Question – Is there such a thing as Right or Wrong?

Osho – Akam, there is no such thing as right or wrong, because something may be right this moment and it may not be right the next moment. Something may be wrong today and may not be wrong tomorrow.

Right and wrong are not fixed entities, they are not labels that you can put on things, “This is right” and “This is wrong.” But this has been done up to now. Right and wrong have been decided by people. And because people have decided right and wrong, they have misguided the whole humanity.

Manu decides in one way: what he thinks is right becomes right for millions and millions of Hindus for thousands of years. It is so stupid, it is unbelievable! How can people go on following Manu for five thousand years? Everything else has changed. If Manu comes back he will not be able to recognize the world at all; everything has changed. But the Hindu mind goes on following the categories that Manu has fixed.

Still, after five thousand years, there are millions of people in India who are not treated like people. What to say, that they are not treated like people — they are not even treated like cattle. Even cows are far more important than alive people. Cows are worshipped, cows are holy, and the untouchables, the sudras, the rejected people — rejected by Manu, five thousand years ago — are burned.

And even a man like Vinoba Bhave is ready to go on fasting if cow slaughter is not completely stopped in the country, totally stopped. But he is completely silent, he does not say a single word, that the untouchables are being killed, burned alive, their women raped, their children murdered, butchered. Villages of untouchables, whole villages are being effaced from the earth, and Vinoba Bhave is not thinking of going on a fast. Who bothers about these untouchables? They are not part of humanity, they are not human beings. Cows have to be saved, because Manu worships the cow.

It may have been right at that moment; I am not against Manu, I am against the foolish followers of Manu. It may have been right at that time, because the cow was very very important, it was the center of the whole economy; particularly the Indian economy was based on the cow. It was an agricultural society, and the cow was the source of many things: of the bulls, the bullocks, the manure, the milk — it was immensely important, it was perfectly right to save it. But now the world is living in a totally different way. Manu had a very small world; now we have the whole earth to think of, it is not only a question of a small sect. But once right has been fixed, people go on following blindly; it has been like that up to now.

For example, in the ten commandments Moses says, “Do not worship any other god than the true God. Don’t make idols of the true God and don’t worship any other gods.” It was a totally different world; three thousand years have passed. In fact, in those ten commandments there is not a single commandment which says anything about atheists. It says, “Don’t worship any other god.” It does not say, “Don’t disbelieve in God,” because there was no disbeliever. Atheism was not at all in the air.

Now the most fundamental thing will be to teach people how not to be atheists, because atheism is very prevalent. Almost half of the earth has gone communist, it is atheist, and the remaining half is only formally theist. Now the most fundamental commandment should be, “Don’t be atheists, don’t be disbelievers, don’t be doubters.” Now trust should be the most fundamental teaching to be given to people.

As time changes, rights change, wrongs change. And you can see it in your own life — every day things are different, and you go on clinging to your fixed ideas. The man who lives with fixed ideas lives a dead life. He is never spontaneous and he is never in a right relationship with the situation that exists. He is never response-able; he functions out of his old conclusions which are no longer relevant, he does not look at the situation itself.

So, Akam, according to me there is no such thing as right and no such thing as wrong. Then what do I teach? I teach awareness — not labeling, not categorizing. I teach awareness. I teach you to be fully aware in every situation, and act out of your awareness. Or, in different words I can say: Any action that happens through awareness is right; any action that happens through unawareness is wrong.

But see the emphasis. The emphasis is not on the action itself, the emphasis is on the source — awareness or unawareness. If you act fully aware, then whatsoever you do is right. If you move mechanically and do things unconsciously as if you are a sleepwalker, a somnambulist, then whatsoever you do is wrong. Awareness is right, unawareness is wrong.

But if you go to the priests, they will teach you what is right and what is wrong. They will not give you insight, they will give you dead categories. They will not give you light, so that you can see in every situation what to do and what not to do; they want you to depend on them. They don’t give you insight into things, so you have to remain dependent forever. They give you crutches, but they don’t make you stand on your own feet.
Avoid the priests. Whenever you go to any kind of experts, their whole effort in fact is how to make you dependent on them.

The star of a Broadway hit was visiting friends when talk got around, as usual, to psychiatry. “I must say,” said the hostess, “I think my analyst is the best in the world! You can’t imagine what he has done for me. You ought to try him.”
“But I don’t need analysis,” said the star. “I could not be more normal — there is nothing wrong with me.”
“But he is absolutely great,” insisted her friend. “He will find something wrong.”

There are people who live on finding something wrong with you. Their whole trade secret is to find something wrong with you. They cannot accept you as you are; they will give you ideals, ideas, ideologies, and they will make you feel guilty and they will make you feel worthless, dirt. In your own eyes, they will make you feel so condemned that you will forget all about freedom.

In fact you will become afraid of freedom, because you will see how bad you are, how wrong you are — and if you are free, you are going to do something wrong, so follow somebody. The priest depends on it, the politician depends on it. They give you right and wrong, fixed ideas, and then you will remain guilty forever.

