CELEBRATION IS TO BE DRUNK WITH THE DIVINE.''OSHO''

Celebration is the foundation of my way of living – not renunciation but rejoicing. Rejoice in all the beauties, all the joys, all that life offers, because this whole life is a gift of God.

To me, life and God are synonymous. In fact, life is a far better word than the word “God.” It is only a philosophical term, while life is real, existential. The word "God" exists only in scriptures. It is a word, a mere word. Life is within you and without you – in the trees, in the clouds, in the stars. This whole existence is a dance of life.

Love life. Live your life totally, be drunk with the divine through life. I am in tremendous love with life, hence I teach celebration. Everything has to be celebrated; everything has to be lived, loved. To me nothing is mundane and nothing is sacred. All is sacred, from the lowest rung of the ladder to the highest rung. It is the same ladder: from the body to the soul, from the physical to the spiritual, from sex to samadhi – everything is divine!

UNDERSTANDING IS THE SEARCH WITHIN YOUR OWN BEING.''OSHO''

Understanding cannot be studied; nobody can teach it to you. You have to be a light unto yourself. 

You have to seek and search within your own being, because it is already there at the very core. If you dive deep you will find it. You will have to learn how to dive within yourself – not in the scriptures, but within your own existence

JOY IS TWINKLING STAR.''OSHO''

 I am so full of joy – and yet full of fear.

Give all your energy to joy, and fear will disappear. Ignore fear, don’t pay any attention to fear, because the more attention you pay to it, the longer it will linger on. Pour yourself totally in the direction from where joy is arising, and fear will disappear just as darkness disappears when you bring light in.

Joy is light. And joy is the beginning of a great pilgrimage that ends in finding godliness. So go on – without any fear, because existence always protects those who trust it. Relax, give yourself to existence and allow the joy to overwhelm you. Let it become your wings, so that you can reach to the stars.

A joyful heart is very close to the stars.

It is only the sad and the sorrowful and the miserable who are going towards hell. They are creating their hell. The joyful and the singing and the dancing and the celebrating are creating their paradise by each of their songs, by each of their dances.

It is in your hands whether to create paradise or to fall into a darkness, into hellfire. These are not outside you; these both are within you. It all depends what you choose to be.

Choose to be divine, choose to be more and more a celebrant, choose to be festive, so more and more flowers can blossom in your being, and more and more fragrance can become available to you.

And this way will not only help you, it will help all those with whom you come in contact. Joy is as infectious as any disease. When you see a few people dancing, suddenly you feel your feet are ready. You may try to control them, because control has been taught to you, but your body wants to join the dance. Whenever you have an opportunity to laugh, join; whenever you have an opportunity to dance, join; whenever you have an opportunity to sing, sing – and one day you will find you have created your paradise.

It is not that one goes to paradise; paradise is not somewhere in the sky – it is something that one creates around himself.

It is a good beginning. With all my blessings, go deeper, in spite of any fear. Never listen to negative things, because if you listen to them they can poison you, they can destroy your joy – keep it pure, unpolluted. And here are people who will dance with you, who will celebrate, because you have taken the first step towards existence.

And I want to remind you that the first step is almost half the journey

THE REAL GIFT.''OSHO''

 The body should function rightly, perfectly. It is an art, it is not austerity. It is not an austerity; you are not to fight with it, you are simply to understand it. And the body is so wise, wiser than your mind, remember, because the body has existed longer than the mind. The mind is a very new arrival, just a child.

The body is very ancient, very, very ancient – because you moved once as a rock; the body was there, the mind was fast asleep. Then you became a tree; the body was there, with all its greenery and flowers. The mind was fast asleep still, not so asleep as in the rock but still asleep. You became an animal, a tiger; the body was so alive with energy, but the mind was not functioning. You became a bird, you became a man. The body has been functioning for millions of years.

The body has accumulated much wisdom, the body is very wise. So if you eat too much the body says, “Stop!” The mind is not so wise. The mind says, “The taste is beautiful – a little more.” And if you listen to the mind, then the mind becomes destructive to the body, this way or that. If you listen to the mind, first it will say “Go on eating,” because mind is foolish, a child. He does not know what he is saying. He is a new arrival, he has no learning in him. He is not wise, he is yet a fool. Listen to the body. When the body says, “Hungry,” eat. When the body says, “Stop,” stop.

If you listen to the mind, it is as if a small child is leading an old man – they both will fall in a pit. And if you listen to the mind then first you will be too much in the senses, and then you will get fed up. And every sense will bring you misery, and every sense will bring you more anxiety, conflict, pain.

If you eat too much there will be pain and there will be vomiting, and the whole body is disturbed. Then the mind says, “Eating is bad, so go on a fast.” And a fast is also dangerous. If you listen to the body it will never overeat, it will never undereat – it will simply follow the Tao.

A few scientists have been working on this problem and they have discovered a very beautiful phenomenon: small children eat whenever they feel hungry, they go to sleep whenever they feel that sleep is coming – they listen to their bodies. But parents disturb them, they go on forcing: it is dinner time, or lunchtime, or this and that, or bedtime – go! They don’t allow their bodies.

