Osho – All that is great, all that is beautiful, all that is true and real, is always spontaneous. You cannot plan it. The moment you plan it, everything goes wrong. The moment planning enters, everything becomes unreal.

But this has happened to humanity. Your love, your sincerity, your truth, everything, has gone wrong because you have planned it, be-cause you have been taught not to be spontaneous. You have been taught to manipulate yourself, to control, to manage, and not to be a natural flow. You have become rigid, frozen, dead.

Life knows no planning. It is itself enough. Do the trees plan how to grow, how to mature, how to come to flower? They simply grow without even being conscious of the growth. There is no self-consciousness, there is no separation.

Whenever you start planning you have divided yourself, you have become two; the one who is controlling and the one who is controlled. A conflict has arisen, now you will never be at peace. You may succeed in controlling but there will be no peace; you may not succeed in controlling, then too there will be no peace. Whether you succeed or fail, ultimately you will come to realize that you have failed. Your failure will be a failure, your success will also be a failure. Whatsoever you do, your life will be miserable.

This division creates ugliness, you are not one, and beauty belongs to oneness, beauty belongs to a harmonious whole. All culture, all civilization, all societies, make you ugly. All morality makes you ugly because it is based on division, on control.

I have heard that once Baal Shem was traveling in a beautiful coach with three horses. But he was wondering continuously, because for three days he had been traveling and not even once had any of the horses neighed. What had happened to the horses? Then suddenly on the fourth day, a passing peasant shouted at him to relax control of the reins. He relaxed control and suddenly all the three horses started neighing, they came alive. For three days continuously they were dead, dying.

This has happened to you all, to the whole of humanity. You cannot neigh, and unless a horse neighs, the horse is dead, because neighing means he is enjoying, there is an overflowing. But you cannot neigh, you are dead. Your life has not in any way an overflowing song, a dance that happens when the energy is too much.

Flowering is always a luxury, it is not a necessity. No tree needs flowers as a necessity, roots are enough. Flowering is always luxurious. Flowers come only when the tree has too much, it needs to give, it needs to share.

Whenever you have too much, life becomes a dance, a celebration. But society doesn’t allow you to dance, to celebrate, so society has to see that you never have more energy than necessary. You are only allowed to live at starvation level. You are not allowed to be too much, because once you are too much you cannot be controlled, and society wants to control you. It is a domination, very subtle. Every child is born overflowing. Then we have to cut the energy source, we have to prune the child from here and there so that he becomes controllable. And the basis of all control is to divide the child in two. Then you need not bother, he himself will do the controlling. Then you need not bother, he himself will be the enemy of his own self.

So they tell the child: This is wrong. Don’t do this. Suddenly the child is divided, now he knows what is wrong, now he knows what part of his being is wrong, and his head becomes the controller. Through division intellect has become the controller, the master. If you are undivided, you will not have any head. Not that the head will disappear or the head will fall off, but you will not be headoriented – your total being will be you.

Right now you are only the head, the rest of the body is just to sustain the head. The head has become the exploiter, the dictator. And this has come through conflict, the creation of conflict in you. You have been taught that this is good and that is bad. The intellect learns it and then the intellect keeps on condemning you.

Remember, if you condemn yourself you will condemn everybody – you will condemn the whole. And a person who condemns himself cannot love. A person who condemns himself cannot pray. A person who condemns himself, for him there is no God, there cannot be. A condemning mind can never enter the divine temple. Only when you dance, only when you are ecstatic, not condemning, only when you are overflowing with nobody sitting in control, nobody managing, does life become a let-go; it is not formal, it is natural. Then you enter, then everywhere is the door. Then you can reach the temple from anywhere.

But right now, as you are, you are schizophrenic. You are not only schizophrenic when a psychoanalyst says that you are. There is no need for any psychoanalyst to analyze you. Society creates schizophrenics; division is schizophrenia. You are not one. You are born one but immediately society starts working on you, major surgery is to be done, you are continuously operated upon to be divided. Then society is at ease because you are fighting with yourself, your energy is dissipated in the inner fight, it is never an overflowing. Then you are not dangerous. Overflowing energy becomes rebellion. Overflowing energy is always rebellious, overflowing energy is always in revolution. It is just like a river in flood – it doesn’t believe in the banks, in the rules, in

the laws, it simply goes on overflowing towards the sea. It knows only one goal – how to become the sea, how to become the infinite. Overflowing energy is always moving towards God. God is missing in our world, not because of science, not because of atheists, but because of the so-called religious. They have divided you so much that the river keeps fighting with itself. Nothing is left to move, no energy is left; you are so tired fighting with yourself, how can you move towards the sea?

One of the basic laws of Tao, of Lao Tzu, of Chuang Tzu, is that if you are spontaneous it is the highest prayer; you cannot miss God, whatsoever you do you will reach him. So Chuang Tzu never talks about God; talk is irrelevant, it isn’t needed. He talks only of how to bring out the wholeness in you. The holy is irrelevant. When you become whole, you become holy. When your fragments dissolve into one, your life has become a prayer. They never talk about prayer, it is not needed.

