Question – For ten years i have identified myself as a poet. but since i took sannyas ten days ago it has become unimportant to me whether or not i ever write another verse, even though i have often heard you praise the poet. what has happened?

Osho – The first thing: you cannot be identified as being a poet, because poetry is something that happens only when you are not there. If you are there, it will just be rubbish. It happens only when you are absent. That’s why it is so beautiful. It comes into your emptiness: it fills you — your vacuum. You become pregnant with the unknown, with the strange.

The poet is just a mother. The mother is not going to produce the child. The child has been conceived: at the most the mother is tending it, caring for it deep within her heart, trying to give it a body — not the soul. Poetry comes to you just like a child is conceived — in deep love. In deep receptivity you become a womb and the poetry is conceived. It is a pregnancy. And one has to be very careful because miscarriage is always possible: you can abort; you can be too much in a hurry and you can destroy it.

Allow it to settle within your being, It will take its own time; it will grow by and by. It will grow in your unconscious. Your conscious is not needed; your conscious will be an interference. Forget about it, let it grow. You will feel heavy — your whole being will be as if you are carrying a burden. Nice, pleasant, but still a burden. And then one day, the child is born. In that moment, not only the child is born — the mother is also born.

When the poetry is born, then the poet is born. It is not the poet who writes the poetry. In fact, it is the birth of poetry which creates the poet. You were not a poet before it — only by its birth. A woman becomes a mother. A mother is a totally different category from the ordinary woman. A woman is a woman — a mother is totally different. She has conceived something of the beyond; she has carried the beyond into her womb and she has given it a body.

The poet is born when the poetry is born. It is a shadow of the poetry, a consequence of the poetry. It succeeds poetry, it does not precede it. There was no poet before, there was no mother before. There was a man, there was a woman, but there was no poet, there was no mother. The mother comes into existence after the poetry has happened. But ordinarily, whatsoever you call poetry is not poetry. It is just a mind thing. You think it; you write it.

Whatsoever you write is prose and whatsoever God writes through you is poetry. It may have the form of prose — it doesn’t matter. Whatsoever Buddha says or Jesus says is poetry. The form is prose, that is not the point. It is poetry because God writes it: the whole writes it through the part; the ocean tries to give you a message through the drop. Whenever YOU write, it is prose — ordinary prose. Whenever God writes THROUGH you, it is poetry. It may be prose… it is still poetry.

You cannot be identified with being a poet. That will be a disturbance, that will destroy the whole music and the whole harmony. So it is good — good that the identification has dropped, good that you have forgotten about poetry, good that it doesn’t seem to affect you in any way now whether you write or not. This is the right situation. Now for the first time there is a possibility that poetry may happen.

I cannot say, “It WILL happen,” because poetry cannot be predicted. If you predict it, again the mind will start functioning and waiting and trying and doing something about it. No, you completely forget about it. It may take months, it may take years, it may take your whole life, but some day — if you have really completely forgotten your identification — you will become the medium. Something will flow through you.

It will come through you, but it will be of the beyond. Then you will be a watcher, a witness to it. You won’t be a poet; you will be a witness. And when it is born, a different quality of being will come in its wake. That’s what a poet is. All great poets are humble, they don’t claim.

The Upanishads are not even signed — nobody knows who wrote them. The greatest poetry and the poets have not even tried to sign it, they have not left their signatures. That would have been profane. They have left the poetry, but they have not claimed. They were just vehicles.

A real poet is a vehicle, a medium. That’s why I praise poetry so much — because it is very close to meditation, very close to religion — the closest neighbor. The politician works with the practical, the scientist with the possible, the poet with the probable, and the mystic with the impossible. The probable is the closest neighbor of the impossible — that’s why I praise poetry.

But when I praise poetry, I am not praising your poets. Ninety-nine percent of them are just writing junk. They are doing a mind thing, an ego-trip. They manage, that’s all — but poetry doesn’t come through them. You can write poetry. Technically it may even be correct, but it may be dead. Sometimes it happens that a poem is technically not correct but it is alive. Who bothers about whether a thing is technically correct or not? The real thing is whether it is alive or not.

If you are going to become a mother, would you like a child who is technically correct but dead? A plastic child: technically, absolutely right; you cannot find a fault…. In fact, if you want technically correct human beings, then only plastic beings are possible, Only they can be absolutely correct. A real, alive child has so many defects — bound to be so, because life exists in danger and death.

Only a dead thing is out of danger. Life is always a hazard: there are a thousand and one difficulties to be crossed, riddles to be solved. The very phenomenon that life exists is a miracle, with so many imperfections….

Life is imperfect because life is a growing phenomenon. Anything that is growing will be imperfect, otherwise how will it grow? Anything that is perfect is already dead: it is good for the grave — you cannot do anything else with Ninety-nine percent of your poets are just writing junk; they give birth to dead children. Sometimes — and only sometimes, rarely — a poet is there. And whenever such a phenomenon as the poet exists, which is a miracle on this earth, just next to him is the mystic. One step more and he will become a mystic.

If the poet tries to take wing a little more, he will become a mystic. And if the mystic, in his compassion, descends a step towards you, he will become a poet. Poetry is a communication of the mystery of life. Unless you have felt it, how can you communicate? Poetry is a relationship between you and the whole. Something transpires between the drop and the ocean, between the leaf and the tree. Something transpires between the whole and the part, and the part starts dancing, the part is so overflowing with joy that it sings… so delighted that its movements become poetic. It no longer walks on the earth — it flies.

Prose is just walking on the earth; poetry is a flight into the sky. Prose is just walking, poetry is dancing. The movements are the same, but the quality is tremendously different. Good — you are blessed if the identification is gone. And that’s what I’m trying to do through sannyas. When your old identification is gone, you are left in a vacuum. Only in the vacuum can the hands of God descend in you and create something out of the mud that you are, create something beautiful. It will not be-yours — it will come through you.

Rejoice that the identification is gone; don’t try to bring it back. Forget all about it, forget all about everything that you know in relation to poetry, poetics. Forget everything — just rejoice in being yourself. Suddenly one day you will fall in line with the whole — a turning in, a tuning in, and a song will descend like a dove. Then you will be, for the first time, a poet. You will not claim it, but you will be it. Those who are, don’t claim. Those who are not — only they claim.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You, Vol 1″

Question – Beloved Osho, Would you please explain your statement from the other morning of how music can be next to silence?

Osho – Milarepa, I don’t know what I said the other morning — I don’t carry unnecessarily luggage from the past. But I will explain it to you this morning, in spite of the fact that I don’t know whether I made the statement or not. Music is certainly next to silence.

There is a certain thing to be understood: Music does not consist, in the first place, of words, language. It consists of pure sounds, and it consists of pure sounds only to those who don’t know anything beyond sound. Those who know silence — for them, the whole gestalt changes.

You see my five fingers, but somebody can see the five gaps between my fingers. Ordinarily you will not see the gaps, you will see five fingers. But the gaps are more real: fingers may come and go, gaps will remain. Between sounds of music there are gaps of silence. The authentic music consists not of sounds, but of the gaps. Sounds come and go; those gaps remain. And music can make you aware of those gaps more beautifully than anything else; hence I have to say that music comes next to silence. But it is possible even the musician may not be aware of it, unless his music is his meditation too. Then, soon, the shift from sounds to silence.

The ancient Chinese story is that whenever a musician becomes perfect, he throws away his instruments; whenever a swordsman becomes perfect, he throws away his sword. It is a very strange saying and goes back almost five thousand years, because it has been quoted by Lao Tzu as an ancient saying. What does it mean? Chuang Tzu was asked, “This seems to be a very strange kind of proverb. When the musician becomes perfect we should have thought that he would have purchased perfect musical instruments, and the saying says he throws away his instruments.”

Chuang Tzu told a very beautiful story to explain it. There are things which cannot be explained without beautiful stories, because stories give you enough space and freedom, enough gaps for you to fill with your own being. Prose is too tight and too mundane, so either poetry has to be used or a story has to be used. These stories are such that even a small child may be able to understand, or even an old man may not be able to understand; the question is whether he gets the undercurrent of the story.

The story is: A man reached to the emperor of China and said, “I am the greatest master of the art of arrows, targets, archery, and I have come to ask you to declare in the whole empire that if anybody wants to compete with me, he should come forward; otherwise give time, and if nobody comes, then declare me the champion archer of your empire.”

The king knew that man. He never missed a target. As far as human understanding is concerned, he was perfect. What more can you expect? One hundred percent success — success cannot be more than that. The king said, “I know about you. And I know that there is nobody who can compete with you.”

When he was saying this, the servant of the king, who had raised him from his childhood… he was not just a servant but almost a father to him. The emperor’s father had died, and he had given the responsibility to his servant to take care of the child till he is of age, and see that no trouble arises and that he succeeds to the throne. So the emperor respected the servant as much as perhaps he would have respected his own father. The servant had done immense service to him; he had taken care of the whole empire till he was of age.

The servant said, “Before you say anything to this man, I would like to interrupt. First listen to me. I know a man far in the hills who is really the champion. Compared to him, this man is just a child. He is a giant!”
The king said, “How do you know he is a giant?”

And the servant said, “He is so perfect in archery that he has thrown away his arrows, his bow — and you know the ancient proverb…. Send this man to that old man in the hills.”
The archer could not believe it. What kind of perfection is this, when you throw away your arrows and your bow? But the emperor said, “You will have to go. I cannot deny anything to the man you have seen. Although he is my servant, deep down in my heart he is as great as my father. So you will have to go to that man, and if he recommends it, you will be declared the champion.”

The man had to go, although feeling a little weird and awkward: What kind of a stupid thing…? The hills were great and very steep and it was a long journey, but he managed. Slowly, slowly he also became interested — what kind of perfection…? He reached finally to a small cave. He met an old man and asked him, “Are you the famous archer?”
He said, “Archery? I remember, I have heard the word. It must be fifty years ago.”
The archer said, “How old are you?”

The old man said, “I am not capable of saying, because here there is no calendar, one does not know how time passes, but maybe one hundred and twenty, or one hundred and thirty.”
The man said, “I am the greatest archer in the empire and by a stupid servant’s advice the emperor has sent me to you. Unless you give me a certificate, I cannot be accepted as the champion.”

The old man said, “Champion? — so you have been learning archery to be a champion? Then you don’t love archery — it is motivated, it is goal-oriented. You can never be perfect because you are not directly related to archery. Archery is only a means; the end is championhood. But don’t be worried. You will have to pass just a little test, and I will give you the certificate — although as long as I am alive, remember that you are just a socalled champion. But because I am not a competitor, you can enjoy being the champion. Just come out with me.”