So one experimenter tried leaving children on their own. He was working with twenty-five children. They were not forced to go to sleep, they were not forced to get up. They were not forced at all for six months. And a very deep understanding came.

They slept well. They had less dreams, no nightmares, because nightmares were coming through the parents who were forcing them. They ate well, but never too much – never less than necessary, never more than necessary. They enjoyed eating and sometimes they would not eat at all. When the body was not feeling to, they would not eat, and they never fell ill because of eating.

And one more thing which no one ever suspected came to be understood, and that was miraculous. Only Sosan can understand, or Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu, because they are the masters of Tao. This was such a discovery! They came to understand that if a child was ill, then he would not eat particular foods. Then they tried to understand why he was not eating those foods. The foods were analyzed and it was found that for that disease, those foods were dangerous. How did the child decide? – just the body.

And when the child was growing, he would eat more of whatsoever was needed for his growth. Then they analyzed and they found that these ingredients are helpful. And the food would change, because the needs changed. One day a child would eat something and the same child the next day would not eat it. And the scientists felt that there is a body-wisdom.

If you allow the body to have its say, you are moving on the right path, the great way. And this is so not only with food, this is so with the whole life. Your sex goes wrong because of the mind, your stomach goes wrong because of your mind. You interfere with the body. Don’t interfere! Even if you can do it for three months, don’t interfere. And suddenly you will become so healthy, and a well-being will descend on you. Everything feels okay, the shoe fits. But the mind is the problem.

The mind has its own function; that is, how to relate with others, how to move in this world where so many persons are living, how to drive a car, how to follow the rules and regulations of the traffic, how not to create danger for others or for yourself, how to look ahead and plan. The mind is just like a radar, it looks ahead – where to move, how to move – but the base remains the body.

Those people who are against the body and cripple their senses will miss their enlightenment for a longer period than those people who listen to their senses and follow their advice.

If you listen to the senses you become simple. Of course nobody is going to pay you respect because they will say, “This man is a sensual man.” And a sensual man is more alive than a non-sensual man. But nobody is interested in life; everybody is interested in a dead thing to be worshipped.

Don’t ask for any respect from people, otherwise you will go astray. And a moment comes when everybody can respect you, but you cannot respect yourself because you are completely astray. Nothing fits, everything goes wrong.

Listen to the body – because you are here to enjoy this moment that has been given to you, this graceful moment, this beatitude that has happened to you. You are alive, conscious, and such a vast world!

The human being is a miracle on this small planet – very, very small, tiny! The sun is over a million times bigger than this earth, and this sun is mediocre. There are suns millions of times bigger than this, and there are millions of suns and millions of worlds and universes. And up to now it seems, as far as science goes, that life and consciousness has happened only on this earth. This earth is blessed.

You don’t know what you have attained. If you feel what you have attained, you will be simply grateful and you will not ask for anything more. You could have been a rock and you could not have done anything about it. You are a man – and you are suffering, and you are worried, and you are missing the whole point. Enjoy this moment because it may not come again.

That is what Hindus mean: they say you can become a rock again. If you don’t enjoy and don’t grow in it, you will fall. You can become an animal again. This is the meaning: remember always that this climax of consciousness is such a peak – if you don’t enjoy and become integrated in it, you will fall.

Gurdjieff used to say that you have got no soul yet; life is just an opportunity to attain it, to become a soul. Don’t go on wasting time and energy, because if you die uncrystallized you simply disappear. And who knows when the opportunity will happen again – or not? Nobody can know, there is nobody who can say anything about it.

This much can be said: that this moment the opportunity is there for you. If you enjoy it, it becomes more crystallized – if you feel ecstatic about it and grateful. Remember, to be grateful nothing more is needed. All that you have is too much, it is too much to be grateful and thankful for. Don’t ask more from the existence. Simply enjoy that which is given to you. And the more you enjoy, the more will be given to you.

Jesus says a very paradoxical sentence: “If you have more, more will be given to you, and if you have not anything, even that which you have will be taken away from you.” Seems to be very anti-communist. Seems to be absurd. What type of mathematics is this? “The more you have, the more will be given to you; and if you don’t have anything, even that which you have will be taken away from you!” Seems to be for rich men and against poor.

It is not concerned with ordinary economics – it is the ultimate economics of life. Only those who have will get more, because the more they enjoy it the more it grows. Life grows through enjoyment. Joy is the sutra.

Be joyful, grateful, whatsoever you have. Whatsoever! Be ecstatic about it, and more opening. And more falls upon you, you become capable of being given more blessings. One who is not grateful will lose whatsoever he has. One who is grateful, the whole existence helps him to grow more, because he is worthy and he is realizing what he has got.

WHO AM I?''OSHO''

 "Who am I?" has no answer to it; it is unanswerable. Your mind will supply many answers. Your mind will say, "You are the essence of life. You are the eternal soul. You are divine," and so on and so forth. All those answers have to be rejected: NETI NETI - one has to go on saying, "Neither this nor that."

