Osho – You have lost the night; you could not wake up in the night. But it can be forgiven: it was night and you slept. But you cannot be forgiven when death is coming closer — now it is time to wake up! And if even death cannot wake you up, then what is going to wake you up? And if a person wakes up in death, then for him there is no more any birth, no more any death.

But a person can wake up in death only if he has tried hard to wake up in life, if his whole life has been a consistent effort to find a center in his being, a persistent effort to know “Who am I? Only then is it possible that when death comes… and death is a great shock! It shatters all that you have made. It takes away all that you have been clinging to; it dispossesses you of all your possessions. It simply leaves you utterly naked and alone. If death cannot wake you up, then you are not simply asleep — you are in a coma. And that’s how people are.

Every day millions of people die. They lived in darkness. they die in darkness. They lived dreaming, they die dreaming. They lived in a stupid way, they die in a stupid way. They miss all opportunities.

And three are the great opportunities in life. The first is birth. Only once in a while is a man so intelligent that he uses that opportunity — only very rarely. Maybe a Lao Tzu — hence the story.

It is said Lao Tzu lived in his mother’s womb for eighty-two years. Now this is nonsense, but it has some truth in it. It is not factual, but it has some truth in it. And that is the difference between the Western way of thinking and the Eastern. If you tell such a story to the Western mind, he simply says, “This cannot be. How can a person live for eighty-two years in the mother’s womb? And what will happen to the mother? Eighty-two years? This is not believable; this cannot be historical.”

The Western mind immediately asks about the facticity of the phenomenon — but it is a parable! It has nothing to do with facts; it certainly has something to do with truth. And truth can only be expressed through parables; there is no other way to express truth. Truth can only be expressed through metaphors, through poetry, not through history. It is poetry, pure poetry, and of tremendous power.

It means that when Lao Tzu was born he was already so mature, so ripe, that he used his first opportunity to wake up. Ordinarily it takes eighty-two years for a person to wake up, and even then, how many people wake up? People wake up at the time of death, but how many? — that too is very rare.

Lao Tzu must have been of immense intelligence, must have carried the intelligence from his past lives — maybe just a little bit was missing, just the last straw on the camel. He used the opportunity. The first opportunity is birth. It is as important as death. It is a death in a way, because the child in the mother’s womb lives in one way, one kind of life, and then is simply thrown out, expelled. He wants to cling to his home where he has lived for nine months, and so peacefully, so silently, without any worry, without any responsibility, in such warmth….

He clings to the womb, he does not want to go out. He feels it as a death, and it is natural — because what does he know about what is going to happen? One thing is certain: his home is being shattered; he is being thrown out of all his comfort and security. He knows he is dying! Hence the birth trauma — because the birth enters into the child’s consciousness as death. He dies and is reborn.

Lao Tzu used his first opportunity. And the same is the case with Zarathustra, another beautiful story. It is said that Zarathustra is the only child in the whole history of man who laughed when he was born. Children cry, they don’t laugh — and Zarathustra laughed — must have shocked his mother and… a real belly-laughter. He must have used the first opportunity.

These two names are known TO have used the first opportunity. The first shock, and they became awakened. The second opportunity in life is love. A few people have become awakened through love. And the second opportunity is available to more people than the first or the third — because birth is almost unconscious and so is death, but love can bring a little consciousness to your heart.

Hence my insistence on love — and Kabir’s insistence is also on love, because this is the opportunity many many people can use and become awake. If you love, you will have to drop your ego — and that will be the death, the death of the ego. If you love you will have to learn how to melt, merge, disappear. If you love you will have to know that there is much more to life than logic, calculation… there is much more to life than having money, more possessions, power.

If you love, you will have a glimpse of the divine. And if you go deep in love, you will start entering into the temple of God — that is the second opportunity. The society has destroyed it.
The first opportunity is very rare, but the second opportunity could have been available to almost everybody — that has been destroyed by the society. Your love has been contaminated. You have been brought up in fear, not in love. You have been brought up to fight, not to love. You have been brought up as if the whole existence is your enemy, not your friend — how can you love? Love has been made impossible by the society.