Spontaneity, living as a whole…. If you want to live as a whole, you cannot plan. Who will plan? You cannot decide for tomorrow, you can live only here and now. Who will decide? If you decide, division has entered, then you will have to manipulate. Who will plan? The future is unknown, and how can you plan for the unknown? If you plan for the unknown the planning will come from the past. That means that the dead will control the living. The past is dead, and the past goes on controlling the future, hence you are so bored. It is natural, it has to happen. Boredom comes from the past, because the past is dead and the past is trying to control the future.

The future is always an adventure, but you don’t allow it to be an adventure. You plan it. Once planned, your life is running on a track. It is not a river. When you run on a track you know where you are going, what is happening. Everything is just a repetition. Who will plan? If mind plans, mind is always of the past. Life cannot be planned, because through planning you are committing suicide.

Life can only be unplanned, moving moment to moment into the unknown. But what is your fear? You will be there to respond; whatsoever the situation you will be there to respond. What is your fear? Why plan it? The fear comes because you are not certain of whether you will be there or not. You are so unconscious, that is the uncertainty. You are not alert.

You are going to have an interview for a job, so you keep planning in your mind what to answer, how to answer, how to enter the office, how to stand, how to sit. But why? You will be there, you can respond. But you are not certain about yourself, you are so unalert, you are so unconscious, you don’t know – if you don’t plan, something may go wrong. If you are alert, then there is no problem. You will be there, so whatever the situation demands, you will respond.

And remember, this planning is not going to help, because if you cannot be conscious, cannot be aware in a situation when you are planning, then that planning is also being done in sleep. But you can repeat it so many times it becomes mechanical, then when the question is asked you can answer. The answer is readymade, you are not needed. It is a fixed pattern, you simply repeat it; you become a mechanical device, you need not be there at all. The answer can be given, it comes from the memory; if you have repeated it many times you know you can rely on it.

Through planning life becomes more and more unconscious, and the more unconscious you are, the more you need planning. Before really dying, you are dead. Alive means responding, sensitive. Alive means: whatsoever comes, I will be there to respond, and the response will come from me, not from the memory. I will not prepare it.

See the difference when a Christian missionary or a Christian minister, a priest, prepares his sermon. I once visited a theological college. There they prepare their ministers, their priests – five years’ training. So I asked them where Jesus was prepared and trained, who taught him how to speak.

Of course these Christian priests are dead, everything about them is planned. When you say this, a certain gesture is to be made; even the gesture is not allowed to be spontaneous. When you say that, you have to have a certain look; even the eyes are not allowed to be spontaneous. How you have to stand, when you have to shout, and when you have to whisper, when you have to hammer the table and when not – everything is planned.

I asked them where Jesus was trained. He was not a minister at all, he was not a priest. He never went to any theological college, he was the son of a carpenter.

For two thousand years Christian priests have been trained but they have not produced a single Jesus, and they will never produce one again because Jesus cannot be produced. You cannot produce Jesus in a factory. And these are factories, these theological colleges. There you produce priests, and if these priests are just boring, dead, a burden, it is obvious that it is going to be so.

There are two types of religion. One is of the mind – it is dead. That religion is known as theology. Then there is the other type of religion, the real, the spontaneous. It is not theological, it is mystical. And remember, Hindus have one theology, Mohammedans another, Christ-ians again another, but religion, the mystic religion, is the same; it cannot be different.

Buddha and Jesus and Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu, they are the same because they are not theologians. They are not talking from the head, they are simply pouring from their heart. They are not logicians, they are poets. They are not saying something from the scriptures, they are not trained for it, they are simply responding to a necessity in you. Their words are not readymade, their manners not fixed, their behavior not planned.

Source – Osho Book “The Empty Boat”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source – Osho Book “Dang Dang Doko Dang”

[A sannyasin asks for guidance on how to be choiceless where important decisions are needed.]

Osho – There is some subtle problem, and it comes to everybody who wants to remain choiceless. But there is a misunderstanding, that’s why the problem. Choicelessness does not mean that you will not have to choose. In life, in practical things, you will have to choose, you will have to decide. If you want to go somewhere you will have to decide whether to go by car or by plane or by train. And if you start calculating all the pros and cons, then by the time you decide you could have reached just by walking! It is sheer wastage. And you will have to decide – you cannot just leave it and you cannot remain choiceless. The practical thing will have to be decided.

About practical things when you are making decisions the only thing to be remembered is that they are trivia. Whether you go by train or by car or by plane does not matter really. So whatever you decide is okay; it doesn’t matter. There is no need to ponder over it so much; anything will do. But even when you choose there is no need to become too much attached to your choice – that’s what choicelessness is. There is no need to become too much attached to the choice. If somebody else is going by car and you are going by train, you need not declare that you are right and he is wrong. That means you have become attached to the choice. You are thinking it is very very important or something; you are making too serious an affair of it.