When you have denied all the possible answers that the mind can supply and devise, when the question remains absolutely unanswerable, a miracle happens: suddenly the question also disappears. When all the answers have been rejected, the question has no props, no supports inside to stand on any more. It simply flops, it collapses, it disappears.

When the question also has disappeared, then you know. But that knowing is not an answer: it is an existential experience.

RESPONSIBILITY; THE ABILITY TO RESPONSE.''OSHO''

You don´t understand even the meaning of the word responsibility. The society has been so cunning. It has destroyed our most beautiful words, given them distorted meanings. Ordinarily in your dictionaries "responsibility" means duty, doing things the way you are expected to do them by your parents, by your teachers, by your priests, by your politicians, by somebody else.

Your responsibility is to fulfill the demands made upon you by your elders and your society. If you act accordingly, you are a responsible person; if you act on your own ― individually ― then you are an irresponsible person. And your fear is: in acting spontaneously, here and now, there is a danger ― you may start acting individually. What will happen to your responsibility?

The fact is that "responsibility", the very word, has to be broken into two words. It means "response ability". And response is possible only if you are spontaneous, here and now. Response means that your attention, your awareness, your consciousness, is totally here and now, in the present. So whatever happens, you respond with your whole being. It is not a question of being in tune with somebody else, some holy scripture, or some holy idiot. It simply means to be in tune with the present moment.

This ability to respond is responsibility

LOVE OF MASTER.''OSHO''

The master is the last barrier on the path. The love for the master is difficult to drop. One can drop everything – one can renounce the whole world, one can renounce himself – but unless the last thing also is dropped, that small clinging with the master remains the base for your ego.

Gautam Buddha has said, "If you meet me on the way, immediately cut my head." He is talking metaphorically. Because when you are meditating everything will disappear, but finally, you will see the master is there. When the whole world has disappeared the master is there. That is your last love, and it is so satisfying, so gratifying, that one wants to be in that state forever.

Only the master can say, "This is not the goal. One step more: remove this attachment with the master too, so you are absolutely unattached." In absolute unattachment the ego disappears. The disappearance of the ego is not the disappearance of you. The disappearance of the ego is really the appearance of you for the first time; the false disappears and the true comes to revelation.

It is difficult, but it has to be made possible. It is not impossible because many have done it. And you are not doing it against the master; you are fulfilling the last message of the master. Let the ego disappear. But it will disappear only when there is no attachment. And the moment there is no ego at all, for the first time you are. Then you will feel grateful towards the master forever because if he had not been insistent, you would have remained in that beautiful state. But there is something beyond, more; and the master would not like you to be stuck on the path.

The master wants you to be totally liberated, liberated from everything; he is included in that `everything

WHAT LOVE REALLY IS?''OSHO''

 During my whole life, I always thought that I loved somebody. Now, being here for the first time with you, I ask myself: have I ever really been in love? Am I even able to love? Am I able to love you? Or has life brought me to a point where happiness in love does not happen anymore?

The basic fallacy that you are carrying within you is that you always loved somebody.

 

This is one of the most significant things about all human beings; their love is always for somebody, it is addressed – and the moment you address your love, you destroy it. It is as if you are saying, “I will breathe only for you – and when you are not there, then how can I breathe?”

 

Love should be like breathing. It should be just a quality in you – wherever you are, with whomsoever you are, or even if you are alone, love goes on overflowing from you. It is not a question of being in love with someone – it is a question of being love.

 

People are frustrated in their love experiences, not because something is wrong with love…they narrow down love to such a point that the ocean of love cannot remain there. You cannot contain the ocean – it is not a small stream; love is your whole being – love is your godliness. One should think in terms of whether one is loving or not. The question of the object of love does not arise. With your wife, you love your wife; with your children, you love your children; with your servants, you love your servants; with your friends, you love your friends; with the trees, you love the trees; with the ocean, you love the ocean.

 

You are love.

 

Love is not dependent on the object, but is a radiation of your subjectivity – a radiation of your soul. And the vaster the radiation, the greater is your soul. The wider spread are the wings of your love, the bigger is the sky of your being.

 

You have lived under a common fallacy of all human beings. Now you are asking, “Am I able to love you?” – again, the same fallacy.

 

Just ask: Am I able to become love?

 

When you are in my presence, you need not think of loving me; otherwise, you have not come out of your ordinary fallacies. Here, you have to learn…just being loving. Of course your love will reach me too; it will reach others too. It will be a vibe surrounding you, spreading all over; and if so many people are simply broadcasting their love, their song, their ecstasy, the whole place becomes a temple. There is no other way of making a temple. Then the whole area is filled with a new kind of energy, and nobody is at a loss – because on you is showering the love of so many people: on each single person, so many people’s love is showering.

