Question – Will you please explain to me the Lord’s Prayer, as given by Jesus?

Osho – MEDITATION CAN BE EXPLAINED, prayer never. It can be understood, but it cannot be explained. Prayer is something of the heart, very elusive, very indefinable. You can feel it, but you cannot think it. That is part of its nature. It is like love. It is not a technique.

Meditation is a technique. Prayer is not a technique. Meditation you can do: prayer you cannot do. You can only be prayerful. It has nothing to do with words: what you say in prayer is meaningless. How you say it, the space from where it arises, is meaningful — not the words.

Prayer is a gratitude, a deep thankfulness towards the whole, that you are here, that you are glad to be. It is against complaint. When you complain, you say you are miserable to be; when you pray, whether you say it or not, you mean that you are glad to be, you are thankful that you are. And Jesus’ prayer is tremendously beautiful. No other prayer is so beautiful. Vedas have prayers, but they come from very sophisticated minds, and whenever a prayer comes from a sophisticated mind, it loses much. It becomes very refined, meaningful: and that’s why it loses all meaning.

Jesus’ prayer is almost childish. That’s the beauty of it, the glory of it. If you want to understand Gayatri, the prayer in the Vedas, much can be said about it. It is a very condensed understanding; it is like a scientific formula; it is like Einstein’s formula: E=MC2. Much can be said about it, thousands upon thousands of pages can be written about it.

Jesus’ prayer is not a scientific formula, it is just an outpouring of a simple heart; a child talking to his father — simple, very simple, it cannot be more simple than that. So, if you talk to Hindus, they will say, “What type of prayer is this?” If you talk to Buddhists, they will laugh, because they have very refined prayers, very cultured, sophisticated, philosophical, speculative, saying much in them.

Jesus’ prayer does not say anything; it is simply an outpouring of the heart, as a lover talks to his beloved, or a child talks to his father. Let me repeat it: please don’t ask for explanations; do it, and you will understand it.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You, Vol 3″

Osho – Prayer does not depend on what you say; it depends, rather, on what you are. Worship depends not on what you do but what you are. Religion is involved not with your actions but with you existence. If love is at the center of your being there will be prayer at your periphery. If there is perpetual peace at your center there will be meditation at the periphery. If there is awareness at the center your life itself becomes an act of self-purification, but the reverse is not the case.

By bringing about a change at the circumference you cannot change the center, but a change at the center automatically brings about a change at the circumference, because the circumference is simply the shadow of the center. By changing the shadow you cannot change yourself the shadow changes accordingly.

It is very important for us to know this, for the majority of people waste their lives trying to change the periphery. They stake their all in to bring about a change in their behavior and their conduct, but even if these are altered nothing else changes along with them. However much you may modify your conduct, you will remain what your were: if you were a thief you will become a good man, if you were amassing wealth you will start giving to charity, but the you within will remain the same. For you the value of money will not change. Money had a certain value for you when you were a thief, and it will remain the same when you become a philanthropist. You certainly don’t regard it is dust, for who makes a gift of dust?

If wealth has turned to dust in your eyes will you go about giving away your rubbish others? And if someone accepts it do you think you have done him a favor? Would you expect him to thank you? In fact, if wealth is no more than dust for you, you should be grateful to the person who accepts you rubbish and does not spurn it, but a philanthropist never thinks in these terms. If he gives even one paisa he expects some return.

A miserly Marwari died. He went straight to the gates of heaven and knocked. He was confident that the gate would open for him, for had he not given alms? The gate opened and the sentry looked him over from head to foot. There people are recognized by their actions but for themselves. The sentry said, ” Sorry, sir, but there has been a mistake. Perhaps you did not know that you had to knock at the other door. Kindly go there.”

The Marwari fumed. ”How dare you!” he exclaimed. ”Do you not know who I am? Have you not heard of my alms? Why, only yesterday I gave two paisa to an old beggar woman, and the day before I gave one paisa to a blind newspaper boy.”

When he spoke of alms the guard had to open his ledger. He scanned the page under the Marwari’s name, but except for these three paisa the page was a blank. He asked, ”What other alms have you given besides these?”

”Plenty, plenty,” replied the Marwari, ”Only I cannot recall them right now.” Imagine someone who doesn’t forget a paltry three paise saying that he cannot remember! And on the strength of these three paisa he knocks at the gates of he knocks at the gates of heaven!

The guard consulted with his associate as to what should be done with this man. His colleague said, ”Give him his three paisa and tell him to go to hell!”

Can the doors of heaven be opened by money? Whether you hold on to wealth or whether you let it go, its holds the same value in your eyes. Whether you live in the world or run away from it, its hold on you is complete. It makes no difference whether your face is toward these things or away from them; unless you bring about a radical change at the center, the journey remains more or less the same.

An inner transformation is necessary and not a change in the pattern of your behavior. As soon as there is inner change, everything changes with it. These sutras are for the inner transformation. Try to listen to each sutra very attentively. If there is even a fraction of dry powder within you, it is bound to explode; but if the powder is not dry then the sparks will fall but they will be put out immediately.