And if you choose to go by car and later on you find that it would have been better to have gone by train, then too there is no need to feel repentance and guilt about why you didn’t do that. By being choiceless it means that one has to choose, but one has to remain unattached… in practical things. About things which are not practical you can remain choiceless. About things which are beyond you you can remain choiceless; your choice is not needed.

For example, death. You have nothing to choose. It is going to happen some day, so it is okay. Love – you have nothing to do about it. If it happens, it happens; if it disappears, it disappears. It is not a practical thing. It is something mysterious and has nothing to do with you.

So remain available to the mysterious and go on deciding about the practical and the mundane, but don’t get attached. For example, now you want to be here or you want to go. There is no need to be much worried about it. If you feel like being here – which feels more important – then be here. Nothing is lost, what can you lose? Maybe financially you will be a loser but spiritually if there is some gain you can stay. If you feel that there is no spiritual gain and you will be financially a loser, then why stay ? Go!

Things should be looked at like lightning, not in details, brooding about it and thinking about it and worrying about it. Just like lightning. If you feel that something important is happening here, which is more valuable than the financial loss – finished! Forget about it! Or if you think this can happen next time, there is no hurry and you are not in any impatience for your spiritual growth, there is no problem; you can simply go.

But whatsoever you do, remain unattached. If you stay here then don’t think that you have done something great; otherwise there will be attachment. If you go there, don’t start worrying that you have done something wrong; otherwise you become attached. And once you decide about practical things, do them and forget about them; no need to waste time.

People waste too much time before they do and they waste too much time after they have done. And almost ninety percent of energy is wasted in brooding, and that is the major part of life. Only ten percent of life is used in doing, and only doing can satisfy. That ninety percent is simply gone in the desert, down the drain.

So do whatsoever you feel like doing but don’t get attached to it. That is choicelessness in the ordinary, practical world. And there is a possibility also one day that by remaining choiceless about really essential things, you may decide to become choiceless about practical things also. That is the old concept of sannyas. People have lived that way also. They don’t decide at all.

A certain kind of sannyasin exists in India called ’paramahansa’. He does not decide about even practical things. He decides not. He simply floats! There was a paramahansa in a town in which I lived for many days. A really great man but very difficult even to recognise, and he was really choiceless. If you held his hand and you took him to your home, he would go! He would not say, ’I was going somewhere else. Where are you dragging me?’ No, he would not say a single word; he would go with you. Many times he was stolen, because disciples and conflicts…

So one disciple would just abduct him, and for months he would not be found. He would not say no to anybody! People would give him money so he would take it. He would not say no. Then somebody would come and snatch the money and he would not say no. Somebody would give and somebody would take away and he would be sitting there. Somebody would take hold of him and put him in the rickshaw and he would go to another town! And he lived that way for twenty years… and perfectly happy!

You can visualise his happiness. There was nothing to decide! Some day somebody brings food, it’s okay. Some day he has to fast, so he has to fast; there is no choice on his part. That too is a possibility, but I don’t suggest that right now.

Right now take decisions for your practical things and remain choiceless, detached. One day if you start growing, growing, one day it can happen. Then you can become absolutely choiceless; there is no problem in it. Many people have lived that way and have enjoyed great bliss. But I’m not saying that you have to go towards that. If it happens, it happens; the possibility is there.

But these people cannot be creative; that is the flaw. That’s why in india there have existed many saints and sages, uncreative – blissful of course, but of no use. They don’t bring any beauty to the world. Now this man lives in perfect peace but he brings nothing to the world; he shares nothing with the world. He will live and he will die as if he has never been born; he will not leave a trace. A few people can move that way, but my suggestion is that a person should be creative. And the joy of a creative person is far greater than the joy of a negative person who has simply dropped out.

This is the real drop-out. In India these people have been worshipped – not wrongly: the worship is perfectly valid – but still, suggestion for a real sannyasin is that he should remain creative. So about practical things go on deciding, and for essential things remain available, allow them to happen. For the worldly be a doer and for the other-worldly be in a let-go. And that is the highest synthesis.

Both things taken separately are easy. If you decide for the ordinary world, you would like to decide for the other world too; you would like to decide for everything, mm? That is the western attitude. Then it creates tension, anxiety, anguish, neurosis. The other alternative is: don’t decide for this world and don’t decide for that; remain choiceless for both. That is eastern. That too is simple but the person becomes uncreative. The person will never be neurotic but he will be uncreative. He will never be tense but he will not be a benediction to the world.

My effort here is to create a new kind of sannyasin who is a synthesis between east and west, who is as creative as van gogh or picasso but not neurotic at all, and who is as silent as ramakrishna or raman but not uncreative. This is my vision.