Drop that fallacy. And because of that fallacy, another question arises in you: “…or has life brought me to the point where happiness in love does not happen anymore?” Life is nothing but an opportunity for love to blossom. If you are alive, the opportunity is there – even to the last breath. You may have missed your whole life: just the last breath, the last moment on the earth, if you can be love, you have not missed anything – because a single moment of love is equal to the whole eternity of love

CULTURED AND UNCULTURED CROWD ARE TWO SIDES OF A COIN.''OSHO''

 If one person goes against the crowd – one Jesus or one Buddha – the crowd doesn´t feel good with this man, the crowd will destroy him; or, if the crowd is very cultured, the crowd will worship him. But both ways are the same. If the crowd is a little wild, uncultured, Jesus will be crucified. If the crowd is like the Indians – very cultured, centuries of culture, of nonviolence, of love, of spirituality – they will worship the Buddha. But by worshipping they are saying: We are different; you are different. We cannot follow you, we cannot come with you. You are good, very good, but too good to be true. You don´t belong to us. You are a god – we will worship you. But don´t trouble us; don´t say things which can unhinge us, which can disturb our peaceful sleep.

Kill a Jesus or worship a Buddha – both are the same. Jesus is killed so the crowd can forget that such a man ever existed, because if this man is true.... And this man is true. His whole being is so full of bliss and benediction that he is true; because truth cannot be seen, only the fragrance that comes out of a true man can be felt. The blissfulness can be felt by others, and that is a proof that this man is true. But if this man is true, then the whole crowd is wrong, and this is too much. The whole crowd cannot tolerate such a person; it is a thorn, painful. This man has to be destroyed – or worshipped, so we can say: You come from another world, you don´t belong to us. You are a freak, you are not the normal rule. You may be the exception, but the exception only proves the rule. You are you, we are us: we will go on our path. Good that you came – we respect you very much – but don´t disturb us. We put Buddha in the temple so that he need not come into the marketplace; otherwise he will create trouble

BUDDHA WANTS TO BE YOURSELF.''OSHO''

 All great religious teachers, compared to Gautam Buddha, fall very short. They want you to become followers, they want you to practice a certain discipline, they want you to manage your affairs, your morality, your lifestyle. They make a mold of you and they give you a beautiful prison cell.

Buddha stands alone, totally for freedom. Without freedom man cannot know his ultimate mystery; chained he cannot move his wings into the sky and cannot go into the beyond. Every religion is chaining people, keeping some hold on them, not allowing them to be their original beings, but giving them personalities and masks – and this they call religious education.

 

Buddha does not give you any religious education. He wants you simply to be yourself, whatever it is. That is your religion – to be yourself. No man has loved freedom so much. No man has loved mankind so much. He would not accept followers for the simple reason that to accept a follower is to destroy his dignity. He accepted only fellow travelers. His last statement before dying was, “If I ever come back, I will come as your friend.” Maitreya means the friend

BREATHE FULLY TO LIVE FULLY.''OSHO''

 I cannot breathe completely. I feel that I’m holding a lot here in my lower belly.

Then Rolfing will be good. Through Rolfing breathing will become natural, and then you can continue it.

Breathing is one of the things to be looked after because it is one of the most important things.

If you are not breathing fully, you cannot live fully.

Then almost everywhere you will be withholding something, even in love. In talking even, you will be withholding. You will not communicate completely; something will always remain incomplete.

Once breathing is perfect everything else falls into line. Breathing is life. But people ignore it, they don’t worry about it at all, they don’t pay it any attention.

And every change that is going to happen is going to happen through the change in your breathing.

If for many years you have been breathing wrongly, shallow breathing, then your musculature becomes fixed. Then it is not just a question of your will It is as if somebody has not moved for years: legs have gone dead, the muscles have shrunk, blood flows no more. Suddenly the person decides one day to go for a long walk – it is beautiful, a sunset. But he cannot move; just by thinking it is not going to happen. Now much effort will be needed to bring those dead legs to life again.

The breathing passage has a certain musculature around it, and if you have been breathing wrongly – and almost everybody is – then the musculature has become fixed. Now it will take many years to change it by your own effort, and it will be an unnecessary waste of time. Through deep massage, particularly through Rolfing, those muscles relax and then you can start again. But after Rolfing, once you start breathing well don’t fall into the old habit again. 

Everybody breathes wrongly because the whole society is based on very wrong conditions, notions, attitudes. For example, a small child is weeping and the mother says not to cry. What will the child do? – because crying is coming, and the mother says not to cry. He will start holding his breath because that is the only way to stop it. If you hold your breath everything stops – crying, tears, everything. Then by and by that becomes a fixed thing – don’t be angry, don’t cry, don’t do this, don’t do that.

The child learns that if he breathes shallowly then he remains in control. If he breathes perfectly and totally as every child is born breathing, then he becomes wild. So he cripples himself.

Every child, boy or girl, starts playing with the genital organs because the feeling is pleasant. The child is completely unaware of the social taboos and nonsense, but if the mother or father or somebody sees you playing with your genitals they tell you to stop it immediately. And such condemnation is in their eyes you become shocked, and you become afraid of breathing deeply, because if you breathe deeply it massages your genital organs from within. That becomes troublesome, so you don’t breathe deeply; just shallow breathing so you are cut off from the genital organs.

All societies that are sex-repressive are bound to be shallow-breathing societies. Only primitive people who don’t have any repressive attitude about sex breathe perfectly. Their breathing is beautiful, it is complete and whole. They breathe like animals, they breathe like children.