I say to you: There is nothing right and nothing wrong. I don’t want you to depend on me, and I don’t give you any fixed ideas. I simply give you indications, hints, which have to be worked out by you. And the hint that I give to you is awareness. Become more aware, and it is a miracle….

If you are angry, the priest will say anger is wrong, don’t be angry. What will you do? You can repress anger, you can sit upon it, you can swallow it, literally, but it will go into you, into your system. Swallow anger and you will have ulcers in the stomach, swallow anger and sooner or later you will have cancer. Swallow anger and you will have a thousand and one problems arising out of it, because anger is poison. But what will you do? If anger is wrong, you have to swallow it.

I don’t say anger is wrong, I say anger is energy — pure energy, beautiful energy. When anger arises, be aware of it, and see the miracle happen. When anger arises, be aware of it, and if you are aware you will be surprised; you are in for a surprise — maybe the greatest surprise of your life — that as you become aware, anger disappears. Anger is transformed.

Anger becomes pure energy; anger becomes compassion, anger becomes forgiveness, anger becomes love. And you need not repress, so you are not burdened by some poison. And you are not being angry, so you are not hurting anybody. Both are saved: the other, the object of your anger, is saved, and you are saved. In the past, either the object was to suffer, or you were to suffer.

What I am saying is that there is no need for anybody to suffer. Just be aware, let awareness be there. Anger will arise and will be consumed by awareness. One cannot be angry with awareness and one cannot be greedy with awareness and one cannot be jealous with awareness. Awareness is the golden key.

Source – Osho Book “The Book of Wisdom”

Question – Beloved Master, How can I be myself?
Osho – That should be the easiest thing in the world, but it is not. To be oneself one need not do anything; one already is. How can you be otherwise? How can you be anybody else? But I can understand the problem. The problem arises because the society corrupts everybody. The society up to now has been a great corruption. It corrupts the mind, the being. It enforces things on you and you lose contact with yourself. It tries to make something else out of you than that which you were meant to be. It puts you off your center. It drags you away from yourself. It teaches you to be like a Christ or to be like a Buddha or to be like this and that; it never says to you to be yourself. It never allows you freedom to be. It enforces foreign outside images on your mind.

Then the problem arises. You can pretend at the most, and when you pretend you are never satisfied. You always want to be yourself — that is natural — and the society does not allow it. It wants you to be somebody else. It wants you to be phoney. It does not want you to be real, because real people are dangerous people, real people are rebellious people. Real people cannot be controlled so easily, real people cannot be regimented. Real people will live their reality in their own way — they will do their thing; they won’t bother about other things. You cannot sacrifice them. In the name of religion, in the name of the state, nation, race, you cannot sacrifice them. It is impossible to seduce them for any sacrifice. Real people are always for their own happiness. Their happiness is ultimate: they are not ready to sacrifice it for anything else. That’s the problem.

So the society distracts every child: it teaches the child to be somebody else. And by and by the child learns the ways of pretension, hypocrisy. And one day — this is the irony — the same society starts talking to you in this way, starts saying to you: What has happened to you? Why are you not happy? Why do you look miserable? Why are you sad? And then come the priests. First they corrupt you, the distract you from the path of happiness — because there is only one happiness possible and that is to be yourself — then they come and say to you: Why are you unhappy? Why are you miserable? And then they teach you ways to be happy. First they make you ill and then they sell medicines. It is a great conspiracy.

I have heard…
A little old Jewish lady sits down on a plane next to a big Norwegian. She keeps staring and staring at him. Finally she turns to him and says, “Pardon me, are you Jewish?”
He replies, “No.”
A few minutes go by, and she looks at him again and asks, “You can tell me — you are Jewish, aren’t you?”
He answers, “Definitely not.”
She keeps studying him and says again, “I can tell you are Jewish.”
In order to get her to stop annoying him the gentleman replies, “Okay, I’m Jewish.”
She looks at him and shakes her head back and forth, and says, “You don’t look it.”

That’s how things are. You as me, “How can I be myself?” Just drop the pretensions, just drop this urge to be somebody else, just drop this desire to look like Christ, Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, to look like your neighbor. Drop competition and drop comparison and you will be yourself. Comparison is the poison. You are always thinking in terms of how the other is doing. He has got a big house and a big car and you are miserable. He has got a beautiful woman and you are miserable. And he is climbing up on the staircase of power and politics and you are miserable. Compare, and you will imitate. If you compare yourself with the rich people, you will start running in the same direction. If you compare yourself with the learned people, you will start accumulating knowledge. If you compare yourself with the so-called saints, you will start accumulating virtue — and you will be imitative. And to be imitative is to miss the whole opportunity to be oneself.

Drop comparison. You are unique. Nobody else is like you, nobody else has ever been like you, and nobody else is ever going to be like you. You are simply unique — and when I am saying you are unique, I am not saying you are better than others, remember. I am simply saying they are also unique. To be unique is an ordinary quality of every being. To be unique is not a comparison, to be unique is as natural as breathing. Everybody is breathing and everybody is unique. While you are alive, you are unique. Only corpses are all alike; alive persons are unique. They are never similar — they cannot be. Life never follows any repetitive course. God never repeats: he goes on singing a new song every day, he paints something new every day.