So certainly there will be problems because it is a dichotomy and you will feel many times: ’What to do? If I have to remain choiceless then what do do about this small thing?’ No, about small things you can decide, but don’t think that any decision has any value. It is just a practical decision. It is just as if you have to decide whether you sit here or you sit in that comer or in that comer. It makes no difference; you will be sitting anywhere anyway. And then there
will be no problem.

Source – Osho Book “Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There”

Question – You said that the real morality is the shadow of enlightenment. But then how is one to live before becoming enlightened?

Osho – THE moment you ask ’how’ you are asking again for a discipline. The moment you ask ’how’ you ask for methods, techniques. Why can’t you simply live? Are not animals living? Are not trees living and birds living without asking any ’how’? Why do you carry on continuously about everything with this ’how’? How to love? How to pray? How to be friendly? How to be compassionate? How to be silent? How to live?

Drop the ’how’ and let life take its own course. It will. It is not waiting for any ’how’. That’s what Tao calls spontaneity, TATHATA, suchness. Let life take its own course. Who are you to interfere continuously? Can’t you simply eat? Why do you ask how to eat and how to taste? Can’t you simply taste? Just eat, chew well, and enjoy.

Let life move, don’t try to manage it. By trying to manage, you have mismanaged enough. By trying to improve you have destroyed all its beauty. With all your goals and ideologies you have poisoned your being. Be natural.

But that is very difficult for the ego. The difficulty comes from the ego, not from life. Life can be lived without any ’how’ but the difficulty comes from the ego. The ego says that then you will be like an animal. So what! Be an animal. What is wrong in that? Man is an animal. There’s nothing wrong in being an animal. No animal is as ugly as man. No animal has done so much violence on earth as man. No animal has destroyed nature as man has. What is wrong with animals? Have you ever heard of any animal becoming Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin or Mao Tse Tung? They have not killed. They have not murdered and butchered. They have not created wars. It is man who brings ugliness into the world.

But the ego says you have to be higher than the animals. In trying to be higher than the animals you fall lower than the animals. Be natural, don’t try to improve, and you will find a great transformation happening. Through nature God comes – not through improvement, not through any effort of the ego, but through effortlessness, through deep trust and surrender.

Can’t you trust God, who has given you birth? You did not ask the same question when you were in a womb – ’How to live for nine months?’ You lived well, you did well, perfectly well – otherwise you would not have been here. And there was no yoga teacher to teach you to be in a certain posture, to teach you how to breathe, how to do PRANAYAMA and PRATYAHAR, and which ASANA will be the best. You didn’t ask anybody. There was nobody to ask. You lived in the womb naturally and you grew. God was taking care, the whole was taking care, everything was provided.

Then you were born and then you became a child – you did not ask how to breathe, how to walk, how to talk. Everything came by and by. Can’t you trust life? One day you became a young man, youth came, and love started arising in your being. One day you will become old, life will start disappearing, and then one day death will come and the circle will be complete.

Why are you always trying to interfere? Tao says you should be in WU-WEI, non-interference. Let the whole do things. This is a very radical attitude, this is the greatest revolutionary attitude ever. ’How?’ is very childish. Yoga is for children, Tao is for grown-ups.

So don’t ask: BUT THEN HOW IS ONE TO LIVE BEFORE BECOMING ENLIGHTENED? Just live. And just living, I tell you, is fantastic. It is far out!

Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 2″

Osho – Sri Aurobindo says somewhere that the whole life is yoga — and it is so. Everything can become a meditation. And unless everything becomes a meditation, meditation has not happened to you. Meditation cannot be a part, a fragment. Either it is — and when it is you are wholly in it — or it is not. You cannot make a part of your life meditative. That is impossible, and that is what is being tried everywhere.

You can become meditative, not a part of you; that is impossible because meditation is a quality of your being. It is just like breathing: you go on breathing whatsoever you are doing. Irrelevant of what you are doing, you go on breathing. Walking, sitting, lying, sleeping, you continue breathing. You cannot arrange it in such a way that sometimes you breathe and sometimes you don’t breathe. It is a continuum.

Meditation is an inner breathing, and when I say “an inner breathing,” I mean it literally; it is not a metaphor. Just as you are breathing air you can breathe consciousness, and once you start breathing consciousness in and out you are no more just a physical body. And with that start, beginning with a higher breathing — a breathing of consciousness, of life itself, as it were — you enter a different realm, a different dimension. That dimension is metaphysics.

Your breathing is physical; meditation is metaphysical. So you cannot make a part of your life meditative. You cannot meditate in the morning and then forget it. You cannot go to a temple or to a church and meditate there and come out of your meditation as you come out of the temple. That is not possible, and if you try it you will be trying a false thing. You can enter a church and you come out of it, but you cannot enter meditation and come out of it. When you enter, you have entered. Wherever you go now meditation will be you. This is one of the basic, primary, elemental facts to be remembered always.