So many things are involved...

FRIENDLINESS IS A HIGHEST QUALITY IN HUMAN EXISTENCE.''OSHO''

Friendship is a relationship. You can be in relationship with a few people. Friendliness is a quality not a relationship. It has nothing to do with anybody else; it is basically your inner quality. You can be friendly even when you are alone. You cannot be in friendship when you are alone - the other is needed - but friendliness is a kind of fragrance. A flower opens in the jungle; nobody passes by - still it is fragrant. It does not matter whether anybody comes to know of it or not, it is its quality. Nobody may ever come to know about it, but that does not matter. The flower is rejoicing.

Friendship can exist only between one man and another man or at the most between a man and an animal - a horse, a dog. But friendliness can exist even with a rock, with a river, with a mountain, with a cloud, with a far-away star. Friendliness is unlimited because it is not dependent on the other; it is absolutely your own flowering.

So, be friendly, just friendly to all that exists. And in that friendliness you will find all that is worth finding. In friendliness you will find the ultimate frie

WHAT IS IN THE NAME OF DEMOCRACY?''OSHO''

 They define democracy as the government of the people, for the people, by the people. It is none of these things. It is neither by the people, nor of the people, nor for the people.

The people who have been holding power down the centuries have always been able to persuade people that whatever is being done, is done for their sake. And the people have believed it because they have been trained to believe.

It is a conspiracy between religion and state to exploit humanity.

The religion goes on preaching belief and destroys the intelligence of people to question, makes them retarded. And the state goes on exploiting them in every possible way – still managing to keep the people´s support, because the people have been trained to believe, not to question. Any kind of government ― it may be monarchy, it may be aristocracy, it may be democracy, it may be any kind of government.... Just the names change but deep down the reality remains the same.

WHAT YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR?''OSHO''

Your parents were doing something because they were taught to do those things. They were brought up by parents also; they had not come from heaven directly. So what is the point of throwing the responsibility backwards? It will not help to solve any problem. It will help only to unburden you from guilt. That is the good part, the beneficial part of psychoanalysis. It unburdens you from guilt. And the harmful part is that it does not make you feel responsible. I teach you responsibility.

What do I mean by responsibility? You are not responsible to your parents, and you are not responsible to any God, and you are not responsible to any priest – you are responsible to your inner being. Responsibility is freedom! Responsibility is the idea that "I have to take the reins of my life in my own hands. Enough is enough! My parents, whatsoever they could do they have done: good and bad, they have done both. Now I have become a mature person. I should take everything in my own hands and start living the way it arises in me. I should devote all my energies to my life now." And immediately you will feel a great strength coming to you.

Guilt makes you feel weak. Responsibility makes you feel strong. Responsibility gives you heart again, confidence, trust.

FESTIVITY IS THE ART OF CELBRATION.''OSHO''

 When You Celebrate, the Whole Existence Participates with You

 

“I celebrate myself, and I hope soon the day will come you will be celebrating yourself. And when thousands and thousands of people around the earth are celebrating, singing, dancing, ecstatic, drunk with the divine, there is no possibility of any global suicide. With such festivity and with such laughter, with such sanity and health, with such naturalness and spontaneity, how can there be a war?

 “The third world war is not going to happen! I predict it! It is not going to happen, because of you, because of my people around the earth! They are the only hope. Only millions of buddhas are capable of creating the atmosphere for peace, for love, for compassion, for celebration.

 

“When you cry and weep, when you are miserable, you are alone. When you celebrate, the whole existence participates with you. In celebration do we meet the ultimate, the eternal. Only in celebration do we go beyond the circle of birth and death.”

LOVE IS THE ART OF GIVING.''OSHO''

Love is innocent when there is no motive in it. Love is innocent when it is nothing but a sharing of your energy. You have too much, so you share... you want to share.

And whosoever shares with you, you feel grateful to him or her, because you were like a cloud - too full of rainwater - and somebody helped you to unburden. Or you were like a flower, full of fragrance, and the wind came and unloaded you. Or you had a song to sing, and somebody listened attentively... so attentively that he allowed you space to sing it. So to whomsoever helps you to overflow in love, feel grateful.

Imbibe that spirit of sharing, let that become your very style of life: to be capable of giving without any idea of getting, to be capable of giving without any conditions attached to it, to be capable of giving just out of your abundance.

FREEDOM FROM AND FREEDOM FOR.''OSHO''

 If I were to condense your approach to emotional ecology, would I be correct in saying it is freedom from suppression?

You would be absolutely right. But only negatively. To be freed from suppressions is the negative part, and to express the hidden, the potential, that which you are meant to be, is the positive part. But you are right, because the negative comes first. Unless you are free from suppression, you will not be able to express yourself; you will not be able to achieve your potential.

Society exists at the cost of the individual. It has existed that way up until now. The individual is not allowed total freedom to express himself. Through this suppression, society creates an image by which you can be exploited.

For example, if individuals become totally expressive, there will not be any war in the world. It is impossible. But if you suppress the individual, then the suppressed energy is there and it can be used for violence. The whole of politics, and the whole history of man, depends on war. The whole society has been based on war, but war is possible only if the individual is not allowed to express himself.

