Tale 5 ~ 100 Tales for 10,000 Buddhas

After this meditation camp, when I return to Bombay I find myself lost in the crowd of people. This intense longing to meet Him again has disturbed my sleep. Almost every night I see Him in my dreams, talking to me. I start writing a letter to him every day and expect a quick reply from Him. I have totally forgotten that the letter will take at least three day to reach Him, and even if He replies the same day he receives it , it will take three more days to reach me. Sometimes I feel angry at Him for driving me crazy like this--I don’t know how I am managing to keep myself together and continue my work in the office.

A couple of weeks have passed. Today I am coming down from the first floor to leave my office at 5:00pm when I hear my office peon come running behind me with a letter in his hand, which is very unusual. In the office no one bothers about anybody’s personal letters. I take the letter from him--it is from the “Beloved of my heart.” I kiss it and open it with shaking hands.

It reads like this:

“Beloved Pushpa (my name before I take sannyas)
Love. I am happy to receive your letters. Such longing for God is good because it is the totality of longing which becomes the way to reach him.

I am in Bombay on the night of the 17th, meet at 9:00pm, or I will be in Bombay again on the 21st, then you can meet at 3:00pm.

Where I will be staying, you can find from these four phone numbers.”

I am overjoyed to read the letter. It is the seventeenth today, and I decide to see Him tonight. I rush back to the office to make a phone call. while reading the letter I thought: Why has He written four phone numbers? but this man of awareness knows better! Three numbers don’t work, the fourth does, and the woman on the other end confirms His arrival and gives me the address. It is already 5:10pm. It is a matter of only four hours and I will be meeting Him again. Time passes very slowly. Almost every five to ten minutes I am looking at my watch, and curse it for moving so slowly. This waiting seems like eternity.

Osho ~ जागो मन जागरण की बेला

जागो मन जागरण की बेला |
अलस उनींदे नैन उघारो |
सतत तरंगित ज्योति निहारो |
आगत्य की आरती उतारो |
गत पीढ़ा में दुखद बिसारो |
यत किंचीत नवज्योति समेंटो |
दुःख प्रसन्न अध्याय समेंटो |
जीवन में नव कण कण तोलो |
आशा में नव प्रकरण घोलो |
आगत उद्बोधन की बेला | जागो मन जागरण की बेला |

बहुरंगी कुस्मावली कुसमित |
मादक मारुत उर्मी तरंगित |
रस्मी रास हिलोल तरंगित |
वसुधा अंचल लॉस तरंगित |
कल कुजन निर्वाद तरंगित |
नाना सौरव मदीर तरंगित |
रस ही रस छबी लॉस तरंगित |
रस ही रस नवमोद तरंगित |
जागो नवप्रमोद की बेला | जागो मन जागरण की बेला |

सीत विगत नव मधुरत आयी |
वन उपवन नव उसमा छायी |
विट्प बेली कुस्मावली आयी |
पल्लव पल्लव छबी मुस्कायी |
व्योम वितान नील छबी छायी |
मदीर सूरद चल अनील समायी |
कण कण व्यापत आनंद नुनायी |
प्रक्रिती नवोड़ा बन मुस्कायी |
जागो मन बसंत की बेला | जागो मन जागरण की बेला |

और जब जाग जाओ तभी सुबह | और जब तक सोये रहो तब तक रात |
जागे को सदा सुबह है | सोये को सदा रात |
रात्री बाहर नहीं और ना प्रभात बाहर है |
सूरज तुम्हारे भीतर उगना है | तभी होगी वास्तविक सुबह |
बाहर के सूरज उगते हि डूबते है | भितर का सूरज उगा तो डूबता नहीं |
जागो मन जागरण की बेला |
और जागरण की बेला हमेशा है | ऐसा कोई क्षण नहीं जब तुम जाग ना सको | ऐसा कोई पल नहीं जब तुम पलक ना खोल सको |
आँख बंध किये हो ये तुम्हारा निर्णय है | आँख खोलना चाहो तो ईसी क्षण क्रांती घट सकती है |
और समस्त सिद्धो ने , समस्त बुद्धो ने बार बार यही पुकारा है , बार बार यही कहा है कि चाहो तो अभी जाग जाओ |
यह स्वप्न तुम्हारे निर्मित है | यह चिंताए तुम्नेही फेंला राखी है | यह नरक तुम्नेही बसा रखा है |
तुम्हारे अतीरिक्त और कोई जिम्मेवार नहीं |
कोई दूसरा तुम्हे जगा भी न सकेगा |
कोई लाख उपाय करे , तुमने निर्णय किया हो न जागने का तो सब उपाय व्यर्थ चले जायेंगे |

Tale 4 ~ 100 Tales for 10,000 Buddhas

At 2:00pm I reach the bungalow where He is staying. Lots of people have already arrived and are waiting to meet Him. His secretary comes, and people start going to his room, one by one. Mostly, everyone comes out within two or three minutes. Now the woman standing in front of me is going in; my turn is next. Just to see how she meets Osho, I peep in through the window when she walks in. Osho is sitting on a sofa and the floor is carpeted. The woman bows down to Osho, touches His feet and sits on the carpet. I say to myself, “This seems to be the right way to meet Him.” My heart is throbbing in excitement, and at the same time is gripped by some unknown fear. In a couple of minutes the woman comes out and I enter the room.

Osho greets me with a big smile. I simply forget everything and am pulled towards Him. I hug Him, and He receives it with such love that I feel it is not only I who has found Him, he has also found a lost child. He looks very happy and makes me sit next to Him on His left side, on the sofa. With His left hand He is caressing my back and places His right hand in my hands. I look in His eyes--they are full of love and light, and I feel that I have known this man for eternity. By His magical touch he is doing some miracle, and I come back to the normal state from that dying experience which had started when I had listened to His discourse the night before.