Respect your uniqueness, and drop comparison. Comparison is the culprit. Once you compare, you are on the track. Don’t compare with anybody — he is not you, you are not he. You are going to be yourself, he is going to be himself: let him be, and you relax into your being. Start enjoying whatsoever you are. Delight in the moments that are available to you. Comparison brings future, comparison brings ambition, and comparison brings violence. You start fighting, struggling, you become hostile.

Life is not something like a commodity. Happiness is not something like a commodity, that if others have it, you cannot — “how can you have it, if others have happiness?” — happiness is not a commodity at all. You can have as much as you want. It simply depends on you. Nobody is competitive about it, nobody is a competitor to you. Just as the garden is beautiful — you can look and appreciate, somebody else can look and appreciate. Because somebody else is appreciating the garden and saying it is beautiful, you are not hindered; he is not exploiting you. The garden is not less because he has appreciated it; because he is enthralled by its beauty the garden is not less. In fact, the garden is more so — because he has appreciated it he has added a new dimension to the garden.

People who are happy are in fact adding some quality to existence — just by being happy they are creating vibes of happiness. You can appreciate this world more and more if more and more people are happy. Don’t think in terms of competition. It is not that if they are happy how can you be happy? — you have to jump on them and snatch happiness away, you have to compete. Remember, if people are unhappy it will be very difficult for you to be happy. Happiness is available to everybody — whosoever opens his heart, happiness is always available. This happiness I call God.

It is not that somebody has achieved; it is not like a political post — one person has become the president of a country, now everybody cannot become the president, true. But one person has become enlightened: that does not hinder anybody else from becoming enlightened — in fact, it helps. Because Buddha became enlightened it has become easier for you to become enlightened. Because Christ became enlightened it has become easier for you to become enlightened. Somebody has walked on the path: footprints are there, he has left subtle hints for you; you can go more easily, in deeper confidence, with less hesitation. The whole earth can become enlightened, each single being can become enlightened. But everybody cannot become a president. This country has six hundred million people — only one person can become the president. Of course it is a competitive thing. But all six hundred million people can become enlightened — that’s not a problem.

All that is divine is noncompetitive — and your being is divine. So just sort it out. The society has muddled your head; it has taught you the competitive way of life. Religion is a noncompetitive way of life. Society is ambition, religion is nonambitious. And when you are nonambitious, only then can you be yourself. This is simple.

Source – from Osho Book “The Divine Melody”

Question – Beloved Osho, Why do I always Compromise?

Osho – One compromises because one is not certain about one’s truth, one is not certain about one’s own experience. The moment you have experienced something, it is impossible to compromise. There is no possibility at all. You compromise only because your idea is only a mind thing, a borrowed thought. You don’t know whether it is right or wrong, so even if half proves to be right, it is not a bad bargain.

There is an ancient story in Egypt. Two women came to the court of the king with a small child. They contended — both of them — that, “The child belongs to me, he is my child.” And each woman was persistent — “The child is mine.”
The king had to decide, and it was very difficult — how to decide? The husbands of both women had died in war, in the service of the king.
Finally he asked his master, an old wise man. The master came and he said, “It is very simple. Bring the child.”

The child was brought to the master, who asked the king to cut him in two, and give half to each woman. “What is the problem? They both say the child is theirs. There being no other evidence, no witness, justice demands that the child should be divided into two.”
The king was shocked. He said, “What are you saying?”
But before the king could say anything more, the master drew the king’s sword out of its sheath. And one woman ran forward and said, “No! Give the child to the other; he is not mine.”

The master gave the child to the woman who had run forward and said he was not hers. The king said, “What is happening? I don’t understand. The woman is saying the child is not hers.”
The master said, “Only the mother couldn’t stand to see the child cut in two. The other woman is withstanding it perfectly well, without any difficulty — if the child is cut in two, it is cut, there is no harm, it is not her child. She is ready to compromise, even if half a dead child is given to her. But the other woman is not ready to compromise — either the whole child or no child.”

When you have a truth, you are almost like a mother — you have given birth to an experience. Either you would like to have it total, or you would not like to have it at all. But you cannot be ready to cut it in two, because any living experience cut in two becomes dead. All compromises are dead.

Nobody in the whole history of man who has known anything about truth has ever compromised. Rather, he has been ready to die for it. It happened with al-Hillaj Mansoor. His master Junnaid loved him very much — he was a man worthy to be loved — and he tried to persuade him for years, “In your room you can shout Ana’l hag — `I am God’ — but don’t do that in the streets. You know that the people are fanatic, I also know the fact.”

But al-Hillaj said, “You only know the fact. I have experienced it. You have compromised with the society, you are a respected teacher. I don’t want any respectability, but I will not hide my truth. Truth is like fire, you cannot hide it. I have to shout it from the housetops.”