This suppressed energy has been used for many reasons, for many causes, for many purposes: for war, for politics, for exploitation. I am against all suppression. I am for natural growth.

I am not against discipline; I am against suppression. Discipline is a creative thing. It is never against something; it is always for something. For example, I am for the discipline of sexual energy, not for the suppression of it. The energy must be allowed to move in a creative direction. It should not be suppressed. If it is suppressed, it becomes perverted. You become less than natural.

Expression means that you must become more than natural. If you cannot become more than natural, then it is better to be natural than to be perverted. The whole culture that has existed all over the world is a perverted culture.

That’s why it rarely happens that a Buddha or a Jesus is born. Otherwise, Buddha and Jesus would be the normal case. They would not be so exceptional. If the whole society was creative rather than suppressive, then not to be a Buddha would be the exception. To be a Buddha would be a natural, normal thing.

ONLY HEALTHY PHYSICIANS CAN HEAL.''OSHO''

 Physician, heal yourself: thus you will heal your patient too. Let his best healing-aid be to see with his own eyes him who makes himself well.  (Zarathustra)

This is great advice to those who want human consciousness to reach to its highest possible peaks. The first thing is: “Physician heal thyself.” You should be completely free of all superstitions, all senseless dead pasts, you should be new every moment. This will be your health. And this will help people: seeing you, seeing your awareness, seeing your love, seeing your compassion, seeing your blissfulness will be the proof that others are wrong and they have to change. It is not a question of arguing; it is a question of presenting your life in the new light, so those who are standing in darkness can see that they are standing in darkness, and that is the cause of their misery and their sickness.

There are a thousand paths that have never yet been trodden, a thousand forms of health and hidden islands of life. This is where anybody who has intelligence will fall in love with Zarathustra. He is so different from other teachers of religion.

Mahavira says, “I have said the last word; now there is no more to be discovered. All that has to be discovered about human consciousness I have discovered. There will not be a twenty-fifth tirthankara.” Gautam Buddha says the same thing. Mohammed says, “There have been prophets before me, but after me there will be no prophets, because I have brought all knowledge; now nothing is any longer hidden.”

Zarathustra has a very different approach, very humble. There are a thousand paths that have never yet been trodden, a thousand forms of health and hidden islands of life. Man and man’s earth are still unexhausted and undiscovered.

He does not want to be the last word. On the contrary he wants to be the beginning, and leaves everything open. “Go on changing as you come into new spaces. You don’t have to be in agreement with me, because there are thousands of paths which are untrodden, and there are thousands of islands on the earth and in the inner being of man which are not yet discovered. So don’t remain clinging to me – move on!”

He is saying, “I teach you movement. I don’t give you a fixed doctrine; I only give you an impetus, an incentive, a challenge.” A real master is always a challenge: challenge for new discoveries, challenge for new unknown spaces, challenge for faraway stars. He simply gives encouragement. He helps you to be on the wing, and leaves the whole sky open for you.

Watch and listen, you solitaries! From the future come winds with a stealthy flapping of wings; and good tidings go out to delicate ears. You solitaries of today, you who have seceded from society.... Be careful about these words: You solitaries of today, you who have seceded from society, you shall one day be a people: from you, who have chosen out yourselves, shall a chosen people spring – and from this chosen people, the superman.

It is unfortunate that it has not happened yet. Still.... You are solitaries today; my name for solitaries is sannyasins. Still you are few. Twenty-five centuries have past, but the words of Zarathustra sound as if they are being spoken today.

You solitaries of today, you who have seceded from society, you shall one day be a people. Twenty-five centuries ago he was hoping – and it is still a hope. I am still hoping that you will not remain few. I have even started calling you “my people”.

From you, who have chosen out yourselves, shall a chosen people spring – and from this chosen people, the superman.

Truly, the earth shall yet become a house of healing! And already a new odor floats about it, an odor that brings health – and a new hope! I can simply repeat his words, because they are as true today as they were twenty-five centuries ago. It is very saddening; it is unfortunate, but perhaps he came too early, ahead of his time. Every genius comes early, but Zarathustra seems to have come too early.

Perhaps now is the time that we can make this earth a temple of healing – not only of the body but of the soul too, a holy place where everybody is whole, not split, not schizophrenic. It is still very small, but it is there in the hearts of many intelligent and courageous people. A longing for a greater life, for a higher life, for a better life has already arisen. Perhaps the spring is very close. Perhaps we have come at the right time.

An odor that brings health – and a new hope! We want this hope to become a reality; it has remained a hope too long. It is time that the dream is realized and if we cannot realize this dream, then there is no future for humanity.

This gives me great hope, because the mad crowd has come close to a global suicide. And now there will be only two alternatives: either transform yourself into a new man, the superman, or get ready to disappear from this earth. And I don’t think that man wants to die. I don’t think that trees want to die or the birds or the animals. I don’t think that life wants to commit suicide.