He asks me what I am doing in my life but I am unable to speak. He says, “Don’t be worried; everything will be okay”. By now I am able to talk, and I tell Him I am working in a transport company in Bombay.

He asks, “ Will you do my work?”

Not knowing what his work is , I simply nod my head.

He calls His secretary in and introduces me to him and tells me, “Keep in touch with him.”

In a couple of minutes I get up to leave, walk two or three steps and again look back at Him. He simply smiles, and I return and sit near his feet on the carpet.

He says, “Close you eyes,” and places His right foot on my heart centre. I feel some energy flowing through His foot and entering my body and my mind goes blank, I only hear the sound of my breath. It feels as if time has stopped. Maybe it is just a couple of minutes later that I hear His voice saying, “Come back... open your eyes slowly.” He slowly takes His foot away, and when I open my eyes He is sitting with His eyes closed. I slowly get up and slip out of the room with my heart dancing in joy. It is as if I have found some lost treasure.

Osho ~ Awareness in Sleep in Awareness

Osho : " The moment when you are dropping into sleep is the moment to encounter the unconsciousness. If you can remain out of sleep, then the unconscious will be real, because that is the line. The very line from where you drop into sleep is the line where you can encounter the unconscious.

You have been sleeping everyday, but you have not encountered sleep yet. You have not seen it: what it is, how it comes, how to drop into it. You have not known anything about it. You have been dropping daily, coming out of it, but you have not felt the moment when sleep comes to the mind and what happens.

So try this, and with three months effort, suddenly one day you will enter sleep knowingly: drop on your bed, close your eyes, and then remember, remember that sleep is coming and "I am to remain awake when the sleep comes".

It is very arduous, but it helps. One day it will not happen, another day it will not happen. Persist every day, constantly remembering that sleep is coming, and "I am not to allow it without nowing. I must be aware when sleep enters. I must go on feeling how sleep takes over, what it is."

One day sleep is there, and you are still awake. That very moment you become aware of your unconsciousness. And once you become aware of your unconsciousness you will never be asleep again during the day. Sleep will be there, but you will be awake simultaneously. A center in you will go on knowing; all around will be sleep, and the center will go on knowing. When this center is knowing, dreams become impossible. Then you are asleep in a different sense, and you will be awake in the morning in a different sense. A different quality comes by the encounter.

Note: I have tried this meditation and this phenomena has happened with me for some minutes. i have experience when sleep comes then our body temperature comes down and as if a black cloud has covered you. there are some 4-5 second time which is a transition period from waking state to dream state. if one can become aware in this transition period of 4-5 seconds then one can watch the dreams...

Osho ~ Understand the eternal music, you will understand me.

"I am a child on the seashore of time collecting seashells, coloured stones... I am tremendously fulfilled. I do not know who I am, because I am not.'

'What I am trying to say to you is a kind of music I have heard. It has not been heard verbally. It is in the sound of running water. It is in the wind passing through the pine trees. It is in the song of the birds. It is in the silence of darkness. It is in the dancing rays of the sun. It is all over the place. But it is a music, and unless you are capable of understanding this music you will not be able to understand me."

Tale 3 ~ 100 Tales for 10,000 Buddhas

In the morning at eight o'clock, we gather again at the same place for His discourse--He will be answering our questions, and many people are handing in pieces of paper to a man who is working as His secretary. I gather courage and write down my experience, asking Him what is happening to me. I hand in my question, and sit a little away, among the others, trying to hide myself.

Here He comes again, with His beauty and grace, namastes everyone, and sitting in the lotus posture starts reading the question. My heart starts beating fast when I see my pink paper in His hand . Somehow, I am feeling ashamed, wondering what He will think about me after reading my question. To my surprise, after reading the question--actually it is not a question but a description of the experience I felt when I first heard Him... of being pulled by a magnet, a sensation like dying--He starts looking at the audience from His far left, and when His eyes rest on me, He looks no further. I bow down, frozen, knowing that He knows it is my question. He has read it to Himself, and passes on to other questions.

After the discourse is over, people are going near Him to touch His feet, and He is touching their heads. I am watching all this from the distance, not daring to go near Him. Finally, when He gets up to leave, I rush towards Him and as I approach Him He gives me a smile and says, “You wrote that ?” I nod my head in affirmation and bow down to touch His feet. He places His hand on my head, and as I get up He says, “Come and see me in the afternoon.”

Tale 2 ~ 100 Tales for 10,000 Buddhas

I start reading His books and find myself totally unburdened of my knowledge. His words leave me alone in utter emptiness. My heart is longing to meet Him. I find the phone number and address of the centre in Bombay called “Jeevan Jagruti Kendre”. I call there and inquire about Osho and am told of the coming meditation camp at Nargol where I will be able to meet Him. I am overjoyed and wait impatiently to go to this meditation camp.

Finally, the day of His first close-up darshan-when I will be able to sit near His feet-at nargol has arrived. There are about five hundred people in the camp; it is a beautiful place on the seashore, surrounded by tall trees. I find my tree near the makeshift podium and make myself comfortable underneath it. My eyes are glued to the pathway from where He will be coming, and in few moments I see Him coming in all His beauty and grace, wearing a white lunghi and a shawl wrapped around the upper part of His body. I can literally see some kind of pure light surrounding Him. He has a magical presence, not of this world. He namastes the audience with folded hands and sits in the lotus posture on the little square table covered with a white cotton sheet.

He starts speaking, but His words are slipping away above my head. There is utter silence all around except for His voice and the sound of waves from the distance. I don’t know how long He spoke: when I open my eyes he has already gone. I am feeling something like a dying experience. He has tugged at my heart like a magnet pulling a piece of metal, and I am unable to sleep the whole night. Wandering on the seashore I look around with empty eyes. The sky is full of stars and I have never experienced such silence and beauty before. My heart wants to shout, “Where is He? I want to meet Him!”

