Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Terrorism is not in weapons, it is in your hands


The world is shaken by the growing menace of terrorism and no one seems to have any solution. Here is the Osho insight -- the analysis and the remedy : 'clean the basement of human mind, the unconscious which harbors violence and ugly emotions. '

OSHO Dynamic Meditation is the most effective tool that can be useful.

Osho says, " The event of terrorism is certainly related with what is happening in the society. The society is falling apart. Its old order, discipline, morality, religion, everything has been found to be wrongly based. It has lost its power over people's conscience.
Terrorism simply symbolizes that to destroy human beings does not matter, that there is nothing in human beings which is indestructible, that it is all matter. Once man is taken to be only a combination of matter, and no place is given for a spiritual being inside him, then to kill becomes just play.
Terrorism has many undercurrents. One is that because of nuclear weapons, the nations are pouring their energy into that field, thinking that the old weapons are out of date. They are out of date, but individuals can start using them. And you cannot use nuclear weapons against individuals -- that would be simply stupid. One individual terrorist throws a bomb.
What I want to emphasize is that the nuclear weapon has given individual people a certain freedom to use old weapons, a freedom which was not possible in the old days because the governments were also using the same weapons.
Now the governments are concentrated on destroying the old weapons, throwing them in the ocean, selling them to countries which are poor and cannot afford nuclear weapons. And all those terrorists are coming from these poor countries, with the same weapons that have been sold to their countries. And they have a strange protection: you cannot use nuclear weapons against them, you cannot throw atom bombs at them.

Terrorism is going to become bigger and bigger, because the third world war is almost impossible. Terrorism simply means that what was being done on a social scale now has to be done individually. It will grow. It can only be prevented if we change the very base of human understanding -- which is a Himalayan task; more so because these same people whom you want to change will fight you; they won't allow you to change them easily.
My understanding is that the way he has lived, man needs every ten to twelve years -- a war. He accumulates so much anger, so much rage, so much violence, that nothing short of a war will give him release. So, war after war, there is a gap of only ten to fifteen years. That gap is a kind of relaxation. But again you start accumulating, because the same psychology is working -- the same jealousy, the same violence.
And man is basically a hunter; he is not by nature vegetarian. First he became a hunter, and for thousands of years he was just a meat-eater, and cannibalism was prevalent everywhere. To eat human beings caught from the opposing tribe you were fighting with was perfectly ethical. All that is carried in the unconscious of humanity.
Things are interconnected. The first thing that has to be changed is that man should be made more rejoicing -- which all the religions have killed. The real criminals are not caught. The terrorists and other criminals are the victims.
It is all the religions who have destroyed all possibilities of rejoicing. They have destroyed the possibility of enjoying small things of life; they have condemned everything that nature provides you to make you happy.
A man who is living in comfort and luxury cannot become a terrorist. Religions have condemned riches, praised poverty; now, a man who is rich cannot be a terrorist. Only the poor can be terrorists -- because they have nothing to lose, and they are boiling up against the whole of society because others have things they don't have.
You live in fear, not in joy. If we can clean the basement of the human mind's unconscious... it can be cleaned away.
The terrorism is not in the bombs, it is in your hands; the terrorism is in your unconscious.
Otherwise, this state of affairs is going to grow more bitter. And it seems all kinds of blind people have bombs in their hands and are throwing them at random.
So individual violence will increase -- it is increasing. And all your governments and all your religions will go on perpetuating the old strategies without understanding the new situation.
The new situation is that every human being needs to go through therapies, needs to understand his unconscious intentions, needs to go through meditations so that he can calm down, become cool -- and look towards the world with a new perspective of silence."

Excerpted from Beyond Psychology

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Darkness is like a womb


Everybody is afraid of darkness. And just to avoid it we have conceived god as light. But darkness remains settled in the depth of our unconscious as a great fear. Humans are afraid of darkness because of their primitive days when there was no light on earth, and they were surrounded by wild animals.
The best way to get rid of the fear of darkness is, meditate on it!
There is a wonderful meditation in Tantra which says,” in rain during a black night, enter that blackness as the form of forms.”
Darkness is eternal. Light comes and goes, darkness is the basic state of existence. This is not the negative darkness which is absence of light, this is a positive darkness which is the source of all forms.
A pitch dark room or a place is required for this meditation which may be difficult to find in the city, as darkness is always covered by artificial lights. It will be good to do this meditation in a remote place where there is no electricity.
What is important is having a loving attitude towards darkness, not fear. If you carry fear, you will not allow darkness to penetrate your being.
Osho describes the method like this: "Sit in a dark place with open eyes and stare into the blackness. The real blackness is possible in a rainy night because the sky is covered with clouds and there is no star to disturb the blackness. Have a communion, a deep friendship with darkness.
Don't close your eyes, because with closed eyes you have a different darkness. That is your own, mental. It is a negative part; it is not positive darkness. With open eyes you will have a positive darkness that is always there. Stare into it. You will be utterly relaxed. You may feel that the waves of darkness are entering you from all sides. Accept them without fear.
Many fears will come up. Feel them. Be aware of them. Bring them to your conscious. They will come by themselves, and they will disappear by themselves.
Then a very beautiful phenomenon happens. You feel , darkness is the womb, the cosmic womb. You can rest, and dissolve yourself into it. "
Excerpted from The Book of Secrets

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Osho disscets Indian spirituality

Amrit sadhana


Vogue India is an Indian edition of the international fashion magazine Vogue. Its August issue presented a 16-page vision of supple handbags, bejeweled clutches, status-symbol umbrellas, and designer watches modeled not by runway stars or the wealthiest fraction of Indian society who can actually afford these accessories, but by poor Indian people.
A poor farmer modeled a Burberry umbrella that costs about $200.
A poor woman has a Hermès Birkin bag (usually more than $10,000) prominently displayed on her wrist. Or a middle aged farmer woman standing with her husband sporting a designer watch.
The caption of these images is: Welcome to the new India.

What’s funny about showing a poor person in a mud hut in clothing designed by Alexander McQueen? The poor farmer modeling a Burberry umbrella awkwardly might as well commit suicide shortly like many others in his starved village.
The fashion magazine in an excitement of floating novel idea forgot that they are touching the raw nerve of Indians. Not surprisingly, not everyone in India was amused.
“Fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it off and make it look beautiful,” said the editor of Vogue defensively.
But these people do not carry it off. The contrast between these high end fashion goods and the person wearing them is as stark as the difference between the rich and the poor class of India.
Nearly half of India’s population live on less than $1.25 a day, according to World Bank figures released last week. At the same time India also has a fast-growing wealthy class and emerging middle class that make it one of the world’s most attractive new places to sell high-end products.
India has always been a country of paradoxes but the present contrast between poverty and growing wealth is incomprehensible to the world marketers.
Not to the Indians I suppose. Because Indians are used to this contradiction down the ages. Poverty has always been there, what is new is the financial upswing and expansion of the middle class.
These nouveau riche of India like to flaunt their money. The guy wearing a $10,000 watch on his wrist does not think about farmers whose debt could be paid in this price and that their lives could be saved. Their luxury is just a status symbol which is so important to them that they are blind to the dying people on the street.
Brands like Gucci, Jimmy Choo and Hermès have been bunking in new super luxury malls, where guards are often stationed at the doors to keep the destitute outside.

It may hurt the spiritual ego of Indians but we have to wake up to the reality that we are a greedy race. Whether in this world or in the other world, we are driven by greed.
Osho has hammered this trait again and again: “This greed, this money infatuation, this materialism comes exactly down from the seers of the Rigveda. It still constitutes the unconscious of the Hindu mind. On the surface, everything is spiritual; underneath, everything is so ugly. Indians go on condemning the whole world as materialist; they are the only spiritual people.
"But my own experience is that I have not come across more materialist people in the whole world than the Indians. Yes, they have a spiritual mask which the others don't have, so the others appear to be materialist. And Indians are very much conditioned to talk about spirituality, the ultimate reality; it is just common heritage to talk about great things. Indians have a great desire to possess. You may not have anything, and still you will be a materialist if the desire to possess is there. You may possess only a small hut or only a begging bowl, but that is enough for your whole possessiveness to be focused on. And you will be a materialist, not a spiritualist.”
Excerpted from Theologia Mystica courtesy Osho International Foundation

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Money is a loaded subject

Sadhana

Why is money such a loaded subject? Particulary in the contemporary times people can do anything for money. Why has money acquired such a big status?
Osho says, money is a loaded subject because man's psychology is full of greed; otherwise money is a simple means of exchanging things, a perfect means. There is nothing wrong in it, but the way we have worked it out, everything seems to be wrong in it.

