying ‘I am feeling that you are bad.’ You are not saying ‘You insulted me,’ you say ‘I feel insulted’ That is totally different, it is a deliberate game ‘I am feeling insulted, so I will throw out my anger. You are closest to me so please function as an excuse for me’...and the same is done by the other.

A moment will come when again you will find that this deliberate negativity does not function any more. You sit for one hour: nothing comes to you, nothing comes to him. Then that second stage is over.

Now the third stage — and the third stage is the whole of life. Now you are ready to be negative and positive; you can be spontaneous.

This is how love becomes a marriage.

Being lost is the beginning of finding oneself

[A sannyasin, who is returning to the West, says he is feeling emotionally exhausted since he completed the primal group two months ago: I feel there's just big wounds inside me, and I'm just a bit afraid that they won't heal when I go back to the west. I feel very vulnerable.]

Wounds heal only when they are open - wounds never heal when they are protected, defended.

It is painful; to have an open wound but that's the only way it heals. So don't try to close it again.

Remain vulnerable, mm? - let the wind and the sun rays touch it, play with it. Yes, many times it will hurt, but remember only one thing: this time let it hurt but don't create a wall to protect it. Those walls ultimately become our imprisonment.

First we create them so that we are not hurt. It looks very rational to create a wall around oneself, an armour, so one is never hurt. Good - it feels very reasonable, logical - but by and by they not only protect you from being hurt; they also protect you from being communicative. Then nobody can communicate with you: you become unapproachable, unavailable, and then you are a prisoner inside.

Yes, you will not feel much hurt but you will not feel blissful either; how can one feel blissful in a grave? And this is a self-created grave. It is suicide... a slow, gradual, suicide. That's why you can't see it, because it comes so slowly and so logically that you never become aware of what you have been doing. If for your whole life you have been protecting your wounds and then suddenly they are open, one feels exhausted; hut it's natural. It is such a new phase: you have again become a child, vulnerable in exactly the same way as when you were a child. You don't feel strong enough, you feel helpless.

But remain that way this time - don't miss this opportunity - then you will start growing from your childhood towards maturity... and that is a totally different route. The maturity that you think you had was just a false maturity: hidden behind the wall was a child - that's how it has come out. If you were really mature then by destroying your walls, your protections, why should you feel such a situation? Why should you feel so much like a wound and vulnerable?

Hidden behind was a child and you were wearing the mask of an adult man. Now the mask has been torn apart and suddenly you look in the mirror and you are a child - helpless, exhausted, afraid, scared of the world. How are you going to manage? Because you don't know how to manage the world without the mask... you don't know how to talk to people directly, immediate, without the mask.

You are afraid people will cheat you because they will see that you are a child. You can again start wearing the old man but you will be back in the old rut. It has not helped... it is not going to help.

This time be vulnerable; don't commit this mistake that you had to commit when you were a child, because that was not done consciously, you had to do it. The whole society and the family and the whole system that surrounds a child helps to create it. The first time you did it unconsciously.

You were not at fault, you can be forgiven. But if this time you do it you are at fault, you cannot be forgiven.

Let it be so. If you feel helpless, say 'Okay, so I am helpless but I will not create a wall. This time I Will grow in my inner strength.' These are two different things. To grow in inner strength is one thing; to remain weak inside and just to create an iron wall around yourself is a totally different thing. It simply gives you the feeling that you are strong because the wall is there and you are protected and nobody can come and hurt you. But if nobody can hurt you, nobody can love you either because hurts come from the same window, from the same aperture, as love, as joy, as friendship, as celebration.

If you are too much afraid of thorns you will miss the roses too because they are there together...

and what is life without a rose?

I was reading a book in which the author plays with the word 'eros'. He says, 'If something goes wrong, the same word "e-r-o-s" becomes "sore", "s-o-r-e". If everything goes right the same word becomes rose, "r-o-s-e"; those letters remain the same'. I liked the play with the word... it remains eros, those four letters.

If you go on protecting yourself and your energy, your eros energy will become sore. That's what has happened: it has become a wound. The same wound can become a rose, it can become a flower, it can bloom with great joy, but then you will need open sky and winds and the sun. Yes, there is danger. You can put the rose in your protected home under the shelter; it will die! It needs all the challenge of the open world; all the dangers are needed. Those are nourishing dangers: they are nutritious, they are essential vitamins.

Something very essential has happened, I can see it: you are like a wound. This is the same energy that can become a flower but for that you will have to be courageous enough to remain open whatsoever comes. Accept it if sometimes you feel hurt. Nothing is wrong in feeling hurt: it simply shows that one is alive. To feel hurt shows that you are not dead.