The trouble with you is not that you do not get an opportunity to hear truth, but that you are adept at smothering it. Your powder is not dry. It is soaking wet. How have you managed to make the powder wet? The more knowledge you have the wetter becomes the gunpowder. The more you think you know, the wetter your powder becomes; it is because of this knowing that you smother every spark of wisdom. Your knowledge prevents the sparks of wisdom from igniting you. Your knowledge stands as a sentry barring all entry.

You are unconscious in your knowledge. Remember, there is no intoxicant more potent than the arrogance of learning, for nowhere is the ego more subtle than here. Wealth does not feed the ego half as much. For wealth can be stolen, the government can change, communism may come in – anything can happen. You cannot rely completely on wealth, however knowledge cannot be stolen or snatched away from you. Even if he is thrown into a prison, a man’s knowledge goes along with him. Therefore a wealthy man is not half as arrogant as a learned man. It is this arrogance that dampens the powder inside you. Remove This arrogance and your powder will dry out and when it is dry a tiny spark is enough to ignite it.

Sourcr – Osho Book “The Great Path”

Question – In doing sadhana on aum, is it better to repeat it like a mantra or to try to hear it as an inner sound?

Osho – The mantra Aum has to be done in three stages. First, you should repeat it very loudly. That means it should come from the body — first from the body because body is the main door. And let first the body be saturated with it.

So repeat it loudly. Move to a temple or in your room or somewhere where you can repeat it as loudly as you like. Use the whole body to repeat it, as if thousands of people are listening to you without microphone, and you have to be very loud so that the whole body trembles, shakes with it. And for few months, almost three months, you should not bother about anything else. The first stage is very important because it gives the foundation. Loudly, as if your every cell of the body is crying it, chanting it…

After three months, when you feel your body is completely saturated, deep down it has entered into the body cells. And when you say it loudly, it is not only the mouth: from head to toe, the whole body is repeating it. It comes If for three months you repeat it continuously at least one hour per day, within three months you will feel that it is not the mouth, it is the whole body. It happens — it has happened many times.

If you do it really honestly, authentically, and are not deceiving yourself, it is not lukewarm but a hundred-degree phenomenon, then even others can listen. They can put their ears to your feet, and when you say loudly they will listen it from your bones coming because the whole body can absorb sound and the whole body can create sound. There is no problem about it. Your mouth is just a part of the body — a specialized part, that’s all. If you try, your whole body can repeat it.

It happened: one Hindu sannyasin, Swami Ram, did it for many years, loudly chanting “Ram”. Once he was staying in a Himalayan village with a friend. The friend was a very well-known Sikh writer, Sardar Purnasingh. In the middle of the night Pumasingh suddenly heard a chanting of “Ram, Ram, Ram”. There was nobody else — only Ram, Swami Ram, and himself. They both were sleeping on their cots, and the village was far away — almost two, three miles away. There was nobody.

So Purnasingh got up, went around the cottage; there is nobody. And the more he went further from Ram, the sound was lesser and lesser. When he came back, the sound was again more. Then he came nearer Ram who was fast asleep. The moment he came nearer, the sound became even more loud. Then he put his ear to Ram’s body. The whole body was vibrating with the sound of “Ram”.

It happens. Your whole body can become saturated. This is the first step — three months, six months — but you must feel saturated. And the saturation is felt just like when you are hungry you take food — you feel when the stomach is satisfied. The body must be satisfied first and if you continue, it may happen in three months or six months. Three months is the average limit; to few people it happens even before; to few it takes a little time more.

If it saturates the whole body, sex will disappear completely. The whole body is so soothed, it becomes so calm with the sound vibrating, that there is no need to throw the energy out, there is no need to release, and you will feel very, very powerful. But don’t use this power — because you can use, and all use will be misuse — because this is just a first step.

Energy has to be gathered so that you can take the second step. If you use it… You can use — because the power will be so much you can do many things — you can simply say something and it will come true. At this stage it has been prohibited that you should not be active, and you should not say anything. You should not say somebody in anger that “Go and die,” because this can happen. Your sound becomes so powerful when it is saturated with your whole body energy, so it is said at this stage no negative thing should be said — even unknowingly. No negative thing should be said

You may be surprised, but it is good I should tell you: we were making a roof at the back of this house; it fell down. It fell down because of many of you. You are doing tremendous effort in meditation, and there were at least twenty persons who were thinking that it will fall.They helped: they helped it to fall. At least twenty persons were thinking continuously… When they were there, they will look at it, they will think it will fall because the shape was such that it was unlikely to their minds that it is going to remain.

It fell. And when it fell, they thought, “Of course we were right.” This is the vicious circle. You are the cause and you think you were right. And you are all doing much effort in meditation. Whatsoever you think, can happen. Never think a negative thought when you are meditating. It is possible because you gain some power. But I am not concerned with the roof that it fell. Because of this falling many of you have lost a certain quantity of power; that is more a concern to me because nothing happens without your power used in it.

Those who were saying that it will fall… the roof fell. And they can watch themselves. For few days they remained very impotent, sad, depressed. They lost their power. They may be thinking they are sad because the roof has fallen — no They were sad because they have lost a certain quantity of power, and life is an energy phenomenon.