Secondly, you can enter meditation from anywhere because the whole life is in a deep meditation. The hills are meditating, the stars are meditating, the flowers, the trees, the elements are meditating, the very earth is meditating. The whole life is meditating, and you can enter it from anywhere; anything can become an entrance. This has been used. That is why there are so many techniques; that is why there are so many religions; that is why one religion cannot understand another — because their entrances are different. And sometimes there are religions which are not known even by the name of religion. You will not recognize certain persons as religious because their entrance is so different.

For example, a poet. A poet can enter meditation without going to any teacher, without going to any temple, without in any way being religious, so-called religious. His poetry, his creativity, can become an entrance; he can enter through it. Or a potter who is just creating earthen pots can enter meditation just by creating earthen pots. The very craft can become an entry. Or an archer can become meditative through his archery, or a gardener, or anyone can enter from anywhere.

Whatsoever you can do can become a door. If the quality of awareness changes while you are doing something, it becomes a technique. So there can be as many techniques as you can imagine. Any act can become a door. So the act, the technique, the way, the method, is not primary, but the quality of consciousness that you bring to the act is the basic thing.

Kabir, one of India’s greatest mystics, was a weaver, and he remained a weaver even when he attained. He had thousands and thousands of disciples, and they would come and they would tell him, “Now stop your weaving. You don’t need it. We are here and we will serve you in every way.”

Kabir would laugh and he would say, “This weaving is not just weaving. I am making clothes — that is the outer act — but something goes on within me simultaneously that you cannot see. This is my meditation.” How can a weaver be a meditator through weaving? If the quality of the mind that you bring to weaving is meditative, then the act is not relevant; it is irrelevant.

Another mystic was a potter; his name was Gora. He worked on earthen pots, and he would dance and he would sing while he was making his pots. While he was making a pot on the wheel, as the pot would center on the wheel he would also center within himself. One would see only one thing: the wheel was moving, the earthen pot was emerging and he was centering the earthen pot. You were seeing only one centering. Another centering was happening simultaneously: he was also being centered. While centering the pot, while helping the pot to emerge, he was also emerging in the unseen world of inner consciousness. When the pot was created, that was not the real thing he was working on; he was also creating himself.

Any act can become meditative, and once you know how an act becomes meditative you can transform all your acts into meditation. Then the whole life becomes yoga. Walking on the street or working in the office or just sitting and not doing anything — just idling, or anything — can become meditation. So remember, meditation doesn’t belong to the act; it belongs to the quality you bring to the act. Now we will enter the techniques.

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

Osho – Ma Dhyan Agni. Dhyan means meditation, Agni means fire. Meditation is a fire. It does two things: it burns your past totally, it consumes your mind absolutely without even leaving a trace behind it, and your past contains everything — your religion, your politics, your nationality, your race, and all that. It contains all that is wrong. It is just junk which we have been loaded by others.

The fire of meditation consumes it totally and the moment it has consumed all that is not part of you but has been forced upon you, which is just a conditioning but not your being, the moment it is destroyed your being for the first time rises above because it is no more burdened, no more crushed under the weight of the past — and the weight of the past is big, it is mountainous and your being is just like a rose flower, very delicate.

The moment rocks are removed the rose starts growing; hence the fire of meditation does two work. One; it is a death and second, it is a resurrection, a new beginning, a rebirth. Jesus says to Nicodemus ‘Unless you are born again you shall not enter into my kingdom of god.’ That’s what exactly meditation does; it destroys you as you are and it resurrects you as you should be.

Swami Dhyan Dheeren. Dhyan means meditation, Dheeren means the patient one. Meditation needs infinite patience. One cannot grow into meditation in a hurry. It can never be like instant coffee. It is not a seasonal flower. It is like the star touching big Cedars of Lebanon: it takes hundreds of years for those trees to rise above into the sky. And they live for thousands of years.

Meditation is going to give you the whole eternity; hence it cannot be achieved in a hurry; One has to be really patient. And this is one of the qualities modern humanity has completely lost track of, it is one of the contributions of the western mind to the whole world; this hurry, this constant rush. There is a basic reason for it. The Judaic religion and it offshoots — Christianity and Islam — these three religions are the root cause of it, because they have been talking about only one life. If this is the only life than naturally one is in a rush.

Just seventy years, if you are fortunate, and if you calculate you will find that that is not much; one-third of it will be lost in sleep. Much of it will be lost in the schools, colleges, university, reading all kinds of stupid things — geography, history, geology, zoology and what not! Much of it will be lost in earning bread and butter, much of it will, will be lost by going to the factory or the office from the home and coming back — almost there are people who are travelling two, three hours every day from the office to the home. The remaining little bit will be lost in seeing that idiot box, TV or going to a movie or shaving your beard every day or twice a day, taking bath and eating food and all kinds of things — if you simply go on calculating it will be a miracle if you can save seven minutes out of seventy years life. Than it is too short: seven minutes between birth and death and all is finished and finished forever! It is bound to create panic — and that” what has happened in the West.

