Osho – One of the basic sutras of Lao Tzu is that life is based on the rule of opposites. Life does not oppose its contradictions. Rather, it works in collaboration with its counter-forces. Ordinarily it appears that if your enemy dies you will be a happier man, but you do not know that with the death of your enemy something within you, which existed entirely on account of the enemy, also dies.

Therefore it happens many times that you lose much more by the death of an enemy than by the death of a friend. The opposition of the enemy awakens the challenge within you, and the mutual hostility gives rise to and nourishes those qualities within you which would have otherwise remained dormant.

That is why Lao Tzu has said: ”Any friend will do, but choose your enemies wisely.” Friends do not influence our lives as much as enemies do because a friend can be disregarded but we cannot afford to neglect an enemy. We can forget a friend but an enemy is never forgotten. It never dawns on us, however, that an enemy can so influence our life. Mahatma Gandhi would never have become a mahatma had it not been for the British. It was the opposition of the British Rule that brought him into being.

Great men are born when a country is in great trouble. It is the calamity that causes great men to be born, not vice versa. The hour of calamity. the hour of tension, produces great men. Hitler has written, ”No leader is born without a great conflict.” Therefore the greater the leader, the greater should be the battle. You cannot name a single leader who was born in times of peace. So he who desires to be a great leader has to make arrangements for a great conflict.

Life works on the law of the opposites – where the contradiction is visible and the collaboration on which it actually works is not. Let us examine this from different aspects in order to understand it better. If we were to remove Ravana from the epic of RAMAYANA, nothing would remain of the epic except Rama; and with him alone, it would not be possible to construct the narrative. Rama could have existed on this earth without Ravana, but then the Rama of the epic would have been lost completely. It is the very challenge of opposition to Ravana that brings out the resilience and temperance of Rama’s character and reveals the brilliance of his personality.

Ravana made a great contribution towards the exaltation of Rama. It would not have been possible for either Rama or Ravana to be born without each other. They grOw with each other’s support. This is the truth, but those who view things superficially see them to be enemies, opposed to each other. The profound reality of life is, however, that they are partners. It is not necessary that they themselves should be aware of this, but on a very subtle plane these seeming opposites are partners, co-sharers, collaborators and friends. Not only is life not formed without the opposites but it does not develop without the opposite. The opposite is inevitable.

Freud has discovered a priceless truth. He says: ”We also hate those whom we love.” This was a startling discovery even for Freud himself. It was a terrible blow for all mankind especially for lovers. Lovers cannot believe they are capable of hatred towards those whom they love. The fact is, however, that all lovers know this within themselves, though they may not admit it. Therefore, Freud was resisted for a long time. Ultimately he could not be proven wrong. Gradually, the truth was accepted.

Those whom we love we also despise, for love cannot stand without hatred. If you love somebody and you analyse it honestly, you will find yourself loving and hating alternately. You hate in the morning, love in the afternoon, hate in the evening and again love at night. Your love is periodical. The one you quarrelled with in the morning and decided it was impossible to live with, you again reconcile with and swear you would be lost without.

The ancient prophets of love have declared that love is complete and perfect only when there is no strife between the lover and the beloved. Freud however says that the greater the love, the greater the strife between the lovers. If there is no strife between two lovers, according to Freud – they are not in love; they are just fooling themselves. If you do not fight with your wife (or husband), it means your relationship has vanished long ago, so much so that there is no need for strife any more. Freud is not talking about the spiritual love. He is talking about that which passes for love in our society, what we generally know as love.

In this so-called love that we know, strife is an inevitable part. But lovers (and married couples) want there to be no strife, no conflict, in their relationship. Then, love would be bliss. But they are not aware of the facts of life. The day strife ends, love will end also. In fact, conflict cannot be ended by the sort of love we indulge in. Conflict exists because of expectations – great expectations. The greater the love, the more the expectation. The greater the expectation, the greater the frustration. And when there is frustration, there is conflict. If there are no expectations if there is no demand on the lover, if there are no hopes pinned on the other, all conflicts will stop immediately. Then we accept life as it is.

But Freud says, ”Great lovers cannot live in peace.” Another unique personality of the West, De Sade, has said, ”Love is an illness”. He calls love an illness because we invite love, and hatred is there instead. Love and hatred are two sides of the same coin. Therefore, hatred will go on side by side with love.

Hatred cannot stand on its own. If you think you have hatred towards someone, you are mistaken because of the simple fact that hatred cannot exist alone. You can hate only that person for whom you still have some measure of love. If you try and analyse your feelings about someone you really hate, you will find some strings of love that unknowingly tie you to him. If all ties of love are broken, all means of hatred have also vanished.

Hence, we are tied to both our friends and our foes. For the friend there is love outside and hate within; for the foe there is hate without and love within. Our ties with both are however the same. This may be difficult to understand, because we have great expectations for love. Let us try to understand this from different angles.

A man toils all day long. Now, according to our reasoning, a man who has toiled throughout the day should find it impossible to relax all night. He who is used to working all day should pass his nights also in work. The fact is however that he who toils throughout the day sleeps profoundly at night. The man who does not exert himself throughout the day should find no difficulty in relaxing at night because his experience of relaxing throughout the day should be good practice for sleeping at night.

But a person who relaxes in the day finds it difficult to sleep at night. Actually, he who toils all day long accumulates the opposite aspect (relaxation). He who relaxes, accumulates the opposite of relaxation. So he who relaxes in the day toils at night by changing sides time and again. He cannot sleep.