When you don’t meditate, there is not much problem. You can say whatsoever you like because you are impotent. But when you meditate, you should be watchful of every single word that you say because your every single word can create something around.

First step is to saturate the whole body, so the whole body becomes a chanting force. When you feel satisfied, then take the second step. And never use this power because this power has to be accumulated and to be used for the second step.

The second step is to close your mouth and repeat and chant the word Aum mentally — first bodily, second mentally. Now the body should not be used at all. The throat, the tongue, the lips, everything, closed, the whole body locked and chanting only in the mind — but as loudly as possible: the same loudness as you were using with the body. Now let the mind saturate with it. Three months again, let the mind saturate with it.

The same time will taken by the mind as it has been taken by the body. If you can attain the saturation within one month with the body, you will attain with one month in the mind also. If you attain in seven months with the body, seven months will be taken by the mind, because body and mind are not exactly two. They are rather body-mind — psychosomatic phenomenon. One part is body, another part is mind: body is visible mind, mind is invisible body.

So let the other part, the subtle part of your personality, be saturated; repeat inside loudly. When the mind is filled, even more power is released within you. With the first, sex will disappear; with the second, love will disappear — the love that you know, not the love that a Buddha knows, but your love will disappear.

Because sex is the bodily part of love and love is the mental part of sex. When love disappears, then there is even more danger. You can be very, very fatal to others. If you say something, it will immediately happen. That’s why, for the second state, total silence is proposed. When you are in the second stage, be completely silent.

And there will be a tendency to use the power, because you will be very curious about it, childish. And you will have so much energy that you would like to see what can happen. But don’t use it and don’t be juvenile, because the third step has to be still taken and energy is needed. That’s why sex disappeared — because energy has to be accumulated: love disappeared — because subtle energy has to be accumulated.

And the third step is when the mind feels saturated. And you will come to know it when this happens; there is no need to ask how one will feel it. It is just like eating: you feel, “Now, enough” The mind will feel when it is enough. Then you start the third step. The third is: neither body has to be used nor mind has to be used. As you lock the body, now you lock the mind.

And it is easy. When you have been doing the chanting for three, four months, it is very easy: you simply lock the body, you simply lock the mind. Just listen, and you will hear a sound coming to you from your own heart of hearts. The Aum will be there as if somebody else is chanting; you are just the listener. This is the third step, and this third step will change your total being. All the barriers will drop and all the obstacles will disappear. So it can take almost nine months, average, if you put your total energy in it.

IN DOING SADHANA ON AUM IS IT BETTER TO REPEAT IT LIKE A MANTRA OR TO TRY TO HEAR IT AS AN INNER SOUND?Right now you cannot hear it as an inner sound. The inner sound is there, but it is so silent, so subtle, and you don’t have that ear to listen to it. The ear has to be developed. The body saturated, the mind saturated, only then you will have that ear — the third ear, so to say — that you can listen to the sound which is there always.

It is a cosmic sound; it is in and out. Put your ear to the tree and it is there, put your ear to the rock and it is there. But first your body-mind should be transcended, and you should gain more and more energy. The subtle will require tremendous energy to be heard.

With the first sex disappears, with the second step love disappears and with the third step everything that you have known disappears, as if you are no more — dead, gone, dissolved. It is a death phenomenon, and if you don’t escape and become scared, because there will be every tendency in you to escape, because this looks like an abyss, and you are falling into it and the abyss is bottomless… There seems to be no end to it. You become like a feather falling into a bottomless abyss — falling and falling and falling — and there seems to be no end to it.

You will get scared. You would like to run away from it. If you run away from it, the whole effort has been a wastage. And the running will be that you will start chanting the mantra Aum: that will be the first thing to do if you start running, because if you chant you are back into the mind. If you chant loudly you are back into the body.

So when one starts listening one should not chant because that chanting will be an escape. A mantra has to be chanted and then dropped. A mantra is complete only when you can drop it. If you go on chanting it, you will cling to it like a shelter, and whenever you will be afraid, you will come again and chant it.

That’s why I say chant it so deeply that the body is saturated; there is no need to chant in the body again. The mind is saturated, there is no need to chant it; overflowing, there is no space to put more chanting into it. So you cannot escape. Only then the hearing of the soundless sound becomes possible.

Source – Osho Book “Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 2″

Osho – You will see lots of people doing bhajan, singing the song of the divine, but they are not really doing bhajan. They are doing it very superficially. It may be a sort of recreation for them as they have not staked their life. It may be just an enjoyment for them, and this type of enjoyment they can get from any other song or from any other music.

Bhajan means that there is a deep agony in your inner being; a sound arises from your inner depth. Your whole life is at stake as if it is a question of life and death. If you want to sing the song of the divine then you have to lose yourself. If you want to save yourself and to be devotional to Govinda, God, then you are deceiving yourself.

Bhajan in itself is the climax. It is the ultimate. The disciples of Ramakrishna used to be very careful that when he is walking on the road nobody should say “Ram Ram,” or “Jai Ram,” because even if a stranger saluted him by saying “Jairam-ji,” he would stand there overwhelmed with emotion and ecstasy and he would start dancing right in the middle of the road. The disciples used to be embarrassed. The policeman would arrive and tell them to clear the chaos on the road. If he was invited to some wedding then nobody would bother about the bride and the bridegroom and all of them would gather around him.