The old man was so old… his back was bent, he had become hunch-backed. He took the young man, who was in the prime of his youth, to a cliff. The rock of the cliff, a small rock, hung high over a valley, thousands of feet below. And the old man went on that small rock — just a little missed step and nobody would be able to find you, not even your pieces could be gathered. He went to the very end of the cliff and stood with his feet on the edge of the cliff, just on his toes. He was standing there unwavering, as if he was standing on solid ground, and he said to the young man, “Come.”

The young man took the first step and started trembling. “My god, what kind of test is this? and what has it to do with archery?” But he has to do it because the championship is in his hands. After the first step he fell down on the cliff, holding the cliff and saying, “Please forgive me, I cannot come that far. And I cannot stand with half my feet over the edge and just my toes on the rock. And I can see — I have never seen such a deep valley. It must be the very hell! Forgive me….”

The old man said, “Then what kind of archer are you? The real archery is not to hit the target; the real archery is that you should be unwavering. Your unwavering is the real qualification of being an archer. Then your target cannot be missed.”
The old man came back, helped the young man to stand up — he was perspiring, trembling, almost half dead — and the old man said, “Why are you carrying this bow and these arrows? A perfect archer throws them away.”

The young man said, “Again the same thing! I don’t understand why a perfect archer should throw them away.”
The old man said, “Look!” And he pointed towards the sky, where seven cranes were flying. The old man simply looked at those seven cranes, and they all fell on the ground. He said, “If you are absolutely stable, absolutely unmovable, you become such a magnet that your eyes are enough; no arrows are needed. How many cranes could you have brought to the earth?”

The young man said, “Of course by one arrow, one. And by that time the others would have gone far away.”
The old man said, “You are just a learner. You have not even found a master who can initiate you. So my suggestion is, go back, and unless and until you have forgotten what archery is… I will send my son to check you and if he can certify you, you can go to the emperor.”

He said, “Strange, I have got into such a mess! With great effort I have learnt archery — but certainly I am not that kind of archer whose eyes become arrows, whose absolute immobility becomes a magnet.” But he touched the feet of the old man. He was certainly unique. He knew he was no comparison to him. He went back. The man had said, “Try to remain unmoving…” That’s a way of meditation: no movement of thoughts… utter stillness.

After twelve years the old man’s son came. He said, “My father is dead, but he has left this message with me. I waited for twelve years before I came, because to be perfect in anything is not easy.” And then he suddenly said, “What is that thing that is hanging on your wall?” It was his bow.

He said, “I somehow remember, it was something known to me. But these twelve years, just meditating, just remaining unmoving… You have to forgive me, I have forgotten what it is.”
The young man said, “That’s enough! This is the certificate the old man has left for you. Now you can go to the emperor and be the champion.” But he said, “Now who wants to be the champion?” He tore up the certificate and threw it away.

Chuang Tzu has told many beautiful stories unparalleled in the whole world, stories not without great spiritual significance. When a musician, Milarepa, starts shifting his attention from sounds to silence, his music becomes almost perfect; when he starts listening only to the silence and forgets all about sounds, his music is perfect. And to show the perfection he throws away his instruments; they are a kind of disturbance… the most beautiful disturbance in silence — but a disturbance is a disturbance.

Music comes next to silence, but the difference is very big. And it is not that all music necessarily comes close to it. In the name of music, contemporary idiots are doing something which goes even farther away from silence — from Beatles to jazz to Talking Heads. It is not music; it is simply making noise! It is simply disturbing the silence. In the East, music has been always accepted as a spiritual phenomenon. If your music cannot create silence in the people who are listening, it is not music. If your music does not become an unmoving no-mind in the people of your audience, it is not music. It is just making noise.

It happened in Lucknow, in the time of one of the very colorful kings of Lucknow, Nawab Vazid Ali Shah. He was really a very incomparable man. When the British armies were entering to capture Lucknow, he was listening to music. Somebody told him that the enemies had entered Lucknow, and he said, “Welcome them. They are guests, we are the host. Make places for them. We have so many places… make arrangements for them.” The servant said, “But they have come to conquer.”

He said, “There is no problem. They can conquer, but first let them rest. What is the hurry? Conquering is not going to be a difficult problem because we are not going to fight. We are human beings, and it does not matter… if they enjoy ruling, they can rule.” And he told the musicians, “Go on!”

This was the kind of man who was interested in a musician in Varanasi. He was thought to be the greatest musician of those days, but his conditions were so strange that nobody would even invite him to play his music. Vajid Ali Shah invited him. People tried to prevent him. Friends, courtiers, wives, everybody said, “What are you doing? That man is mad. He is a great musician, but he is certainly mad.”

He said, “It does not matter. If music cannot cure madness, then he is not a musician; and if music cannot create a divine madness, then too he is not a musician. Let him come.” The musician came and said, “My condition is that while I am playing nobody should move. If anybody moves his head, or anything, his head has to be cut immediately. All around the listeners swordsmen with naked swords should be standing watching, and if anybody moves — finish!”

Lucknow was one of the most juicy places in India in those days. It has still some remnants of that juice…. Knowing the conditions — because the conditions were also declared to the whole town — ten thousand people came to listen. Even the musician could not believe that ten thousand people are ready to risk their life to listen to the music. When the music ended in the middle of the night the officers had noted down almost two dozen people who had moved their head in appreciation, despite knowing the condition. Vajid Ali Shah said, “What do you say, should we behead them?”

He said, “No! Everybody now should be allowed to go, and I will sing for those twentyfour — they are the real lovers. They moved their heads, they could not help it. They started swaying with the music, they became one with it. All the others were cowards, sitting like statues.”

Those twenty-four people were retained, and everybody was allowed to go. People were afraid — perhaps they would be murdered. But in the morning they found them coming back home. They said, “What happened?”

Those people said, “That musician knows how to find the right audience. The real music began when you had all left. He is certainly the greatest musician. We are feeling so pure and so fresh and so clean as we have never felt in our life. He has managed to initiate us into meditation.”

Milarepa, music is certainly next to meditation. But not the modern music, which is ugly, which is sexual, which draws you lower rather than taking you upwards. It does not give you more consciousness, higher skies to fly in; it brings you down, back to deeper gutters.

The real musicians will not accept this nonsense that goes on in the name of music. But young people who know nothing about music, who know nothing about meditation, who know nothing about silence, become fans, and they are mad about these idiots who think they are playing music. In any other wiser generation they would have been kept in psychiatric hospitals to be cured. They have gone berserk!

A violinist was convinced he could use his art in music to tame wild animals. So, violin in hand, he traveled to the heart of the African jungle to prove it. He had no sooner begun to play than the jungle clearing was filled with animals of all kinds. Birds, lions, hippos, elephants all stood round, entranced by his beautiful music.

Just then a crocodile crawled out of the nearby river and into the clearing and — snap! — gobbled up the violinist. The other animals were extremely angry. “You idiot! What on earth did you do that for?” they demanded. “We were enjoying that.” The crocodile put his hand on his ear and said, “What?”

Music can be understood only by those who have a musical ear. And those who have a musical ear should think themselves fortunate because beyond music, just one step more, they enter the world of meditation, silence. Silence is the ultimate music.

Source – Osho Book “The Great Pilgrimage From Here to Here”

Question – As a child, sundays have been something very special to me. Now, since a few days, i wake up every morning and go out, see the sun shining through the trees, hear the birds singing and get this feeling, ‘ah, another sunday.’ I put on my best clothes and have sunday for the whole day. what is happening to me?

Osho – Don’t make a problem out of it. The mind is constantly searching for something to pounce upon — even happiness. It makes a problem out of happiness also. If you are feeling happy, you ask, ‘Why?’ That question is dangerous.

If you are suffering it is good to ask ‘why?’ because the suffering has to be dissolved, transcended; ways and means have to be found to get out of it — so the ‘why?’ is relevant. But when you are happy, then to ask ‘why?’ is to disturb it. There is no need to ask any questions. When happiness surrounds you accept it totally without any questioning. If you are ill, diagnosis is needed, analysis is needed, because the disease has to be found. But if you are healthy you don’t go to the doctor to ask, ‘Why am I healthy? Diagnose my health. What is happening to me?’ You don’t go.

It is a habit of the mind because it has been always living in misery, unhappiness, and always the ‘why?’ has been relevant. So when clouds disappear for the first time and the sun shines in your life, the old question goes on persisting — ‘Why?’ Learn to accept happiness, learn to enjoy it without any questioning, learn to trust happiness, don’t doubt it, because the very doubt will be a poisoning. Happiness rarely happens. Those moments are very few and far between. When they come, welcome them, open your door, receive them with your full heart, don’t withhold anything. Even a question will become a very, very strong wall between you and your happiness.

Every day is a Sunday. It should be so. Every day is a holiday. It should be so. Because all days belong to him. Each moment is holy. Once you understand it, you will stop asking questions like this. Don’t think that any particular day is needed for you to be happy — only a particular mind. It has nothing to do with time; everything depends on the attitude, how you look at life. There are people for whom even a Sunday is not a Sunday. There is no light, no sun rising — even on a Sunday. They are clouded in their own darkness, shrouded in their own misery. They carry their hell around them. Even if you force them into heaven, they will go on carrying their hell. They will live in their hell. Nobody can force them out of their hell unless they decide to drop it. It is your decision to be happy or to be unhappy.

I have heard about a Sufi mystic who was always happy, always and always. Nobody had ever seen him unhappy. It was as if he did not know that language, as if the only way he knew how to be was happy.

He became very old and one day a man asked him, ‘Will you please tell me your secret? How you remain so happy? How you remain so unperturbed? How each moment you can be so blissful? It is impossible. It is unbelievable. What is your secret?’

The old man laughed and he said, ‘Long before, I found one simple thing: that each morning, when I opened my eyes, there are two alternatives to choose for that day — either to be happy or to be unhappy. And I always chose to be happy. Simple is my secret: each day gives me only two alternatives to choose — to be happy or to be unhappy. And I always choose to be happy, that’s all. There is nothing more to it.’