And in a Mohammedan country — where fanaticism is the rule, not the exception — he was immediately caught, and brought before the caliph because “This is against our religion; there is only one God, and he is in the heavens. You are just a mortal being. Even Mohammed has not said, `I am God.’ He simply says, `I am the messenger of God.’ And you are saying that you are God. Are you mad? Either stop it, or death is the only punishment for it.”

Al-Hillaj said, “Death is accepted, but I cannot compromise on this point. It is my experience, I am god. And I say you are also god — but your god is asleep and my god is awake.”

Junnaid again came into the jail to persuade him, “This is foolish. You are such a beautiful young man, with a great future. You can become a great teacher. I know that what you are saying is right, but can’t you compromise?”

Al-Hillaj said, “With all honor I want to say to you, you don’t know. That’s why you have compromised. You have heard — I have seen. You have read — I have been. Death does not matter, but compromise is simply out of the question.”

And the day he was crucified, thousands of people came to throw stones, to condemn him. Junnaid also came; he loved him, he was his student, and he knew that he had immense possibilities of growth. And he had understood perfectly well that he himself was only knowledgeable, and al-Hillaj had experienced.

But this is how compromise works. Everybody was throwing stones — not to throw a stone was to risk that people may think, “This man is in favor of al-Hillaj.” So he brought a roseflower so that when so many people in the crowd are throwing stones he could throw the roseflower; people will see that he has thrown something, but who knows that he has thrown the roseflower?

The mind of compromise… nobody should suspect that he has not thrown a stone. So he is compromising on two grounds: one with the people, that he has thrown a stone… and he is compromising with al-Hillaj also. Because al-Hillaj must be looking out for Junnaid, to see whether he has come or not, and it would be very cowardly not to go.
al-Hillaj was smiling when stones were showering on him, hurting him, and blood was flowing all over the body. But when the roseflower of Junnaid hit him, he started crying. Tears came to his eyes.

Somebody asked, “What happened? So many stones and you continued to smile, and somebody has thrown a roseflower and tears have come to your eyes.”
al-Hillaj said, “Yes, because the people who are throwing stones don’t know me. And the person who has thrown the roseflower knows me, knows my truth. But he is a coward, and I am ashamed that I have been a student of this man. Stones don’t matter. But this roseflower has hit me hard.”

Compromise simply means you are on uncertain ground. Rather than compromising, find grounding, roots, individuality. Find a sincerity of feeling, the support of your heart. Then whatever the consequence, it does not matter. The man who knows, knows perfectly well that no harm is possible. You can kill him, but you cannot harm him.

And the man who does not know is always trembling, always worried. In that worrying and trembling, that anguish, he goes on compromising with everybody — just to be safe, not to be harmed. But what are you trying to save? You don’t have anything to save. Those who have something to save don’t compromise.

A man like Socrates is given an opportunity by the judges, that if he leaves Athens… he can live outside of Athens and in this way he can avoid the death penalty. Anybody would suggest that “This is a simple compromise, you can just live outside the boundary lines of Athens” — because in those days in Greece there were only city-states; every city was a state. Just outside the boundary you were outside the state. He could have lived almost in the suburbs.

But men like Socrates are impossible. He said, “I would rather die than escape. And anyway, I am old. How long I am going to live? And if the most cultured city of these days cannot tolerate me, who is going to tolerate me? It is better to die in Athens than anywhere else — at least I have the consolation that I am being killed by the most cultured people.”

The judges were really trying hard somehow to save him, because he had not committed any crime. It was just that the mob wanted him to be killed — he was corrupting the youth. Now, anybody who brings new thoughts to the world can be blamed because he is corrupting the youth — because he is bound to be against the old ideas, he is bound to fight against the old. You can call it corruption: “He is corrupting our tradition, our religion, our culture.”

The judges said, “We have another suggestion: you can live in Athens, but stop talking about truth.”

Socrates says, “You are asking me to do the impossible. I will speak about truth and truth alone until my last breath. Do you want me to start speaking lies? Do you want me not to speak at all? — that too is a lie, because I know the truth and I am not speaking it, and the lie is spreading in people’s minds. No, I will be here, and I will speak the truth. It is up to you — you can kill me. But no compromise on any ground.”

Try to find your individuality, your integrity, and make the effort of not compromising. Because the more you compromise, the less you are an individual. You are only a cog in the wheel, just a part in the vast mechanism, just a small part of the mob — not an individual in your own beauty, in your own right. I am absolutely against compromise. Death is far more beautiful than a life of compromise.

Source – from Osho Book “Beyond Enlightenment”

Queston – Please explain the nature of the experiences we call Boredom and Restlessness.

Osho – Boredom and restlessness are deeply related. Whenever you feel boredom, then you feel restlessness. Restlessness is a by-product of boredom.