We cannot escape the opposite. The opposite is always standing by. If you wish to sleep at night, you shall have to exert yourself in the day. The greater the exertion, the deeper the sleep. So a very interesting thing happens: Those who work very hard, and have no time for relaxation, attain the height of relaxation. And those who have all the means to relax – to them, relaxation is a vexing problem Do what they may, they cannot relax. Unfortunately, we live by our superficial standards.

We say: we must relax in the day in order to know how to relax at night. This is straight and simple logic. But it has nothing to do with life. This is just the same as saying we should not have any conflict with those whom we love. But life exists in opposites – just like electricity exists because of its negative and positive poles. If we take away one, the other gets lost simultaneously and there cannot be any electricity. But it is very difficult to accept the opposite. He who accepts the opposite is a Sannyasin according to me. Lao Tzu calls such a person, wise.

To accept the opposite means that if, today, you have come and paid respect to me, I should accept the fact that at some level within you, disrespect is also gathering towards me. This fact cannot be escaped. If I accept your respect, I should also be prepared to receive disrespect from your hands at a later date. If I accept your obeisance with full knowledge of this fact, your reverence will give me no pleasure. Similarly, your disrespect will not make me unhappy either. Deep within your reverence, I shall spy the seed of irreverence; and deep within your irreverence, I shall see the spark of reverence.

If a man hurls a shoe at me, why should he take so much trouble if he is not concerned with me? Surely there is some connection between him and me somewhere. The shoe he throws at me is much more expressive than the garland that another person puts round my neck. This man’s leaning towards me is great. his restlessness is acute. He is bound to do something or other for me. If I become aware of the trouble he is taking for me, the sting of his disrespect will not hurt me. And if I become aware of the other side of the coin when I am honoured and respected, the illusion of reverence will vanish Then respect and disrespect appear to be two sides of the same coin. He to whom this becomes clear, transcends both sides.

Life is bound by opposites from all directions. When we see one side of life, we forget the other. It is this error that is the greatest misfortune of mankind. When we are looking at one aspect of life, we become completely oblivious of the other.

When we look at a flower, we never glance at the thorn; when we look at the thorn, we forget the flower. And the flower and the thorn grow on the same tree, the same branch. They are fed by the same channel, they are alive because of the same roots. The same gardener waters them and the same sun sends its rays towards them They come from the same existence. Deep within, they are one. But when we look at the flower, we forget the very existence of the thorn; and the more forget the thorn, the sharper it pricks. Then, when the thorn pricks, the flower vanishes from our vision and we are only aware of the pain of the thorn. We even forget that it was because of the flower that we had to suffer the prick of the thorn. We enjoyed the aroma of the flower and the prick was the result.

Our vision is always partial. Partial vision is ignorance. Partial vision is not wrong, but it is not complete. It sees only one half of reality. The other half seems so contradictory that we cannot relate the one to the other.

On the face of it, it is difficult to relate the opposites. You can never imagine that a person who clings to your neck, today and vows that you are aU that means anything to him in the world and life would be meaningless without you, would thrust a knife into you. Logic needs consistency. But here, there is no consistency. How can this very person kill you? But the reality of life is that he can. This is the very depth of life. He who has no relationship with you does not bother to kill you. He is not interested in you. Can you make someone an enemy without first making him your friend? Also, one who becomes your sworn enemy could not have just been a slight acquaintance. The proportion is equal: the greater the friendship, the greater the enmity.

Machiavelli, in his book THE PRINCE, has written, ”The greater the intimacy, the more cautious you should be of your friend.” This is cunning advice, but it has some truth in it. The thicker the friendship, the more vigilant we should be because the danger is greater. Machiavelli says, ”If you do not want your enemies to know the facts, take care that your friends do not know them.” He has also said, ”Do not treat your enemy in a way that you may regret some day when he becomes your friend, because an enemy can become a friend any day.”

Life changes every moment. Nothing is stable. Life swings from one extreme to the other. The opposites are united in the profound depths of existence; but on its surface they are far apart. He who sees only the surface of life cannot understand Lao Tzu because he talks of the ultimate polarity of existence.

Source – Osho Book “The Way of Tao, Volume 2″

Osho – Revolution is concerned with outer things: the economic structure of the society, the political structure, the state. Rebellion is inner: it is concerned with the state of consciousness. Revolution is political, rebellion is spiritual. And a true rebellion transforms you into divinity; it reveals your godhood to you. It makes you aware that you are not the body, nor the mind; that you are nothing but pure consciousness, that you are only a witness. Once this is experienced, realized, life becomes a play.

Misery comes: you witness it, you don’t get identified with it. Happiness comes and you witness it. Sometimes it is cloudy, very cloudy, and sometimes very sunny — but it is all the same to you because, as far as you are concerned, you remain rooted in your witnessing, which never changes. You remain immovable, unchanging.

Life is a flux: everything is changing, everything is in movement. In life there are no nouns, only verbs. There is only one noun and that is God. Everything else is a verb because nothing else is eternal. Everything is momentary: one moment it is there, the next moment it is gone.

Witnessing all, slowly slowly you are neither happy nor unhappy; that is bliss. You are neither cold nor hot; that is Buddhahood. You are neither man nor woman; that is God-realization. And remember: even if you have realized God the world continues to be the same. Illness will happen to you, old age will come, and death too. But because now you have a different vision everything happens and yet nothing happens to you.

A Zen master was asked once, “Before you became enlightened you used to say that you were miserable. Now that you have become enlightened — what is the state? In what state are you now?”
The master said, “I was miserable before enlightenment and I am miserable after enlightenment!”
The questioner was puzzled. He said, “Then what is the difference?”

The master laughed. He said, “The difference is that before I used to get identified with my misery; now I remain aloof, just a witness. The misery comes and goes, clouds gather and disperse — it has nothing to do with me. Before it used to affect me, now it does not affect me at all. I am just a mirror, I only reflect. If it is sunny I reflect it: if it is cloudy I reflect it.”