Once, one of his admirers had invited Ramakrishna to his daughter’s wedding so that he could give his blessings. The wedding ceremony was about to start when somebody called out the name of Govinda. There was a big crowd and somebody was shouting, “Where is Govinda?” Ramakrishna heard the name of Govinda and started dancing, and the bhajan of Govinda started! That wedding place changed into a divine scene. The marriage party was no longer a marriage party. The wedding ceremony was no longer a wedding ceremony; it was altogether a different thing.

Bhajan means that there is a constant flow of the remembrance of the divine within you twenty-four hours a day. That constant flow was there within Ramakrishna, so when anyone uttered the name of Ram, Krishna or Govinda, the inner flow would erupt. The slightest outer stimulus would reveal the inner dance, the inner music, the inner sound. It is just like a well which is full of water. If somebody puts the bucket in the well, it will come out full of water. In the same way, if someone uttered the name of Ram, the inner bhajan, the inner remembrance would be expressed outwardly.

Bhajan is not something which you can do at your own convenience. Bhajan is a continuous remembrance. When it starts it never ends, it goes on and on — a continuous remembrance inside your being.

Source – Osho Book “The Great Transcendence”

Osho – Mallik is a name for God, a Sufi name. It means exactly what the English word ”lord” means – the master of all. Love is the god or the goddess, because there is nothing higher than love. Love is the supreme-most experience. Everything else is in the service of love. Love is nobody’s servant; love is the master, and whenever people make love a servant to something else they destroy love. Love cannot exist as a servant; it can exist only as a master.

When two persons fall in love they both become servants of love, not servants of each other; and that’s where the whole misunderstanding happens. Because they cannot see the love – love is invisible – they start feeling as if they have become a servant of the other, and then the resentment – because nobody wants to lose one’s freedom – and the fear that love brings, the fear that one is getting into a kind of bondage, that one is getting fettered. Hence the fear of all love, and out of fear, the effort to dominate the other so that he cannot dominate you. Before he starts dominating or she starts dominating, you have to impose your domination.

That is the conflict of all lovers, and the whole misunderstanding is because they cannot see some invisible phenomenon which is higher than both. They have not fallen in love with each other, they have fallen in love. Love is a third force. Once this is understood love takes on a totally new dimension. Then there is no conflict, no fear. They both serve something higher, something beyond both.

In real love it is not a duality, it is a triangle. The love god is there, high on top of both lovers, and the lovers are there. This god need not be fought, because to fight with it is to fight with your own ultimate possibility of flowering… because this god of love is your intrinsic core, your ultimate expression.

Surrender to it! Efface yourself completely. Let it descend in you. Become so totally available and empty for it that not a slight hitch, not a slight bit of cleverness, cunningness, remains in you. And if one can be so totally one with the god of love, one becomes love itself; one becomes God itself. My approach towards life is basically a love approach. It is not of logic – it is of love. It is not of theology but of art. It is closer to a song than to a syllogism. It is closer to the heart than to the head.

Prem mallika means: become so totally a slave of the goddess or god of love that you become one with it. You disappear, you abandon yourself, and then there is no problem. Then all is good, because all is God. And slowly slowly you will be surprised: the beloved is all over the place. Then all beauty is divine, and from the smallest thing to the greatest, all are his expressions. He is in the drop as much as he is in the ocean; he is as much in the seed as in the blooming tree. Once you have understood, you cannot meet anybody else but God.

A man came to Ramakrishna and asked, ”Where is God?” Ramakrishna started laughing and said, ”What a stupid question to ask! Tell me where he is not? He is everywhere, so I cannot tell you where he is. He is everywhere, hence you cannot find him in any particular place. He is this very space. I ask you,” he said, ”tell me, where is he not?”

I have never come across a single person where he is not, and I have never come across a single situation where he is not. Wherever you walk, you walk on the holy ground. But this experience, this insight will become possible only when you are utterly surrendered to the god of love. And surrendering to the god of love, you become it.

Source – Osho Book “God’s Got a Thing About you”

[A sannyasin said that Ma Vipassana who is seriously ill is his friend; he would like to do something but feels helpless.]

Osho – It is good to feel helpless… prayer arises out of helplessness. And that helplessness will help your ego to drop. If you can do something in every situation then the ego never drops. You have to come to face certain situations where you are absolutely impotent. You would like to do something but you cannot do anything… it is simply impossible to do anything. Vipassana’s situation may be very very helpful to you.

Just see the helplessness of man… and all the nonsense that ego goes on thinking. Neither birth nor death are in our hands. Nothing is in our hands. Once you realise this, prayer arises. Prayer is a cry, a deep cry, of helplessness. And prayer makes a person religious. … it is not a question of Vipassana suffering for you… she is not suffering for you. But she has given you a chance, mm?

This is how things are… but man has created a facade of power. We try in many ways – our doctors, our medicine, our this and that… this is all a power trip. It gives a feeling that everything is in control – and nothing is in control. It is just a mask. It is not only that you are feeling helpless – the doctor who is watching her, the doctor who is going to operate – he is also feeling helpless. He will not say, mm? because it is not good to say so. He will try to pretend that he is in power, in control, that he is doing whatsoever is needed. He will create a deception around himself. He is also helpless, he is also trembling inside.