And the disease has become now contagious, all over the world. It has never been so in the East because we had a vast canvas, there was no hurry. Thousands of life — actually India has been talking about eight-hundred-forty-million lives. That created its own trouble; it created lethargy, lousiness. You cannot rely on anybody. He will say ‘I will come five o’clock’ and he may not turn for seven days and still he will not feel guilty or ashamed. he will say ‘What is there? If not that Sunday this Sunday I have come, if not five, then six, then seven — it doesn’t matter much.’ All trains are running late…

A man once asked the station master ‘That whenever I come the train is late, than why do you publish the timetable?’ The station master said ‘We publish the timetable so we can know how much the train is late! Otherwise how we will know? It has nothing to do for the train to come in time; it is just to know that how much late it is.’

Everything is lousy, everything is lazy — that is a bad implication of it — but one thing was great in it, that nobody was in a hurry. That helped immensely meditation. It is not an accident that meditation grew in the East. It is inevitable that it could have only grown in the East where people are ready to wait. There is no expectation in waiting; they simply enjoy waiting.

I know that both the attitudes have their good points and bad points. The West has been able to bring things in order, it has been able to discipline things. Trains are in time, people are efficient, nobody is lazy or lousy-that’s good about it — but then it creates a certain tension inside.

The whole life you are running so when somebody says that meditation is just sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself, you listen it but you cannot understand it — how the grass can grow by itself if you don’t pull it up? And just sitting silently? I used to have this darshan in my lawn, I had to change, because people were continuously pulling the grass — they were destroying the lawn! They were simply trying to help the grass… nothing. How the grass is going to grow by itself? They were in a hurry.

You just watch people: they are in a hurry for no reason. Hurry has become their lifestyle. I want my sannyasins to understand this very clearly. I don’t want them to be lazy and lousy, I don’t want them to be in constant hurry and tension and always running, not exactly knowing why.

Two old man were talking with each other: ‘Do you remember in our young days we used to chase women?’ The other said ‘Yes, I remember perfectly well. The only thing I don’t remember is why we used to chase them’

Nobody exactly knows why you are running and nobody has time to ask you either. Everybody is saying ‘See you soon,’ (can’t get it??) they are on the way.

My sannyasins have to create a synthesis. As far as the outside world is concerned the western attitude is absolutely right; everything should be done as totally, as perfectly as possible, because there may be no other moment to improve upon, and don’t leave this world with something incomplete. That will be your signature. Leave this world with something complete, perfected, to your heart’s content — that’s perfectly beautiful as far as the outside world is concerned. The western approach is absolutely correct. For the outside existence I would like the whole world to become the West.

And for the inside world I would like the whole world to become the East: there don’t be in a hurry, there just sit and don’t pull the grass. Just sit silently, wait, let things happen. You watch, you don’t be a doer — that watching is meditation, that non-doing is meditation, that waiting is meditation.

Source – Osho Book “Nirvana Now or Never”

Osho – Life basically is an expression of love. Love is the fragrance of the flower of life. They are two sides of the same coin. The person who avoids love is simultaneously avoiding life too; hence the people who have been life-negative have also been love-negative. In fact escaping from the world was really escaping from any situation where love can arise.

For thousands of years man has lived in tremendous fear of love — and love is god, and love is life, and love is the very core of existence. But one has to learn the art of loving. It is an art. The capacity is inborn but it can be refined, it can be slowly slowly helped to grow, to become an Everest, a peak. and only when love comes to its crescendo you experience godliness. Then life becomes a sheer joy, then each moment is ecstatic. Then all this nonsense of calling life a misery, condemning life as sin, trying to escape from life, avoiding life, looking so idiotic that one cannot believe that for thousands of years man had lived under this impact.

This very life/love-negative attitude proves that man has not allowed his intelligence to bloom. He has lived in a retarded way, like an imbecile.

My own approach is that religion is the name of the art which teaches you how to love, how to live, which makes you capable of loving without attachment, without possessiveness, without any manipulation, without any ego trip. It makes you understanding the complexities of existence, it helps you to work out your way in the jungle of life. It is a great challenge. It is worth accepting, because only those who accept it grow. Those who turn their hips towards life. they never grow. The remain juvenile.

All escapists are basically hippies. Hippies means those who have shown the hip to the life. All your saints, mahatmas, sages are hippies. They are real hippies, howsoever serious and sombre they may look, but they have shown their hips to the world. They are cowards.

But they have been worshipped, they have been imitated by others. Every effort has been made to make the whole humanity follow these stupid people. It is time enough to say a total “Stop!”, a full stop to all this nonsense that has been going on and on. Enough is enough.