These Osho insights will help you understand the nature of this sticky problem.
Money is a loaded subject for the simple reason that we have not been able to work out a sane system in which money can be a servant to the whole humanity, and not the master of a few greedy people.

How much money is enough?
If you don't have money, you are condemned; your whole life is a curse, and your whole life you are trying to have money by any means. If you have money it does not change the basic thing: you want more, and there is no end to wanting more. And when finally you have too much money -- although it is not enough, it is never enough, but it is more than anybody else has -- then you start feeling guilty.

Your means of collecting money are ugly
The means that you have used to accumulate the money are ugly, inhuman, violent. You have been exploiting, you have been sucking the blood of people, you have been a parasite. So now you have got the money but it reminds you of all the crimes that you have committed in gaining it.
Charity out of guilt
People start donating to charitable institutions to get rid of guilt. They are doing "good work," they are doing "God's work." They are opening hospitals, and schools. All they are doing is trying somehow not to go mad because of the feeling of guilt. All your hospitals, and all your schools and colleges, and all your charitable institutions are outcomes of guilty people.

Money should not be individual
Money should not be in the hands of individuals; otherwise it will create this problem of being burdened with guilt. And money can make people's lives very rich. If the commune owns the money, the commune can give you all the facilities that you need, all the education, all creative dimensions of life. The society will be enriched and nobody will feel guilty. And because the society has done so much for you, you would like to pay it back by your services.

Make money a beautiful transaction
Let society take care of everybody. Everybody creates, everybody contributes, but everybody is not paid by money; they are paid by respect, paid by love, paid by gratitude, and are given all that is necessary for life.

Beyond Psychology Courtesy Osho International Foundation

Friday, August 8, 2008

Love and Jealousy

Sadhana

It is difficult to find lovers who are not jealous of each other. Even though it creates misery people go on clinging to it because jealousy is considered to be a sign of deep love. If your woman or your man goes with somebody else and you don't feel jealous at all, you will start questioning your love. Both the partners will think they don’t love enough.
The initial romance and rosy magic between two lovers dries into the desert of jealousy and possessiveness. But everybody clings to jealousy because they would like to cling to the false idea of love. Jealousy has become an intrinsic part of love- life as it is commonly understood. Lovers think if they want their relationship to continue, they will have to accept their jealousy and the misery that is created by it.
It is a catch 22 situation. But it is based on sheer misunderstanding of love.
Osho has prescribed a fool-proof remedy that can help you drop jealousy and other petty feelings and fly high in the realm of love. “ Go deeper into your feelings. Don’t avoid them. But remember one thing: jealousy, insecurity etc are separate from you. You are the witness; as you go deeper, you will come across many things which you have suppressed; but you are as pure as a mirror. When you are going deeper, the mirror reflects jealousy, but the mirror is not jealousy. Just as the mirror reflects buffalo standing in front, the mirror doen't become the buffalo! The mirror is not identified with anything that it reflects -- the mirror is just empty, silent, clean.
In meditation you will come to recognize that you are the mirror. All other things are reflected in you. A mirror is just a reflecting phenomenon; so are you. Be a mirror, and then all these problems, whatever their names, will start disappearing -- they are only reflections. You need not try to get rid of them. The very idea of getting free of them still accepts that they are realities of your being.”
Courtesy Osho International Foundation

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Concentration is NOT meditation




Sadhana

It is commonly believed that concentration is meditation. This notion has created lot of misunderstanding about meditation, that it cannot be done at home, that one has to renounce the world and go to the mountains or a lonely place. Actually these circumstances are needed for concentration for it is disturbed by any small distraction. The mind gets irritated because you are trying to focus it in one direction which creates tension in the mind.
It is Osho, who for the first time has stressed that concentration is not meditation. If you are doing some intellectual work you need to channelize your mind and concentrate on one point. But meditation is relaxed awareness and therefore it is all inclusive. All the noises and distractions fall into the space of meditation and dissolve into it. Meditation is simply watchfulness and acceptance of everything.
Meditation is all-inclusive. The car passes... the mind in meditation is fully aware of the horn. The birds start singing... the mind is fully aware of their singing. Everything is simply watched. You are only aware that there is a horn, a car is passing by -- but it is not a distraction.
Distraction comes only when you are trying to concentrate, then a small ant crawling up your leg will be enough to distract you. But when you are in meditation, you simply know that the ant is crawling up your leg. If you like it, you allow it; if you don't like it, you throw it away. But there is no distraction -- your silence remains unscratched.
Osho explains: “How can the noises on the street distract you? You simply listen to them -- they don't make any impact on you. They come and go, and you remain just a witness. Meditation is possible in the hubbub of a marketplace.
Concentration is a faculty of the mind. Meditation is the absence of mind. Mind simply does not know meditation, and there is no intrinsic possibility for the mind to come in contact with meditation. Just as darkness cannot come in contact with light because darkness is only an absence, so is the mind.”

Courtesy Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Hope is the bondage of man

Sadhana

The fake ‘babas’ and mediums who claim to speak to the dead, or promise ever-lasting love, good fortune and such hope-related things have to prove their claims. If not, get ready to get behind the bars. It will now be possible to take the tricksters to court. At least in UK. This utterly eerie business will be shaken with the new consumer protection rule coming into force
Why do people fall prey to such quacks? Because of hope. People don’t live in the present and go on hoping for the future. Osho warns us against hoping as it is a veil between you and reality.
“ Hope is not the friend, remember; it is the foe. It is because of hope that you go on postponing. But you will remain the same tomorrow also, and tomorrow also you will hope for some future. And this way it can go on for eternity, and you can go on missing. Stop postponing. And who knows what the future is going to reveal to you? There is no way to know about it. It is an opening; all alternatives are open. What is really going to happen, nobody can predict. People have tried.
“That's why people go to astrologers, to I CHING, and to other sorts of things. I CHING goes on fascinating people, astrologers go on influencing people. Astrology still seems to be a great force. Why? -- because people are missing and they are hoping for the future. They want some clue to know what is going to happen so they can arrange it that way.
“These things will persist, even if scientifically it is proved that it is all nonsense. They will persist because it is not a question of science, it is a question of human hope. Unless hope is dropped, I CHING cannot be dropped. Unless hope is dropped, astrology cannot be dropped. It will have great power over man's mind because hope is gripping you. You would like to know little clues about the future so you can move more confidently, you can project more confidently, and you can postpone many more things.
“If you know something about tomorrow, I think you will not live today. You will say, "What is the need? Tomorrow we will live." Even without knowing anything about tomorrow you are doing that. And tomorrow never comes... and when it comes, it is always today. And you don't know how to live today.
“So you are in a great trap. Drop that whole structure. Hope is the bondage of man, hope is SAMSAR, hope is the world.
“Organized religion is one of the ugliest things that has happened in history. And the state should remain separate from organized religion, because organized religion is nothing but all kinds of superstitions -- beliefs -- beliefs without any evidence, doctrines, creeds, which go against every scientific discovery and invention. The state should not support any pseudo-religion, any organized religion. That is supporting charlatans, cheats, deceivers, exploiters, parasites.”
Excerpted from From Darkness to Light

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Hugging is a therapeutic tool

It is heartening to see how people hug each other freely and warmly at the Osho International Meditation Resort. Whenever friends come back from a long break they are welcomed with big warm hugs. And they say, "Oh, we miss these hugs so much out there!" There is something magical about them.
A imple gesture like a sincere hug goes a long way in relaxing and welcoming people. It rejuvenates and heals.
I came across an interesting article by Emma Brady, a Birmingham Cloumnist, in which she prescribes "at least eight hugs a day to ensure the release of the feel-good hormone Oxytocin."
Osho has prescribed hugs because he is all for love. Osho says: " Hugging is only a gesture of oneness -- even the gesture helps. If it is true -- not only a gesture but your heart is also in it -- it can be a magical tool, it can be a miracle. It can transform the whole situation instantly.
Few things have to be understood about it. One is: the idea that the child dies and the man becomes adolescent, then the adolescent dies and the man becomes young, then the young man dies and he becomes middle-aged, and so on, so forth, is wrong. The child never dies -- nothing ever dies. The child is there, always is there, wrapped by other experiences -- wrapped by adolescence, then by youth, then by middle age, then by old age -- but the child is always there.You are just like an onion, layers upon layers, but if you peel the onion soon you will find fresher layers inside. Go on deeper and you find more and more, fresher layers. The same is true about man: if you go deep into him you will always find the innocent child -- and to contact that innocent child is therapeutic.Hugging gives you an immediate contact with the child. If you hug somebody with warmth, love, if it is not just an impotent gesture, if it is meaningful, significant, true, if your heart is flowing through it, immediately you come in contact with the child, with the innocent child. And the innocent child even for a single moment surfacing makes a tremendous difference because the innocence of the child is always healthy and whole; it is uncorrupted. You have reached to the innermost core of the person where no corruption has ever entered, you have reached to the virgin core, and just making the virgin core throb again with life is enough. You have started, triggered a process of healing."