Science has created a pretension, and it has helped the human ego so that man feels less helpless. Prayer by and by has disappeared. And God feels very very far away. In these moments when you suddenly become helpless and you cannot do anything, in that impotence, two possibilities open: either you become suicidal, or you can become prayerful. So use this opportunity for prayer. Go and sit beside Vipassana and pray.

[The sannyasin answers: I don’t really know if I know how to pray, Osho.]
Osho – No, no, there is no need to know how. Helplessness will give you…. It is not a question of words. Just sit helplessly by her side. And just feel your helplessness. Something will start arising. You may start bowing down to the earth, or you may start looking up at the sky. You may start saying something which you will be surprised that you can say. You will become like a small child – and what can a child do when he feels helpless, unhappy, suffers, and finds no way? The child cries for the father or mother. And that cry is tremendously meaningful. It will be tremendously meaningful for you, and for Vipassana too.

I am not saying that you have to use certain cliches, or you have to repeat some christian prayer or this and that. No, nothing – just what you can do when you feel helpless and lost. Let this opportunity be a great experience for you. Let prayer happen… let communication be there.

[The sannyasin says: I feel that I communicate with her on an astral level... but I think that this is just my imagination.]
Osho – Don’t be worried. Don’t doubt it – let it be imagination. Imagination is a faculty, and it is more potent than reason. There are many things which can happen through imagination which can never happen through reason. But in the modern mind, the moment we say something is imagination it is already condemned. We think of it as if it is unreal.

Imagination is as real as anything else. It is more real than reason, because it is more primal. Reason is just the latest arrival… just a child. Imagination is ancient. We share imagination with animals, with trees, with rocks. Reason we share with nobody. It is just a local thing – human. So don’t be worried about it – let it be imagination. Imagination simply means that you are not thinking in language, but in pictures, that’s all. It is as real, more real in fact, than the verbal mind – because it is more deep-rooted in your being than the verbal mind. The verbal mind is just a superficial layer. So don’t interfere with the imagination.

And it is not much of a question whether somebody survives or not. Because how long can one survive? We are fighting a losing battle. One day, one year, ten years – it doesn’t matter much. These few months she has been here she has changed tremendously. If she dies there is not much of a problem. She has used this life. If she lives – good. If she dies I will not feel unhappy for her. She has earned something – a certain integration – and she will be able to use it in her next life.

For me it is not a question of whether she lives or not. The whole question is whether she has earned some integration, some centring – and she has. She has been going well… she has grown much. I am happy, mm? I can say goodbye to her with happiness. There is no repentance that she missed something. So you just be prayerful by her side… it has helped you.

Source – Osho Book “Nothing to Lose But Your Head”

Question: How should I Pray? I don’t know how to properly express this love that I feel into Prayer

Osho - PRAYER is not a technique, it is not a ritual, it is not a formality. There is no pattern to it. It is a spontaneous outpouring of the heart, so don’t ask how, because there is no how and there cannot be any how to it. Whatsoever happens in the moment is right. If tears come, good. If you sing, good. If you dance, good. If nothing comes and you simply remain silent, good. Because prayer is not in the expression; it is not in the container, it is in the content. Sometimes silence is prayerful, sometimes singing is prayerful. It depends on you, it depends on the heart. So if I say sing, and you sing because I have told you to sing, then the prayer is false from the very beginning. Listen to your heart, feel your moment, and let it be. And whatsoever happens is good.

Sometimes nothing will happen, but that is what is happening. You allow it, you don’t impose your will on it. When you ask how, you are trying to impose your will, you are trying to plan. That’s how prayer has been missed. That’s how all the churches and religions have become rituals. They have a set prayer, a set form: the authorized version, the approved. But how can anybody approve prayer? How can anybody give you an authorized version?

Prayer has to arise in you, it has to flower in you. And each moment has its own prayer, and each mood has its own prayer. Nobody knows what is going to happen to your innermost world tomorrow morning. How can it be fixed? A fixed prayer is a false prayer: this much can certainly be said. A ritualized prayer is no longer prayer: this can be said in absolute terms. An unritualized, spontaneous gesture — that’s what prayer is. Sometimes you may feel very sad, because sadness also belongs to God. Sadness is also divine. There is no necessity to always be happy. Then sadness is your prayer. Then let your heart cry and let your eyes pour down tears. Then let sadness be offered to God. Whatsoever is there in your heart, let it be offered to the Divine Feet — joy or sadness, sometimes even anger.

Sometimes one is angry with God. If you cannot be angry with God, you have not yet known love. Sometimes one is really in a deep rage. Then let anger be your prayer. Fight with God — He is yours, you are His, and love knows no formality. Love can survive all fights. If it cannot survive a fight, then it is not love. So sometimes you don’t feel like praying; then let that be your prayer. You say to God, “Wait! I’m not in the mood, and the way you are doing things, it is not even worth praying.” But let it be a spontaneous pouring of your heart.