His answer is tremendously beautiful: “Before enlightenment I was miserable, and after enlightenment I am miserable.” Even being God ain’t a bed of roses, remember. Thorns are always there, but your vision changes. You look in a different way, your attitude is different, your approach is different, because you are different. You are on a different plane: a watcher on the hill, and in the valley the same world continues.

The same master was again asked the same question, by another inquirer, and he said the same thing: “I was miserable before my enlightenment and I am miserable after my enlightenment,” but when he was asked to explain it further, he said something more, he added something more. He said, “Before, I was miserable for myself, now I am miserable for others.” But that is a revolution. To be miserable for oneself is ugly; to be miserable for others is compassion, is beauty, is grace.

This is what I call divine rebellion: moving from identification to witnessing, moving from getting lost in things and the world, to a point where you are always alert, clear, transparent, unaffected, untouched. You become a lotus leaf in the pond: the water can touch it but cannot affect it; in fact it cannot even touch it. It can be as close as possible but the lotus leaf remains utterly untouched by it. It remains in the pond and yet beyond it. This transcendence is divine rebellion.
Sannyas is basically a movement towards such a rebellion, such a radical transformation.

Source – Osho Book “Even Bein’ Gawd Ain’t A Bed of Roses”

Osho – Love is the ultimate godly experience. Love proves that existence is not without meaning, that life has significance. Except for love there is no proof for life’s significance. If one has not experienced love one will feel meaningless, accidental, just driftwood, at the mercy of unknown, unconscious, natural forces.

That’s how materialists look at life: just a combination of matter, just a by-product of matter, an epi phenomenon. But then there is no significance, and without significance one can only drag, one cannot dance. Without significance only cowards can live. The courageous one will commit suicide, they will commit hara-kiri.

The existentialistic philosophers must be cowards because they go on saying that life is meaningless, still they go on clinging to life. If life is meaningless then why should one live? For what? If it is all going to end in nothingness, if matter is going to disappear into matter and there is going to be no outcome of it, then why all this anguish, anxiety, despair, struggle? And these are all the themes of existentialists: anguish, anxiety, despair, fear, death. If life is meaningless then why should one be worried about death? One should rejoice! Then to commit suicide should be the only worthwhile act, the first and the last. But they don’t commit suicide; they go on talking about the meaninglessness of life. In fact this very talk becomes their purpose.

One great philosopher, Zeno, lived a very long life — more than ninety years — and for his whole life he was teaching that life is meaningless. In fact it is said that a few fools committed suicide in following his ideas; he was a very convincing man. When he was on his deathbed somebody said, “This is very strange, that you lived ninety years and many of your followers have committed suicide following your ideas. Why did you not commit suicide? He said, “I had to live so that I could teach my philosophy.” Now that was his only purpose: to teach philosophy, to teach this philosophy that life is meaningless. It was as if that became his meaning.

No, nobody really agrees — not even the existentialists who go on saying that life is meaningless really agree with their own philosophy. Deep down they are still doubting: there may be some meaning. Perhaps we have not discovered it yet. Who know? — maybe tomorrow we will stumble upon it. We may not have come across it up to now but it can happen tomorrow. So let us wait, live and go on searching.

Nobody really becomes convinced that life is meaningless because life is not meaningless; it has intrinsic value, but it has to be discovered. We are unconsciously, intuitively, instinctively aware of it. We have just a hunch that there is — there is bound to be some meaning — but we are not clear about it. It has not come to light; we don’t have any proofs for it. Love gives us proofs for it.

A lover has no doubts about life’s meaningfulness, its significance, its joy. It is only through love that people have slowly slowly discovered the ultimate meaning, god. It is only through love they have discovered the whole science of meditation because in loving moments, mind stops. When you are really in love, in those moments you don’t think. The past disappears, the future disappears, the present becomes all and all — and that’s what meditation is. Love gives you a glimpse of meditation, and through meditation a window opens into the existence of god; hence I call love the most godly phenomenon on earth.

My sannyasins have to be meditators and lovers and together, because both are supportive energies for each other. If you love, you will be able to meditate more deeply; if you meditate you will be able to love more totally, and so on, so forth. They go on helping each other; they are very supporting. Slowly slowly a pyramid is created in your consciousness. By the bricks of love and meditation one can reach the highest peak of existence.

The man who knows only meditation is missing something, and the man who knows only love is also missing something. The whole man knows both; he has both aspects of the coin in his hands. He has all that is valuable within him. His life becomes an exquisite phenomenon, a beautiful song, a graceful experience. He lives on the earth but he is part of the sky. He is a miracle, he is a paradox, but in his paradoxicalness he is whole — and to be whole is to be holy. That is my definition of a holy man.

Source – Osho Book “The Golden Wind”

[A sannyasin, returning to the West, says she is confused.]

Osho – Confusion remains, and one has to learn to live with it because life cannot be sorted out; it is so big. The confusion arises because of our impossible effort to sort everything out; it is too big for that! There is no way to know everything so something or other always remains unknown. That unknown goes on creating confusion.

So one has to learn to live with it, then by and by it disappears and instead of confusion a totally different new thing arises… and that’s what is called wonder. It is the same energy that becomes confusion or wonder.

When a child has the same energy he simply feels wonder – because he is not in any way concerned about solving anything; he is ready to accept the mystery of it. He has no conflict between the known and the unknown; he does not make any distinction between the real and the dream.