The Wild Geese And The Water

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Sutras to meditate upon

Here are some spicy one liners from Osho that can add salt and pepper to your day ( or night.) Don't just read them, chew and meditate upon them. And then, of course, practice!
Osho said in one of his talks : "But for your contemplation I can give you a few sutras....
... An atomic war will not determine who is right, but who is left.
... A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right.
... Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get.
... Say it with flowers, say it with sweets. Say it with kisses, say it with eats. Say it with jewelry, say it with drink. But always be careful not to say it with ink.
... Philosophy is the discovery that you might be worse off than you are.
... If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs... maybe you have not heard the gossip!
... Keep quiet and people will think you to be a great philosopher.
... A reformed politician is one who did not get enough votes.
... A neurotic is a person who worries about things that did not happen in the past, instead of worrying about something that won't happen in the future, like normal people.
... The difference between capitalism and communism: in capitalism, man exploits man; in communism it is vice-versa.
... Women are the kind of problem most men like to wrestle with.
... To have the last word with a woman -- apologize."

Great Pilgrimage from here to here

Saturday, June 7, 2008

An Ageless Campus


Fashion Show in Brunch at Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune




Tai Chi class in Buddha Grove OIMR

Visitors come here from all over the world and they observe that there is an agelessness in the people around the campus. This question is not new, it has always been there. When Osho was asked this question he replied: "The explanation is very simple. I have never felt my age. I still feel like a child. As I close my eyes I don't see any difference in my innocence, in my mischievousness. I am the only rascal saint in the whole world.
I sometimes wonder whether I am aging or not. When I look into the mirror, into my eyes, I see the same eyes I have always seen from my very childhood. I close my eyes, I look inside, and I am the same -- just ageless.
It is true, it is an ageless campus. Here the old are just as innocent as the children, or even more so -- because your inner being is ageless. Once you come in touch with it, it is timeless, it never grows old or young or anything. It is just the same from eternity to eternity. Once you start coming closer and closer to your eternity, a certain agelessness starts radiating from your eyes, from your faces.
And the person who observed this must have a very clear vision.
I can see it happening: you are becoming every day younger. Sometimes I wonder, if everybody becomes too young, it will be very difficult to explain to them the sutras! "
Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons

Friday, May 30, 2008

Smoking and breastfeeding

A great Osho insight on The World No Tobacco Day.

Osho says, " Whenever you drop something by fight, it is never dropped. You will drop smoking by fighting and then you will start doing something else which will become a substitute."
There are some things people are compelled to do even if they know that it is definitely harmful to their health. For example, smoking. No amount of statutory warnings on the cigarette packs can stop people from smoking. Intellectually they may know that it is injurious to health but emotionally they need it. The body/mind unit craves the activity of smoke coming in and going out of the body. Those who try to drop this habit by taking vows are often unsuccessful. Here is an Osho remedy to this problem.

“Whenever you drop something by fight, it is never dropped. You can drop smoking by fighting, and then you will start doing something else which will become a substitute. You may start chewing gum, it is the same; You may start chewing pan, it is the same, there is no difference. You need something to do with your mouth -- smoking, chewing, anything. When your mouth goes on working, you feel at ease because through the mouth tensions are released. So whenever a man feels tense he starts smoking. Why is it that through smoking or chewing gum or tobacco tensions are released?
Just look at a small child. Whenever he feels tense he will put his hand in his mouth, he will start chewing his own hand. This is his substitute for smoking. And why does he feel good when his thumb is in his mouth? Why does the child feel good and go to sleep? This is the way of almost all children. Whenever they feel sleep is not coming they will put the thumb inside the mouth, feel at ease, and fall asleep. Why? The thumb becomes a substitute for the mother's breast, and food is relaxing. You cannot go to sleep on a hungry stomach, it is difficult to get sleep. When the stomach is full you feel sleepy, the body needs rest. So whenever the child takes the breast in his mouth, food is flowing, warmth, love. He is relaxed, he need not worry; tensions are relaxed. The thumb is just a substitute for the breast; it is not giving milk, it is a false thing, but still it gives the feeling.
When this child grows, if he takes his thumb in public you will think he is foolish, so he takes a cigarette. A cigarette is not foolish, it is accepted. It is just the thumb, and more harmful than the thumb. It is better if you smoke your thumb, go on smoking to your grave; it is not harmful, it is better. No harm is done but then people think you are childish, juvenile, then people think what you are doing is stupid. But there is a need so it has to be substituted.
And in countries where breast-feeding has stopped, more smoking will automatically be there. That's why the West smokes more than the East -- because no mother is ready to give her breast to the child because the shape is lost. So in the West smoking is increasing more and more; even small children are smoking.
Every child has been taken away from the breast prematurely, and that remains a wound. So all civilized countries are obsessed with breasts. Even an old man, dying, is obsessed with breasts, goes on searching for breasts.
This seems mad, and it is, but the basic cause is there -- children should be given the breast otherwise they will become addicted to it, the whole life they will be in search of it.
You cannot stop smoking directly because it has many related things, implications. You are tense, and if you stop smoking you will start something else and the other may be more harmful. Don't go on escaping problems, face them. The problem is that you are tense, so the goal should be how to be non-tense, not, smoking or not smoking.
Meditate. Relax your tensions into the sky, allow catharsis to happen.”

Excerpted from A Bird on the Wing

Saturday, May 24, 2008

1-Amrito with Jeffrey Archer in Osho's personal library
2- Jeffrey Archer watches the statue of Buddha. Sadhana and Amrito look on.


Jeffrey Archer visits Osho International Meditation Resort

The news breezed in that Jeffrey Archer, the celebrated writer, is going to visit the Osho International Meditation Resort on May 23rd at 9.30 am. By the wave of excitement generated by this news was enough to prove the author's popularity. And he did come at the appointed time.
Osho's personal physician, Dr. Amrito M D, and I showed Lord Archer around the beautiful premises of the meditation resort. The fact that Lord Archer broke into his busy schedule to see the world- famous campus while he was in Pune itself is enough to suggest a glimmer of interest. His publisher, Landmark Publishing House, who also publish Osho's books arranged his visit en route to Bangalore.
Lord Archer was particularly interested in who had replaced Osho as “the leader.” And when Dr. Amrito explained about the management team and that the decisions are made by consensus, Jeffrey was naturally skeptical. Because he said he is used to the concept of leadership, when it is one leader who tells the team what to do. So naturally he couldn’t understand how the Meditation Resort could continue to thrive without someone taking “Osho’s place.” But when he learnt that here meditation is the base of all activities he saw a possibility of different kind of decision making process.
When Mr Archer entered the book shop where about four hundred Osho titles in English and Hindi are displayed, he exclaimed, visibly impressed, "More books than mine!"
He found the concept of using meditation in daily life intriguing. "Do they use what they learn here when they get back to their awful lives?” asked Jeffrey. To which Amrito replied that this was perhaps the greatest misunderstanding people have of Osho. Osho was never interested in making some escapist Shangri La environment. For Osho, meditation was only relevant if it actually transforms our lives in the midst of our normal busy days.
And when Lord Archer commented that he didn’t know a religion that hadn’t started a war, he was pleasantly surprised to know that Osho had said that he wished his name was never associated with religion. That he describes himself as “irreligious, amoral, and atheistic.” Lord Archer was intrigued by the possibility that something like “meditation” or “consciousness” could happen without the trappings of religion. Hence Osho had dropped the word Ashram nearly twenty years before.
He was equally interested in Osho’s concept of Zorba the Buddha, someone whose feet were firmly on the ground, like Zorba the Greek, but whose hands could touch the stars, like Guatama the Buddha. And was amused that Osho had warned that if you have to chose between the two, always chose Zorba, because at least he might be come Buddha, whereas Buddha will never become a Zorba!
Jeffrey was attracted by the Olympic size swimming pool and the club meditation area of the meditation resort. Evidently, he had missed swimming in his hectic tour in India.
While leaving he remarked, " I am more puzzled than I came here." To which Amrito replied, "That is why it is called a mystery school."