The only possibility of people turning to religion, the only possibility of revolution in people’s lives, has been destroyed by the society. Society is so much afraid of love that it is not afraid of anything else like it is of love. Love is the most potential and dangerous thing for your so-called society, because love will wake up people, love will stir people’s hearts. And they will start living through the heart, and they won’t listen to the head. And if they don’t listen to the head then the society will be at a loss; it will be impossible to dominate people who live through the heart. Only the head can be dominated only heads can be reduced to slaves. The heart is always the king, the master.

And the third opportunity is death — the last. If you have missed birth, if you have missed love, don’t miss death. At least the last chance should not be missed.

Source – Osho Book “The Fish in the Sea is not Thirsty”

Question – Is it Possible for a Politician to be Enlightened?

Osho – Never heard of it. It has never happened. There are intrinsic problems. The very dimension the politician moves in is against enlightenment.

A few things have to be understood. Politics is a diametrically opposite phenomenon to religion. A scientist can easily become religious; his approach is different but not opposite. He may have been working with matter, with the objective world, but his working is a sort of meditation. He needs a certain space in his consciousness, a silent space, to work and to discover. It is not very difficult to move from the objective towards subjectivity because the same space can be used for the inner journey.

A poet can very easily become religious — he is very close, very, very close; almost in the neighborhood. A painter or a sculptor can very easily become religious; they are already religious, unknowingly. They are already worshippers though they have not yet worshipped. They may not have thought about God. they may not have consciously been religious at all, they may not go to the church or to the temple they may not be concerned with the Bible and the Koran and the Gita — but that is not the point. A painter goes on seeing something Divine in nature: colors are Divine for him. A poet goes on feeling something of the religious romance all around. All creative arts are very closely related — any moment consciousness can dawn, any ray can become a transformation. But a politician moves in a diametrically opposite direction. His whole training is against religion.

I have heard an anecdote: The Congressman had delivered a stirring speech against a controversial bill. He was promptly buried in mountains of mail from back home as constituents wrote condemning his stand. Next day he was back on his feet in the house, this time making a speech in favor of the bill. When he finished, a colleague collared him.

‘Yesterday,’ said the colleague, ‘you made an eloquent explanation of the principles which motivated your stand. I wonder, what has happened to change your mind?’
‘Someday,’ said the Congressman, ‘you will learn that there comes a time in every man’s life when he must rise above mere principles.’

A politician is an opportunist; in fact, he has no principles. He talks about principles, but he has no principles. He pretends that he has principles but if he is a politician worth the name, he cannot have any principles. Those principles are just to fool people. He is on an ego trip. He uses all sorts of principles.

I have heard about one politician. In an election campaign he was speaking in his constituency. There was a great controversy about prohibition: about whether alcohol should be totally prohibited or not. When he was speaking, a man stood up and asked, ‘What is your stand on prohibition?’

Now he became a little shaky because half the population was for it and half was against it. And he could see that half the crowd was for it and half the crowd was against it. Whatsoever he said was going to lose half the votes. It was really difficult. He was in a dilemma.

And then he said, ‘You are all my friends. Please raise their hands those who are in favor and those who are against.’ Half the people raised their hands in favor, and half against.
Then he said, ‘Good. I am with my friends. I am all for my friends. You are all my friends and I am for you.’ Now he is saying neither yes nor no.

The trip is of the ego: how to become more powerful, how to control others. Religion is just the opposite. It is not in any way an ego trip — one has to lose the ego. And one is not trying to be powerful. In fact, one is trying to understand the total helplessness of the part against the whole; one is learning how to surrender, not how to conquer; and one is not concerned with others, one is totally concerned with himself. If this much is possible, that ‘I can become aware of my own being’ it is enough, more than enough.

The politician is concerned with the outside world, he is an extrovert. The religious person is an introvert. He is not concerned with things, with the world with situations; he is concerned with the quality of his consciousness. A religious person is trying to find out how to be fulfilled; a politician is trying to show to the world that he is somebody. He may not be fulfilled but he pretends that he is fulfilled; he has opted for pretensions, hypocrisy. He simply wants the whole world to know that he is somebody special. extraordinary, very happy. Deep inside he may be carrying a hell but he believes that if he can fool everybody else, he will be able to fool himself. That dream is never fulfilled.