Sometimes it happens that a child may have been playing with a toy in his dream and when he awakes he cries for the toy and asks, ’Where has it gone?’ We go on saying that it was just a dream but he says, ’But where is it now?’ He makes no distinction between the dream and the real, he does not make distinctions. If you don’t make distinctions confusion cannot arise.

So the more a person is trying to solve things, the more confused he will become. Intellectual people become more confused than emotional people. Then there are gut people also. They never become confused: they simply like things as they come.

The moment we think about life as if it is a problem, we are in confusion. The moment we start thinking that it is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived, that there is no way to know and whatsoever we know will remain very very limited; the unknown will remain unlimited…. We can create a small candlelight around ourselves but the whole existence remains dark. How can you be unconfused? You will remain confused if you don’t accept that darkness, if you don’t accept the mystery of life.

Yes, there are problems and there are many things which one would like to sort out, but they cannot be sorted out. This is what I call learning to live with it. Once you start learning to live with it, by and by confusion disappears, because confusion is an interpretation, and instead of confusion the same energy becomes more and more full of wonder. You are simply surprised by the mystery of life, you are simply surprised that nothing can be solved. You are simply surprised that it is not a puzzle; it is a mystery. And the mystery is more fundamental than us – because we come out of it.

The mystery was there before we came in, the mystery will be there when we are gone, so the mystery is infinite. We are just small waves of the ocean. Confusion arises and the wave sometimes goes mad. It is not an accident that great thinkers in the West – a Friedrich Nietzsche or a Mayakovsky – people who were really of great intelligence have almost always gone mad.

Now my feeling about Nietzsche is that had he been in India he would have become a buddha. His intelligence is superb, incomparable – but he simply went into a madhouse, a mad asylum, and died as a madman. In India the same energy would have been transformed with a totally different outlook. He would have become a poet. He had that quality and unconsciously many of his writings are more poetic than philosophic: ’Thus spake Zarathustra’ is great poetry, as great as Bhagavadgita. But he went mad, because a wrong notion exists in the western mind that everything has to be clear-cutly solved; everything has to be reduced to statistics. No comer of mind should be left in the dark. Everything should finally be decided in black and white, only then can we be at ease. Then there is confusion.

Become a child: don’t try to solve it – it is too big and in trying to solve it you will miss your life. Those beautiful moments which could have been of tremendous joy will be lost in trying somehow to manage the problems of life, to solve the confusions of life, the riddles of life, and it will be a burden rather than being a celebration.

Don’t be cerebral, don’t be in the head. Start enjoying more, laughing more. Start approaching the mystery of life more innocently… with no concept of finding the answer. There is none, there exists none. The answer is no answer. The wise man drops questioning. The moment you drop questioning there is no confusion; suddenly it disappears. The confusion is created by our questioning mind.

My whole effort here is to create an unquestioning consciousness – a great trust, a deep acceptance, a reverence for life. In fact, the very effort to solve it is disrespectful. It means we want to reduce god to a syllogism. We want to reduce love into chemistry. We want to reduce everything into the manageable… and wherever we find that things are unmanageable, beyond us, cannot be grasped, we are in confusion. Turn this confusion into mystery – it is the same energy, and mystery is such a joy! Confusion is such a disease, confusion creates hell!

Wherever you are, continue to meditate. And let this be your approach: create more wonder in life, remain surprised, and remain available for more and more surprise. Let each moment be an encounter with the mysterious. Continue to meditate and help my people wherever you are.

Source – Osho Book “The Further Shore”

Osho – To me, the life of a white cloud is the life of a SANNYASIN, of a man who has renounced. The life of a householder is a fixed routine. It is a dead thing, it is a pattern. It has a name, it has a form. It moves on a particular track like railway lines. On the track trains are moving; they have a goal, they have to reach somewhere. But a sannyasin is like a cloud drifting in the sky – no iron tracks for him, no routes, no identities. He is no one and lives the life of a non-being, lives as if he is not.

If you can live a life as if you are not, you are on my way. And the more YOU are, the more disease will be there. The less you are, the more healthy you will be. The less you are, the more weightless you will be. The less you are, the more you will be divine and blissful.

When I say life is not a problem but a mystery, I mean you cannot solve it, you can become it. A problem is something to be solved intellectually; but even if you solve it, nothing is achieved. You have gathered a little more knowledge, but no ecstasy out of it. A mystery is something you can become. You can be one with it, merged. Then ecstasy arises, then bliss – then the ultimate that can happen to a being, the ultimate joy.

Religion takes life as a mystery. What can you do about a mystery? You cannot do anything about the mystery, but you can do something about you. You can become more mysterious. And then the similar can meet with the similar, the same can meet with the same.

Look for the mysterious in life. Wherever you look – in the white clouds, in the stars in the night, in the flowers, in a flowing river – wherever you look, look for the mystery. And whenever you find that a mystery is there, meditate on it.

Meditation means: dissolve yourself before that mystery, annihilate yourself before that mystery, disperse yourself before that mystery. Be no more, and let the mystery be so total that you are absorbed in it. And suddenly a new door opens, a new perception is achieved. Suddenly the mundane world of division, of separation has disappeared, and a different, totally different world of oneness comes before you. Everything loses its boundary; everything is with others, is not divided but one.

This can be done only if you do something with you. If you have to solve a problem, you have to do something with the problem. You have to find a key, a clue. You have to work on the problem. You have to move in a laboratory – you have to do something. If you have to encounter a mystery, you have to do something with you; with the mystery nothing can be done.

We are impotent before a mystery. That’s why we go on changing mysteries into problems, because with problems we are potent, with problems we feel we are in control. With mysteries we are impotent, we cannot do anything. With mysteries we face death, and we cannot manipulate. That’s why the more human intellect grows mathematical, logical, the less and less possibility of ecstasy is open before the human mind, less and less poetry is possible. Romance is lost; life becomes factual, not symbolic.