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Love needs no scriptures

Karanji is the last refuge for lovelorn couples facing caste and religious barriers, reports Jaideep Hardikar from DNA newspaper.

“We are slowly gaining popularity as the place of love,” quips the chieftain of Karanji., “There is no place for caste here.”
The trend began nearly six years ago, when an inter-caste romance stoked tension and bad blood between people of the two castes. The village elders came together and convinced the couple’s parents into getting them married. A huge wedding and reception followed. Says a gram sabha member: “For us, it’s always a reason for celebration. It brings all of us together and keeps the spirit alive.”
Villagers contribute to the expenditure, make the arrangements collectively and join the party without fail.
This is an unusual incident in the country divided by caste and class; where love is still a taboo and a legal marriage is celebrated with great pomp and show.

Osho has raised his voice against this, “ If two people want to live together, they don't need any permission from any priest or any government. They need the permission of their hearts. And the day they feel that the time has come to part, again they don't need anybody's permission. They can part as friends, with beautiful memories of their loving days. Love should be the only way for men and women to live together. No other ritual is needed.”

The obvious question would be, ‘ What about the children? Who will look after them?’

Osho goes a step further and says, “The only problem in the past was what would happen to the children; that was the argument for marriage. There are other alternatives, far better. Children should be accepted not as their parents' property -- they belong to the whole humanity. From the very beginning it should be made clear to them: "The whole humanity is going to protect you, is your shelter. We may be together -- we will look after you. We may not be together; still we look after you. You are our blood, our bones, our souls."
“In fact, this possession by the parents of the children is one of the most dangerous things that humanity goes on carrying. This is the root of the idea of possessiveness. You should not possess your children. You can love them, you can bless them, but you cannot possess. They belong to the whole humanity. They come from beyond; you have been just a passage. Don't think more than that about yourself. Whatever you can do, do.
Every commune, every village should take care of the children. Once the commune starts taking care of the children, marriage becomes absolutely obsolete. And marriage is destroying your basic right to love.”
“If man's love is free, there will not be blacks and whites, and there will not be these ugly discriminations, because love knows no boundaries. You can fall in love with a black man, you can fall in love with a white man. Love knows no religious scriptures. It knows only the heartbeat, and it knows it with absolute certainty. Once love is free, it will prepare the ground for other fundamental rights.”
Sermons in Stones

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Buddha: One of the virgin souls on earth

An exquisite marble statue of Buddha at the entrance of Meera area at the Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune

Today is Buddha's enlightenment day. Osho has spoken beautifully about Gautama Buddha's life and has commented on his inimitable work: The Dhammapada. When Osho speaks on Buddha it feels as if Buddha himself is reborn and is elaborating on his words in the light of the contemporary world. Here is one excerpt from Osho's talks.

"Gautama Buddha is one of the most virgin souls, one of the very rare phenomena on this earth. The rarity is that Buddha is the scientist of the inner world -- scientist of religion. That is a rare combination. To be religious is simple, to be a scientist is simple -- but to combine, synthesize these two polarities is incredible. It is unbelievable, but it has happened.
Buddha is the richest human being who has ever lived; rich in the sense that all the dimensions of life are fulfilled in him. He is not one-dimensional.
There are three approaches towards truth. One is the approach of power, another the approach of beauty, and the third the approach of grandeur.
The scientific approach is the search for power . Science has made man very powerful, so much so that man can destroy the whole planet earth. For the first time in the history of consciousness man is capable of committing a global suicide, a collective suicide. Science has released tremendous power. Science is continuously searching for more and more power. This too is an approach towards truth, but a partial approach.
Then there are poets, mystics, people with the aesthetic sense. They look at truth as beauty -- Jalaludin Rumi and Rabindranath Tagore and others, who think that beauty is truth. They create much art, they create new sources of beauty in the world. The painter, the poet, the dancer, the musician, they are also approaching truth from a totally different dimension than power.
A poet is not like the scientist. The scientist works with analysis, reason, observation. The poet functions through the heart -- irrational... trust, love. He has nothing to do with mind and reason.
The greater part of religious people belong to the second dimension. The Sufis, the Bauls -- they all belong to the aesthetic approach. Hence so many beautiful mosques, churches, cathedrals, temples -- Ajanta and Ellora -- they were created by religious people. Whenever religious activity predominates, art is created, music is created, great painting is created; the world becomes a little more beautiful. It doesn't become more powerful, but it becomes more beautiful, more lovely, worth living.
The third approach is that of grandeur. The old Bible prophets -- Moses, Abraham; Islam's prophet Mohammed; Krishna and Ram -- their approach is through the dimension of grandeur... the awe that one feels looking at this vastness of the universe. The Upanishads, the Vedas, they all approach the world, the world of truth, through grandeur. They are full of wonder. It is unbelievably there, with such grandeur, that you can simply bow down before it -- nothing else is possible.
These are the three dimensions ordinarily available to approach towards truth. The first dimension creates the scientist; the second, the artist; the third, the prophets. The rarity of Buddha consists of this -- that his approach is a synthesis of all the three, and not only a synthesis but it goes beyond the three.
He is a rationalist. Any scientist will be immediately convinced of his truth. His approach is purely logical, he convinces the mind. You cannot find a loophole in him.
You need not be a religious person to be convinced by Buddha, that's his rarity. You need not believe at all. You need not believe in god, you need not believe in the soul, you need not believe in anything -- still you can be with Buddha, and by and by you will come to know about the soul and about the god also. But those are not hypotheses.
No belief is required to travel with Buddha. You can come with all scepticism possible. First he convinces your mind, and once your mind is convinced and you start travelling with him, by and by you start feeling that he has a message which is beyond mind, he has a message which no reason can confine. But first he convinces your reason.
Because of this rational approach he never brings any concept which cannot be proved. He never talks about god. H. G. Wells has said about Buddha, 'He is the most godly and the most godless man in the whole history of man.'
Because he has never talked about god, many think that he is an atheist -- he is not. He has not talked about god because there is no way to talk about god. "
Excerpted from Dhammapada The Way of the Buddha

Friday, May 16, 2008

Poetry of the Opposites

Sadhana
The common misconception is that you have to renounce the world to be able to meditate. This is why people go on postponing meditation but Osho has brought a very new insight. He says if you are silent in the jungle you are enjoying a reflected glory. The silence belongs to the jungle, not to you. His message is very practical. He doesn't let you escape.

Osho says: “Live in the market-place and create a Himalaya in the heart. Become silent in the noise. Remain a householder and yet be a sannyasin. That's why I emphasize so much that I don't want my sannyasins to renounce. Nothing has to be renounced. The way of renunciation is the way of the escapist, and the way of renunciation will make you attached to a polar phenomenon. That will not give you freedom. Freedom is in transcendence, and transcendence comes only when you live in the polar opposites simultaneously, together. So be in the world, but don't let the world be in you.
Love, and yet don't be lost in it. Relate, and yet be alone, utterly alone. Know perfectly well that all relationship is a game. Play the game and play it as beautifully as possible and as skilfully as possible. A game is after all a game and has to be played beautifully. And follow all the rules of the game, because a game cannot exist without rules. But remember always that it is just a game. Don't become attached to it. Don't become serious in it. Always allow the sense of humour to remain alive in you. Remain sincere but non-serious. And then, slowly slowly, you will see that the polarities are disappearing. Who is worldly, and who is other-worldly? You are both or neither.
The Secret of Secrets, Vol 1