And my sannyas is a full stop to the whole life-denying approach; in place of it I teach you to love, to live, to be a light unto yourself. That’s the only way to become awakened, to be enlightened. That’s the only way that one can realise one’s potential of becoming a Buddha or a Christ. Not be following Christianity one becomes a Christ, but by living one’s own life authentically, without any hypocrisy, without any pretensions, utterly naked in the sun, in the wind, in the rain, open and available. Because there is no need to fear — it is your life and you are not accountable to anybody else, you are the master of your life — then why create misery? And why live life in such a way that it becomes a sad affair?

The same energy can become a dance and the same energy can become a death. It is the same energy: all depends on you. You can accumulate the manure in your living room, then it will stink, it will be horrible to live there. But the same manure can be used in the garden and then it will bring beautiful roses, great lotuses. It is the same manure which will stink in the room but will create perfume in the garden. One just needs to arrange one’s life in a beautiful way, then there is no need to go anywhere. Paradise is herenow! This very body is the Buddha and this very land the lotus paradise.

Source – Osho Book “Nirvana Now or Never”

Osho – The man of serenity is not disturbed by anything because he accepts. Sadness comes, he accepts it. Joy comes, he accepts it. He has no preference, he has no choice. He lives in a choiceless consciousness: whatsoever happens happens, whatsoever is is, and he is totally open to it. He drinks it, he absorbs it. He has no likes and dislikes, no preferences, no choices. He is not against sadness, he is not against anger, he is not against sex, he is not against love. He is neither against nor for, he is simply serene.

If you choose, immediately you are disturbed. Watch it: whenever you choose you will be disturbed. Choice brings disturbance, because choice means alternatives: to be this or to be that, to be or not to be. Choice means you are standing at a crossroad: now which road to follow? If you go to the right, who knows? It may just lead you into a cul-de-sac. Maybe the left was the right choice. Who knows? How to decide?

The moment you choose, you become disturbed. And you always choose against yourself, against a part of yourself. One part says, “Choose this,” another part says, “Choose that.” Now you have to decide, and in that decision you will be divided. The part that was saying, “Don’t choose this,” has been denied, has been rejected. That rejected, denied part will take revenge. Sooner or later it will say, “Now see what happened: now repent. I told you beforehand not to choose this, that this was wrong, but you didn’t listen to me.”

And the same would have happened if you had chosen the other. The man who chooses remains disturbed. Serenity means a state of choicelessness. Just like a mirror, it simply reflects, with no choice. An ugly man comes, it reflects. A beautiful man comes, it reflects. It has no choice; there is no question of choice. Just reflecting.

Sadness comes, and the man of serenity says, “I am sadness. This moment, this is how I am. This moment, this is my reality.” He does not compare either: “The last moment was better, I was joyous. Now I am sad.” He never compares two moments, he never hankers for something else in the future. Whatsoever is, he is totally relaxed with it. This is serenity — and out of serenity comes real knowing.

Source – Osho Book “Unio Mystica, Vol1″

Osho – Mischief is bound to bring its own punishment just as certainly as birth is bound to bring its own death. You cannot avoid death, you cannot avoid the outcome of your deeds. So don’t think in these terms, because all that time wasted in avoiding, hiding, is simply wasted. All that energy can be put into one effort: of becoming aware, of becoming meditative. That is going to help.

A man was going to the Ganges. He went to Ramakrishna, he was a follower of Ramakrishna. He asked Ramakrishna, “Paramahansadeva, I am going to the Ganges — bless me. Do you think all my sins will be washed away?”

Ramakrishna said, “Yes, certainly, because the Ganges is so pure; whosoever dives deep into it becomes as pure as the Ganges. But there is a problem that you have to remember.”
The man said, “What is that problem? You just tell me, I will remember.”

Ramakrishna said, “Have you seen the great trees that stand on the banks of the Ganges?”
He said, “Yes, I have seen.”
Ramakrishna said, “Do you know what is the purpose of those trees?”

He said, “That I have never heard and it is not written in the scriptures. What is the purpose of those trees? You tell me.”

Ramakrishna said, “The purpose of those trees is that when you dive in the Ganges, your sins have to leave you because of the power of the Ganges. Those sins sit on the top of those tall trees. When you come back out of the Ganges, they jump upon you again! So it is really futile. If you want to go you can go, but avoid one thing: if you dive in the Ganges, don’t come out! Then be gone forever; otherwise those sins won’t leave you. And they will take revenge, they will jump upon you with vengeance.”

And this is literally true. The religious people, the so-called religious people, think that they can do a certain ritual and the sin is finished, and they are free to do the sin again! And once you know the trick how to finish it, why bother? You can go on doing as many sins as you can — the Ganges is always there.

And now there is no need to go to the Ganges either: you can bring the Ganges in pipes to your home, so every day, early morning or evening, you take a bath. Evening will be better, so the whole day’s sins are finished and you are as pure as a lotus flower.