It is very very good and indicative that the person is still alive. Many people have become dead. The only way they know how to protect themselves is to become completely insensitive so nothing hurts; they grow a thick skin around their consciousness. They become thick, dense, mm? but nothing hurts. Then you remain protected, certainly, but you are no more living, you are no more celebrating this life. This eternal celebration goes on and you remain far away stuck in your fear, stuck in your defence, stuck with yourself.

My suggestion is: be courageous. This time don't protect... and if you don't protect you will start growing because the same energy that you put into your protection and into creating the wall will fall into your being and will start helping you grow and you will become mature.

That's what the difference is between right education and wrong education: wrong education gives only a false idea that you are strong and behind it you remain weak. Right education will really make you strong without creating an armour around you. You will not need the armour because you will be strong. Only weaklings need armour - why should a really strong man need any armour? He will trust himself and he will trust life and he will play a thousand and one games with life. Sometimes it will be dangerous too but he will be adventurous.

So, this time don't fall back into the old pattern. And this is good, that you are going, mm? There you will be really hurt by many people... and this is going to be a blessing to you. Accept those hurts...

respond!

If sometimes you feel hurt and you feel like crying, cry like a baby; what can you do? And sometimes you feel angry, then be angry. Don't hide it: be true to your feelings.

I don't see that your emotional energy is exhausted, no, only your repressive energy is exhausted...

and these are different things. Emotional energy is there, really coming up for the first time, and that's why you are so afraid. You are not only afraid from the outside, that is a secondary fear; you are more afraid from the inside, and you have not even mentioned it.

You are more afraid from the inside because if all these emotions.... The armour protects you from the outside and the armour protects you from the inside too: it does not allow anything to enter in you so there is no need to respond. Somebody insults you and you are dense; it does not reach you. Somebody dies and you are thick, it does not penetrate you so you remain perfectly okay; no emotional response is needed.

Now if somebody dies you will feel almost like dying. If you love somebody and he dies or she dies, for a few days you are going to be really in death. When a beloved dies, for a few days at least one has to go with the beloved into deep depth, into deep death... into those gloomy nights, into that shaken, shocked, uprooted world. And you will feel a thousand and one things, small things:

sometimes just a bird crying in the trees and you will feel so full of joy that you will cry - for no visible reason.... Sometimes just a breeze comes and you are surrounded by the cool breeze and you feel so joyous that tears come.

These are the basic fears, more primary than fears from the outside. This is what you really mean when you say you have become like a wound. Everything is going to hurt, but by and by through those hurts, through your real response for the first time without any mask, you will start growing in strength; you will become more integrated.

And I don't mean that when a man becomes really integrated he is never disturbed - I'm not saying that He is disturbed but that is momentary... he is totally disturbed, but that is momentary. He is innocently disturbed but he is total in it: it comes and it goes and after one second he is out of it.

These disturbances disappear only when you are no more.

These are the three stages of human life: the disintegrated human being - a crowd, split... a polypsychic state, many minds, many selves, not one self. Then there is the second state - the integrated human being: one self has arisen, strong, really strong, self-confident, trustful, loving, alert, aware. All those small selves have dissolved into it; a big self has arisen. Those small selves are no more there; a new self with a capital 'S' has arisen. This is the second state - that has to happen to you if you allow: if you give this gift to yourself this will happen.

And then the third state is when the self disappears and no-self arrives; then there is no disturbance, nothing. There is no outside, no inside: all has disappeared... the whole drama has disappeared.

This is the total end... this is what nirvana is, but on the way to nirvana, from the third stage one cannot jump to this highest state of no-self. From many selves one cannot jump to no-self - from many selves one has to come to one self and from one self to no-self.

... Really be courageous and allow this wound to heal on its own - don't create any armour for it!

[A sannyasin says she is feeling weak and helpless and lost like a child, and feels that she is rejected.

This causes a lot of pain which she finds difficult to simply sit back and watch. Osho says that sitting back and watching won't help; that will just be a trick. When you really start growing, he explains, First you regress to the point where natural growth stopped.... ]

If you really want to grow, you will have to move back to the point where you stopped being natural.

That is the whole point of primal therapy. And my family is a primal family - the therapy is on-going; you may know it, you may not. And this is only the beginning: soon, when things will really take shape, you will see incredible things happening for no reason at all. Just the vibe of the commune will create those things.