Monday, April 28, 2008

Message for the young

Sadhana
Whenever I travel in India I find more and more young people coming to Osho meditations. It is so refreshing to see them- bright, intelligent, healthy, no religious air. What they want is joy and freedom. Osho meditations suit them perfectly. No committment, no gurudom, simply scientific and experiential. We all have a blast together.
Osho's message is certainly for the young. But who is young?
Osho says, " My message for the young is to always remain young. Never become old. Your body will become old, but your mind has no necessity to become old. If your mind remains young and fresh, ready to learn, ready to explore new dimensions of life, you are alive. The moment your mind stops exploring, expanding, you are no more alive. You may vegetate, you may drag your body around for twenty, thirty more years. My experience is that people die near about thirty but live to near about seventy-five. Those forty-five years they are just hanging around like cabbages, and when there are so many vegetables all around you, there's no room for young people to live.
Others want to prescribe everything in your life. You can remain young only if you never accept any conditioning from anybody else. Youngness is something like sharpening your sword; you should inquire into everything on your own. Don't believe in the holy scriptures, because there is nothing holy in them, they are not even first-rate literature.
Your starting point should not be belief, but a healthy doubt. And remember, doubt does not mean disbelief, doubt simply means, "I don't know and I want to inquire. I have not come to a conclusion to say yes or no."
Doubt is youth, belief is old age. The person is tired of inquiry; he has started believing in somebody else. It is better to die as a seeker; at least you will have the contentment that you did everything that was possible, and you will have an originality.
And this is my experience: to wear your original face is the greatest joy in the world, but everybody is wearing a mask. Somebody is Hindu, that is a mask; somebody is a Mohammedan, that is a mask. A young man has to fight against all masks; he has to declare to the universe, "I am going to remain individual, I am going to remain just myself, I am not going to imitate anybody. And I will do everything that is possible to find the truth."
And whenever anybody has made this decision, has had this determination, he has always found. Existence is very compassionate.
The Last Testament Vol. 4

Friday, April 4, 2008

Laughter Meditation

Sadhana

When did you laugh last? In case you have forgotten, let me remind you that only human beings can laugh, no other species is endowed with this amazing capacity. What a great honor!
Many laughter clubs have sprouted around the world and doctors advise it as a therapy, too. But laughter cannot cleanse emotions if it does not dig deeper into the giggle points which is also the source of tears. If tears do not follow laughter, it remains superficial. Also, after laughing totally if you don't sit silently and meditate, laughter will be nothing but catharsis.
Laughter can be a great medicine and it can cure many tensions, anxieties, worries if it is total and unconditional, says Osho.
Laughing 'at' somebody is sick, laughing for a reason is intellectual, and laughing without a reason is spiritual. For it is an expression of one's hidden sources of energy.
Osho is so creative that he has even devised a meditation out of laughter. Very easy and delightful to do.
So on your marks get set and go!
First stage: 30 minutes
Laugh for no reason at all – go in and find your own laughter inside. Allow the laugher to bubble up from the inside.
Create a giggle in the very guts of your being, as if your whole body is giggling, laughing. Start swaying with that laughter; let it spread from the belly to the whole of your body: hands laughing, feet laughing. Go crazily into it. For thirty minutes do the laughing. If it comes uproariously, loudly, allow it. If it comes silently, then sometimes silently, sometimes loudly, but simply laugh for thirty minutes.
Second stage: 15 minutes
Lie down on the belly, silent and still Lie down on the floor; spread yourself on the floor, facing the floor. Make contact with the earth, the whole body lying down there on the earth, and just feel that the earth is the mother and you are the child. Get lost in that feeling. Breathe with the earth, feel one with the earth. We come from the earth and one day we will be going back to it.
Third stage: 15 minutes
Dance to the tune of energizing music.


Courtesy Osho International Foundation

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Find Your Voice Find Your Song

Participants who found their voices and their songs


Sadhana


Everyone of us would love to do it, wouldn't we? But our voices are suppressed so much that many people carry a block in their throat, which is more emotional than physical. Osho Multiversity offers many courses that help people remove their blocks and help the energy flow freely.

One such course is Finding Your Voice Finding Your Song. Recently people from 8 different countries and four different continents participated in a fun-packed intensive at OSHO International Meditation Resort this last weekend culminating in a heart-warming performance on Monday night. This 4-day course is an invitation for everyone to reconnect with their unique instruments (themselves) and their potential for sound and singing. “In a place like this where the focus is on meditation and celebration, music is a wonderful tool to explore and express ecstasy and silence,” says Satyam the course facilitator.

In these four days participants start “making friends” with their voices through playful singing games and interactions. “Many people arrive feeling inhibited – they only sing in the shower or alone in the car, or maybe not at all. In this course by creating a trusting and light-hearted environment people soon open up and soon find themselves performing uninhibitedly with a microphone and then creating their own song inspired by some beautiful words of Osho,” says Abhijat, who has assisted in the course many times.

Watching these people sing joyously one thinks why can't everyone sing like a bird?
Osho says, "If we can destroy the inferiority complex... which is very simple: the teachers and the parents just have to be aware not to impose themselves on the helpless children. And just within two decades the new generation will be free of the inferiority complex. People will express their creativity. There will be musicians, there will be dancers, there will be painters, carpenters. There will be all sorts of creativity around the world. But nobody is competing with anybody else; he is simply doing his best. It is his joy. The joy is not in competing, the joy is not in coming first; the joy is in doing it. It is not outside the act, it is intrinsic to the act."

Friday, March 21, 2008

Reclaim the Glory of Tibet

Sadhana

Osho says, " This is the greatest calamity of the twentieth century that Tibet has fallen into the hands of materialists who don't believe that you have anything inside you. They believe that you are only matter and your consciousness is only a by-product of matter. "

The latest turmoil in Tibet only proves that in today's world you can't enslave human beings for long. It is no wonder that more than 100 Buddhist monks who believe in non- violence and peace have kicked off the protests against the cruel regime of China, which quickly attracted hundreds of other Tibetans and saw one of the biggest markets in Lhasa ablaze. It was a "Free Tibet Campaign."
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said the protests were a result of the long simmering public resentment of the "brute force" employed by China to maintain control of the region for more than 50 years. He also urged his fellow Tibetans not to resort to violence.

Osho has expressed great concern over the untoward incidents in Tibet:
" The only country in the world which has devoted all its genius to the inner exploration is Tibet. Its findings are of tremendous value. But unfortunately, Tibet has fallen into a darkness. Its monasteries have been closed, its seekers of truth have been forced to work in labor camps. The only country in the world which was working -- a one-pointed genius, all its intelligence in the search for one's own interiority and its treasures -- has been stopped by the communist invasion of Tibet.
"It was such a beautiful experiment, and Tibet had no weapons to fight with, they had no army to fight; they had never thought about it. Their whole thing was an introverted pilgrimage.
"Nowhere has such concentrated effort been made to discover man's being. Every family in Tibet used to give their eldest son to some monastery where he was to meditate and grow closer to awakening. It was a joy to every family that at least one of them was wholeheartedly working on the inner being.
"These monasteries had no comparison in the whole world. These monasteries were concerned with only one thing: to make you aware of yourself.
Thousands of devices have been created down the centuries so that your lotus can blossom and you can find your ultimate treasure. The destruction of Tibet should be known in history, particularly when man becomes a little more aware and humanity a little more humane..."
Excerpted from Om Mani Padme Hum

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Abolish Exams

Sadhana

"Unlike in the US, it's not a faulty gun law that's killing kids in India. Here, we have another way to kill our children. It's called exams. At least six students ended their lives across the country, in metros and in villages, on March 13 alone. And all the suicides were attributed to exams. " Reports TheTimes of India on March 17, 2008.
In 2006, almost 6000 students — or 16 a day — comitted suicide across India due to exam stress. And these are just the official figures. Shimla superintendent of police (crime), Punita Bhardwaj, said incidents of children committing suicide because of examination stress often did not get reported as traumatized parents wanted to keep the issue under wraps.
This year the number is mutiplied. So much so that The Parliament of India discussed this issue on March 17th so as to find the solution to this growing problem.
Osho has declared that the current system of education is wrong and he wants examinations to be abolished as they have proved to be killers, and are no criterian to judge somebody's intelligence.
"The education that has prevailed in the past is very insufficient, incomplete, superficial. It only creates people who can earn their livelihood but it does not give any insight into living itself. It is not only incomplete, it is harmful too -- because it is based on competition.
Any type of competition is violent deep down, and creates people who are unloving. Their whole effort is to be the achievers -- of name, of fame, of all kinds of ambitions. Obviously they have to struggle and be in conflict for them. That destroys their joys and that destroys their friendliness. It seems everybody is fighting against the whole world.
Education up to now has been goal-oriented: what you are learning is not important; what is important is the examination that will come a year or two years later. It makes the future important -- more important than the present. It sacrifices the present for the future. And that becomes your very style of life; you are always sacrificing the moment for something which is not present. It creates a tremendous emptiness in life.there should not be any kind of examination as part of education, but every day, every hour observation by the teachers; their remarks throughout the year will decide whether you move further or you remain a little longer in the same class. Nobody fails, nobody passes -- it is just that a few people are speedy and a few people are a little bit lazy -- because the idea of failure creates a deep wound of inferiority, and the idea of being successful also creates a different kind of disease, that of superiority.
Nobody is inferior, and nobody is superior.
One is just oneself, incomparable.
So, examinations will not have any place. That will change the whole perspective from the future to the present. What you are doing right this moment will be decisive, not five questions at the end of two years. Of thousands of things you will pass through during these two years, each will be decisive. "
The Golden Future # 23

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Footsteps of Silence

Sadhana

Most of the stress felt by the modern man is because of the continuous inner dialogue that goes on in the mind. There have to be some silent spaces in which the mind rejuvenates and regenerates its energy. In the twenty-four hours of a day you need to be silent for an hour or so, whenever it is convenient. The internal dialogue will go on but don't be a party to it. It is not so difficult if you follw these keys given by Osho.