Try to understand the mechanism. Whenever you feel bored you want to move away from that situation. If somebody is saying something and you are getting bored, you start becoming fidgety. This is a subtle indication that you want to move from this place, from this man, from this nonsense-talk. Your body starts moving. Of course, because of politeness you suppress it, but the body is already on the move — because the body is more authentic than the mind, the body is more honest and sincere than the mind. The mind is trying to be polite, smiling. You say, ‘How beautiful,’ but inside you are saying, ‘How horrible! I have listened to this story so many times and he is telling it again!’

I have heard about Albert Einstein’s wife, Frau Einstein. A friend of Albert Einstein used to come many times and Einstein would tell some anecdotes, some jokes, and they would laugh. But the friend became curious about one thing: whenever he came, and whenever Einstein started telling jokes….

Einstein was a Jew, and Jews have the best jokes in the world. Because they have suffered so long they have lived by jokes. Their life has been so miserable that they had to tickle themselves — hence they have the most beautiful jokes. No other country. no other race, can compete with them. In India we don’t have good jokes at all because the country has lived very peacefully — no need to tickle. Humor is needed when one is in constant danger; one needs to laugh at anything. Any excuse will do to laugh.

….Einstein would tell some joke, some anecdote, some story and they both would laugh. But the friend became curious because whenever Einstein would start saying something, the wife would immediately start knitting or doing something.
So he asked, ‘The moment Einstein starts telling some joke, why do you start knitting?’
The wife said, ‘If I don’t do anything, it will be tremendously difficult for me to tolerate because I have heard that joke a thousand and one times. You come sometimes — I am always here. Whenever anybody comes he tells the same joke. If I didn’t do something with my hands, I would become so fidgety that it will be almost impolite. So I have to do something so that I can move my restlessness into work and I can hide behind the work.’

Whenever you feel bored you will feel restless. Restlessness is an indication of the body; the body is saying, ‘Move away from here. Go anywhere, but don’t be here.’ But the mind goes on smiling and the eyes go on sparkling, and you go on saying that you are listening and you have never heard such a beautiful thing. The mind is civilized; the body is still wild. The mind is human; the body is still animal. The mind is false; the body is true. The mind knows the rules and regulations — how to behave and how to behave rightly — so even if you meet a bore you say, ‘I am so happy, so glad to see you!’ And deep down, if you were allowed, you would kill this man. He tempts you to murder. Then you become fidgety, then you feel restlessness.

If you listen to the body and run away, the restlessness will disappear. Try it. Try it. If somebody is boring you simply start jumping and running around. See. Restlessness will disappear because restlessness simply shows that the energy does not want to be here. The energy is already on the move; the energy has already left this place. Now you follow energy.

So the real thing is to understand boredom not restlessness. Boredom is a very, very significant phenomenon. Only man feels bored, no other animal. You cannot make a buffalo bored. Impossible. Only man gets bored because only man is conscious. Consciousness is the cause. The more sensitive you are, the more alert you are, the more conscious you are, the more you will feel bored. In more situations you will feel bored. A mediocre mind does not feel so bored. He goes on; he accepts; whatsoever is, is okay; he is not so alert. The more alert you become, the more fresh, the more you will feel as if some situation is just a repetition, as if some situation is just getting hard on you, as if some situation is just stale. The more sensitive you are, the more bored you will become.

Boredom is an indication of sensitivity. Trees are not bored, animals are not bored, rocks are not bored — because they are not sensitive enough. This has to be one of the basic understandings about your boredom — that you are sensitive. But Buddhas also are not bored. You cannot bore a Buddha. Animals are not bored and Buddhas are not bored, so boredom exists as a middle phenomenon between the animal and the Buddha. For boredom a little more sensitivity is needed than is given to the animal. And if you want to get beyond it then you have to become totally sensitive.

Then again the boredom disappears. But in the middle the boredom is there. If you become animal-like, then boredom disappears. So you will find that people who live a very animalistic life are less bored. Eating, drinking, marrying — they are not very bored, but they are not sensitive. They live at the minimum. They live only with that much consciousness as is needed for a day-to-day routine life. You will find that intellectuals, people who think too much, are more bored, because they think. And because of their thinking they can see that something is just repetition.

Your life is repetition. Every morning you get up almost the same way as you have been getting up all your life. You take your breakfast almost the same way. Then you go to the office — the same office, the same people, the same work. Then you come home — the same wife. If you get bored it is natural. It is very difficult for you to see any newness here; everything seems to be old, dust-covered.

I have heard an anecdote.
Mary Jane, the very good friend of a wealthy broker, opened the door cheerfully one day, and then quickly attempted to close it when she discovered the person on the threshold to be her lover’s wife.
The wife leaned against the door and said, ‘Oh, let me in, dear. I don’t intend to make a scene, just to have a small friendly discussion.’
With considerable nervousness Mary Jane let her enter, then said cautiously, ‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing much’ said the wife, looking about. ‘I just want the answer to one question. Tell me dear, just between us, what do you see in that dumb jerk?’

The same husband every day becomes a dumb jerk; the same wife every day…you almost forget how she looks. If you are told to close your eyes and to remember your wife’s face, you will find it impossible to remember. Many other women will come in your mind, the whole neighborhood, but not your wife. The whole relationship has become a continuous repetition. You make love, you hug your wife, you kiss your wife, but these are all empty gestures now. The glory and the glamour has disappeared long before. A marriage is almost finished by the time the honeymoon is over, then you go on pretending.