So, if you are doing primal therapy you know why it is happening. But you are not doing a primal therapy, you are just working in the garden. But it is going to happen in the garden - it is my garden!

It is going to happen to everybody whether they are doing groups or not. If you become associated with me, to become associated with me, you will have to fall back to your reality. Now this is the beginning....

All those years that were false are a barrier between me and you, and you think those years are of wisdom, strength, knowledge, hence you are feeling weak, otherwise you are not weak at all; this is just a wrong interpretation.

But naturally, a four, five year old child, seems lost because he does not know anything. All that has been imposed on you is disappearing; all conditionings are being washed away so you will feel lost.

But this is the beginning of real search, the beginning of finding oneself. Being lost is the beginning of finding oneself... so don't be worried.

And if weeping and crying comes, which is natural to a child, allow it. It will disappear when is work is finished but till its work is finished you need not stop it. That stopping is harmful, it will stop your growth.

So first you will fall back, you will regress, and then by and by you will start growing again - from five to six, from six to seven... and it is not going to take that much time. Mm? you can just jump years in months because your body is grown-up; the mind just needs to come up and be with it. The mind is hanging somewhere around the age of four and the body has become forty; that gap has to be fulfilled. Once the mind comes close to your body age and both are synchronised you will feel tremendous joy and health. That's why you are feeling ill and you are feeling weak and exhausted:

it is the gap, the yawning gap, and it seems unbridgeable.

Right now it is unbridgeable but it will be bridged, so just relax; continue working. And that's why the feeling - that you feel rejected, unworthy, unaccepted; that's how every child feels because a child has no utility in the world. He is not an engineer, not a doctor, he is not a bread-earner. He is just dependent on others for everything; he demands and demands and he is nothing and not doing anything for anybody. He is a dictator, and he feels 'I go on demanding but I don't do anything'. He suspects that everybody hates him... that is your suspicion - but nobody is hating you.

Here at least in this community nobody is worried about anybody else. People are working on their own growth - they have their problems; who bothers about [your] problems? Only I can bother because I have no problems so I have to create some problems for myself to hang around a little bit more, otherwise who bothers? They have their problems to solve. And my whole teaching is be selfish - first solve your problems.

Nobody is rejecting you, this is your idea, but it comes to a four, five year old, child; it feels 'I am rejected. Nobody loves me.' No proof is enough proof for a child that people love him because deep down he understands he is useless, just a nuisance around the house. That consciousness is there in the child so he himself feels he is unworthy but he projects it onto others, that others think he is unworthy... and that's what you are doing. But it is natural at that age, at that age it is natural.

So you will project that nobody loves you, everybody seems to be against you; everybody is rejecting you and you are left alone. Nobody is left alone - I am with you and that's enough!

Nothing to be worried about. Just enjoy this space and soon vou will start growing. Good!

The Happiness that comes from Within EMPTY HANDS

We come with empty hands and we will go with empty hands, so what is the point of claiming so much in the meantime? But this is what we know, what the world tells us: Possess, dominate, have more than others have. It may be money or it may be virtue; it does not matter in what kind of coins you deal– they may be worldly, they may be otherworldly. But be very clever, otherwise you will be exploited. Exploit and don’t be exploited– that is the subtle message given to you with your mother’s milk. And every school, college, university, is rooted in the idea of competition.

A real education will not teach you to compete; it will teach you to cooperate. It will not teach you to fight and come first. It will teach you to be creative, to be loving, to be blissful, without comparing yourself to others. It will not teach you that you can be happy only when you are the first– that is sheer nonsense. You can’t be happy just by being first, and in trying to be first you go through such misery that by the time you become the first you are habituated to misery.

By the time you become the president or the prime minister of a country you have gone through such misery that now misery is your second nature. You don’t know now any other way to exist; you remain miserable. Tension has become ingrained; anxiety has become your way of life. You don’t know any other way; this is your very lifestyle. So even though you have become the first, you remain cautious, anxious, afraid. It does not change your inner quality at all.

A real education will not teach you to be the first. It will tell you to enjoy whatever you are doing, not for the result, but for the act itself. Just like a painter or a dancer or a musician…

You can paint in two ways. You can paint to compete with other painters; you want to be the greatest painter in the world, you want to be a Picasso or a Van Gogh. Then your painting will be second-rate, because your mind is not interested in painting itself; it is interested in being the first, the greatest painter in the world. You are not going deep into the art of painting. You are not enjoying it, you are only using it as a stepping-stone. You are on an ego trip, and the problem is that to really be a painter, you have to drop the ego completely. To really be a painter, the ego has to be put aside. Only then can existence flow through you. Only then can your hands and your fingers and your brush be used as vehicles. Only then can something of superb beauty be born.