Detached listening
Sit without doing anything and hear the talk within just as you would hear two people talking, but don't get involved; just listen to what one part of the mind is telling another. Whatever comes, let it come; don't try to repress it. Only be a witness to it.

Wild horses of the mind
A lot of rubbish that you have gathered over the years will come out. The mind has never been given the freedom to throw away this rubbish. When given the chance, the mind will run like a horse that has broken his reins. Let it run! You sit and watch.
To watch, just watch, is the art of patience. You will want to ride the horse, to direct it this way or that, because that is your old habit. You will have to exercise some patience in order to break this habit.

Speak your thoughts
If it is convenient and possible, speak your thoughts out loud so that you can also hear them, because within the mind the thoughts are subtle and there is the fear you may not be very conscious of them. Speak them aloud, listen to them, and be very aware and alert to remain well separated from them. Resolve to speak out whatever comes to mind, but be absolutely unbiased and neutral.
It is absolutely necessary to empty the mind patiently for six months, because all your life you have done nothing but load it with thoughts. If you work at this method wholeheartedly and sincerely, you will begin to hear the footsteps of silence.

Copyright Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Freedom Of Women Will Be The Freedom Of Men



Women dancing freely at the Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune

Sadhana

I didn't post this blog on women's day on purpose. I don't like this hullabaloo about woman's upliftment or liberation. As if woman is some retarded creature and she has to be uplifted and brought to the level of man. The fact is, it's the man who needs to be liberated from his inhibitions. If he changes his attitude towards the woman -- inner and outer, the womanhood will get all the space to grow and evolve. Because a woman has to live in the man's world.
Remember the golden words of Osho: "The freedom of women is going to be the freedom of men too. The day the woman is accepted as equal, man will find himself suddenly free."
Osho tells all the men of the world: " You will have to go through a very deep inner spring cleaning and see that the woman is the victim. And because she is the victim and has no positive way to resist, to fight, she finds indirect ways: of nagging, of screaming, of throwing tantrums. These are simply hopeless efforts. And naturally her rage against the whole of humanity becomes focused on one man, the husband.
The freedom of women is going to be the freedom of men too. The day the woman is accepted as equal, given equal opportunity to grow, man will find himself suddenly free from the bitchiness that he used to feel from the women. And he will be surprised that neither is she a cat nor is he a dog -- both are human beings.
It is time.
Man has come to a certain maturity. We can create a world together, with men and women sharing their insight, their visions, their dreams. Because they are different, their dreams are different, their contributions to the society will be different. And if a society can be created in which men and women have participated equally, that will be for the first time the richest society in the world -- and without all this bitchiness and nagging and fighting.

Excerpted from Sermons in Stones

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Dropping the armor around



Osho International Meditation Resort Pune, India. A woman practising body movement.




Sadhana

If you experience the feeling of being enclosed, hemmed in by limitations around your body, it may be that you are carrying body armoring around you. These old patterns of protection can be dissolved, allowing you to feel free again.
And it is good that you are becoming aware of it. You are carrying it unconsciously. If you don't carry it, it will disappear.
Osho says, small exercises like breathing, running and visualizing that a load is being dropped, or taking your armor off while undressing for bed can help you regain your freedom. Here are some Osho tips worth trying.

Emphasize your exhalation
While walking or sitting, or whenever you are not doing anything, exhale deeply. The emphasis should be on exhalation, not on inhalation. Throw out as much air as you can and exhale through the mouth. But do it slowly so it takes time; the longer it takes the better, because then it goes deeper. When all the air inside the body is thrown out, then the body inhales. Don't you inhale. Exhalation should be slow and deep, inhalation should be fast. This will change the armor near the chest, and the throat.

Visualize while running
If you can start running a little that will be helpful. Not many miles, just one mile will do. Visualize that a load is disappearing from the legs, as if it is falling. Legs carry armor if your freedom has been restricted too much; if you have been told to do this and not to do that, to be this and not to be that, to go here and not to go there. So you start running…. And while running, also put more attention on exhalation. Once you regain your legs and their fluidity, you will have a tremendous energy flow.

Take off your armor at night
In the night when you go to sleep, take off your clothes, and while taking them off, just imagine that you are not only taking off your clothes, you are taking off your armor too. Actually do it. Take it off and have a good deep breath – and then go to sleep as if unarmored, with nothing on the body and no restriction.
Excerpted from Osho books

Friday, February 22, 2008

Mediums and channels…all gibberish

Sadhana

Hey, there is something interesting I want to share with you. Yesterday someone phoned and said in a deep voice," I am calling from Sweden, I am Osho's channel. I talk to Osho regularly and I have some important information to pass to the Inner Circle. Can you tell me their names?"
I said suppressing my laugh, " Didn't Osho tell you their names? If the information is so important, he must have told you whom to impart it to."
He said, " This is no joke. I am serious. At least give me their email ids."
I said, " I am not joking either. Why don't you ask Osho about the email ids? He knows everything."
He grunted, "It means you are not interested."
I said, " Sorry, wrong number."

This triggered my curiosity and I dived into Osho books. And this is what I found. Have fun!

"These people who have become channels are not in any meditative state, one thing. The second thing is that whatever messages they are bringing are such crap that it is disrespectful towards the dead. Those poor fellows cannot say anything now, that "this is not my message."
I have looked into a few of the books which these channels have produced -- they are absolutely rubbish! They can be valued only by weighing them -- that much paper has been wasted. I have not come across a single mediumistic book which shows the greatness or the grandeur of a Gautam Buddha. And strangely enough, all these mediums are not mentioning the names of the real masters because then, compared to their statements, the rubbish message that they bring will look too poor.
If somebody says, "This is a message from Gautam Buddha," then it has to be of his quality. So they are talking about masters who have never happened, they are talking about masters who happened on the continent of Atlantis which has drowned. Fortunately there is no proof now, no document, no evidence left about whether there was such a master, ever.
But I can say that these statements are not coming from any master. The statements themselves are not luminous. There is nothing that gives them the authority of experience. It is all gibberish.
And you should also see that these people who have been chosen for this great work of becoming vehicles... their lives don't prove it. They are just as greedy, as angry, as jealous as anybody else. Their mediumship would have transformed them. In fact, unless they were transformed, they could not become mediums."

Sermons in Stones # 9/Copyright Osho International Foundation

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Is it necessary to sell bliss?

Sadhana

It is an old religious conditioning that expects to get meditation for free.In fact spirituality is the ultimate luxury, one should be ready to pay the highest price for it. Particularly in this age when everything has a price tag, why can't meditation have it too? Pay in cash or in kind, but you must pay.

A journalist once asked Osho:: WHY IS IT IMPORTANT, OR WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO SELL BLISS, WHY CAN'T YOU GIVE IT AWAY?

Osho says : Because anything that is just given away is never taken by anybody. The higher the cost, the better people will keep it, save it in their treasuries. Give it free, and it has no value, because people don't understand value unless it has a price. They understand price, they don't understand value ...

Everything in this world has to be achieved. You have to pay a price for it, and the bigger the price you pay for it, the higher is your estimate of it. If bliss, ecstasy, joy, were all available, like water, free -- nobody will be able to appreciate their value.

You don't know the real value of water unless you have been thirsty in a desert. While he was in India, Alexander was asked by a great Master, "If you are in a desert and thirsty and I have a full bottle of water, how much will you be ready to pay for it?" Alexander said, "I will pay half my empire in such a situation." But the Master said, "I will not sell until you pay me the full empire. Why should I sell? If you are willing to pay half, that is indication enough that if I just wait a little more, the customer is going to feel more thirsty and is going to pay the full empire."