Buddha says nothing can help you. There is nowhere to hide from two things: the result of your deeds and death. They are going to happen.

Then what should we do? Become conscious, and in becoming conscious both disappear. In becoming conscious your actions automatically go through a transformation. The conscious man cannot do anything wrong, and the conscious man comes to know that, “There is no death for my consciousness. The body will die, the mind will die, but not my innermost being. I am eternal. AMRITASYA PUTRAH — I am the son of eternity, I belong to the eternal existence.”

Consciousness brings these two truths home. First it transforms your world by transforming your actions; secondly it transforms your interiority by making you aware that you are eternal. When you know you are eternal, when you know that you have always been and you will always be, all your values of life immediately start changing. Then whatsoever was important yesterday is no longer important, and whatever was never important before becomes important — because now you think in terms of eternity and not in terms of time.

Source – Osho Book “The Dhammapada, Vol 4″

Osho – Be courageous and drop all this nonsense. There is no hell and there is no heaven; you create your heaven and you create your hell. There is nobody anywhere to punish you or reward you. Forget those childish ideas of God — that if you are good Daddy will come with toys, and if you are bad then you will have to miss your lunch or your dinner and you will be locked into the bathroom or something will happen. There is nobody. You are free.

But I am not saying that you cannot create hell for yourself — you can. The fundamental has to be understood; whether you want to create heaven or hell, the fundamental is the same.

Love, enjoy, celebrate, and you will be creating heaven — because whatsoever you are, if you are happy, if you are joyous, you share your happiness and your joy. You can share only that which you are — and when you share it, it rebounds on you. That is the law. Life reflects and echoes whatsoever you throw at life — it comes back, a thousandfold it comes back. Smile, and the whole existence smiles at you. Shout and abuse, and the whole existence shouts and abuses you. And you are the root cause; you create the whole process.

It is not that the existence is interested in shouting and abusing you. The existence is neutral; it simply reflects, it is a mirror. You make an ugly face, and you see an ugly face in the mirror. And you smile, and the mirror smiles.

And remember, the rewards and punishments don’t come from the outside; you create them. You are the occasion for them, you are the soil. You are free — but by freedom I don’t mean that you are irresponsible. In fact, in freedom you become utterly responsible — because you are responsible for yourself; nobody else is.

No god is responsible for you, you are responsible. If you are miserable, remember, you must be creating it. Find out how. And you will find the reasons — try to search for the reasons and you will find them. If you are happy, then too, look within for why you are happy. And go on creating those situations more and more: you will become more and more happy.

Source – Osho Book “The Revolution”

Osho - Pleasure is from the outside and bliss is from the inside. Pleasure depends on others. Bliss is independent. Pleasure inevitably brings bondage. Bondage is sbsolutely part of pleasure, because the source of pleasure becomes more important than you are, and the fear arises that today it is available, but what is going to happen tomorrow? So make sure that it remains yours tomorrow too — but then you have to bargain, you have to lose something, you have to pay for it. And then too it is never absolutely certain — hence fear, anxiety. And when there is fear and anxiety and bondage, what pleasure can you have?

It is all destroyed. So it remains only a hope, just a carrot hanging in front of you. As you move the carrot goes on moving. You never achieve it, it never becomes a reality. It is always a dream. But it keeps you occupied, keeps you so much occupied from the cradle to the grave that you don’t have any time left for the real search. You fail again and again, but the hope goes on living. After each failure it resurrects, it is again there.

Hope never dies. Even when we say ‘I am hopeless,’ it is not really true, because if one is really hopeless, if the hope has completely disappeared, then you cannot even feel hopelessness.

The feeling of hopelessness is possible only with the background of hope: you are still hoping but becoming desperate, seeing all the failures. You are becoming less and less certain, less and less do you see the possibility of its ever becoming a reality, but somewhere, in some corner of your unconscious, the seed of hope still lives. It will sprout again. That’s what they mean by the proverb that time heals; what it heals nobody asks. It simply heals the wounds that have been left by past hopes, it heals them so you can start hoping again, but it is the same game. It is moving in a circle.

The pleasure-seeker goes on seeking but he never arrives. To understand the utter futility of pleasure, the impossibility of its ever happening, becomes a revolution in your life. Then you move towards the inner from the outer. Then you move from dependence to independence. Then you start searching into your own nature, into your own interiority.

And one is simply in for a great surprise: the moment one turns in, the very turning in — a one hundred eighty degree turn it has to be — and one is dazzled, puzzled, that this is what one has been seeking maybe for millions of lives. It was within oneself and we have been seeking it everywhere else. If we could not find it, there is no wonder in it, because it was within us. The search was without and the real source was within.

Just a glimpse of it brings freedom, brings a new breeze. For the first time you feel alive, free, joyous, for no reason at all, simply joyous, because now the understanding dawns that joy is our self-nature.

Source – Osho Book “The Old Pond… Plop”