You can fool everybody else by smiling a false smile, but how can you fool yourself? Deep down you know that everything is getting cold and dead; deep down you know that everything is empty, in vain. But one goes on thinking, ‘If I can convince everybody else that I am somebody, then somehow I will be able to convince myself that I am somebody. The politician is a liar. He’s trying to lie — to himself and to the whole world. The religious dimension is the dimension of being true, authentic.

Once it happened that a man entered a bar and said, ‘Bartender, I want you to meet my dog. He talks. I will sell him to you for only ten dollars.’
‘Who do you think you are kidding?’ said the bartender.
The dog, tears in his eyes looked up. ‘Please buy me,’ he said. ‘This man treats me cruelly. He never gives me a bone. He never bathes me. He is always kicking me around. And once I was the richest trick-dog in the country. I performed before presidents and kings. My name was in the papers every day, and….’
‘So he does talk,’ said the bartender. ‘But why sell a valuable dog like that for only ten dollars?’
‘Because,’ said the customer, ‘l hate liars.’

A politician is a liar, and he is trying to convince himself through convincing others. A politician is almost mad — mad for power. Many people are in the madhouses in the world: somebody thinks he is Adolph Hitler, somebody thinks he is Napoleon, somebody thinks he is Ford or Mao Tse Tung. They are in the jails, or in the madhouses, or in the hospitals, because we think they have gone mad. Somebody thinking that he is Adolph Hitler is thought to be mad, but what about Adolph Hitler himself? The only difference is this: -this man, this madman who thinks himself to be Adolph Hitler, has not been able to prove it, that’s all. He’s innocent. His madness is just innocence. Adolph Hitler proved to the world that, yes, he is. Adolph Hitler is more mad than this man. His madness was such that he proved to the whole world that he was somebody and if he could not create, then he could destroy.

There are only two possibilities. you can be a creator, then you feel a certain fulfillment — that comes to a mother when she gives birth to a child, that comes to a poet when poetry is born, that comes to a sculptor when he has created something a beautiful piece in marble, in stone, in wood. Whenever you create something, you feel enhanced; you reach towards peaks. you get high.

All people who are creative are close to religion. Religion is the greatest creativity because it is an effort to give birth to yourself, to become a father and mother to yourself, to be born again, to be reborn through meditation, through awareness. Poetry is good, painting is good — but when you give birth to your own consciousness, there is no comparison. Then you have given birth to the ultimate poetry, the ultimate music, the ultimate dance. This is the dimension of creativity. On the rung of creativity, religion is the last. It is the greatest art, the ultimate art — that’s why I call it ‘the ultimate alchemy’.
On the opposite end of the ladder is destruction. People who cannot be creative become destructive because through destruction they can have a vicarious feeling that they are powerful. When Hitler destroyed millions of people, of course he had a very powerful feeling that, ‘I am somebody. I can destroy the whole world.’ He was almost ready to destroy the whole world — he had almost destroyed it.

A politician is a destructive mind. He may talk about the nation, the country; he may talk about utopias, socialism, communism, but basically a politician is a destructive mind. And a destructive mind cannot become enlightened. First, the whole energy should move towards Construction, towards creation. Then only is there the possibility that by and by you participate in the ultimate creation — that is nirvana, the ultimate creation, in which you are born Divine, infinite, unlimited. Then you expand, you spread all over existence; then you are no longer a wave, you have become the ocean.

The politician can never become enlightened. I am not saying that the politician cannot move towards enlightenment — he can. But as he moves, he will have to drop politics. A politician is also a human being, but he will have to drop the politics, and by the time he comes to meditate he will be no more a politician. Remaining a politician, a politician cannot become enlightened. But his humanity is there. Even a Hitler can become a Buddha — some day. One hopes he will. Some day, far away in the future, even an Adolph Hitler is going to become a Buddha; that is his potentiality. But then, by that time, he will not be an Adolph Hitler.

Nuclear war had come and gone. Only one tiny monkey in one isolated part of the world remained alive. After weeks of wandering about, he finally came across a little female monkey. He threw his arms around her in greeting.
‘I am starved,’ he said. ‘Have you found anything to eat?’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I found this little old apple.’
‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ he snapped. ‘We are not going to start that all over again!’