Never be inauthentic with God because that is the way of not being with Him. If you are insincere with God — deep down you are complaining, and on the surface praying? — then God will see the complaint, not the prayer. You have been false. He can look directly into your heart. Whom are you trying to deceive? The smile on your face is not going to deceive God; your truth will be known to Him. He can only know your truth; lies don’t exist for Him. So let the truth be there. You simply present your truth to Him and say that today you are angry, you are angry with His world, you are angry with Him, you are angry with your life: “I hate it! And I cannot pray, so you will have to remain without my prayer today. I suffer much; now you suffer.” Talk to Him as one talks to one’s lover, one’s friend, one’s mother. Talk to Him as one talks to a small child.

I was staying with a family, and the mother ordered the small child to pray. He was very interested, and he was not ready to go to sleep, and he wanted to be with me a little longer. But the family was very disciplinarian, so they said, “Now it is nine o’clock. You go and sleep, and don’t forget your prayer.” He was angry; I could see it. He went into his room. I followed just to listen to what he was going to pray. In the darkness I heard him say, “God, make bad people good and good people nice.” He knows his mother is good, his father is good, but not nice. I have heard about another child. He was staying in a guest house with the family. The first night he prayed. He always used to sleep with a small light on, but there was no light and the electricity had gone. Suddenly, as he prayed the electricity disappeared. He was just getting into his bed, and he told his mother, “Let me get up again and let me pray again more carefully, because the night is going to be dark.”

First he had just prayed by the way, but now the night was going to be dark and there was no light and he was more afraid. He said, “Let me pray again. Let me get out, and let me pray more carefully, because now there is more danger.”

Listen to children’s prayer and become a child. All the religions say that God is Father. In fact, the emphasis should be that man is the child. That is the real meaning when we call God ‘the Father’. But we have forgotten; God is the Father but we are not His children. Forget whether He is Father or not. You just be a child — spontaneous, true, authentic.

Don’t ask me and don’t ask anybody how to pray. Let the moment decide, let the moment be decisive, and the truth of the moment should be your prayer. That’s my answer: the truth of the moment, whatsoever it is, unconditionally, should be your prayer. And once you allow the truth of the moment to possess you, you will start growing, and you will know tremendous beauties of prayer. You have entered on the path. But if you simply go on repeating a certain prayer, a technique, then you will miss. You will never enter on the path, you will just remain outside.

source – osho book “the beloved, vol 2″

Osho – Mind cannot comprehend him, but he can comprehend the mind. Mind is included in him – everything is included; even the stone is included in him. But the stone cannot include him: this is the point. Draw a big circle and then draw a small circle in it. The big circle includes the small circle; the small circle is part of the big circle but the small circle cannot include the big circle.

Your mind is included in the divine but your mind cannot include the divine. It is a part and the part cannot include the whole. The whole comprehends all, includes all. And when a part starts saying, ”I include the whole,” the part has gone mad, the part has gone neurotic.

You – whenever you try to comprehend that, the total, through the mind, you are doing something absurd. It is impossible! A drop of water cannot include the ocean but the ocean includes it. And if the drop of water says, ”I am the ocean,” then the drop has gone crazy. But this drop of water can become the ocean. If this drop of water drops into the ocean, loses the boundaries, loses the finiteness, the limitations, then that drop has become the ocean. The mind cannot say, ”I know.” The mind can drop into the oceanic totality and then it is included there.

Whatsoever we worship is just a game. It is good: if you feel good worshipping, then it is good. It is a good game and I never intend to destroy anybody’s game. If you worship, if you feel good going to a church, it is good: go on doing it. But remember that you are missing the basic point: the ultimate is within the worshipper. So while you worship do not focus your eyes on the worshipped object. Focus yourself within on the worshipper. THERE it will be revealed, THERE it is hidden.

Source – Osho Book “The Supreme Doctrine”

Question – What is Prayer?

Osho – Prayer is wonder, reverence. Prayer is receptivity for the miracle that surrounds you. Prayer is surrender to the beauty, to the grandeur to this fantastic existence. Prayer is non-argumentative dialogue with existence. It is not a discussion… it is a love-dialogue. You don’t argue… you simply whisper sweet nothings.

When a man falls in love with a woman he whispers sweet nothings into her ear. When a man falls into love with existence… the same romance: prayer is romance. It is fantasy; it is becoming available to the miraculous. Many people have lost the capacity to pray, because many people have lost the capacity to wonder. They have lost the capacity to be surprised. You go on seeing millions of wonders every day but you are not surprised at all. Your eyes are so full of dust and knowledge that you don’t see anything. A seed is sprouting, and you don’t see any wonder. A new leaf coming out of the tree, and you don’t see any wonder. A bird singing, and nothing happens inside you. A peacock dances, and nothing dances inside you. A white cloud floats in the sky, and you remain untouched. Then prayer is impossible.

Prayer needs a poetic heart, a loving heart. Approach reality more poetically — don’t be too much of a scientist, don’t be too much of a rationalist. don’t think that you know; nothing is really known — ignorance is absolute, ignorance is ultimate. Once you understand that nothing is known, and ignorance is ultimate, you will again be full of those beautiful eyes you had when you were small children.