But you will not believe in this. You will say this old man is deceiving. He must have some other secret. But I also tell you this is the secret. All great truths are simple truths, very simple. Try tomorrow morning. Before you open your eyes have a clear-cut vision of two alternatives: being in hell or in heaven. Visualise misery on one hand, visualise blissfulness on another hand. See deeply into both. Don’t be in a hurry. Look into both as deeply as possible and wait — then decide. If you want to be unhappy then decide, let it be your decision — and then be truly unhappy the whole day. Be committed to your decision and don’t try to escape from it. Whatsoever happens, you remain miserable. And if you decide to be happy, then stick to it and soon you will realise that your life is your decision.

You are suffering because you go on deciding in that way; you are suffering because you go on clinging to your suffering. You have made a habit out of it. It is just mechanical. Good, you should feel grateful that it is happening to you — that every day is becoming a holiday. Holidays are disappearing from the world. In the legal sense people have more holidays. Workdays are being reduced all over the world, from six to five, from five to four, and soon even that will not be so — in the very highly developed technological societies, one day of the week will do and for six days people can have holidays. But ‘holiday’ is disappearing — that quality of sacredness, that quality of holiness is disappearing.

I have heard about a very reformed temple. Of course it is in Southern California because everything in California is a little far-out, even religion. There is a reformed temple in Beverley Hills that is so reformed that on the holiest of the days, Yom Kippur, there is a sign on the door saying: Closed for the Jewish Holidays.

That quality, that consciousness is disappearing from the world. People have more leisure — that is another thing. But what do they do with their leisure? They create more misery for themselves or for others. Finding nothing to do, they do harm to themselves or to others. More accidents happen on the holidays — more car accidents, more murders, more suicides. And after the holiday people are so tired that they need a whole week’s rest to recuperate, to recover. They do a thousand and one things on holidays just to keep busy, because not to be busy is to be with oneself and that has become almost impossible.

To be with oneself and to be happy with oneself — that dimension is completely lost. That’s what a holiday is, or should be. One is so full of God, so full of being, that there is no need to do anything, there is no need to be occupied. Occupation is just an escape. It is a good way to avoid encountering yourself, encountering life. Holidays are disappearing. It is good that every day a feeling arises in you that this is a holiday. It is. If it was not so before, then you were missing something. Now it has started happening, don’t make it a question.

I used to know a man who was an atheist. Once I heard that he had become a theist. I could not believe it. So when I came across him I asked him, ‘How come you decided to become a theist?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I used to be an atheist but I gave it up.’
‘Why?’ I enquired.
He said, ‘No holidays.’

If you are an atheist then there are no holidays, then there is no God, then there are no Sundays. The Christian parable says that God created the world in six days and on the seventh day, Sunday, he rested. That rest was very beautiful, it was out of great creation. He was feeling fulfilled. He had created the whole world and, on the sixth day, he looked and he said, ‘Good, very good.’ And he rested. He was happy, like a small child who has made something and looks from every side and says, ‘Good. I have done it.’ He rested on the seventh day. That rest-day was a fulfillment-day.

The parable has much significance. It says that you can have a rest-day only after creation. If you don’t create anything, your life will be restless; you will not be able to have a holiday. Create something — only then you can rest. Rest is a by-product. You cannot directly rest — first you have to be so creative, you have to feel so good about yourself, so happy with yourself, so worthy, that you can allow rest for yourself, that you can allow a day just for fun.

Ordinarily people can’t allow a day of rest for themselves because they feel so condemnatory about themselves, they feel so unworthy because they have not done anything worthwhile, that they have not experienced any fulfillment, nothing has happened, they have not blossomed. Hence continuous occupation, continuous activity is needed.

Many people go on working and working and working and one day they die…because their work is not creative. When is the work creative? The work is creative when you love it, the work is creative when you feel in tune with it, the work is creative when you enjoy it, the work is creative when you choose it, when it fits with your being and there is a great harmony between you and your work.

Once that happens, whatsoever you do is creative. And when after each creative moment you can relax, that relaxation is earned. Yes, God earned relaxation for the seventh day. For six days he worked hard, he created the whole world; on the seventh day he had earned relaxation, he was worthy of it. That’s the meaning of the parable.

If you are creative only then can you have holidays, not otherwise. If you want to have holidays become more and more creative. I am not saying be creative in the eyes of others — that is irrelevant — just be creative in your own eyes, whatsoever you do. If you love it then do it, otherwise don’t do it — choose some other way. Life is vast. Says Jesus, ‘There are many mansions in my God’s house.’ There are many dimensions in life. There is enough opportunity to choose.

If you are not feeling fulfilled in something that you are doing, then don’t do it, because this will be a sheer wastage and you will not have earned holidays. A man who has lived according to his being, who has done his own thing, earns death. Then he dies, but the death is a Sunday; then he dies, but he dies fulfilled. He has no complaints. He lived the way he wanted to live.

If I am going to die and God asks me, ‘If I send you back, how would you like to live?’ I will say, ‘The same. I loved it. I enjoyed it. I would like to live the same way.’ Just think about you. If you die and God asks you, ‘If you are sent back to the world what changes would you like to make in your life?’ Will you be able to say that you would like to live the same way, absolutely the same way? If not, then you are doing something wrong with your life. Then you are dragging your life, then you are not living it. Then you are simply killing time — as they say. Then you are simply wasting your energies, they are simply dissipated. They will not become an integral force and there is not going to be any blossoming — your tree is going to remain without any fruits and flowers. Then how can you be happy and how can you enjoy?

Time as holy opportunity, that is the meaning of holiday — a holy day, a day which is not profane, a day which is not ordinary. And once you know how to be creative, each moment becomes holy. Whenever you create something you participate with the creator — you have become a small creator in your own right. If you write a small poem or you sing a song, maybe nobody likes it, nobody applauds it, but that is irrelevant. You enjoyed it. Singing, you were happy, you participated in that moment with God, you helped him to create a song, you became instrumental. In fact, whatsoever is created is created by him — you allowed him to create a small song through you. Then you feel tremendously good, good about yourself.

And that is one of the basic qualities of a religious man: he always feels good about himself. He is not in any way guilty, guilt does not exist in him — because he lived life as he wanted to live it; he loved his life the way it happened; it was the only life he wanted to live. Then there is no guilt. Remember, a guilty person is not a religious person. A guilty person is ill, a guilty person is neurotic, a guilty person needs psychiatric help. A religious person feels tremendously good about himself; whatsoever he is doing, he is doing something intrinsically valuable. This should be insisted upon as much as possible: worth in life arises only when you do something intrinsically valuable.

There are two types of values in life. One is intrinsic value. You sing a song — it has an intrinsic value, it is the means and it is the end also. Or you sing a song in the marketplace to earn a little money. That money is not intrinsic to the song, that money is an outside value. And if you are singing your song only for the money, the activity is no longer holy, it is profane. If you are singing your song for the happiness that it brings to you…. Maybe as a by-product it brings money also, but that is irrelevant. If it brings, it is good, if it does not bring, that too is good — but your activity has an inner glow to it, it is intrinsically valuable in itself. If you are happy that you could sing, you are happy that you had an opportunity to sing, then every day will become meditative, holy.

If you are doing the meditations here correctly, this is going to happen to everybody. That’s my whole effort here: to help you enjoy each moment as it comes.

Source – Osho Book “Dang Dang Doko Dang”

Question – In reference to the meditation techniques based on sounds, please explain the difference between the chaotic music played in your dynamic meditation and the shake or rock music of the west.

Osho – Your mind is in chaos. That chaos has to be brought out, acted out. Chaotic music can be helpful, so if you are meditating and chaotic music is played or chaotic dancing is there around you, it will help to bring out your chaos. You will flow in it, you will become unafraid of expression. And this chaotic music will hit your chaotic mind within and will bring it out. It helps.

Rock, jazz, or other music which is chaotic in a way also help something to come out, and that something is repressed sexuality. I am concerned with all your repressions. Modern music is more concerned just with your repressed sex, but there is a similarity. However, I am not concerned only with your repressed sex, I am concerned with all your repressions – sexual or not sexual.

Rock music, or other music like that, is so influential in the West because of Christianity. Christianity has been repressing sex for twenty centuries. They have forced sex to go so deep down inside that every man has become a pervert deep down. So the West has to relieve itself of the sin that Christianity has done with man, with his mind, through music, through dance, through chaotic painting, chaotic poetry – in every dimension.

In the West mind has to be completely freed somehow from the whole centuries-long past of repression. In every way they are doing it. All that is influential today is chaotic. But sex is not the only thing, there are many other things also. Sex is the basic thing, it is very important, but there are other things also. Your anger is repressed, your sadness is repressed, even your happiness is repressed.

Man as he is is a repressed being. He is not allowed to do anything, he has just to follow rules. He is not a free agent but just a kept slave, and the whole society is a big prison. The walls are very subtle: they are glass walls, transparent. You cannot see them, but they are, and everywhere. Your morality, your culture, your religion, they are all walls. They are transparent, you cannot see them, but whenever you want to cross them you are thrown back.

This state of mind is neurotic. The whole society is ill. That is why I so much insist on chaotic meditation. Relieve yourself, act out whatsoever society has forced on you, whatsoever situations have forced on you. Act them out, relieve yourself of them, go through a catharsis. The music helps. Once you can throw out everything that has been repressed in you, you will become natural again, you will be a child again. And with that child many possibilities open. With you everything is closed. When you become again a child, then only can your energies be transformed. Then you are pure, innocent, and with that innocence and purity transformation is possible.

Perverted energies cannot be transformed. Natural, spontaneous energy is needed. That is why I insist so much on acting out things: so that you can throw the society out. The society has entered you very deeply. It has not left YOU anywhere; it has entered from everywhere. You are a citadel, and the society has entered from everywhere. Its police, its priests, they have done much to make you a slave. You are not free, and man can attain to bliss only when he becomes a total freedom.

For you to be made a total freedom the whole society has to be thrown out of you, but that doesn’t mean that you are going to become anti-social. Once you throw the society out, once you become aware of your pure freedom inside, you can live with the society; there is no need to be anti. But then the society cannot enter into you. You can move in it, you can act in it, but then the whole thing becomes just a psychodrama – you are acting. Now the society cannot kill you, cannot make a slave of you; you are acting knowingly.

Those who become anti-social simply show that they are still bound to the same society. All the anti-social movements in the West are reactionary, not revolutionary. You are reacting to the same society, you are related to the same society in a reverse manner. You are standing on your head, that is all. You are doing SHIRSHASANA – the headstand posture – but you are the same person. Whatsoever the society is insisting upon, you are doing quite the contrary – but you are still following the society. This will not help.