So when I say my way is The Way of the White Clouds, it is just a symbol. The white cloud is not being used as a fact, it is used as a symbol, as a poetic symbol; as an indication of a deep merger into the mysterious and the miraculous.

Source – Osho Book “My Way: The Way of the White Clouds”

Question – Is not man the purpose of all evolution?

Osho – Evolution has no purpose. The very idea of purpose is mediocre; it comes from the marketplace. Existence is playful, not purposive. It is leela; it is not work. But we think in terms of economics, business; we think in terms of the marketplace. Everything has to be with purpose.

People come to me and they ask, “What is the purpose of meditation?” They take it for granted that there must be a purpose behind it. There is none. Meditation is its own end; there is no end beyond it. What is the purpose of love? Is love a means to something else, or is love an end unto itself?

Purpose means division, division between the means and the end. What is the purpose of these green trees, and what is the purpose of the bird singing, and what is the purpose of the sunrise, and what is the purpose of the starry night? What is the purpose? If there is some purpose, you would have a very ugly existence.

And then the question will persist. If you say, “‘A’ is the purpose,” then the question will arise, “What is the purpose of ‘A’?” And there will be no end to it.

There is no purpose at all. That’s why life is so beautiful.
Somebody asked Pablo Picasso, “What is the purpose of your paintings?” and he said, “Why don’t you go in the garden and ask the rose flower, ‘What is your purpose?’ Why don’t you go to a bird singing: ‘What is the purpose?’ Why don’t you ask the sun and the moon? Why do you bother me? If the rose can bloom without any purpose, why can’t I paint a picture? I enjoy painting, and that’s all.”

But we have a very mediocre mind; we always think in terms of purpose. Purpose means “business”; purpose means “I am doing this for that”. And because of this purposive obsession, you never do anything totally — you cannot — because you are not interested in doing it for its own sake. Purpose is there.

You are painting to sell it in the market to earn money. Then your painting cannot be great, cannot be, because you will not be lost while you are painting. Continuously you will be thinking, “How much am I going to fetch? Will it be possible to sell it, and who are the potential buyers? Whom should I approach; how should I advertise?” And you are painting! Your painting may be a technically well-performed job, but it will not be art. You are not an artist; you are not a creator.

The real artist disappears into his art. While he is painting he is not: he is in a state of fana, he is absent. The painting is happening on its own. He is not doing it; he is not a doer. Then great works arise. That is a secondary thing, whether it is sold in the market or not; that is not the purpose; that was not in the mind of the painter. Also he needs bread and butter, and he will sell it; that is a thing apart. That was not the purpose of the painting; he was not thinking of bread and butter while he was painting it. If he was thinking, then he is not a painter, then he is just a businessman.

Remember the difference between a technician and an artist: the technician is one who works with some goal in his vision, and the artist is one who has no other goal — art for art’s sake.

And why do you ask it, “Is not man the purpose of all evolution?” Just go and ask the parrots. They may be thinking that they are the purpose of evolution. Look how green they are, and their red beaks. What have you compared to them? And their beautiful wings, and the way they fly — zigzag, playfully — and the way they sing. They must be thinking that they are the purpose of the whole evolution.

Or ask the lion or the elephant. They must be thinking they are the purpose. Do you think the lion thinks man is the purpose of evolution? In the bibles of the lions it is written, “God made the lion in his own image.” This poor man is very poor, in fact. You don’t have the energy of a lion; you don’t have the capacity of the eagle to fly far away; you don’t have the grace of an elephant; you don’t have the beauty of a lotus flower. What have you got that you think you are the purpose of evolution, that God has created you specially?

This is the way of an egoist; it is the way of the ego. The ego wants: “I am the purpose of the whole of evolution”.

You have asked, “Is not man the purpose of all evolution?” Now think, whether woman is the purpose or man? If you are a man you will think man; if you are a woman you will think, of course, woman. Then think — if you are a man and you decide that man is the purpose, not woman — then black or white? If you are black you will think black; if you are white you will think white. If you go on searching deeply into it, finally you will arrive to the point that “I am the purpose of the whole of evolution.” Look at the absurdity.
There is a Russian parable:

A man was walking along and happened to spit three times, all in the same place. The man went on, the gobs of spit remained. And one of the gobs of spit said, “We are here but the man is not.” And the second said, “He is gone.” And the third, “That is the only thing he came here for, to plant us here. We are the purpose of man’s life. He is gone but we remain.”

Drop all kinds of egoistic ideas. There is no purpose, neither man nor woman, neither birds nor animals. There is no purpose, there is no goal. The existence is not moving towards something. It is a sheer joy, exuberance, a ceremony, for no other purpose at all.

Life delights in itself, energy delights in itself. It is like a child, jumping and dancing and shouting. If you ask him for what purpose, he will be surprised at your foolish question. Shouting, jumping, dancing is enough. What other purpose is needed? But as you grow older you forget this; you start doing things only if they pay. If there is a good payoff, only then do you do things.
Otherwise, the question goes on haunting you: “What is the purpose?” You don’t sing a song without any purpose. You don’t dance, you don’t love, you don’t paint, you don’t sing. What is the purpose?