I have heard… The husband was one of those cynical, sour guys whom nothing moved or impressed. To him, everything was just a big “so what?” He visited a psychiatrist, and after a short examination was given this diagnosis: “You are cold and blase. To you, everything means a big nothing. You are married, eh? Well, here’s what you do. Ringling’s circus is in the town: take your wife and see the show. Take a look at how red-blooded people live and act. Watch the performers who live dangerously; see how they pulsate and glow.”

The schnook took his wife to the circus. Out into the ring came the roaring lions and tigers. The wife was thrilled by the excitement, but the husband yawned and replied, “Yeah? So what?” Finally there came the grand finale where the daredevil was shot out of a cannon three hundred feet into the air, turned several somersaults, and then, pulling out a clarinet, began playing before hitting the net. The crowd roared its appreciation for the act, but the husband, after a few minutes of thought, turned to his wife and grunted in a bored manner, “A Benny Goodman he’s not!”

Prayer is the capacity to be amazed. prayer is the capacity that you had as children, and you have lost. Claim it — reclaim it — because with prayer you have lost all. The day your wondering eyes closed, God became nonexistential to you. Open your wondering eyes again, and you will find him pulsating again. He’s very close by… he’s all around you… he is within and without.

Source – Osho Book “The Divine Melody”

Question – What is the difference between Surrender and Blind Faith or Belief?

Osho – MANY THINGS HAVE TO BE UNDERSTOOD. First, the difference between faith and belief, and second, the difference between surrender and faith. Belief is always blind and cannot be otherwise. Belief, as such, is blind. No belief is possible if you can see, because belief means you don’t know and still you believe. If you know, there is no need of belief. Something you know, you know. There is no need to believe in it. The need for belief comes only when you don’t know. Belief is part of ignorance.

I am here. If you know it, there is no need to believe in it Belief is unnecessary; knowledge needs no belief. If you believe in something it means you don’t know and yet you think you know.

Someone says he believes in God. It means he has not known God yet. That’s why he believes. But the belief creates such an attitude within him that he begins to feel that he knows.
Someone asked Shri Aurobindo, “Do you believe in God?”
He said, “No.”

The man was bewildered. He couldn’t conceive, he couldn’t imagine, that Aurobindo would say no to the question. He said, “What are you saying? Are you an atheist?”
Aurobindo still said, “No.”

The man said, “Why are you creating a puzzle? You say you don’t believe in God and then when I ask if you are an atheist you again say no. What do you mean? You are contradicting yourself.”

Shri Aurobindo said, “Wait a little. You aren’t allowing me to say anything more than no. As soon as I say no, you start asking other things. Wait a little. I was saying that I don’t believe in God because I know him. Because I know him I don’t believe in him. He is. This is not a belief. This is my knowledge, my knowing.”

Knowledge comes from seeing, and belief is blind. Belief, as such, is blind. Even to say ‘a blind belief is unnecessary, because belief means blind. It is just a repetition. Then what is faith? Faith is also blind, but in a different sense. Faith is blind in a different sense because it has its own way of seeing. It is not seeing through reason; it is seeing through the heart.

Knowledge is based on reason. Belief is also based on reason. Knowledge and belief are both in the head. Knowledge has eyes and belief is blind, but both belong to the head, to the intellect. Belief is intellectual. Faith is emotional, intuitive, of the heart. It has its own eyes, but those eyes are not of reason; they are like the eyes of love. People say that love is blind. It is, because it doesn’t have rational eyes. But it has its own eyes, and better ones. The heart has its own reasons and they are better than rational reasons. Faith is trust; it is not belief. Faith is trust, deep love, trusting love.

And the difference. Belief is always in some idea, ideology. Faith is always personal. It is not in some idea but in some person. You can say, “I believe in God” — God is an idea. You cannot say, “I believe in Jesus”; you can only say, “I have faith in Jesus.” It is a personal love affair; it is a deep trust. Faith means faith in someone. Belief means belief in something. Faith is a deep, personal relationship. It has its own eyes, eyes of the heart.

There are basic differences. Reason is analysis, reason is argument, reason is an intellectual process. The heart synthesizes. It is not analytical, it is not argumentative. It is intuitive. What is intuition? When you fall in love with someone, what happens? Can you give any reasons why you have fallen in love with a particular person? Why? Why is Majnu in love with Laila?

It is reported that because of the anguish of Majnu, the king of the country became very worried. Majnu was weeping, crying, moving from street to street looking for Laila, his beloved. Laila’s father had moved from the city because of Majnu. He was not willing for them to be together; he was against it. Even the king heard about the love affair, and the weeping and crying and anguish of Majnu.

He is reported to have called Majnu to the palace. He said, “You are stupid. I have seen your Laila. She is just an ordinary girl. Why are you making a fool of yourself? Look at these girls” — he had called twelve beautiful girls, the most beautiful in the city. He said to Majnu, “Choose any one of them. Laila is nothing compared to any of these girls.”

Majnu said, “But how can you see Laila? To see Laila you need Majnu’s eyes. You cannot see her. You must have missed her, because Laila is incomparable. There has never been a woman like her and never will be. But I understand you. Laila can be seen only through Majnu’s eyes. You cannot see her. That is why she may have looked ordinary to you — because you don’t have my eyes.”