If you are anti you will never be beyond the society, you will always be part of it. If the society dies, you will die. Think of what in the West they now call the establishment – the society that is established – and the alternate societies of hippies, yippies, or others. They exist as a part of this establishment. If the establishment is dissolved, they will be nowhere. They cannot exist by themselves; they are just a reaction.

You cannot create a society of hippies by itself. Hippies can exist only as an alternate society WITH an establishment – just as a reaction. They cannot exist independently. So howsoever much they may think they are independent, they are not independent. The establishment is their source, their life. Once the establishment is not there, they will be at a loss where to move and what to do. Whatsoever they are doing is dictated by the establishment. They go against it, but the directions, the instructions are given by the establishment.

If the establishment says short hair, you can be long-haired. But if there is no establishment, then what to do? If the establishment says cleanliness, you can be dirty. But if there is no establishment and no fuss about cleanliness, you are nowhere. If the establishment says this, you can do that – quite the reverse – but you follow the establishment. So anti-socials are not revolutionaries. They are reactionaries, a part and a product of the same society – those who have moved against it in bitterness.

A meditator, a sannyasin, is not anti-society, he is beyond society. He is not against the establishment, neither is he for it – but he takes it non-seriously. He knows it is just a play; he moves in it like an actor. And if you can move in the society like an actor on the stage, it never touches you; you remain beyond it. So do not be for it, do not be against it.

But how can you do it? You can do it only when you have thrown the society out of you. If it is there, then there are two paths open to you: follow it or go against it. But you are bound to it; you are in bondage. First one has to clean oneself of society, then for the first time you become an individual. Right now you are not, you are just a social unit.

When the society is thrown out, when its entire presence is thrown out, you are again back to your childhood: you have become innocent. And this innocence is deeper than that which any child can have, because you know the fall as well and now you have risen. It is a resurrection. You have experienced, you have known the whole nonsense. Now you are again pure. This purity becomes the temple for the divine.

Once you can throw the society out of you, without any bitterness, without going against it or being involved in any reaction… if you can simply throw society out of you, the divine can enter into you. With society in, the divine will remain out; with society out, the divine can enter – because the divine means existence. Society is a human, local phenomenon. Existence is greater, infinite. It is not concerned with man, morals, traditions, it is concerned with the very roots of being. One has to be beyond society, not against it, remember. And this chaotic method helps you. It is a
catharsis.

Source – Osho Book “Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1″

Question – Beloved Osho, What is the difference between music and the gymnastics of music? in the last couple of years my experience has been of frantic non-harmonious music. instead of feeling silent and meditative, i am getting tendonitis in my arms from drumming. Can you comment?

Osho – The difference is simple, just the difference between madness and sanity. Your music is not music; it is simply your madness. But to express it directly you will be in trouble. So to express it through music, the trouble is avoided and you will find fools to say, “What a great musician you are!”

So on both accounts, your madness is released That helps you. And the appreciation of other mad people, gives you an egoistic satisfaction. But the reality is you are deceiving yourself.

Real music is born out of a silent mind.
Real music is meditation manifested.
Your music is madness manifested.

You must have a certain talent for music, but it is being used by madness. You can change; it can be used by your meditation. In the East, the music has a totally different quality. It can even cure people from diseases. It can cure even a madman. It is so silent, so subtle, so delicate. In the East, nobody will recognize your jazz and other kinds of music, as music.

A musician works hard, because he has to bring something which is beyond words, but is not beyond music, which cannot be said but it can be played on a sitar. And it is tremendously relaxing, not only for the person who is playing — he completely forgets his ego; only then his music reaches to its ultimate height — but for those who hear it, they also forget their ego. They become simply a listening. There is no listener.

I am reminded of a story that actually happened. In Lucknow, there was a crazy king, Wajid Ali Shah. He was crazy in many ways: the whole day he slept, and the whole night he enjoyed food, dance, music. He was a night man. He had gathered all the greatest musicians into his court, all the great dancers. His court was really rich, but he was always feeling a little sad that one musician who was perhaps the greatest in the country, had not come to his court. Again and again messengers were sent, but the musician said that it would create unnecessary trouble.

Finally, Wajid Ali Shah said, “Whatever trouble it creates, I will take care of it, but you have to come.”
The musician came. He said, “The trouble is the condition I make. When I play on my sitar, nobody in the audience must move his head with my music. That is a great disturbance and I don’t want it. So you will have to promise me that anybody who moves his head and sways with my music, should have his head cut off immediately.”
Wazid Ali Shah was a crazy man. He said, “There is no difficulty.”

In Lucknow it was announced that you have to come knowing perfectly well that the king has accepted this condition. So only those should come who are capable of sitting silently, frozen. If your head is found moving or you sway — Wazid Ali Shah has put one thousand soldiers with naked swords around the audience — immediately your head will be gone.

Thousands of people wanted to come, because the man was so well-known all over the country, and his music was something like a miracle. But only a few came, because the condition was such that even though you were not swaying because of his music, just a fly sitting on your head and you… And that was enough. That Wajid Ali Shah is such an idiot, the head is gone. It is too dangerous.

But still, a few hundred people came. Lucknow was, in those days, a capital of artists, musicians, poets, painters. Even Wajid Ali Shah was surprised. He was thinking that perhaps nobody would turn up. The musician started playing. Everybody was holding himself tight, so that not even accidentally would be allow the head to move. They were sitting like statues. And then a moment came, a few people started swaying.

Wajid Ali Shah was immediately going to order those people’s heads to be cut . The musician said, “Wait, until after the music is finished; but keep note who the people are.”

After the music was finished, Wajid Ali Shah had gathered almost one hundred people. And he asked the musician, “Now, what do you say?”

He said, “Now these are the people who can understand me. I will play for them now. The others have no guts. These people — even though they tried hard to remain unmoving — when the real moment came, when the music reached its height, they forgot themselves, they forgot the condition, they forgot their life, they forgot everything. And the way they swayed was in tune with my music. These are the people.

“Just to sort them out I have made the condition. So now let the others go, and for these hundred people I will play my best. There is still half the night. And there is no condition.”I can feel a kind of at-one-ment with these people. I can feel a certain synchronicity with these people. They know what the heights of music are, where ego disappears, mind stops, there is no thinking.” Music in the East has been used as a meditation. “And these people are capable of reaching to meditation through music.” And he played for them.

In the morning, Wajid Ali could not believe what was happening. It was as if people had completely forgotten who they were — just trees in the wind, swaying, dancing. Their faces had a luminosity. The place was full of a new kind of liveliness that Wajid Ali had never experienced. There was dance, there was joy, and there was something which can only be called spiritual.

You say, “You play drums madly.” That is not music. That is simply throwing up your madness. And of course the world is full of mad people. They will get identified with you; they will enjoy it. Who were the people who were enjoying the Beatles and other music groups that emerged among the younger generation? Who were the people?

The Beatles were mad and their fans — thousands of young people — were mostly hippy. Nobody knew anything about music, but they became great heroes. To become a hero in a mad world, you need to be a great madman.

If you listen to Eastern music, perhaps it will simply go above your head. First, the Eastern musician just prepares for half an hour or more. He is not yet going into depth; he is just preparing his instrument and himself. And you will be tired by that alone. He is just getting ready to take the quantum leap. Infinite patience is needed.

I have heard about Mulla Nasruddin. He went to listen to a great musician, who was just beginning. In the beginning in Indian music, you do aalap. Aalap means he tries to refine all the basic sounds. So he goes on, “Ah-h-h, ah-h-h.” That is, he is refining the sound “ah.” Hence, it is called aalap. He will refine all the sounds; it takes time. And when he is satisfied that now he is ready, then the music begins. But it takes thirty or forty minutes for him.

And as he started his aalap, “Ah-h-h, ah-h-h, ah-h,” Mulla Nasruddin started cryng. Tears were in his eyes.
His friend who had brought him said, “Nasruddin, I never thought that you were such a lover of music. It is just aalap and you are full of tears.”

He said, “You don’t understand. This man is going to die. It is not aalap; this is what happened to my goat! `Ah-h-h, ah-h-h, ah-h-h.’ And she died in the middle of the night! You do something to prevent this man.

“If music brings death, it is better to prevent him. This is not music. I know perfectly well. It has happened in my own house. I have lost one of my best goats.” But when the musician comes and takes the jump into the world of sound and soundlessness… Music consists of both sound and soundlessness; the better the music, the more it will be full of soundlessness; the better the music, the more the sound simply leads you into silence. That is the criterion of authentic music, that it leads you into silence.

Your music… Stop it, and start Dynamic Meditation. That is your music. Why unnecessarily beat the drum? The poor drum has done no harm, no harm to anybody. And do the Dynamic Meditation as madly as you can. In fact, the more madly you do it the better, because you will be throwing out all rubbish and you will come out of it clean, just as if you have come from a shower.

And you feel that now there is nothing to throw out and your Dynamic Meditation has become silent — even if you want, nothing comes out — then take the drum again. That will be an existential experience. Then you can play the drum, and it will not be madness; it will be music.

But first, be ready for music. Music does not come from the drum; music comes from you. The drum only reflects it. Music is just a mirror. If you are mad, the madman is reflected. If you are enlightened, then the enlightened man is reflected.

It is good that you have an interest in music, but first please be sane. And don’t feel guilty that you are not sane. This whole world that we have created is insane, and they all are throwing their insanity in worse ways than you are doing.

You are at least beating the drum, which is dead anyway. They are beating living people. They are raping living women. They are murdering, they are doing all kinds of crimes around the world. And in spite of all the police, all the courts, all the magistrates, all the laws, the crime goes on growing. It has become almost a way of life for millions of people.

So don’t feel bad. In fact, beating a drum is far better than killing a man. But when music can come out of the drum… Just a little preparation is needed. And this is the place of meditation. Meditate a little more, and wait for the right moment when you feel that there is music inside you and you would like to share it with your friends.

Source – Osho Book “From Death to Deathlessness”

Question – Is poetry the voice of wonder, or an avoidance of moving closer to the source, a sensuous lingering?

Osho – Samarpan, it all depends on the poet. Poetry is simply a flowering, an outpouring of the heart of the poet. On a rosebush there will be a rose flower; it depends on the rosebush. No other flower will happen to the rosebush, only the rose. It depends on the poet.

In Sanskrit, in the ancient language of India, we have two words for poet. I think there is no other language in the world which has two words for poet. One is rishi and the other is kavi. The English word “poet” only translates the second, kavi. For that first word, rishi, in English there is no equivalent. It has been translated as “the seer”, but that is only approximately right.