Unless you are paid! So money seems to be the end of it all. And what is the purpose of money? You will be gone and the money will be left. And your hundred-rupee notes will think, “So we were the purpose of this man. Now we are here and he is gone. He had certainly come here to collect us, what else?” You will be gone, your house will be here, and the house will say, “Look! So we are the purpose of this man’s life. ”

There is no purpose at all. This understanding brings freedom; this understanding is what I call spiritual insight. The man who lives for some purpose is a materialist; and the man who simply lives for no purpose at all, the man who simply lives as if he is on a morning walk, not going anywhere, that man is spiritual, his life is holy. That is sacredness.

source – osho book “the secret”

Osho – Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” The Jewish God cannot love his enemies, so why should man? If God is incapable of loving his enemies, how can you expect poor man to? “And love your enemies,” Jesus says, “as you love yourself.” Again, he got it from some strange sources that the Jews were not aware of. This is a Buddhist approach, this is the contribution of Buddha to the world — one of the greatest contributions ever, because this is the inner alchemy. Accept evil. Don’t resist it, don’t fight with it, don’t be angry with it; absorb it, because it can be transformed into good.

The art of transforming suffering, pain, evil, into something good is the art of seeing the necessity of the opposite. Light can exist only if darkness exists. Then why hate darkness? Without darkness there will be no light, so those who love light and hate darkness are in a dilemma; they don’t know what they are doing.

Life cannot exist without death. Then why hate death? Because it is death that creates the space for life to exist. This is a great insight, that death is the contrast, the background, the blackboard on which life is written with white chalk. Death is the darkness of night on which life starts twinkling like stars. If you destroy the darkness of the night the stars will disappear. That’s what happens in the day. The stars are still there — do you think they have disappeared? They are still there, but because there is too much light you cannot see them. They can be seen only in contrast.

The saint is possible only because of the sinner. Hence, Buddha says don’t hate the sinner, he makes it possible for the saint to exist. They are two aspects of the same coin.

Seeing this, one is neither attached to good nor detached from bad. One accepts both as part and parcel of life. In that acceptance you can transform things. Only through that acceptance is transformation possible.

And before you can transform suffering you will have to become a witness; that is the third point. First: do not resist evil. Second: know that opposites are not opposites but complementaries, inevitably joined together, so there is no choice — remain choiceless. And the third is: be a witness, because if you are a witness to your suffering you will be able to absorb it. If you become identified with it you cannot absorb it.

The moment you become identified with your suffering you want to discard it, you want to get rid of it, it is so painful. But if you are a witness then suffering loses all thorns, all stings. Then there is suffering, and you are a witness to it. You are just a mirror; it has nothing to do with you. Happiness comes and goes, unhappiness comes and goes, it is a passing show; you are just there, a mirror reflecting it. Life comes and goes, death comes and goes; the mirror is not affected by either. The mirror reflects but remains unaffected; the mirror is not imprinted by either.

A great distance arises when you witness. And only in that witnessing can you become able to transform the baser metal into gold. Only in that witnessing do you become a scientist of the inner, a detached observer. Now you know the opposites are not opposites, so they can be changed into each other. Then it is not a question of destroying evil in the world, but of transforming evil into something beneficial; transforming poison into nectar.

Source – Osho Book “The Book of Wisdom”

Osho - And the deeper you go into the vertical, the more remote you go, then the farther from the world you go. Then the family is left on the surface; the anxieties of the day to day existence are left on the surface. They belong to the road, the traffic, the market. You simply move inside and they disappear.

Remember, there are two ways to encounter worries: one is to try to solve them on the surface — nobody has ever solved — another is to remove yourself to a remote corner of the mountain. The further you go away, the more the distance, the better you can see, because distance gives perspective. And when you can see better the worries start dissolving, The further away you move, the more worries automatically dissolve, Because now you are not feeding them by constantly remaining near them. Now you are not giving your attention to them — they wither away. And once you have reached to the farthest corner of your being, even you don’t know whether there are worries or not, whether they ever existed. You simply wonder.

This is the Eastern way to solve worries: to move inside to a remote corner. The Western way is to face the worries and try to solve them. And the West has been a failure. Nothing has helped — neither psychoanalysis nor other trends in psychiatry, nothing has helped — because everybody is trying to solve them on the surface. They may give you a little consolation, or they may make you more adjusted to the society; they may give you a little more confidence, they may make you normal, that’s all.

But ‘normal’ simply means normally-abnormal, nothing else. Normal simply means like everybody else — but how is everybody else? Everybody else is also neurotic, lukewarm neurotic. Psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and all trends in the West can make you more adjusted, normal, that’s all. The maladjustment disappears; you become adjusted. But what do you become adjusted to? If the whole society is sick, you become adjusted to sickness. If the whole society is neurotic, you become adjusted to the neurosis.

The Eastern way is totally different. It is not to become more adjusted to society — no, because society itself is ignorant, sick. To be adjusted to it is not the point. The point is to get more remote from the society so that you can find your own roots, your own grounding. Once you find your own grounding, worries will exist, they are part of life, but you are not worried by them. They exist and you tackle them on the surface, but you are not involved — you remain outside.

A real meditator becomes authentically an outsider. He remains outside. He remains at such a far away distance that he can look at himself as if he is looking at somebody else. Worries will be there, just like waves will be there on the surface of the ocean. But in the deeper layers of the ocean there are no waves. If you get identified with the waves, then there is trouble. This identification is the root cause of all misery. The more remotely you move, the more the identification dissolves; it breaks, it falls. Suddenly you are in the world but not of the world. Suddenly you have transcended.

There is only one transcendence and transcendence is the only way. And that transcendence is going deeper and deeper within yourself. Just witness your mind and the deeper you will move. Just remember that you are not the mind and the deeper you will move. Just remember that you are not to fall into the old trap of going into the past or the future. Just remember that you are not here to travel, but to be. You are not here to become something; you are already that which you can become. But just to know this being, what it is….