Even monkeys are worried about humanity. And I have heard monkeys talking. They don’t believe in Darwin, they don’t say that man has-evolved out of monkeys, they don’t think that man is a developed form — they think man has fallen from the monkeys. Of course — fallen from the trees, fallen from the height, fallen from the monkeys.

And this is true in a way, because man has up to now remained political. The whole history up to now has been political; no civilization has yet existed which has been religious — not even Indian civilization. Not a single nation has become like a being which is religious — only rare individuals, here and there, far apart. Somewhere a Buddha, a Jesus, a Zarathustra, a Lao Tzu — islands. Otherwise, ordinarily, the main current of humanity has remained political.

Politics is basically ambition. Politics is basically wrong because ambition is wrong. You are not to become somebody, says religion, you are already. You are not to become powerful — you are already. You are extensions of God. You need not be worried about being powerful and being somebody on a throne; those are all stupid games, childish, very juvenile, immature. And you cannot find more immature people than politicians.

In fact, in a better world, politicians will be kept in madhouses, and mad people will be allowed to move into the world. Those mad people have not done anything wrong. They may be a little off the track but they have not been harmful. Politicians are dangerously mad people, tremendously dangerous.

I have heard that before Richard Nixon renounced his throne, he called a meeting of his colleagues and he threatened that he had the power to go into the other room, push a button, and the whole world could be destroyed in twenty minutes.

And, yes, he had that power. Millions of atom bombs are ready — a button has just to be pushed. The power of the atom and H-bombs already made is seven times more than is needed to destroy this earth — seven times morel We have become so skilled, super-skilled, in destruction that seven earths of this size could be destroyed. And nobody can say — any day any president of America, or Soviet Russia, or China, can go mad. And politicians are almost mad…any day, anybody can push the button. It is now only a question of pushing a button. And everybody has mad moments, angry moments. The threat is very, very real.

Politics has been the disease of humanity, the cancer of consciousness. Drop all politics within you. And remember, when I am talking about politicians, I don’t mean particularly those people who are in politics — I mean all those who are ambitious. Wherever ambition is, politics comes in; wherever you are trying to get ahead of somebody, politics comes in; wherever you are trying to dominate somebody — maybe your wife, or your husband — politics comes in. Politics is a very common disease, like the common cold.

Source – Osho Book “Ancient Music in the Pines’

Question – When does the boat reach the other Shore?
Osho – Deva Vigyan, there is no other shore, this is the only shore there is. And it is not a question of reaching somewhere else, it is a question of awakening here and now. It is never there, it is always here; it is never then, it is always now. This moment contains the totality of reality.

The boat I am talking about is not really a boat. I am talking about becoming aware. Man has fallen asleep — man is already where he needs to be, where he is meant to be. Man is in paradise. The garden of Eden has never been left, nobody can expel you from it. But you can fall asleep, and you can start dreaming a thousand and one things. Then those dreams become your reality, and the reality fades far away, becomes unreal.

You need not go anywhere. Meditation is neither a journey in space nor a journey in time, but an instantaneous awakening. If you can be silent now, this is the other shore. If you can allow the mind to cease, not to function, this is the other shore.

But the mind is very clever and cunning; it distorts every great teaching. It jumps upon words, catches hold of the words, and starts giving meanings to them which are not real meanings.
Yes, I talked about the other shore. And your mind must have caught the words “the other shore, the boat.” “Where is the other shore, and where is the boat, and how can I get to the boat, how can I get into it, and when will I reach the other shore?”

You misunderstood the whole thing. Be awake, and this shore becomes the other shore, and this very moment becomes eternity. This very body the buddha, and this very place the lotus paradise. And awakening does not need time; not even a split second is needed for it to happen. It is only a question of a tremendous desire arising in you, of such a quality of intensity that you become afire with it. In that fire, the old is gone and the new has arrived. The old was never there in the first place, you only believed in it. And the new has always been the case, you had only forgotten it.

I declare to you that this is the only world there is, and this is the only life there is. Don’t start thinking of some other life somewhere after death, beyond the seven skies, in heaven. Those are all just mind dreams, mind trips, new ways to fall asleep again.

Hence my insistence that no sannyasin has to leave the world, because leaving the world is part of a project, part of a dream of reaching to the other world. And because there is none, all your efforts will be in vain. You are not to go to the monasteries or to the Himalayas; you are not to escape from here. You have to become awakened here.