These two words will be good to understand. The rishi means one who has seen, one who has arrived, one who has entered into the source, and now a poetry arises out of him. He is not a poet in the ordinary sense; he does not compose poetry. Poetry simply flows out of him. Even if he talks prose, there is poetry in it. And even if he sits silently underneath a tree, there is poetry in his silence. If he walks, his walk has a grace of its own, a poetry. If he looks towards you, you will find poetry pouring through his eyes. If he touches you, you will feel poetry flowing into your body through his touch. One who has arrived becomes poetry. A rishi is a poet who has become poetry itself.

The poet only has glimpses. The poet only once in a while comes to know what reality is, and that is only for a moment, like lightning. One moment the window opens and then it is closed again. But that glimpse stirs his heart Now he tries to express it, to find the right words, right rhythm. If he is a poet he will compose poetry, if he is a painter he will paint, if he is a musician he will try to bring that glimpse back again in his songs or in his music, or if he is a sculptor then he will try to transform a marble rock into his vision. But there is great effort. The vision is gone, only the memory lingers. The taste is still on the tongue, but only a lingering taste, and great effort is needed to express it.

The poet tries to express. The rishi can’t help expressing it. There is no effort involved, because the experience is not just a glimpse. The experience has become his very soul: he is it.

You ask me, “Is poetry the voice of wonder…?” Yes, the RISHI’S poetry is the voice of wonder; it is the voice of God himself. That’s why in the East we say, “The Vedas are not written by man, but by God himself.” It simply means that God has spoken through man and the people he has used were only mediums, vehicles. The words are not their own; the words have come from God. So is the case with the Upanishads and the Geeta, and so is the case with the Koran and the Bible and the Tao Te Ching.

Koran is a descendance from the beyond. Mohammed is only on the receiving end; he has not composed it, he has not written it. It has been written through him, he was only a medium. He has been used by God, just as you write with a pen; the pen is not the writer. The pen is only used, it is an instrument of writing, but the writing comes from beyond — it comes from you. You use your hand to hold the pen, but the hand is not the writer either. That again is an instrument.

When God speaks, then there is no effort involved, then there is no deliberate composition of poetry or painting. Then one is in a kind of drunkenness — one is a drunkard. One is drowned in God and something flows. Then certainly the poetry is the voice of wonder and it has great mystery in it. It has the taste of eternity. It is nectar. And blessed are those who can move and can be moved by such poetry, who can move into this poetry, this kind of poetry, and can be moved by this kind of poetry. Yes, blessed they are.

But the other kind of poetry is also there which is not the voice of God. It is just man’s creation. It is mundane. Howsoever beautiful, it carries man’s signature on it, it carries all the limitations of man. The other kind of poetry may be an avoidance of the real kind. It may be an escape.

Samarpan, you ask, “Is poetry the voice of wonder, or an avoidance of moving closer to the source, a sensuous lingering?” The other kind of poetry can be an avoidance. You may be afraid to take the jump, you may be afraid to lose yourself totally, so you allow only a few glimpses here and there, and then you “drown” yourself — what you call creativity. You paint, you make poetry, you create music — and you get lost in “doings”. That may be an avoidance. Maybe you are afraid: that lightning was too much.

You are afraid that if you don’t get drowned in your so-called creativity, the window may open again. And who knows? You may not be capable of resisting the temptation of jumping out of it. It is so alluring, it is so magnetic, it simply pulls one into the unknown. It is like a vortex, and it is so powerful that nothing can hold you. It is possible, Samarpan. The other kind of poetry, the other kind of painting and creativity, may be just an avoidance of the creator.

Gurdjieff used to divide art into two divisions: one he used to call objective art, and the other subjective art. The objective art is the art that flows out of a man who has arrived, and the subjective art is illusory, dreamlike. It is out of the man who himself is fast asleep, only dreaming that he is awake — only dreaming that he is awake. And certainly when you dream that you are awake, that dream becomes a hindrance to awakening, because you are already thinking that you are awake, so what is the point of thinking of another awakening? You are awake in your mind, so you go on sleeping.

It is very right to have two words for poets. Because Mohammed’s words are poetry, pure poetry, but it is different from Milton. Omar Khayyam’s words are pure poetry, but it is different from Shakespeare. Buddha’s words are pure poetry, but it is different from Kalidas.

And where is the difference? The difference is that Buddha is no more, only God is. Buddha has become a hollow bamboo, a flute. The song is descending from the beyond — Buddha is a flute on the lips of the beyond. He is not a doer; he is not at all. His nothingness is the source of his poetry.

But Kalidas is very much, Shakespeare is very much, Milton is very much. All the poets of the world, they are very much. You can just watch it. You will be surprised, poets are very egoistic people, sometimes more egoistic than the people who have much money and much power. And poets are very quarrelsome and are continuously fighting with each other, condemning each other, taunting each other, or very ironical about each other. They also create poetry, but their poetry is ordinary, subjective, dreamlike. Their poetry reflects only their faces. They are not rishis, they are only kavis. When the poetry starts reflecting the face of God, then you are a rishi, a seer, a real poet.

Kelly comes to Cohen’s office to sell him a dictaphone and after listening to the sales pitch, Cohen, who has a very strong Jewish accent says, “Tell me what for I need a dictaphone? I have a secretary, an office boy, a junior vice-president. What for I need a dictaphone?”
Kelly, being a super-salesman, says: “Tell you what, Mr. Cohen, you take the dictaphone one month free of charge and just try it.”

“Well,” said Cohen, “if it shouldn’t cost a penny, what the hell — I have nothing to lose.”
After one month, Kelly returned and asked Cohen how he enjoyed it. “Well,” Cohen said, “it is pretty okay, but there seems to be one thing wrong with it.”
“What is that?” replied the salesman.
“The damn thing talks too much like a Jew!”

The poetry is going to be your reflection. If you are there too much, then in your poetry your ego will be reflected, then it will be nothing but an ornament for the ego. But if you are not there, then God will be reflected. Then poetry is sacred. That is the beauty of a Zen haiku; it is sacred. That is the beauty of the Upanishads; they are sacred.
Remember it: for the real poetry to be born you have to die. You and real poetry cannot exist together. Real poetry is religion. Religion is the highest form of art, and art is the lowest form of religion. Religion is pure aesthetics.

Source – Osho Book “The Secret”

QUESTION – WHAT IS CREATIVITY? DOES IT CORRESPOND MORE TO THE PATH OF AWARENESS OR TO THE PATH OF LOVE? OR IS IT A CHILD OF BOTH?

OSHO – Anand Kirti, CREATIVITY is when you are not, because creativity is the fragrance of the creator. It is the presence of God in you. Creativity belongs to the creator, not to you. No man can ever be creative. Yes, man can compose, construct, but can never be a creator.

When man disappears, when man becomes utterly absent, a new kind of presence enters his being — the presence of God. Then there is creativity. When God is inside you His light that starts falling around you is creativity. The climate that arises around you because of the presence of God within you is creativity.

It has nothing to do with awareness or love, although the creative person is both. The creative person is aware, the creative person is loving, but the creative person is neither a meditator nor a lover — loving yes, but there is no lover; meditativeness yes, but there is no meditator.

And when there is nobody inside you, that very nobodiness brings creativity. It springs, it wells up, you become full of it. Whatsoever you touch becomes gold. It is not your touch, remember; the miracle is always God’s. It has nothing to do with the path of love or with the path of awareness. The path of love and the path of awareness bring you to God because they help you to disappear.

When God is there, then creativity is simply a consequence of His presence, just His presence. You can attain to His presence through love or awareness, it doesn’t matter. How you annihilate yourself is irrelevant; the only thing is that you should be annihilated, that you should not be. Do it through love, that will do. How you commit suicide does not matter, with what kind of poison. Whether you jump from a cliff, or you lie down in front of a railway train, or you shoot yourself, or you hang yourself, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you should have committed the suicide of the ego: through love, through awareness; through Yoga, through Tantra, Taoism, Zen, Sufism, Hassidism. It doesn’t matter; these are different ways of committing suicide. I don’t mean the physical, I mean the metaphysical. Once you are not there, all that is left is God.

You ask me, “DOES IT CORRESPOND MORE TO THE PATH OF AWARENESS OR TO THE PATH OF LOVE? OR IS IT A CHILD OF BOTH?”

It has nothing to do with the path. Creativity is possible only when the goal is achieved; it is a by-product of the goal. And don’t start thinking in terms of a cross-breeding; cross-breeding is dangerous. You are thinking, “Or is it a child of both?”

Just the other day I was reading… A farmer was very fond of cross-breeding. First he crossed a chicken with a goose and got a ‘choose’. Then he crossed a pheasant with an eagle and got ‘pheagle’. Then he crossed a road with a bicycle and got killed.

Beware of cross-breeding. If you feel at home with love, it will do; or if you feel at home with awareness it will do. Just remember one thing: that somehow, manage to disappear.

There are people who need not even go on any path, love or meditation. Just the sheer intelligence is enough, just seeing the point is enough. Just seeing, “How can I be? I cannot exist alone, separate. I cannot exist as an island. I am continuously connected with the whole. I am breathing from every pore of my body; even if for a few seconds the breathing stops, I will be no more.”

You are continuously eating, drinking. What are you eating? — the universe, that’s what you are eating. What are you breathing? — the universe, that’s what you are breathing. What are you drinking? — the universe, that’s what you are drinking. Continuously, the universe is going in and passing out. You are just a passage. The breath comes in, refreshes you, rejuvenates you, goes out, another breath comes in…. We are in a continuous relationship with existence. In fact, to say it is a relationship is not right: we are one with existence.

If one is REALLY intelligent, then neither love nor meditation — just intelligence is enough. Just to see the point that we are one with existence, hence there is nobody separate, and the ego is gone. And the going of the ego is the coming of God. In fact, God is always there; just because of the ego you cannot see Him. And to see yourself as divine, as part of this immense existence, is the beginning of creativity.

And this is not only the experience of the mystics. Of course this is the experience of all the mystics of the world: you can ask Kabir or Eckhart, you can ask Farid or Mansoor, you can ask Lieh Tzu or Rinzai. You can ask different kinds of mystics, born in different times, to different races, in different countries, unaware of each other’s existence, and they will all say one thing: “The moment I disappeared, God came in. Or maybe He was already there; just my presence was not allowing Him to express Himself, to become manifest. I was obstructing the way.”

But this is not only the experience of the mystics. Even the poets, the musicians, the painters, have a few glimpses of it — of course only glimpses, then they fall back to the ordinary world. They rise to the sacred for a few moments.