But behind those pretensions a deep boredom accumulates. Watch people walking on the street and you will see them completely bored. Everybody is bored, bored to death. Look at their faces — no aura of delight. Look at their eyes — dust-covered, no glimmer of inner happiness. They move from the office to the home, from the home to the office, and by and by the whole life becomes a mechanical routine, a constant repetition. And one day they die… almost always people die without ever having been alive.

Bertrand Russell is reported to have said, ‘When I remember, I cannot find more than a few moments in my life when I was really alive, aflame.’ Can you remember? How many moments in your life were you really aflame? Rarely it happens. One dreams about those moments, one imagines those moments. one hopes for those moments — but they never happen. Even if they happen, sooner or later they also become repetitive. When you fall in love with a woman or a man you feel a miracle, but by and by the miracle disappears and everything settles into a routine.

Boredom is the consciousness of repetition. Because animals cannot remember the past, they cannot feel bored. They cannot remember the past, so they cannot feel bored. They cannot remember the past, so they cannot feel the repetition. The buffalo goes on eating the same grass every day with the same delight. You cannot. How can you eat the same grass with the same delight? You get fed up.
Hence people try to change. They move into a new house, they bring a new car home, they divorce the old husband, they find a new love affair, but again that thing is going to become repetitive sooner or later. Changing places, changing persons,, changing partners, changing houses, is not going to do anything. And whenever a society becomes very bored, people start moving from one town to another. from one job to another, from one wife to another, but sooner or later they realize that this is all nonsense because the same thing is going to happen again and again with every woman, with every man, with every house, with every car.

What to do then? Become more conscious. It is not a question of changing situations; transform your being, become more conscious. If you become more conscious you will be able to see that each moment is new; but for that, very much energy, tremendous energy of consciousness is needed.

The wife is not the same — remember. You are in an illusion. Go back home and look again at your wife — she is not the same. Nobody can be the same. Just appearances deceive. These trees are not the same as they were yesterday. How can they be? They have grown. Many leaves have fallen, new leaves have come. Look at the almond tree. How many new leaves have come! Every day the old are falling and the new are coming. But you are not that much conscious.
Either have no consciousness — then you cannot feel repetition — or have so much consciousness that in each repetition you can see something new. These are the two ways to get out of boredom.

Changing outside things is not going to help. It is just like arranging the furniture in your room again and again. Whatsoever you do — you can put it this way or that way — is the same furniture. There are many housewives who continuously think about how to manage things, how to put things, where to put them, where not to put — and they go on changing. But it is the same room, it is the same furniture. How long will you deceive in this way?

A brief television skit I once saw was of a caveman and a cavewomen who were kissing wildly and hysterically. They broke apart only to say, ‘Gee, this is great!’ then they turned to kissing again.
Finally the cavewoman pulled away to say, ‘Listen. Do you suppose this wonderful thing we have discovered means that we are married?’
The caveman bent his small mind to the matter and finally said, ‘Yes, I guess we are married. Now let us kiss some more.’
Whereupon the cavewoman put her hand to her head and said in sudden anguish, ‘Oh, I have such a headache!’

Two persons meet, strangers — everything is wonderful, beautiful. But sooner or later they become acquainted with each other. That’s what marriage means. It means that now they are settling, now they would like to make it a repetition. Then the same kissing and the same hugging is no longer beautiful; it becomes almost a duty.
A man came home and found his friend kissing his wife. He took the friend into another room. The friend was trembling with fear. Now there is going to be something! The friendship will be broken.
The husband seemed to be very angry, but he was not. He closed the door and asked the friend, ‘Just tell me one thing. I HAVE to — but why were you kissing?’
‘I HAVE to, but why were you kissing?’

By and by everything settles, newness disappears, and you don’t have that much consciousness or that quality of consciousness which can go on finding the new again and again. For a dull mind, everything is old; for a totally alive mind there is nothing old under the sun. Cannot be. Everything is in flux. Every person is in flux, is river-like. Persons are not dead things. How can they be the same? Are you the same? Between when you came this morning to listen to me and when you went back home, a lot has happened. Some thoughts have disappeared from your mind, other thoughts have entered. You may have attained to a new insight. You cannot go the same as you had come. The river is continuously flowing; it looks the same but it is not the same. The old Heraclitus has said that you cannot step twice into the same river because the river is never the same.

One thing is that you are also not the same, and another thing is that everything is changing…. but then one has to live at the peak of consciousness. Either live like a Buddha or live like a buffalo, then you will not be bored. Now the choice is yours. I have never seen anybody the same. You come to me — how many times you have come to me — but I never see the old. I’m always surprised by the newness that you bring every day. You may not be aware of it. Remain capable of being surprised.