Real beauty is never created by you but only through you. Existence flows; you become only a passage. You allow it to happen, that’s all; you don’t hinder it.

But if you are too interested in the result, the ultimate result– that you have to become famous, that you have to be the best painter in the world, that you have to defeat all other painters hitherto– then your interest is not in painting; painting is secondary. And of course, with a secondary interest in painting you can’t paint something original; it will be ordinary.

Ego cannot bring anything extraordinary into the world; the extraordinary comes only through egolessness. And so is the case with the musician and the dancer. So is the case with everybody.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says: Don’t think of the result at all. It is a message of tremendous beauty and significance and truth. Don’t think of the result at all. Just do what you are doing with your totality. Get lost in it, lose the doer in the doing. Don’t "be"– let your creative energies flow unhindered. That’s why he said to Arjuna: "Don’t escape from the war… because I can see this escape is just an ego trip. The way you are talking simply shows that you are calculating, you are thinking that by escaping from the war you will become a great saint. Rather than surrendering to the whole, you are taking yourself too seriously– as if there will be no war if you are not there."

Krishna says to Arjuna, "Just be in a state of let-go. Say to existence, ‘Use me in whatever way you want to use me. I am available, unconditionally available.’ Then whatsoever happens through you will have a great authenticity about it. It will have intensity, it will have depth. It will have the impact of the eternal on it."

Jesus says: Remember, those who are first in this world will be the last in the kingdom of God, and those who are the last will be the first. He has given you the fundamental law– he has given you the inexhaustible, eternal law: Stop trying to be the first. But remember one thing, which is very much possible, because the mind is so cunning it can distort every truth. You can start trying to be the last– but then you miss the whole point. Then another competition starts: "I have to be the last"– and if somebody else says, "I am the last," then the struggle, the conflict, begins again.

I have heard a Sufi parable:

A great emperor, Nadirshah, was praying. It was early morning; the sun had not yet risen, it was still dark. Nadirshah was about to start the conquest of a new country, and of course he was praying to God for his blessings, to be victorious. He was saying to God, "I am nobody. I am just a servant– a servant of your servants. Bless me. I am going on your behalf, this is your victory. But I am a nobody, remember. I am just a servant of your servants."

A priest was also by his side, helping him in prayer, functioning as a mediator between him and God. And then suddenly they heard another voice in the darkness. A beggar of the town was also praying, and he was saying to God, "I am nobody, a servant of your servants."

The king said, "Look at this beggar! He is a beggar and saying to God that he is nobody! Stop this nonsense! Who are you to say your are nobody? I am nobody, and nobody else can claim this. I am the servant of God’s servants– who are you to say that you are the servant of his servants?"

Now you see? The competition is still there, the same competition, the same stupidity. Nothing has changed. The same calculation: "I have to be the last. Nobody else can be allowed to be the last." The mind can go on playing such games on you if you are not very understanding, if you are not very intelligent.

Never try to be happy at the expense of another man’s happiness. That is ugly, inhuman. That is violence in the true sense. If you think you become a saint by condemning others as sinners, your saintliness is nothing but a new ego trip. If you think you are holy because you are trying to prove others unholy… That’s what your holy people are doing. They go on bragging about their holiness, saintliness. Go to your so-called saints and look into their eyes. They have such condemnation for you! They are saying that you are all bound for hell; they go on condemning everybody. Listen to their sermons; all their sermons are condemnatory. And of course you listen silently to their condemnations because you know that you have made many mistakes in your life, errors in your life. And they have condemned everything– so it is impossible to feel that you can be good. You love food, you are a sinner. You don’t get up early in the morning, you are a sinner; you don’t go to bed early in the evening, you are a sinner. They have arranged everything in such a way that it is very difficult not to be a sinner.

Yes, they are not sinners. They go early to bed and they get up early in the morning… in fact, they have nothing else to do! They never commit any mistakes because they never do anything. They are just sitting there almost dead. But if you do something, of course, how can you be holy? Hence for centuries the holy man has been renouncing the world and escaping from the world, because to be in the world and be holy seems to be impossible.

My whole approach is that unless you are in the world, your holiness is of no value at all. Be in the world and be holy! We have to define holiness in a totally different way. Don’t live at the expense of others’ pleasures– that is holiness. Don’t destroy others’ happiness, help others to be happy– that is holiness. Create the climate in which everybody can have a little joy.