Tale 1 ~ 100 Tales for 10,000 Buddhas

I am twenty-six years old. It is Sunday, 21st January, 1968 and today Osho will be speaking at 4:00pm in Sunmukhananda Hall in Bombay. One of my friends, knowing my quest for truth, advises me to go and listen to Him. I have already heard so many so-called saints and mahatmas that I am disillusioned by this religious game going on in India. But somehow, Osho, who is known as Acharya Rajneesh, attracts me. I decide to go to his discourse.

At 4:00pm I find my way to the second floor balcony of Sunmukhananda Hall, which is over-crowded. Lots of people are standing on the sides near the walls and there is quite and excitement in the air. It is very noisy. This is one of the biggest auditorium in Bombay, with the capacity to hold about five thousand people. I find a seat, make myself comfortable, and try to relax.

Within minutes a man with a beard, wearing a white lunghi and shawl appears on the podium, namastes the audience with folded hands and sits down in the lotus posture. I an sitting quit far away from the podium and can hardly see His face, but my heart is throbbing with excitement in anticipation of listening to this unknown man.

In a few moments I hear His sweet but strong voice addressing the audience as “Mere Priya Atman--my beloved souls.” Suddenly there is pindrop silence in the auditorium. I experience His voice taking me into a deep relaxation and I am listening to Him in utter silence. My mind has stopped: only His voice is echoing all the questions which have been bothering me for years.

The discourse is over, my heart is dancing with joy, and I tell my friend, “He is the Master I am looking for. I have found Him.” I come out and buy a few books and a magazine called Juoti Shikha. As I open it, I see that the headline on the page reads “Acharya Rajneesh’s 36th Birthday Celebration.” I can’t believe it--I am sure it is a printing mistake and it should be “63”. I ask the girl at the counter; she laughs and says that “36” is right. I still can’t believe that I have heard the discourse of a man who is only thirty-six years old. from His speech He sounds like an ancient rishi of the times of the Upanishads.

Source ~ 100 Tales for 10,000 Buddhas

Osho ~ Mind ~ No Mind

"...Mind can exist only in one way -- in running, always running after something, but always running. In the running is the mind . The moment you stop, the mind disappears. Right now you are identified with mind. The only problem is being in the mind. And the only solution is to get beyond mind. I call it meditation...

...The mystics in the East have never bothered too much about the mind; they have developed methods to bypass the mind. Those methods are the techniques of meditation -- they are just to bypass the mind. Once we have bypass the mind, once bird's-eye view of your own mind, things start settling..."

...It was certain reason that mystics called meditation 'no-mind' because if you call it meditation, again the mind makes a goal out of it..."

Osho ~ Ecstacy ~ Aah

ECSTASY IS A LANGUAGE that man has completely forgotten. He has been forced to forget it; he has been compelled to forget it. The society is against it, the civilization is against it. The society has a tremendous investment in misery. It depends on misery, it feeds on misery, it survives on misery. The society is not for human beings. The society is using human beings as a means for itself. The society has become more important than humanity. The culture, the civilization, the church, they all have become more important. They were meant to be for man, but now they are not for man. They have almost reversed the whole process; now man exists for them.

Every child is born ecstatic. Ecstasy is natural. It is not something that happens only to great sages. It is something that everybody brings with him into the world; everybody comes with it. It is life's innermost core. It is part of being alive. Life is ecstasy. Every child brings it into the world, but then the society jumps on the child, starts destroying the possibility of ecstasy, starts making the child miserable, starts conditioning the child.

The society is neurotic, and it cannot allow ecstatic people to be here. They are dangerous for it. Try to understand the mechanism; then things will be easier.

You cannot control an ecstatic man; it is impossible. You can only control a miserable man. An ecstatic man is bound to be free. Ecstasy is freedom. He cannot be reduced to being a slave. You cannot destroy him so easily; you cannot persuade him to live in a prison. He would like to dance under the stars and he would like to walk with the wind and he would like to talk with the sun and the moon. He will need the vast, the infinite, the huge, the enormous. He cannot be seduced into living in a dark cell. You cannot make a slave out of him. He will live his own life and he will do his thing. This is very difficult for the society. If there are many ecstatic people, the society will feel it is falling apart, its structure will not hold anymore.

Those ecstatic people will be the rebels. Remember, I don't call an ecstatic person "revolutionary"; I call him a "rebel." A revolutionary is one who wants to change the society, but he wants to replace it with another society. A rebel is one who wants to live as an individual and would like there to exist no rigid social structure in the world. A rebel is one who does not want to replace this society with another society -- because all the societies have proved the same The capitalist and the communist and the fascist and the socialist, they are all cousin-brothers; it doesn't make much difference. The society is society. All the churches have proved the same -- the Hindu, the Christian, the Mohammedan.

Once a structure becomes powerful, it does not want anybody to be ecstatic, because ecstasy is against structure. Listen to it and meditate over it: ecstasy is against structure Ecstasy is rebellious. It is not revolutionary.

A revolutionary is a political man; a rebel is a religious man. A revolutionary wants another structure, of his own desire, of his own utopia, but a structure all the same. He wants to be in power. He wants to be the oppressor and not the oppressed; he wants to be the exploiter and not the exploited,he wants to rule and not be ruled. A rebel is one who neither wants to be ruled nor wants to rule. A rebel is one who wants no rule in the world. A rebel is anarchic. A rebel is one who trusts nature, not man-made structures, who trusts that if nature is left alone, everything will be beautiful. It is!