Let me tell you one anecdote.
A man entered a bar, deep in private thoughts of his own. He turned to a woman just passing and said, ‘Pardon me, Miss, do you happen to have the time?’
In a strident voice she responded, ‘How dare you make such a proposition to me!’
The man snapped to attention in surprise and was uncomfortably aware that every pair of eyes in the place had turned in their direction. He mumbled, ‘I just asked the time, Miss.’
In a voice even louder the woman shrieked. ‘I will call the police if you say another word!’
Grabbing his drink and embarrassed very nearly to death, the man hastened to the far end of the room and huddled at a table, holding his breath and wondering how soon he could sneak out the door.
No more than half a minute had passed when the woman joined him. In a quiet voice she said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, sir, to have embarrassed you, but I am a psychology student at the University and I am writing a thesis on the reaction of human beings to sudden, shocking statements.’
The man stared at her for three seconds, then he leaned back and bellowed, ‘You will do all that for me, all night, for just two dollars?’
And it is said that the woman fell down unconscious.

Maybe we don’t allow our consciousness to rise higher because then life would be a constant surprise and you might not be able to manage it. That’s why you have settled for a dull mind, there is some investment in it. You are not dull for no reason, you are dull for a certain purpose — if you were really alive then everything would be surprising and shocking. If you remain dull then nothing surprises you, nothing is shocking. The more dull you are, the more life seems to be dull to you. If you become more aware, life will also become more alive, livelier, and there is going to be difficulty.

You always live with dead expectations. Every day you come home and you expect certain behavior from your wife. Now look how you create your own misery: you expect a certain fixed behavior from your wife and then you expect your wife to be new. You are asking the impossible. If you really want your wife to remain continuously new to you, don’t expect. Come home always ready to be surprised and shocked, then the wife will be new. But she has to fulfill certain expectations. We never allow our total flux-like freshness to be known to the other. We go on hiding, we don’t expose, because the other may not be able to understand it at all. And the wife also expects the husband to behave in a certain way, and, of course, they manage the roles. We are not living life, we are living roles. The husband comes home; he forces himself into a certain role. By the time he enters the house, he is no more an alive person — he is just a husband.

A husband means a certain type of expected behavior. The woman there is a wife, and the man there is a husband. Now when these two persons meet there are really four persons: the husband and wife, which are not real persons — just personas, masks, false patterns expected behavior, duties, and all that — and the real persons hiding behind the masks. Those real persons feel bored.

But you have invested much in your persona, in your mask. If you really want a life which has no boredom in it, drop all masks, be true. Sometimes it will be difficult, I know, but it is worth it. Be true. If you feel like loving your wife, love her, otherwise say you don’t feel like it. What is happening right now is that the husband goes on making love to the wife, and goes on thinking of some actress. In imagination he is not making love to this woman, in imagination he is making love to some other woman. And the same is true about the wife. Then things become boring because they are no more alive. The intensity, the sharpness, is lost.

It happened on a railway platform. Mr. Johnson had weighed himself on one of those old-fashioned penny machines that delivered a card with a fortune printed on it.
The formidable Mrs. Johnson plucked it from her husband’s fingers and said, ‘Let me see that. Oh, it says you are firm and resolute, have a decisive personality, are a leader of men, and are attractive to women.’
Then she turned over the card, studied it for a moment and said, ‘And they have got the weight wrong as well’

No woman can believe that her husband is attracted to other women. There is the whole point, the whole crux. If he is not attracted to other women, how can she expect that he will be attracted to herself? If he is attracted to other women only then can he be attracted to her, because she is also a woman. The wife wants him to be attracted to her and not attracted to anybody else. Now this is asking something absurd. It is as if you are saying, ‘You are allowed to breathe only in my presence and when you go near somebody else, you are not allowed to breathe. How dare you breathe anywhere else?’
Just breathe when the wife is there, just breathe when the husband is there, and don’t breathe anywhere else. Of course, if you do that you will be dead and you will not be able to breathe in front of your wife also.

Love has to be a way of life. You are to be loving. Only then can you love your wife and your husband. But the wife says, ‘No, you should not look at anybody else with a loving eye.’ Of course you manage because if you don’t it creates such nuisance…. But by and by the glimmer in your eyes disappears. If you cannot look anywhere else with love, by and by you cannot look at your own wife with love — it disappears. The same has happened to her. The same has happened to the whole of humanity. Then life is a boredom; then everybody is waiting for death; then there are people continuously thinking of committing suicide.

Marcel has said somewhere that the only metaphysical problem facing humanity is suicide. And it is so, because people are so bored. It is simply amazing why they don’t commit suicide; how they go on living. Life doesn’t seem to give anything, all meaning seems to be lost, but still people go on dragging somehow, hoping that some day some miracle will happen and everything will be put right. It never happens. You have to put it right; nobody else is going to put it right. No Messiah is to come. Don’t wait for any Messiah. You have to be a light unto yourself.

Live more authentically. Drop the masks; they are a weight on your heart. Drop all falsities. Be exposed. Of course it is going to be troublesome but that trouble is worth it because only after that trouble will you grow and become mature. And then nothing is holding life. Each moment life reveals its newness. It is a constant miracle happening all around you only you are hiding behind dead habits.