And in fact it is easier to be awakened here than in a Himalayan cave. Have you not observed it? If you are suffering from a nightmare, awakening is easier. If you are having a sweet dream, awakening is more difficult. If in your dream you are on a honeymoon with your beloved, who wants to be awakened?

In fact the person who tries to wake you up will look like the enemy. But if you are followed by a tiger and it is a question of life and death, and you are running and running and the tiger is coming closer and closer and closer, and you start feeling his breath on your back, then suddenly you will be awake. It is too much to tolerate, it is unbearable.

In a Himalayan cave you will be dreaming sweet dreams. That’s what people are doing in the monasteries — dreaming beautiful dreams of God, of angels, of heaven, of eternal peace and joy. In the world, people are suffering from nightmares — the nightmares of the share market, the nightmares of power politics. It is easier to be awakened here. If you cannot awaken here, you cannot wake up anywhere else.

But remember, let me repeat it again, there is no other reality, there is only one reality. But the one reality can be seen in two ways: with sleepy eyes, dreamy eyes, eyes full of dust, and then what you see is distorted; and the same reality can be seen without sleep, without dreaming eyes, without dust. Then whatsoever you see is the truth — and truth liberates.

Source – Osho Book “The Book of Wisdom”

Osho – Samadhi is a word very difficult to translate into English; there exists no parallel. But in Greek there is a word which is parallel; that word is ataraxia. The Greek word means quiet, calm, of deep inner contentment. That is the meaning of samadhi so contented, so deeply contented, that nothing disturbs now, nothing distracts now.

So deeply in tune with existence, in a sort of atonement — at-one-ment — that now there is no problem. There is no other who can disturb; the other has disappeared. The other disappears with your thoughts. The thoughts is the other. In the gaps is the samadhi, ataraxia. In the gaps is calm and quiet.

Not that when you have attained to it you will not be able to think, no. Not that your capacity to think will disappear. In fact, just on the contrary, when you live in the gap you become capable of thinking for the first time.

Before it you were just victims, victims of a social atmosphere, victims of a thousand and one thoughts surrounding you — not a single thought of your own. They were thoughts; you were not capable of thinking. Those thoughts had settled on you as birds settle on a tree by the evening. They had entered in you. They were not original; they were all borrowed.

You had been living a life which is a borrowed life. That’s why you were sad. That’s why there was no life in you. That’s why you looked dead, there was no vibration. That’s why there was no joy, no delight. Everything was blocked by borrowed thoughts. Your whole stream was blocked. You could not flow because of borrowed thoughts.

When you become a part of samadhi, ataraxia, a deep inner calm of the gaps, intervals; you become for the first time capable of seeing, of thinking — but now these thoughts will be your own. Now you will be able to create an original thought. You will be able to live an original life, fresh, fresh as the morning, fresh as the morning breeze. You will become creative.
In samadhi you become a creator because in samadhi you become part of God.

There is a saying of Pascal’s that most of man’s troubles come from his not being able to sit quietly in his chamber. Yes, that is true. If you can sit quietly in your inner chamber, almost all the troubles will disappear. You create them by running hither and thither. You create them by unnecessarily getting attached to your thoughts — which are not yours. You create them because you cannot sit at rest.

Source – Osho Book “Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol7″

Question – How is it that I am still Lost?

Osho – Nobody can answer that question for you. You are lost; you must be knowing. You must be playing hide-and-seek. I know that you know. You want to be lost, that’s why you are lost. The moment you decide not to be lost, nobody is hindering you, nobody is blocking the way. But you would like to have a little more of the dream: your whole prayer is, “God, let me be enlightened, but not right now.” That is your prayer: “Let me be awakened, but wait a little more.”

It happened in Ceylon: A great mystic was dying; he was a Master to millions of people. Knowing that he was dying, they all gathered. His whole life — and it was a long life, he lived almost a hundred years — he had been teaching about enlightenment. The day he was to depart, he came out of his hut for his last darshan, and he said, “Now I am leaving. Is there somebody who is ready to go with me? Today I will not teach; today I am ready to take you with me. If somebody is ready, he should stand.”