And Alexander agreed that perhaps he would give the whole empire. And the Master laughed. He said, "Then what are you doing? Wasting your whole life for a bottle of water? Are you stupid or something?"

The world understands things in its own way. Otherwise, my bliss is freely available to anybody who can appreciate it, who is vulnerable to it, who is open to receive it. There is no price tag on it. But those who cannot understand anything unless they pay for it -- for those poor people, we have to put a price on everything. It is out of compassion.

The Last Testament, Vol. 1 Chapter 21

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Pay for your meditation

Sadhana

Just read Pramod's explanation about OIF's action against sannyasworld.com. It was so educative. It is true, people call themselves Osho lovers without realizing what it means to be a lover of such an outstanding consciousness. They think their love gives them a license to go against Osho's wishes.
Pramod's revealing answer reminded me of an Osho talk. Once Osho was asked,in 1976 to be precise: "Why must everybody who wants to do meditation or hear the lecture pay for this?"
Osho said, " Why not? You pay for everything in life, why not for your meditation? You are ready to pay for whatsoever you want. You know that you have to pay. Meditation you don't want. If it is given free, and even with a prasad, then you will think about it. You are ready to go to the movie and pay for it; why should you not pay for your meditation and the lecture if you want to hear it?
If you are really religious, you will be ready to pay for your meditation with everything, even with your life.
What is money? If you pay five rupees for something, and if you earn ten rupees a day, then you have paid with half the day. Money is just a symbol that you have devoted half your day's labor for it. You go to the movie and you pay ten rupees for a ticket; you earn ten rupees per day. You are saying that this movie is worth it -- "I can stake one day's labor for it." But you are not ready to stake anything for your meditation, for religion. In fact, religion is the last thing on your list. You want it free; basically you don't want it. If there is a price to it you start feeling uneasy.
You ask why you have to pay here? The price that is asked is nothing; it is just the beginning of learning a certain lesson: that one has to pay for everything, and certainly for prayer, certainly for meditation -- because it is the highest thing in life. Those few rupees that you have to pay are very symbolic, just token -- they indicate something. If you are ready to pay something, then I know you will be persuaded to pay more. By and by, one day you will be able to stake your whole life for it. If you are not ready to even pay five rupees, it is impossible for you to stake your whole life.
There are only two ways. One is: somebody else should donate for you. But why should somebody else donate for you? You will meditate and somebody else will donate for you? Why? If you want to meditate, you pay for it. And if you really want to meditate you will be ready to pay for it; there should be no hitch about it. If you don't have money, go and earn it. If it is absolutely impossible, then come and work in the ashram and pay that way, workwise. But don't ask to come for free.
This idea of getting religion for free has entered so deep in the mind that people think they have a claim. People come to the office and they say, "Why are we not allowed?" But why should you be allowed? You have to earn it to be allowed. Just because you want to come in does not mean much.
You have to show that you are sincere, you have to show that you are not just here out of curiosity. What is the way to check a person? The easiest way is money... because the greatest greed is for money , so whenever you have to lose your money you have to lose a little part of your greed. When you pay five rupees for entry, you are paying by dropping a little greed. The money is not the problem, the problem is greed; you are dropping a little greed. And this is just a beginning -- because meditation can happen only when all greed disappears.

The Discipline of Transcendence Vol 4/

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Keep Rising in Love

Sadhana

The Valentine's day could be a reminder of the importance of love in human life. Everybody is hungry for love but very few know the art of love. Unless love becomes our way of life we will not feel fulfilled. Celebrating one day of love is not enough.
In the following insights Osho talks about how we can transform the romantic love into an unending growth of cosnciousness.By the way, romance is love gone cerebral as per Osho!

*Love in itself is an experiencing, a moment-to-moment flow with no past being carried; the river remains fresh. But the mind says, possess this woman, possess this man, because who knows about the future? Beware of this mischief of the mind.

*The moment you say, "I love," it has become an experience, it is already dead. Loving is something else; it is a process. You have to dissolve your ego in love. Anything alive is greater than you.

* Do you love yourself? You have not even asked the question. People hate themselves. People condemn themselves, they go on thinking that they are rotten. How can the other love you? Right now, you are worried too much whether the other loves you because you are not certain about your own love, your own worth.

* If you want to go deep in a relationship, first go deep in meditation. Unless you are resolved within yourself you will create more problems. If you move in relationship, all your problems will be multiplied. The greatest and the most beautiful thing in the world is love but can you find anything more ugly, more hell-creating?

* Never fall in love. Try to rise. And rising in love is a totally different matter.
Rising in love means a learning, a changing, a maturity. Rising in love ultimately helps you to become grown-up. And two grown-up persons don't quarrel; they try to understand, they try to solve any problem.

* Love first has to happen in the deepest core of your being. It is the quality of being happily. And the economics of love is: the more you give, the more you have, because in your silent being you are joined with the oceanic, the divine source of all. And you can go on sharing... more and more goes on flowing in you, it goes on welling up.
All quotes are from Osho books/copyright Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com

Saturday, February 9, 2008

TM : Neither Transcendental Nor Meditation

Sadhana

Osho has talked about Transcendental Meditation which was made popular by the late Mahesh Yogi. Osho says that TM is a non-medicinal sleeping pill,that's all. Do not mistake it for meditation.
I have picked up this interesting excerpt from Osho library which I thought would be useful in understanding what was TM all about. And how Osho defines the term meditation.
Osho says : "Your so-called saints go on singing lullabies; they help you to sleep better. And you will be surprised that the so-called mantras are nothing but a way to fall deeply asleep. That's what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation is. If you repeat ANY word... it does not matter what word you repeat -- Rama, Rama, or Krishna, Krishna, or Christ, Christ, or Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola -- anything will do. If you go on repeating a certain word continuously it will help you to fall deep asleep, because the mind becomes bored with it. When the mind becomes bored it starts feeling dull, sleepy. When the mind becomes bored there is only one escape from the boredom -- to fall asleep.
"Mothers have known it for centuries. Transcendental meditation has been used by all the mothers all over the world. Whenever the child is not going to sleep they start repeating a single line, a lullaby. Anything will do; just go on repeating the same again and again and the child starts falling asleep.
"And that's how hypnosis functions: any repetition -- a mantra is not necessarily needed -- ANYTHING. You can make a black spot on the wall and go on looking at it, looking constantly at it, and within minutes you will be fast asleep, because consciousness needs flow, consciousness needs something new to keep alert, consciousness needs movement. Consciousness is a stream.
"In fact it is because of this that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation -- which is neither transcendental nor meditation -- has become so significant in America. America is the country which suffers most from sleeplessness, the only country which can sleep only through tranquilizers, sleeping pills -- and even those are no longer working -- the only country which has become so restless that sleep has become almost impossible. New methods are needed, more subtle methods are needed.
But to fall asleep is not meditation, it is consolation. It will give you a little rest and tomorrow you will find yourself a little more fresh. It is good -- I am not against it. It is a nonmedicinal tranquilizer. If you use tranquilizers you can use transcendental meditation -- far better. At least you are not stuffing yourself with chemicals which may have any side effect. It will not harm you, but it is not meditation at all -- because meditation means sharpening of intelligence. Meditation means becoming more alert, more bright, more brilliant, becoming more luminous, becoming more wise.

The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3/copyright Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com

Friday, February 8, 2008

Osho on Mahesh Yogi



Amrit Sadhana
Osho has spoken about the late Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation in his own inimitable style. There was a period when TM had taken the West by storm, particularly the US. At the time meditation was not a popular word in the west so Mahesh Yogi seemed to bring a new message. But soon humanity outgrew TM and started looking for more radical and trasformatory process of meditation. Osho insight on Mahesh Yogi is very useful in understanding meditation.