Source ~ "Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language" by Osho

A spiritual retreat with Swami Anand Arun

Osho Shubham Meditation Centre is delighted to announce a spiritual retreat with Bodhisatva Swami Anand Arun from Tapoban Nepal.

In 1986, Osho appointed Swami Arun Director of Meditation and Spiritual Growth of the Rajneesh Mystery School.

Swami Arun now travels to America, Canada, Italy, Germany, France, Russia, Ukraine and India, leading meditation camps. In these meditation camps he has initiated more than 65,000 sannyasins from 30 different countries. Swami Arun travels the world, sharing the bliss of meditation and the blessings of Osho.

During the retreat, Swami Arun will teach several different Osho meditations: some are active, some passive & quiet. Each evening, there is dancing, music and celebration. It is scheduled as follows,

• The retreat starts with Swamiji's presence at Satsang event at Osho Shubham Meditation Centre on 8th April 2010 from 6 PM.
• Friday 9th April and Saturday 10th April, Swamiji will be at St. Patrick School' Hall from 10 am to 6 pm.
• The retreat will conclude on 11th April at Shubham Meditation Centre and will be celebrated with Sannyas Initiation by Swamiji.
  

You may attend all the event or any of them you like.

Cost:-

£10 for event on 8th April

and

£35 per day per person including meals if you are not able to come for all 3 days.

or

£100 for all three days i.e. on 9th, 10th and 11th including meals.

or

£107 for all the events including meals.
(i.e. events on 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th)

Please Note: Residential dormitory facility is also available for an extra £15 per night per person.

Please contact Ma Prem Anjali on her phone 07961821328 or email anjaligarg@hotmail.com,
Space is limited so please confirm your place by depositing the money in advance, as it will is first come first serve.

To experience a retreat with Swami Arun is a precious gift to give to yourself. The deep values and benefits received will last all of your life. Many

people travel to Nepal and India for this kind of energy and transformation. We are fortunate that it is now going to be available in your city.

Looking forward to meet you. Love and Hugs.

Osho ~ Qualities of Seeker of Truth

Question – Beloved Osho, What are the qualities of the Seeker of truth?

Osho – Every child is born with an innate search for truth. It is not something learned or adopted later on in life. Truth simply means, “I am, but I do not know who I am.” And the question is natural — “I must know the reality of my being.” It is not a curiosity.

These are the three differences, or three categories the world can be divided into: there are things which are, but they do not know that they are; hence there is no opening for any enquiry. They are closed, their existence is windowless. Then there are animals who know that they are, but they don’t have the intelligence to enquire what it is that they are. Their windows are open, but their intelligence is not enough to look out and see the stars and the sky and the birds and the trees. Their windows — whether opened or closed — don’t make much difference.

Perhaps once in a while a rare animal uses the window. In Shri Raman Maharshi’s ashram… and he was one of the most significant people of this century. He was not a master; that’s why people don’t know him as they know George Gurdjieff or J. Krishnamurti. They don’t know him even as they know Sri Aurobindo or P.D. Ouspensky who were only teachers — profound teachers, but not mystics.

Raman Maharshi was a silent pool of energy. Every morning he used to sit for a silent satsang, communion. He never talked much, unless asked something. Then too his answer was very short — having profundity, but you had to look for it. There was no explanation in it. His literature is confined to two, three small booklets.

His teaching was mostly to be in silent communion with the disciples. Naturally, very few people were benefited by him. But every morning he was sitting, people were sitting, and a cow would come and stand outside, putting her neck through the window, and she would remain standing there while the satsang lasted. It must have continued for years. People came and went, new people came, but the cow remained constant… and at the exact time, never late. And as the satsang would disperse she would move away.

One day she did not appear, and Shri Raman said, “Today satsang cannot be held, because my real audience is absent. I am afraid either the cow is very sick or she has died, and I have to go and look for her.” He lived on a mountain in the south of India, Arunachal. The cow belonged to a poor woodcutter who lived near the ashram. Raman left the temple where they used to meet, went to the woodcutter and asked, “What happened? The cow has not come today for satsang.”

The woodcutter said, “She is very sick and I am afraid she is dying, but she goes on looking out of the door, as if she is waiting for someone. Perhaps she is waiting for you, to see you for the last time. Perhaps that is why she is hanging around a little longer.”

Raman went in and there were tears in the eyes of the cow. And she died happily, putting her head in the lap of Raman Maharshi. This happened just in this century, and Raman declared her enlightened, and told his people that a beautiful memorial should be made for her.

It is very rare for human beings to be enlightened; it is almost impossibly rare for animals to become enlightened, but the cow attained. She will not be born again. From the body of a cow she has bypassed the whole world of humanity, and she has jumped ahead and joined with the buddhas. So once in a while — there are a few instances only — it has happened. But that cannot be called the rule; it is just the exception.

Things are, but they do not know that they are. Animals are, they know that they are, but they don’t have the intelligence to ask who they are. And it is not something to be wondered about. Millions of human beings never ask the question — that is the third category.

Man is, is aware that he is, and is capable by birth to enquire who he is. So it is not a question of learning, cultivation, education; you bring the quest with yourself. You are the quest. Your society destroys you. It has very sophisticated ways and means to destroy your quest, to remove the question from your being, or at least cover it up. And the method it uses is this: before the child has even asked who he is, the answer is given. And any answer that has been given before the question has been asked is futile; it is going to be just a burden.

He is told that he is a soul, that he is a spirit, that he is not a body, that he is not material. Or, in communist countries he is told that he is a body, just material, and that only in the old days, out of fear and ignorance, did people believe that they have souls — that that is just a superstition. But in both cases, the child is being given an answer for which he has not asked. And his mind is delicate, pure… and he trusts his mother, his father — there is no reason for him not to trust.