The West has been making vast tremendous efforts to become something. And the East has been doing only one thing, relaxing and knowing who they are. The becoming is not the point because becoming is travelling; you have to become something. The point is first to know who you are. You may already be the thing you want to become. And those who have known, have known that it is already the case. You are already that which you can become. You just have to become acquainted with this fact.

This fact is hidden deep in you. More significant facts are always hidden deeper. They are not on the surface, they are not on the skin — they are in the heart. Be a witness to the mind, and you will find remote corners of your being, unacquainted, unknown to you. You don’t know yourself. You know only a part, the porch of your house. You just move on the outside.

Source – Osho Book “Returning to the Source”

Osho – Life is a curse if you are not aware. Then it is nothing but misery. It is only thorns, not a single rose. From the cradle to the grave there are hopes and man goes on living because of those hopes, but they are never fulfilled.

In the end there is only despair, hopelessness, anguish. That’s our whole anguish. But this tragedy happens only because we are not aware. Awareness functions like magic: it transforms everything into its opposite. Anger becomes compassion, greed becomes sharing, hate becomes love, the very darkness of life becomes light. And then suddenly one discovers that the thorns were not there outside; they were our projection of an unconscious state.

Once you are conscious, there are only roses and roses. The person who coined the proverb that life is not a bed of roses must have been unconscious, unaware, because all the awakened ones say just the opposite: Life is a bed of roses. Hence all that a sannyasin has to do is to shift a gear inside himself from unconscious to consciusness.

And the process is very simple. It cannot be simpler than it is. In fact because it is so simple, people go on missing it. If it was a little complicated, difficult, there would be a challenge for the ego; but there is no challenge for the ego. Ego is always interested in something difficult. The more difficult it is, the better. The ego is interested in going to the moon, to Mars; it is not interested in going within oneself.

The process can be reduced into a simple formula: whatsoever you do, do it but remain alert. Walking, watch your walking; eating, watch you. eating just don’t go on stuffing youself mechanically. The mind is somewhere else, you are thinking a thousand-and-one things and the hands go on stuffing and the mouth goes on chewing. That is a mechanical process. You are not aware of what you are doing.

If you are totally in the moment — only then can you be aware. So forget the whole world while you are eating. Eating, just eat; walking, just walk; listening, just listen; talking, just talk and remain totally in it, alert, aware of each gesture, each nuance. And slowly you will get the knack of it, the hang of it.

It is not a science, it is not even an art. It is only a knack, like swimming — you have just to start throwing your hands. First start in shallow water so there is no fear, then go deeper. First begin with the body — that is the shallowest part of our being. Then go into the mind. Then watch your thoughts, desires, memories. Then go still deeper, dive still deeper — watch your emotions, your moods. And then the fundamental and the ultimate plunge, the fourth, where your centre is. Then become aware of your awareness itself. The moment one is aware of awareness itself the circle is complete . And that is the moment we in the East have called enlightenment.

Man is not imprisoned by outside forces. He is imprisoned by his own unconscious, by his own instincts, by his own biological past. So one can try to be politically free — that is not difficult — but it is not going to bring real freedom.

So almost every counrty is politicallty free but the people are in the same misery. One can try to be economically free. The moment you become rich you are economically free. You can purchase anything you want, you can have all the things of the world. There is no limitation. You can have the best house, the best of everything; still, something will be missing. You will not feel contented. You will not really feel free . On the other hand, you will feel hampered by all your possessions.

The richer a person gets, the more and more he is imprisoned in his richness. He cannot even sleep well. He cannot live in a relaxed way, although he always wished that when the money would be there he would live in a relaxed way. Then life would be just a long holiday. He now has a house in the mountains, a house on the beach, a beautiful yacht in the sea, an aeroplane and everything, but he has no will to relax. In fact in earning all this money he has learned one thing: how to remain constantly tense. He has been always on his tiptoes. Now it is too late to relax.

Relaxation needs a totally different kind of skill — the rich person misses it. Hence the rich person only appears rich. Really he is as poor as anybody else, maybe far poorer than the poor ones. Apparently he has all but inside there is only nothingness, and the freedom that he was thinking would come through econonic prosperity has not arrived.

Money can be earned, freedom cannot be earned. Freedom has to grow within you. It grows simultaneously as a by-product of awarness. The more aware you are, the freer. The moment your awareness is at the peak, your freedom is also at the peak. So only a Buddha, a Christ, a Zarathustra — these few people — have lived and known freedom. And that is the goal of sannays: absolute freedom. The method is awareness.

Source – Osho Book “The Old Pond… Plop”

Osho - Pessimism is nothing but getting addicted to a miserable way of living — and you are the creator of it. You are miserable because you are jealous. Now, a jealous person cannot hope to be optimistic. You are miserable because you are constantly angry, angry against the whole world, angry that existence has not been fair to you. Such a person cannot be optimistic.And you all believe in religions which are pessimistic. Do you think worshipping a cross is optimistic? It is worshipping death. And people are carrying crosses around their necks. Even if you make the crosses of gold, it does not matter — a cross is a cross.

Source: Osho Book “From Bondage to Freeom”

Question – Osho, Is life not sometimes far more surprising than fictions themselves?

Osho – Praghosh, NOT ONLY SOMETIMES BUT ALWAYS. Fictions are only reflections of life — how can they be more surprising? No fiction is so fictitious as life itself; life is made of the stuff called dreams. Hence the mystic says life is illusion, MAYA, a mirage. It is a mystery, unfathomable, infinite, beginningless, endless.

So I will not say that only sometimes it is surprising; each moment of it is a surprise, but you don’t feel it. You feel it only once in a while when something really extraordinary happens and you are shocked into wakefulness. Only then do you understand that life is far more surprising — because you are fast asleep. Unless something out of the way, very outlandish, far out, happens, and you are shaken and shocked into a little bit of awareness, only then do you see what a miracle life is, how much surprise it contains.