People started to look at each other… thousands and thousands of people, but nobody standing. The Master waited and he said, “It is getting late and I have to leave. Should I think that my whole life has been a wastage talking to you about enlightenment? And now I am giving it to you! You need not make any effort; I can take you with me. Anybody ready?”

One man stood halfheartedly and he said, “Wait! Please, tell me how to be enlightened, because you are leaving and I am not yet ready to follow you. There are many things to be done in the world. My son has just gone to the university, my daughter has to be married, my wife is ill and somebody has to take care…. When everything is finished, I will also come. So, please, just give me the method.”
The Master laughed and he said, “The whole life I have been giving methods.”

Why do you hide behind methods? People always ask for methods because in a method you can postpone easily, because a method has to be done — it will take time. And it is up to you to do or not to do, or do halfheartedly or postpone. A method is a trick. When you ask about a method you are asking for something to hang on to so you can postpone, because the method has to be done.

There have been two schools all over the world. One school says enlightenment is sudden; another school says enlightenment is gradual. The people who have said enlightenment is sudden have never been listened to much. They don’t have much following because how can you be with these people? They say it can happen right now if you are ready.

People have always been following the other way, the gradual, because with the gradual you have enough space to postpone, enough time. There is no emergency and there is no urgency. It is not a question of here-now. Tomorrow, tomorrow will take care, and the other life, next life… you can go on.

That Master was ready to take somebody, but nobody was ready to go. And you ask me, “How is it that I am still lost?” You know. If I tell you that right now there is the possibility — you can jump out of your being lost — you will immediately ask me how. You will ask about a method.

It is just like your house is on fire and somebody tells you, “Come out of it; the house is on fire. You will be burned.” If really you see that the house is on fire, if the flames are visible to you, you will not ask how. Will you ask how to come out? You will jump. You will jump from the balcony, you will jump from the window, you will jump from anywhere — you will find the way. Because it is not a question now to find the right way — any way is right. It is not a question of etiquette, that one should come out of the front door. When the house is on fire, you jump from the window. You risk your life because one moment more in the house and you will be burned. It is better to jump from the third story and be crippled for life than to be burned. You will jump out of it.

But if you say, “Yes, I know the house is on fire, but I will consult the scriptures and I will ask the gurus and I will seek and find a methodology how to come out,” what will this show? This will show that you are not aware that the house is on fire. You may be agreeing with the person that the house is on fire, but deep down you don’t see any fire anywhere. You are comfortable in this house; the fire is not yet an experience to you.

Buddha left his palace. His old servant, very faithful to him, his name was Chhanna, drove him out of the town, out of the capital, not knowing where he was going. Then, out of the kingdom, Buddha said, “Take my ornaments, my valuable clothes.” He cut his hair, beautiful curls, and he said, “Take all these. Give all these to my wife. I am renouncing the world.”

Chhanna started crying and weeping, and he said, “What are you doing? You are young. You don’t know the world as much as I know it. Everybody desires to have a palace, everybody desires to become a king, and you have a kingdom and you are leaving! Don’t take it wrongly, but I feel that you are behaving stupidly. I am an old man, older than your father. Listen to me! Come back. Are you mad? What are you doing?”

Buddha said, “Chhanna, you can’t see that that palace is nothing but flames, and you can’t see that the whole kingdom is on fire. I am not leaving it, I am escaping! I am not renouncing it, I am just saving myself, that’s all.”

Chhanna looked back. He couldn’t see the fire anywhere — the kingdom is absolutely silent. It was midnight, full moon night, everybody fast asleep… where is the fire? In sleep you cannot see it, only when you start awakening a little.

So don’t ask me why you are still lost. This is how you want it to be. You want to be lost, that’s why you are lost. If you don’t want it to be, there is no question — immediately, this very moment, you can be out of it. But nobody else can bring you out of it. I cannot bring you out of it. And it is good that nobody can bring you out of it, that’s why your freedom is intact. You want to continue the game? — continue. If you don’t want to continue the game, you will jump out of it. Nobody is hindering the path; nobody is blocking the way.

The moment you decide, the moment the decision matures, the moment you become ripe in awareness and you see the whole falsity of it, you will be out of it — the very same moment. Not even a single moment more will be needed. It is not a question of time; it is a question of understanding.

Source – Osho Book “Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol6″