He starts a journey of belief, and belief kills the quest. He becomes more and more knowledgeable. Then education is there, religious education is there, and there is no end to collecting knowledge. But all this knowledge is futile — not only futile, but poisonous, because the first step has gone wrong. The question was not asked, and the answer has been implanted in his mind, and since then he has been collecting more and more answers. He has completely forgotten that any answer that is not the finding of a question is meaningless.

So the only quality of a seeker of truth is that he does not believe, that he is not a believer, that he is ready to be ignorant rather than to be knowledgeable, because ignorance is at least natural, simple, innocent. And out of ignorance there is a possibility, almost a certainty, that the question will arise, that the journey will begin. But through knowledge you are lost in a jungle of words, theories, doctrines, dogmas. And there are so many, and they are so contradictory to each other, that soon you will find yourself more and more confused… more and more knowledgeable and more and more confused.

As far as I am concerned the basic quality of a seeker of truth is to cut himself away from all belief systems, from all borrowed knowledge — in other words, to have the courage to be ignorant rather than to have borrowed knowledge. Ignorance has a beauty; it is at least yours, authentic, sincere. It has come with you. It is your blood, it is your bones, it is your marrow.

Knowledgeability is ugly, absolute rubbish. It has been poured upon you by others, and you are carrying the load of it. And the load is such that it will not give you any opportunity to enquire on your own what truth is. Your collection of knowledge will answer immediately that this is truth. If you are filled with THE HOLY BIBLE, then the question will be answered by THE HOLY BIBLE. If you are filled with the VEDAS, then the question will come out of the VEDAS. But it will come from some source outside yourself; it will not be your discovery. And that which is not your discovery is not yours.

Truth brings freedom because it is your discovery. It makes you fully into man; otherwise you remain on the level of the animals: you are but you don’t know who you are. The search for truth is really the search for the reality of your being.

Once you have entered your being, you have entered into the being of the whole, because we are different on the periphery but at the center we meet — we are one. You can draw many lines from the periphery of a circle towards the center; those lines on the periphery have a certain distance from each other. But as they come closer to the center the distance goes on becoming less. And when they reach to the center the distance disappears.

At the center we are one. At the periphery of existence we appear to be separate. And to know the truth of your being is to know the truth of the whole. There is just one quality, one courage: not to be afraid of being ignorant. On that point there can be no compromise, no cheap borrowed knowledge to decorate yourself with as a wise man. That’s enough! Just be pure and natural, and out of that purity, naturalness, ignorance, innocence, the quest is bound to be born.

Every human being would be a seeker of truth if the society were not interfering with children. The class of children is the most harmed, oppressed, exploited, distorted class of all classes — and the most helpless. And you are taking advantage of the helplessness of small children. But you are also not responsible. The same has been done to you. It is difficult to find out who was responsible in the beginning. But as long as we can look back, this has been the situation: every generation corrupts the new generation, and anybody who wants to prevent this corruption is condemned as corrupting the youth.

Socrates was condemned for corrupting the youth, and all that he was doing was the simple process of removing borrowed knowledge and helping his disciples to be themselves and then “to know thyself.” If anybody has served truth the most sincerely it was Socrates. But he was condemned by the court, by the law, by the people who were in power, for corruption, for corrupting young minds.

Strangely, in the land of Socrates I was also condemned as corrupting people’s minds. It seems the technology of corrupting the youth has evolved immensely in two thousand years, because it took Socrates his whole life to corrupt, and I was only there for two weeks! And the archbishop was already threatening to burn my house, to stone me to death.

Why are they afraid? They know perfectly well that they have no foundations. So if anybody shows the young people that their knowledge is unfounded, that all their answers are bogus because they don’t even have questions, that they are only repeating things parrot-like but they don’t have any understanding of what they are saying… then anybody who has a little intelligence will be able to understand it immediately. Is this corruption of the youth?

To bring people to the quest of the truth — is this corruption?
It seems it is the greatest crime in the world in which — unfortunately — we are living.

Source ~ “Beyond Psychology” by Osho

Osho ~ Buddha Sutra ~ Life is easy for the Man who is without Shame

Osho – This Buddhist idea of shame has to be understood in contrast with the Christian idea of guilt. In the dictionaries they seem to be synonymous; they are not. Shame is a totally different phenomenon.

Guilt is imposed by others on you. It is a strategy of the priests to exploit. It is a conspiracy between the priest and the politician to keep humanity in deep slavery forever. They create guilt in you, they create great fear of sin. They condemn you, they make you afraid, they poison your very roots with the idea of guilt. They destroy all possibilities of laughter, joy, celebration. Their condemnation is such that to laugh seems to be a sin, to be joyous means you are worldly.

Christians say Jesus never laughed. What a lie! And they have been lying for centuries and with such theological acumen, with great scholarship. They have been lying very piously, very religiously. Have you ever come across a picture of Jesus or a statue in which he looks happy, blissful, joyous? Impossible! You can’t conceive of a joyful Jesus — after two thousand years of Christian propaganda the whole figure of Jesus has become distorted.

He was a man of great joy. He was a man who knew how to laugh and how to love and how to live festively. He loved eating and drinking. He must have danced, he must have joked with his friends, with his disciples. I cannot conceive of him not having a sense of humor, because it is impossible for me to conceive of a man being spiritual and without a sense of humor. A sense of humor is one of the most fundamental qualities of a religious man.

But the picture that Christians have depicted of Jesus is ugly. He is always sad, in deep sorrow — carrying the whole burden of the original sin committed by Adam and Eve. He has been depicted by the Christians as doing a great service to humanity. He is the savior — and how can the savior laugh? Laughter seems to be such an earthly quality. He has to be very serious, long-faced. They have destroyed the beauty of Jesus.