Become a Buddha if you don’t want to be bored. Live each moment as fully alert as possible, because only in full alertness will you be able to drop the mask. You have completely forgotten what your original face is. Even when you stand before the mirror in your bathroom and you are alone, nobody is there, even standing before the mirror you don’t see your original face in the mirror. There too you go on deceiving.
Existence is available for those who are available to existence. And then I tell you, there is no boredom. Life is infinite delight.

Source – from Osho Book “Ancient music in the pines”

Osho – Wherever you are, if you can accept it, immediately then and there you have become the watcher on the hills. Even in hell, if you accept it, the hell disappears, because the hell can remain only through your rejection. The hell disappears and heaven appears. Whatsoever you accept becomes heavenly, and whatsoever you reject becomes the hell.

It is said that a saint cannot be thrown into hell because he knows the alchemy to transform it. You have heard that sinners go to hell and saints to heaven – but you have heard the wrong thing. The case is just the other way around: wherever sinners go, they create hell and wherever saints go, there is heaven. Saints are not sent to heaven. There is nobody to send and manage all this – there is nobody. But wherever they go, this is the way they are: they create their heaven.

They carry their heaven with them, within them. And sinners? – you can send them to heaven; they will create hell. They cannot do otherwise. So what is the definition of a saint or a sinner? My definition is: a saint is one who has come to know the alchemical secret of transforming everything into heaven. And a sinner is one who does not know the secret of transforming things into beautiful existences. Rather, on the contrary, he goes on making things ugly. Whatsoever you are will be reflected around you.

So don’t try to be anything else. And don’t try to be some other place. That is the disease called man: always to become somebody, to be some other place, always rejecting that which is, and always hankering for that which is not. This is the disease called man. Be alert! Do you see it?! It is a simple fact to be seen. I am not theorizing about it; I am not a theoretician. I am simply indicating a bare, naked fact – that if you can live in this moment wherever you are and forget about the future, goals, the idea of becoming something else, immediately, the whole world around you is transformed; you have become a transforming force.

Acceptance a deep, total acceptance is what religion is all about. A wants to become B; B wants to become C. Then the fever of becoming is created. You are not a becoming; you are a being. You are already that which you can be, which you ever can be – you are already that. Nothing more can be done about you; you are a finished product.

This is the meaning I give to the story that God created the world: when the perfect creates, the creation is perfect. When God creates, how can you improve upon it? Just think of the whole absurdity; the whole idea is absurd. You are trying to improve upon God; you cannot improve. You can be miserable, that’s all. And you can suffer unnecessarily. And you will suffer diseases which are just in your imagination and nowhere else. God creating means: out of perfection comes perfection.

You are perfect! Nothing else is needed. Look right now, this very moment, within yourself. Have a direct insight. What is needed? Everything is simply perfect and beautiful. Not even a cloud I can see. Just look within yourself – not even a cloud in your inner space. Everything is full of light. But the mind will say, sooner or later, to be something else, to be somewhere else, to become. The mind doesn’t allow you to be. The mind is becoming, and your soul is being. That’s why Buddhas go on saying: ’Unless you drop all desiring you will not attain!’

Desiring means becoming. Desiring means to be something else. Desiring means not to accept the case as you are, not to be in a total ’yes’ mood – no matter what the situation. To say ’yes’ to life is to be religious; to say ’no’ to life is to be irreligious. And whenever you desire something you are saying ’no’. You are saying that something better is possible. The trees are happy and the birds are happy and the clouds are happy – because they have no becoming. They are simply whatsoever they are.

The rosebush is not trying to become a lotus, no. The rosebush is absolutely happy to be a rosebush. You cannot persuade the rosebush. Howsoever you advertise the lotus, you will not be able to corrupt the mind of the rosebush to become a lotus. The rosebush will simply laugh – because a rosebush is a rosebush is a rosebush. It is simply settled and centered in its being. That’s why the whole nature is without any fever: calm and quiet and tranquil. And settled!

Only human mind is in a chaos, because everybody is hankering to be somebody else. This is what you have been doing for a thousand and one lives. And if you don’t awaken now, when are you thinking to awaken? You are already ripe for awakening. Just start from this very moment to live and enjoy and delight. Drop desiring! Whatsoever you are, enjoy it. Delight in your being.

And then suddenly time disappears, because time exists only with desiring. Future exists because you desire. Then you will be like birds; listen to them. Then you will be like trees; look – the freshness, the greenery, the flowers. Please be where you are. I am not to create a new desire in you; I am simply here to make you aware of the whole absurdity of desiring. Desiring is SANSAR.

Understanding the futility of desire is to become enlightened. One who has found out that he is already that which he always wanted to be is a Buddha. And you are all Buddhas, howsoever fast asleep and snoring. That makes no difference. Let me be your alarm. Open your eyes. You have slept long enough. It is time to awaken. The morning is knocking at the door.

Source: from Osho Book “The True Sage”