Osho : "If you can learn one thing with me, then that one thing is: Be alert, aware, about your own inner motives, about your own inner destiny. Never lose sight of it, otherwise you will be unhappy. And when you are unhappy, then people say: "Meditate and you will become happy!" They say: "Concentrate and you will become happy; pray and you will become happy; go to the temple, be religious, be a Christian or a Hindu and you will be happy!" This is all nonsense.
Be happy! and meditation will follow. Be happy, and religion will follow. Happiness is a basic condition. People become religious only when they are unhappy -- then their religion is pseudo. Try to understand why you are unhappy.
Many people come to me and they say they are unhappy, and they want me to give them some meditation. I say: First, the basic thing is to understand why you are unhappy. And if you don't remove those basic causes of your unhappiness, I can give you a meditation, but that is not going to help very much -- because the basic causes remain there.
The man may have been a good, beautiful dancer, and he is sitting in an office, piling up files. There is no possibility for dance. The man may have enjoyed dancing under the stars, but he is simply going on accumulating a bank-balance. And he says he is unhappy: "Give me some meditation." I can give him! -- but what is that meditation going to do? what is it supposed to do? He will remain the same man: accumulating money, competitive in the market. The meditation may help in this way: it may make him a little more relaxed to do this nonsense even better.
That's what TM is doing to many people in the West -- and that is the appeal of transcendental meditation, because Maharishi Mahesh Yogi goes on saying, "It will make you more efficient in your work, it will make you more successful. If you are a salesman, you will become a more successful salesman. It will give you efficiency." And American people are almost crazy about efficiency. You can lose everything just for being efficient. Hence, the appeal.
Yes, it can help you. It can relax you a little -- it is a tranquillizer. By constantly repeating a mantra, by continuously repeating a certain word, it changes your brain chemistry. It is a tranquillizer! a sound-tranquillizer. It helps you to lessen your stress so tomorrow in the marketplace you can be more efficient, more capable to compete -- but it doesn't change you. it is not a transformation.
You can repeat a mantra, you can do a certain meditation; it can help you a little bit here and there -- but-it can help you to remain whatsoever you are. It is not a transformation.
Hence, my appeal is only for those who are really daring, dare-devils who are ready to change their very pattern of life, who are ready to stake everything -- because in fact you don't have anything to put at the stake: only your unhappiness, your misery. But people cling even to that."
A Sudden Clash of Thunder/Copyright Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

When silence sprouts within


Welcome Center Osho International Meditation Resort

Sadhana

This is surreal! I mean what happened to me today. Let me tell you the whole incident.

This afternoon as I was coming through the main gate of the Osho International Meditation Resort, savouring a peaceful joy within me, I was stopped by twittering birds on the tree near the welcome center. I halted and looked around -- the green expanse behind the welcome center, the calm Buddha statue of white marble, small waterfall behind it, and the curve of the running canal-- soft winter sun cast a diffused light on the green profusion…Perfect synchronicity between the outside and the inside. I breathed in silence and tranquility.

In the evening I went to the evening meditation meeting in the pyramid shaped Osho auditorium, and now comes the surreal ---
Osho was talking ( in the video, of course) on Zen. And believe me, the same kind of birds twittered in the video, Osho stopped while speaking and said , " just like that --- silence sprouts within you…"

It was unbelievable! How could it happen the same day? One has to agree with Osho when he says, "Life is a mystery, that is the very essence of Zen."

Osho said in the video, "Just act with your totality -- continuously -- and wait for the right time. The flower blossoms and the rain comes, the sun rises and the birds sing. ( at this point birds start twittering. Osho stops and says ) Just like that -- absolutely naturally -- silence sprouts within you, brings flowers of the unknown, fills you with immense fulfillment. You know, although you cannot say a single word about it: you experience, but you have no explanation."
"Life is a mystery, that is the very essence of Zen."
Zen: The Quantum Leap From Mind to No-Mind

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Japanese Tea Ceremony



Last night there was a Japanese tea ceremony at Osho International Meditation Resort. The ambience and serenity was just like Osho has described in Beyond Enlightenment. And yes, Yoko from Japan was playing lilting flute in the background. Couldn't resist sharing this beautiful event with you.

"In Japan they have the tea ceremony. In every Zen monastery and in every person's house who can afford it, they have a small temple for drinking tea. Now, tea is no longer an ordinary, profane thing; they have transformed it into a celebration. The temple for drinking tea is made in a certain way -- in a beautiful garden, with a beautiful pond; swans in the pond, flowers all around... guests come and they have to leave their shoes outside. It is a temple.
"And as you enter the temple, you cannot speak; you have to leave your thinking and thoughts and speech outside with your shoes. You sit down in a meditative posture. And the host, the lady who prepares tea for you -- her movements are so graceful, as if she is dancing, moving around preparing tea, putting cups and saucers before you as if you are gods. With such respect... she will bow down, and you will receive it with the same respect.
"The tea is prepared in a special samovar which makes beautiful sounds, a music of its own. And it is part of the tea ceremony that everybody should listen first to the music of the tea. So everybody is silent, listening... birds chirping outside in the garden, and the samovar... the tea is creating its own song. A peace surrounds....
"When the tea is ready and it is poured into everybody's cup, you are not just to drink it the way people are doing everywhere. First you will smell the aroma of the tea. You will sip the tea as if it has come from the beyond, you will take time -- there is no hurry.
Somebody may start playing on the flute or on the sitar.
"An ordinary thing -- just tea -- and they have made it a beautiful religious festival, and everybody comes out of it nourished, fresh, feeling younger, feeling juicier."
Copyright Osho International Foundation

Friday, February 1, 2008

Dancing from the hara



This is Soo Hee, an amazing Korean dancer who is a regular visitor to the Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune. She does Osho meditations and also offers her meditative dance during evening events. Soo Hee says that Osho Kundalini meditation has helped her improve her dance movements.
This is a cool place folks! People meditate and cleanse their minds all day and then celebrate in the evening. The nights are colorful and creative -- like the topping of the yummy ice cream.
Osho asks the dancer to disappear in the dance. "Dance seems to be one of the most penetrating things, in which one falls into a harmony. Your body, your mind, your soul all fall into a harmony in dancing. Dancing is one of the most spiritual things there is. If you really dance, you cannot think. If you really dance, the body is used so deeply that the whole energy becomes fluid. A dancer loses shape, fixity. A dancer becomes a movement, a process. A dancer is not an entity: he's movement, he's energy. He melts. Great dancers, by and by, melt. And a dancer cannot retain his ego because if he retains the ego, that will be a jarring note in his dance."
The Beloved Vol 1,Copyright Osho International Foundation

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Osho recipe for basic understanding
Sadhana

This is a very busy time in Pune, Osho Meditation Resort. The place is overflowing with new visitors, returnees, re-returnees. A great buzz. It's a miniature universe, I tell you. Whenever you have time, come and feel the expansion of consciousness. Just being with so many diverse minds itself opens something inside.
But I sneaked out to post some short and crisp one liners by Osho. Like spicy
French Fries.

Osho says :
A woman is to be loved, not understood. This is the first understanding.

A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive questions that your wife asks you for nothing.

The key to happiness: You may speak of love and tenderness and passion, but real ecstasy is discovering you haven't lost your keys after all.

Women begin by resisting a man's advances and end by blocking his retreat.

If you want to change a woman's mind, agree with her.

If you want to know what a woman really means, look at her -- don't listen to her.

***
A lady walked up to the policeman and said, "Officer, that man on the corner is annoying me."
"I have been watching the whole time," said the cop, "and that man wasn't even looking at you."
"Well," said the woman, "isn't that annoying?"

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here/courtesy Osho Interantional Foundation/www.osho.com

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Why do we jump into relationships?

Sadhana

I met one lovely and unique Romanian woman at Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune. Why unique? Because she has dared to meditate in Romania and be an individual.
"What is the most difficult thing for a woman in your country?" I asked her over a cup of coffee.
" To live alone." she said instantly," There is an old saying: 'Living with a bad person is bad, but it is worse living without the bad person'. It means we prefer to live a miserable life with someone, than live alone."
But this is not only in Romania, it is a common fear. People don't know how to live alone, which means how to live with themselves. Because they can't differentiate between loneliness and aloneness.
Osho wants us to understand that loneliness is not aloneness. He says,
" Loneliness is the absence of the other -- you would like the other to be there, but the other is not, and you miss them. YOU are not there in loneliness, the absence of the other is there. Aloneness is your presence; it is a positive phenomenon. You don't miss the other, you meet yourself. Then you are alone, alone like a peak, tremendously beautiful! Sometimes you even feel a terror -- but it has a beauty. But the presence is the basic thing: you are present to yourself. You are not lonely, you are with yourself.
If you are alone, you grow, because there is space to grow -- nobody else to hamper, nobody else to obstruct, nobody else to create more complex problems. Alone you are happy being with yourself, and a bliss arises. There is no comparison: because the other is not there you are neither beautiful nor ugly, neither rich nor poor, neither this nor that, neither white nor black, neither man nor woman."
And The Flowers Showered/copyright Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com