Jesus has to be resurrected. He was killed twice. First he was killed by the Jews and the Romans, and then he has been killed by the Christian priests. He got away from his first murder, but from the second he has not yet been able to escape. He is still a captive of the Vatican; he has to be freed from the Vatican.

These people who have made Jesus look so serious, so sad, so sorrowful — who have made him a martyr — have also created great guilt in humanity. Whenever you laugh you feel as if you are doing something wrong. Whenever you are happy you start looking guilty. How can you be happy? How can you laugh? How can you dance? How can you sing? The whole world is in such a suffering, and you are singing, and you are dancing? It seems that you must be cruel.

Krishna seems to be cruel to Christian eyes: playing on his flute, dancing, singing, celebrating. He seems to be a hedonist, a Zorba the Greek! Christians can’t conceive Krishna to be spiritual. And in fact, the word ‘christ’ is a derivation of the word ‘krishna’. Jesus must have the same qualities as Krishna; hence he has been called Christ. ‘Christ’ comes from ‘krishna’, and Krishna-consciousness simply means ecstatic consciousness.

But why does the priest go on creating guilt in man? There is a secret behind it. If you can make humanity feel guilty you remain powerful. The guilty person is always ready to serve those who are powerful. He is always ready to serve those who are puritans. He is always ready to be a slave to the priests. The guilty person cannot have courage enough to be a rebel — that is the secret. Only a blissful person can be rebellious. The priests must have found this secret long ago, because they have been practicing it for centuries and they have destroyed all the beauty of the human soul.

Remember, when Buddha says “shame” he does not mean guilt. Shame is a totally different phenomenon. Guilt is imposed by others; shame is your own experience. Shame is interior, guilt is from the outside. Shame is not because of others but because of your own understanding: “What am I doing to my own self? What am I doing to my life? How am I wasting it?” It has nothing to do with the priests, Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan. It has something to do with your awareness. It has nothing to do with the moral codes of a society. It has something to do with your consciousness, not with your conscience.

Guilt is part of conscience, and conscience is created by others. You have a Hindu conscience and a Mohammedan conscience and a Jaina conscience, but consciousness is simply consciousness. There is nothing like a Hindu consciousness or a Mohammedan consciousness.

Consciousness makes you aware of what you are doing to yourself. And when you see that you are destroying tremendously pregnant opportunities for growth, shame arises in you. You start feeling a deep anguish, and that anguish is helpful for growth, that pain is helpful to growth. It brings you, for the first time, a vision of the possible, a glimpse of the peaks.

Guilt simply says that you are a sinner. And the feeling of shame simply shows you that you need not be a sinner, that you are meant to be a saint. If you are a sinner it is only because of your unconsciousness; you are not a sinner because the society follows a certain morality and you are not following it.

All moralities are not moral, and something which is moral in one country is not moral in another country. Something moral in one religion is not moral in another religion. Something is moral today and was not moral yesterday. Morals change, morals are just arbitrary. But consciousness is eternal, it never changes. It is simply the absolute — the truth.

Once you have become a little more aware you start feeling what you have done to yourself and to others. That experience brings shame, and shame is good and guilt is bad. With guilt, deep down you know that it is all nonsense.

For example, in the Jaina religion to eat in the night is a sin. If you are born a Jaina and sometimes you eat at night, you will feel very guilty; knowing perfectly well — if you are intelligent enough you will know it — that this is foolish, there can’t be any sin in eating at night. But still your conscience will prick you, because the conscience is manipulated by the priest, by the outside powers who are dominating you.

Hence guilt creates a dual personality in you: on the surface you are one person and deep down you are another — because you can see the futility of it, the nonsense of it. You become split — guilt creates schizophrenia. And the whole of humanity suffers from schizophrenia for the simple reason that we have created guilt, so much and so deeply that we have divided every man in two.

One part of him is social, formal. He goes to the church and follows the rules as far as they are feasible. He maintains a certain front, a certain face, and from the back door he goes on living a totally different life — just the opposite of what he goes on preaching, just the opposite of what he goes on praising.

The idea of shame never creates any conflict within you, it never creates any split. It creates a challenge, it challenges you, it challenges your guts. It says to you, “Rise above — because that is your birthright. Reach to the peaks, they are yours. Those sunlit peaks are your real home, and what are you doing in these dark valleys, crawling like animals? You can fly — you have wings!”

Guilt condemns that which is wrong in you. The idea of shame makes you aware of that which is possible. Guilt goes on bringing in your past again and again — burdens you with the past. And the idea of shame brings the future to you, it releases your energies. They are totally different.

Source ~ “The Dhammapada, Vol 7" by Osho

Beloved Osho, Is it really true that God is also searching for me? Can I wait for him to find me?

Question – Beloved Osho, Is it really true that God is also searching for me? Can I wait for him to find me?

Osho – Sat Vijaya, it is absolutely true that just as you are seeking God or truth or the beloved, he is also seeking you. The search is never one-sided. And any search that is one-sided is never going to be fulfilled. But your question is, “Can I wait for him to find me?” — then he will also wait to search for you.

Search has to be from both sides; otherwise both sides will be waiting. Existence has a balance about everything. Your waiting is not enough; your longing, your search is categorically needed.
One of the Sufis’ sayings is: if you take one step towards God, he takes one thousand steps towards you. But at least one step on your side is absolutely necessary. And your one step is far more important than the one thousand steps of God, because by “God” is not meant any person; by God is meant the intelligence of this whole universe, the consciousness of the whole universe.

You have a very small proportion of consciousness. Your one step is far bigger than the one thousand steps of God, because existence has infinite intelligence. So waiting alone won’t do. Just waiting is a state which is not alive; there has to be tremendous longing, a thirst from every pore of your being. Unless God becomes a question of your life and death, the meeting is not possible.