Hence, most probably, it will choose to transform itself and give birth to the superman, and drop this whole arrangement that politicians around the world are making ready for you, for committing suicide. Now the forces of life and the forces of death are confronting each other. The forces of life are fragile, just like an odor in the air. And the forces of death are very strong.

Still, death cannot win over life. Hate cannot win over love. The ugly cannot win over the beautiful.

CROWDS ARE THE REASON FOR CRIMES.''OSHO''

I don´t want any crowds in the world. Whether they have gathered in the name of religions, or in the name of nationality, or in the name of race, it does not matter. The crowd as such is ugly, and the crowd has committed the greatest crimes in the world, because the world has no consciousness. It is a collective unconsciousness.

Consciousness makes one an individual - a solitary pine dancing in the wind, a solitary sunlit mountain peak in its utter glory and beauty, a solitary lion and its tremendously beautiful roar that goes on echoing for miles in the valleys.

CHANGE IS ONLY PERMANENT.''OSHO''

Misery arises because we don´t allow change to happen. We cling, we want things to be static. If you love a woman you want her tomorrow too, the same way as she is yours today. That´s how misery arises. Nobody can be certain about the next moment – what to say about tomorrow?

A man of awareness knows that life is constantly changing. Life is change. There is only one thing permanent, and that is change. Except change, everything else changes. To accept this nature of life, to accept this changing existence with all its seasons and moods, this constant flow that never stops for a single moment, is to be blissful. Then nobody can disturb your bliss. It is your hankering for permanency that creates troubles for you. If you want to live in a life with no change – you are asking the impossible.

A man of awareness becomes courageous enough to accept the changing phenomena. In that very acceptance is bliss. Then all is good. Then you are never frustrated.

WHAT IS DEATH-2?''OSHO''

 Death is an organic, integral part of life, and it is very friendly to life. Without it life cannot exist. Life exists because of death; death gives the background. Death is, in fact, a process of renewal. And death also happens each moment, as life happens, because the renewal is needed each moment. The moment you breathe in and the moment you breathe out, both happen. Breathing in, life happens; breathing out, death happens. That’s why when a child is born the first thing he does is breathe in, then life starts. And when an old man is dying, the last thing he does is breathe out, then life departs. Breathing out is death, breathing in is life – and both are like two wheels of a bullock cart. You live by breathing in as much as you live by breathing out. The breathing out is part of breathing in. You cannot breathe in if you stop breathing out. You cannot live if you stop dying. The man who has understood what his life is allows death to happen; he welcomes it. He dies each moment and each moment he is resurrected. His cross and his resurrection are continuously happening as a process. He dies to the past each moment and he is born again and again into the future.

If you look into life you will be able to know what death is. If you understand what death is, only then are you able to understand what life is. They are organic. Ordinarily, out of fear, we have created a division. We think that life is good and death is bad. We think that life has to be desired and death is to be avoided. We think somehow we have to protect ourselves against death. This absurd idea creates endless miseries in our lives, because a person who protects himself against death becomes incapable of living. He is the person who is afraid of exhaling, then he cannot inhale; then he is stuck. Then he simply drags; his life is no longer a flow, his life is no more a river.

 

If you really want to live you have to be ready to die. Who is afraid of death in you? Is life afraid of death? It is not possible. How can life be afraid of its own integral process? Something else is afraid in you. The ego is afraid in you. Life and death are not opposites; ego and death are opposites. Life and death are not opposites; ego and life are opposites. Ego is against both life and death. The ego is afraid to live and the ego is afraid to die. It is afraid to live because each effort, each step towards life, brings death closer.

WHAT IS DEATH?''OSHO''

 What is the Zen attitude towards death?

 

Laughter. Yes, laughter is the Zen attitude towards death and towards life too, because life and death are not separate. Whatsoever is your attitude towards life will be your attitude towards death, because death comes as the ultimate flowering of life. Life exists for death. Life exists through death. Without death there will be no life at all. Death is not the end but the culmination, the crescendo. Death is not the enemy it is the friend. It makes life possible.

So the Zen attitude about death is exactly the same as is the Zen attitude towards life – that of laughter, joy, celebration. And if you can laugh at death, in death, you are free from all. Then you are freedom. If you cannot laugh at death you will not be able to laugh in life either because death is always coming. Each act in life, each move in life, brings death closer. Each moment that you live you get closer to death. If you cannot laugh with death, how can you laugh with life and in life?

 

But there is a difference between the Zen Buddhists and the other religions. Other religions are not that deep: other religions also say that there is no need to fear death because the soul is immortal. But in the very idea of the immortality of the soul, your mind is seeking eternity and nothing else. In the very idea of immortality you are denying death, you are saying there is no death. You are saying, “So why be afraid? There is no death. I am going to live – if not as this body, still I am going to live as this soul. My essential being will continue. So why fear death? Death will not be destroying me. I will remain, I will persist, I will continue.” The other religions compromise with your desire to remain forever, they give you a consolation. They say, “Don’t be worried. You will be in some other body, in some other form, but you will continue.” This seems to be a clinging.