Whenever Rabindranath would have the visitation, would have creativity arising in him, he would not eat, he would not drink, he would not sleep for days together. He would lock himself in his room, he would not come out. He would come out only when the glimpse had disappeared.

And those who saw him coming out after three, four days of remaining in some other world all noted one fact: he looked so different, so fragile, so unearthly, so light, as if not made of matter, so subtle, nothing gross in him, his eyes so clear and so deep and his whole being so transparent. But after a few hours he would be back again, settled in the gross body, would be his old self again.

People used to ask him, “What happens when you close yourself in?” He would say, “I close myself in, I lock myself in, so that nobody disturbs me, because I am no more here. Any disturbance can be a very shattering experience. I am so fragile that I would not like to be disturbed. Even a little sound is enough to bring me back to the earth, and those are the moments when I am flying high, when great poetry arises in me.”

That’s how GITANJALI was born, the book for which he got the Nobel Prize. Many, many people have been given the Nobel Prize, I have seen almost all the books for which a Nobel Prize has been given, but there is no comparison with Rabindranath’s GITANJALI. ‘Gitanjali’ means ‘offering of songs’. It has some totally different quality, not of this world. It echoes something of the Upanishads. It has some reflections of Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu. But Rabindranath was not a mystic, he was only a poet.

A poet is one who becomes a mystic once in a while, who enters into the world of the mystic once in a while but comes back because he has not yet become capable of remaining there forever. He cannot abide there, he can only have a visit. The poet is very close to the mystic.

These three words have to be remembered. The scientist is the farthest from the mystic because he lives with the gross matter, he works with the gross matter. The poet is closer to the mystic. The scientist functions from the head, the poet from the heart, and the mystic lives in the being. When you are in the being, creativity is simply your nature.

You ask me, ” WHAT IS CREATIVITY?”

For the mystic, his very existence is creativity. He walks, and that is creativity. He talks, and that is creativity. He remains silent, and that is creativity. Buddha, sitting in silence, is far more creative than Rabindranath writing poetry, far more creative than Picasso doing his painting, far more creative than Moore working on his sculpture… just sitting silently!

So creativity has nothing to do with creating something, creativity is simply the presence of God. Those who are fortunate enough to come in contact with a buddha’s silence will be transformed; they will know what creativity is. He has not done a thing and miracles have happened. He has not uttered a word and the message has been heard. He has not moved, but he has transformed you. He has not even touched you, and you are no longer the same.

At the ultimate peak of being a mystic, creativity is just a climate. Lower than that is the poet; then creativity brings great songs, sculpture, architecture, poetry, music, painting. And even the scientist, the lowest in this categorization — lowest because he works with the lowest form of existence, matter — even the scientist, when he is creative, has a few glimpses like the mystic.

For example, Albert Einstein: he has said many times that “All my insights happened when I was not working at all, in fact when I was not. All my great insights came to me from some unknown source.”

The great scientist, Eddington, has said, “When I started working as a scientist I used to think of the world as matter, as only matter. But the more deeply I went into it, the more a few things started happening to me which are incomprehensible in terms of science, mathematics, calculation, measurement. And those things have revealed one thing to me: now I can say that the world resembles more a thought than a thing.”

All the great scientists… I am not talking about the technicians: they are lower than the scientists, the fourth category, the last, the SUDRAS, the untouchables. I am not talking about the technician. The technician has no flight, no insight, no visitation from the beyond. He simply knows how to do a certain thing, he is an adept in ‘how-toism’. He turns everything into a method. The technician is not a scientist.

The scientist is one who very rarely, but still, reaches to the peaks of the mystic. The poet is a visitor there more often, and the mystic remains there. For the mystic creativity is a climate, for the poet it is great activity, for the scientist even moreso: it is materialization of something which is immaterial, great work. It took almost twenty years for Albert Einstein to formulate the Theory of RelativitY — GREAT work. The insight happens in a split second, but then you have to work it out, you have to prove it through experimentation.

The poet needs no proofs; you never ask for proof The scientist is asked for proofs, experimental proofs, and the experiments may take years. Sometimes it has happened that the insight is there but the experimentation has taken years and years. Still a few of Albert Einstein’s theories are not yet proved by experimentation. They are just theories, with every possibility of being proved true, but with no way to prove them this way or that, for or against. Still no experiment is possible.

For example, Albert Einstein said that time is such a relative phenomenon that if a passenger leaves the earth on a spaceship at the speed of light — the speed of light is immense,’almost inconceivable: one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second… if a spaceship leaves the earth at that speed, then the person who is moving in that spaceship will never age. If he is young, twenty-five years old, he will remain twenty-five years old. Even if he comes back after twenty-five years, all his friends on the earth will be fifty years old, he will simply be twenty-five, because at that speed time stops.

Now this is simply a theory, an insight; we have not yet been able to devise a spaceship which can move with that speed. But scientists say that theoretically it seems right — but only theoretically. Now how did Einstein arrive at it? — because there is no possibility for experimentation. Obviously, it is not the conclusion of an experiment; you cannot do any experiment. No spaceship is there which moves with such speed. In fact, it may never be possible to have such a spaceship; there are difficulties.

The most difficult thing is: whenever a thing moves at that speed it turns into light. At that speed the heat is so much that no spaceship can move at that speed, because the heat would burn it out. Just the friction — one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second — the very friction would be enough, and the spaceship and the passengers would all be reduced to light, they would burn out. But maybe some day we can find something which does not burn out, which remains intact, and the passenger can move at that speed.

Then scientists think that Einstein is right: at that speed, time stops. And if time stops you cannot age, so it is possible that a man may leave on a spaceship, and when he comes back his children will be older than him, or even his grandchildren will be older than him. If he comes after eighty years, all his children will be gone, his children’s children will be older than him, and he will have remained exactly at the same age, with no change, with no difference, as if not a single moment had passed.

Now this is a pure theory; they call it ‘pure physics’. How did Einstein arrive at it? It is an insight, it is a mystical experience. Albert Einstein had a few mystical experiences. All his other theories were also conceived in the same way; they have all been proved right, slowly slowly, by experiments. Maybe this too is right.

Even the scientist comes to truth only when he is not, the poet comes to beauty when he is not, and the mystic comes to God when he is not. The scientist can only be approximately true, because the moments are very rare and very fleeting. The poet can be a little more sure, on a more firm ground, because the moments come often. But the mystic is absolutely certain, hence his declarations.

The Upanishads say AHAM BRAHMASMI, I am God! Al Hillaj Mansoor declares ANA EL HAQ! I am the Truth! These are not conclusions, these are not arrived at through thought processes. These are intuitions, experiences of the ultimate revelation. Mansoor had become one with truth; he was no more separate.

So creativity has three layers; the ultimate is the mystic: he lives in a climate of creativity. The poet, once in a while, brings some treasures from the beyond; the scientist, also very rarely, but whenever he can visit the ultimate he brings something precious to the world. But one thing is certain — mystic, scientist or poet, whatsoever comes into this world comes from the beyond.

To bring the beyond is creativity. To bring the beyond into the known is creativity. To help God to be manifested in some form is creativity.

Source – Osho Book “The Guest”

OSHO – PYTHAGORAS ALSO INTRODUCED THE WORD ‘COSMOS’. ‘Cosmos’ means order, rhythm, harmony. Existence is not a chaos but a cosmos. Pythagoras has contributed much to human thought, to human evolution. His vision of a cosmos became the very foundation of scientific investigation.

Science can exist only if existence is a cosmos. If it is a chaos, there is no possibility of any science. If laws change every day, every moment — one day the water evaporates at one hundred degrees, another day at five hundred degrees — if water functions in a whimsical way and follows no order, how can there be a science?

Science presupposes that existence functions in a consistent way, in a rational way, that existence is not mad, that if we search deep into existence, we are bound to find laws — and those laws are the keys to all the mysteries. Just as it is true for science so it is true for religion too — because religion is nothing but the science of the inner. The outer science is called science; the inner science is called religion — but both can exist only in a cosmos.

There are laws of the inner world. Those laws have been discovered just as much as scientific laws have been discovered. Neither have scientific laws been invented, nor have religious laws; been invented. Truth is — you need not invent it And whatsoever you invent will be untrue — all inventions are lies.

Truth has to be discovered, not invented. Einstein discovers a certain law; Patanjali also discovers a certain law; Newton discovers gravitation, Krishna discovers grace — both are laws. One belongs to the earth, the other belongs to the sky; one belongs to the world of necessity, the other belongs to the world of power. One belongs to the visible and the other belongs to the invisible.

It is in the vision of a cosmos that Pythagoras became the originator of a scientific concept of the world. He was the first scientist because he provided the very foundation. His idea of cosmos has to be understood, because without understanding it you will not be able to understand what he is talking about.

The inner world, the world of the spirit, follows certain laws, and those laws are unchangeable, they are perennial. Hence I have called this series PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS — the perennial philosophy. Those laws are not time-bound, they are beyond time. Time itself functions within those laws. If you want to do something in the outside world, you will need to know how the outer existence functions, because unless you know how it functions you are bound to fail.

Nature has no obligation to adjust to you — you will have to adjust to nature. You can win nature only by adjusting yourself to nature. You can become a conqueror too, but not against nature — with nature, in tune with nature. You can become a master of the inner kingdom too — not against the laws but in tune with those laws.

It is because of this mystic vision — that the world is not accidental, not anarchic, but an absolutely harmonious, cosmic, orderly world — that Pythagoras was able to discover many things for the seekers. One thing that he discovered was that music can become the milieu for meditation. He4 was the first to introduce that idea too to the West. In the East we have known it for centuries, that music is the best aid to meditation. Why? because music creates harmony around you, and the harmony around you can provoke harmony within you. If the outside is harmonious, the inside also starts falling in line with it — and that you have watched many times.

In the marketplace, you feel a great disturbance inside you — with the crowd you never feel at home. In the market-place the whole atmosphere is anti-music; there is no harmony, it is a chaos. And the outer chaos provokes inside chaos.

Go into a madhouse and be with mad people for a few hours and you will see: you start feeling something going crazy inside you. Go to the hospital and just be with the ill patients there for a few hours, and you start feeling a sickening is entering into you, a kind of sick feeling. You are NOT sick; you were not sick when you entered the hospital. What has happened? The sick vibe all around you starts synchronizing inside you, because the outer and the inner are not divided; they are part of one whole. The inner is the inner of the outer, and the outer is the outer of the inner. They cannot be separated. So each affects the other.