This is intuitive, of the heart. When you fall in love with someone, you don’t have any rational grounds. That’s why we call it ‘falling’ — falling from the head. No one says that someone has risen in love with someone. ‘Fallen’ — because we live in the head and the heart is below. When someone is in love he has fallen from the head, he has gone mad.

Why do you fall in love? What are the reasons? No mathematics is involved, no logic. You need not be an Aristotle to fall in love. Just to be Majnu is enough. When you fall in love what has happened? You have felt something. You have felt something so deeply that your total personality is involved in it, not only your head. Your body, your heart, your soul, everything is involved in it — your totality. This involvement is not something that can be calculated by you. It has happened to you. It is a happening; it is not a doing on your part.

Faith is just like love, with one difference. In love, you are both on an equal level, on the same level. Faith is love with a person who is higher than you. It is love with reverence — deeper than love, higher than love, but love is there. Those who gathered around Buddha were in love, in deep love with the man. Not only in love. Reverence was also there. Love plus reverence is equal to faith.

Faith is something that one should not miss. Belief is just ordinary. It is good not to get involved in beliefs because they make you a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian. They make you divided; they make the whole earth a conflict. Beliefs create fight, struggle, wars. Belief divides.

It is good not to have beliefs. But to have faith is a deep experience. Faith will not divide you with anyone; it will unite you with someone. Belief will not unite you with anyone; it will simply divide you with everyone. Ideas, ideology, is divisive. Faith is unitive.

Have faith. That means: be ready to fall in love with someone, with deep reverence. And then, surrender. What is surrender? To surrender is to be ready for faith. Surrender means to be yielding, to allow faith to happen. It means to be receptive, to be unguarded, to be vulnerable, open.

If you come in contact with a Buddha, with a master, yield to him. Don’t resist him, because you are resisting yourself, you are fighting against yourself. If you resist a master you are not allowing him to work; you are not helping him to help you. You are creating problems, unnecessary anxieties, unnecessary barriers. You already have too much nonsense. Don’t create more barriers. The master will have to do much work upon you as you are, even if you have surrendered. If you are nonsurrendering, you are creating unnecessary troubles and it will become impossible to help you. You are working against yourself.

Don’t be against yourself — that is what is meant by surrender. Yield, allow, cooperate, so that something can be done and you can be transformed. The master, the guru, is a person with whom you are in deep love and faith and reverence. It is not just a relationship; it is a deep creativity. He can create you, he can transform you, he can give you a new birth.

But then, you will have to be ready to pass through many things. Many unknown paths will have to be travelled, many unknown doors will have to be passed, many unknown locks will have to be opened. If you are not in a deep surrender, you will not move into this unknown territory; you will resist. You need a deep trust so that when the master moves into the unknown you can follow him like a shadow.
Surrender means a deep yes-attitude to the master — never say no. If you say no, you have taken yourself in your own hands. If you say yes, you are in his hands.

I will tell you one anecdote: There was a great master, a Sufi master. A disciple came to him. This disciple became very famous later on. The disciple’s name was Bayazid.

Bayazid came to his master. The master looked into his eyes and said, “Remain silent.” He had not even uttered a single word; the disciple had not said anything, he had not even been introduced. This was the first thing the master said. He looked into the eyes of Bayazid, the young man, and said, “Remain silent.”

Bayazid thought, “He may be occupied. I will wait.” But this waiting lasted for twelve years. How could Bayazid speak when the master said to remain silent? So he remained with his master for twelve years, not speaking a single word. Many came and went in these twelve years, crowds came and went. Bayazid was there, just waiting, waiting. It was a long, long wait — twelve years. And because the master had said, “Don’t speak. Remain silent,” of course he would not speak to anyone else either. He was totally silent.

By and by, thoughts dropped. If you don’t use them, they drop. By using them, you give them energy and fuel. Finally, thinking stopped. After twelve years of no speaking, no talking, just waiting, the mind dropped. Suddenly one day….

The first time Bayazid had come, the master had looked into his eyes. After twelve years, he again looked info Bayazid’s eyes and said, “Now there is no need to speak” — as if this was the second sentence, connected with the first; as if there had been no twelve years of waiting in between and he was still speaking: “Remain silent. Now there is no need to speak.” But there was a gap of twelve years between these two sentences!

Bayazid laughed. The master said, “Now, you can go and teach others. You are ready. You have become a master in your own right.”
People asked the old master again and again, “How did this happen? This young man was not doing anything and now you say he has become a master in his own right. He was just waiting here, wasting time. He looks stupid, dull. He has not even uttered a single sentence; he may be dumb. He goes on sitting and sitting; he’s just lazy. What are you saying? How can it be that he has become a master in his own right when he has not practiced anything?”

The master said, “But he need not practice anything. He didn’t need to. He simply surrendered, and I could work.” He said, “Then there was no need on his part to do anything else. A total yes was enough on his part. Then I entered him and worked. For these twelve years I have been working. He was simply allowing.”

This is what surrender means. Allow. Relax your ego. Then, much is possible. Otherwise, you go on destroying yourself, doing many things against yourself.

Source – from Osho Book “The New Alchemy: To Turn You on”