Almost everybody will be prepared to wait — that means on your laundry list, God is the last item, when you have done everything of the world. And that is not possible, even in eternity; something or other will be left undone. God has to be your first priority. It has to become a kind of haunting in your heart. Breathing in, breathing out, there has to be a rememberance: whatever you are doing is nonessential, and the essential part is to go deep down in meditation.

Never think of God as someone outside you. That is a wrong beginning — because where will you search for him? The outside is so vast; you don’t have the address or the phone number. In the infinity of existence, in which direction will you search for him? How will you find that you are on the right path? Millions of paths… how are you going to choose? What will be the criterion?

Because of this misconception that God is outside, religions became organized around priesthood, around a holy book, around certain dogmas — because that at least gives you some feel for where you have to search: you have to go to the church, you have to do a certain prayer, you have to go to the synagogue, you have to find your path in the holy scriptures. The idea of God outside has led the whole of humanity into tremendous confusion.

He is within you. Better will be if I say: He is your within, your very interiority, your very center of being. You are on the periphery of your individuality. Move inwards.

First you will meet the thoughts. Don’t get involved in them, just ignore…. Buddha has used the word upeksha, ignoring, as a certain guaranteed method; otherwise you are going to get caught in the net of thoughts. Don’t fight, just go on your way as if mind is empty. And if you can ignore the mind it becomes empty.

The more attention you pay to the mind, the more nourishment you give to the thoughts. If you can pass the boundary of the mind without disturbing — and it is not an arduous thing, just a little knack of ignoring — then you will come into the world of feelings, emotions, moods, which are more subtle than the thoughts. You have entered from the mind and its territory into a deeper area of your being, the heart.

Continue the same method, ignore your sentiments, emotions, moods, as if they don’t belong to you. As you pass the boundary of the heart you enter the boundary of your own being. That is the temple of God. And the moment you enter the temple, certainly he takes those one thousand steps towards you.

Those one thousand steps are symbolic. He comes towards you as light, as the very essence of beauty, as blissfulness, as silence, as peace. And he comes with so much force, almost like a flood, that you are drowned in it.

You will find God, but you will have to lose yourself; that is the price. It is not much. How much do you think your cost-price is? In fact, any animal in the world is more costly than man. When man dies, nobody is ready to purchase him. When an elephant dies, then thousands of rupees…. When any animal dies, even the dead animal has some utility. It is only man who dies, and all that you can do is either burn him or bury him — just to get rid of him. Rather than bringing some money to you after death he withdraws ome money from your pocket.

So there is no need to be afraid if you are lost, drowned, because in the temple of God only one can exist — either you or he. Duality is not possible there, because duality is conflict. And the experience of God is that of immense harmony. That harmony can be achieved only if you allow yourself to be drowned in the flood that comes from all sides — of joy, of bliss, of ecstasy. The feel of dying in the flood of God is the most exquisite and the most sweet experience — the last, the highest, the greatest; there is nothing beyond it.

But it is not going to happen by just waiting. You will have to go inside your own being. He is present there always; he is your life, he is your all. You are just a small ray of light from that immense source. So when you get drowned in him, it is just that the ray has returned back to the sun. One has come home.
If God is understood the way I am telling you…. And I am not a thinker; it is not my hypothesis, it is my experience. I have passed through that death and I have found that it appears to be death from one side, but from the other side it is resurrection. You disappear as a small creature and become a vast creativity. You don’t lose anything and you gain everything.

But the organized religions don’t want you to be aware of this fact, because their whole business depends on an outside God. Then the priest is needed, the temple is needed, the mosque is needed, the church is needed; then the HOLY BIBLE is needed, then some interpreters are needed, and then all the millions of priests around the world become your mediators with a fictitious God somewhere in the sky.

The Vatican pope has declared it a sin to confess directly to God; you have to confess to the priest. And of course it has to be a catholic priest — only he is authorized to have a direct communication with God. You cannot pray directly, you cannot ask forgiveness directly.

Do you see the cunningness, the meanness, the whole strategy of exploitation? The priest becomes more important than God himself. On the one hand these people go on calling you children of God, and on the other, children cannot directly communicate with their father; a priest is needed as a mediator. The reality is, there is no God outside; it is the invention of the priest. And he has invented a great business. For centuries he has been exploiting men, whether they are Hindus or Mohammedans or Christians or Jews — it does not matter.

There is only one thing every religion insists: that a direct relationship with God is not possible. They don’t give any reasons why. I have seen trees praying directly to God; the rivers and the mountains and the stars don’t have any priests, the flowers and the birds don’t have any priests. Do you think this whole existence except man is not related to God? It is more related to God than man. It is only man who has gone astray.

Have you ever heard in any religion, in any country, a story that God expelled a few trees out of the garden of Eden? Or a few animals, or a few birds? It is only man who is expelled. The story is significant. It simply means that the whole of existence is rooted in God. Only because man has a thinking mind, he has wandered far away. Mind is capable of wandering anywhere — you can be sitting here and your mind may be wandering somewhere in America or somewhere in Germany, or somewhere in Japan, or maybe on the moon…. There are all kinds of lunatics.

It is very rarely that you are here, very rare to be in the place where you are. Your mind is always wandering somewhere else. It is never here, it is never now. This wandering mind has taken you away from your own inner being. And this has become a great opportunity for exploitation. All over the world, like mushrooms, priests and religions and holy books have appeared.

There are three hundred religions in the world. They differ on every point except one point, and that is, the priest is an absolute necessity. Any intelligent person can see that these religions are not for you, these religions are for the priesthood. They are parasites — catholic parasites, protestant parasites, Hindu parasites, they come in all sizes and all shapes!

My effort here is to make you free from the chains of the priesthood. The moment you are free from the chains of the priesthood, you are no longer Christian, no longer Hindu, no longer Jew. You are simply and purely human beings. You have already come very close to your home; the priest was distracting you.