If you know meditation deeply, you can sit in the market-place and nothing will be disturbed because you have a powerful music going on inside you. It is so powerful that the market-place and its noise cannot affect it; on the contrary, people who are around you may start feeling a certain soothing effect, a calmness coming. If a real Buddha sits in the marketplace, he creates there too a Buddhafield, and whosoever enters into the Buddhafield is affected immediately — he starts falling into harmony. Something starts settling inside him; something starts getting together inside him. He becomes more centered, together.

That’s the secret of SATSANG — being with a Buddha. The whole secret is this: to be with the Master means just to allow his vibe to provoke your inner harmony which is fast asleep and you are unaware of it. But ordinarily if you go to the market-place, you come home a little lost, exhausted, tired, something is missing. You need rest; only after a good night’s rest will you be able to go to the marketplace again.

Music is a harmony — it is harmony between sound and silence. Sound belongs to the earth, silence belongs to the beyond. Music is, as Pythagoras believed and called it, numinous. The word ‘numinous’ comes from a Latin root NUMEN. It is a tremendously significant word, very pregnant with meaning. NUMEN means a nod from the above, a yes from the beyond.

Music creates such a harmony that even God starts nodding at you, saying yes to you. Music is numinous… suddenly the sky starts touching you; you are overwhelmed by the beyond. And when the beyond is closer to you, when the footsteps of the beyond are heard, something inside you gets the challenge, becomes silent, quieter, calmer, cool, collected.

In the Pythagorean mystery school, music was one of the greatest things — and that’s my effort here too. We have to create great music so that great meditative states become possible. Music is outer meditation: meditation is inner music. They go together, hand in hand, embracing each other. It is one of the greatest experiences of life when music is there surrounding you, overwhelming you, flooding you, and meditation starts growing in you — when meditation and music meet, world and God meet, matter and consciousness meet. That is UNIO MYSTICA — the mystic union.

In the East we have called it ‘yoga’. Yoga simply means union. The best definition of yoga, and the shortest, is by the great seer Vyasa. He says yoga is samadhi, yoga is ENSTASIS. Ordinarily samadhi is translated as ecstasy — that is not right, because ecstasy literally means to stand out. Samadhi is to stand in! It should be translated as ENSTASIS not as ECSTASIS. Yoga is ENSTASIS — standing in, doing nothing, just being. That state is meditation.

And anything that can help from the outside will have some music in it, only then can it help. The sound of running water in the hills can help, because it has its own music. The roaring waves of the ocean can help, because they have their own music. The singing of the birds in the morning can help, or the sound of insects in the silent night, or the rain falling on the rooftop — anything that creates music can also create meditation.

The Pythagorean school was a school of music, of song and dance. of great celebration. You are again living in that kind of school. People have forgotten that music can take you downwards, and can also take you upwards. The modern music takes you downwards; it is concerned with the lowest center of your being, with the sex center. It gives you sexuality; it is pornographic. It has lost all heights. It is ugly — it is really noise and nothing else, noise that drowns you — jazz or other pop music. It is simply a kind of intoxicant. It is so deafening that you feel lost and you think something is happening. All that is happening is that you are pulled more and more towards the earth, more and more towards the animal in you.

The ancient music, the classical music, has a totally different effect: it pulls you upwards, it takes you beyond gravitation. It is part of levitation; you start floating upwards and upwards. It has a more meditative quality in it. It reaches to your higher centers. The real music worth calling music will have something to do with SAHASRAR — your seventh center, but very rarely a genius reaches there to create such music. But if even your heart center is moved, it is more than enough. If your heart center starts dancing and revolving, you are very close to meditation.

JUST AS MUSIC is the meeting of silence and sound, for J Pythagoras philosophy is a meeting of religion and science. His concept of philosophy is that of a great synthesis. He is one of the greatest synthesizers ever — he always brings polar opposites together and makes them complementary. He is a great artist in destroying opposition. Wherever he finds opposition he starts searching for something which must be bridging the opposition, and that bridge is important.

Religion and science have been in conflict for centuries because they have not listened to Pythagoras. Otherwise, this division would never have happened. And this division has proved one of the most fatal calamities. Religion and science have been fighting as enemies; for centuries the church did not allow science to develop and grow. People like Galileo and Kepler and others were punished.

Religion was afraid of science. This is stupid, because science can only help religion, science can only prepare the ground for the inner science. The church people and the popes who were against science were simply behaving in a very stupid way — without knowing what they were doing. Truth cannot be crushed; nobody can crucify truth.

Slowly slowly, science gained ground, became powerful — it was good that it became powerful. But it started behaving in the same stupid way by destroying religion. It became a revenge. For three hundred years, the mainstream of scientific thinkers has been trying to destroy religion as hard as possible. They have declared God is dead. They have declared there is no soul. They have declared there is no afterlife. They have declared there is NO inner being in man. They have reduced man to a machine.

Man has lost all grandeur. Man cannot feel meaningful any more. It is because of this stupid approach of science, this revengeful approach of science, that all meaning has disappeared from the world. People are simply dragging themselves. There is no poetry — there is no possibility of poetry, because without a God the world cannot be a cosmos. Then it is only a mechanical phenomenon; there is no consciousness behind it. Without God, the world cannot be caring; it cannot be your mother — it is bound to be neutral. Whether you live or die, nature is not concerned at all.

Science has created the idea of a nature indifferent to man. This is dangerous, because man is so small and nature is so vast. And if this vast existence is absolutely indifferent towards you, how can you feel significant, meaningful? You will feel a stranger, an outsider, something accidental.

And science became so prominent that even philosophers started following the scientific way of thinking, which is a very lopsided way. Even philosophers lost hold of that great vision of unity, of oneness, of existence being a home.
The modern philosopher has no beauty compared to Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Buddha, Socrates, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra. The modern philosopher is very ordinary; he is nothing but a professor of philosophy. His philosophy is not a delight in his being, it is not a song, it is not a music. All that he goes on doing is linguistic analysis. The modern philosopher is an ugly phenomenon. Modern philosophy has NO philosophy of life in it. At the most, it is a constant effort to go on sharpening logic — but for what? The whole effort seems to be useless. And modern philosophy has become just a shadow of science. It has lost its glory. It is no more the science of sciences; it is no more the queen.

With Pythagoras, philosophy was the highest peak of understanding, the highest flight towards truth. One wing has to be science, another wing has to be religion. Those were the days of great philosophers; the world came to know REALLY great philosophers.

In China, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Mencius, Lieh Tzu — all close contemporaries of Zarathustra. In India, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Prakuddha Katyayana, Sanjay Vilethiputta, Makkhli Goshal, Poorna Kashyapa, and many more. In Greece, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle…. And the chain continues. In kan, the great Zarathustra. Twenty-five centuries ago, the world knew the highest flights of philosophy. Now, instead of a philosopher, what you find is just a poor specimen: a professor of philosophy.

I have heard a story: The King of the Cannibals decided to open his country up to tourism. A world-famous philosopher, who had a special interest in the primitive, was extremely eager to add this backward people to his studies. On his arrival in Cannibal-land, the philosopher demanded a private tour and a personal audience with the Cannibal King. Not only was this granted, but the Cannibal King himself conducted the visiting dignitary to all points of interest, while the philosopher busily jotted down notes on his yellow pad. Towards the end of the day, the King was moved to suggest a visit to his people’s most special and sacred structure. This, he announced, was the Cannibal Super-Market. There, in a shiny modern building, was housed the most complete and varied selection of human anatomical parts available anywhere in the world.

The philosopher enthusiastically agreed to see it, and they soon arrived at the building and went in. Here, lit by fluorescent lights, were row upon row of gleaming chrome-and-glass display cases. Inside, packaged neatly in clear plastic, with prices prominently displayed, were hundreds of items: legs, arms, hands, ears, etcetera. The philosopher eagerly scribbled notes while they toured the market.

At last they arrived at what the Cannibal King said was their most prized department human brains. As they walked slowly down the aisle, the philosopher noted the following signs: “Explorers’ brains — ten cents-a-pound”…”missionaries’ brains — twenty cents-a-pound”…”businessmen’s brains — one dollar-a-pound”…”commanding generals’ brains — ten dollars-a-pound”. The very last item had a display case of its own and its sign was especially large: “philosophers’ brains”, it read, “fifty dollars-a-pound!”

The philosopher could scarcely contain his delight. Unable to restrain himself, he turned to the Cannibal King and smugly inquired as to how it was, that of all the items in the super-market, philosophers’ brains were by far the most expensive.

“Come, come, my good man,” said the Cannibal King, “do you know how many philosophers we have to kill just to get one pound of brains?”

Modern philosophy and the modern philosopher is just worthless. It has lost it’s peaks: it no more moves into the beyond. It is neither science nor religion. It is just a very confused affair today.

For Pythagoras, science is a search for truth in the objective world and religion is a search for truth in the subjective world — and philosophy is a search for the truth. So science and religion are like two hands or two wings. They are not opposites but complementaries. And the world would be better if we were reminded of it again.

The church, the temple and the lab need not be enemies. They should exist in a kind of friendship. Man will be far richer then. Now, if he chooses science he becomes rich outside and goes on becoming poorer and poorer inside. If he chooses religion, he becomes rich inside, but goes on becoming poorer and poorer on the outside. And both are ugly scenes.

The West has chosen science; it has all the riches of the world, but the man is completely lost, feeling meaningless, suicidal. The man, when he looks inside, finds nothing but hollowness, emptiness. The inner world has become very poor in the West.

In the East, just the opposite has happened: people have chosen religion against science. Their inner world is calmer, quieter, richer; but on the outside they are starving, dying — no food, no medicine, no facilities to live a human life, living almost like animals or even worse.

This is the consequence of not listening to Pythagoras. The whole history of humanity would have been totally different if Pythagoras had been listened to, understood. There is no need for the East to be East and the West to be West. There is no need for anybody to be just a materialist or just a spiritualist. If body and soul can exist together — they ARE existing together in you, in everybody — then why can’t materialism and spiritualism exist together? They SHOULD!
A man must be materialist and spiritualist. To choose is fatal. There is no need to choose; you can have both the worlds — you SHOULD have both the worlds; that is your birthright.

I teach you this synthesis: you have to be a materialist, as materialistic as any materialist, and a spiritualist, as much a spiritualist as any spiritualist. And remember: both will be angry at you, because the spiritualist will not be able to forgive you for your materialism, and the materialist will not be able to forgive you for your spiritualism.