But to the Buddhas each moment of it is a surprise, because it is each moment new, renewing itself. Everything is extraordinary if you are alert, if you are sensitive enough, if you are open enough. Then the whole of life, from the mundane to the sacred, from the lowest to the highest, the whole of life is such a mystery that you are always in for a surprise. It depends on your sensitivity, it depends on your awareness, it depends how conscious you are.

A Zen Master was asked, “What did you use to do before you became enlightened?”
He said, “I used to chop wood and carry water from the well for my Master’s house.”
The inquirer asked, “And now that you have become enlightened, what do you do?”
He said, “I chop wood and carry water.”

The inquirer was obviously puzzled. “Then what is the difference? You used to chop wood and carry water, you still chop wood and still carry water — then what is the difference?”
The Master laughed. He said, “The difference is infinite! Before I simply used to chop wood not knowing the beauties that surrounded me. Now chopping wood is not the same because I am not the same. My eyes are not the same, my heart beats in a different rhythm — my heart beats with the heart of the whole. There is a synchronicity, there is harmony.

“Carrying water from the well is the same from the outside, but my interior has become totally different. I am a new man, I am born again! Now I can see in depth, I can see into the very core of things, and each pebble has become a diamond, and each song of a bird is nothing but a call from God, and whenever a flower blooms, God blooms for me. Looking into people’s eyes I am looking into God’s eyes. Yes, on the surface I am carrying on the same activity, but because I am not the same the world is not the same.”

Start becoming a little more alert and watch things, and you will be surprised. Life is mysterious, unexplainable — life is absurd. You cannot prove anything for or against.

Tertullian says: I believe in God because God is absurd — CREDO QUIA ABSURDUM. WHY do I believe in God? — because God is absurd! No logic can prove him, no logic can disprove him. It is a love affair. And life is very hilarious because it is very ridiculous too. If you become a little alert you will find love, light, laughter, everywhere!

It is said that when Hotei attained enlightenment he started laughing. He lived at least thirty years afterwards; he continued laughing for thirty years. Even in sleep his disciples would hear him giggling. His whole message to the world was laughter; he would go from one town to another just laughing. He would stand in one marketplace, then in another, just laughing, and people would gather. His laughter had something of the beyond — a Buddha’s laughter. He is known in Japan as ‘the laughing Buddha’.

His laughter was so contagious that whosoever heard it would start laughing. Soon the whole marketplace would be laughing; crowds would gather and laugh and they would ask him, “Just give us a few instructions.”
He would say, “Nothing more, this is enough. If you can laugh, if you can laugh totally, it is meditation.”

Laughter was his device. It is said many people became enlightened through Hotei’s laughter. That was his only meditation: to laugh and help people laugh. Just watch life, and you will be surprised.

A Scot, an Italian and a Jewish man were dining together in an expensive restaurant. When the bill arrived, the Scotsman promptly declared that he would take it.

Now this is impossible! “The Scotsman promptly declared that he would take it.” Can you believe it? Is it possible? It has never happened, it is not going to happen — but that day it happened.
The next day the newspapers carried the headline: “JEWISH VENTRILOQUIST SHOT IN RESTAURANT.”

McLeod and his wife visited one of the circus airfields where they charge fifty dollars for a plane ride just around the town. Naturally he would not spend the money until the pilot approached him.
“I will take you and your wife up for nothing,” he said. “It will be a rough ride — but if you and your wife let out one single word, one sound, while we are up there, then it is double.”
McLeod accepted the challenge and up they went. It really was a rough ride — dives, loops, turnovers. Finally they landed.
“You win,” said the pilot. “Not a word out of you.”
“No,” said the Scotsman. “But I almost did speak when my wife fell out.”

Just look at people! And each person is a fiction, and each person carries so many stories in his heart. Love people, search in their souls, and you will not need to go to the movies and you will not need to read novels. EACH person contains many novels and many movies, but we don’t listen to people. We don’t see people face to face, we don’t hold their hands, we don’t allow them to open their hearts.

For the first time humanity has become very closed. Each person is living a windowless life, completely encapsulated. Open up! Throw your doors and windows open. Let wind and rain and sun come in Let people enter into you and you enter into people’s lives. That is the only way to become aware of the tremendous mystery of life. And to be aware of the mystery of life is to be aware of God.

One day King Arthur decided to go in search of the Holy Grail, but he hesitated to leave his knight, Sir Lancelot, with his wife, Queen Guinevere, so he went to ask the wise Merlin for advice. Merlin told him to give him a few days to think it over.
A few days later King Arthur returned to see Merlin who proudly showed him his new invention — a chastity belt. Puzzled, King Arthur looked at it and said, “But this is no good — it has the hole in the wrong place! ”

Merlin said, “No, no! You just watch this.” And he picked up a pencil and put it in the hole. The pencil snapped in half.
King Arthur was absolutely delighted and departed with the belt. After putting it on his wife he set off in search of the Holy Grail, his mind at peace about Guinevere and Sir Lancelot.

Many weeks later he returned — and immediately lined up all his knights in the castle courtyard and told them to pull down their trousers. Lo and behold, all the knights were castrated except the one at the end of the line, Sir Lancelot.

King Arthur, distraught at having mistrusted his gallant knight — the only one to have upheld the honor of Queen Guinevere — went up to him and said, “I give you my humble apologies. You are the knight that I mistrusted the most, but in fact you are the most loyal. I will grant you anything that you ask for. Say what it is that you desire.”
And Sir Lancelot went, “Mm mm mm….”

Source – Osho Book “Be Still and Know”