But the Zen approach towards death is utterly different, immensely profound. Other religions say death is not to be worried about, not to be feared, because the soul is eternal. Zen says: There cannot be any death because you are not. There is nobody to die. See the difference – there is nobody to die. The self exists not, so death cannot take anything away from you. Life cannot give you anything and death cannot take anything away. There is no purpose in life and no purpose in death. There is nobody to die. Other religions say you will not die so don’t be worried about death. Zen says: You exist not – for whom are you worrying? There is nobody in life and there will be nobody in death; you are pure emptiness. Nothing has ever happened there.

 

DROPPING IDEALS.''OSHO''

 Can  cowardice and hypocrisy also be beautiful?

If you have the idea to be a brave man then it looks ugly to be a coward. But cowardice is a fact, and the ideal is just an ideal, a fantasy of the mind.

Sacrifice fantasies to reality, drop all ideals, and then life starts becoming integrated. All the rejected fragments start coming back home, the repressed starts surfacing. For the first time you start feeling a kind of togetherness; you are no longer falling apart.

For example, if I hold myself to be a “kind” person, I will not be able to permit myself to recognize and accept angry feelings when they arise in consciousness, because kind people just don’t get angry.

Therefore, to bring about a personal unity in consciousness, I must first take my stand as being no thing fixed or enduring, but hold myself to be only the moment-to-moment experiential reality that arises in consciousness.

Thus some moments I am angry, then some moments I am sad, then some moments I am jealous, then some moments I am joyful. Moment-to-moment, whatsoever happens is accepted. Then you become one. And this oneness is the most fundamental thing to understand.

The master must help the disciple to confront and integrate with those rejected experiential aspects of self which he actually is at any given moment instead of trying to help him actualize its compensatory opposite or what the disciple feels that he ought to be, or that which he is trying to protect, enhance or affirm about himself.

My purpose, my function, is to take all ideals away from you. You have come with ideals; you would like me to enhance your ideals, you would like me to support you and help you to become that which you want to become. That may be your motivation in coming here, but that is not my work.

My work is just the opposite: to help you to accept that which is already the case and to forget all about your fantasies. I want you to become more realistic and pragmatic. I want to give you roots in the earth, and you are hankering for the sky and you have completely forgotten the earth.

Yes, the sky is also available, but only to those whose roots have gone deep into the earth. If a tree wants to rise high in the sky and whisper with the clouds and play with the winds and have some communion with the stars, then the tree will have to send deeper and deeper roots into the earth. The first thing is sending roots into the earth, the second thing happens of its own accord. The deeper the roots go, the higher the tree goes; there is no need to do anything else.

My effort here is to send your roots deep into the soil of truth. And the truth is that which you are.

Then suddenly things will start happening: you will start rising. The ideals that you have always tried for and have never been able to achieve will start happening of their own accord.

If a person can accept his reality as it is, in that very acceptance all tension disappears. Anguish, anxiety, despair – they all simply evaporate. And when there is no anxiety, no tension, no fragmentariness, no division, no schizophrenia then suddenly there is joy, then suddenly there is love, then suddenly there is compassion. These are not ideals, these are very natural phenomena. All that is needed is to remove the ideals, because those ideals are functioning as blocks. The more idealistic a person is, the more blocked he is.

As peculiar and contradictory as it may sound, peace is to be found only in the midst of pain and never by struggling against or running away from what is considered to be the negative or painful.

Yes, cowardice gives you pain, fear gives you pain, anger gives you pain – these are negative emotions. But peace can be attained only by accepting and absorbing the painful, not by rejecting it. By rejecting it you will become smaller and smaller and smaller, and you will have less and less power. And you will be in a constant inner war, a civil war, in which one hand will fight with the other, in which you will simply dissipate your energy.

A very fundamental thing to be remembered: only communion with psychological pain opens the door for its liberation and transcendence – only communion with psychological pain.

All that is painful has to be accepted; a dialogue has to be created with it. It is you.

There is no other way to go beyond it, the only way is to absorb it.

And it has tremendous potential. Anger is energy, fear is energy, so is cowardice. All that happens to you has great momentum, a great quantity of energy hidden in it. Once you accept it, that energy becomes yours. You become stronger, you become wider, you start becoming more spacious. You have a bigger inner world then.

FIND YOUR CENTER FOR SATISFACTION.''OSHO''

Without finding your center, there is no satisfaction possible. You can go on searching and you will find many things in life, but nothing is going to satisfy. Just a moment´s illusion when a desire is fulfilled. For a moment you feel good, but only for a moment. As one desire disappears, ten desires arise in its place. Again the whole turmoil starts, again the whole trip. And it is a non-ending process.

Only with finding your center does that process stop, that wheel moves no more. Coming home to your center, all desiring disappears - you are utterly satisfied, and forever. It is not a momentary satisfaction. It is contentment, absolute contentment. Coming home inside yourself satisfies, really satisfies.

Everything else in life is promises, but only false promises. The goods are never delivered. Money promises that if you have it you will be helped. But people go on becoming richer and richer and happiness never arrives. It is always there like the horizon - very elusive. Relationships give you the idea that everything will be good now and you will live in happiness forever, but it never happens.

Only with finding your center, satisfaction happens.