That’s why people are against me — all kinds of people! The religious people are against me because they cannot accept my materialist approach; and the materialists are against me because they cannot accept my spiritualist approach. I would like to remind you that you have to be both together. This will bring a new man and a new humanity on the earth — and it is utterly needed, absolutely needed: a new man, a new humanity, a new concept.

There is no need to choose. God has given you a body — that means you have to be a materialist; and God has given you a soul — that means you have to be a spiritualist. You have to be a meeting of the two: you have to be a yogi, a union. And if your body and soul ARE balanced, and your spiritualism and your materialism are balanced, in a rhythm, you will attain to the greatest music possible. And that music is meditation, that music is samadhi.

Source – Osho Book “Philosophia Perennis, Vol1″

Question – [A sannyasin says: Whenever I do any kind of creative work, like writing or preparing a class, a tremendous tension builds up and I get all this nervous energy that I can't apply to my writing. So I start straightening the room or doing anything to kill time. If somebody walks by I start talking to them and I just go into a kind of a frenzy so that I can't work, or my work is very tense.]

Osho – I understand. In fact it is not only your problem; it is the problem of all creative people as such. Deep down it is a question of creativity itself. Ordinarily one can create only in a frenzy. So all creative people are crazy people — they live in a frenzy. There are bouts of energy when they become very creative, then gaps of laziness when they simply rest; they cannot do anything. And all creative people are a little imbalanced. If a person is really absolutely normal, he cannot be creative.

So normal people have not created anything in the world. A Van Gogh or a Picasso — they are bound to be a little neurotic. So if you drop your creativity, you can drop your frenzy. But then you will settle on a very normal level and it will not be satisfying because you will feel that something is missing. Something that you could have done, you have not done. Something that was your destiny, you have been avoiding. No one can feel at ease if he avoids his destiny.

The other way is that you be in a frenzy and create, but then too you will be in trouble. Now you will feel happy that you are doing something but you will never have a moment of peace. You will be fulfilling your destiny but it will be like an obsession. You will be almost possessed. All creative people know well that they are almost possessed when they create something. They cannot say that they are doing it — they are being forced to do it. They even sometimes resist and in spite of themselves they have to do it.

My suggestion is, don’t settle against creativity. Move into creativity. But I am not saying that there is no possibility to transcend that obsessive turmoil, that frenzy. There is no need to fall down and settle below; there is a way to go beyond. And if you want to settle, then settle beyond. The way is that you accept this frenzy very delightfully. It is part of the deal. If the going is rough, the going is rough; it is part of the game. If you continuously hanker to be at ease, it is a problem. If you can enjoy that feverishness, that frenzy, there is no problem.

When a river falls into a waterfall there is a frenzy, but the river goes on singing and dancing. When there is a cyclone there is a frenzy, but that too is needed — it is welcome. When the ocean waves are in a wild roar that too is part of being the ocean — and it is beautiful. The problem arises if you start hankering for the opposite.

So for one month do one thing. Simply accept this frenzy; welcome it and go with it. Don’t create any conflict with it. When you feel like talking, talk; nothing is wrong in it. When you feel like writing something, write. Even in the middle of the night, write; nothing is wrong in it. Just go with it — don’t be dragged by it, otherwise you will feel troubled. Just go with it — and when I say go with it, I mean go so happily that sometimes you are going ahead of it and the frenzy is coming just following you, dragging behind. Don’t drag behind. For one month enjoy it, and then tell me how it is.

I would like you to settle, but not against creativity. I would like you to settle beyond it so that you can remain creative and yet you can remain happy and peaceful. So I will not suggest that you drop your creative activity. All creative activity is like a demon — it possesses you, it drives you crazy. It crushes you into new modes of being. It destroys you, renews you. Because somethiny new is going to be born out of you, you are to suffer the birth pangs. Just go with it, and happily. For one month drop all resistance and then tell me. Good.

Source – Osho Book “God is Not for Sale”

Question – What is this urge to Create?

Osho – The urge to create is the first stirring of the divine within you. The urge to create is the presence of God. You have the first message, the first ripple has reached to you. It is the beginning and the birth of prayer. Follow it. To be creative is to be religious. What you create is not the point – you create. In that very creativity something starts happening which is not of the world.

When you create you are lost into your creation. For example, if you are painting or singing or playing on an instrument or dancing, you start disappearing. The dance is really when the dancer is no more. If the dancer is still there then it is not a creative act, then it is at the most a skill. The technician is there but not the dancer – one who knows how to dance is there but not the dancer.

Because the dancer knows nothing; the dancer remains in a state of not knowing. He forgets all his skill, he forgets all the techniques that he has learnt, he forgets himself, he is utterly lost. He is in the hands of God. He cannot even say ’I am dancing’ – he can only say ’God has taken possession of me, I am possessed. God is dancing in me. I am the field where God is dancing, I am the hollow bamboo and Gd is singing. He has made a flute of me.’

The creator knows God. Only the creator knows God. And all other prayers that you go on doing in the temples and the churches are just impotent, meaningless, unless your life learns how to create. Then no other prayer is needed. Then the very phenomenon of creativity is enough religion for you. More than that is unnecessary – you need not go to any church, any temple, any gurudvara, any mosque. You have to go into creativity.

The question is asked by Gyan Bhakti. She is a creator. Hence the question has arisen in her – ’What is this urge to create?’ She is possessed by that desire. I have seen it in her, aflame. She wants to explode in many many ways, she wants to create. God has knocked at her door. But when the knock comes it is natural not to understand it, because we have never heard it before. It is so new, it cannot be reduced to our old mind. It is coming from the unknown – there is no way to figure it out, what it is. Hence the question.

Go with the unknown, go with the new. Always remember: If there is a choice between the old and the new, choose the new. Howsoever dangerous it is, howsoever insecure it is, choose the new. And you will be always moving closer and closer to God. Choose the old, and you will be moving away from God. Choose the old mind, and you will sooner or later become destructive. And these are the only two ways to live: either be creative or be destructive. There is no other possibility, there is no third possibility. If your energies are not moving into creation they will still be moving, but then they will become destructive. Destruction is creativity standing on its head; something has gone wrong, something has taken a wrong turn.

All destructive people could have been great creators. But if the energy is not allowed, if you become afraid and frightened with the new…. And when the creativity possesses you it is fearful. It looks terrible, it is a kind of tremendum. It takes you so far away from your known and the familiar. It takes you to the uncharted sea, without any maps. It is dangerous. One shrinks back from it.

But once you start shrinking back from it, what will you do with your energy which God goes on pouring into you? Something has to be done. The energy cannot wait, the energy needs expression. So if you avoid creativity you will become destructive. Whenever creativity calls you, go with it. It is God calling you.

Source – Osho Book “This Very Body the Buddha”

[A sannyasin who is an artist, was leaving for a few months to organise some exhibitions for his work. Osho said that his meditation was going well, but into his work he should also try to bring a meditative dimension.... ]

Osho – just paint with the idea that if somebody looks at the painting, he feels awe, reverence, silence. The basic idea should be what happens to the person who is looking at the painting. If he becomes a little meditative just watching it, then you have created a beautiful thing in the world, something very creative.

A painting can do many things. A painting can create sexuality in people. That’s why so much pornography has appeal. It can give a sexual fantasy. When a painting can give sexual fantasies, then why cannot painting give meditative ecstasy? It can. You just have to think about certain combinations of colours, forms, which make a person meditative. Just keep it in mind and go on working on it. Soon you will be able to discover ways.

Just as there is music which makes people sexual, there is music which makes people very spiritual. There is music which brings you very low, to animal instincts, and there is music which makes you soar very high – to heights which you have not known before, to new altitudes of being. Just a certain combination of sounds makes all the difference. The same can be done through colour, through form. The same can be done through words, poetry. The same can be done through dance. The dancer can dance in such a way that the people who are looking at the dancer suddenly start soaring high. They leave their general locus at the sex centre and start moving towards a higher centre.

This is what gurdjieff calls objective art – when the art is not just an amusement, not a decorative piece, not just part of the interior decoration of the house, but creates something in the beholder, something which was not there before. Just listening to a song or listening to certain music, or looking at a certain painting, a person is simply no more the same as he was before.

So a painting can be just a decoration, or a painting can be just an amusement, entertainment. A painting can be just interesting or a painting can be just photography, very realistic. A painting can be sexual, erotic. A painting can be spiritual. And I don’t mean when I say spiritual, that if you paint krishna it is going to be spiritual; not necessarily. If you paint jesus it is not necessarily spiritual; that is not the point. You can paint a tree and it can become spiritual, and you can paint a jesus and it may not be spiritual at all.

Ninety-nine percent of paintings of jesus are not spiritual at all, but pathological. They don’t give you gladness. They don’t give you euphoria. They don’t give you a feeling of the divine. Rather they give you the feeling of sadness, death, the cross; of torture, murder, justice. You cannot find a more tragic figure than jesus – just thirty-three years old; has not even known yet the climax of youth – being crucified. He had not known all the seasons of life. He was yet young – and crucified for no reason. Looking at a jesus’ painting, one gets the feeling that the world is injust, that god cannot be just.

Even an innocent man like jesus had to cry at the last point, ’Why have you forsaken me? Why do I have to suffer all this?’ Even his own faith is forsaken. Even his own idea that god is just and compassionate is forsaken. Ninety-nine percent of paintings of jesus have that feeling: ’Why have you forsaken me?’ They don’t give proof of god. In fact they give proof that god may be absent or may be uncaring.

On the one hand christians go on saying that jesus is the only begotten son, and on another hand the begotten son cries at the last moment, ’Why have you forsaken me?’ In that moment he must have felt that there is no presence of god anywhere. ’What is happening to me? – and for no reason at all?’

That gloomy tragic scene has continued, and people have been painting it. Those paintings are not spiritual, because they can make you sad, they can make you anti-life. They can prepare you to renounce life, but they cannot prepare you to live life in such a way that your very life becomes an argument for god, that your very life becomes a syllogism for god… that your whole life becomes a poem in which everywhere god’s presence can be felt… that your whole life becomes a materialisation of god.

A spiritual painting is that painting which creates in the beholder the sense of the mysterious, the sense of awe. A tremor goes up the spine, and one is simply aware for a few moments at least, that god is present in the world, that he has not forsaken it, that he cannot forsake it. How can he forsake it? Even if for a single moment you can give a glimpse of the divine and its presence, then your painting becomes an objective art. So just go on thinking along those lines.

Source – Osho Book “Dance Your Way to God”