An ancient story says that the old devil is sitting under a tree, having his morning tea, and a young disciple comes running, very much disturbed. He says, “What are you doing? You are sitting here, drinking tea, and our whole business is in difficulty. One man on the earth has found the truth!”

The old guy laughed. He said, “You are too young, you don’t know all the secrets. Don’t be worried, my people have reached there.” The young disciple could not believe his eyes, could not believe his ears. He said, “I am coming from there, I have not seen anyone of our people.”

The old devil said, “There is no need to send our people. I have created the priests. And they are surrounding the man. Now they have become a wall between the man and the people. Whatever the man says, the priest will interprete it and distort it.

“Truth has been found many times,” said the old devil, “but while priests exist, truth will be found and lost again, because the priests immediately start interpreting, making organized religions around the truth — churches, temples, mosques — and the truth is lost in their interpretations, in their commentaries.
“What commentaries can they make? They don’t know the truth. Truth needs no commentary, it is pure experience. Either you know it or you don’t know it. there is no third position. That’s why I’m so much at ease. Just sit down and have a cup of tea.”

The story is significant. Beware of the priests, beware of organized religions, beware of others telling you what is truth. Nobody can tell it to you. You will have to find it yourself.
And it is so close to you that you have not to go on a faraway journey. You have to go in silence, in profound peace, beyond words and beyond feelings, and suddenly you find the temple of consciousness. And as you enter into it you disappear.
Only God is. That is your authentic reality. God is your very soul.

Source: “Razor’s Edge” by Osho

Osho on God

"I love human beings but not humanity. Humanity does not exists, only concrete human beings exists, someone here someone there but it is always someone.

Humanity is a empty word and just like that is Christ. Jesus exists sometimes in Gautam the buddha, sometimes in Mohammed the prophet, sometimes in Krishna the flute player, somewhere here, somehwere there ... but it is always a concrete phenomenon.

Christ is abstract, it only exists in the books of philosophy and theology. Christ has never walked on earth or we can say it in another way Christ is the son of God, Jesus the son of man. Let me talk about Jesus the son of man, because only the son of man is real and only the son of man can grow and become the son of God. Only man can grow and become God. Because man is the seed, the source. God is the flowering.

God does not exists anywhere. When you flower God comes in existance. It comes into existance and disappears, comes into existance and disappears. When Buddha was here God existed. When Jesus was here God existed. When Jesus disappears God disappears, just when a flower disappears it disappears.

God is not somewhere.. always existing. Whenever a man realizes his essence, whenever a man really exists, whenever a man exists in totality, God exists in those rare moments.

So when you come and ask me "Where is God?", I can not show you. Unless you prove him into your own being, he will not be there. Untill you become him he is not. Everybody has to realize him in his own inner most shrine, in his own being. You carry him as a seed. It is up to you to allow it to grwo and become a great tree."

Osho ~ Deja Vu

Deja vu in itself is a reality, because you are not here for the first time; nobody is here for the first time. all are eternal pilgrims, journeying, journeying from one life to another. And all that you have experienced, you have experienced many times; it can't be new. Existence moves in a circle, not in a line.

It is like the rotating wheel of seasons: you have seen many springs and again the spring comes. Again you hear the sound of the birds and it reminds you of other springs. You see flowers blooming and it reminds you of other blooming. And they were almost alike. I say ;almost;-- I don't say that it is an exact repetition; nothing is ever repetition exactly. But it is so approximately alike that it is very difficult to make a distinction--hence deja vu. You again see the clouds floating in the sky and the sun and the birds and the trees. The spring has come again with all its joy . . . and you have seen those springs many times!

So somewhere deep in your unconscious you are carrying all the memories of all the past lives. It is very possible that again and again you will come to situations which are alike and suddenly you feel as it has happened before. And it has happened before! May be the actors were different, but how can they be very much different? Human beings are human beings after all.

For example, just listening to me, you can be surrounded by a sense of deja vu -- you can start feeling you have listened to me before, the same way. I may not have been with you before but you may have listened to some other Master. And they have all the same look in the eyes, the same scent to their being, the same song to sing. Words differ but the rhythm, the constantly running underground rhythm is the same. So right now you can be caught in a deja vu.

You have listened to many more people before. It is not possible that you have come for the first time to a Master. . . How is it possible? For millennia you have been searching. It is impossible not to have come across . . . You may have come across a Jesus or a Buddha or a Krishna or a Rinzai or a Bodhidarma. Down the ages in so many lives how can you avoid not coming across a Buddha? It is not possible!

You may not have met me before -- that's possible; that's not a problem--but someone very much like me. you may have looked with the same love at some other Master, with the same trust, with the same open heart, and again it is happening! You may have drunk from some other Master in the same way with such sensitivity and receptivity. . . and again it is happening! It can bring to your memory the floating fragrances of past lives, the nostalgia . . .

Deja vu happens to everybody but how strong it can be depends--the strength depends on what type of barrier exists between this life and the past lives and other lives. If it is a China wall. very thick, it is very difficult for things to cross over. And even if they cross, they become distorted. The wall distorts them and by the time they reach you the moment is lost . . .

And it can be very very weird sometime because when you go into it you can start feeling as if you are in a dream. You can start feeling as if you are living a fantasy, not reality . . . as if those people around here not there; may be it is just a memory. And that makes for a kind of weirdness.It can be scary too, it can frighten to; it depends on your interpretation . . .

No, deja vu is a reality, because we have lived so many lives and we have loved in so many ways. We have been angry in so many ways with so many people. We have been friends and enemies, and all that is happening to you now has happened many many times before.

Osho ~ "Don't Just Do Something, Sit There"